What should I make of this? What are the implications, if any?
COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Sunday / Monday, April 25-26
More than a billion Covid vaccine doses have been administered globally. But that's not enough to achieve herd immunity https://t.co/RmNsoG9iFI pic.twitter.com/pgM7TIfVzV
— delthia ricks ?? (@DelthiaRicks) April 24, 2021
Milestone numbers:
More than one billion doses of coronavirus vaccines have been administered worldwide, less than five months after the first mass inoculation programs began to be rolled out, according to an AFP tally at 17:45 GMT on Saturday.
At least 1,002,938,540 doses have been administered in 207 countries and territories, according to the tally compiled from official sources.
More than half, or 58 percent, have been given in three countries: the United States with 225.6 million doses, China with 216.1 million doses and India with 138.4 million…
While the majority of poor countries have also started to vaccinate, mainly thanks to the Covax program, inoculation is still largely a privilege of high-income countries, as defined by the World Bank, which are home to 16 percent of the world’s population but have administered 47 percent of vaccine doses…
Despite the troubles that has plagued it since it was approved for use, the jab developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University is the most widely used so far, and has been administered in three-quarters or 156 of those countries and territories that have started vaccinating.
A rival jab developed by Pfizer and BioNTech has been administered in 91 countries, or 44 percent of the total. Another shot developed by Moderna has been administered in 46 countries or 22 percent. Sinopharm’s jab has been administered in at elast 41 countries or 20 percent of the total, Sputnik V in at least 32 countries or 15 percent, and Sinovac in at least 21 or 10 percent.
More specifics at the link. (Read the whole thing, it’s not long!)
COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Sunday / Monday, April 25-26Post + Comments (47)
American Aid To India
The covid situation in India is horrendous: 350,000 infections a day, 2500 deaths. After an apparent delay, the United States is sending help.
The statement in the first two tweets can be found here.
This list of what is being sent represents the most urgent needs, the things that are most likely to make a difference quickly. Discussions between the two countries continue.
There’s been a lot of impatience on Twitter about DOING SOMETHING. But arrangements must be made between the two governments on what is needed and the best way to deliver it.
Sadly, the virus has its own timetables built into it, and we will not see significant changes in India’s situation for at least a few weeks.
Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner
COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Saturday / Sunday, April 24-25
1,000,000,000 vaccine doses!
A remarkable milestone hit today in just over 4 months from the start of vaccination. In 177 countries, 214 locations around the world.— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) April 24, 2021
COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Saturday / Sunday, April 24-25Post + Comments (56)
Armenian Genocide
Does anyone have a good link to someone explaining why announcing a genocide was a genocide is such a big deal- I feel like I knew this at one point but my brain just dumped it. I understand the vague contours- the cold war and the war on terror, etc., but does officially declaring it lead to any actual changes in policy or standing?
Also, whatever happened with those Turkish guys who assaulted people in DC a couple years ago?
COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Friday / Saturday, April 23-24
Berlin public transport wants you to socially distance and keep in mind that means being one pony apart or three corgis away. #weilwirdichlieben pic.twitter.com/Tc64Niko1z
— Melissa Chan (@melissakchan) April 23, 2021
COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Friday / Saturday, April 23-24Post + Comments (81)
LTC (ret) Grossman Has Grossly Misrepresented Himself, His Service, and His Qualifications
A while back one of my closest friends, who is a SWAT sniper, asked me about Grossman, specifically because I’ve spent a fair amount of time working with US Army Special Operations Forces (ARSOF). I said I didn’t think he was SOF, especially not a Green Beret as I’ve never seen a Green Beret not mention which Special Forces Group they’ve served with in their professional bios. After yesterday’s post I emailed a friend who’d have a better idea and he responded that Grossman was conventional infantry who’d done the Ranger course, served only in conventional line units, and never saw combat. This was fully confirmed when the Marine vet who tweets as The Warax tweeted Grossman’s DD 214, in this case the National Archives Form 13164 (NA 13164), which is what is released when someone makes a FOIA request for someone else’s military service record:
For the uninitiated, LTC (ret) Grossman is a conventional infantry officer who only ever served in conventional Army assignments. He attended and completed the Ranger course in 1979, meaning he is Ranger tabbed. He never served in the Ranger Regiment, he was never a Green Beret/Special Forces. He wasn’t even Army Special Operations despite listing himself in his bio as a US Army Ranger. He was not branch qualified as a major and not selected for battalion command. He has no combat experience or deployments at all. This guy has never killed anyone, at least not while in uniform.
