Friday, April 30, 2021
COVID-19 BIDEN+100 (April 30) Complete
So, we are at the end of President Biden's 100th day, the marker for presidential vigor since FDR's first year in 1929. Biden is the most consequential, and the most liberal, president since FDR. He is recasting executive strategy vis a vis the legislative, redefining government's relationship with the people, and transforming government action on the economy. He has been extremely successful and his measures have been very popular. Through the first 100 days Joe Biden is the greatest president in American history.
On this metric, COVID-19, let us compare President Biden's most current 7-day daily averages with those in the last week of his Disgraced predecessor.
Daily average April 24-30
50,698 Cases. Down over 700/day--vs 195,115 Disgraced's last week.
42,752 Hospitalizations. Down over 600/day--vs 129,770.
695 Deaths. Down--vs 3,056.
1.62% Deaths-Hospitalization rate. Up--vs 2.34%.
2,799,184 Vax. Up. Up 58k/day vs 892,399.
It's not even close. It's the difference between competence and criminal neglect.
Changes April 17-30
-28% Cases.
-5% Hospitalizations.
-7% Deaths.
Herd Immunity Day
Sept. 18. Ugh, six days further away.
President Biden Grade B vs Disgraced F.
How can I help?
Charities, volunteers and businesses in India and beyond are trying to help the country’s Covid victims and frontline workers.
(Before giving money to an organization, make sure you feel comfortable with it. In the United States, sites like Guidestar and Charity Navigator grade nonprofits on their effectiveness and financial health.)
The India Picture Horror Show
As the Covid-19 crisis spiraled out of control across India, the government announced that vaccination centers in Mumbai, India's largest city, were to close for three days from Friday.
The closure of the 94 centers was due to “non-availability of vaccine stock,” the municipal government said in a tweet on Thursday evening.
What are we to do about this?...It is a humanitarian calamity...1.3 billion people are at risk, are sickening, are dying...The Vice President of the United States is part Indian...100M Deaths are predicted by August... The Indian health care system is collapsing...Can the state be far behind? Is India just going to become a flood of regugees?...The cremation pyres burn 24/7 and grow larger, and larger, and provide the only light...They have run out of vaccine...They have a two-headed monster mutant. I'm sure the WHO is doing what it can...What of the UN? What do we do?...It is just overwhelming.
Thursday, April 29, 2021
COVID-19 BIDEN+99.1 (April 29) Complete
I miscounted somewhere along the way. POJO'S 100th day in office is April 30. I'm a Boomer, I can't even count to 100 anymore. Swine age.
We've got complete numbers now for April 29.
14-day changes
-27% Cases
-3% Hospitalizations
-7% Deaths
7-day daily averages
51,465 Cases. Down.
43,091 Hospitalizations. Down.
697 Deaths. Down.
1.61% D-H rate. Up.
2,630,047 Vax. Down.
POJO is killing everything but Vas. Every other metric is down. He's killing it.
Herd Immunity Day
Sept. 12. Back-back-back-back. Have I mentioned that I HATE Republicans?
President Biden Grade B.
(We are under 100k Deaths until SFCD. 575,056 have been Killed by COVID. 675,000 were Killed by the Spanish Flu in 1918/19. Well, science has stalled in the last 100 years, we all know that. COVID Deaths will exceed Spanish Flu Deaths on August 19, three weeks before the projected HID. Lol on HID. We will never get 90% of this population vaccinated. It will be years before the combination of vaccinated immunity and acquired immunity reaches 90%. And the while this thing is going to mutate and mutate and mutate some more.)
My fellow Manchester City fans--and if you are not, pity on you--I watched the highlights of the Paris match agayne and it is my disagreeable duty to report that Paris has better players than we do. The footwork of Neymar and Mbappe, the only time I've seen footwork like that is in Pep-Barca highlights. Their header by that guy was more skillful than anything we did in the air. We got two fluky goals; Paris got no fluky goals. They imploded in the second half, We. Played. Well. but they imploded. They were exasperated at their luck and they completely lost their discipline. If we had not gotten two fluky goals would we have gotten a non-fluky goal to at least tie it? I think so. But would they have gotten no other goal than the 15' header? I put that at 50-50. On the one 50 we dominated possession in the second half; they won TOP in the 1H. On the other 50, We. Have. No. Answer. for Neymar and Mbappe. Pep will play Cancelo in Manchester, and that's good. Pep better play Cancelo in Manchester. He must needs not tinker that up. Cancelo shadowed Mbappe. They have to win 2-0 or 3-2 to advance. Wouldn't bet they hold us scoreless but could they get three? Every damn day. We are a better team, but they have two players better than any of ours. We're going to have to get lucky agayne.
