Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

Trump should be leading, not lying.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Not all heroes wear capes.

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

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

You cannot love your country only when you win.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

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

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Saturday / Sunday, July 17-18

COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Saturday / Sunday, July 17-18

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Norman Vincent Steale’s ‘Power of Positive Lying’…

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Reader Interactions

66Comments

  1. 1.

    Tony Jay

    You’ll like this one.

    Yesterday Sajid Javid, the UK Health Secretary and Deutche Bank’s point-man in destroying and selling off the NHS to the Sontaran Empire tested positive for Covid-19. He immediately went online and gave millions of people incorrect information about how to get tested, which is just about what you’d expect from a pillock who knows nothing about his brief other than what he wants out of it.

    Today, the ambulatory horse-condom with a mouth drawn on it we’re supposed to call our Prime Minister and the dusky cash-stuffed marionette controlling the sluice-pipes of the national Treasury (Flobalob Johnson and Rishi Sunak – Happy to help, Ed) both got pinged by the Test and Trace App for having come in contact with their plague-rat chum. Everyone else in the country is under instructions to immediately isolate when they get a ping, otherwise it’s chaos, but never fear, things are different for the People Who Matter. It turns out that Downing St is part of another ‘pilot scheme’ that no one had previously heard of that frees them from responsibility to isolate and allows them to carry on shafting the country.

    Amazing how these top-secret ‘pilot schemes’ just seem to appear out of nowhere when one of Johnson’s cabal need to ignore the rules that apply to everyone else. Isn’t it?

    Pricks.

  3. 3.

    charon

    This is a very informative thread, about 25 tweets long:

     

    https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1414358182982557697

     

    Key points:

     

    • Delta is not merely more infections, delta infections are much more likely severe (hospitalization, ICU etc.).
    • Asymptomatic infections of vaccinated people are common.
    • Asymptomatic vaccinated people are infectious, can infect other people

     

    (Need to click “show this thread” a few tweets down).

  4. 4.

    Cermet

    Soon, even for Blue States the Delta variant will be showing up like an unstoppable wave since the stupid are in all States; just that more stupid are in Rump land does not mean the rest of us are free and clear. I guess we will all get the Delta sooner or later – just that vaccinated will not even know since their system will put it down before the virus can get a foothold. That is, except tragically, those few with compromised immune systems. If we had herd immunity the virus would disappear entirely. So all the deaths we are and will seen for many months are solely due to Rump, his ass l***ing followers and Fake (aka Fox) news. Rump has already killed over 400K amerikans but then, what are another 100K + to him or the fake news? Just profit!  Amerikan capitalism at its finest.

  5. 5.

    WereBear

    @Tony Jay: Everyone else in the country is under instructions to immediately isolate when they get a ping, otherwise it’s chaos, but never fear, things are different for the People Who Matter.

     

    They are so used to the rules not applying to them they really think it extends into basic biology.

  7. 7.

    Tony Jay

    @WereBear:

    They. Just. Don’t. Care.

    Flobalob with hide out until he can flee the country for some Donor’s exclusive Caribbean island and enjoy the lifestyle he’s always thought he deserved for a few weeks, leaving the UK to stumble through the chaos he’s unleashed without him being on the scene to ignore questions about it.

    And the British Media will applaud his savvy and pretend all of this is just business as usual.

  8. 8.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    @Tony Jay: Upvoted for the use of “Sontaran Empire.” Not even illness or infection or rules can be allowed to halt the enrichening.

  9. 9.

    greenergood

    @Tony Jay:  Holy handbrake turn, Tony Jay! Now the Bojo and Sunak ARE isolating – less than three hours from the proclamation of their SEEKRIT pilot scheme!

  10. 10.

    germy

    Last year Tony Fauci and I famously, prematurely, & wrongly advised against masks. I felt it was the best call at the time, but now regret it.

    I’m worried the CDC also made a similarly premature, misinterpreted, yet still harmful call on masking in the face of ⬆️ delta variant.

    — Jerome Adams (@JeromeAdamsMD) July 17, 2021

  12. 12.

    Tony Jay

    @greenergood:

    But… but… but… won’t that impinge on the validity of the pilot scheme they were such important parts of?

    Maybe the BBC should send a reporter to doorstep the people in charge of it. Surely they have names and contact details, don’t they?

