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You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / Hot Pandemic Summer: ‘The World Needs A Reality Check’

Hot Pandemic Summer: ‘The World Needs A Reality Check’

by Anne Laurie|  July 21, 20211:02 pm| 87 Comments

This post is in: COVID-19, Excellent Links

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NEW: It’s time for a whole bunch of reality checks on covid. End of pandemic still over the horizon @PostHealthSci https://t.co/sz7owhprLo

— Joel Achenbach (@JoelAchenbach) July 17, 2021

Maria Van Kerkhove, a World Health Organization epidemiologist, was in her Geneva office last weekend preparing for a keynote address when a simple phrase came to mind. She had been pondering the dismaying rise in coronavirus infections globally during the previous three weeks, a reversal of promising trends in late spring. The surge came as people across much of the Northern Hemisphere were moving around again in a suddenly freewheeling summer — as if the pandemic were over.

She wrote in her notebook: “The world needs a reality check.”

Van Kerkhove’s subsequent comments on Twitter pointing out the lack of social distancing drew predictable flak from the social media trolls, something she has gotten used to in the past year and a half. But she is not an outlier. Around the world, scientists and public health officials fear that the world’s protracted battle against the coronavirus is at a delicate and dangerous moment.

Reality checks abound. Coronavirus infections are surging in places with low vaccination rates. SARS-CoV-2 is continuing to mutate. Researchers have confirmed the delta variant is far more transmissible than earlier strains. Although the vaccines remain remarkably effective, the virus has bountiful opportunities to find new ways to evade immunity. Most of the world remains unvaccinated.

And so the end of the pandemic remains somewhere over the horizon…

Similarly dismayed is Francis S. Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health. Last summer, he watched cases in the United States spike, particularly in the Sun Belt, after what he felt was a premature end to spring restrictions. This summer, he is not surprised by the rise in infections across a country where many people haven’t gotten their shots and have returned to pre-pandemic behavior…

Amid these concerns are positive signs of long-term progress against covid-19, the illness caused by the virus. That’s a reality check on the positive side of the ledger. This isn’t 2020. The increase in hospitalizations has been less dramatic than the increase in reported infections. That’s because the vaccines — a tool the world lacked a year ago — usually prevent severe illness.

“The game changer is if and when we see large numbers of vaccinated individuals returning to hospitals. But we are not seeing that,” said David Rubin, director of PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

This hints at how the pandemic may eventually play out: The virus would become endemic. It would not be eradicated — and would still cause occasional clusters of infection — but it would not ignite runaway outbreaks nor be nearly as lethal as when it emerged into the human population. That drop in lethality will be driven less by changes in the virus itself than by the changed immunological landscape…

Even if, through vaccination and prudent behavior, the virus is brought under control, the rattling psychological effects of the pandemic could persist.

As Lavine points out, people have been told repeatedly for a year and a half that this virus is a potential killer. For many of those people, it will be difficult to let go of covid-19 fears. The many unknowns about covid-19 will make risk tolerance calculations difficult. This remains a new virus and a new disease, and scientists and doctors are still trying to understand what they’re looking at…

Meanwhile, many people are not scared at all, don’t feel vulnerable, or simply are done — done, done, done — with the pandemic. Van Kerkhove, the WHO epidemiologist, was upset last Sunday at the sight of unmasked people across Europe crowding into bars to watch the European championship soccer match between Italy and England…

Further reading:

News analysis: A wave of opposition to coronavirus vaccines has risen within the Republican Party, as conservative news outlets spread misinformation and GOP lawmakers invite anti-vaccination conspiracy theorists to testify in statehouses and Congress. https://t.co/o1YxcL7rsA

— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 17, 2021

Opinion: The pandemic has changed course again. The Biden administration urgently needs to do the same. https://t.co/zChd9OZP80

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) July 20, 2021

Opinion: Covid-19, vaccine hesitancy and the misinformation conundrum https://t.co/07UYAkhb38

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) July 20, 2021

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Reader Interactions

87Comments

  1. 1.

    Spanky

    July 21, 2021 at 1:25 pm

    Really? Twenty two minutes without a comment?

    Then again, what is there to say?

    Word.

  2. 2.

    Jeffro

    July 21, 2021 at 1:31 pm

    Nancy Smash just smashed

    my day is made ?

  3. 3.

    debbie

    July 21, 2021 at 1:35 pm

    @Spanky:

    Since there’s nothing to say about that, let me offer huzzahs! to the the cagey Madame Speaker for declining Gym and Banks seats on the insurrection investigation. Brilliant move!

