.
The White House is pushing ahead with efforts to promote COVID-19 shots after the Supreme Court halted the vaccinate-or-test plan for large employers. The Biden administration hopes that states and companies will order their own vaccination requirements. https://t.co/1RRGTB3dBr
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 14, 2022
Earnest thread from Dr. Friedman, which will be ignored by the people at which it is aimed:
"So nearly one in 10 people in the country today may have Covid."
? https://t.co/9uohLtuSpN— Helen Branswell (@HelenBranswell) January 15, 2022
The @WhiteHouse just briefed press on #COVID19 tests:
– 500 million will be available to order online Jan 19
– order at https://t.co/DV42vlb0CR
– limit of 4 tests per household
– will mail to you w/in 7-12 days
So, assuming this works, you can get 4 free tests in February.— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) January 14, 2022
United Airlines cancels flights after ~3000 employees test positive for Covid. According to a memo from the airline’s CEO the 3000 employees included almost a third of workers at Newark's Liberty Internat'l Airport https://t.co/aggtbE5IN8
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) January 14, 2022
Google mandates weekly COVID-19 tests for people entering U.S. offices https://t.co/dfAS8pgNVz pic.twitter.com/YkYqSQ7N7z
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 15, 2022
======
China reports 165 new coronavirus cases for Jan 14 vs 201 a day earlier https://t.co/pZwWwEQqgr pic.twitter.com/ZpREMUNGE4
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 15, 2022
China to suspend more incoming U.S. flights over COVID-19 cases https://t.co/qcwihNNLBf pic.twitter.com/O1J2SHtWWF
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 14, 2022
EXPLAINER: Strict containment measures at the Beijing Olympics will aim to create a virus-proof “bubble” for thousands of international visitors at a time when omicron is fueling infections globally. https://t.co/LH9FQKTlxt
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 15, 2022
Hong Kong is following mainland China's zero-tolerance approach to control COVID-19, rankling many residents of the international financial hub as much of the world shifts towards living with the coronavirus https://t.co/jMaQdUngvK
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 14, 2022
India reports 268,833 new COVID-19 infections, 402 deaths in past 24 hours https://t.co/x4bT6plvPi pic.twitter.com/BVZ0XNgwrr
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 15, 2022
South Korea received its first shipment of the new Pfizer antiviral Covid-19 pill, which can reduce hospitalisation rates and deaths by 90 percent based on Pfizer trials. pic.twitter.com/pshVJI2aDE
— South China Morning Post (@SCMPNews) January 14, 2022
Okinawa, home to U.S. military bases, logs record COVID cases https://t.co/qvt4mUUuuE pic.twitter.com/Zn3d8mZXSO
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 15, 2022
Philippines confirms community transmission of Omicron, cases hit record https://t.co/lGPGbx7f4J pic.twitter.com/6E0QmXzItf
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 15, 2022
Russia will delay controversial legislation over the use of coronavirus health passes for access to public spaces, officials said Friday, citing “new challenges” presented by the Omicron varianthttps://t.co/qFXssLXJEy
— The Moscow Times (@MoscowTimes) January 14, 2022
The Russian government has decided to delay the adoption of unpopular COVID-19 legislation restricting access to public places for the unvaccinated. https://t.co/IqYFr5aYIm
— AP Europe (@AP_Europe) January 14, 2022
Incidentally, one of the most thriving private industries in Russia right now is selling fake vaccination QR codes.
— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) January 12, 2022
Covid deaths are rising sharply in the UK, but an increasing proportion of these are actually due to something else, BBC analysis suggests https://t.co/wONZstY2pn
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) January 14, 2022
'High confidence' Omicron is less severe in UK https://t.co/fbsh36iyGs
— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) January 14, 2022
Brazil registers 112,286 cases of coronavirus, 251 COVID-19 deaths https://t.co/pcuN0p2kIE pic.twitter.com/zIyiIAU0Cr
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 15, 2022
Mexico posts fresh daily record for new coronavirus cases https://t.co/N77dcASA88 pic.twitter.com/lcqi7KlrFF
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 15, 2022
Some Mexican states roll out vaccination mandates for bars and events https://t.co/ZncWptkEL1
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) January 13, 2022
Mexico approves emergency use of Pfizer's COVID-19 pills https://t.co/dhX1aal7tZ pic.twitter.com/QQa3lKX8Cg
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 15, 2022
Quebec has seen high levels of #COVID19 #vaccine refusal, and decided to levy a special tax on unvaccinated citizens. Two outcomes:
– surge in vaccinations
– surge in opinion pieces and lawsuits
Stay tuned. https://t.co/y75zbdPutb— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) January 14, 2022
======
#LongCovid—For people 50+ even mild Covid can result in mobility problems. New Canadian study reports middle-age & older adults—who aren't hospitalized for Covid—can have difficulty weeks to months later getting up from chairs or problems navigating stairs https://t.co/gNKkf6zELB
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) January 14, 2022
How often can you safely reuse your KN95 or N95 mask? In the ideal world — pre-pandemic — many masks were really viewed as single-use. Now, the reality is they have to last longer, but there are ways to get more use out of an N95 & KN95 https://t.co/oCZbRrvtXk
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) January 15, 2022
When will the Covid wave be over? 4 numbers to keep an eye on:
1. Number of new daily cases
2. The Reff (The effective reproduction number, or Reff, determines how many people, on average, each case infects
3. % of positive tests
4. Number hospitalized https://t.co/Wsmb0fK0Xx— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) January 14, 2022
======
Omicorn is pushing hospitals to the brink in dozens of states. At least 80% of ICU beds were occupied in 24 states, including Georgia, Maryland & Mass. Worse, 18 states had at least 85% of ICU beds full. An acute bed scarcity persists in AL, MO, RI & Texas https://t.co/Jqem1im3Ms
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) January 15, 2022
The omicron variant is sickening so many sanitation workers around the U.S. that some cities have had to delay or suspend garbage and recycling pickup, angering residents shocked that governments can’t perform this most basic of functions. https://t.co/PosLOhY5lb
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 14, 2022
Cynics will point out that kids are not necessarily averse to unscheduled ‘free days’, regardless of given reasons:
As Omicron fuels surge, U.S. students stage walkouts to protest in-person classes https://t.co/aH3WskjyVk pic.twitter.com/TkGZfHi3Uf
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 15, 2022
a non bankrupt leftism not obsessed with lib owning above all else would maybe identify that the grocery store clerks and nurses getting sick because unvaccinated assholes are breathing in their faces should be protected
Instead, the unvaccinated are subjects of sympathy
— The Notorious S.E.B. (@bigseb31213) January 11, 2022
“I’m not going downhill. I mean, I think I’m feeling better. It’s just getting into my lungs.”
oh ok https://t.co/UiDHJ6vlCz
— kilgore trout, cryptopolice chief (@KT_So_It_Goes) January 13, 2022
‘A Menace to Public Health’: Doctors Demand Spotify Puts an End to Covid Lies on ‘Joe Rogan Experience’ https://t.co/oJoamBN5qi via @RollingStone
— Dr. Saskia Popescu (@SaskiaPopescu) January 12, 2022
Baud
Who are the people on the left sympathetic to the unvaxxed?
I’m not averse to criticizing the left, but I prefer it be over something real.
NeenerNeener
Monroe County, NY:
Monroe County website:
There were 1797 new cases of COVID-19 on 1/14.
They didn’t break down how many were PCR tests and how many were home test kits, but it usually runs about 55% lab, 45% home.
Hospitalizations:
169 people hospitalized for COVID as of 01/12. 67% were not vaccinated. The number of fully vaccinated in the hospital is going up.
ICU: 31 of the 169 cases are in the ICU, only 6 are vaccinated.
20 of the 31 cases are also intubated, 3 of them are fully vaccinated. It appears although the number of vaccinated in the hospital is going up the number of vaccinated in the ICU is not.
ExpatDan
Ima mostly lurker, but here I am.
Well, it’s a thing, these last few weeks. Been shoved out of my adopted country of 21 years, because Covid. Indirectly. It takes ~US$15k of money, in a Thai bank account, untouched for 6 months, to renew your residence visa. YEARLY. No matter how long you have lived here nor if you are married w/children.
I finally couldn’t do that because my business died. No matter 22 years living in Thailand and being a biz owner: under the bus with you. No matter 2x daughters who are a doctor and a nurse. No matter wife who does international film stuff. That’s it. EVERY year. Renew that visa, and maybe it won’t be. Or maybe they won’t renew it because they are having a bad day. No idea. That’s life.
After 21 years, keeping all employees on salary for 9+ months, finally ran out of resources. Cut them loose, sadly.
Wife (and daughters) are dual USA-Thai (one has a Japanese PP as well), but I’m not. Just a YANK. One passport.
