Covid is rising. New vaccines may not be ready until mid-September.
Updated coronavirus vaccines may not be available until mid-September, and people who are not considered high risk may not be able to access them.
Read in The Washington Post: apple.news/AziN3toF-RG-…— enuffsaysv.bsky.social (@enuffsaysv.bsky.social) August 16, 2025 at 9:32 PM
Link in the BlueSky message above should be paywall free:
… Daniel R. Kuritzkes, chief of the division of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said the current rise looks similar to seasonal bumps in previous years and is not driving a surge in severe illness…
The levels of virus are roughly one-third of the levels recorded a year ago, when the country was experiencing an unusually large summer covid wave.
Emergency room data suggests infections are disproportionately affecting children…
For the coming fall season, the FDA has not yet approved an updated coronavirus vaccine. In recent years, the agency has typically signed off on an updated version by late August or early September in order for pharmacies and doctors’ offices to place orders.
But the agency is expected to narrow its approval for the vaccine to those 65 and older, as well as others considered at high risk for severe disease. The new approach marks a significant shift from past years when the shots have been broadly available, including to children and generally healthy adults…
It’s unclear whether Americans who are not considered high risk could still pay out-of-pocket to get a coronavirus vaccine off-label. That depends on the willingness of — and legal restrictions on — health care providers who would administer shots.
Most Americans have at least one condition that puts them at higher risk of severe illness from covid. Physical inactivity, asthma, obesity, smoking and mood disorders are among the widespread risk factors highlighted under the new FDA framework for coronavirus vaccine approval…
The 2024-2025 vaccine formula is still available. But it might be harder to find because some doctors and pharmacies may have decided not to restock their supplies while they wait for a new version to arrive.
The CDC recommends two doses of the vaccine for people who are 65 and older or are immunocompromised.Jessica Justman, an infectious disease specialist at Columbia University, said if someone in those groups had not yet received their second dose, they should go ahead and get it now, especially if they anticipate increased exposure such as attending a large indoor gathering…
For those who get infected, the CDC guidance to resume normal activities is to wait until your symptoms are improving and you have been fever-free for 24 hours without using fever-reducing medication. Then you should take precautions for an additional five days, such as social distancing and masking.
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Weekly U.S. COVID update:
– New cases: 98,600 est.
– Admissions: 6,902 (+15%)
– In hospital: 4,800 (+11%)
– In ICU: 581 (+10%)
– New deaths: 227
– Average: 206 (+3%)— BNO News (Health) (@health.bnonews.com) August 17, 2025 at 9:34 PM
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So far this year, more than 3.6 million COVID cases have been reported in the U.S., causing 252,952 hospitalizations and 17,039 deaths.
— BNO News (Health) (@health.bnonews.com) August 17, 2025 at 9:35 PM
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Incidence of Covid is increasing throughout the country, though at lower levels than past summers. Happy to have my work referenced by @huffpost.com
I'll add that while the model suggests a peak near the start of Sept, late August is also plausible. www.huffpost.com/entry/covid-…— JPWeiland (@jpweiland.bsky.social) August 18, 2025 at 2:26 PM
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Folks, it’s not great out there. Behave like there are no guardrails left.
