I've been occupied with other stuff all day, so I haven't written anything for the blog. There's more to it than that, though: The news continues to be dominated by our village idiot and his chamber of secrets, and I hardly feel like there's much to say about that. At this point, the only thing I'm really curious about is why Trump was so intent on keeping all this top secret stuff in the face of repeated demands to turn it over. But I suspect we'll never find out for sure.
Anyway, a reader asked how COVID-19 was going these days, so here you go. To make up for my laziness today, I have charts for both COVID and monkeypox. You're welcome.
First up is COVID. After the big Omicron surge at the beginning of the year, the COVID death rate plummeted to just under one per million. Since then it's slowly climbed to 1.5 per million:
Our cumulative death rate from COVID is one of the highest in the world, but our current death rate (shown in the chart) is sort of middling. COVID isn't going away, but it isn't getting any better, either.
Monkeypox doesn't kill people, so we have to look at cases instead. Our current case rate is pretty much the highest in the world, but our cumulative case rate is . . . also pretty bad:
Take this chart with a big grain of salt since it depends on how much testing is being done in different countries. We don't know that, which is bad enough, but we do know that the testing rate is fairly low, which is even worse. It's quite possible the United States is considerably better or considerably worse than this chart shows.
Kevin, you'd be doing a huge public service if you redirected your Covid energy at this point into piecing together what is actually happening with Long Covid.
If you read the vast majority of studies, it seems like we should be hurtling toward some sort of economy crushing second pandemic of disabled or at least degraded workers, not to mention kids. Yet anecdotally if you talk to most doctors, pediatricians or even the people in your social circle they just don't seem to be seeing much Long Covid.
Clearly these two universes can't coexist, so someone is way off base. The mystery is who? It seems bizarre to put more stock in anecdotes than in the bulk of top tier research, but could it be that all of the existing research is just that bad?
Agree that we need to know more about long covid. A close family member got covid for the second time in July. (They work in health care, were boosted and vaxxed). One symptom was some neuropathy. They now have long covid--covid related neuropathy over their entire body--eyelids to feet. The neurologist says yes, they are seeing this. Some people have had it for 2+ years, some have gotten better. It's too new, they just don't know the prognosis. There are a lot of other anecdotes out there--real study is needed.
I’d like to point out that at some point this month (according to Worldometers) Florida’s death rate surpassed New York’s. For quite a long time Governor DeSantis has been bragging about Florida’s Covid response and acting like what he has done should be a model for the rest of the country. If California had Florida’s death rate an additional 50,000 people would be dead. If Florida had done what California did over 25,000 Floridians would still be alive. DeSanti’s policies have been a disaster for Florida but you rarely see that mentioned anywhere.
Honestly, American society doesn't give a fuck about the death toll. I'm sorry to use such blunt language, but an honest assessment is better than sentimentality. I vaguely remember a time when the country supposedly strongly clung to the value that human life is sacred. But the reality is life is cheaper in the US than in nearly any other high income country, and quite a few middle income countries. As a society the US isn't willing to make modest sacrifices or even suffer minor inconveniences (much less reduced profits) to preserve human lives.
So, you're right about DeathSantis. The man is an obscene, thuggish petty-tyrant. But it's unlikely anybody will lay a glove on him for his grotesque, murderous refusal to support the medical community these past 2.5 years. And it's also unlikely he loses to Crist.
I’m glad that some of you are making this honest assessment about all this. More democrats, liberals, progressives, etc need to develop a more realistic understanding of how people react to widespread suffering. And it’s not just Covid deaths… it applies to war, poverty, homeless, crime too. I don’t really have a solution other than to argue that appeals to empathy and sympathy are so widely mocked these days that they ineffective political arguments.
As someone who lost an elderly parent to covid back in 2020, I can assure you that no one outside our family gave a crap. And some of the right wing cranks in my family weren’t even phased by it.
My dad is battling the effects of COVID right now. He was "under the weather" with some sort of intestinal thing, fell while walking into his GP's office, was rushed to the hospital on a Friday and by Monday he tested positive for COVID. No idea where he got it, he's vaccinated and boosted twice but 92 years old with neuropathy to begin with. it's been over a month and he's still bedridden and barely able to handle solid food. He is in a rehab facility but it's looking like he won't be walking around with his walker anytime soon. I'd be happy if he could get to the point where he could get out of bed himself into a wheelchair.
dead men don't vote.
0.003 of Florida's population. I care, most don't. If Coronavirus kills 400k people a year that's less than smoking related deaths (480k) and how many of us care about that?
Only 17 people were killed in the Parkland shooting. Hard to imagine why people made such a big fuss, right?
What about the removal of five duly elected Democrat school board members removed with prejudice by De Santis & immediately replaced with his GQP favorites?
Literally, an Orban move.
> life is cheaper in the US
Unless you're a fetus or an embryo, according to the folks who have cheapened it.
Death is the ultimate attack on Wokeness. Can't be Woke if you're not alive.
De Santis played this right. Stood up to the intentionally, maliciously, laboratorily leaked Wuhan Flu of the People's Liberation Army, & ensured his citizens remained unpoisoned by Libtard Oberlinian social disease.
Shouldn’t that be “Fauci created, laboratory leaked, Wuhan flu”?
It's funny how the Wuhan lab leak conspiracy theory has faded away.
Not really. There were legitimate questions. It was always significantly less likely but an honest look at the evidence showed it was possible. But more evidence since has pointed to the Wuhan animal to human natural transmission. As the possibly becomes more remote it is completely natural and understandable that lab leake faded.
True, plus new kkkonspiracy just dropped, that Pfizer was strongarmed by the Demokkkrat Deep State to slowwalk the vaxxx rollout until after election to ensure Trump defeat.
