Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

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

People are complicated. Love is not.

No one could have predicted…

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

After roe, women are no longer free.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Not all heroes wear capes.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

The willow is too close to the house.

White supremacy is terrorism.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / Press Briefing: Jen Psaki and Dr. Fauci

Press Briefing: Jen Psaki and Dr. Fauci

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Two BJ favorites – Jen Psaki and Dr. Fauci!

There has been lots of discussion abut J&J this morning, so I thought we might like to hear some info straight from the horse’s mouth.   I saw that TaMara said she was going to be tuning out for a bit after the news from yesterday and today, so I am thinking she won’t be putting this up.

Reader Interactions

91Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    so I thought we might like to hear some info straight from the horse’s mouth

    Will it lessen the outrage? If so, then no thanks.

  5. 5.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: Thanks for clarifying. I couldn’t quite tell whether you were talking about yourself, which made no sense, or if you were channelling the outrage people.

  7. 7.

    WaterGirl

    Looks like this is starting any minute.  We have sound!  But not the patented “good morning, everybody!”

    edit: and there it is!

  8. 8.

    guachi

    I’m disappointed about the news of the J&J vaccine. The 7-day average of vaccinations keeps creeping up and we are just about 3 million per day.

  12. 12.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Baud:

    Yes. Every hiccup is disappointing, especially when you can taste the finish line. 

    You’re supposed to run through the ribbon, not lick it.

  13. 13.

    Baud

    Jen Psaki and Dr. Fauci

    That should be the title of a novel set in late 19th Century Europe.

  17. 17.

    Suzanne

    @Baud: I got really excited about being close to the end…. and now I’m not. PA’s new cases are not declining. This feels like the status quo we will have to live with.

  22. 22.

    guachi

    @Cheryl Rofer: 

    That’s about 150,000 per day and since only one shot is needed that’s about 10% of complete vaccinations.

    Not awful, but still a setback

  26. 26.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @guachi: Don’t make too much of my conveying a vague number. Zients says that we have so much surplus it’s not going to make a significant difference.

    Many places are shifting from J&J to Moderna or Pfizer quite smoothly.

  28. 28.

    Elizabelle

    I really like that someone (Zients??) mentioned the US had purchased so many doses because they view this as a “war effort” — maybe not his actual words.  But it is an excellent analogy.

    Also liked his stressing his team listens to science; responding that decisions are not being made top down there (response to, basically, “were you out of the loop/caught flatfooted by this news?”).

    People respect others’ areas of competence here.

  30. 30.

    WhatsMyNym

    There’s an interesting article on the Boston.com website (from STAT), Why would a COVID vaccine cause rare blood clots? Researchers have found clues.
    ETA: It all comes down to

    “No one even thinks about this,” Juurlink said. “They want their pain gone, they take something they can get without having to interact with a doctor or let alone a health professional. And people sometimes die over this.”
    Those drugs may also increase the risk of heart attack and stroke somewhat. Juurlink says his mother takes one of these drugs, known as an NSAID, for rheumatoid arthritis. He said if she were to have a heart attack, he will “always wonder” if the drug played a role. “But she accepts that risk and so do I.”​

  31. 31.

    WaterGirl

    @Elizabelle: “We bring nothing to the table.”

    In response to the question of whether the white house should have known earlier or should have been part of the decision-making process.

  32. 32.

    Elizabelle

    I wince at all the mentions of “faith leaders.”

    Because isn’t it a lot of the fundagelicals who are driving the anti-vaccine ignorance?  Or maybe that has changed.

    There is a significant segment of our nation that needs to stop listening to their often obtuse faith leaders and malicious fake news rightwing media, broadcast and via social media pathways.

  34. 34.

    Roger Moore

    @Suzanne: ​
     

    I got really excited about being close to the end…. and now I’m not. PA’s new cases are not declining.

    We’re not as close to the finish line as people think. We need to get something like 80+% of the population vaccinated to get to herd immunity, and we’re not even halfway there. The current level of vaccination would really help to knock the virus down with the kind of masking and social distancing we had a few months ago, but people are responding it increased vaccination levels by relaxing public health measures. That’s going to drag things out. The more people try to go back to normal ASAP, the longer it will actually take to get back to normal.