So. I’m thrown back into the USA after ~30 years abroad. Landed last week. In Detroit. No idea how to function here. Any help appreciated. Scared like a little girl because I don’t have any USA-based family, nor whatever, but I’m here. Plus I’ve got a bit of cancer (stage 4 gastric, but whatever). And afraid of Covid bcuz of that. All the unmasked plague rats I see here? WTF? Coming from decades in Asia? That’s a thing that would not happen there. Scared. Seriously. And I’m a big guy.
So, I’m just trying to make it for a few months. I’ve no idea the future. (Jackals in the Detroit area? Thoughts?) I hate to ask, but… https://gofund.me/535fb107
ExpatDan
Anyway, the contrast between Asia and the USA is stark. Asia does not play around. The US? Well? Flying JAL (Japan Airlines) from Bangkok to Chicago via a stop in Tokyo. Literally *ZERO* people anywhere unmasked. But that’s kinda what you would see in the winter before Covid. Masks are a thing here, waaayyyy before Covid. It’s politeness.
Don’t let me talk about going from the nicety of JAL to the bruskness of AA (American Airlines) on the ORD-DTW leg. What a culture shock! Hating on this place already…
lowtechcyclist
If a year’s worth of incentivizing hasn’t worked on some folks, then punish away.
@Baud:
This. Names of people or orgs would lend some substance to such hand-waving.
ExpatDan
Leaving the Thai thing:
COVID-19 OUTBREAK
Last updated: Jan 15, 2022 at 18:20 hrs.
Thailand situation
Total cases:2,316,408
Recovered:2,217,124
Deaths:21,919
Daily New Cases:+7,793
Waaayyyy better than the USA. As has always been. Hence my scared-eee cat-ness?
ExpatDan
@ExpatDan:
Interesting and cool thing from JAL (Japan Airlines)? They gave me 30 days of Covid insurance. In that, if you got it within 30 days of departure from them, you were 100% covered. Any travel class, as I was going “cheap as chips” class. LOL.
YY_Sima Qian
On 1/14 China reported 104 new domestic confirmed (2 previously asymptomatic) & 2 new domestic asymptomatic cases.
Shaanxi Province reported 4 new domestic confirmed cases. 104 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There are currently 1,122 active domestic confirmed cases in the province.
At Yuncheng in Shanxi Province there currently is 1 active domestic confirmed case, a person arrived from Xi’an in Shaanxi.
Guangdong Province reported 8 new domestic confirmed (1 previously asymptomatic) & 2 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 3 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 32 active domestic confirmed & 3 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
At Guangxi “Autonomous” Region there currently are 17 active domestic confirmed (all at Dongxing in Fangchenggang) & 1 active domestic asymptomatic (at Chongzuo) cases in the province.
Tianjin Municipality reported 39 new domestic confirmed cases (1 previously asymptomatic, 19 mild & 20 moderate). There currently are 181 active domestic confirmed & 20 active domestic asymptomatic cases (all presumed Omicron) in the city, concentrated at Jinnan District. 2 residential compounds have been elevated to High Risk. 5 residential compounds are currently at High Risk. 7 residential compounds & 2 villages have been elevated to Medium Risk. 12 residential compounds & 2 villages are currently at Medium Risk.
Dalian in Liaoning Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently are 2 Omicron cases in the city, both university students that returned from Tianjin.
Shanghai Municipality did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently are 2 active domestic confirmed & 19 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city. 1 shop is currently at Medium Risk.
At Jiangsu Province there currently are 1 active domestic confirmed (at Nanjing) & 3 active domestic asymptomatic cases (all at Wuxi) in the province.
Zhejiang Province reported 1 new domestic confirmed case, at Hangzhou, a nurse working at a non-COVID hospital there, found via regular screening. 41 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 135 active domestic confirmed cases (spread across Shaoxing, Ningbo, Hangzhou & Jinhua) in the province. A factory & a village at Jinhua remain at Medium Risk. A factory & a village at Beilun District in Ningbo remain at Medium Risk.
At Xiamen in Fujian Province there currently is 1 active domestic confirmed case remaining, a quarantine hotel worker.
Henan Province reported 52 new domestic confirmed cases. There currently are 729 active domestic confirmed cases in the province.