     
    @Jeffro:

    IKR!

  4. 4.

    Lapassionara

    July 21, 2021 at 1:37 pm

    @Spanky: here’s something. A letter to the editor in this morning’s St Louis Post Dispatch bemoaned the fact that St Louis University is requiring proof of coronavirus vaccination to attend school this fall. She knows an affected young person who is supposed to be in the last year of law school starting this fall.  How unfair, she writes. Think of the potential side effects of the vaccine. What about the infringement on individual liberty and bodily autonomy.

    I wonder if the writer had to show proof of vaccination when she went to school? I wonder is she knows the potential side effects of getting COVID? Which has been known to include cessation of bodily function.

    I can’t even with these people.

  5. 5.

    RaflW

    July 21, 2021 at 1:39 pm

    I certainly don’t want my resentments to overtake my sanity. But, I have to say I’m really fucking pissed at Republicans. This new surge in infections in America are of course unvaxed-related. But it’s also about how the GOP never, ever wanted to go along on masks.

    And that fucking electoral strategy decision / death wish will haunt us for a long god damned time.

    I’ve worn a mask again a few times lately, like in the grocery yesterday (this county in WI is not the worst, but near the bottom in vaccine uptake). I was one of two that I saw, and it was a busy after-work time. Gaaah.

  6. 6.

    JPL

    July 21, 2021 at 1:39 pm

    Now they say it’s not just republicans… look at the blacks and hispanics.    I’m paraphrasing Rubio from this morning, even after he was shown statistics proving him wrong.

  7. 7.

    Brachiator

    July 21, 2021 at 1:40 pm

    Reality checks abound. Coronavirus infections are surging in places with low vaccination rates. SARS-CoV-2 is continuing to mutate. Researchers have confirmed the delta variant is far more transmissible than earlier strains. Although the vaccines remain remarkably effective, the virus has bountiful opportunities to find new ways to evade immunity. Most of the world remains unvaccinated.

    The sad fact is that the virus did not kill enough people, and did not kill enough younger people, and so a lot of people shrugged it off and figured that the odds were in their favor.

    There have been recent revelations that UK prime minister Boris Johnson said out loud that the virus was only killing the over 80 crowd and so was not a big deal. He was so clueless that he had to be convinced to stop his weekly meetings with the Queen, who is, you know, 93.

    The Conservative Party big wigs are opposed to any more lockdowns, even if there is a third wave.

    All of this is to emphasize that the US is not unique in its stupidity. People are treating the pandemic as though it is a disaster movie. They were scared for a bit, but expect everything to be over in two hours. No one wants to be inconvenienced by masks and social distancing, and vaccines are like a cool option if you want it, but not a life saving smart choice.

  8. 8.

    germy

    July 21, 2021 at 1:42 pm

    Republicans rejected the 9/11-style bipartisan committee — Pelosi could not have rejected McCarthy’s picks to that committee.

    McCarthy chose three Republicans who *rejected the results of the election.*

    One side did not take the select committee seriously: Republicans.

    — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) July 21, 2021

  9. 9.

    dmsilev

    July 21, 2021 at 1:42 pm

    @Lapassionara:

    What about the infringement on individual liberty and bodily autonomy.

    Let me guess: a ‘pro-lifer’ for whom ‘bodily autonomy’ omits certain reproductive organs.

  10. 10.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 21, 2021 at 1:43 pm

    @RaflW: I wear a mask in stores in Dane County.

  11. 11.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    July 21, 2021 at 1:44 pm

    @Brachiator:

    the Queen, who is, you know, 93

    The Queen is 95.

  12. 12.

    JoyceH

    July 21, 2021 at 1:45 pm

    Speaking of reality checks:

    “I’m admitting young healthy people to the hospital with very serious COVID infections,” wrote Cobia, a hospitalist at Grandview Medical Center in Birmingham, in an emotional Facebook post Sunday. “One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that I’m sorry, but it’s too late.”

    Louder, for the folks dozing in the back:

    “One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that I’m sorry, but it’s too late.”

    https://www.al.com/news/2021/07/im-sorry-but-its-too-late-alabama-doctor-on-treating-unvaccinated-dying-covid-patients.html?fbclid=IwAR03vPtrU3tide4Wk_qbdHfgAJpqHL-3BnYHkxHOXPXFWJ7_UVwlI0Farok

  13. 13.

