More than 500 employees of the Los Angeles Police Department — including 416 sworn officers — were at home quarantining as of Jan. 1 after positive tests, the department said. In the last week alone, the department had seen 424 new cases, officials said.
That's a little less than 4% of the police force. Here is Dan Drezner:
Reading story after story about the contagious nature of the omicron variant, and learning that a lot of our close friends had tested positive, the inevitable seemed on our doorstep....Here’s the thing, though: I never tested positive. It was not for lack of testing, either. Over the last 10 days of December, I tested at my place of work and performed rapid at-home tests at least five times. All negative!
If you're vaxxed and boosted, the odds of getting COVID in any given month is about 1 in 500. Maybe it was higher in December. So double it. Or triple it. Call it 1 in 100. That's still only 1%. Nobody should be surprised at not getting COVID if they're vaxxed and boosted and not doing anything stupid.
Elsewhere, Jon Stewart is trying to blame everyone but himself for saying that J.K. Rowling had made goblins into Jewish caricatures in the Harry Potter series. It was all just lighthearted fun, he says. No reasonable person could have seen it otherwise.
Yeesh. It was obviously serious. Give us a break, Jon.
Why do I know so many vaxxed and boosted people who have COVID right now? One landed in the hospital on oxygen, too. Not people who indulge in risky behavior, either. Either I know a lot of unlucky people, or this virus is spreading faster than your numbers indicate.
Because more people have it in general
Um, how many unvaxxed people do you know? If the answer is 'none', why do you find your observations surprising?
Random chance? Someone has to be the outlier, and a disease that often moves through social connections is bound to create some hot spots of infection.
I'm in the opposite boat. No one I know personally has caught covid in the last week, even though cases are spiking in my county. Most recent case in a person that I know in real life was diagnosed over two weeks ago.
In fact, if you went off of my personal connections (friends, coworkers, acquaintances ), you'd think covid was a big old nothing. No one that I know well enough to chit chat with at least once a year has even been hospitalized, let alone died. Friends and family members of aquaintances have had bad bouts, but those are people I've never met. I'm somewhat shocked by this, since I attend a church with a lot of members over the age of 60, but so far they've hunkered down effectively and have had effective vaccinations. It's a bit like being in the only house left standing after a tornado.
I still don't know anyone who has tested positive for Omicron, at least anyone who has informed me.
And I live in a very big city (Las Vegas).
Likewise. I talk to family in US regularly, including my brother, who has two school-aged kids. Nobody infected yet (at least that they're aware of).
I thought the Woketariat allowed Rowling to be targeted for her counter-revolutionary views.
FOAD, troll.
That's not very nice.
You mean woke capitalism. It's the proletariat who are their enemy. Ms Rowlings is a proud worker.
Over a half-million new cases per day are being reported now (700k+ yesterday according to Worldometer). This gives odds of about 1 in 20 per month.
Where does Kevin get his number? Long-term averages are far short of current omicron rates.
I think Kevin's play is that by the time you all realize he's messing with you about cases, which don't really matter, the spike will have already passed.
The odds are surely higher than that, because there's no way the official statistics are accounting for anywhere near the real total.
I assume he's making his numbers up -- they have pretty much nothing to do with reality.
Let me highlight the quote from Kevin, and you see if you can identify the words you ignored:
"If you're vaxxed and boosted, the odds of getting COVID in any given month is about 1 in 500. Maybe it was higher in December. So double it. Or triple it. Call it 1 in 100."
In 2 weeks, cases will be plunging and morons like Vog will still be whining. Considering how bad the flu was this holiday for my whole tribe. Yes, 4 of my extended family has had covid.
1. My cousin and his wife got delta in early December. Right 3 days after getting the moderna vaccine. She had migraines. He had gastric issues. Both lost sense of smell, taste. He lost 30 pounds(probably not a bad thing).
2. My other cousin's husband got it right during Christmas. Omicron. Double shotted Jansen. Mild head cold symptoms for 3 days. Recovered quickly. My other cousin got Omicron a few days later. Headaches and bedridden for 2 days, improving now. Moderna double shot in May/June.
1. Sucks they got Delta at around the same time as getting vaccinated, since in that time frame the vaccine won't help you (and may even make symptoms a little worse). Losing 30 lbs. in one month is concerning though and he should definitely do some follow-ups.
2. How do we know they didn't have the flu or some other respiratory disease as well?
Tested.
Spades has family? Who knew? I somehow imagined him/her/it/they emerging from a pod somewhere. Perhaps planted by an alien.
It's a troll. They reproduce by fission.
Sometimes humor highlights some awkward stuff, but I haven't seen the actual segment where John mentions this.
https://jabberwocking.com/are-harry-potters-goblins-caricatures-of-jews/
Kevin’s Tske on this is right, I think. It’s not Rowling, it’s the filmmaker.
Take not Tske.
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The Jon Stewart defense: "I was just joking, how I was I supposed to know the media and the internet would pick this up and blow it up beyond all expectation".
I am starting to think Jon Stewart peaked with the book Naked Pictures of Famous People.
Harry Potter always seemed pretty anti-fascist to me. I mean, Draco Malfoy is obviously based on the British fascist leader Oswald Mosley. And if there are Jews in it, they are Ron and his family.
Ron and his family are pretty clearly intended to be Catholic stereotypes.
Well, underdogs of whatever variety. I would say more like the Jews in the fascist context of the later books, especially H.P and the Order of the Phoenix (best in the series, imo).
H.P.? Harry Potter Lovecraft!
It's all coming together, At the Goblet of Madness.
He brought up the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. CLEARLY, all just good fun.
Stewart was riffing on a joke made a couple of years ago by Pete Davidson on "Weekend Update". Pete observed it was ok for him to point out that the Gringott's goblins looked like half-goblin, half-Jew caricatures because he himself is half-goblin. That was pretty funny.
Seriously, though, I read the books, and nowhere in them that I recall to we get a particularly detailed description of their appearance. The beady eyes and big noses, etc., were the work of the filmmaker, not Rowling.
I see now Kevin already posted something to this effect. I think that's about right.
Certainly a joke that is foremost in people's minds most of the day.
Bankers turned disparaging depictions of themselves into Jewish caricatures.
Watching Jon Stewart's response, what more could one ask for. He stated "Let me just state this, as super clearly as I can ...(skipping some camera stuff)... Hello, my name is Jon Stewart. I do not think J.K. Rowling is antisemetic. I did not accuse her of being antisemetic. I do not think the Harry Potter movies are antisemetic."
If that's not a full sherman, what is. Seriously, what will satisfy people these days? public flogging? Self mortification? Does Stewart need to castrate himself live on TV?
He's a comedian, I watched the original segment, and yeah, it's funny, and I did in fact take it as light hearted. If some people didn't, that's their interpretation, but I don't see how someone can get more clear about their stance and yet *still* get excoriated for it.