— Quinn Cummings (@quinncy.bsky.social) August 16, 2025 at 4:56 PM
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Extremely tangential, but I couldn’t dismiss the possibility out of hand… “Sleepwalking Into A Propeller”:
… Toxoplasma gondii is a parasite, which means it is alive, which means its most important directive is “Make more of self.” Part of how the parasite does this is through making smaller mammals into efficient carriers — in effect, parasite Ubers, driving them to new places to be propagated. This isn’t unique to Toxo; long before agriculture, fruit famously evolved to become delightful to birds so as to increase the likelihood of seeds being shat out miles away. What Toxo does is that, plus a diabolical brilliant twist: the parasite literally switches off that part of the rodent’s brain which fears the smell of cats. Specifically, cat urine… When healthy rats and mice smell it, they run the other way. Toxo switches that instinct off and since where there is cat urine, there are cats, that small mammal is quickly an entree. Bad for small mammal, great for a parasite with a complex reproductive cycle. Eventually the cat shits out the mammal/parasite blend and the process begins again…
And now, having primed the pump, here’s my theory:
COVID
… I can only speak to the people I know. I hear it every couple of days and I don’t know that many people. A percentage of people make less sense than they used to. When the studies started arriving indicating that COVID is propelling some people into early-onset dementia I was horrified but also somewhat appeased. I’m ignorant but, damn it, I’m not wrong. But here’s the behavior that reminds me most of toxoplasmosis: the thing where these people I know seem the most weirdly dissociated and complacent…
These are bright, kind, educated, people. In many cases, far brighter, kinder and better-educated than I am. This is not them. I have begun to think of those interactions as “Quinn talks to a virus wearing a human suit looking for a new human suit.” I am Larry Kramer in the early eighties watching my fellow gay men keep going to the bathhouses and yelling this is a bad idea…
The 2024 election had a large cohort of people voting against their own interests which is something that frequently happens but, as many people noted, this was an open-book test kind of an election. We had all the data that none of this was actually going to work because a) It hadn’t worked before and b) The adults all said, “The things they’re promising won’t work.” People voted for it anyway and yes, some did because of racism, stupidity, cruelty, oppositional defiance disorder, the usual reasons. But I think some people voted for it because they were panicked — which reduces bloodflow to the brain — over the economy and, thanks to COVID, their ability to predict consequences was compromised. How many videos have we seen of working-class or Hispanic people who voted for him weeping because ‘This wasn’t what I voted for”? It’s easy to say, “You idiot, this is exactly what they said they would do,” and trust me when I say I’d slap a few of these weeping folk for sport if no cameras were nearby.
But what if they literally couldn’t fully understand the consequences because a virus benefits from them not understanding consequences? Maybe the virus makes some hosts benumbed to a specific risk — reinfection — and the consequences and that numbing extends to other kinds of easily-foreseen risks…
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I don't see any variants growing at any significant speed behind XFG, which is good news for the early fall.
➡️XFG leads the pack and is still growing up to ~60-65% of US domestic seqs of late July, where NB.1.8.1 stayed relatively stable between 10-15%.— JPWeiland (@jpweiland.bsky.social) August 17, 2025 at 11:48 PM
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USA: For the first time in 30 years, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued vaccine guidance that differs from U.S. government advice.
"The AAP is “strongly recommending” COVID-19 shots for children 6 months–2 years, while shots for older kids are advised but left to parents."— Denis – The COVID Info Guy (@thecovidinfoguy.bsky.social) August 19, 2025 at 8:36 PM
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Vaccine Integrity Project presents reassuring data on #vaccines for upcoming respiratory virus season
The new data reveal no notable safety or effectiveness issues.
www.cidrap.umn.edu/c…— CIDRAP (@cidrap.bsky.social) August 19, 2025 at 6:13 PM
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AAP evidence-backed immunization schedule reflects break from CDC advisers
The group recommended that all kids ages 6 to 23 months old be vaccinated against COVID, given that they are highest risk for severe disease.
www.cidrap.umn.edu/c…— CIDRAP (@cidrap.bsky.social) August 19, 2025 at 3:54 PM
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Invivyd gets FDA advice on path for fast-track of injectable COVID monoclonal antibody
Approval of an injectable monoclonal antibody would offer an easier delivery option and could broaden use of the COVID preventive.
www.cidrap.umn.edu/c…
Photo: Blake Patterson / Flickr cc— CIDRAP (@cidrap.bsky.social) August 18, 2025 at 4:08 PM
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Women may have increased risk of blood vessel aging after COVID
Vaccination was protective for female participants.
www.cidrap.umn.edu/c…— CIDRAP (@cidrap.bsky.social) August 18, 2025 at 4:39 PM
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We just learned about a 3rd dimension of how Covid can affect our arteries.
