Unless you were rich of course
— World Famous Art Thief (@CalmSporting) February 10, 2022
get boosted if you’ve been putting it off and if you haven’t, tell your friends. https://t.co/jYsFAKE7Bm
— Tyler Dinucci!! (@TylerDinucci) February 9, 2022
The distinction between COVID risks to those with 3 vaccine doses versus just 2 is important because only 42.4% of fully-vaccinated people have gotten the booster dose.
My guess is that a lot of the people in the vaccinated-but-not-boosted camp are still persuadable.
— Ryan Matsumoto (@ryanmatsumoto1) February 9, 2022
The treatment, called bebtelovimab, is manufactured by Eli Lilly. If it receives FDA approval, HHS will make it available to states free of charge. HHS expects to receive half the course in February and the rest in March.
— Kellan Howell (@kellanhowell) February 10, 2022
This is nuts. Anti-vaxxers shopped their case to TWELVE different district courts before they found one corrupt enough to stop the president from issuing a mandate for *his own workforce.* Now the 5th Circuit rewards them again. Depraved and lawless stuff. https://t.co/eJUwXhKmF9 https://t.co/xlWDKRov1q
— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) February 10, 2022
If large majorities support keeping some pandemic restrictions, doesn't that mean that pundits saying to end all precautions need to get out of their elite bubbles and learn what regular people think? Or does that apply only to certain positions (and certain "regular people")? https://t.co/yRo04hOSUT
— Nicholas Grossman (@NGrossman81) February 10, 2022
?? In POLITCIO tonight
"Republican strategists have described the pandemic to Nightly as a godsend…"
900K+ lives lost and millions more livelihoods destroyed. pic.twitter.com/in7BIgW0Qn
— Jesse Ferguson (@JesseFFerguson) February 11, 2022
#Covid cases are dropping in the US. But what comes after the #omicron wave? "We might have a considerable break during the warmer months," says Alessandro Vespignani of the Network Science Institute at Northeastern Univ. But that isn't a certain future https://t.co/4sOHFSHPa7
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) February 11, 2022
======
Quick update on Omicron variant of concern (B.1.1.529) and it's four sub-lineages: BA.1, BA.1.1, BA.2 and BA.3 provided by @WHO's Dr @mvankerkhove on 08 Feb, 2022. pic.twitter.com/eNwOO0XLvy
— Mrigank Shail, MD (@mrigankshail) February 10, 2022
Bringing in more than 15,000 people for the Winter Olympics poses risks for a country determined to keep COVID-19 out. One week into the 17-day event, China appears to be meeting the challenge with a bubble that restricts the movement of participants. https://t.co/rhOctCU8ut
— The Associated Press (@AP) February 11, 2022
… China has had scattered outbreaks in the past month, but none related to the Olympics. On Friday, health authorities reported 22 new cases in an outbreak in Liaoning province, east of Beijing.
None of the 450 confirmed infections inside the loop have spread to others in the bubble, Huang Chun, a pandemic control official, said earlier this week. And there have been no reports of anything medically serious.
The possibility of a large outbreak inside the bubble, potentially sidelining athletes from competitions, has been a greater fear than any leakage into the rest of China…
The final test will come after the Games, when thousands of Olympic staff and volunteers from China exit the bubble. They are expected to be required to quarantine for a week or more before leaving to try to forestall the effects of any latent infections they might have.
China’s zero-tolerance policy has kept the virus at bay. Health authorities have reported 4,636 deaths since the start of the pandemic, a tiny fraction of those in other major nations. Most date from the initial outbreak in early 2020 that overwhelmed the health system in the city of Wuhan…
China’s relative success may make exiting its zero tolerance strategy more difficult. Most of the nation’s 1.4 billion people have not been exposed to the virus, so they haven’t developed antibodies that way. And while the vaccination rate is high, the emergence of new variants such as omicron may make the vaccines in use less effective.
For at least the near future, that means anyone caught in an outbreak could face lockdowns and repeated testing — and those coming to China will be isolated in a hotel room for two weeks or more. The repercussions from the 2-year-old pandemic keep marching on.
Beijing Games organiser reports 11 new COVID-19 cases on Feb 10 https://t.co/B5TxlWKN5V pic.twitter.com/6mEmYNZMAP
— Reuters (@Reuters) February 11, 2022
Hong Kong COVID infections hit record, stretch hospitals, China pledges support https://t.co/OrniGQNbBJ pic.twitter.com/Qgt6zGPtu9
— Reuters (@Reuters) February 11, 2022
Australians told to get COVID boosters to be considered fully vaccinated https://t.co/gZawyTJxKf pic.twitter.com/ItxV3pNCJh
— Reuters (@Reuters) February 11, 2022
It's been four days since several thousand protesters, inspired by truckers' demonstrations in Canada, occupied the parliament lawns in New Zealand’s capital Wellington, and blocked surrounding streets with their trucks, cars, camper vans and motorcycles https://t.co/mNXn4BgPlE pic.twitter.com/7Fxo3xAnBm
— Reuters (@Reuters) February 11, 2022
Russia reported more than 200,000 new Covid-19 infections Friday for the first time since the start of the pandemichttps://t.co/aJ3IIkBaUu
— The Moscow Times (@MoscowTimes) February 11, 2022
Not silly. But I would love to know if you could prove Putin took an American vaccine and not Sputnik via a furtive DNA sample. https://t.co/n3BUJDfzeh
— Mig Greengard (@chessninja) February 10, 2022
Germany's highest court has refused to temporarily block the implementation of a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for health care and nursing home workers that is due to take effect in mid-March. https://t.co/HI1yVryXVp
— AP Europe (@AP_Europe) February 11, 2022
Vaccinated travelers can now enter Britain without taking any coronavirus tests after the government scrapped one of the final restrictions imposed over the past two years in response to the pandemic. https://t.co/dRX6hjCqW8
— AP Europe (@AP_Europe) February 11, 2022
UK must do more to recoup billions of pounds of COVID fraud – lawmakers say https://t.co/GV5r3VnvXZ pic.twitter.com/adUr6Hypdo
— Reuters (@Reuters) February 11, 2022
======
‘Natural immunity’ is NOT A THING:
What is the effectiveness of a prior COVID infection in preventing symptomatic reinfection?