Yunnan Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. 1 domestic confirmed case recovered & 1 domestic asymptomatic case was released from isolation. There currently are 10 active domestic confirmed (5 at Dehong Prefecture & 5 at Kunming) & 3 active domestic asymptomatic (1 at Dehong Prefecture & 2 at Sipsongpanna Prefecture) cases in the province.
Imported Cases
On 1/14, China reported 61 new imported confirmed cases (4 previously asymptomatic), 23 imported asymptomatic cases, 6 imported suspect cases:
Overall in China, 145 confirmed cases recovered (19 imported), 24 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation (23 imported) & 6 were reclassified as confirmed cases (4 imported), & 1,762 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 3,451 active confirmed cases in the country (1,240 imported), 11 in serious condition (1 imported), 743 active asymptomatic cases (689 imported), 13 suspect cases (all imported). 51,609 traced contacts are currently under centralized quarantine.
As of 1/14, 2,928.981M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 5.283M doses in the past 24 hrs.
On 1/15, Hong Kong reported 5 new positive cases, 3 imported & 2 domestic (both traced close contacts).
On 1/15, Taiwan reported 78 new positive cases, 72 imported (23 from the US, 10 from Canada, 3 each from Indonesia & Vietnam, 2 each from Australia & France, & 1 each from Germany & Singapore, 27 yet to be published) & 6 domestic (all at Taoyuan).
OzarkHillbilly
@ExpatDan: How un-American of them. Sorry for your problems. Flat broke at the moment, changes in a few days. I’ll try to remember to drop a few bucks.
John S.
Amazing front page bothsiderism from The Guardian today on the pandemic:
The Biden administration has failed its Covid test
Makes no difference which party is in power. Might as well put Republicans back in office.
YY_Sima Qian
On 1/15, Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province reported 1 new domestic positive case, a custodian at the same hospital as the nurse reported on 1/14.
Beijing Municipality reported 1 new domestic positive case, confirmed to be Omicron. Environmental samples taken from the case’s residents tested positive, as well. 2 roommates have tested negative, so far. The case has not traveled outside of Beijing in the past 14 days.
Zhuhai in Guangdong Province reported 1 new domestic positive case, a traced close contact.
Guangzhou in Guangdong Province reported 1 new domestic positive case, a person who recently returned from Zhuhai.
All 4 cases will be included in tomorrow’s data dump.
OzarkHillbilly
@John S.: I thought about putting that up but it was just too depressing for me. No matter who does what, it’s always DEMs fault.
New Deal democrat
Nationwide US cases are flat for the third day in a row. In the Northeast, they have declined close to 15% in the last 6 days. In the South, they have been on a plateau for the last 5. Cases are up a little over 5% in the last 6 days in the Midwest. Only in the West are cases still up sharply, 60%, in the past week.
As a side note, the State of Maine would make an interesting case study, because it and it alone appears to have almost completely escaped an Omicron tidal wave, with cases having only increased about 10% in the past month, at a level making it the least infected of all US States and all but two Canadian provinces, one of which is neighboring New Brunswick.
Hospitalizations and ICU admissions are still increasing, the former at a slower rate (I expect a peak in about a week), and the latter still below its previous two peaks. This is *relatively* good news, confirming that Omicron is less deadly.
South Africa has continued to decline, now down 75% from peak, but still 20x its pre-Omicron level. Deaths have also decreased, but are still 10x their pre-Omicron level. Since the US is almost certainly peaking, its post-Omicron situation becomes the next important issue.
Barbara
@John S.: Why I don’t just drop the Guardian a few bucks. Probably written by David Sirota.
John S.
@OzarkHillbilly:
It really is an astonishing dynamic. Republicans just fucking shred everything over and over again, get no blame for it and Democrats get handed a big fucking mess to clean up and get blamed for the mess no matter what they do to fix it.
Then the Republicans get back in power and claim credit for everything the Democrats did to fix the messes they created, and promptly begin fucking everything up all over again.
It’s like some sort of twisted sibling rivalry where the one kid is a total fuckup but the darling who the parents never get mad at. The other kid busts their ass but can never do good enough to appease the parents. That’s America.
ExpatDan
@OzarkHillbilly: Yeah, could you imagine that perk on a USA carrier? Pretty much de-rigrure (sp?) in Asia. Cathay also offered this…No worries on the help. I mean, Loardy, I need it, but what can I say as I just lurked here. Thanks Jackals for the thoughts. Anything is a help as I try to “become a member of society” or, reverse being a non-existent person. So far, being away from the USA for 30 years? It’s a thing. I do not exist. Literally. In society. Open a bank account? Uh… Utilities?… Uh…it’s circular. I started b4 I left. But…uh……not great.
lowtechcyclist
@OzarkHillbilly:
Pretty much. The Repubs keep the Dems from passing legislation, and the Repub-owned Scotus majority keeps Biden from using what had been until recently the powers of the Executive. So it’s all Biden’s and the Dems’ fault for not being able to end this plague.