erictopol.substack.com/p/covid-and-…— Eric Topol (@erictopol.bsky.social) August 18, 2025 at 6:07 PM
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#COVID reinfection may raise risk of persistent symptoms by 35%
The cumulative incidence of long COVID among reinfected and non-reinfected participants was 11% and 8% in the post-index year, respectively.
www.cidrap.umn.edu/c…— CIDRAP (@cidrap.bsky.social) August 18, 2025 at 3:41 PM
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America Is Abandoning One of the Greatest Medical Breakthroughs www.nytimes.com/2025/08/18/o…
"Political narratives about mRNA have fueled confusion, which leads to mistrust, yet the scientific evidence consistently shows that this technology is safe and effective and holds enormous potential…"— Timothy Caulfield (@caulfieldtim.bsky.social) August 19, 2025 at 10:13 AM
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Health Canada Approves LP.8.1 Variant Adapted COVID-19 Vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech www.newswire.ca/news-release…
More news → CanadaHealthwatch.ca 🍁— Canada Healthwatch 🍁 (@canadahealthwatch.ca) August 18, 2025 at 9:39 PM
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Japan: COVID-19 Cases up for 8th Consecutive Week in Japan; Omicron Subvariant Nimbus [NB.1.8.1] Accounts for About 40% of Infections.
"One of its more noticeable symptoms is said to be severe sore throat"
Source: archive.md/5AXit— Denis – The COVID Info Guy (@thecovidinfoguy.bsky.social) August 16, 2025 at 7:10 PM
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Australian COVID-19 weekly stats update:
The risk estimate resumed falling, down to 0.4% “Currently Infectious”, or 1-in-237.
That implies a 12% chance that someone is infectious in a group of 30.
#COVID19 #Australia
🧵— Mike Honey (@mikehoney.bsky.social) August 15, 2025 at 6:17 AM
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Привет, товарищи! It’s another glorious day in which Trump’s America is increasingly indistinguishable from Stalinist Russia, so I thought an armchair comparative analysis was in order.
Specifically about Jay Bhattacharya's twin from times past, Trofim Lysenko.
open.substack.com/pub/rasmusse…— Angie Rasmussen (@angierasmussen.bsky.social) August 18, 2025 at 10:15 AM
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#NorthAmerica
The Great Fall migration of birds have begun and the #US should be concerned. Migratory birds have been a prime vector for the spread of #H5N1 / #birdflu and we don’t know what new changes are coming
Bird flu didn’t go away, it migrated north for summer. And now it’s returning— drmaligator.medsky.social (@drmaligator.medsky.social) August 18, 2025 at 10:22 AM
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A woman who was 20 weeks pregnant fed her toddler son raw milk. He contracted Campylobacter and then passed the infection to her; she progressed to sepsis, and had a miscarriage.
She is suing the business that sells the raw milk, saying she didn’t know the risk.
Don’t feed your kids raw milk.— Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD (@elizabethjacobs.bsky.social) August 16, 2025 at 4:46 PM
I feel sorry for her kids. Per CBS:
... According to the lawsuit, Maddox was allegedly unaware of any potential dangers while purchasing the milk in June from an organic, natural food store. When she asked about the packaging’s label that “said something to the effect [of] ‘for consumption by animals,'” she was allegedly told “that was a technical requirement to sell ‘farm milk,'” the lawsuit claims.
Maddox told WKMG she had bought the raw milk on and off for months, and while she never drank it, her toddler and other family members had before without any issues.
Maddox’s toddler drank the milk on June 8 and experienced “diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, fever, abdominal pain, chills, and resultant dehydration,” prompting her to take the child to a hospital. The lawsuit called the trip to the hospital “the first of what would be three emergency room visits and hospitalizations in the next several weeks,” WKMG reported.
About five days later, Maddox sought medical treatment for “ongoing diarrhea, vomiting, fever, abdominal pain, and chills that led to septic shock and severe dehydration,” the lawsuit stated. According to the lawsuit, tests returned positive for Campylobacter, which she was told was contracted while caring for her toddler…
According to the lawsuit, Maddox’s 20-week-old unborn child died on June 18 and she was readmitted to the hospital with sepsis. She was hospitalized multiple times during ongoing treatment.
