Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Peak wingnut was a lie.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Innocent people do not delay justice.

White supremacy is terrorism.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

“woke” is the new caravan.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

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

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Tuesday / Wednesday, Oct. 12-13

COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Tuesday / Wednesday, Oct. 12-13

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More plausible explanation, IMO:

Reader Interactions

81Comments

  1. 1.

    NeenerNeener

    Monroe County, NY:

    The Monroe County web site says 195 new cases yesterday, NYSDOH says 167 new cases.
    Deaths now at 1412, up from 1410 last week.
    Full vaccinations at 66.9%.

    There were 1493 new cases last week, and ages 10 -19 had the most cases at 288.

  2. 2.

    Matt McIrvin

    Maybe I’m imagining things but it seems to me like in the past few days there’s been an escalation, and antivaxxers are starting to encourage people more strongly to try to get infected. There’s this idea that there are new miracle treatments that will save you, and it means that the best way to be inoculated against COVID is now to actually get COVID and then be saved by the miracle treatments.

    Good luck getting those miracle treatments when you fill up the hospitals, folks.

    It makes me wonder if that’s specifically the influence of a foreign psyop aimed at killing Americans.

  4. 4.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Matt McIrvin:It makes me wonder if that’s specifically the influence of a foreign psyop aimed at killing Americans.

    I’m sure there’s that, but you gotta admit that a lot of Americans are willing, eager co-conspirators. Anything to own the libs.

    I remember those “better Russian than Dem” shirts from a few years back. I doubt their attitude’s changed. So it really doesn’t matter much who knows where the latest propaganda is coming from.​​

  5. 5.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: Crashing the healthcare system kills some of everybody. And general chaos/unrest is perceived as good for them. And… well… I think a certain ex-KGB guy’s perception of the long game is flawed in any event.

  6. 6.

    p.a.

    @DelthiaRicks
    Hundreds of police officers have died from Covid. Yet, vaccines remain a hard sell. Far more law enforcement officers in the US have died of coronavirus than from any other work-related cause in 2020 & 2021. Even so, police unions are fighting vax mandates

    To Protect and Infect

  9. 9.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: We’re on the tail end of this particular wave. But some places like Idaho and Alaska have been pretty much under a medical denial-of-service attack.

  11. 11.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysia’s Ministry of Health reports 7,950 new Covid-19 cases today in its media statement, for a cumulative reported total of 2,361,529 cases. It also reports 103 new deaths as of midnight, for a cumulative total of 27,525 deaths – 1.17% of the cumulative reported total, 1.22% of resolved cases.

    Based on cases reported yesterday, Malaysia’s nationwide Rt is at 0.88.

    710 confirmed cases are in ICU, 304 of them on ventilators. Meanwhile, 10,882 more patients have recovered, for a cumulative total of 2,227,889 patients recovered – 94.2% of the cumulative reported total.

    13 new clusters were reported today, for a cumulative total of 5,624 clusters. 762 clusters are currently active; 4,862 clusters are now inactive.

    7,921 new cases today are local infections. 29 new cases today are imported.

    The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) administered 209,534 doses of vaccine on 12th October: 55,798 first doses and 153,736 second doses. As of midnight yesterday, the cumulative total is 46,044,734 doses administered: 24,567,968 first doses and 21,4591,116 second doses. 75.2% of the population have received their first dose, while 66.1% are now fully vaccinated.

  13. 13.

    YY_Sima Qian

    On 10/12 China reported 0 new domestic confirmed & 0 new domestic asymptomatic cases.

    Fujian Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. 17 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 117 active domestic confirmed cases.

    • At Putian 8 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 28 active domestic confirmed cases in the city.
    • At Quanzhou 3 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 2 active domestic confirmed cases remaining.
    • At Xiamen 6 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 87 active domestic confirmed cases in the city.

    Heilongjiang Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. 8 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 1 domestic asymptomatic case was released from isolation. There currently are 33 active domestic confirmed & 3 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.

    • At Harbin 8 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 1 domestic asymptomatic case was released from isolation. There currently are 33 active domestic confirmed cases remaining in the city. Xinglong Township in Bayan County remains at High Risk. 1 residential compound has been re-designated as Low Risk. 5 residential compounds remain at Medium Risk.
    • At Suihua there currently are 3 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city (all at Beilin District).

    Yili Prefecture in Xinjiang “Autonomous” Region did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently are 1 active domestic confirmed (at Horgos) & 4 active domestic asymptomatic cases (2 each at Cocodala & Horgos) at the prefecture.