Russian Attacks Near White House
U.S. investigating peculiar attacks with hallmarks of 'Havana syndrome' near White House
(CNBC)
One of the unexplained attacks, reported by CNN, occurred in November near the Ellipse, the oval lawn south of the White House. The person who was sickened by the attack is a National Security Council official, people told CNN.
...
In 2016, U.S. diplomats and their support staff stationed in Havana reported hearing strange sounds, steady pulses of pressure in their heads and a number of other bizarre physical sensations. In some cases, diplomats noticed a sharp deterioration in their hearing and vision.
...
Physicians enlisted by the State Department said that brain scans of 21 affected U.S. personnel showed structural changes to the brain that had not been identified or linked to any known disorder.
The State Department gradually evacuated most of its diplomatic staff from Havana by 2018.
###
From original source CNN:
The US has struggled to understand these attacks since 2016 and 2017, when diplomatic and intelligence personnel in Cuba first began reporting alarming symptoms that seemed to appear out of the blue.
At 100 Days, Biden Is Transforming What It Means to Be a Democrat
No, it has always meant being a member of God’s Party.
When Joseph R. Biden Jr. served as vice president in the Obama administration, he was known to preface his recommendations to other officials with a self-deprecating disclaimer. He may not have attended Harvard or Yale, Mr. Biden would say as he popped into an office or a meeting, but he was still a foreign policy expert, and he knew how to work Capitol Hill.
Mr. Biden isn’t apologizing anymore.
...
Aides say he has come into his own as a party leader in ways that his uneven political career didn’t always foretell, and that he is undeterred by matters that used to bother him, like having no Republican support for Democratic priorities.
...
...his record so far amounts to the kind of revolution that... that, aides say, became necessary to respond to a crippling pandemic. In doing so, Mr. Biden is validating the desires of a party that feels fiercely emboldened to push a liberal agenda through a polarized Congress.
...
Mr. Biden, now 78, has pursued these sweeping changes without completely losing his instinct for finding the center point of his party. As the Democratic consensus on issues has moved left over the years, he has kept pace — on abortion, gun control, same-sex marriage, the Iraq war and criminal justice —...Now, he is leading a party that accelerated leftward during the Trump administration, and finding his own place on the Democratic spectrum — the one with the most likelihood of legacy-cementing success.
...
To the consternation of some Republicans, Mr. Biden is approaching politics differently from recent Democratic presidents who believed that support from the opposing party would provide a bulwark for their policies and political standing. In the 1990s, Mr. Clinton espoused triangulation, a strategy that forced liberals to settle for moderate policies by cutting deals with Republicans. Former President Barack Obama spent months trying to win bipartisan buy-in for his policy proposals.
Both strategies were rooted in political fears that began in the Reagan era: Doing too much to assuage the party’s left flank could alienate voters in the middle who took a more skeptical view of government, leaving Democrats unable to build coalitions for re-election.
Mr. Biden and his administration have embraced a different philosophy, arguing that difficult times have made liberal ideas popular with independents and some Republican voters, even if G.O.P. leaders continue to resist them.
The shift leftward, aides say, reflects a recognition by Mr. Biden that the problems facing the country require sweeping solutions, but also that both parties changed during the polarizing years of the Trump administration...
“There’s a difference between President Biden and Senator Biden,” said former Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican who served for decades with Mr. Biden and supported his presidential bid. “Even a difference between President Biden and Vice President Biden. He’s the president now and he’s got the responsibility of trying to move this country forward. Yes, he wants to do it in a bipartisan way if he can. But the fact is these problems aren’t going to solve themselves.”
... Even now, voters rate Mr. Biden as more moderate than Mr. Obama at the same stage of his presidency, according to polling from NBC News. Mr. Biden is pursuing a more liberal agenda than Mr. Obama did, of course; but he is taking a lower-key approach and advancing relatively popular ideas, and he doesn’t face the same smears and attacks as Mr. Obama did as the first Black president.