    RaflW

    July 21, 2021 at 1:47 pm

    @Brachiator: Our close cousins across the pond are indeed just about as politically stupid as we are. Imagine that.

    (Well, tbf we booted our badly coiffed tapdancing moron and they haven’t … yet.)

  14. 14.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    July 21, 2021 at 1:47 pm

    @Lapassionara:

    People like that, aside from being delusional, have no concept of the greater good. Sometimes, when it comes to epidemics/pandemics, the needs of society outweigh individual rights. Or IOW, your rights end where mine begin

  15. 15.

    eclare

    July 21, 2021 at 1:47 pm

    @RaflW:  I wear a mask anytime I go grocery shopping, which is pretty much the only place I go.  I don’t see that changing for a long time.

  16. 16.

    dmsilev

    July 21, 2021 at 1:48 pm

    @JoyceH: I can only begin to imagine what she and her colleagues are going through.

  17. 17.

    RaflW

    July 21, 2021 at 1:51 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: TBH I’d feel more comfortable doing that in Dane than here in Walworth Co.

    An old woman in a Lexus yelled ‘motherfkkr!’ the other day in the parking lot of a Janesville store (25 mins from my temp. domicile). It was ostensibly about my allegedly bad pedestrian-ing, but I’m confident my bright white N95 is what enraged her.

  18. 18.

    krackenJack

    July 21, 2021 at 1:52 pm

    Everyone must be watching the Olympics.

    Commenting on the earlier about face by Fox and Newsmax: I think there are two parts – now it is preferentially killing their base and simultaneously exposing the lies that they’ve been peddling. Reality is biting them hard.

    It is a predictable outcome of successfully politicizing vaccination. They are going to get to herd immunity the hard way.

  19. 19.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    July 21, 2021 at 1:54 pm

    @JoyceH:

    Great article. Lots of quotable portions. This stuck out to me:

    “A few days later when I call time of death,” continued Cobia on Facebook, “I hug their family members and I tell them the best way to honor their loved one is to go get vaccinated and encourage everyone they know to do the same.”

    “They cry. And they tell me they didn’t know. They thought it was a hoax. They thought it was political. They thought because they had a certain blood type or a certain skin color they wouldn’t get as sick. They thought it was ‘just the flu’. But they were wrong. And they wish they could go back. But they can’t. So they thank me and they go get the vaccine. And I go back to my office, write their death note, and say a small prayer that this loss will save more lives.”

    And this:

    For people who are hesitant to receive the vaccine, Cobia recommends speaking to their primary care physician about their concerns, just as she did.

    “I try to be very non-judgmental when I’m getting a new COVID patient that’s unvaccinated, but I really just started asking them, ‘Why haven’t you gotten the vaccine?’ And I’ll just ask it point blank, in the least judgmental way possible,” she said. “And most of them, they’re very honest, they give me answers. ‘I talked to this person, I saw this thing on Facebook, I got this email, I saw this on the news,’ you know, these are all the reasons that I didn’t get vaccinated.

    And the one question that I always ask them is, did you make an appointment with your primary care doctor and ask them for their opinion on whether or not you should receive the vaccine? And so far, nobody has answered yes to that question.”

  20. 20.

    Tony Jay

    July 21, 2021 at 1:56 pm

    One result of Flobalob’s cowardly decision to let the craziest Covid-sceptics in his Party dictate the country’s exit strategy from the War on Infection (a strategy consisting of declaring complete surrender and calling it Victory!) is going to be a real punch in the face from Mr Reality as (tens of) thousands of unvaccinated people flood our already overwhelmed NHS suffering from symptoms ranging from really bad to life-threatening, while outside the hospitals even more people who have been vaccinated get hit with milder but still shitty symptoms, and then get told they can’t get no treatment because have you fucking seen the IC wards?

    The Media have been full on for weeks with the myth that Sir Vaccine of Jabalot slew nasty old Lord Covid d’Cathay to give us all our Freedom back, while in reality Sir Vaccine was doing sterling work driving Lord Covid up the winding castle steps with some very nifty swordwork before Clown Prince Bowelbrain yanked the rug out from under him and declared “I’m bored, let’s go throw sheep at peasants!”

    When it sinks in that this really isn’t ‘The End’, shit’s going to get really really real in the Kingdom of the Damned.

  21. 21.

    Mallard Filmore

    July 21, 2021 at 1:56 pm

    @JPL:

     

    Now they say it’s not just republicans… look at the blacks and hispanics.