    Yunnan Province did not report any new domestic asymptomatic cases. There currently are 4 domestic asymptomatic cases remaining in the province, all at Ruili in Dehong Prefecture.

    At Henan Province there currently are 6 active domestic confirmed cases remaining, all at Shangqiu.

    Imported Cases

        

    On 10/12, China reported 22 new imported confirmed cases (1 previously asymptomatic), 16 imported asymptomatic cases, 1 imported suspect case:

    • Guangxi Province (location not specified) – 8 confirmed & 1 asymptomatic cases, no information released
    • Yunnan Province (location not specified) – 5 confirmed & 2 asymptomatic cases, no information released
    • Shanghai Municipality – 2 confirmed cases, 1 Chinese national each returning Sri Lanka & the UK (via Helsinki)
    • Guangzhou in Guangdong Province – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from Turkey; 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from Malaysia
    • Shenzhen in Guangdong Province – 1 confirmed cases, a Chinese national returning from Singapore
    • Beijing Municipality – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from the UK (via Copenhagen)
    • Tianjin Municipality – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from the DRC (via Paris CdG); 2 asymptomatic cases, 2 Chinese nationals returning from the US
    • Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province – 1 confirmed (previously asymptomatic), coming from Suriname; 3 asymptomatic cases, 1 each coming from Mexico, Niger & Serbia
    • Qingdao in Shandong Province – 1 confirmed case, a Filipino crew member off a cargo ship w/ last port of call in Japan
    • Jinan in Shandong Province – 1 asymptomatic case, who had arrived at Guangzhou in Guangdong Province on 9/25, passed through the 14 days of centralized quarantine & tested negative multiple times, upon release from quarantine on 10/9 the case flew back to Jinan, testing positive on 10/11
    • Xiamen in Fujian Province – 1 confirmed case, a Thai national coming from Thailand
    • Zhengzhou in Henan Province – 3 asymptomatic cases, no information released
    • Xi’an in Shaanxi Province – 2 asymptomatic cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Sweden (off a flight diverted from Beijing) & Nigeria (via Frankfurt)
    • Chongqing Municipality – 1 asymptomatic case, no information released

    Overall in China, 46 confirmed cases recovered (21 imported), 20 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation (19 imported) & 1 were reclassified as confirmed case, & 946 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 645 active confirmed cases in the country (487 imported), none in serious condition, 359 active asymptomatic cases (345 imported), 2 suspect cases (both imported). 22,802 traced contacts are currently under centralized quarantine.

    As of 10/12, 2,224.081M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 1.415M doses in the past 24 hrs.

    On 10/13 Hong Kong reported 3 new positive cases, all imports (from Indonesia, the Philippines & Pakistan; all had been fully vaccinated).

  17. 17.

    Nicole

    @Baud:

    Why would a foreign enemy try to kill off the cohort of Americans that does the most to bring this country down?

    You know, I think they don’t actually have that nuanced a grasp on American culture.   Death of Americans = instability, as far as they’re concerned, and that’s enough.

    It’s hard to grasp the subtleties of a culture from a laptop thousands of miles away, no matter how much work you put in.  I just came back from a trip, and watched most of a Swedish drama, Thin Ice, on the plane, and while it’s fiction, it made me realize how I know absolutely jack squat about political dynamics in the Nordic nations.

    Most of the allegedly Christian sites these anti-vax nutjobs frequent for their memes that they post en route to becoming recipients of the Herman Cain Award are Eastern European troll farms (I think it’s like 11 of the top 12), and one of the easy tip offs is that they use the term “jab” instead of “shot” for the vaccine.  Like, they couldn’t even be bothered to find out how Americans refer to getting an injection.  We say “shot,” not “jab.”

    So yeah, I think they’re just not that sophisticated.

  18. 18.

    Ohio Mom

    On our monthly cousins Zoom last Sunday, one cousin announced she and her family had had extremely mild breakthrough cases. Started when Daughter (28 years old) complained her throat was scratchy and went to the store for a test.

    The three of them felt tired and a little flu-ish but not much else, quarantined and that was that. Vaccines work!

    Where did they catch it? From Daughter ( J&J) who was visiting from California? Or because as Cousin (Moderna) put it, “We live in Montana and there are a lot of stupid people here”? Cousin’s husband, a native Montanan (J&J) and the reason they live there, didn’t argue.

    Whatever, I’m happy they are well and feel very reassured about my chances (Pfizer and about to get a booster).

