Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Usually wrong but never in doubt

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Let there be snark.

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

We still have time to mess this up!

In my day, never was longer.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

The words do not have to be perfect.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

All your base are belong to Tunch.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 Coronavirus / COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Tuesday / Wednesday, March 23-24

COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Tuesday / Wednesday, March 23-24

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COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Tuesday / Wednesday, March 23-24

(Walt Handelsman via GoComics.com)


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Bay Staters have a bad habit of electing Republican governors, because we’re a ‘weak gov / strong legislature’ state. Chickensh*t Charlie, of the GOP Death Cult, has spent the last year proving how dangerous that can be:

Reader Interactions

39Comments

  1. 1.

    NeenerNeener

    Monroe County, NY stats:

    New cases = 116
    Still at 1194 deaths

    1.8% positivity – this has been going up steadily over the last few days

    30.1% vaccinated with at least 1 dose
    109,169 people fully vaccinated
    223,323 people with at least 1 dose

    My nephew got his first dose of Pfizer yesterday! Woo hoo!

  3. 3.

    La Nonna

    Still waiting in Italy, for both our age group 70+ and/or Il Nonno’s 100% disabled status, to even be able to book an appointment, much less receive a vaccine.  For the amazing job the universal healthcare system has done to care for and protect us, the EU stumble on vaccines is really hurting.  We’ve been in literal housebound lockdowns off and on since Feb 2020, the stress is starting to really wear on us.  Thankfully our US family now is protected, a Biden BFD.

  4. 4.

    karen marie

    A video posted Friday on the Clayton’s Beach Bar and Grill Facebook page shows a mostly maskless crowd of hundreds attending a concert on South Padre Island [Florida].

    If someone contracts COVID at something like this, can they sue the venue?

  5. 5.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysia’s daily Covid-19 numbers. Director-General of Heath Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah reports 1,268 new cases today in his media statement, for a cumulative reported total of 336,808 cases. He also reports two new deaths today, for a cumulative total of 1,246 deaths — 0.37% of the cumulative reported total, 0.39% of resolved cases.

    There are currently 14,637 active and contagious cases; 161 are in ICU, 73 of them intubated. Meanwhile, 1,083 patients recovered and were discharged, for a cumulative total of 320,925 patients recovered – 95.28% of the cumulative reported total.

    Four new clusters were reported today: Jalan Wawasan Dua in Johor, Industri Permata Dua in Negeri Sembilan, Jalan Alam in Selangor, and Chupak in Sarawak.

    Jalan Wawasan Dua and Industri Permata Dua are workplace clusters. Jalan Alam is a high-risk group cluster. Chupak is a community cluster.

    1,263 new cases today are local infections. Selangor reports 490 cases: 191 in older clusters, one in Jalan Alam cluster, 220 close-contact screenings, and 79 other screenings.

    Sarawak reports 140 local cases: 16 in older clusters, 12 in Chupak cluster, 82 close-contact screenings, and 30 other screenings. Johor reports 135 cases: 37 in older clusters, 23 in Jalan Wawasan Dua cluster, 50 close-contact screenings, and 25 other screenings.

    Penang reports 99 cases: 17 in existing clusters, 21 close-contact screenings, and 61 other screenings. Negeri Sembilan reports 59 cases: five in older clusters, 51 in Industri Permata Dua cluster, one close-contact screening, and two other screenings. Melaka reports 52 cases: 46 in existing clusters, four close-contact screenings, and two other screenings.

    Kuala Lumpur reports 49 local cases: three in existing clusters, 17 close-contact screenings, and 29 other screenings. Kedah reports 49 cases: five in existing clusters, 26 close-contact screenings, and 18 other screenings. Kelantan reports 49 cases as well: 11 in existing clusters, 27 close-contact screenings, and 18 other screenings. Sabah reports 45 cases: nine in existing clusters, 21 close-contact screenings, and 11 other screenings. Pahang reports 43 cases: 29 in existing clusters, two close-contact screenings, and two other screenings. Perak reports 42 cases: 23 in existing clusters, 14 close-contact screenings, and five other screenings.

    Putrajaya reports six cases, all close-contact screenings. Terengganu reports four cases, all close-contact screenings. And Labuan reports one case, found in other screening.

    Perlis reports no new cases today.

    Five new cases today are imported: four in Kuala Lumpur, and one in Sarawak.