YY_Sima Qian
Articles criticizing Hong Kong’s pandemic response claim “heightened frustration among the 7.5M residents”, but people quoted ate overwhelmingly expats. The few locals (selected from those most impacted by distancing measures) quoted voicing frustration at the city’s government are not asked to elaborate on the cause of their frustration & what they would like to see done differently. My guess is people are pissed off at this in power able to skirt the rules in terms of gatherings, & that they are pissed that Omicron breached border defenses, getting into the community, which necessitates social distancing measures. As far as I can tell, there is not a huge angst among locals to open up the borders & relax social distancing measures, which is what the expats are clamoring for.
Based on the city’s daily incidence in recent days, it appears that its strategy is working, better than I would have expected against Omicron.
New Deal democrat
@John S.: I am going to part company somewhat here. I don’t think it is both-siderism to be critical of Biden, where the obstacles were clear and he could have done much more.
One of NDD’s biggest life lessons is, ALWAYS have a ‘Plan B,’ and if it’s important enough, a Plan C and maybe a bare bones Plan D as well. There’s no evidence that the Biden Administration has ever had a COVID Plan B. Their Plan A was ‘everyone gets vaccinated’ and that’s it.
That the GQP was totally intransigent was apparent by late summer, as was the naked partisanship of the Supreme Court. Time to start war-gaming Plan B and C. While Biden’s military, healthcare, and OSHA mandates helped a little (even with the last one struck down), they were incremental.
There is still no interstate public transportation mandate, no invocation of the defense supply act to get enough masks and test kits to people, no widescale seroprevalence information (a la the U.K.), no daily CDC graphic updates on hospitalizations and deaths of vaxxed vs. unvaxxed, and perhaps most importantly, no coordination with Blue States to implement and enforce mandates, including school vaccination mandates, at the State or multi-State levels (for which the States have crystal clear and ample historical Constitutional authority).
Just because the other side is evil incarnate doesn’t mean we can’t criticize our own team when they have fallen down somewhat on the job.
ExpatDan
@YY_Sima Qian:
Yeah, no. Too many FILTH (failed in London try Hongkong) still, aka loser RWNJ financial services dorks. Lived in HKG as a tekkie for a few years…
Barbara
@New Deal democrat: We can always do more. Focusing on vaccines was and is the right strategy. You cannot overcome the basic resistance to actually taking Covid seriously no matter how many statistics the CDC puts out. The mandates are more than incremental and to a certain extent the strategy was that on a cumulative basis it would pick up a lot of stragglers, and it still will in the health care industry. All of the collateral fallout you face as an individual can be significantly reduced by getting vaxxed. We aren’t children. My sympathy starts and ends with people who are too young or cannot get vaxxed for other reasons.
sab
I feel like the woman on the left in that Luckovich cartoon. I spent Tuesday and Wednesday running around in a Republican suburb trying to get my computer set up to run payroll tax forms, and now I have what feels like a cold but is probably breakthrough Covid. Thanks all you unmasked twenty somethings at Staples and BestBuy.
YY_Sima Qian
@New Deal democrat: I think the Biden Administration has been consistently far too optimistic about the future course of the pandemic, & indeed they seem to only have a Plan A of mass vaccination (despite heavy anti-vaxx sentiments was already apparent, as was politicization of vaccination). I would say guidance from the Biden CDC has been confused & overly optimistic (certainly the communication, if not the underlying science), starting w/ masking not necessary for the vaccinated back in April, when Delta was already starting to circulate the globe.
rikyrah
Peanut got.her booster shot ? on Thursday ??
rikyrah
@ExpatDan: .
, Sorry ??
Cermet
@New Deal democrat: Simple, when Omicron in Massachusetts asked someone there who lives in Maine how how to get to Maine, he answered “You can’t get there from here.” Problem solved.
Barbara
@YY_Sima Qian: I do agree with this take, but ultimately it was a strategy of trying to get as much of the population vaxxed as possible and that is still the right strategy. I don’t get the ambivalence about masks but there’s no doubt that recommending masks gets flogged as a “fact” showing vaccines don’t actually work.