  19. 19.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    Exactly. No thought that they might be killing off their customer base, which would affect their cash too. What a twisted example of capitalism! ??‍♀️

  20. 20.

    debbie

    @Ohio Mom:

    I was surprised that I had more of a reaction to the booster than to the two previous shots. Still better than COVID, of course, but I’m wondering if that means my immune system is poor.

  23. 23.

    snoey

    @Nicole: The propaganda bleeds through.  Our local wingnut school committee member is now posting about how they want to “jab our babies”

  24. 24.

    New Deal democrat

    As I anticipated, with full reporting back in place yesterday both cases and deaths rebounded slightly. But the weekly averages of both have still declined, with cases down almost 50% from peak, and deaths down 25%. Since deaths peaked 3 weeks after cases, I am expecting deaths to decline to about 1000/day by early November (which in comparison is a little under average since the pandemic started).

    Cases have continued to rise in MI, MN, NH, and VT. ME, PA, and WI may have peaked, as have AK and ND. Of some concern is that CO and NM are a showing renewed increase in cases (but so far these are the only two such States). The South is now showing the fewest new cases per capita of any region. Also of interest is that SD peaked about 5 weeks after Sturgis and has declined about 50% since then, to a rate lower than VT.

    I continue to think that there was a certain subset of the population uniquely vulnerable to Delta, and it ran through them like dry tinder, with a much smaller effect on the less susceptible population (unless someone thinks that Southern Trumpies started wearing masks and socially distancing plus got vaccines in the last two months). The experience of SD suggests that there is some resistance from prior huge outbreaks (last fall) that kept Delta somewhat at bay there. The good news at least is that there is no sign of a winter wave starting yet.

    I do think there will be a winter wave. I also think that federal, employer, and education vaccination mandates will become more strict. If so, I think we have a shot of putting the pandemic largely behind us by next spring.

  26. 26.

    schrodingers_cat

    Almost 70% percent of Americans are fully vaccinated but we are paying outsized attention to the stragglers.  Because everyone the MSM, the Republicans and many Democrats are wedded to the we are doomed scenario about this and everything else.

    This is from Adam’s post from last night. I have bookmarked it. He made the following predictions with unflinching certainty.

    Predictions about the near and the distant future in this post.

    1. Republicans are going to win the presidency, Congress and the Senate for the foreseeable future.
    2. Warnock is going to lose
    3. The Supreme Court is going to outlaw interracial marriage and birth control
    4. There is pretty much nothing we can do about it.
    5. None of these actions will generate backlash.

    If you don’t agree with these predictions you are naïve, There was an amen chorus in the comments

    Predictions about the future are tricky, because there are always unintended consequences and the events mentioned above are not independent of each other.

  27. 27.

    Nicole

    @snoey: 

    The propaganda bleeds through. Our local wingnut school committee member is now posting about how they want to “jab our babies”

    Oh yeah, absolutely. It’s astounding how easy brainwashing can be. I scroll the Herman Cain Awards incessantly, because I’m a bad person, and there seem to be about 20 memes that these fools are all using, right up until before they go on the ventilator. I’ve started just skipping through the memes and getting to the denouements, because the rest is just same old same old.

  30. 30.

    Nicole

    @schrodingers_cat: According to the CDC website, as of Oct 9, 56.4% of Americans are fully vaccinated.  Maybe we’ll hit 70% once kids can be vaccinated, but we aren’t near that yet.

  32. 32.

    MomSense

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I think Adam would like to be proved wrong.  I will say that years of campaigning do not make me optimistic about the midterm elections.  Given the history of midterms and the shit media we have, we should organize like we are 30 points down.  This is no time to blow sunshine up our asses.

  36. 36.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @lowtechcyclist:  The Religious Right has been anti-science for a long time now. This pandemic is likely the first one it’s been so noticeable since the vaccines came out so quickly relative to previous.

  39. 39.

    Baud

    @MomSense:

    Is Adam doing any organizing in his posts? I usually skip them because they involve a lot of predicting, and I don’t find predictions useful.

  42. 42.

    MomSense

    @Baud:

    In every campaign I’ve worked on there are people who do not do the actual calling and knocking.  I’m not saying you should accept what he is saying, but I think it’s a waste of time to argue about whether or not we are too positive or negative.  Midterms are a shitshow for the party in power. Always have been.  It takes a lot of work to overcome the disadvantage.  We have to ready ourselves for an incredibly difficult fight.  Yes, Warnock is in trouble – structurally as are a number of Democratic House seats.  We also don’t have a great Senate map.  I think it makes more sense to know what we are up against.