    If I had a loud enough voice, or a big following, I would yell … SCREAM … at blacks and hispanics:

    “Listen to what the Klan and Nazis of the GOP say, watch what they do … then do the opposite.”

  22. 22.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    July 21, 2021 at 1:57 pm

    Someone at the gym this morning had to convince her granddaughter to get vaccinated. The young woman had heard that the vaccine might make her sterile. She did finally listen to Grandma.

  23. 23.

    hueyplong

    July 21, 2021 at 1:59 pm

    The GOPers have a (bad faith) argument that voting against certification was really just a (bad faith) attempt to investigate further the results of the elections in a couple of states.

    What should be absolutely disqualifying is to have voted against the 1/6 commission.  Why should Pelosi allow onto the panel someone who doesn’t want an investigation to exist and therefore has admitted that he/she can be counted on to do nothing  but disrupt?

  24. 24.

    gvg

    July 21, 2021 at 2:03 pm

    @JPL: Rubio is not wrong. He is from Florida. The latest big outbreak is in Jacksonville/North Florida which has a large population of blacks who have a really low vaccination rate.  Other areas of the state like Miami and Orlando and the Villages (old people republicans, very Trumpy) have much better rates. It seems to be old fashioned black mistrust of the medical establishment but I don’t really know. I live nearish but I don’t have any insight.  I know that other areas of large groups of black Americans have gradually changed and embraced vaccination, but not that pocket.

    Our area hospitals are now full. 2 weeks ago things looked pretty good. I know that Jacksonville had plenty of vaccination sites in Black areas because that is where I traveled to get my first shot and the Fema site was clearly not getting much traffic and could have handled a lot more. I couldn’t get an appointment in Gainesville which is about 60 miles away. My black friends and coworkers here got the shot.

    The national statistics are different, but since Rubio is Florida, I think his statement isn’t total bullshit like it usually is.

  25. 25.

    RSA

    July 21, 2021 at 2:03 pm

    @Lapassionara:  A letter to the editor in this morning’s St Louis Post Dispatch bemoaned the fact that St Louis University is requiring proof of coronavirus vaccination to attend school this fall. She knows an affected young person who is supposed to be in the last year of law school starting this fall.  How unfair, she writes. Think of the potential side effects of the vaccine. What about the infringement on individual liberty and bodily autonomy.

    St. Louis University is a private university. The letter-writer might equally well complain about “no shirt, no service” signs at convenience stores.

  26. 26.

    bluehill

    July 21, 2021 at 2:05 pm

    I’ve seen a few tweets that have said breakthrough infections are highest in people who had gotten vaccinated the earliest. That was about 7 – 8 months ago. No idea how credible this is, but I assume the CDC is tracking this. Guess I’m going to be getting two flu shots every year now.

  27. 27.

    eclare

    July 21, 2021 at 2:09 pm

    @bluehill:  CDC is fucking up by not tracking outpatient breakthrough cases, only if you land in the hospital.  So we are missing tons of data to make informed decisions.

  28. 28.

    JPL

    July 21, 2021 at 2:10 pm

    @gvg: He was shown national statistics, and he did say in Florida.   Other republicans are using that also.

     

    btw McCarthy accomplished what he wanted to all along, and that is paint the committee as partisan.  He pulled the rest of the members.

  29. 29.

    Spanky

    July 21, 2021 at 2:12 pm

    @RSA: An ancillary question might be to ask why The Editor saw fit to put that letter in the paper.

  30. 30.

    Roger Moore

    July 21, 2021 at 2:13 pm

    @Lapassionara:

    I wonder if the writer had to show proof of vaccination when she went to school?

    I know I did. I distinctly remember needing to get an additional measles vaccination before starting as an undergrad.  I just treated it like buying school supplies and thinking about what I needed in my dorm room: just another step in getting ready to go to school.

    And it didn’t stop there.  When I started work, my employer wanted to see my immunization records.  Literally just last week, I did my annual employee health screening, and they said they needed vaccination records or a positive titer for mumps and chickenpox, which they recently added to their list of required vaccinations.  I didn’t whine about it; I went straight over and got my blood drawn so they could check my immunity.  It’s a standard part of working for a large organization.

  31. 31.

    sab

    July 21, 2021 at 2:14 pm

    A month ago in my blue little city I was often the only one in stores with a mask. Now we are back up to about a third of us masking.

  32. 32.

    mrmoshpotato

    July 21, 2021 at 2:15 pm

    @Brachiator:

    There have been recent revelations that UK prime minister Boris Johnson said out loud that the virus was only killing the over 80 crowd and so was not a big deal. He was so clueless that he had to be convinced to stop his weekly meetings with the Queen, who is, you know, 93. 