WKMG reached out to Keely Farms Dairy last week for a comment, but its representatives did not want to comment beyond stating that their milk is not made for human consumption…
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Measles surge continues in Americas, with outbreaks in 10 nations
One of two circulating genotypes has been identified in Mennonite groups in eight countries, including the US, Canada, and Mexico.
www.cidrap.umn.edu/m…— CIDRAP (@cidrap.bsky.social) August 15, 2025 at 2:59 PM
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Officials track measles exposures at airports in Colorado, Montana
Also, Colorado reported a second infection from Mesa County, and in Montana, the first case in decades was reported from the Helena area.
www.cidrap.umn.edu/m…— CIDRAP (@cidrap.bsky.social) August 19, 2025 at 3:03 PM
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BREAKING: Texas health officials have declared the state's measles outbreak over. The virus sickened 762 people since late January.
— The Associated Press (@apnews.com) August 18, 2025 at 12:27 PM
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ICE detention centers are breeding grounds for infectious diseases. Though officials deny it, tuberculosis is spreading in these facilities, and some have already died. From @whitneycwimbish.bsky.social:
trib.al/7Odde7a— The American Prospect (@prospect.org) August 18, 2025 at 3:00 PM
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Grifters gonna grift:
Riley Gaines is now selling ivermectin out of her car.
— Alejandra Caraballo (@esqueer.net) August 17, 2025 at 7:07 AM
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On how unusual it is to see a bloodsucking parasite feeding on RFK, Jr. and not the other way aroundhttps://t.co/qyCH2qcC3F pic.twitter.com/tJgAPk9dWB
— Dr. Angela Rasmussen (@angie_rasmussen) July 28, 2025
… Doing weird shit with animals is a signature Kennedy move, so it wasn’t terribly surprising to see headlines about “sea vampires” sucking his blood. Kennedy has been touring the country, preaching the Make America Healthy Again gospel of pseudoscience. According to Kennedy, medicine and vaccines are unnatural and can be replaced with a healthy “natural” diet that is free from artificial food dyes and seed oils.
As usual, Kennedy is wrong. Healthy eating cannot put cancer into remission. Diet alone cannot manage type 1 diabetes. Eating food coloring or cooking with beef tallow does not prevent measles virus infection. Yet Kennedy is dramatically reconfiguring the entire HHS department around the belief that if something has a natural origin, it is automatically healthier. You have his blessing to eat as many bowls of Froot Loops as you want, provided they are colored with chemicals that are derived from a plant or insect.
As with Kennedy’s views on vaccines and avian flu, his views on nutrition are the products of both his own deranged grasp of scientific fundamentals and his unslakable thirst for profit. While Kennedy himself obviously subscribes to a number of unsupported wellness beliefs, the motivation behind MAHA is to consolidate Trump’s authoritarian power and loot the federal government in the process.
Kennedy himself has a long and distinguished history of profiting from his stance that “toxins” in food are driving the epidemic of chronic disease that is the centerpiece of the MAHA agenda. Through Children’s Health Defense (the anti-vax activist group he founded), his law firm, and publishing company, Kennedy has made millions on the basis of his dubious claims about nutrition and medicine…
It would be one thing if Kennedy was espousing a different but valid scientific approach to regulating food and drugs with the intent of encourage more nutritious eating and improving health. But Kennedy is not just questioning the status quo. He’s making things up to justify implementing his bizarre worldview as regulatory policy, so that he and his cronies can personally profit. For example, he touted a company called Mom’s Meals, which delivers complete frozen meals to Medicare and Medicaid recipients. Although they don’t contain artificial food dyes or high fructose corn syrup, Mom’s Meals are ultraprocessed, contain numerous additives, and are precisely the kind of food that MAHA blames for the chronic diseases plaguing America. Kennedy’s interest is not in making food healthier; it is keeping it unhealthy, but rigging the market so that he and his friends can have a competitive advantage while they plunder it.
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I see people wonder "why? why medical research?"