“It’s been very artful because it’s allowed him to create this weird equilibrium where people don’t see him as a partisan ramrod, which gives comfort to moderates,” said David Axelrod, a former top adviser to Mr. Obama. “On the other hand, he’s really moving forward on a lot of these initiatives.”
...
“It’s fair to say that Obama followed the Clinton model, and Biden is not, in some fundamental ways, because the world has changed so profoundly,”[Matt Bennett, Matt Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, a Democratic think tank named after a governing style embraced by former President Bill Clinton that rejected liberal orthodoxy] said. “Joe Biden is dealing with a seditious, anti-democratic set of lunatics. You can’t deal with people who voted to overturn the election. You simply cannot, even if you’re a moderate.”
...
...some longtime friends and allies also see a more personal evolution in Mr. Biden since he assumed the role of president.
His inner circle says he is exhibiting a level of confidence they’ve never seen before, combined with an awareness that he only has a short window to achieve his goals before next year’s midterm elections, which could cost Democrats their slim governing majority...
[I, who do not know Joe Biden, agree entirely with those who do that there is a quiet, certain, confidence that Biden knows what needs to be done and how to do it that has just been a revelation.]
“In his heart, he probably still would love to forge bipartisan deals,” Mr. Axelrod said. “But he’s going to be judged at the end of the day not on style points but what he gets done, and he knows that.”
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
COVID-19 BIDEN+99 April 28 (Complete)
-26% Cases.
-2% Hospitalizations. H’s IN NEG! H’s IN NEG!
-7% Deaths. ALL THREE DOWN! RELEASE THE BALLOONS OF JOY! POJO! POJO! POJO!
7-day averages
52,605 Cases. DOWN!
43,556 Hospitalizations. DOWN!
701 Deaths. up.
1.60% D-H. Up. Swine Death. Of course, it goes up, H's go down, D's go up, Duh. Swine.
2,669,664 Vax. Down.
Herd Immunity Day
My God, look at this: Sept. 8. Four days further away than yesterday.
President Biden Grade C.
From the same article as last, by Barney Ronay:
For 30 first-half minutes [Manchester City were] oddly fearful and muddled.
I would not have found that odd. During the quarterfinals against Dortmund I heard the play-by-play guy say that after City fell behind 1-0 players could be heard "barking" instructions to each other. The players know the Champions League is the only thing left to be achieved. More, they know it is by far--far--the most important thing to Sheikh Mansour and Pep.
...City – led by an alpha-dog performance from Kevin De Bruyne in central, right, left midfield, and pretty much every other position on the pitch [dominated].
KDB was that way against Dortmund, too. He seems especially aware of the importance of winning the Champions League this year.
Guardiola has a history of flinching a little too much on these occasions.
Guardiola had picked his simplest, strongest team. Happily this meant going full Pep, with no orthodox striker, but with the familiar bounty of nimble-footed midfielders. [Pep and Erik Spoelstra were separated at birth.] Still, though, something was off here.
Paris pressed hard, suffocating the spaces for City’s dainty, pirouetting inside-forwards. Worse, the full-backs had been pinned back.
I reprint below simply in appreciation of exquisite descriptive writing. Neymar does seem like this at these times.
...City looked tongue-tied and forgetful, a team wandering around with its glasses on its forehead trying to remember what it was looking for. Neymar was sublime in those moments. There was a pinged, stunned, back-spun pass. There was a ludicrous playground-style dribble, moving like a pond-skater. At times like these Neymar seems to move with a kind of light around him, working on insect-time, able to see space, angles, movement that much quicker than every other person on the pitch.
Two things happened to turn the game on its head...the full-backs began to play, wings unclipped, given the oxygen to do what they normally do. João Cancelo in particular became a sword instead of a shield, allowed to occupy that outside-right position until he left the pitch after an hour, in response to a first-half yellow card.
Secondly De Bruyne decided to pull himself up...De Bruyne was utterly commanding...
In the space of one Parisian lull, one switch of the full-backs’ starting position...Neymar vanished completely from this earthly plane.