    Good on ya, BoJo!  What a piss mop-headed assclown!

  33. 33.

    trollhattan

    July 21, 2021 at 2:18 pm

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    The young woman had heard that the vaccine might make her sterile.

    Sounds like something the womb-botherers would lie about. In addition to the vaccines comprising ground fetuses.

  34. 34.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    July 21, 2021 at 2:19 pm

    Kevin McCarthy descends into full blown crybaby mode:

    “Pelosi has taken the unprecedented step of rejecting the minority’s picks for the select committee,” McCarthy said. he added, “It’s an egregious breach of power…Speaker Pelosi has broken this institution.

    https://www.mediaite.com/news/pelosi-has-broken-this-institution-kevin-mccarthy-seethes-pulls-republicans-from-1-6-committee-after-jordan-banks-are-bounced/

     

  35. 35.

    Roger Moore

    July 21, 2021 at 2:19 pm

    @JPL: ​
     

    Now they say it’s not just republicans… look at the blacks and hispanics. I’m paraphrasing Rubio from this morning, even after he was shown statistics proving him wrong.

    There’s a nugget of truth there. Minorities have tended to have comparatively low vaccination rates. But that has more to do with poverty and lack of access than with unwillingness to get vaccinated. Even where there’s reluctance, it’s more likely to be about difficulty taking time off from work if they have a bad reaction or things like that, not unwillingness to be vaccinated at all.

  36. 36.

    trollhattan

    July 21, 2021 at 2:20 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    “-ish”

    Can anybody really know how old Her Majesty is?

    Last time I saw Charles he’s looking really, really old. That crown seems to be passing him by completely.

  37. 37.

    mrmoshpotato

    July 21, 2021 at 2:20 pm

    @germy: Yup.  The Dump-humping slapdicks were given the chance to have a bipartisan committee…

    Good on Nancy SMASH! for going on her smashing way and taking this as a serious matter.  (Never expected less of her, but kudos to her nonetheless.)

  38. 38.

    JoyceH

    July 21, 2021 at 2:20 pm

    @sab:

    A month ago in my blue little city I was often the only one in stores with a mask. Now we are back up to about a third of us masking.

    I know I’m starting to pull back from my cautious emergence back into the world. I was about to the point of going back to the pool at my local Y, haven’t been there in a year and a half and really miss it. But… not just yet. My county made it to green on the pandemic map for a few heady weeks, but we’re back to yellow again.

  39. 39.

    zhena gogolia

    July 21, 2021 at 2:21 pm

    @Jeffro:

    I am so busy today — we’re spending the afternoon at the same dermatologist’s office where we were during the insurrection, so I missed the whole thing. I’m sure I’ll be missing all sorts of good stuff!

  40. 40.

    CaseyL

    July 21, 2021 at 2:22 pm

    @bluehill: Shit, that’s me.  I was fully vaxxed by the end of January.

     

    Ah, well.  I’ve been masking up again anyway.

  41. 41.

    Betty

    July 21, 2021 at 2:24 pm

    @Tony Jay: That’s some poetry.

  42. 42.

    Gin & Tonic

    July 21, 2021 at 2:26 pm

    Looks like Zelensky is getting a WH meeting. Aug 30.

  43. 43.

    zhena gogolia

    July 21, 2021 at 2:27 pm

    This is powerful and sad.

    “One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that I’m sorry, but it’s too late.” https://t.co/34NdhEg9Kf— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) July 21, 2021

  44. 44.

    zhena gogolia

    July 21, 2021 at 2:27 pm

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Does he have to do a favor, though?

  45. 45.

    rikyrah

    July 21, 2021 at 2:28 pm

    @JoyceH:

     

    That article broke my heart. I thought I had been hardened, but, I guess not.

  46. 46.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    July 21, 2021 at 2:29 pm

    @trollhattan: The Queen was born a few months before my mom was, my mom would have been 95 next Tuesday.

  47. 47.

    bluehill

    July 21, 2021 at 2:30 pm

    @CaseyL: Well, it’s anecdotal as far as I know, so may not be accurate. I’m masking up too, just to be on the safe side.

  48. 48.

    Betty

    July 21, 2021 at 2:31 pm

    @Wyatt Salamanca: Let him ramble on. Pelosi is serious and sees her responsibility to oversee a genuine investigation, one that McCarthy, in his loyalty to Trump, is out to obstruct. Pelosi is not playing his game.