Alpha: 90.2%
Beta: 85.7%
Delta: 92.0%
Omicron: 56.0%Good data from Qatar https://t.co/iKNgtV3poM, by Altarawneh et al. pic.twitter.com/ea4pfSsWmU
— Isaac Bogoch (@BogochIsaac) February 10, 2022
As more places drop mask orders and other COVID-19 precautions as the omicron wave ebbs, there's new urgency in finding ways to protect up to 7 million Americans with severely weak immune systems. https://t.co/mDoZwxmgEn
— The Associated Press (@AP) February 10, 2022
Novavax says its protein-based vaccine works for kids as young as 12. The U.S. vaccine maker produces a different type of shot than the mRNA vaccines widely in use. It's a late comer among vaccines & is under review by the FDA https://t.co/rfqwQG5poQ pic.twitter.com/AcTk8EEic6
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) February 11, 2022
In the lab: Canadian scientists' have developed an inhaled Covid vaccine to deliver broad protection against variants. Researchers say an inhaled vax targets the lungs & upper airways where respiratory viruses enter the body, a major advantage over a shot https://t.co/OzBPkhHOZF
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) February 10, 2022
In the lab: Vaccines that prevent transmission are needed to help reduce global SARSCoV2 infection. Current vaccines induce robust systemic immunity, but poor immunity in the respiratory mucosa. In development an intranasal anti-spike booster vax https://t.co/7sDyhdxP4x pic.twitter.com/5GUFi5sJfG
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) February 10, 2022
======
In a message to workers, Amazon said staff at its U.S. warehouses and logistics sites could work without a face mask if local regulations allow, and employees must be fully vaccinated by March 18 in order to get paid leave due to COVID-19 https://t.co/CjWFMZZMrp $AMZN pic.twitter.com/xVTXwmm8Tu
— Reuters (@Reuters) February 11, 2022
Nearly 3000 New York City workers will be fired today if they don't get vaccinated. The mayor is poised to dismiss municipal workers for refusing to follow the rules of a vaccine mandate https://t.co/hOqrWnJ8aw
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) February 11, 2022
Tonight I met with 70+ of our most engaged high schoolers in Boston. When asked how many believe we should keep masks on beyond 2/28 in @BostonSchools: pic.twitter.com/HktpIKDJFT
— Michelle Wu 吳弭 (@wutrain) February 10, 2022
my quick two cents: the “open everything” argument probably sounds most weird to the service industry workers who have been trying not to get sick or abused for trying to keep other people from getting sick for the last year
— Hayes Brown (@HayesBrown) February 10, 2022
i honestly think it's worse than this; i think the usual suspects are pretending that we could achieve significantly higher vaccination rates *without* this, and simply hand-waving away the reality that this is what it would take. https://t.co/0Ck8w7dSXK
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) February 8, 2022
it’s this fantasy scenario that if everyone got paid a lot of money to stay home, indefinitely, forever, then everyone would stay home. it completely ignores the logistics of this (which are basically impossible to control), as well as the desire for it (no one wants this now).
a thing that never, ever gets addressed in these fantasy situations is the inevitable crackdown when people do not *want* to stay home, and the staggering number of powerful firearms that reside in the private homes of the people who do not want to stay home.
unless you are open and honest about the fact that any lockdown would, at this point, end up in a non-zero number of dead civilians, dead police officers, and dead members of the national guard, i don’t give a shit about your fantasies, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
if you’re *not* talking about lockdowns and checks and forced business closures, then, really, what you’re talking about are much smaller and probably localized efforts. which is fine. not sure how much they actually matter, but fine.
i’m just really tired of all covid discourses being primarily driven by hypotheticals that don’t bear any resemblance to reality. it’s been over two years. there’s no good reason for pretending we live in a world that’s very different from the one we all know that we live in.
NeenerNeener
Monroe County, NY:
282 new cases as of 2/10/22.
Still no test kits in the mail.
Hospitalizations:
118 cases in the hospital; 68.6% unvaxed
14 cases in the ICU; 71.4% unvaxed
9 of these cases are intubated as well, 66.6% unvaxed
Cermet
That an insane judge decides to over rule all other courts and violate the separation of powers clause in the constitution was inevitable considering the fascists’ grab for power of the minority rightwing. This plan has been developing since Nixon’s Sothern strategy and Ray-guns “drown the government” (i.e. eliminate social programs only).
lowtechcyclist
Tell me you’re a sociopath without telling me you’re a sociopath.