He did. As did Mbappe. At least Neymar had minutes in the first half when he looked dangerous, frightfully so. Mbappe never so.
FT PSG 1 City 2
PSG's first goal was a sublime header off a corner kick. As well-placed and great as it was, if the City guy had jumped a millisecond sooner, etc. City's first goal was a fluke, miscommunication between the Paris goalkeeper and their last defender. City's second goal was a parting of the Red Sea by PSG's wall on a free kick, a complete fuck up. Paris-Bayern-breathtaking this was not. There's no excuse for City's second goal, that was just poor, poor play by Paris. City's first goal was "shit happens." PSG's first goal is why corners are so dangerous. But still, why did Mbappe have NO shots on goal. City had an answer for him, hoo doggie! Neymar is so quick, his shots have such precision. And Paris did come close a couple of times. As did City. But Neymar didn't score either. City had an answer, barely, for him too. Mbappe was just invisible. There is also no excuse for Paris coming apart at the seams after Mahrez' goal. Lessons, I don't see lessons. Paris is in a world of hurt, that's the bottom line but not a lesson. There was a CL match a few years ago, somebody, hell maybe Paris, BLEW OUT Barca in the first game. Barca blew them, whoever it was, out even worse in the second match and advanced. Paris was in the Final last season. If they play like they did--against the Champions from last season--in the quarterfinals City would have no answer. Nobody in the world would. Paris would blow City out and advance.
FT PSG 1 City 2
This, imo, was the most impressive match of the Manchester Revolution age. To come from 1-0 down in the Champions League semi-final, where they've been only once before, on the road, against this Paris team, veteran of a Finals berth last season, and just take their souls in the second half, well, my God.
FT 1 PSG 2 Manchester City!
It's over! Manchester City took PSG's soul tonight with a shocking second half. They are more than in the driver's seat to the UCL Final, they are buckled up and heading out.
1-2, 90'
Robbie Mustoe
@robbiemustoe
Not sure I’ve seen a team perform so differently from first half to second, particularly at this level. Credit of course to Man City but wow, PSG fell away quickly. Crazy. #FunnyOleGame #PSGCity
@The2RobbiesNBC
Euro Pod Thursday. 🎙🗣
4:45 PM · Apr 28, 2021·Twitter for iPhone
Bobby Bridge
@bobby_bridge
Some second half display from Manchester City this. PSG can’t get the ball! Reminiscent of Barcelona in the glory days. Great to watch
4:45 PM · Apr 28, 2021·Twitter for iPhone
1-0, 50’
Even if City lose I so hope it’s 2-1 rather than 1-0. Away goals are soo important in this competition.
I don't see City having answers for Neymar and Mbappe. Pep will shock Paris with some strange new life form as his starting eleven--Ederson as forward? Wearing their shirts inside-out? Pep, like his brother Spo in Miami, believes that to coach means to tinker. Sometimes his tinkering works out well; most times it doesn't. I predict City will lose today in Paris, and lose this tie.
Tuesday, April 27, 2021
COVID-19 BIDEN+98 (April 27)*
-24% Cases. Massive decrease in Cases.
NA Hospitalizations
-5% Deaths. -5% is better than the last few days, but when you get infected, the virus moves quickly to Kill you.
Daily averages April 21 through 27
53,803 Cases. Down.
44,015 Hospitalizations. Down.
696 Deaths. Down 10/per day for a week.
1.58% D-H rate.Up. That hurts.
What is going to kill the president's grade is Vaccinations, which have tailed off the last few iterations. Let's see:
2,717,062 Vax. Down. Yep.
Herd Immunity Day
Sept. 4 Back three days. Until (unless) POJO can vaccinate 3M/day HID is going to retreat farther from us. We haven't had 3M Vax in the last six iterations of this metric.
President Biden Grade C
Dr. Walensky Should Walk
CDC Walks Back Director’s Comments on COVID Vaccines for Pregnant Women
Dr. Rochelle Walensky said at a White House press conference on Friday that the
“CDC recommends that pregnant people receive the COVID-19 vaccine”
...cit[ing] a new preliminary report from the agency,
However, the CDC said on Tuesday that its guidelines for pregnant women who wish to receive a coronavirus vaccine have not changed since they were initially released in March. Those guidelines state that “if you are pregnant, you may choose to receive a COVID-19 vaccine” but caution pregnant women to weigh the risks posed by vaccination and the virus against one another. The guidelines do not explicitly “recommend” that pregnant women get vaccinated, as Walensky suggested Friday.