  37. 37.

    germy

    Just in: Brooklyn Center Police Officer Kim Potter has resigned from her position, effective immediately. She's the officer who fatally shot Daunte Wright on Sunday.— Mara Gottfried (@MaraGottfried) April 13, 2021

  38. 38.

    trollhattan

    J&J quickly became 50% of our county’s vaccine supply and dropping it back to 0 is unhelpful because that was effectively 2/3 of the completed vaccination count.

    Hopefully they figure out the problem–if there is one–and turn the supply spigot back on. IMHO this could affect California’s statewide opening of vaccinations to all adults beginning midmonth.

  39. 39.

    trollhattan

    @Elizabelle:

    EU screwed up by bargaining the drug makers on price and thus, are paying less/dose than the States, UK, and others. A major reason they lag so badly on vaccinations.

  40. 40.

    Suzanne

    @Roger Moore: I’m just so, so bored and angsty at this point. Lord have mercy.

    I will admit that I took the Spawns to outdoor shopping (masked and distanced as much as possible) and to the National Aviary, which is a mix of indoors and outdoors. Again, masked and distanced as much as possible. But this is just getting more emotionally fatiguing. My kids haven’t been in school in over a year. They miss friends and activities and church and outings and novelties. I know these are small sacrifices, but Lordy, this is really getting rough. I miss all that stuff, too.

  41. 41.

    Mike in NC

    Two BJ favorites – Jen Psaki and Dr. Fauci!

    I’d almost forgotten how the Orange Clown would frequently include in his moronic tweets the asinine expression: “Your Favorite President — ME!”

  42. 42.

    Jim Appleton

    Way OT.

    So the former guy has … associates, advisors, those close to him, confidants … persuading him to a steer clear of Gaetz and other hazards.

    Good to know.

  43. 43.

    dmsilev

    @trollhattan: Huh? J&J has never been 50% of the supply. Maybe once they get the large-scale production issues sorted out, but that hasn’t happened yet. About 7 million doses of J&J have been administered so far according to the CDC, vs. about 180 million doses of Pfizer and Moderna combined (so about 90 million courses).

    Edit: And, in terms of what’s in the pipeline, the “delivered but not yet administered” is roughly 40 million doses of Pf+M, and roughly 10 million doses of J&J. So about 1/3 of the  pipeline is J&J. However, that fraction will decrease next week and the week after because of J&J’s production issues. So it’s a problem but it’s hardly the “the world is ending!” that so many people are screaming about on Twitter.

  44. 44.

    rp

    @germy: I had no idea she’d been a cop for 26 — TWENTY SIX — years. I assumed she’d only been on the force for a couple years. That makes her fuck up so much worse (which I didn’t think was possible).

  45. 45.

    Roger Moore

    @Suzanne:

    I know these are small sacrifices, but Lordy, this is really getting rough.

    They aren’t small sacrificies. We’ve turned our lives upside down to fight COVID, and that’s a big deal.  You shouldn’t feel like a bad person for being tired and stressed after a year+ of everything being abnormal.

  46. 46.

    Brachiator

    @Roger Moore:

    We’re not as close to the finish line as people think. We need to get something like 80+% of the population vaccinated to get to herd immunity, and we’re not even halfway there.

    I keep hearing lay people talk about herd immunity, but not health experts (and I have forgot or do not know your own background with respect to the pandemic). I even recall seeing a story yesterday where Fauci downplayed the issue of herd immunity.

    I also keep hearing officials say that the vaccine greatly reduces the possibility that a person will be hospitalized or will die from Covid. I do not hear officials say that the vaccine confers immunity from getting the virus.

    What about variants? And what do we do about the rest of the world? What restrictions, if any, do we put on international travel or the entry of visitors to the US?

    Some people keep assuming that vaccination means a “return to normalcy” with a little social distancing and occasional masks. The nutty hard core right wing idiot base insists on anything goes, open up everything, not even a suggestion of observing caution.

    I think we are making progress, but there will be bumps along the way. But I respect the caution of Fauci and his crew, even if there is not always a simple answer or advice without qualifications.

  49. 49.

    dmsilev

    @Mike in NC: Well, clearly, everyone agrees with him and equally clearly, his favorite President was himself. So really, it’s just logic.

  50. 50.

    Starfish

    @Baud: This is true. There was a lot of outrage yesterday. It was important stuff to be outraged about. I did not have the energy for the same conversations that have been had many times because I am dealing with a family crisis.