Matt McIrvin
I assume they’re talking about any prior COVID infection at any point in the past, not prior Omicron infection specifically. Having recently gotten Omicron has to be more protective than that against Omicron, or we would never see the Omicron spike recede like it has–it would just perpetually infect everyone. Of course, this may not last long-term.
NotMax
Locally,
Elsewhere,
lowtechcyclist
I’m confused: is there stuff that’s still closed?
Matt McIrvin
I am pretty sure you could not prove that.
debbie
Based on the Kiwis I’ve met, I had no idea there was much anger in the country. Is there any information on who’s funding the NZ protest?
Kay
No one has to pretend the US Right isn’t backing/promoting this. They are. Blaring out free advertising for hours and hours across all their media.
mrmoshpotato
Nice to see Germany isn’t being a slapdick with vaccine mandates.
Amir Khalid
Malaysia’s Ministry of Health reports a whopping 20,939 new Covid-19 cases today in its media statement, for a cumulative reported total of 2,996,361 cases. It also reports 10 deaths as of midnight, for an adjusted cumulative total of 32,075 deaths – 1.07% of the cumulative reported total, 1.12% of resolved cases.
Based on cases reported yesterday, Malaysia’s nationwide Rt is at 1.51.
86 confirmed cases are in ICU, 37 of them on ventilators. Meanwhile, 5,807 more patients have recovered, for a cumulative total of 2,841,271 patients recovered – 94.8% of the cumulative reported total.
20 new clusters were reported today, for a cumulative total of 6,575 clusters. 410 clusters are currently active; 6,165 clusters are now inactive.
20,818 new cases today are local infections. 121 new cases today are imported.
The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) administered 173,428 doses of vaccine on 10th February: 18,343 first doses, 1,739 second doses, and 153,346 booster doses. As of midnight, the cumulative total is 64,611,898 doses administered: 26,161,500 first doses, 25,728,912 second doses, and 12,926,703 booster doses. 80.1% of the population have received their first dose, 78.8% their second dose, and 39.6% their booster dose.
Kay
@lowtechcyclist:
I think they want everyone to stop talking about covid completely. They’re “over it”.
Except for the Canadian trucker antivaxx protest, which they’re all promoting:
It’s not enough that the US be “over” covid- they demand all other countries pretend it’s no longer happening too.
New Deal democrat
Deaths in the US rose slightly to 2550. Cases are now down almost 75% from peak about four weeks ago, but at a little over 200,000 are still above every previous peak except last winter. Almost 24% of all Americans have had a *confirmed* case. Probably 50% have actually been infected at some point. With 65% of Americans having received at least 2 shots, that suggests that almost 85% have at least some resistance.
All US Census regions are now down at least 2/3’s. The Northeast is down 89%, and is down YoY.
The early affected States of the Northeast corridor are all down approximately to their levels of last mid-April. If they were to continue to decline like last year, they would match their pandemic lows in 2 months. If they continue to decline as they have since their Omicron peaks, that is only 4 weeks away.
On the other hand, ID has been flat for the past 6 days. MS and MT have also been essentially flat. FL has been rising for the past week, but this may just reflect haphazard weekly reporting that may disappear in a couple of days.
Internationally deaths are down from peak roughly 25% in Canada, Israel, and the U.K. Data is too noisy to tell for Ireland. Deaths have risen in South Africa by About 25% in the past week, but as noted yesterday, this may be due to that country’s haphazard and delayed reporting of this data.
Cases continue to decline in Canada, Israel, Portugal, and (slightly) in South Africa and the U.K., but are rising again in Denmark. Ireland has been flat for over two weeks.
OzarkHillbilly
My step-daughter continues to suffer.
Baud
@Kay:
And he never will.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
How bad?
Kay
Weird how none of these people insisted Donald Trump meet with BLM protestors in the US. BLM protestors block a street for 4 hours, they’re outraged. Antivaxx protestors block an international bridge for days and throw thousands of people out of work and they’re cheering them on.
Some protestors are just better than others.
Baud
@Kay:
Consistency is for those without privilege.
MagdaInBlack
@Kay: Gosh, I wonder what the difference might be? It is a puzzlement………….?
debbie
@Kay:
I can’t imagine they have much of a future. They’re all independents and I’d bet the companies whose products aren’t getting out the door won’t be kindly disposed toward the truckers going forward.
YY_Sima Qian
On 2/10 China reported 56 new domestic confirmed (none previously asymptomatic) & 5 new domestic asymptomatic cases.
Guangdong Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. As the province does not breakdown recoveries between domestic & imported cases, I cannot track the count of active cases in parts of the province.
Guangxi “Autonomous” Region reported 33 new domestic confirmed cases. There currently are 220 active domestic confirmed & 2 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
At Shaoyang in Hunan Province there currently is 1 active domestic confirmed case in the city, part of the transmission chain spreading from Shenzhen in Guangdong.
At Tianjin Municipality 3 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 32 active domestic confirmed cases (all presumed Omicron). 2 residential buildings remain at High Risk. 5 residential buildings remain at Medium Risk.