  49. 49.

    rikyrah

    July 21, 2021 at 2:31 pm

    @zhena gogolia:

     

    I’ve read it at least a half dozen times today, and it hits me hard everytime.

  50. 50.

    Roger Moore

    July 21, 2021 at 2:31 pm

    @bluehill:

    I’ve seen a few tweets that have said breakthrough infections are highest in people who had gotten vaccinated the earliest.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if this is true, but I would want to be very careful in interpreting the numbers.  If you look only at the total number of infections divided by the number of people, it will naturally be highest in the people who were vaccinated earliest, because they had the longest window of exposure.  IOW, someone who was vaccinated in December has had all the time since January to get infected, while someone who was vaccinated in June has has very little time to get sick.  Also, the earliest people to get vaccinated were in high risk populations, which would tend to skew the numbers further.  You need to compare people with similar risk profiles in the same time period to get really accurate numbers.

  51. 51.

    Gin & Tonic

    July 21, 2021 at 2:33 pm

    @zhena gogolia: I’m not sure what behind-the-scenes pressure is being applied with respect to Ukraine’s opposition to NordStream2. I am sure that there won’t be a transcript of Uncle Joe saying “I’d like you to do me a favor” but I am not sanguine about Blinken’s apparent support of the project.

  52. 52.

    mrmoshpotato

    July 21, 2021 at 2:35 pm

    @Wyatt Salamanca:

    Kevin McCarthy descends into full blown crybaby mode: 

    Gonna be interesting to see what the GQP leader knew about the deadly insurrection beforehand.

  53. 53.

    CaseyL

    July 21, 2021 at 2:37 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: There is a big difference between asking for support on a geopolitical issue and asking for a personal/political/criminal favor.

  54. 54.

    Matt McIrvin

    July 21, 2021 at 2:38 pm

    @bluehill: Some people are interpreting the numbers on breakthrough infections out of Israel that way, and it might be true, but at this point I would be extremely cautious about anything you hear about that–there are people saying lots of unreliable things based on fragmentary and misinterpreted data.

    There was that one paper from there that claimed a really low (outlier) Delta efficacy for the Pfizer vaccine, that made a lot of people freak out, and “Israel got vaccinated earlier” was one explanation proffered. But I think it’s insufficiently understood.

  55. 55.

    Matt McIrvin

    July 21, 2021 at 2:41 pm

    @JoyceH: Not hearing much about ThE wAcKy LiBerAlS WhO wOn’T LeaVE LocKDoWn lately.

  56. 56.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    July 21, 2021 at 2:44 pm

    @JPL:

    btw McCarthy accomplished what he wanted to all along, and that is paint the committee as partisan.  He pulled the rest of the members.

    That never stopped the Benghazi hearings, did it?

  57. 57.

    bluehill

    July 21, 2021 at 2:46 pm

    @Roger Moore:

     

    @Matt McIrvin: Yes, tweets were referring to Israel. Good points by you both.

  58. 58.

    RaflW

    July 21, 2021 at 2:49 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: I went to a wacky liberal meeting on Sunday of people who want to open a food coop in this Walmart dominated corner of heaven-hell, and I was the only one wearing a mask. And then <poof> even I wasn’t, because peer pressure is one of the dumbest things on earth, but I succumbed anyway out of a strange sense of embarrassment. Also, there were scones.

    I hope to FSM that everyone was vax’d. The ventilation was basically roaring, so that hopefully will help too.

  59. 59.

    Tony Jay

    July 21, 2021 at 2:55 pm

    @Betty:

    Have I ever mentioned how much I hate these people?

    It’s really quite a lot.

    And though forgiveness is divine.

    Forgive me

    I’d rather not.

  60. 60.

    Kent

    July 21, 2021 at 2:56 pm

    @Lapassionara: 
    Here in WA it looks like all the state universities are going to require vaccinations for students, faculty, and staff who are going to attend or work in-person. You can be unvaccinated if you do virtual learning or teaching apparently. There are also loose exemptions for religions and “personal belief” bullshit. But that comes along with regular weekly testing, at least for students.

    My guess? Most students, when they finally get away from their MAGA and Q-anon parents will just get the vaccine if the alternative is the weekly unpleasantness of getting your nose deep-probed. Students will be sent to the campus health clinic to wait in line on a weekly basis for their distinctly unpleasant Covid test and that same clinic will have vaccines available. Most 18+ year old college students are going to say ‘fuckit, just give me the shot so I don’t have to come back” no matter what their MAGAt parents believe or want.