    The deaths reported today, both in Selangor, are a 77-year-old man with hypertension, chronic kidney disease, dyslipidaemia, gout, and stroke; and a 43-year-old man with hypertension.

  8. 8.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    Greece: ICUs in Attica are full – intubated patients are being treated outside the ICUs because there’s no room at all. Authorities announced 3,586 new cases, the most in a single 24-hour period since the crisis began. The good news is that wastewater analysis shows the viral load stabilizing or dropping.

  11. 11.

    lowtechcyclist

    “Being against vaccines has been seen now as a badge or as a sign of loyalty to the Republican Party.”

    “If all your friends jumped off a bridge…”

    I’ve been talking about the abandonment of adulthood as one of the distinctives of today’s GQP, and it just keeps getting more true.

  13. 13.

    WereBear

    While I appreciate the longing for “normal life” — I’m not getting mine back.

    Much like my brother and many of my friends, our jobs in tourism, food service, and other hospitality venues must wait until the businesses who went under manage to get back up again. This is going to be continually undercut by governors like DeSantis who will heedlessly blow off precautions and trigger more waves of infection.

    My seniority and pay grade in my former job is gone… and why should a revenue-strapped enterprise hire me back at my former salary when they have a whole bunch of unemployed, and younger, people to take my place?

    It figures. I came into adult life with the Reagan wave, and they’ve been putting the boot in ever since. At this point, I’m inventing my own job by turning my passionate hobby into a business but I’m not getting any PPP money to do it.

    At least I have something of a 401k I can empty. My only hope is that I can build up my income before that happens. At my age, I no longer have a parent’s basement to live in.

    And after forty years of Republican corruption and theft, who does?

  16. 16.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @OzarkHillbilly: from the article:

    Frank Luntz:

    Republicans believe in personal responsibility. Well, what is more personally responsible than to take a vaccine that will not only keep you safe, it’ll keep your family safe, your neighborhood safe, your friends safe? And they have got to connect the dots.

    I can’t remember when the Republicans believed in, maybe I should say actually demonstrated, personal responsibility.

  17. 17.

    p.a.

    Frank Luntz:

    Republicans believe in personal responsibility. Well, what is more personally responsible than to take a vaccine that will not only keep you safe, it’ll keep your family safe, your neighborhood safe, your friends safe? And they have got to connect the dots.

    I can’t remember when the Republicans believed in, maybe I should say actually demonstrated, personal responsibility.

    Fuck you asshole.  You helped design and build it.

  18. 18.

    lowtechcyclist

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I think you meant for “I can’t remember when the Republicans believed in, maybe I should say actually demonstrated, personal responsibility” to be outside the quote box.

    If they ever did believe in personal responsibility, they haven’t believed in it in a couple of decades, minimum.

  19. 19.

    Matt McIrvin

    Here’s the thing about Charlie Baker, though: his popularity is slumping but he’s MORE popular among Democrats than Republicans! I think part of it is that Republicans are abandoning him for not being death-culty ENOUGH.

    While I won’t defend him, I will say that the excess-death statistics suggest that Massachusetts’ unusually high COVID death rate is something of a mirage: we weren’t the hardest hit, we were about average, summing over the whole of the past year–we were just among the best at correctly counting COVID deaths. As Donald Trump correctly intuited (but drew the most reprehensible possible lesson from it), this makes you look bad.

  20. 20.

    Sloane Ranger

    UK figures for Tuesday, 23 March, where we had 5379 new cases. This is an increase of 37 on Monday’s numbers but a decrease of 3.4% in the rolling 7-day average.New cases by nation,

    England – 4583 (down 163)

    Northern Ireland – 174 (up 87)

    Scotland – 495 (up 136)

    Wales – 127 (down 23).

    Deaths – There were 112 deaths within 28 days of a positive test on Tuesday. This is a decrease of 33.4% in the rolling 7-day average. New deaths by nation, England – 103, Northern Ireland – 2, Scotland – 7 and Wales – 0.

    Testing – On Monday, 22 March, 1,191,048 tests were conducted. This is an increase of 0.4% in the rolling 7-day average. The estimated testing capacity of the labs was 764,492 as of Thursday, 18 March.

    Hospitalisations – There were 5461 people in hospital on Sunday, 21 March and 748 people on ventilators on Monday, 22nd. The rolling 7-day average for hospital admissions is down by 21.5%.