Failing to properly vet people’s actual credentials, experience, and expertise as opposed to their claimed credentials, experience, and expertise is a HUGE problem in the US. I’ve spent years fighting this problem within different US Army programs. I’ve managed to expose more phony PhDs than I can shake a stick at. Unfortunately, some of them are dug in and protected and can’t be gotten rid of. So I’m not surprised that law enforcement has the same problem.
Grossman is a fake and a fraud in terms of what he is promoting himself to be versus what he has actually done and is qualified to do.
He’s not a psychologist in the sense that anyone who is a psychologist in the civilian world of practitioners or academics would use the term. He’s qualified to be a high school guidance counselor. Don’t take my word for it, here’s how the University of Texas at Austin’s Department of Counselor Education describes the masters in counselor education:
Graduates of our program will be prepared to:
- Pursue employment as academic advisers, career counselors and student affair officials in colleges and universities
- Pursue doctoral studies in counseling psychology or other related fields
- Pursue certification as a Licensed Professional Counselor or School Counselor (with additional requirements / coursework – see Program Details for more information).
He’s not Army Special Operations Forces (ARSOF) in the sense that anyone within the various communities that make up Army Special Forces would use, he’s just Ranger tabbed. This is an accomplishment in itself as the course is brutal. It makes him Ranger qualified. But to those who haven’t served or haven’t worked with the Army/military, the way he presents the qualification is meant to imply something that he is not.
He has no experience in combat as he’s NEVER ACTUALLY BEEN IN COMBAT! He has no experience, that we know of, in actually killing anyone. And certainly not while in uniform in the US Army. He certainly has no law enforcement experience.
LTC (ret) Grossman is a combination of the death of expertise and a dearth of expertise pretending to be the expertise in order to run a very lucrative grift at taxpayer’s expense on both the front end (what he gets paid to teach this bullshit) and on the back end (when municipalities have to pay out in the lawsuits because law enforcement practiced what Grossman preaches).
I’ve placed a correction and an update to yesterday’s post to reflect this new, accurate information regarding Grossman’s misrepresentation of himself.
Open thread!
Just in case anyone decides they want to know who this Adam L. Silverman guy is to say such things, here’s my credentials:
I have a PhD in criminology and political science (awarded by the Department of Political Science with a specialty in Criminology) from the University of Florida. I have taught in several criminology programs and was the undergraduate and graduate core curriculum – epistemology, research design and methods, theory, and statistics – coordinator in an applied criminology and security program. In 2007 I was recruited to go to work for the US Army. First in a supervisory contract position, which included my deployment to Iraq in 2008. This was followed by a civilian mobilization under the Intergovernmental Personnel Act of Title IV of the Federal code, where I served as a supervisory GS 15 assigned as the Cultural Advisor to the Commandant and Professor of Culture, Strategy, and Policy at the US Army War College, as well as the staffer acting as the Deputy to the Director of the Army Culture and Foreign Language Directorate. During this assignment I served, under temporary assigned control, as the Cultural Advisor to the following: the Commanding General of US Army Europe, the Commanding General of III Corps, the Director of the Institute for NCO Professional Development, the Branch Chief of Civil Affairs. I also provided subject matter expertise support to SOCOM, CENTCOM, EUCOM, Army Special Operations Command, Army Central Command, the 101st Airborne Division, SOCOM’s Civil Affairs Capability Based Assessment, SOCOM’s Joint Civil Information Management Test Development, JIEDDO, and the Near East Desk at the Department of State. My subsequent civilian mobilization was with the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Security Dialogue in the Middle East and my assignment was as the Cultural Advisor to the Commanding General of US Army Europe. Following that I served as Senior Fellow for Special Operations, which was a contract position, at SOCOM’s Joint Special Operations University. My training to work for the US Army as a cultural subject matter expert was overseen and conducted by retired Green Berets, Civil Affairs, and Psychological Operations Soldiers.