Beijing Municipality did not report any new domestic positive cases. As Beijing does not separate recoveries between imported & domestic cases, I cannot track the number of active cases on the city. 1 High Risk village has been re-designated to Medium Risk. 1 community remains at High Risk. 1 Medium Risk community & 1 Medium Risk residential compound have been re-designated to Low Risk. 1 community, 1 village & 1 residential building remain at Medium Risk.
Liaoning Province reported 22 new domestic confirmed & 2 new domestic asymptomatic cases. There currently are 24 active domestic confirmed& 5 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
At Shandong Province there currently at 2 active domestic confirmed (at Jinan) & 1 active domestic asymptomatic (at Liaocheng) cases in the province, all part of the transmission chain from the cold storage warehouses outbreak at Fengtai District in Beijing.
At Datong in Shanxi Province there currently are 2 active domestic confirmed cases in the city.
At Hebei Province there currently are 18 active domestic confirmed cases (5 at Xiong’an, 5 at Hengshui, 6 at Langfang & 2 at Baoding) in the province, all part of the transmission chain from the cold storage warehouses outbreak in Fengtai District in Beijing. 1 village at Hengshui remains at Medium Risk.
At Yili Prefecture in Xinjiang “Autonomous” Region 1 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 1 domestic asymptomatic case was released from isolation. There currently are 4 active domestic confirmed (3 at 4th Div. of XPCC & 1 at Horgos) & 5 active domestic asymptomatic (3 at 4th Div. of XPCC & 2 at Horgos) cases at the border crossing. 2 residential compounds & 1 residential building were re-designated to Low Risk. 2 residential compounds remain at Medium Risk.
Heilongjiang Province reported 2 new domestic asymptomatic cases, both at Heihe, both found via mass screening. 1 domestic confirmed case recovered & 2 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 25 active domestic confirmed (all at Mudanjiang) & 49 active domestic asymptomatic (10 at Heihe, 34 at Mudanjiang, 4 at Qiqihar & 1 at Suihua) cases in the province. 2 residential buildings are Heihe have been elevated to Medium Risk. 5 residential buildings at Heihe are currently at Medium Risk. 3 residential compounds, 8 residential buildings, 3 residential building units, 4 office buildings & a produce market at Mudanjiang remain at Medium Risk.
At Shanghai Municipality 1 domestic asymptomatic case was released from isolation. There currently are 2 active domestic confirmed & 3 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city.
Zhejiang Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. As the province does not regularly publish recoveries, I can no longer trace the count of active cases on there. 8 residential compounds, 4 businesses & 1 shop at Hangzhou remain at Medium Risk.
At Huanggang in Hubei Province there currently is 1 active domestic asymptomatic case in the city, part of the transmission chain from Hangzhou in Zhejiang.
At Shangrao in Jiangxi Province there currently is 1 active domestic asymptomatic case, part of the transmission chain from the factory outbreak at Hangzhou in Zhejiang.
Suzhou in Jiangsu Province reported 1 new domestic asymptomatic case, an import logistics worker, found via bi-daily regular screening. The 246 traced F1 & F2 close contacts, as well as 14,316 related persons, have been identified & have all tested negative to date.
Tongren in Guizhou Province reported 1 new domestic confirmed case (moderate), a truck driver who traveled from Huludao in Liaoning, entering Guizhou on 2/7. On 2/9, the case was identified a close contact of domestic positive cases reported by Huludao in Liaoning, & was directed to nearest service area & was sent to centralized quarantine, testing positive on 2/10.
At Henan Province 38 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 222 active domestic confirmed cases in the province.
At Yunnan Province there currently are 8 active domestic confirmed (3 at Kunming & 5 at Sipsongpanna Prefecture) & 6 active domestic asymptomatic (all at Sipsongpanna Prefecture) cases remaining. 1 zone at Mengla County in Sipsongpanna Prefecture remains at Medium Risk.
Imported Cases
On 2/10, China reported 45 new imported confirmed cases (10 previously asymptomatic), 61 imported asymptomatic cases, 0 imported suspect cases:
Overall in China, 105 confirmed cases recovered (49 imported), 48 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation (44 imported) & 10 were reclassified as confirmed cases (all imported), & 3,290 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 1,424 active confirmed cases in the country (636 imported), 5 in serious condition (1 imported), 832 active asymptomatic cases (746 imported), 2 suspect cases (both imported). 38,682 traced contacts are currently under centralized quarantine.
As of 2/10, 3,029.588M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 6.942M doses in the past 24 hrs.
On 2/11, Hong Kong reported 1,325 new positive cases, 2 imported & 1,323 domestic.
On 2/11, Taiwan reported 79 new positive cases, 61 imported & 18 domestic.
mrmoshpotato
@Kay: When did Bari Weiss become a Canadian slapdick? I always thought she was an American slapdick. ?
Baud
Via reddit
Kay
@Baud:
Anti-vaxx protestors on the Right in Canada should get a formal meeting with the head of state to negotiate terms- maybe they’ll allow passage on that bridge if the Canadian goverment meets their demands- anti police brutality protestors on the Left in the US should all be immediately arrested.