First sentence of Vought's think tank's page on federal health programs: "COVID exposed how embedded the medical establishment has become within the globalist, political power hierarchy"
Vought also blames the existence of COVID on NIH/CDC— David Burbach (@dburbach.bsky.social) July 29, 2025 at 9:29 PM
Baud
All of a sudden, the anti-government people fully trust the government.
SpaceUnit
You’ve just described the MAGA community. Give me something else to actually worry about.
eclare
I got my pneumonia vaccine two weeks ago, TDAP scheduled for next week. I will lie to get the covid vaccine.
JoyceH
I was planning to get the COVID vaccine in mid-September in prep for my October trip to England. But if I’m reading this right, the updated vaccine likely won’t be ready and doctors will run out of the current vaccines because they’re waiting for the new ones? Sounds like I ought to get the vaccine as soon as possible?
eclare
@JoyceH:
I’d ask whatever pharmacy you use.
Aussie Sheila
I feel sorry for the woman who lost her child and became severely ill. But what the fuck was she doing listening to some merchant peddling unpasteurised milk vouching for its safety? Are people really this stupid, or has the US stopped teaching people about sterilisation and its virtues? Would she allow an unsterilised instrument to be used in an operation, or the reuse of a vax needle? Would she eat of an unwashed plate in a restaurant?
JFC!
Baud
@Aussie Sheila:
If a liberal told her not to…
David_C
The effects of Covid on the vasculature isn’t something new, although the study highlighted by Topol is probably pretty good. Five years ago, we started writing a paper about the similarities between Covid and radiation injury, and vascular injury was among them.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33064832/
David_C
@Baud: The basis of the “wellness” movement is that the experts are lying and that their practitioners have the secret to good health. They tell great stories and are not bound by the truth, so it’s easy to get caught up in their spell. It’s easy to see the flaws in our health care system, but what the Secretary is doing is throwing out what is good and replacing it with a system that is all shine and looks better, but is rotten to the core
JoyceH
@Aussie Sheila: here’s the logic I don’t get – if raw milk is healthier, why have we been pasteurizing it for a century? What do they think that process was designed to accomplish?
Baud
@David_C:
Right. There are definitely problems that need to be fixed. But the wellness movement isn’t consistent about wellness. They’ll happily ignore all the toxins the Trump people allow to spread as long as they get their antivax, anti-flouride kick.
Aussie Sheila
@JoyceH:
Exactly! It’s ineffable. Every nation has its fuckwits and fools. But I have never seen such mass idiocy in my lifetime.
I really think when this regime is over, the US federal government needs to do some mass remedial basic health and hygiene education work. It’s simply abominable that people can risk the health of themselves, their children and others in such a cavalier fashion.
Oh and as for unpasteurised milk, the federal government should remind people that such milk contains cow shit. Literally!
eclare
@Baud:
And they’ll ignore gun violence, which causes the most deaths of children.
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
Only when said gov’t is being “ran” by a confederacy of dunces such as themselves.
Princess
It’s a real problem for people’s trust and use of Covid boosters that the new waves tend to start in July/August but the boosters with new variants don’t come until late September/October at which point previously recently infected people are advised not to get them for six months.
p.a.
MAGAt ants (from Library of Congress site)
When a hapless ant makes contact with an O. unilateralis spore, the spore attaches itself to the ant and begins to drill into the ant’s exoskeleton with a combination of enzymes and pressure. When past the ant’s exterior armor, fungal cells feed on the ant’s insides and begin to spread throughout the unfortunate victim’s body. Once the infection progresses past a critical stage, the ant’s behavior changes. Instead of following the colony’s pheromone trails and foraging, as an ant normally would, the infected ant walks erratically. It wanders aimlessly for a time, before the fungus compels the ant to climb up a nearby twig or stem and lock on to it with its jaws. Death follows shortly after. In a few days, a stalk shoots out of the ant’s head, releasing spores to start the whole process over again.
One thing that makes this process so amazing is how precisely O. unilateralis, with no brain or nervous system of its own, can control its host.