    Vaccinations – As of 22nd March, a total of 28,327,873 people had received the 1st shot of a vaccine and 2,363,684 had received both shots. As of this date, 53.8% of all those aged over 18 had received one shot and 4.5% had received both.

  23. 23.

    bluefoot

    @WereBear: God, I hear you on this one.  I’m still employed, luckily, but it’s looking like that will change in the summer.  So I need to start job hunting now, except we’ve lost enough people that I’m almost literally working every waking hour so when am I going to job hunt?  Like you, once I lose my job, that’s pretty much it.  I’m too old not to be replaced by someone younger.

  24. 24.

    leeleeFL

    @WereBear: I am working on the same idea.  I have been back at work, full-time since May 1, 2020!  My seniority is still in place, for whatever that means.  Many at my place longer than I are gone with no explanations.

    Scary times to be sure.

    Good luck in your adventure in changing your life.

  25. 25.

    leeleeFL

    @bluefoot: The only thing saving ng me there is that the younger ones SUCK!  Lazy, slip-sliding little munchkins, they are!  It’s remarkable!

  26. 26.

    grandmaBear

    @OzarkHillbilly: personal responsibility is a code phrase, like family values. In this case it means those people have to work, irrespective of working conditions or pay.  By the way I didn’t receive a vaccination ‘card’. I just got a printed out page, which lists all the relevant data, but I’m not sure people in the future will see it as having the same authority.

  27. 27.

    The Moar You Know

    Got my second shot of Pfizer day before yesterday. The side effects were quite a bit more severe (pretty achy and sore) than I’d been counting on, but NOTHING compared to the shingles vaccine I got about a year and a half ago. It’s just fundamentally not that bad.

    It’s weird, though. Nothing changes. You’re still gonna go masked and not eat out and stay at home except for essential errands. You just won’t die if you cross paths with the wrong person, which is a pretty big deal. But still. Nothing much really changes. I got pretty depressed about that yesterday. Going to need to come to grips that my second job of playing live music twice a week is probably done forever. I’ve been playing in front of audiences – mostly small, lol – since I was eight years old. It caters to that part of me that is an extreme extrovert. Don’t know how I’m going to deal with this.

  28. 28.

    YY_Sima Qian

    On 3/23 China reported 0 new domestic confirmed & 0 new domestic asymptomatic cases.

    Imported Cases

    On 3/23 China reported 10 new imported confirmed cases, 8 imported asymptomatic cases, 4 suspect cases:

    • Shanghai Municipality – 3 confirmed cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from the US, the UK (via Helsinki) & Sri Lanka; 4 suspect cases, no information released 
    • Tianjin Municipality – 2 confirmed cases, both Chinese nationals returning from the US
    • Guangzhou in Guangdong Province – 2 confirmed cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Rwanda &b Nigeria (via Kigali); 3 asymptomatic cases, 2 Chinese nationals returning from Nigeria (via Kigali), & a foreign crew member off a cargo ship with last port of call in the Philippines
    • Hohhot in Inner Mongolia “Autonomous” Region – 1 confirmed case, off a flight diverted from Beijing, no further information released
    • Chengdu in Sichuan Province – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from Mozambique (via Kathmandu); 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese nationals returning from Ethiopia (via Germany)
    • Lanzhou in Gansu Province – 1 confirmed case (previously asymptomatic), coming from Russia
    • Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province – 1 asymptomatic case, coming from Italy
    • Xi’an in Shaanxi Province – 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from the Sudan (via Frankfurt)
    • Nanjing Province (location not specified) – 1 asymptomatic case, no information released
    • Yantai in Shandong Province – 1 asymptomatic case, no information released 

     

    Overall in China, 10 confirmed cases recovered, 8 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation & 1 was reclassified as confirmed case, and 166 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 158 active confirmed cases in the country (156 imported), none in critical/serious condition, 236 asymptomatic cases (all imported), 6 suspect cases (all imported). 3,467 traced contacts are currently under centralized quarantine.

    On 3/24 Hong Kong reported 10 new cases, 6 imported (5 from India & 1 from Pakistan) & 4 domestic (1 of whom does not yet have source of infection identified).

  29. 29.

    The Moar You Know

    If someone contracts COVID at something like this, can they sue the venue?

    @karen marie:  you can sue anybody.  But this, you wouldn’t win.  Mostly because there’s no way to prove that you got COVID at that location at that time.  You frankly would have a better chance (still effectively zero) to sue the state of Florida for allowing conditions that made the spread of COVID inevitable.