    I’m of course in favor of mandatory vaccination requirements for all schools and universities with no exceptions other than for medical reasons. Same thing for all hospitals and medical providers. But mandating weekly required testing for the unvaccinated is a nice 2nd choice if I can’t have what I want.

  61. 61.

    Kent

    July 21, 2021 at 2:58 pm

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): They were going to paint the committee as partisan no matter what the Dems do or who they let on it.  The sound and fury coming from the right wing is going to be EXACTLY the same no matter what the Dems do.  So they might as well just do the right thing.

  62. 62.

    Kent

    July 21, 2021 at 3:01 pm

    @Roger Moore: Exactly.  Those vaccinated first were those who were either (1) in high-risk professions like healthcare where they are much more likely to encounter the virus on a daily basis, and (2) those with high co-morbidities like age and other conditions that make them more susceptible to catching the disease in the first place.

    Doesn’t surprise me that break-through infections are going to be higher in those two groups.

  63. 63.

    Martin

    July 21, 2021 at 3:04 pm

    @JPL: Cheney is still on. Expect that to be illustrated continuously  that Pelosi was more invested in Republicans being on the committee than McCarthy was.

  64. 64.

    Matt McIrvin

    July 21, 2021 at 3:04 pm

    @Kent: It’s also entirely possible that if vaccine-induced immunity is wearing off, it wears off faster in older people. In fact, from what little I understand, we’d expect that.

  65. 65.

    JPL

    July 21, 2021 at 3:05 pm

    @mrmoshpotato: This is the headline at the NYTimes
    Pelosi bars two Trump allies from the committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot.

  66. 66.

    MattF

    July 21, 2021 at 3:05 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: Derek Lowe has some comments on the new data.

  67. 67.

    Gin & Tonic

    July 21, 2021 at 3:07 pm

    @CaseyL: Yes, there is. If it’s “we’d like you to support our decision to cave in to Putin, and here’s what’s reasonable to expect in return” then that’s different than “if you want the WH meeting to go on schedule then you’ll STFU about your opposition to NS2.”

    Eventually we will know which version it was.

  68. 68.

    Martin

    July 21, 2021 at 3:07 pm

    @Kent: Same here in CA. Right now their goal is ‘nobody steps on campus without a vaccine’ – students, staff, parents, contractors, etc. We’ll see how close to that they can get.

    That’s the 1.5M or so UC/CSU communities. The 2.5M CCC community is still working on theirs. Harder for them to enforce given they provide a much wider range of community services.

  69. 69.

    Martin

    July 21, 2021 at 3:08 pm

    @Kent: Not sure it really matters long-term. There’s going to be a booster around the end of the year from all 3 manufacturers. That will both improve resistance to Delta and top off the antibodies.

  70. 70.

    patroclus

    July 21, 2021 at 3:11 pm

    Liz Cheney is “absolutely dedicated” to continuing the investigation and staying on the committee.

  71. 71.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    July 21, 2021 at 3:12 pm

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Why should there be any question of which it is? Biden isn’t Trump

  72. 72.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    July 21, 2021 at 3:15 pm

    @Kent:

    I don’t disagree. It’s just sometimes I can’t help but feel that Republicans always seem to have the upper hand no matter what the Dems do. Sure, they lose a a battle here and there, but they always bounce right back

  73. 73.

    debbie

    July 21, 2021 at 3:19 pm

    @Lapassionara:

    Hell, what about the potential for killing others???

  74. 74.

    WaterGirl

    July 21, 2021 at 3:21 pm

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It’s a good idea to fight the tendency to assign all that power to Republicans.  It’s not healthy and it’s demotivating to our side.

  75. 75.

    Gin & Tonic

    July 21, 2021 at 3:24 pm

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Why should there be a question? Because there already is a question.

  76. 76.

    JoyceH

    July 21, 2021 at 3:38 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: ​
     

    @bluehill: Some people are interpreting the numbers on breakthrough infections out of Israel that way, and it might be true, but at this point I would be extremely cautious about anything you hear about that–there are people saying lots of unreliable things based on fragmentary and misinterpreted data.

    There was that one paper from there that claimed a really low (outlier) Delta efficacy for the Pfizer vaccine, that made a lot of people freak out, and “Israel got vaccinated earlier” was one explanation proffered. But I think it’s insufficiently understood.