Princess
Okay, now I’ve read the whole post —- I don’t know if the toxoplasmosis— covid — people are getting stupider theory is correct but I’ve observed it independently myself. I think I’ve even raised it here. We all have been feeling the right is stupider than it used to be. I’m seeing a lot of that among my friends on the left too — gullibility, poor judgement etc. I too am not immune. It could be simple aging. But I have wondered if there is more to it.
Ten Bears
Headlined this. This Old (Logger) Hippy (Biker) figured out a long time ago new age hebe jebe hoodoo voodoo woo-woo dew-dew kills. It’s the 21st Century, fergoodnesssakes …
Aussie Sheila
@Princess:
No, it’s not aging. It’s living in a culture that has no communal/collective standards of reason and thinking. Because, hey, my right to an opinion, no matter how wrong or batshit, is more important than the truth.
That’s the result of a strain of libertarianism that thankfully appears to be confined to the US. Reason and its general utility requires a collective effort to nurture and maintain. And in particular it requires political leadership to ensure it remains a collective value.
For many people in the US even the word ‘collective’ conjures images of the gulags.
Sheer fucking madness.
New Deal democrat
I have very little to add to the post, except that the CDC stopped updating its variant proportions page two months ago, and its measles page two weeks ago.(As I’ve said before, RFK Jr is the most likely among T—-p’s appointments to actually get you killed). JP Weiland’s source is a professor at Arkansas State who apparently is independently obtaining variant information, but I have no independent information as to how reliable it is.
The late summer wave of COVID infections is just beginning to show up in deaths, which increased to 167 in the last full week of data, July 19; and increased from 71 to 87 in the latest preliminary week of August 9. Total deaths for the last 52 weeks continue to decline, down to 33,200 as of July 19. If the latest wave is 1/3rd of last summer’s, that suggests the weekly death toll could increase to about 500 by the end of September – which would still be about 1,000 less that last summer’s peak. That in turn would suggest that the 52 week toll could fall below 30,000 by that time.
lowtechcyclist
Here’s what to know: the CDC is under HHS, which is being run by an anti-vax nutcase. The AAP is still being run by scientists and pediatricians. Take your pick!
Baud
Lacuna Synecdoche
WaPo via Anne Laurie @ Top:
Does that represent fewer infections, a lower viral load among patients, or – given the lack of commitment to virus tracking by the current administrative kleptocrats – lower reporting and lower information? And how would we know?
I’m guessing that lower viral loads in wastewater would be a good indicator, independent of infection reporting, that we have a lower CoVid rate than in previous years, but there’s no mention of wastewater testing in the post above.
Lacuna Synecdoche
@Aussie Sheila:
By definition, half the population is below median intelligence.
So, yes, people are really this stupid.
Steve in the ATL
@Aussie Sheila: IIRC, “fuckwits and fools” was the theme at CPAC earlier this year
Steve in the ATL
@Lacuna Synecdoche:
If you want to see this up close, become a labor and employment lawyer!
New Deal democrat
@Lacuna Synecdoche:
It refers to COVID particles in wastewater, which is the best measure of infections.
And while we can no longer trust the CDC, it is consistent with the wastewater tracking by the independent private firm Biobot.
ColoradoGuy
@Aussie Sheila: There’s also massive, multiplatform campaigns of malicious disinformation going on. Some of it of Russian origin, and some of it from the right-wing disinfo industry. What used to be the John Birch Society & American Nazi Party crazy-talk ghetto has spread to about 30~35% of American society.
In addition, the disinfo techniques are now far more sophisticated than twenty years ago, crafted by sophisticated algorithms designed to maximize emotional reactions. Last but not least, the Russians are attempting to destabilize all of the Western nations by sponsoring armies of bots and trolls on social media. The goal is to destroy truth itself, sow distrust, and atomize society.
Percysowner
@Aussie Sheila:
Yes, after this regime, we SHOULD run a campaign telling people the truth about health and reminding them of basic precepts about not dying. However, the same Supreme Court that is leaning toward saying governments can MAKE schools take “offensive” books off the shelf, will also decide that governments MAY NOT mandate health education. We are so screwed.