“If facing decisions about whether to receive a COVID-19 vaccine while pregnant, people should consider risk of exposure to COVID-19, the increased risk of severe infection while pregnant, the known benefits of vaccination, and the limited but growing evidence about the safety of COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy,” the CDC told CBS in an email.
The apparent mismatch between Walensky’s comments and her agency’s own guidelines...comes after:
-Walensky warned of "impending doom" in a teary-eyed national address in late March. Why Was CDC Director Rochelle Walensky Fighting Back Tears?
-The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday walked back controversial comments made by its director, Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, suggesting that people who are vaccinated against the coronavirus never become infected or transmit the virus to others on April 1.
The agency was responding in part to criticism from scientists who noted that current research was far from sufficient to claim that vaccinated people cannot spread the virus.
POJO has had a near-perfect first 100 days. This is his one mistake.
COVID-19 BIDEN+97 (April 26) Complete
14-day changes April 13-26
-20% Cases. Look at that drop in Cases!
+2% Hospitalizations.
-2% Deaths. But Deaths are hovering closer and closer to flat.
7-day daily averages April 20-26
+2% Hospitalizations.
-2% Deaths. But Deaths are hovering closer and closer to flat.
7-day daily averages April 20-26
“Data anomaly day,” the Times notes. “New Jersey removed many cases”. But the Times gives a number that incorporates the data anomaly day (idk) 55,058 Cases. Down
44,531 Hospitalizations. Down.
706 Deaths. Down one. That's the way Deaths do, in tiny increments. COVID is determined to kill once it gets its clutches on a person and relinquishes only after fierce resistance.
1.57% D-H rate. Unchanged.
2,741,021 Vax. Down.
Herd Immunity Day
September 1. Makes me nauseous. It's a mirage and is only going to get more distant. I am exceedingly doubtful that we will ever reach the 90% (vaccination+previous recovery from infection) necessary for Herd Immunity. As written here on the April 25 data we are likely (in an Idiot Blogger's view of things) to "flatten the curve of Cases, Hospitalizations, and Deaths, but given all the contingencies and problems mentioned in that post, I cannot foresee the day when the CDC declares that we have beaten COVID, that does, e.g. drop into and stay in double digits and then single. I cannot foresee that day.
President Biden Grade D
(At 10:29 p.m. on April 26, 572,652 Americans have been killed by COVID-19, about 103k less than the estimated 675,000 who were killed by the Spanish Flu over 100 years ago. I have been basing what I call Spanish Flu Conquest Day, the date COVID Deaths exceed the number of Spanish Flu dead, on 900 Deaths per day. We have been under 900/day every day this month (as a daily average over one week). Average daily Deaths have been slowly, incrementally falling every iteration of the weekly average since April 18 and on April 25 stood at 707. So 900 average daily Deaths looks this month a substantial overstatement to use as a baseline to calculate the SFCD. It has not been since the first Death on February 6, 2020. 1,290 per day have been Killed by COVID in those 444 days. In my amateur's estimation there is no reason to believe Deaths will skyrocket again to 3,341, the all-time average daily peak, on Jan. 26, 2021. 900/day was the figure I chose looking at the most recent trend line, mindful of the bad not-so-old days as most reasonably, slightly pessimistic baseline at the original position.So, continuing to use 900/day COVID Deaths will exceed SF Deaths on August 18.)
The Horror in India
Jeffrey Gettleman is the New York Times' New Delhi correspondent.
NEW DELHI — Crematories are so full of bodies, it’s as if a war just happened. Fires burn around the clock. Many places are holding mass cremations, dozens at a time, and at night, in certain areas of New Delhi, the sky glows.
Sickness and death are everywhere.
...
“I have no idea how I got it,” said a good friend who is now in the hospital. “You catch just a whiff of this…..” and then his voice trailed off, too sick to finish.
...
I’m sitting in my apartment waiting to catch the disease. That’s what it feels like right now in New Delhi with the world’s worst coronavirus crisis advancing around us. It is out there, I am in here, and I feel like it’s only a matter of time before I, too, get sick.