    Oh, no, hang on, that would require basic journalistic skills and the intent to inform, wouldn’t it? I think that’s covered under the term of the postwar Treaty of Nagganapen.

  14. 14.

    Amir Khalid

    I see what’s happening in England and France, I read about the anti-lockdown protests in Australia; and this may sound racist, but what is wrong with you wypipo?

  17. 17.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysia’s Director-General of Health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah reports 10,710 new Covid-19 cases today in his media statement, for a cumulative reported total of 916,561 cases. He also reports 153 new deaths today, for a cumulative total of 7,019 deaths — 0.77% of the cumulative reported total, 0.89% of resolved cases.

    There are currently 124,573 active and contagious cases; 909 are in ICU, 445 of them intubated. Meanwhile, 5,778 more patients have recovered, for a cumulative total of 784,949 patients recovered – 85.64% of the cumulative reported total.

    17 new clusters were reported today, for a cumulative total of 3,250 clusters. 905 clusters are currently active; 2,345 clusters are now inactive.

    10,698 new cases today are local infections. Selangor reports 4,826 local cases. Kuala Lumpur reports 936 local cases. Johor reports 807 local cases.

    Negeri Sembilan reports 771 cases.

    Kedah reports 696 cases. Sabah reports 666 cases.

    Perak reports 407 cases.

    Pahang reports 369 cases.

    Penang reports 295 cases. Melaka reports 289 cases. Sarawak reports 261 cases.

    Kelantan reports 146 cases. Terengganu reports 123 cases.

    Putrajaya reports 51 cases. Labuan reports 50 cases. Perlis reports five cases.

    12 new cases today are imported: nine in Kuala Lumpur, two in Selangor, and one in Johor.

    The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) administered 380,440 doses of vaccine on 17h July: 253,830 first doses and 126,610 second doses. As of yesterday, the cumulative total is 14,002,324 doses administered: 9,570,974 first doses and 4,431,350 second doses.

  18. 18.

    germy

    They should have named the variants after the Fox News personalities promoting their growth. The Tucker variant. The Ingraham Angle.

    — Schooley (@Rschooley) July 17, 2021

  19. 19.

    Tony Jay

    @Cheryl from Maryland:

    You have to really not care about anyone sneaking up behind you, which is why they’re such a bad fit for politics.

     

    @Amir Khalid:

    The cynical misapplication of science-fiction and conspiracy fiction memes (or do I mean tropes?) to real world situations that tens of millions of people are neither intellectually or ethically inclined to handle sensibly.

    Probably.

  22. 22.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Amir Khalid:

    I understand the anti-lockdown protests in Australia. Zero COVID was a stupid strategy, destined for failure in the absence of massive government support of business and income, recognition of the psychological damage of lockdowns, a concerted effort to reunite families stranded abroad and a comprehensive effort to acquire, encourage and deliver vaccines.

    None of that happened, and there’s a massive Murdoch-birthed anti-vax campaign aided by moronic zero COVID fanatics like the psychotic Zoe Hyde (who seems to get inordinate press and the government’s ear).

    I was previously seeing a lot of what I considered performative statements of concern for the well being of the aged and the physically vulnerable, along with reckless “businesses and economic lives can be rebuilt, but death is permanent” bullshit. Now, the “rah, rah, save the vulnerable” voices are starting to get pushback from people who are looking at the collapse of careers and businesses and economic lives that they’ve spent decades building (as well as the miserable future which awaits) all so that Gam Gam or Gramps or Uncle Ed can sit in chairs while spooning down tapioca in a retirement home at 88, secure in their dementia and safe from COVID.

    The empathy card can only be played so long when people’s entire lives face wreckage over it.

  23. 23.

    Amir Khalid

    @germy:
    The Government here is talking about granting privileges to the fully vaccinated. It’s working out what privileges to grant at the National Security Council level.

    I think this is a bad idea: a vaccinated person can still get infected and can still infect others, evev if they less likely to get sick or have any symptoms at all. The last thing you want in a pandemic is asymptomatic carriers.

  24. 24.

    germy

    @Amir Khalid:

    I wonder if they fear that not granting privileges will discourage people from getting vaccinated.

    It shouldn’t be this way, but too many people have revealed their profound ignorance during this pandemic.  People are looking for any excuse not to get the vaccine, at least in the United States.