YY_Sima Qian
@Barbara: Instead of Plan A/B/C/D, perhaps it should be more thought of as 1st/2nd/3rd/4th lines of defense. Vaccination absolutely should be the central component of any plan, & indeed it is the only path that is sustainable over the long term. However, when it is the only line of defense, once it is proven inadequate there is nothing to fall back to.
When hospitals are overwhelmed, when businesses & schools need to shut down due to rampant infection, it is not just the anti-vaxx RWNJs that are affected. The Biden Administration has to at least attempt to prevent such circumstances, at least in the Blue States that are more likely to cooperate. The reactionary majority in the US Supreme Court is certainly a major obstacle, but the Biden Administration can issue guidances & try to convince the Blue states to adopt them.
Mousebumples
Regarding testing – per discussions I’ve been involved with at work, insurance should be covering up to 8 tests per person per month (at no cost) – I believe starting tomorrow. (**in the US, to clarify, for international Juicers)
You’ll have to ask your insurance how that will work – and it may involve you needing to find the tests.
Not clear yet on how we can ask our pharmacy to bill our insurance for the tests? (Not that they don’t have enough to do…)
My understanding is that if the plans setup a network of pharmacies/providers to make tests available, they can limit reimbursement for the “I bought this test off Amazon for $40/test” to a lower amount.
laura
Thinking of Amir Khalid this morning. Get well soon. Come back. You are missed.
charon
Free tests and N95/KN95 masks have been much more available in Europe and east Asia than here. I see that as poor performance by the federal government, does not Biden have some responsibility for this?
YY_Sima Qian
@ExpatDan: So sorry to hear about your travails!
I have largely been away from the US for the past 14 years, & I feel the reverse cultural shock whenever I return for a visit. This was before the pandemic. I can’t really imagine what the US feels like these days.
My plan had always been to take the family back to the US when my daughter is ready for junior high, which my wife (Chinese national) has never been too keen on. Given the developments in the US over the past 5 yrs., I must admit to having second thoughts on that plan.
Well, at least I am eligible to apply for Chinese permanent residence next year. However, as I keep telling my wife, there is no guarantee that China will still be a country we want to live in in 10 yrs, or that the US will still be a country we want to move to in 10 yrs.
sab
@YY_Sima Qian: Maybe you should stay in China until your daughter is ready for high school, not junior high. The math teaching in China is so much better
ETA My sister’s Chinese nephew was tutoring his fellow classmates at Berkeley (CA) High School because he had had all the math already before he got to US high school.
Suzanne
@Baud: Agreed. Like, I am pretty progressive in my politics, and lots of people I know and love really are big fans of Bernie Sanders…. and absolutely zero of them are sympathetic to the unvaccinated and all of them believe in worker protections.
Come to think of it, very few of the criticisms I read online of the Left bear out in my personal experience. I am sure there is a small subset of Bernie fans who don’t believe in racism and think it’s all about class, but every Bernie fan I know is pretty aware of race issues and how they intersect with class. I think Twitter is not a good mirror for real life.
Matt
Contre Garrett above, Quebec does not have a high rate of vaccine resistance.
Also, since we don’t have much about Germany in these threads, I learned from a friend they rapid test students three times a week.
smith
@ExpatDan: Welcome to the loving embrace of shithole America. Dropped you a few bucks — hope it helps.
Gvg
@Baud: I don’t know about “on the left”, but I am sympathetic to the underage unvaxed.
YY_Sima Qian
@sab: That is one of the options I am considering. My concerns is that high school is a challenging environment for any teen to face, w/o the cultural & language shock on top of it. If she decides to ultimately settle down in the US, I think it is much easier to integrate from junior high on than high school.
I moved to the US after primary school myself, & that already gave me a huge leg up on math all the way through high school.
sab
@YY_Sima Qian: If you move for junior high, maybe bring some Chinese math books with you?
I do think you are otherwise right about assimilating in junior high v high school. My parents moved me from the South to the Midwest between 6th and 7th grade, and that was a relatively easy transition because all the kids were in a new environment. By high school they already has established their friends for life.
Gvg
@ExpatDan: Why Detroit? What do you do, and do you have a job yet? You need health insurance I think. Get something on the exchanges? Do you want to be in a certain area of the country if you don’t have family? Some areas are much better about taking Covid seriously and being careful than others but some of the best have a high cost of living. Still, you can pick someplace better, maybe.
look for some Thai immigrant areas maybe to find a more homey group of fellow feeling Americans?