    Another potential explanation that I’ve seen is just that ‘Israel tests more’. So to us, it could appear that earlier vaccinations are susceptible to breakthroughs because of the way we rolled out the vaccines – we vaccinated the oldest first. The later vaccinations were younger and healthier people, and if those people got infected, they’d be more likely to be asymptomatic, and since we’re not routinely testing, those infections go unrecorded. It does seem as if a lot of these breakthroughs we’re seeing are people who are tested because of some job requirement and didn’t even realize they were infected.

  77. 77.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    July 21, 2021 at 3:38 pm

    Is there a betting pool on when the Republicans will decide the pandemic was handled excellently and perfectly, until Biden failed to contain the delta variant, and therefore, ALL of the deaths and ALL of the suffering, from late 2019 on, is entirely his fault?

  78. 78.

    Robert Sneddon

    July 21, 2021 at 3:50 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: ​
      Germany needs lots of gas to fuel its Energieweinde shift to renewables. Ukraine sits astride the existing pipeline connection for Russian gas and can use that control as leverage against the Western European nations, especially in a bad winter. American natural gas interests would like to sell Germany and other gas-dependant nations in Europe lots of LNG so Washington and Ukraine are united against NordStream 2.

  79. 79.

    Gin & Tonic

    July 21, 2021 at 3:56 pm

    @Robert Sneddon: Tony Blinken doesn’t seem to have gotten that memo.

  80. 80.

    Bluegirlfromwyo

    July 21, 2021 at 3:57 pm

    @JPL: Look it wasn’t me from the GQP. That’s as predictable as the sunrise.

    Does Lil Marco care to share which blacks and Hispanics have been bleating about personal choice all over creation? (I mean other than Faux News useful idiots.)

  81. 81.

    James E Powell

    July 21, 2021 at 3:59 pm

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I don’t disagree. It’s just sometimes I can’t help but feel that Republicans always seem to have the upper hand no matter what the Dems do.

    It seems that way because they own the press/media and they have almost all the money.

  82. 82.

    Cameron

    July 21, 2021 at 4:02 pm

    @Robert Sneddon: Ted Cruz is the guy who will bring this to a head. He is sitting on a bunch of State Department nominations and won’t let go until Biden drops his waiver on sanctions.

  83. 83.

    Brachiator

    July 21, 2021 at 4:15 pm

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I don’t disagree. It’s just sometimes I can’t help but feel that Republicans always seem to have the upper hand no matter what the Dems do. Sure, they lose a a battle here and there, but they always bounce right back

    I agree with you that the Republicans keep coming back. They are often single focused on taxes, etc.

    But they typically have the losing hand.

  84. 84.

    Cameron

    July 21, 2021 at 6:05 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: I don’t think it’s Blinken. Just saw a news piece reporting a deal between Biden and Merkel that apparently pisses off a lot of people in both US and Germany.

  85. 85.

    Ruckus

    July 21, 2021 at 6:20 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Who are the people world wide who are in complete denial of reality vs covid? Conservatives.

    What is the major underlying dimension of conservatism throughout history?

    Money. Specifically, give us all of it. Every thing other than money is a ruse to collect the money and even pure power takes a back seat to money.

    Religion is number one issue? Nope, that is a control issue to make it easier to collect the money. It doesn’t matter the form of money. Dollars/pounds/Euros/gold/land/frankincense and muhr – it doesn’t matter, that’s just the form monetary value takes at a specific time, but it’s the value/quantity that is the important part. Conservatism is said to be about retaining the previous values, but that previous value  is and always has been about collecting that financial value. Today’s US conservatives are losing money. They have over the last 50 or so years, managed to return the financial aspects to that of the late 1920s, before the depression, caused by conservative politics and greed. Even after that major event they didn’t want to fix anything because that would cause them to lose money because they believe that money=power. And of course that’s right, unlimited money does equal unlimited power.

  86. 86.

    cain

    July 22, 2021 at 11:29 am

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    I’ve heard it both ways.

  87. 87.

    cain

    July 22, 2021 at 11:34 am

    @Tony Jay:

    The Media have been full on for weeks with the myth that Sir Vaccine of Jabalot slew nasty old Lord Covid d’Cathay to give us all our Freedom back, while in reality Sir Vaccine was doing sterling work driving Lord Covid up the winding castle steps with some very nifty swordwork before Clown Prince Bowelbrain yanked the rug out from under him and declared “I’m bored, let’s go throw sheep at peasants!”

    I can only add an enthusiastic clap to this.

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