  25. 25.

    Anne Laurie

    @charon: Dr. Feigl-Ding is… let’s say, a bit of an alarmist, even by my (& Laurie Garrett’s) quite pessimistic standards.

    He has a strong tendency to assume the worst possible outcomes from the most disturbing trends & facts.

    So… pay attention to him, if you like, but don’t let him scare you, without seeing what other, similarly informed individuals say about the same data / trends.

  27. 27.

    germy

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:  Now, the “rah, rah, save the vulnerable” voices are starting to get pushback from people who are looking at the collapse of careers and businesses and economic lives that they’ve spent decades building (as well as the miserable future which awaits) all so that Gam Gam or Gramps or Uncle Ed can sit in chairs while spooning down tapioca in a retirement home at 88, secure in their dementia and safe from COVID.

    The vulnerable include people of all ages with compromised immune systems.

  28. 28.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @germy:

    Some would argue that rather than sacrifice everyone else’s lives and well-being, that the vulnerable should now isolate. This would be for the benefit of the many while those who are not vulnerable live their lives and either get vaccinated or die stupidly.

  29. 29.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Anne Laurie:

    Feigl-Ding, Zero COVID Zoe and Deepta Gurdasani would lock everyone down for years with their scare tactics.

  30. 30.

    Cermet

    @Amir Khalid:  Your excellent command of english language and your reading reading here should fully illustrate exactly what’s wrong with the white trash that vote and support the Rump. Ditto for england but their rump is Johnson … which in local americkan usage can also mean a ‘dick’ or penis.

  31. 31.

    Cermet

    @Amir Khalid: I do not think the science has shown that vaccinated people can, in a non-intimate or in a casual environment, infect anyone else – and this had better damn well be true or else we are royally f’ed for this virus will continue for the foreseeable future.

  33. 33.

    Soapdish

    How the hell is it that not every single athlete involved with the Tokyo Olympics wasn’t vaccinated? It should have been required and supplied by the IOC.

  34. 34.

    Suzanne

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    The empathy card can only be played so long when people’s entire lives face wreckage over it.

     
    Yes. I said, last year, when all of this shit was just starting to come down, that significant quantities of people simply would not comply, because it is simply asking too much for lots of people to lose every resource, housing, etc.

    The under-12 kids are the big concern, though. They are vulnerable and they are supposed to go back to school. They cannot isolate. I don’t know what we do about that.

  36. 36.

    Robert Sneddon

    Scotland — 1,735 new cases of COVID-19 reported, zero new deaths. Test positivity rate is 9.8%. 46 people were in intensive care yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19, that’s down three from yesterday. Remember though that weekend numbers reported are subject to offices being closed etc. Monday’s reported numbers will similarly be under-reported and I usually wait until Tuesday’s reports before the anxiety attacks cut in.

    There were a little over 17,000 vaccinations carried out in Scotland yesterday, down a bit over the usual weekday totals. The spread remains one-third first dose and two-thirds second dose. 89% of Scottish adults have now received a first vaccination, 66.4% are fully vaccinated.

    It looks likely that an announcement on a vaccination program for under-18-year-olds in the UK will be made soon. The JCVI has been looking at data from vaccination trials in this age group that have been going on for a few months. The press is reporting the first stage would be to offer vaccinations to medically vulnerable 12-to-15 year olds as well as 17-year-olds who are within a few months of reaching 18. Vulnerable 16 and 17 year olds have been offered vaccines since the start of the vaccination program. Open enrollment for vaccination for 12-year-olds and up is still on hold, it seems.

  37. 37.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Suzanne:

    Yeah, I remember – you were clear and accurate in your predictions as to this coming to pass.
    I think the answer on the kids is to vaccinate.

  38. 38.

    JMS

    @Soapdish:  Right? And for those coming from nations where vaccines are hard to come by, procure the supplies for them and make sure everyone gets the shots well before hand. Sure it’s preferential treatment but it’s not like the Olympics is about unexceptional people in the first place. You can argue the Olympics shouldn’t happen now (or ever) but if they are happening anyway, don’t be half assed.

  39. 39.

    New Deal democrat

    I did a quick back of the envelope projection of how long it would take Delta to burn through the entire unvaccinated population of the US (roughly 160 million), given the current level of 30,000/day, and the UK and US rates doubling about every 2 weeks.