The same group of people who demanded BLM be shut down to “restore order” are enthusiastically promoting anti-vaxx protestors shutting down the whole Canadian auto industry, with its thousands of hourly workers. These people understand that Canada is the largest trading partner for the whole Great Lakes region in the US, right? That this game they’re playing might affect their own country?
mrmoshpotato
@Kay:
Very weird.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: It’s up and down. We dropped off some soup and bread I made for them on Tuesday. She looked OK but mentioned that she had just woken up after sleeping for almost 20 hrs straight. My wife went to Walmart for them last night and said that K had been hammered hard the past 24 hours. I didn’t ask for details.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: SAD!
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Hopefully, she slept most of it off and will be on the upswing.
Kay
@mrmoshpotato:
Day after day of continous coverage on Fox and all across Right wing commercial media isn’t enough- the truckers are being cancelled, so the “contrarians” have taken up their cause. That the “contrarians” consistently take up the same causes all of Right wing commercial media are also promoting doesn’t matter. If it’s on Tucker they’re for it.
Baud
@Kay:
In fairness, I would support Biden meeting with BLM and oppose him meeting with antivax truckers. I don’t feel the need to treat both causes as if fhey have equal value.
mrmoshpotato
@Kay: This bullshit is also fucking up the American auto industry. Hooray!
Marmot
@Matt McIrvin: Yeah, with *Putin’s* DNA? Mig is confused about how RNA vaccines work! And in a way that’s a lot like how anti-vaxxers think.
Brantl
So, when will the Canadian police start ticketing these vehicles, and then impounding them? I don’t understand why they don’t. Impound just one of those assholes’ semis, and I bet you they start moving out of there……..
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Well, the hammered 24 was the most recent 24, so the sleep didn’t hinder that.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’m so sorry to read of this and hope she’s better soon. Sleep is usually the most restorative thing for an illness. ?
Cermet
@OzarkHillbilly: Very sorry to hear; how many days has it been?
mrmoshpotato
@Kay: Yeah, I know. Weiss is even more of a slapdick.
Also,
Aw man! I loved that show! ?
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Ugh.
Cermet
@Kay: Racism runs deep in this country – to its very bones with its constitution built upon preserving slavery (i.e. rightwing extremism by a minority over a majority.)
Kay
@mrmoshpotato:
Of course it will. “The auto industry” isn’t just assembly. It’s huge and complex and all interconnected. If they’re not assembling them they’re not bringing in the parts that they would need for the next round of assembly.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: They don’t have equal value. BLM has a legitimate concern (can’t think of a better description right now), and the anti-vaxx asshats are a bunch of plague rat brats.
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
Sure, but a fascist would come to the opposite conclusion.
OzarkHillbilly
@Cermet: She first exhibited symptoms (and tested positive) last Friday. So still early in the illness.
lowtechcyclist
@Brantl:
Don’t know for sure, but I’ve heard that the 14- and 18-wheelers are only a part of the problem, that a lot of regular cars and pickup trucks have joined in as well.
I expect that towing a big rig requires a specialized tow truck, and there may be but so many of them, because how often do you see an 18-wheeler being towed? But there are plenty of tow trucks that can remove ordinary cars and pickup trucks. So to the extent that they’re part of the problem, you’d think they’d be cleared out by now.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud:
True, but fuck ’em. Fuck ’em off of the Ambassador Bridge into the Detroit River.
Peale
@Kay: I would not be surprised to find out that the protest’s expansion to Windsor hasn’t been facilitated financially by a certain libertarian electric car company owner whose vehicles were just recalled because they ran stop signs.
Spanky
Republican Governor to the core:
Good on the BOE.
OzarkHillbilly
@lowtechcyclist: Yes, large tow trucks, not exactly uncommon along any interstate. The tow service in St. Clair MO has 6-8 of them on hand. It’s quite a show to watch them right a rolled big rig, especially when the terrain fights them.
OzarkHillbilly
@Peale: They are now suffering a 2nd recall.
Baud
@Spanky:
“Let quit the race now that we’ve almost won.”
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: I’m sure Ft Lost in the Woods has tank retrievers!
gvg
@NeenerNeener: I got mine 1 week after I ordered it. Of course I am in Florida where the weather is not a big factor and possibly our high case rates made us a priority. At this point I think you should look on the website for info on how to report a lost order. It just doesn’t seem right. Many of us reported we got ours quickly. your order seems like an outlier.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
Greece: seems to have stabilized a bit, at the higher post-Omicron levels. Numbers from February 10 were 19,154 new cases, positivity rate of 6.02%, 93 dead, and 516 in ICUs.
At least Greece doesn’t have an opposition party that’s actively sabotaging measures to fight the pandemic and then blaming the party in power for not overcoming their sabotage. Still any number of COVIDiots out there, but they’re fringe, unlike in the US where they’re fbeeping entrenched.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Yep. They even have one on display at the museum.
New Deal democrat
@lowtechcyclist:
I have wondered whether US-Canada crossings allow both countries’ police agencies to operate over the entire length of the crossing. If it is deemed a water crossing, maybe. Here’s the link:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/cross-border-policing-provokes-sovereignty-worries-1.1162116
“The Integrated Cross Border Law Enforcement Operations Act now makes it possible for American officers to cross the border into Canada where, as the act states, they have ‘the same power to enforce an act of Parliament as a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.’ This means they’ll be armed and have the powers to arrest suspects in Canadian territory.”
The Act was limited to water, but a provision for land crossings was said to be in the works.