As badly as I think America has fallen down on immigration rights in recent decades, I find it shocking that you weren’t able to become a Thai citizen long ago and that they treated you like that.
BrianM
@YY_Sima Qian: It occurs to me that, if the Chinese government has decided that the Zero Covid policy is now impossible to maintain, the Olympics offers the best chance to blame it on foreigners (for breaking the Olympic bubble). “We’d have done away with it, if it hadn’t been for those pesky Americans!”
Wildly implausible, or just implausible?
Ksmiami
@ExpatDan: we’ll having lived in Oakland county for years, the good news is the economy there is doing well and a lot of companies are hiring. May I suggest you rent something in Troy as it has a large Asian community and is close to a lot of good companies. Plus the community has a diverse range of housing options for renting. What sorts of skills do you have?
Brachiator
@John S.:
A perfectly empty, meaningless paragraph. Especially the appeal to focus on “root causes.”
Ksmiami
@ExpatDan: Also it sounds strange, but your wife should sign up for Birmingham’s newcomers club. Since the town has a lot of expats, the free club is a great way to meet other people in the same boat with all kinds of helpful advice etc.
https://www.communityhouse.com/supported-groups-nonprofits/newcomers-club/
YY_Sima Qian
@BrianM: The CCP regime can blame it on foreigners, or rather, deflect any blame from itself, regardless of the Olympics. They can always point out that the Omicron Variant (just at the Alpha & the Delta before) emerged overseas because most of the world failed to suppress COVID-19, & most of the world failed at mitigation after its emergence. The regime will have to take responsibility (along w/ the IOC & all the other monied interests around the world that are propelling the games forward) even in light of the Omicron tsunami, but they can say Omicron’s emergence & the ensuing tsunami were so sudden that it was too late to change course.
More likely the regime will exhaust every possible mean to suppress any Omicron outbreak, up to & including Wuhan/Xi’an style lock downs of regions (but probably not national wide lock down like Spring 2020). Failure at suppression will lead to a major exit wave, leading to overwhelmed hospitals & tens if not hundreds of thousands of deaths (despite Omicron’s milder virulence & China’s high vaccination rate). The CCP regime will be blamed for that outcome, because there is no opposition party to point the finger to. As it stands, China may have to play whack-a-mole much more busily than before. Trends out of Tianjin, Anyang, Hong Kong & Taiwan suggests that it is possible to suppress Omicron if community spread is detected early enough & mitigation measures implemented quickly enough. Elimination might be tough. We shall see.
Ohio Mom
@ExpatDan: Did you see the other Balloon Juice post on the deadline for signing up for “Obamacare”/the ACA? The clock is ticking, loudly, the deadline is very soon. If you leave any questions about coverage in the comments, the post’s author, David Anderson, will get back to you quickly.
I’m a mite bit confused: the Go Fund Me describes you as single, your comment here lists two daughters and a wife. Whatever, I hope you find a place to land and that your cancer treatments are effective with minimal side effects.
Ohio Mom
@rikyrah: I know the feeling — all of Ohio Family is finally boostered too. Not that it means we can let our guard down of course, but there is a certain pride in knowing we’ve gone the right thing.
Soprano2
@New Deal democrat: What he said. They shouldn’t have depended on “the market” to provide home tests, for example.
Fair Economist
@New Deal democrat: Worldometer data still shows COVID deaths continuing to increase in S. Africa, up 43% compared to the week before. Of course S. Africa has the issue of not counting most of its COVID deaths, since every COVID wave has brought an excess death rate several times that of the official COVID rate. So there’s a possibility they’re just counting better than a few weeks ago.
Also, looking at the case rates, I’m not seeing the rapid decrease so many are promising as the back end to Omicron. Cases are dropping at rates similar to those of past COVID waves there
Edit: and S. Africa’s highest death report since the start of Omicron was the day before yesterday.
Fair Economist
@Suzanne:
I’ve said this many times: the whiny online leftists are fakes. Grifters and rightwing plants. Your friends are the real leftists.
Scout211
I posted this upstairs in the mistermix thread but it also fits here:
I wasn’t aware that in rare cases, some people with omicron can lose their sense of smell. That loss of smell happened to two of my (vaxxed) family members but all of their other symptoms pointed to omicron. It was confusing. Was it delta when the other family members infected were more likely omicron? It was confusing until we read these charts.