  51. 51.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @Amir Khalid:  TFG doesn’t even make my top-50 list of favorite Presidents, and the only thing keeping him off the bottom is that I’m including Jefferson Davis in the list along with all the Presidents under the pre- Constitution Articles of Confederation, and even so, it’s a damned tight race for the bottom.

    Semi-OT: my shot slot is in less than two hours.

  53. 53.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Brachiator:

    I also keep hearing officials say that the vaccine greatly reduces the possibility that a person will be hospitalized or will die from Covid. I do not hear officials say that the vaccine confers immunity from getting the virus.

    The CDC page mentions it a couple times (cmd+f for ‘immunity’), but I sorta get why public health officials don’t want to shout it from the rooftops. If they’re wrong and people act on it, that’s bad. But… if they don’t emphasize it, does that just mean that people will go back to normal without getting vaccinated, because why bother?

    I don’t envy them this decision, but I think I’d be doing it differently (I am not an expert obviously)

  55. 55.

    Starfish

    @Elizabelle: Yes, there is a lot of that, but there may be churches where their leaders are not saying anything about the vaccine. If you can get some church leaders to say, “Hey, I got the vaccine,” then that opens up more conversation with the churchgoers.

    Most anti-vaxxers are not hardcore. Most of them are vaccine hesitant so hearing about how getting vaccinated was not that hard and did not have many side effects will sway those people.

    I tend to be a person who tells all these people to go to hell because I go to “John Cole’s school of social etiquette.”

  56. 56.

    Roger Moore

    @Brachiator:

    I keep hearing lay people talk about herd immunity, but not health experts (and I have forgot or do not know your own background with respect to the pandemic). I even recall seeing a story yesterday where Fauci downplayed the issue of herd immunity.

    I also keep hearing officials say that the vaccine greatly reduces the possibility that a person will be hospitalized or will die from Covid. I do not hear officials say that the vaccine confers immunity from getting the virus.

    FWIW, I am not a medical professional, and I hope I haven’t made myself out to be one.  I work as a researcher in the biological sciences, and I work closely with a lot of immunologists, so I have picked up a fair bit about immunology.  But I am certainly not a serious expert in the stuff.

    The jury is still out on exactly how effective the vaccine is at preventing infections rather than just preventing serious disease.  The best evidence says the vaccines do block infection to some extent, but not as effectively as they prevent serious disease.  We don’t know to what extent reducing severity correlates to reducing infectiousness. I think that uncertainty has made medical professionals reluctant to talk about herd immunity.  It’s still a good goal to shoot for, but we may not know we’ve hit it until we’re already there.

  61. 61.

    sdhays

    @Brachiator: My understanding is that health experts talk less about herd immunity because we don’t have solid evidence yet of how much immunity is actually conferred by the vaccines, although I believe there’s some preliminary data out now that the Pfizer and maybe Moderna vaccines actually do provide robust defense against infection.

    So we just don’t know YET.

    But like you said, even once we have that info, there are still questions about variants and the vaccination level needs to be really high – maybe even upwards of 90% depending on various factors.

  62. 62.

    Immanentize

    @germy: Her resigning really increases the chance that she really did fuck up.  Can you imagine?  26 years, no problems, then you shoot a kid when you thought you had a taser, but it was a gun?  This is actually how catastrophic errors happen.  When you leave off thinking twice about everything.

    I am not excusing her actions at all.  It wasn’t an “accident,” it was a reckless killing (i.e. manslaughter) at best. Adrenaline?  Drugs? But if she really did make the reckless mistake claimed, shit — I would never be able to live with myself.

  63. 63.

    Brachiator

    @Roger Moore:

    The jury is still out on exactly how effective the vaccine is at preventing infections rather than just preventing serious disease. The best evidence says the vaccines do block infection to some extent, but not as effectively as they prevent serious disease. We don’t know to what extent reducing severity correlates to reducing infectiousness.

    I think you are right here. All great points.

    I think that uncertainty has made medical professionals reluctant to talk about herd immunity. It’s still a good goal to shoot for, but we may not know we’ve hit it until we’re already there.

    I guess what bothers me is that “herd immunity” gets immediately diluted or debased into some pop cultural idea that you just have to expose everyone to the virus, or that all the right people with “strong immune systems” will naturally overcome the virus and other quack beliefs. From the beginning right wing dopes with dubious credentials have been claiming that herd immunity just naturally occurs and that consequently the pandemic is no big deal.