...
New Delhi...is suffering a calamitous surge. A few days ago, the positivity rate hit a staggering 36 percent — meaning more than one out of three people tested were infected. A month ago, it was less than 3 percent.
...
What we’re witnessing is so different from last year, during India’s first wave...What we had been fearing during last year’s first wave, and which never really materialized, is now happening in front of our eyes: a breakdown, a collapse..
...
A new variant known here as “the double mutant” may be doing a lot of the damage. The science is still early but from what we know, this variant contains one mutation that may make the virus more contagious and another that may make it partially resistant to vaccines. Doctors are pretty scared. Some we have spoken to said they had been vaccinated twice and still got seriously ill, a very bad sign.
...
Epidemiologists say the numbers will keep climbing, to 500,000 reported cases a day nationwide and as many as one million Indians dead from Covid-19 by August.
...
India was doing well up until a few weeks ago, at least on the surface. It locked down, absorbed the first wave, then opened up. It maintained a low death rate (at least by official statistics). By winter, life in many respects had returned to something near normal.
I was out reporting in January and February, driving through towns in central India. No one — and I mean no one, including police officers — was wearing a mask. It was like the country had said to itself, while the second wave was looming: Don’t worry, we got this.
...
Mr. Modi [Prime Minister] remains popular among his base but more people are blaming him...for holding packed political rallies in recent weeks where few precautions were enforced — possible super-spreader events.
“Social distancing norms have gone for a complete toss,” said one Delhi newscaster the other day, during a broadcast of one of Mr. Modi’s rallies.
Indian Horror
...enormous funeral pyres spilling into parking lots and city parks...
“Hey, don’t park too close to that flaming body!”
This is a surreal nightmare.
Monday, April 26, 2021
The Undersigned’s Boomer moment (not the first)*#
#It worked :o
4/26, 7:06 p.m.
*Yes, I know that neither the video nor the two audio clips uploaded. Swine Blogger. I try here to upload one of the audio clips only...Nope. Well, the thing has gotten 6.3k likes on Reddit in 24 hours.
4/25 11:57 p.m.
I spent the afternoon with my son watching Rocket League. At the key moment of the deciding game in the series he and I waited all weekend to watch my son secretly a/v’d me. He then posted it with my permission on the RLCS reddit chain and, “it broke Reddit” would be incorrect, “it went viral,” probably an overstatement but, it was so popular that a) a member of the team we were rooting for who played in the match we were watching responded to my son personally to thank me for my support;
b) another person, a dad, wrote that it was “wholesome” and sweet.
c) people are now making audio clips of “Oh no! Squishy fuck you” (our opponent who came out of nowhere to make a game-deciding save) to make memes, and;
4) there is now what my son describes as a “small movement” to get Squishy to change his official sound meme on his subscription channel to “Oh no! Squishy fuck you.”
Rocket League has only been around since 2015 and has a still small audience and pool of players but Rocket League has traditional fundamentals. It is a beautiful game, one demanding breathtaking skill, acute mental focus and agility and lightning-quick reflexes; the action is soo fast-paced and the games so short, 5 minutes, that these young players (and they're very young; if you're in your mid-twenties playing RL, you're a geezer if not a Boomer) are true elite athletes. It is difficult for me, albeit a Boomer, to adjust my vision and focus to the pace and I still miss some, more than my son, a Rocket League geezer, but less than I did at the beginning. My son has said that he too has to get in the right frame of mind to watch or play RL. Just watching is draining for me, but as you can see in the video, I can get super into it. Like with Bitcoin the Big Boys are taking notice. The competition we were watching this weekend was the Lamborghini Open. The Lamborghini car company. College tackle football has been around over 100 years. They still have the likes Poulan Weedeater sponsoring bowl games. There ain’t no Lamborghini Bowl.
One theory of God, not a comforting theory, is that She created the original position and then let humanity and the animal kingdom to make the most of it. It strikes me that Satoshi Nakamoto and Psyonix created the original conditions for Bitcoin and Rocket League and then let those interested have at it. Both created new virtual life forms, borrowing from the creations of earlier generations, BTC from other currencies, RL from traditional sports. They meet the desiderata of their generation. Both creations are sublime, and mysterious, but so too is God, and both creations will be around for as long as people want them to.