Ruckus
We live in a free society.
That means that people are free to be as big of assholes to each other as they are too themselves. And a lot of them do. We’ve been in this pandemic for getting onto 2 years now and we still don’t have a high vaccination rate. We have plenty of vaccines, we also have given away more vaccine dosages to other countries in an effort to end a worldwide pandemic. But our conservative side has decided that vaccines kill people which is why a democratic government is trying to get everyone to be vaccinated. There is no rational explanation, none, nada, zero, ain’t gunna happen level no rational explanation. And it’s worse in other nations that have irrational, conservative political parties. (But I repeat myself) All this concept that President Biden could do more, is failing is BULLSHIT. In a free country people have the right to be stupid, ignorant, asshole conservatives. And they are doing exactly that. President Biden had the conservatives cancel his order that large companies must require vaccination of all employees. That isn’t on him, that’s on them. Conservatives are trying to kill off everyone that isn’t them, but the joke is sort of on them because it’s constant bleating about vaccines, while getting the shots themselves is the hight of hubris, but that is conservatism. Their operating theme is bullshit till we win. But even they have to know that doing this in a pandemic is idiotic. But they don’t give a damn, they charge full steam even if it kills them, as long as they take the other side with them. Don’t join them in thinking that a government run like Russia is the answer, their death rate is worse than ours because their vaccine rate (and likely vaccine itself) is far worse than ours. Don’t fall into the fallacy that the government is 100% the cause of all problems, or the answer. It isn’t. The people of the country have to do their part as well. Conservatives of all countries think that the government has to do it all, and that just isn’t true, we all have to do our parts. The government at the best of time can do a lot, these aren’t the best of times. And if you review our history, it always takes the citizens to be part of the solution, it’s never the government alone, because in this country it is supposed to be the citizens and the government really is the same thing. That we hire people to do the day to day stuff is because that’s the only way it works, but those people still work for all the citizens, or at least that’s the concept. If we want President Biden to do his best we have to help and support him, to do our parts. Look at the road blocks that conservatives have thrown in his way. We have to help him get past those, not blame him for following the rules when conservatives say fuck off.
Could President Biden do better? Of course he could, but not in a democracy, with insane, asinine opponents.
Matt McIrvin
@Fair Economist:
The 91-DIVOC chart seems to show a somewhat steeper decline, but there was a bit of deceleration in early January:
https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/
ExpatDan
@YY_Sima Qian: Yeah. My plan was to never go back to the USA. But…
Matt McIrvin
@Ruckus:
Amusingly, conservatives will tell you that THEY are the only ones who realize this.
Matt McIrvin
@Scout211:
I suspected that because of two things: (1) it happened to Lindsay Beyerstein during the NYC Omicron spike, and (2) there was another big wave of irate comments to Yankee Candle about candles arriving with no scent.
ExpatDan
Democrats Abroad is a great organisation! I put a lot of time/money into it over the years… https://www.democratsabroad.org/
ExpatDan
@YY_Sima Qian:
Thai not so easy. You need $15k in an account, untouched for 6mos, to get a year visa. Yes, no matter if you’ve lived there for decades and are married. Forget about PR or citizenship. It ain’t happening without more pain.
Ruckus
@Matt McIrvin:
Yes, but we think our part is to make the system work for all, everyone, regardless of race, gender, birth. They consider the system to be working when they are OK and everyone they hate with a racist, sexist passion is dead. They don’t want a working system, they want a conservative system. That’s not a government, unless you consider a Monty Python skit to be the basis of a government. I always thought that they were making fun rather than being a teaching moment….
Ruckus
@sab:
Many countries limit immigration rather seriously. A few years ago I looked into emigrating and every place that was reasonably desirable was very restrictive and costly. For some you had to show that you had a rather large, easily movable, easily converted to local currency, nest egg, no matter where you were coming from. Language of course can also be a problem and as most US citizens are lacking any multi lingual ability because mercian is so much better than languages that have existed for centuries longer than our country, that can be an issue as well. IOW it ain’t easy peasy, in almost any direction.
YY_Sima Qian
@ExpatDan: Chinese PR has been very difficult to obtain, but a couple of years ago they opened up the path for anyone married to a Chinese National for 5 yrs., & has been resident in China during that time.
J R in WV
@Ohio Mom:
I thought he was pretty clear that his Thai family remained in Thailand, he lost his Thai residency visa, they are citizens there, not here.