    The answer: 17 weeks, or 4 months.

    This assumes no ameliorative measures by GOPer States, and no compliance by covidiots (which are pretty decent assumptions).

    For the vaccinated, by Thanksgiving it would be over. I’m ok with that.

  40. 40.

    Sloane Ranger

    @Tony Jay:

     

    Amazing how these top-secret ‘pilot schemes’ just seem to appear out of nowhere when one of Johnson’s cabal need to ignore the rules that apply to everyone else. Isn’t it?

    Kudos to everyone for Doctor Who references!

    Also, there does seem to actually be a pilot programme, but one that is in such an early stage that no-one has been accepted into it yet. Apparently, BoJo et al were saying that Transport for London was part of it and their head honcho has come out and said that they’d applied but were still waiting to hear.

    Anyway, to Saturday’s figures from the UK, where we had 54,674 new cases. This is an increase of 40.6% in the rolling 7-day average. Please take all information provided with the usual weekend pinch of salt. New cases by nation,

    England – 50,955 (up 3595)
    Northern Ireland – 1402 (up 22)
    Scotland – 2317 (up 270)
    Wales – Does not report on Saturday’s).

    Deaths – There were 41 deaths within 28 days of a positive test yesterday. This is an increase of 47.9% in the rolling 7-day average. 35 were in England, 2 in Northern Ireland and 4 were in Scotland.

    Testing – Not updated at weekends.

    Hospitalisations – Not updated at weekends.

    Vaccinations – As of 16 July, 46,227,101 people had received the 1st shot of a vaccine and 35,732,297 had had both. This means that 87.8% of all adults in the UK have had 1 shot and 67.8% were fully vaccinated.

    General – There is speculation that the English medical authorities may be close to authorising the vaccination of the under 18’s. Hopefully, this is true.

  41. 41.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Cermet: Vaccinated people who get infected are carriers of the disease, their body cells are creating new copies of the virus. Their immune system is primed to deal with the original invaders and the copies being made but in a few cases some of those virus copies will dodge the activated immune system, make it out of the host and spread into the surrounding air and perhaps infect another person. It will be rare but given a million cases it will happen a few times. It’s statistics.

    This will happen to a much greater extent if most of a population is unvaccinated. At that point the health authorities are relying on a lot of the infected people surviving their first infection and developing an immune response to the disease ‘naturally’ so the next time someone coughs near them they won’t suffer a bad second infection. Lot of pain and sickness and death, hospitals overloaded, social disruption etc. that way compared to vaccination but if there isn’t a good supply of vaccine, a distribution system in place to get needles into peoples arms promptly and a willingness for people to roll up their sleeves to get vaccinated then that’s what’s going to happen. Bummer, isn’t it?

  42. 42.

    Delk

    Gold medal in stupidity.

    “Going to the games not only unvaccinated, but as an American, I’m representing my country in multiple ways and the freedoms we have to make a decision like that.” – US swimmer Michael Andrew, today on Fox Business.

  43. 43.

    Starfish

    I love a good Dr. Manning story. A thread.

    1/This week at GradyYou: “They stay talking’ ‘bout how everybody could get that shot if they want it. All they got to do is walk in.” *making air quotes* “But that’s some bullshit.”Me: *listening*You: “That AIN’T all you got to do.”You folded your arms in a huff. pic.twitter.com/fPijg19nPJ— Kimberly D. Manning, MD (@gradydoctor) July 17, 2021

  44. 44.

    YY_Sima Qian

    On 7/17 China reported 1 new domestic confirmed & 0 new domestic asymptomatic cases.

    Yunnan Province reported 1 new domestic confirmed case (mild, a Burmese national), 1 at Longchuan County, Dehong Prefecture. The case was found via mass screening. There currently are 69 domestic confirmed & 1 domestic asymptomatic cases. Longchuan County has been placed under lock down. 1 community at Ruili remains at High Risk.

    Nanjing in Jiangsu Province did not report any new domestic positive cases, there is 1 domestic confirmed case there.