This is Public Occurrences and I am Benjamin Harris.
Biden's 100-day stock market performance is the hottest going back to the 1950s
- President Joe Biden has witnessed an unprecedented growth on Wall Street in his first 100 days in office, better than any of his predecessors going to at least Dwight Eisenhower.
- (CNBC)
I’m not a stock market guy, more a jobs guy. I’m a Democrat. I’m glad, really, sincerely glad.
There damn well has been a worldwide wave.
Hoo-doggie! A 22% increase in two weeks, a daily average of 812,715 over the last seven days.
Deaths up 8% over two weeks, 12,807 average per day in last week, and given the lag between date of infection and Death, that Deaths 7-day Deaths line is going to go closer and closer to 90 degrees. Just a horror, an absolute horror.
Sunday, April 25, 2021
COVID-19 BIDEN+96 (April 25)*
Complete, 4/27, 9:36 a.m.
There has been no Fourth Wave. There has been a ripple that you may have missed had you not been told it was supposed to be a Wave and even Hospitalizations appear to have crested on April 20. Cases clearly crested, on April 14, and have been clearly down since, and Deaths too crested on the 14th. They have had a more shimmying, but still an obvious, descent. All of that is good, of course. None of it means we won't have ripples in the future, for we are not beating this thing. We may "flatten the curve"but we're not going to flat-line COVID. We're running out of arms to inject shots, some people are blowing off their second shots, Herd Immunity Day is retreating away from us faster than we are running to catch it. The virus is faster than we are, humanity.
In the last little over one year COVID has mutated at least three distinct strains, the British strain more vexsome to us in the States than the South African strain, and the new Indian strain the most diabolical yet. Two sets of mutations. Cases in India are over 300k/day, a world record, despite India doing pretty well with the original. You cannot keep a virus rampant in a nation of 1.3 billion people from infiltrating a nation 29% the size. Impossible. We're going to have to deal with the Indian mutations in addition to the original and the South African and British variants.
How? We have no idea if the current vaccines will work against the Indian mutations, hell, we don't even know how long the three vaccines used in the U.S. last! The scientists' best estimate is that those in the U.S. who have been fully vaccinated will have to be revaccinated in about a year. The vaccines protect others from getting the virus from you, a vaccinated person, exceedingly well. Like masks. Remember what Dr. Fauci and the rest said? They protect others from you. Of course both masks and the three American-used vaccines offer you, a vaccinated person, ENORMOUS protection, ~90%, as well. Dr. Fauci and the other experts said that too. As they did that there is substantial evidence that both masks and vaccines lessen the virus load if you do get infected. That's why, again, the experts advise even the fully vaccinated to continue to wear masks around large groups of people. This is a new contagion and its behavior and the rules for us in dealing with it are being studied as it infects us.
All of the foregoing informs the following: We are not going to reach Herd Immunity Day for years.
-16% Cases.
+5% Hospitalizations.
-3% Deaths.
7-day daily changes through April 25
58,353 Cases. Down.
45,027 Hospitalizations. Down. Ooh, nice little dippity-do there on the H-number 7-day graph.
707 Deaths. Down four.
1.57% D-H rate. Down.
2,750,656 Vax. Down.
Herd Immunity Day
August 31. Oof. Further and further away.
President Biden Grade C. Incomplete (likely D).
( August 18. SFCD. One day later.)
Vaccination rates are falling in the United States, despite the spread of highly contagious virus variants that are fueling the country’s alarmingly high caseload.
More than 50,000 new U.S. cases were reported on Saturday, and case rates are similar to those of the second wave last summer. But the average number of vaccine doses being administered each day, which rose for months and peaked at 3.38 million, has now fallen to 2.86 million, its lowest level since March 31, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The vaccination rate stopped climbing on April 13, when federal health officials recommended pausing the use of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine to allow researchers to examine a rare blood-clotting disorder that emerged in six recipients. The Food and Drug Administration lifted the pause on Friday, opting to add a warning about the risk to vaccine labeling.
Experts aren’t sure why vaccination rates have begun falling...
...