If Trudeau got a little creative, he could decide to apply the Act and allow the trucks to be towed off the bridge from the US side. I’m not sure how that would play with Canadian public opinion, though.
OzarkHillbilly
@gvg: We still haven’t received ours.
Kay
@Peale:
I don’t think Tesla can run Tesla, let alone shut down their competitors. Every single person I have spoken to who has worked there says it’s poorly run. Obviously anecdotal but they were recruited to work there and none of them stay.
NotMax
Morning thread posting times inching closer and closer to noon.
:(
Soprano2
I have wondered the same thing. The answer I’ve gotten here from Canadians is that the local and provincial governments where these protests are happening are Conservative, and are sympathetic to the protesters. I think it’s gone well beyond that, though – I can imagine how the average citizen of Ottawa feels about their city government at this point, and the provincial government that’s over the bridge to Detroit cannot be too popular at this point either. I think if you started writing tickets and towing off vehicles, a lot of people would leave. I’d be for fire hoses and teargas at this point, too.
Kay
@Peale:
I just think this is how it’s going to be every time the Right loses an election. They’ll deny they lost, then they’ll work against anything positive in the country until they’re in power again. These are people who actively and enthusiastically misinformed their own voters and viewers about a virus that could kill them, to stick it to the libs. That’s what they are. They probably cut the GOP vaccination rate by 20 points or better. It’s thousands dead- not liberals- Fox watchers. Awful to say, but that’s what happened. Fox knows their viewers are older then the average, they know older people are at higher risk. They don’t care. If it gives the GOP an edge in the midterms they’ll happily sacrifice some people.
lowtechcyclist
Thank goodness we only have to put up with him for the rest of this year.
I remain convinced that we were only able to keep Calvert County schools open over the past couple of months because of the mask mandate. The kiddo’s high school had 52 students and staff test positive between the Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks, and another 48 during January, even with our delayed (snow) return to classes after the break.
If not for masks, those students and staff would have infected many others, and we’d have had hundreds of cases both before and after the Christmas break. It would have been a shitshow.
And there’s no reason to think that his high school was exceptional in this regard.
I’ll be letting the state BOE know how I feel.
lowtechcyclist
I got an email saying mine are supposed to arrive today. We’ll see what happens.
Another Scott
The framing of stories like the AP news piece about China and the Olympics continues to infuriate me.
“Yeah, only 4636 deaths (most very early on), and they haven’t had tens of millions get sick and miss work or school and thereby cost the economy trillions, but on the other hand, travelers have to spend an extra week in a hotel. Both sides!!1”
Grr…,
Scott.
Soprano2
@Kay: I asked one of the Trump supporters here if he thought any election where the Republican lost was legitimate. He hesitated a long time before he said “Well, sure”, but he also told me he only trusted the MO election result because Trump won. They have been convinced that if they don’t win an election it’s because there was rampant cheating (translation is that too many black people voted). I wonder if they realize that’s not how democracies work, not at all. That’s how dictatorships like Russia work.
Ken
“Until” kind of implies they’d change after getting power…
NotMax
FYI.
JMG
@Soprano2: In 1971, Prime Minister Trudeau’s father invoked a 1914 law basically giving him the power to declare martial law in response to a series of kidnappings by Quebec separatists. Law’s still on the books.
Kay
@NotMax:
Right wing populism! Deny thousands of people the ability to earn an hourly wage! The Party of the Working Class.
germy
“I believe the children are our future…”
https://wnyt.com/commit-to-kids/ballston-spa-mask-mandate-protest/6388146/?cat=10114
Upstate NY high school students don’t want no masks.
There’s a photo of them in the link. They don’t represent the views of all students, just the dumb ones.
Soprano2
@Another Scott: There is no way any Western government could have handled Covid the way China has. That can only be done in a dictatorship.
I heard a story yesterday about more liberal states lifting their mask mandates. In the story, they said the governors were getting a lot of pressure from vaccinated people, who feel that they are being punished to protect the (idiots) people who refuse to get vaccinated and want the measures lifted. I don’t know that I believe that, but it’s what the story said. I also think the nature of Omicron contributed to this – several times I’ve heard “people get it even though they wear masks and are vaccinated and do other stuff, so why would you still wear masks?”. There is also frustration that no one will say when the measures should end. I do think there is some validity to this – if you won’t give people a measurable way to know when the Covid measures should end, and instead say “not yet”, people start to feel that the authorities never want to end things. Unfortunately, I think this is a battle that our side has lost (it never even won in my state). I think the best people can do is protect themselves in whatever way they’re most comfortable with.
Fair Economist
My mother and stepfather have both had COVID. Both are triple vaxxed, but dependent on 24/7 assistance, and as my mother says “with all the people that come through here every day it was inevitable”. My mother got molnupiravir and was over it in a week. My stepfather wouldn’t see the doctor and has had it 2 weeks and is still testing positive. Too late for molnupiravir.
Soprano2
@JMG: I also read somewhere that the province where this is happening passed a law that makes it easier for them to disband protesters (in response to the pipeline protests), but refuse to use the law against this protest (I won’t call them truckers since I know most of them aren’t actually truck drivers).
NorthLeft12
@Kay: The main goal of this convoy is to overthrow the recently re-elected government of Canada. What politician in their right mind would meet with these seditious anarchists?