    Imported Cases

    On 7/17, China reported 32 new imported confirmed cases, 27 imported asymptomatic cases:

    • Yunnan Province (locations not specified) – 11 confirmed cases, all Chinese nationals returning from Myanmar via land border crossing
    • Kunming in Yunnan Province – 4 asymptomatic cases, 2 Chinese nationals each returning from Sri Lanka & Laos
    • Beijing Municipality – 4 confirmed cases, 3 Chinese nationals returning from the UAE & 1 from the UK (via Copenhagen); 4 asymptomatic cases, no information released
    • Guangzhou in Guangdong Province – 2 confirmed cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Bangladesh & the Sudan (via Cairo); 4 asymptomatic cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Cambodia, Myanmar, Egypt & Oman
    • Foshan in Guangdong Province – 2 confirmed cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Iraq & Guyana (via Paris CdG); 5 asymptomatic cases, 2 Chinese nationals each returning from France & Iraq, & 1 from Guyana (via Paris CdG), off flights that landed at Guangzhou
    • Zhaoqing in Guangdong Province – 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from Indonesia, off a flight that landed at Guangzhou
    • Xiamen in Fujian Province – 4 confirmed cases, a Mainland Chinese & a Taiwanese residents returning from Taiwan & 1 Chinese national each returning from the Philippines & the US; 1 asymptomatic case, a Mainland Chinese resident returning from Taiwan
    • Chengdu in Sichuan Province – 3 confirmed cases (previously asymptomatic), all Chinese nationals returning from Myanmar
    • Xi’an in Shaanxi Province – 2 confirmed cases, 
    • Shanghai Municipality – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from Ethiopia
    • Hohhot in Inner Mongolia “Autonomous” Region – 1 confirmed case, off a flight diverted from Beijing
    • Nanjing in Jiangsu Province – 1 confirmed case, coming from Russia; 2 asymptomatic cases, no information released
    • Wuhan in Hubei Province – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from Indonesia; 3 asymptomatic cases, all Chinese nationals returning from Afghanistan
    • Jinan in Shandong Province – 1 asymptomatic case, no information released

    Overall in China, 28 confirmed cases recovered, 18 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation & 4 were reclassified as confirmed cases, and 249 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 549 active confirmed cases in the country (479 imported), 12 in serious condition (9 imported), 449 asymptomatic cases (444 imported), 0 suspect cases. 7,405 traced contacts are currently under centralized quarantine.

    As of 7/17, 1,447.427M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 10.004M doses in the past 24 hrs.

    On 7/18, Hong Kong reported 2 new positive cases, both imported.

  45. 45.

    Brachiator

    @Tony Jay:

    Wow, just waking up and seeing the crazy news.

    Yesterday Sajid Javid, the UK Health Secretary and Deutche Bank’s point-man in destroying and selling off the NHS to the Sontaran Empire tested positive for Covid-19.

    Sontaran Empire. Heh. Rarely has a description been so spot on. Meanwhile, I guess the special “we don’t need no self-isolation” pilot program was not quite oven ready.

    Downing Street said Boris Johnson will conduct meetings remotely at Chequers.

    Is this the voice of the future Conservative prime minister?

    Chancellor Rishi Sunak said on Twitter: “Whilst the test and trace pilot is fairly restrictive, allowing only essential government business, I recognise that even the sense that the rules aren’t the same for everyone is wrong.”

    Matt Hancock must be somewhere laughing his ass off. His arse, too.

  46. 46.

    Suzanne

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: To be scrupulously fair, I don’t think it’s entirely bullshit. There is a huge differential in what we asked people to do. Before anyone jumps down my throat, I am fully aware that COVID has killed people in every age range. But, on balance, we asked younger people, who are generally less resourced, to give up more (working from home or not going into work, more expensive child care, or essential workers taking more risk, a hit to wages)…. in order to protect older people. I think that is reasonable, but the policy response was not. With Biden bucks going out to parents of young kids, we’re starting to get that back in line. But really, if we wanted to make this successful, I think we needed to incentivize younger people more directly (and lavishly). I think we should now do the same with vaccination.

    Vaccination for the littles is definitely the right move. But it isn’t here yet. And I am sympathetic to the argument that our doses should go to the developing world before kids…. but I also don’t think I agree with it. I think that this burden of shutdowns has fallen harder on young kids in terms of school and healthcare, and we quite frankly owe it to them to keep them safe.