Suzanne
@Aussie Sheila:
Most of my classmates were spending their time carving dicks and racial slurs into the desks with pocket knives they weren’t supposed to bring to school. People are walking around with the greatest information delivery device in human history in their pockets, and they’re using it to watch pornography, cat videos, and conspiracies. Stupidity is an active choice.
Lacuna Synecdoche
@New Deal democrat:
Where? I read the post twice, and did a word search for ‘waste’.
TF79
@JoyceH: For a century or so, the FDA and other regulatory agencies have helped keep the snake oil salespeople at bay – and the snake oil salespeople are now striking back.
Steve in the ATL
@Lacuna Synecdoche:
Did all of Baud’s comments show up?
New Deal democrat
@Lacuna Synecdoche: Google “covid wastewater” and both the CDC and Biobot sites should show up.
Chetan Murthy
@Princess: It’s a funny theory, and I got a chuckle reading it. But the writer was too clever by half: these people didn’t only vote for Trump, they were voluble in their belief that Trump would -hurt- people, and they supported that. That family of Guatelaman immigrants w/American kids, where all of them voted Trump (even though the parents had come here as undocumented immigrants); those undocumented farm workers who thought that b/c they’d been here for a long time, they wouldn’t be affected, but those newcomers, they were jumping the line, getting everything including work visas for free (and that had to be stopped!) and on and on.
When consequences came for these people, they never, ever wail about the consequences for others, but only for themselves and their loved ones. And I’ve seen that over at r/LAMF over and over: the Trump supporter who wails at Trump to stop hurting him, but gosh, Trump is doing great things for our country, closing the border, etc. Did Covid make them crueler also? B/c I don’t see how that evolutionary drive works in Covid’s favor.
VFX Lurker
Thank you, Anne Laurie, for keeping us safe.
I’m GenX. In 2019, I flunked a measles titer test, so I got a third MMR to accompany my two childhood MMRs. I barely passed the same test next year.
As a 2025 precaution, I took another measles titer. I flunked it. No antibodies detected.
Maybe this year I can get two MMRs, spaced 28 days apart to cement the protection.
Chetan Murthy
@VFX Lurker: My god. Please stay safe! FWIW, I asked my doc about measles back in April, and he suggested a titer; I responded with “is it cheaper than the shot?” and he offered the shot instantly.
[Starship troopers voice, but double-ironically] “I’m doing my part!”
VFX Lurker
@Chetan Murthy: Thanks. I opted for the titer first because I was not sure if an MMR would be covered without a titer failure as proof of need (ex: Twinrix).
I will get MMRs Four and Five soon.
Chetan Murthy
@VFX Lurker: I must say, you were right to get the titer! It’s better to know that your body won’t take to the vaccine so well — that way, if there’s a measles outbreak someplace, you’ll know to avoid it like the …. plague! Not that that’ll help all that much, given how damn contagious it is, but still.
bluefoot
@Chetan Murthy: I went through the same thing a month ago. Because of my age, I don’t know which measles vaccine I had received as a child so asked. The NP said, “Well, we could do a titer.” I said just getting vaccinated would be easier and cheaper and wouldn’t harm me so could we do that, please. Especially since I am travelling soon. (Btw: I flew last month and I was only person on the flight except one of the flight attendants who was masked.)
Citizen Alan
@David_C: I attribute all this to an untreated mental illness. All these conspiracy theories. From Ivermectin to satanic pedophiles to Flat Earthers to raw milk, it’s all uneducated, incurious and willfully ignorant people who fear things they don’t understand and hate people who they think (or know) are smarter than they are. So they latch onto some conspiracy theory based on special knowledge that only they and their fellow travelers have that makes them smarter and more knowledgeable than the people who make them feel dumb.
Citizen Alan
@Aussie Sheila: One of the David Tennant Doctor Who specials (“The Giggle”) was about a god-like villain who basically cursed the entire human race to make every single person think they were absolutely right in what they believed even if only on a subconscious level. It led to global catastrophes — airline pilots crashing jets because they thought they knew more about their plane’s position than the air traffic controllers monitoring them.