Oh right, the Conservatives would….because they are not the government being threatened and they feel like they will benefit from their protest.
I see that the current temporary Con leader has changed her tune and is now “begging” the protestors across Canada to pull up stakes and go home. I think some of their corporate owners have explained to her how very bad this is for business. I would be willing to bet that they will not listen to her. They smell blood and most of them will not give up.
Kay
@germy:
Cheered on and promoted by major media. “Ignore the rules at your school! No one is the boss of you!”
Public schools should be run by the loudest and most obnoxious parents. That’ll work out great.
NotMax
@germy
The library? Where they’ll be directly exposed to all that insidious, evil printed matter?
//
Another Scott
@Soprano2: Disagree. Look at New Zealand, Australia, Japan, South Korea. There’s a lot of nuance in possible responses and the US has been particularly bad in too many areas. And the framing matters a lot. When the press relentlessly says that the economy is damaged because people can’t freely infect everyone they come in contact with (when the actual reality is the polar opposite), then it’s little wonder that people think that the pandemic is over…
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
germy
@NotMax:
In the photo, none of them are reading.
NorthLeft12
@Soprano2: Yes Alberta did. They “encouraged” the local municipality to use this law, but said they just pass the laws and they don’t enforce them. This, of course, is total horseshit.
It was a given that this law was only going to be used against indigenous and environmental protestors…..never against “real Albertans”.
NorthLeft12
@JMG: That use was wrong and the biggest stain on P. E. Trudeau’s career. There is no reason to declare martial law. The protestors are breaking enough laws now to warrant arrest and serious charges.
I think the challenge will be to get the trucks out of the way. It will take time, but they have to start right away.
Kay
@NorthLeft12:
We give the Right wing a lot of credit in the US for their successful panics, political tactics, etc. but they throw so much shit at the wall some of it is bound to stick. There’s no guarantee this works out for them. It could easily backfire. If they really do manage to impact US industry in a meaningful way- and trade with Canada is particularly important in one region of the US, the Great Lakes states- US governors will be under pressure to do something about it too.
My approach would be to borrow a page from the Right and act is if the backlash is already occurring. Go out and announce you’re on the side of manufacturing jobs and cross border trade. It’s a strong position. Hell, given a choice is it even a question which side of that is more likely to prevail with the public? Make them pick a side. They can be on the side of anti-vaxxers blocking a bridge. The pro manufacturing jobs and cross border trade “side” already exists. Announce you’re one of them. “I stand with the auto workers who want only to go to work and get paid”. Is that hard?
NorthLeft12
@New Deal democrat: Apparently the US has offered assistance to remove the vehicles. If Canada accepts this help it will be tremendously embarrassing and potentially divisive, but it is getting to the point where something needs to be done to clear the border crossings.
Chances are that protestors will set up farther away from the bridge if the bridge can be cleared and held open.
debbie
My work just sent an email saying that masks were now totally voluntary. Good god.
New Deal democrat
@lowtechcyclist:
Upon further thought, all that is needed is for US authorities to give Canadian police and tow trucks permission to cross into the US (presumably surreptitiously using another entry point), assemble, and then mount their operation from the US side.
I doubt there would be any objection to that from the US or Michigan governments. Heck, the truckers might be so surprised, they might still have their keys on them when arrested, so tow trucks won’t be needed.
ETA: this presumes Canada’s federal government has control over border crossings. If they don’t, that’s a pretty serious problem for Canada.
Robert Sneddon
Scotland — 7,341 new cases of COVID-19 yesterday and 11 new reported deaths of people who have tested positive. These numbers have plateaued, pretty much.
902 people were in hospital yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19 with 21 people in intensive care. These numbers continue to fall, slowly.
NotMax
@New Deal democrat
And if the drivers in retaliation deflate (or worse, slash) the tires?
New Deal democrat
@NorthLeft12: see my comment at #83 above. I think that would solve the political problem, since it would be all Canadian forces.
New Deal democrat
@NotMax: “And if the drivers in retaliation deflate (or worse, slash) the tires?”
That would be a bitch for them when their damaged trucks are dragged to the US side and impounded.
Also, as I said above, an operation mounted by Canadian police from the US side in the middle of the night would probably take them by such surprise that they wouldn’t have time.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: Do you know how much a semi tire costs? I doubt very much they would fuck with their own vehicles, especially when the insurance won’t cover the damage.
lowtechcyclist
Also, deflating isn’t hard to deal with. When I had a slow leak last year, I bought a gizmo for $20 that you hook up to the used-to-be-a-cigarette-lighter thing in your car, and it’ll pump up your tires. I’m sure tow trucks carry bigger, faster, better versions.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: That’s very worrisome. I’m sorry, Ozark.
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
Not dealing with the brightest bulbs in the marquee.
That and also some RWNJ moneybags might step up to allay costs.
KM in NS
I understand that the RCMP have been issuing tickets; it’s just not working.
the Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, is going to have a press conference at 10:30 Eastern: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ford-announcement-ontario-protests-1.6347810
He’s PC (Progressive Conservative) so who knows what he’ll say.
Soprano2
@Another Scott: Three of those are islands, and South Korea is relatively physically isolated. I agree that it’s a lot easier to control Covid when you’re an island, and when the people trust the government. We fail at both metrics.