    So, some people want to believe that vaccination leads to herd immunity and herd immunity means “all clear” and that we never have to worry about the Covid virus ever again.

  65. 65.

    WhatsMyNym

    For comparison (not using Covid-19 vaccines):

    The risk of developing a blood clot among women using drospirenone-containing oral contraceptives would be about 10 in 10,000

    The risk of developing a blood clot among women using other hormonal contraceptives is about 6 women in 10,000.

  66. 66.

    NotMax

    Fauci and Psaki.

    There’s a Frankie and Johnny parody awaiting midwifing.

    Absent the “lovers” parts, obviously.

    *****

    18-ish hours post-Moderna #1. Injected upper arm terrifically tender and sore upon awaking. No inflammation or discoloration, however. Rest of that arm (and hand) weak but no tenderness to speak of. Got in some decent sleep overnight; some temporary minor swelling of the tongue experienced prior to beddy-bye. After coffee has been brewed and ingested will be better able to ascertain mental alertness.

  67. 67.

    rikyrah

    @Suzanne:

     

    I know these are small sacrifices, but Lordy, this is really getting rough. I miss all that stuff, too.

    It’s not small sacrifices.

    I realized a few months ago, Peanut has basically seen the inside of two houses for over a year. If her father doesn’t stop to get gas, she hasn’t been anywhere else. The food is pickup, so no restaurants. No movies. No extra-curriculars. No parks.

    I go to work everyday, and sure, it’s the same route, but, it’s still getting out. These kids have had no life.

  68. 68.

    rikyrah

    @Jim Appleton:

     

    So the former guy has … associates, advisors, those close to him, confidants … persuading him to a steer clear of Gaetz and other hazards.

     

    I thought that was hilarious, and only indicates just how bad the situation is looking for Gaetz.

  69. 69.

    Roger Moore

    @Major Major Major Major:

    The most optimistic reports say the vaccines are almost as effective at preventing infection as they are at preventing symptoms.  There are less optimistic ones that suggest they’re only 60-70% effective.  There are also worries about whether variants may be able to evade immunity.  There’s enough uncertainty that the medical people want to focus on the top line number of people getting protected by vaccination.

    I also wonder if there’s some cynicism at work.  They may think people will respond better to being told to get vaccinated so they don’t die rather than to get vaccinated to help the community.  On top of that, there’s the worry that talking too much about herd immunity will encourage vaccine skeptics that they can skip it and count on herd immunity for protection.

  70. 70.

    rikyrah

    @Brachiator:

     

    I keep hearing lay people talk about herd immunity, but not health experts (and I have forgot or do not know your own background with respect to the pandemic).

     

    I hear you.

  73. 73.

    rikyrah

    @Brachiator:

     

    I also keep hearing officials say that the vaccine greatly reduces the possibility that a person will be hospitalized or will die from Covid. I do not hear officials say that the vaccine confers immunity from getting the virus.

     

    For me, the vaccine has always been about going from

    CERTAIN DEATH

     

    to

     

    BETTER THAN FIGHTING CHANCE

     

    If ever I got COVID.  For me, that’s everything.

  74. 74.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Immanentize: Watching the video closely, it is unclear what the heck she was doing AT ALL. One officer is in the middle of handcuffing the victim, there’s no real tussling, then out of nowhere,  Officer Dimwit reaches in a either grabs the victims’ elbow or stuck her hand into his jacket pocket, or something. It’s unclear what the heck she was doing, but more importantly, why in the hell is she fiddling around with the victim and getting in the way of the officer who is handcuffing the victim?

    I am not saying that the following is true, but looking that the video, it look just like she’s trying to plant something in the victim’s jacket pocket. There’s lots of other possibilities that are more innocuous. However, none that I can think of make it imperative for her to be screwing around, getting in the way of the actual handcuffing.

  75. 75.

    Roger Moore

    @rikyrah:

    For me, the vaccine has always been about going from

    CERTAIN DEATH

    to

    BETTER THAN FIGHTING CHANCE

    This seems a bit overdramatic to me.  Even without the vaccine, COVID is far from certain death.  It’s a scary chance at death and a substantial risk of serious long-term effects, and the vaccine appears to reduce that to something less scary than the flu.

  76. 76.

    rikyrah

    @Roger Moore:

     

    This seems a bit overdramatic to me.

     

    I am a walking Underlying Condition.