  48. 48.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    @Suzanne: I agree with you.  Pfizer and Moderna are now in the 3rd clinical trial for ages 5-12 and already have an emergency application in the FDA pipeline, while the FDA is working hard to get full, not emergency approval for Pfizer in about 2 months.  That being said, vaccines have a shelf life, so better the US share doses which will expire before that time.  Both can be done.

  49. 49.

    J R in WV

    @Cermet:

    @Amir Khalid: I do not think the science has shown that vaccinated people can, in a non-intimate or in a casual environment, infect anyone else – and this had better damn well be true or else we are royally f’ed for this virus will continue for the foreseeable future.

    Cermet:

    Your opinion is clearly wrong regarding the ability of vaccinated people who are asymptomatic to transmit the virus to others… According to everything I’ve learned reading about the current state of research. I suspect you may be correct regarding our royally fucked status, though.

    Our family doctor has (as of last Tuesday) already had four of his patients die of the Delta variant of Sars2-Covid-19… will be like wildfire o the drought-stricken west coast!

  50. 50.

    Tony Jay

    @Sloane Ranger:

    Apparently, BoJo et al were saying that Transport for London was part of it and their head honcho has come out and said that they’d applied but were still waiting to hear.

    I’m so old that I remember when that was called lying and could have an adverse effect on one’s reputation and employment security. Ah, what an innocent time that was, all those long (checks calendar) 19 months ago.

     

    @Brachiator:

      Is this the voice of the future Conservative prime minister?

    Sunak’s unsurmountable problem is that same one Javid faced during his leadership campaign back in ’19. His melanin quotient is way, way over the line acceptable to Conservative  Party members. As an official employed to carry out complicated tasks (like making sure the National Treasury and tax rates are used to benefit the ‘right people’) he’s more than acceptable, but they’ll never, ever vote for him to be their Leader. They said this loudly and openly in a poll of Party members a few years ago, but back then the British Media only had time for Lefty Labour Hatez Teh Joos hatchet-jobs, so down the memory hole it went with the rest of the non-approved narratives.

    There is one possible exception to this rule, and it’s the one the odious Priti Patel is seeking to leverage as Home Secretary. As with the example of Thatcher in the ’70s, it’s not outside the bounds of possibility that Conservative members could elevate a female brown to head their Party if she proved herself inhumanly cruel enough to tickle their kinky button. Having a woman up there as figurehead doesn’t challenge their worldview nearly as much as having a bloody (male) ethnic would, and if she’s proven herself ready, willing and able to unleash hell on ‘those people’ to entertain the Tory masses, they might give her a go.

  51. 51.

    Suzanne

    @Cheryl from Maryland: I tried — for the third time — to enroll my kids in a clinical trial. Closest facility for Pfizer is 250 miles away, No worries. I’ll do it.

    For me, it’s a social cohesion thing. Basically, we asked people with less clinical risk but more financial/lifestyle risk to give up a lot. I am not surprised to see that plenty of people were not willing to make those sacrifices, because they didn’t think they would get compensated for their sacrifices. To note, that’s not to say that I think those people are in the right, far from it. I think that a good part of the vaccine refusal we’re seeing is a significant strain of FUCK YOU to this dynamic. I have SuzMom living with me, and my in-laws are both in Arkansas (a hotspot) and are not in great health, so I was going to abide by any public health guidelines. But I understand why many of my age cohort feel a sense of betrayal. I definitely think there is an element of “Boomers voted for Trump and left us a smoking crater of an economy and we’re broke as fuck, and now we have to significantly disrupt our lives…. and what thanks do we get?”. This is not conducive to any sort of stable society.

  52. 52.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @charon: No mystery at all: Fox News watchers.

    Yes, poor people with high school level educations are more likely to watch TV for entertainment than go web surfing.

  53. 53.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Tony Jay: That is baffling, Johnson getting COVID and getting messed up didn’t get the point across to those pinheads and they didn’t make vaccination mandatory?

  56. 56.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Tony Jay: The cynical misapplication of science-fiction and conspiracy fiction memes (or do I mean tropes?) to real world situations that tens of millions of people are neither intellectually or ethically inclined to handle sensibly

    That’s probably the best take on this insanity I’ve seen so far.

  57. 57.

    Fair Economist

    @Cermet: Singapore put out a B.1.617.2 infection tree about a month ago that had several transmissions from vaccinated people. It’s certainly possible.