    Run pyro in a club with flammable ceilings and one door, that’s pretty open and shut.  The cause and effect is horribly obvious.  This isn’t.

  30. 30.

    Rusty

    @WereBear: You have my full sympathy.  Found out my job was getting killed the end of 2019, a frantic search in my mid-fifties where they wanted younger people.  I got a decent job because of my experience, but took a pay cut And back to two weeks vacation since no one wants to pay for experience and back to the bottom of seniority.  There was a stressful period where the pandemic ramped up and I wasn’t sure the job would be there when I arrived.  A year of living separate from the family during the week (and some weekends), finally trying to move but getting killed by the insane housing market.  Still, I am actually very grateful and it will work out (working out being partly working until at least 70).  Hanging there, I am rooting for you.

  31. 31.

    laura

    @The Moar You Know: missing live music has been one of the hardest parts of this rolling traumatic event. Please don’t give up just yet – there’s an audience and pent up demand that is waiting to be thrilled and soothed by the sounds and the sights of live entertainment again.

  33. 33.

    Xenos

     

    Got back from the hospital a couple days ago after the better part of a week on O2 and steroids after the UK variant done caught up with me.  Could be months until I can get the vaccine here in the EU.  Watch out guys, this shit is not fooling around.  Counting my blessings that the rest of the family is OK, but damn.

  34. 34.

    Scout211

    @Xenos:

    Got back from the hospital a couple days ago after the better part of a week on O2 and steroids after the UK variant done caught up with me.

    Oh no.  That sounds just awful.

    I’m so glad you are back home and feeling better.  Here’s hoping that you bounce back very quickly.

  36. 36.

    J R in WV

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Vaccinated. Side effects: None.

    I gained the super-power of supreme napping at any time.

    Just woke up? Take a nap! Wake up in time for lunch…

    No little prehensile tail, though. Must have been a hallucination?

  37. 37.

    J R in WV

    @leeleeFL: ​

    The only thing saving me there is that the younger ones SUCK! Lazy, slip-sliding little munchkins, they are! It’s remarkable!

    Had an acquaintance, young woman named Honor running a BBQ counter, great food, swell person. But she had huge problems hiring help. Once, my second visit one week I noticed her help was gone again, and mentioned it.

    She spoke with such scorn, being a really hard worker:

    “He phoned in yesterday morning to quit. He said ‘ I don’t like being told what to do!’ He’ll never have a real job!!”

    Boy needed to be drafted into the F’in Marines — they would teach him about being told what to do! What a useless momma’s boy his mom raised!

  38. 38.

    ColoradoGuy

    @The Moar You Know: Pre-vaccination, it’s life in Hell, and post-vaccination, it’s life in Purgatory, waiting for the rest of the population to get vaccinated. Although the sense of personal terror has receded, we are nowhere close to “normal”. I’m not getting on an airplane, making travel plans, eating indoors in a restaurant, or going to a concert until levels go down a lot more.

  39. 39.

    ballerat

    @lowtechcyclist: There was a reply in that thread by a self-described christian conservative republican named Joshua about why so many republicans are anti-vax. I found it illustrative but not unsurprising.

    He says how he had come to understand “objective truth” has some merit to understand that vaccinations have merit. That is, what the experts have been saying about the pandemic and the virus were in fact the truth.

    Well not exactly. Just one kind of truth. Objective truth, as he calls it.

    And of course he both sides all the mean indignities and persecution he and his fundie repubs have had to endure from the elitist experts and says the elites need to be nice to fundie cultist bigot fools like him and not use big intimidating fancy-pants words or else he and his fellow republican morons won’t listen. That’ll show ‘em. Oh, and everyone has to make efforts to understand them, because apparently there’s some nuance as to why white religious bigots loved Trump’s toxic white supremacist bigotry that the world hasn’t yet figured out. Sheesh, it’s  all about their feelings with these people.

    “Objective truth” is the tell.

    In the evangelical/fundie world (aka republican base) there’s various flavors of truth, of which the most important is truth, aka jesus truth or what the rest of the world calls belief, and there’s what Joshua calls “objective truth”, aka empirical evidence and science-based fact, which is what the rest of the world rationally calls truth.

    They really really really are having a hard time with the modern world. And the modern world has paid a terrible price. Hundreds of thousands have died in this country so the fundie republican base can have their safe space.

    These people. It’s always about their goddamn feelings. Every time.

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