    In no world , pre-vaccine, if I caught COVID, I wouldn’t wind up in the hospital on a respirator.

  77. 77.

    unique uid

    @Roger Moore: FWIW, I directed a response toward you at the bottom of today’s COVID post.  (I don’t see any method on BJ to directly message you….)

    You might be intellectually interested in it, or maybe I’m wrong….

  78. 78.

    HRA

    At the first week in March when I got to the woman giving me my 1st Pfizer shot she asked me if I was taking blood thinners.  I was surprised even though I have never taken them. I am sorry I did not ask her about it. The Hall where I took both of the shots has the School of Medicine close by which made me wonder if the shot givers were from there and especially having a guy in scrubs for the 2nd shot.

  79. 79.

    Brachiator

    @HRA:

    At the first week in March when I got to the woman giving me my 1st Pfizer shot she asked me if I was taking blood thinners.

    They didn’t ask me these questions until I was getting my second Moderna shot.

  80. 80.

    Ruckus

    @rp:

    People in all lines of work can easily get complacent about what they do/know and how well they actually know it after they have been involved for going on 3 decades. It becomes routine, seems normal on a day to day basis. But jobs like police work can be and likely are day to day, one foot after the other, right up until the second the shit hits the fan.

  83. 83.

    Roger Moore

    @Roger Moore:

    Could you provide a link?

    Never mind.  I found it.

    On the topic of immunity to adenovirus-based vaccines, it’s definitely a known worry.  From Wikipedia:

    Possible issues with using Adenovirus as vaccine vectors include: the human body develops immunity to the vector itself, making subsequent booster shots difficult or impossible.[49] In some cases, people have pre-existing immunity to Adenoviruses, making vector delivery ineffective.[50]

    So yes, there are serious problems with giving people boosters of adenovirus-based vaccines.  They can mostly avoid problems with preexisting immunity by either using rare strains of virus or using ones from other species, e.g. chimpanzee adenovirus.  In previous trials with adenovirus-based vaccines (e.g. the one for Ebola), they’ve used a different vaccine as a booster, but you can imagine the need for a different booster shot complicates things.

  84. 84.

    bluefoot

    @WhatsMyNym: ​
      From the press conference earlier, part of the issue isn’t so much the frequency, but that the blood clots being seen with the vaccine can be made worse with normal treatment for blood clots. So part of the pause is to make sure information gets out to healthcare providers to be on the lookout for blood clots with vaccination, and to ask patients with blood clots if they have been recently vaccinated. That was people get appropriate treatment.

    And being lost in the headlines is that a pause to examine the safety signal (as we call it) is a normal part of pharmacovigilance. If anything, the pause should reassure people that post-vaccination events are being taken seriously and followed up carefully.

    (Along those lines, if you’ve been vaccinated, you can sign up for vsafe and be part of the pharmacovigilance data set for all the vaccines.)

    If someone offered me the J&J vaccine today, I would take it. The chances of a serious adverse event are orders of magnitude less than a bad outcome from getting COVID.

  85. 85.

    Frosty Fred

    Very late I realize, but can’t resist adding that TFG’s “your favorite president” always and irresistibly reminded me of the late great Molly Ivins’ references to W as “our only president.”

  86. 86.

    J R in WV

    I posted this comment on the now very long J&J pause thread, but thought it would also contribute here:

    Here’s some technical epidemiology for thrombosis in the general population:

    Venous thromboembolism (VTE) occurs for the first time in ≈100 persons per 100,000 each year in the United States, and rises exponentially from <5 cases per 100,000 persons <15 years old to ≈500 cases (0.5%) per 100,000 persons at age 80 years.

    So one case per 1,000,000 vaccinations appear to be lower by far than the natural incidence of blood clots in the regular population.

    Very interesting numbers, I wonder why the CDC/FDA ordered a pause when the incidence of clots in the vaccinated population is lower than the incidence in the population at large?

  90. 90.

    glc

    Incidentally I’m reminded by some comments here that a lot of people (like me) take a daily baby aspirin, and that’s probably something to avoid when being vaccinated, though the official advice is not to change your medications. Since for many of us this is not really a “medication” so much as a long term preventive measure for those of a certain age, it seems better to skip these around the time of the shot. I stopped the day before, then asked the nurse giving the shot, who had a definite opinion: she recommended that I wait another 24 hours before resuming the aspirin.

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