  43. 43.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: I don’t either.  The events I have outlined are not independent events whose probability can be predicted using a probability distribution.

    For example: One can predict the probability of getting a six when we  throw a dice because we know the probability distribution.

    P( getting a 6) = 1/6

  44. 44.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Baud: Adam is also projecting his own thinking on to the Right and makes no attempt to understand them.  As it’s been pointed out several times if the Republicans were capable of the kind of thinking Adam claims they are doing, the GOP would still control both houses in Congress and the Presidency.

    All the Doom Gloomers say “look at Abbot in Texas, abortion ban, brilliant move, he’s president in 2024. End of discussion.” when it looks like it’s really “look at Abbot, him the Republicans are so scared about 2022, they are feeding the Evangelicals red meat by the truck load just to get them to show up in 2022”   I mean look at it from a Conservatives POV, they had it all in 2017 and in three years it went to utter shit. Sure they rant about evil Sorus mind control laser conspiracies but they are also feeling all the GOP leaderships are utter fuck ups.

  45. 45.

    Baud

    @MomSense:

    but I think it’s a waste of time to argue about whether or not we are too positive or negative.

    Sure.  Like I said, I just stay away from content that doesn’t interest me.  But by the same token, it’s also a waste of time to argue with SC for arguing about Adam’s posts.

    FWIW, I do believe that excessive negativity discourages voters, although excessive positivity may lead to voter apathy.  So tone isn’t completely irrelevant in the scheme of things.

  47. 47.

    Cermet

    Well, I spoke too soon yesterday; after getting my booster (8 PM, Monday), on Tuesday morning (5AM) I felt great and laughed off any effects. Mistake – apparently after 12 hours the booster triggered my immune system. And boy, was I hit hard – all typical flu symptoms in spades – aches, pains, fever, chills, exhaustion, headache and more. Oops, guess it takes more time then I thought. Still weak today but no flu symptoms now. These symptoms were far worse than my other shots – not complaining; glad I reacted but never guess it’d be much worse then the other shots.

  48. 48.

    schrodingers_cat

    @MomSense: He is making predictions as a subject matter expert. I am pointing the weakness in some of his assumptions.

    Statistics speak for the events listed above is history dependent. They are extremely difficult to predict even at the atomic level. And we pretty much know how an individual atom behaves, I used to study this stuff, complex systems. So you can imagine how much more difficult it is to predict history dependent events where actual human beings are concerned.

    I don’t care about positivity or negativity or sunshine up the ass.

  49. 49.

    Ken

    @Baud: Nothing that happens in Alaska and Idaho can take down the country.

    I’m disappointed wikipedia doesn’t have a “List of supervolcanoes” page.

  50. 50.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    I was done back in the 2012 campaign when media insisted no one under 50% approval had ever won reelection. They were proven wrong. It still amazes me that media continues using this metric even though they were clearly proven wrong.

  51. 51.

    debbie

    @MomSense:

    I grew up getting shots every year. I’m probably immune to any associations with that word. Also, Ken Burns’s Ali was recently on PBS.

  54. 54.

    Lacuna Synecdoche

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Maybe I’m imagining things but it seems to me like in the past few days there’s been an escalation, and antivaxxers are starting to encourage people more strongly to try to get infected. … It makes me wonder if that’s specifically the influence of a foreign psyop aimed at killing Americans.

    The distinction between a foreign psyop and a right-wing domestic psyop has become something in the range of negligible to non-existent.

  56. 56.

    Mary G

    @Cermet: I also had much more serious reactions to shot #3 than #2. It was kinda like a tour of Covid’s greatest hits. Day one OK, Day 2 fever and chills with severe pain in hands and feet, Day 3 diarrhea added, Day 4 severe brain fog. Those all resolved within a week, but severe fatigue has continued.

  58. 58.

    Matt McIrvin

    @schrodingers_cat: Adam is an expert on insurgency and counterinsurgency warfare. My personal suspicion is that he’s trying to mentally prepare us for a possible future in which some sort of revolution will be the only way to restore decency to American government, but he is also aware of how terrible and hopeless widespread insurgency warfare in the US would be and is deeply, deeply committed to not making calls for violence. So there’s a tension in his posts, and I always get the feeling that there are things he’s deliberately not saying.

  60. 60.