Sloane Ranger
Thursday in the UK we had 66,638 new cases. This is a reduction of 25.2% in the rolling 7-day average. New cases by nation,
England – 53,993 (down 5200)
Northern Ireland – 3609 (down 228)
Scotland – 7275 (up 3479)
Wales – 1761 (up 373).
Deaths – There were 206 deaths within 28 days of a positive test yesterday. This is a reduction of 20.1% in the rolling 7-day average. 170 deaths were in England, 7 in Northern Ireland, 24 in Scotland and 5 in Wales.
Testing – 1,170,469 tests took place on Wednesday, 9th. The rolling 7-day average is down by 8.9%.
Hospitalisations – There were 13,126 people in hospital and 432 on ventilators on Wednesday, 9th. The 7-day average for hospital admissions was down by 10.7% as of 6 February.
Vaccinations – As of 9th February, 91.2% of all UK residents aged 12+ had had 1 shot, 84.6% had had 2, and 65.5% had had a 3rd shot/booster.
Thor Heyerdahl
Rupa (who works for the right of centre agitator National Post) has also had some numbing levels of stupid takes during the occupation.
For example, last weekend she amplified a stupid take that hotel rooms were not available and that it must must mean that the government has booked them all up. She was subsequently ratioed by Twitter users showing booking availability the next day from various travel sites.
This comes after her previous stupid takes about Ottawa’s downtown being a haven for drugs, and being a stenographer for BJP stories out of India.
So yeah I guess if Bari Weiss supports her it’s not a surprise…idiotic kindred spirits hanging out together.
Thor Heyerdahl
@JMG: but he has to get the go ahead from the provincial premier. Pierre Trudeau got it from the premier of Quebec in 71. Fucknut conservative premiers aren’t doing so with Justin.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2:
That also reduces the sense that the unvaccinated are the main danger, though. If vaccinated people are a large number of those getting infected and pumping out virus, and vaccination mostly keeps them from getting really sick, can we still say that? It seems to me that it instead validates a “defense in depth” posture where even vaccinated people need to take additional precautions.
(Yes, vaccination DOES reduce your chances of infection and likely the amount of virus you’ll transmit if you do get infected. But it’s a less sure thing than it used to be.)
Kalakal
@OzarkHillbilly: I’m sorry to hear that. I hope she recovers soon
Kalakal
Mrs Kalakal is now 16 days post knee replacement and is now on the masses of prednisone phase. Florida is not a good place to be slammed full of immunsuppressants so trying to isolate her as much as possible. Fortunately it’s only a week but It’s a very worrying prospect. She’s been doing wonderfully so far with the recovery and excercises despite the pain. Me, I’m exhausted.
leeleeFL
@Peale: Surely, you don’t mean Musk! Perish the thought! Or perish his company, I’m good either way. Piece of crap, that one!
Another Scott
@Soprano2: Great Britain is an island, also too. :-/
Yeah, geography can make it easier, but competent leadership matters most.
Cheers,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@Kalakal: Huh, they never gave me steroids in the aftermath, though I’m not 100% clear on the witch’s brew I had in the hospital.
For anti-inflammation it was just huge doses of Advil, which they took me off of when the interaction with the aspirin they gave me as an anti-clotting measure caused me to bruise all over.
Kalakal
@Matt McIrvin: For the first week or so it was a lot of acetomenaphin, some baby aspirin and meloxicam. The swelling and bruising was/is very bad. What surprised us both was how fast they got her to be excercising. They practically dragged her off the operating table to a walker. The first week was very rough but it’s a lot better now. How long is it since your op?
I’m really worried for the next week about her and Covid.
Ruckus
@Kay:
I wonder if there may be financial leanings from wealthy conservatives that really, really do not like having to give money to the government for people like me that no longer produce any profit whatsoever. I imagine that with their shitty concepts of life and all that if I can’t/don’t produce – for their benefit – that I should just die, times all the retired folks in the land.
sab
@debbie: Our office manager wants to start back up with the monthly birthday party. I am allowed to work remote. The February birthday girls are me and the receptionist. We both are still wearing masks. So we are supposed to sit in a room with ten other people for an hour. One of them is an anti-vaxer. Sigh.
Matt McIrvin
@Kalakal: It’ll be a year next week. I had horrible swelling and bruising and my left knee still looks a little odd, but the amount of mobility I have relative to before the operation is just amazing.
As I recall, they kept me in a hospital bed overnight after the operation (which happened in the afternoon), but the next day they were teaching me how to get around with a walker. I had a couple weeks of in-home PT at the end of which I was walking with a cane, then some outpatient PT that more or less ended in my ditching the cane. And then I started taking longer and longer walks. Which reminds me, I need to get back on those–with the snowy and icy weather it’s been hard.
Kalakal
@Matt McIrvin: Thanks, that sounds very similar so far. She tends to prefer the walker still, to the cane, but she’s improved amazingly in 2 weeks. We’ve started going for short walks which is lovely. One very noticable result is that her leg is now straight. She was looking knockneed because her right leg was splayed out so far below the knee.
I’m glad to hear you got such an improvement, it’s a real life changer
debbie
@sab:
I’m still working remote, but most people were back in the office as of Wednesday. We all received an email invite to come over and grab a cupcake to celebrate returning to the office. I felt queasy just reading it.