Whatever the reason for the slowdown in vaccinations, it could delay the arrival of herd immunity, the point at which the coronavirus cannot spread easily because it cannot find enough vulnerable people to infect. The longer that takes, the more time there is for dangerous variants to arise and possibly evade vaccines.
Saturday, April 24, 2021
COVID-19 BIDEN+95 (April 24)*#
#Complete 4/26, 8:30 a.m.
*Incomplete. Bad day. Still missing H-numbers as of 4/25, 10:00 p.m.
-12% Cases.
+5% Hospitalizations.
-1% Deaths.
-12 is the same as on BIDEN+24; +5 is one point worse, and -1 is two points worse. *frowny face*
7-day daily averages through April 24
59,482 Cases. Down.
45,200 NA Hospitalizations. Down.
718 Deaths. Up. FUCK
YOU
DEATH.
SWINE
1.58% NA D-H rate. Up.
2,824,078 Vax. Down.
Herd Immunity Day
August 25. Four more days back from August 21 on BIDEN+94. Ominous. It was once in the high teens in July.
President Biden Grade F Pending (likely F)
305 .524
I am canceling the Culture. I don’t believe in it anymore. If the “Heat” make the playoffs I'll pay attention to them again.
Horror in India
...cremation grounds across the country, where the fires never stop...
A Felini-esque dystopia
...
At one of the large cremation grounds in Ahmedabad, a city in the western Indian state of Gujarat, bright orange fires light up the night sky, burning 24 hours a day, like an industrial plant that never shuts down.
At one of the large cremation grounds in Ahmedabad, a city in the western Indian state of Gujarat, bright orange fires light up the night sky, burning 24 hours a day, like an industrial plant that never shuts down.
Apocalyptic
...
Doctors worry that the runaway surge is being at least partly driven by the emergence of a virus variant known as the “double mutant,” B.1.617, because it contains genetic mutations found in two other difficult-to-control versions of the coronavirus. One of the mutations is present in the highly contagious variant that ripped through California earlier this year. The other mutation is similar to one found in the South African variant and believed to make the virus more resistant to vaccines.
The result could be the worst of both worlds, faster-spreading and less controllable. This is worrying scientists around the globe, who see people starting to relax their guard in well-inoculated countries even as huge setbacks in India, Brazil and other places raise the likelihood that the coronavirus will mutate in ways that could outflank the current vaccines.
Over 13 days in mid-April, Bhopal officials reported 41 deaths related to Covid-19. But a survey by The New York Times of the city’s main Covid-19 cremation and burial grounds, where bodies were being handled under strict protocols, revealed a total of more than 1,000 deaths during the same period.
The same phenomenon appeared to be happening in Lucknow and Mirzapur — major cities in Uttar Pradesh State — and across Gujarat, where, during a similar period in mid-April, the authorities reported between 73 and 121 Covid-related deaths each day.
But a detailed count compiled by one of Gujarat’s leading newspapers, Sandesh, which sent reporters to cremation and burial grounds across the state, indicated that the number was several times higher, around 610 each day.
Doctors worry that the runaway surge is being at least partly driven by the emergence of a virus variant known as the “double mutant,” B.1.617, because it contains genetic mutations found in two other difficult-to-control versions of the coronavirus. One of the mutations is present in the highly contagious variant that ripped through California earlier this year. The other mutation is similar to one found in the South African variant and believed to make the virus more resistant to vaccines.
The result could be the worst of both worlds, faster-spreading and less controllable. This is worrying scientists around the globe, who see people starting to relax their guard in well-inoculated countries even as huge setbacks in India, Brazil and other places raise the likelihood that the coronavirus will mutate in ways that could outflank the current vaccines.
Over 13 days in mid-April, Bhopal officials reported 41 deaths related to Covid-19. But a survey by The New York Times of the city’s main Covid-19 cremation and burial grounds, where bodies were being handled under strict protocols, revealed a total of more than 1,000 deaths during the same period.
The same phenomenon appeared to be happening in Lucknow and Mirzapur — major cities in Uttar Pradesh State — and across Gujarat, where, during a similar period in mid-April, the authorities reported between 73 and 121 Covid-related deaths each day.
But a detailed count compiled by one of Gujarat’s leading newspapers, Sandesh, which sent reporters to cremation and burial grounds across the state, indicated that the number was several times higher, around 610 each day.
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