Nate Silver is well on his way way to being Loq Qabin Alex Jones. I bet he's weeks away from going full MRA mode about his former BaseballProspectus colleague Jonah Keri's politicized prosecution by Blakkkface Trudeau's WOKE Kkkanadian Injustice Ministry & Family Court system.
Let me check the box for "recieve email when someone actually replies to your question instead of weird performance art."
According to Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center New York has had 71,012 deaths while Florida has had 79,573 deaths. Florida has had 7 million cases and New York has had 5.9 millions cases.
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/united-states
It's clear that Florida has done a much worse job managing COCID.
1 million more cases but only 8k more deaths? NY population seems weaker.
I would postulate that New York was the epicenter of COVID cases in early 2020 when there was no vaccine available. A second factor is the much higher population density in New York City. Both led to a very high death rate during the early period of COVID infections.
Epicenter? Like Washington State?
Jay Inslee owned every other governor, from Shitlib Rapist Cuomo to Knockoff MAGA De Santis & French Laundry Shitlib Newsom, with his COVID response.
I waa joking buddy.
Too much avocado toast & not enough gator.
more:
https://6abc.com/emotional-support-alligator-wallygator-philadelphia-gator-tiktok/12173247/
https://youtu.be/lSyqWbrxcG4
The gator eats the cats & rats.
NY got hit very hard in the first wave (probably harder than anywhere else on earth), when no one had antibodies and no had been vaccinated.
When NY was at its height of the crisis mass testing was unavailable and thus their number of cases is way off.
"... COVID isn't going away, but it isn't getting any better, either."
Unclear what you are trying to say here.
Not bad for politico. It certainly describes the challenges fairly well even if most of the people interviewed and up sounding like fools with their inconsistency. But this is what our capitalist globalization does to people.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/28/michigan-voters-distrust-democrats-00053769
I'm finding the discussion of Trump's executive privilege claim kind of baffling.
On the one hand, there's tons of complicated commentary about the legal issues; the assumption being, there are a lot of open issues.
On the other hand, Teri Kanefield, the lawyer and writer, said in a blog post the other day something I didn't know, that this all started with the Jan. 6 commission trying to get Trump documents from the National Archive. Trump sued to stop that, claiming "executive privilege", and lost in the courts, including the Supreme Court refusing to hear the case.
"On Aug. 24, 2021, the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol issued a request for documents, including presidential documents housed at the National Archives."
the rest of it here:
https://terikanefield.com/consequences-accountability-and-the-un-deterable-donald-trump/
Might Aileen Cannon find not just in favor of El Jefe's decision to retain the SCI/F material at Maralago on executive privilege grounds, but also that El Jefe remains the true & continuing president of the United States, with joebiden as an impostor?
Was Mike Lindell right about reinstallation, even if he got the date wrong?
💙👍👍😊😊
> COVID isn't going away, but it isn't getting any better, either
Next year, after the winter surge, you're going to draw a trendline through the four winter peaks and marvel about how things are slowly and steadily getting better.
Agreed. Kevin's love of trend lines, which he seems to have forgotten on this graph, will show us that COVID has moved into the endemic phase.
Who knew Spain was so full of "Confirmed Bachelors" as my grandmother would say?
😊😊
Almodovar knew.
His next film will be Veintiocho Monos Mas Tarde.
Have some states of the U.S. made better progress than others in controlling covid, from one year to the next? Where have the recent waves been better resisted?
Year-on-Year Ratio
Deaths per capita, Aug. 27,. 2021–Aug. 25, 2022, divided by
deaths per capita, Aug. 26, 2020–Aug. 24, 2021
California: 0.55
Texas: 0.79
Florida: 1.18
New York: 0.80
Pennsylvania: 0.90
Illinois: 0.60
Ohio: 1.09
Georgia: 1.01
North Carolina: 1.00
Michigan: 1.12
What is this about? Is it luck, political leadership, health infrastructure, or demographics? Or are the data not consistently reported?
Florida was hit really hard by Delta last August. It’s hard to know where Florida stands by their recent statistics because they add deaths back to the date they occurred rather than the date they were reported. So it will be adding deaths to this week well into September.
Interesting about Florida. This August isn't as deadly as last August, but Florida is again suffering a far higher death rate than the country as a whole. And the age distribution of their population can only account for a small part of that.
We actually won't know how deadly This August is in Florida because they don't report deaths real time. We'll still be getting updates to FL's August death toll in late September and beyond.
But yes, FL is once again the epicenter of the disease. No surprise given their politics.
Oh, different diseases...
Looks like we'll have Covid variant boosters coming in a few weeks...maybe it will end up being like the flu....
We were extremely lucky that the mRNA vaccines worked and worked as well as they did. We were extremely lucky to have three different types of vaccines that work well. The J&J vaccine (and similar Oxford one) are only relatively bad compared to the others--and might have been better if dosing was smaller, i.e. if initial target was a two dose regimen and not a single dose one.
People are upset with the variants breaking through, but still the vaccines prevent most severe cases. We still have to work through long-covid, and China still needs to get a better vaccine program so they don't have to keep the "zero-covid" policy in place.
We did a remarkable job with Covid--both good and, alas, bad. The initial testing roll out was a mess---and least not forget Trump attacked the need for testing (covid numbers made him look bad). Vaccines in record time, and great ones at that--and a whole anti-mask and anti-vaccine loud minority who screwed everyone over, especially when making promises of miracle cures that "science" doesn't want you to know about--making money in the process.
If the Leftwing homeopath & Rightwing hydroxichloroquine ANTIVAXXXERS want us to be happy with a new (seasonal) infection, could they at least try not to bring polio back?
They need to pick a side. Either retrokitsch communicable disease reintroduction, or the new-new. But not both.