    As to being rid of it, we’re not going to be. COVID is a highly infectious disease which is frequently transmitted while pre-symptomatic and which you can catch over and over again. It would take heavy, New Zealand/China level measures in absolutely every last place on earth to truly eliminate it. That’s not going to happen. We haven’t even been able to vax out polio, which would be vastly easier.

  58. 58.

    Tony Jay

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

      That is baffling, Johnson getting COVID and getting messed up didn’t get the point across to those pinheads and they didn’t make vaccination mandatory?

    They haven’t made vaccination mandatory across the nation (because ‘Freedumb!’ and ‘Trust the common-sense of the Conservative voting public”) but you can bet your sweet summer slingbacks that every single person in that Government got double-jabbed vaccinated ASAP after Rupert Murdoch got his.

    But they’re still having outbreaks, because they’re entitled idiots who don’t think rules do, could or ever should apply to them.

      That’s probably the best take on this insanity I’ve seen so far.

    It’s what I’d do, if I were evil and wanted to achieve the same aims they’re going for.

  59. 59.

    Brachiator

    @Tony Jay:

    I agree that Priti Patel knows how to do cruelty the way that Tories like and so might have great appeal. Still I find it interesting that Sunak gets to go on record disavowing Conservative stupidity.

  60. 60.

    brantl

    @germy: Christ what a moron. How, in any sense, can the abundance of caution that wearing a mask, is, HURT? What a freaking tool.

  61. 61.

    Bill Arnold

    Just for clarity, Sajid Javid (UK Health Secretary) has said publically[1] that he ritualistically reads the courtroom scene in The Fountainhead twice yearly. This is a long tedious speech in praise of the many virtues of selfishness.[2]
    And yes, that ties into similar arguments in the US about the freedom to kill random people for personal gain in an attempt to preserve one’s lifestyle.

    Here’s the text from a movie version:
    “Men have been taught that the ego is the synonym of evil, and selflessness the ideal of virtue. But the creator is the egotist in the absolute sense, and the selfless man is the one who does not think, feel, judge or act.[2]

    [1] Javid’s home truths (Fraser Nelson, 11 February 2017)
    [2] This is incorrect. Selfishness and ego are literally weakness, even on a personal level. Single-threaded minds are the degenerate case; they constantly get stuck in local minima.

  62. 62.

    brantl

    @germy:  The Tucker variant. The Ingraham Angle.

    The Tucker variant sounds like an extremely strong variant of Asburgers’ and the The Ingraham Angle sounds like a description of a Neanderthal forehead.

  63. 63.

    JaneE

    The drop off in vaccinations is horrible.  We were vaxxed at Kaiser, in Feb when my husband (86) got his first dose it was chaos, second a month later was an efficient assembly line, my second was a month after that and it was walk right up and get your shot, nurses were waiting not the other way around.  About a month after that we went to another appointment that was where they set up the vaccine waiting area.  We were there for an hour and maybe 3 or 4 total people were there in an area set up for about 30 or 40.

    Now I am starting to see more and more people wearing masks in public, as I started doing that again too.  Dollars to donuts the people wearing masks are the vaccinated, not the other way around.

  64. 64.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Suzanne:

    The under-12 kids are the big concern, though. They are vulnerable and they are supposed to go back to school. They cannot isolate. I don’t know what we do about that.

    And that’s coming up fast in lots of places.  Most schools in the southern tier of states from Arizona over to Florida through South Carolina tend to open up during the first or second week of August.

  65. 65.

    charon

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/17/us/arkansas-covid-19-vaccine.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage

    Dr. Williams, who has been charting the coronavirus’s trajectory, said the rise in infections and hospitalizations mirrored what he saw in October. And there are other troubling signs.

    A larger share of those who are now becoming infected, he said, need hospitalization. And once there, Dr. Steppe Mette, the chief executive of the Little Rock hospital, said, they appeared to need a higher level of care than those who were sickened by the original variant. That is despite the fact that they are younger.
    The average age of a coronavirus patient in Arkansas has dropped by nearly a decade since December — from 63 to 54 — a reflection of the fact that three-fourths of older Arkansans are at least partly vaccinated. But some patients at the Little Rock hospital are in their 20s or 30s.

    “It’s really discouraging to see younger, sicker patients,” Dr. Mette said. “We didn’t see this degree of illness earlier in the epidemic.”

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