    Cermet

    @Mary G: Wait, more than a day – and brain fog?!! Oh, my. That is terrible! I am so sorry for you. Mine was nothing compared to what you endured. Your a champ enduring that for a vaccine!

  62. 62.

    Cermet

    @schrodingers_cat: I’ve been making these very same predictions for awhile now here on various threads the last few months; sorry but what he is saying, certainly for me, is a given. Even now the thugs have guarantee’s that their gerrymandered legislators can throw the election to their guy even if the sate votes for the dem. We are screwed as far as democracy goes. The orange fascist, if he lives longer, will likely be president select in 2024.

  63. 63.

    Robert Sneddon

    Scotland — 2,581 new COVID-19 cases reported today. The test positivity rate is 7.7%. There were 30 new deaths reported. ICU bed occupancy numbers are 51, the same as yesterday while hospitalisations are 918, down 15.

    There were approximately 6,600 vaccinations carried out in Scotland yesterday (Tuesday) with about 65% of these being first vaccinations. 91.7% of 16+ adults are now vaccinated with their first dose and 85.0% are fully vaccinated. 73.4% of 16 and 17-year-olds have now received their first vaccination, up 0.2% from yesterday. 42.0% of 12-15 year olds have now received their first vaccination, up 1.4% from yesterday.

  64. 64.

    Shalimar

    @schrodingers_cat: I don’t see how it’s even possible to outlaw interracial marriage anymore.  With so many people born of interracial marriages already, any way you write the law is going to prohibit a decent number of people from marrying anyone at all.

    I also can’t believe there won’t be a massive voting backlash against anyone who bans birth control.  The reason more people aren’t immediately worried about abortion bans is because they don’t think it affects them right now.  Take away their birth control,  and their chance of getting pregnant goes way up.

  65. 65.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: I am so old that I remember the frenzied speculation of Newsom’s loss followed by DiFi’s death and the R governor of California naming a Republican successor.

    Now its all about Va. If the Democrat wins it will have zero effect on the predictions of the Doom Sayers but if he loses that will touted for weeks on the MSM about how the Ds are doomed for all time to come.

    You are right every  risk is taken as certainty. And the conceit that only they understand the risks. This blog is rife with such comments and first page posts.

  67. 67.

    dr. bloor

    Posted ahead of a two-day meeting convened by the FDA on booster shots of both the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, the documents laid out the case for authorizing Moderna’s proposed booster — a half dose of the existing vaccine — but also noted that data so far make it unclear that the third dose is needed.

    Perhaps Moderna can step up and send some of their anticipated booster supplies overseas.

  68. 68.

    Another Scott

    @Baud: It’s a variation on the “Who cleans the toilets in Galt’s Gulch?” problem.

    The GQP governors and Putin and the rest don’t care that people nominally on their side are dying.  The purpose is to create chaos for the system and show their backers that they’re manly men (and women) who can’t be told by others (people who believe in the ‘promote the general welfare’) what to do.  The death rates aren’t high enough to enter into the equation, and the deaths aren’t happening to the people they care about (their colleagues and donors and the infrastructure that keeps them in power).

    Abbot and DeSantis would be barely noticed if they weren’t doing all this crap.  As it is, they get national attention and all that entails.

    In general if something seems contrary to logic, then it means that something else is the reason.  Cui bono? is good to keep in mind.

    [eta:] I’m reminded of Biden being asked about one of the previous outrages by DeSantis and he replied “Who?” with a grin.  That’s how you do it…

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (“Who recognizes that the question was mostly rhetorical.  ;-)”)

  69. 69.

    matt

    Maybe it’s new that studies confirm exposure dose affects disease outcome, but I remember reading early in the pandemic a persuasive editorial saying just that. Which is why I never bothered to sterilize my groceries.

  71. 71.

    Another Scott

    @matt: +1

    We’ve know for a long time that the amount of virus a person is exposed to matters a lot.  That’s why masking and distancing works.  And that’s why Delta is so bad – it makes a lot of virus quickly.

    But more (high-quality) data is always better.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  72. 72.

    Matt McIrvin

    @matt: There were anecdotal suggestions of that from the beginning but, as Cheryl pointed out recently, the evidence from controlled studies has always been relatively weak. This is a bit stronger.

  73. 73.

    Chris Johnson

    @Cermet:

    I think we have Russian troll farms posting here (just as they do literally everywhere else on the Internet) and that intense doomerism is one of the most reliable indicators that a troll farm is trying to sway public opinion.

    That is the troll farm message for US: how fucked we are. It isn’t reality, it’s a propaganda message. Depth of feeling is not a certification of reality. Troll farms aren’t real depth of feeling: they are fake posters saying inflammatory things, towards very specific ends (despair and civil war as the only acceptable conclusion).

  74. 74.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Shalimar:

    I don’t see how it’s even possible to outlaw interracial marriage anymore.

    Easy–you just do it! And when it comes to how that could possibly be implemented, or how people would react or deal with it, or what the consequences would be, you just decide not to care. Kind of like outlawing abortion.

    Personally, I don’t think it will happen because even most hardcore conservatives these days say they aren’t against interracial marriage. In fact, support for it is one of the leading “I’m not a racist but” moves. But these things can turn on a dime.

  75. 75.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Chris Johnson: There are times when I think you detect 20 out of every 10 Russian ops, but I think you’re not wrong about Putin’s troll farms pushing liberal political doomism. That’s right up their alley. Here, I dunno, but they’re surely doing it on Twitter and the influence spills over indirectly.

    But Adam’s not wrong about the structural issues, either. We have a whole lot of constitutional brokenness that has the effect of giving right-wing white guys extra votes, and they’re gaming it to the hilt. I tell myself these things have been overcome without universal cataclysm before, but the way forward can be hard to see.

  76. 76.

    Another Scott

    @Matt McIrvin: I think it would be like what they’re trying to do with abortion and vaccination.  County clerks would be able to say that their religion doesn’t permit them to issue marriage licenses to such couples.  Public accommodations rules wouldn’t apply.  Landlords could refuse to rent to them.  Physicians and pharmacists and hospitals could refuse to serve them.  States could let vigilantes do the enforcement by bringing civil suits (“Preacher Jesus is marrying people against our community standards!!1”). Etc.  They wouldn’t have to “ban” it, just say that states can make it possible for anyone who wants to to discriminate and the federal government has no power to prevent it.

    It’s insidious.

    “My religion doesn’t permit me to pay taxes or respect laws that forbid me from have 12 year old wives or selling my daughters into slavery….!!”

    Part of me was optimistic that more people would get more rational when Jesus didn’t return in the year 2000.  It’s exhausting that we have to fight so many of these enlightenment battles that were apparently won 200+ years ago, but the battle is never won.  We have to fight them every single day.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  79. 79.

    J R in WV

    Far more law enforcement officers in the US have died of coronavirus than from any other work-related cause in 2020 & 2021.

    Is Dunkin’ Donuts or 7-11 for coffee work related?

    I think not!  I don’t think catching flu, or a bad cold, or coronavirus is work related.

    I did notice that during the summer of 2020, before Coronavirus was well understood, before vaccine, there were NO, as in ZERO traffic cops parked beside the highway to make sure no one was driving 85 in a 65 zone, checking to be sure no black motorists had overly tinted auto glass, etc. And there are damn few of them out today. Which is good, as my now returned SUV has so much power I overspeed before I know it sometimes.

    Anyway, if I catch coronavirus, I won’t get worker’s comp … if the nurse who gave me my flu shot yesterday catches it, she would deserve worker’s comp. Cops who don’t get a vaccination shouldn’t be counting on worker’s comp, or special police pension bennies to get them over their bout with the virus. They should  just lose their jobs same as everyone else!

    Now I’ll read the comment thread. Hi everybody~!!~

  80. 80.

    Bill Arnold

    @schrodingers_cat:
    The next time Adam does this (or anyone, really), ask them for their estimate of the probability of each outcome, and how those probabilities can be shifted by actions.
    Experts can, or should be able to, provide such estimates along with their level of certainty in the estimate.
    It’s a key skill, especially in very complicated domains where there are no analytical solutions.
    (My father taught his kids this approach at an early age, <10 ; he basically asked us to estimate, even very roughly, the probability that something was true, even if we didn’t share the estimates. )

  81. 81.

    PaulB

    @schrodingers_cat:

    The Supreme Court is going to outlaw interracial marriage and birth control

    Nit: the Supreme Court lacks the authority to do this. What they might do is decide that cities and states are now free to outlaw such things, that what had formerly been declared unconstitutional would now be legal.

    Other nit: I can definitely see some cities and states taking advantage of Griswold being overturned and banning some forms of contraception. I doubt that many of them have the will to ban interracial marriages, even if Loving is overturned, explicitly or implicitly. The backlash would be too extreme.

    Edited to add that with the massive number of people with mixed heritages, deciding what is and is not an “interracial marriage” would be well nigh impossible.

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