Looks like we can use an open thread!
I’ve been gardening most of the day and I’m exhausted, but I started this post last night so it will have to do!
— mike luckovich (@mluckovichajc) April 30, 2024
Did I miss any news today?
Open thread.
This post is in: Open Threads, Politics, Supreme Court, Supreme Court Corruption
Looks like we can use an open thread!
I’ve been gardening most of the day and I’m exhausted, but I started this post last night so it will have to do!
— mike luckovich (@mluckovichajc) April 30, 2024
Did I miss any news today?
Open thread.
by David Anderson| 15 Comments
This post is in: Anderson On Health Insurance
Yesterday afternoon, I was having a beer and a long discussion on Zoom with my friend and most frequent co-author. We’re trying to figure out what our combined research agenda for the next couple of years looks like after we get through a couple of current and near future projects. We think we have some cool questions that both build on our previous work while also being intellectually interesting and extremely policy relevant.
We got cool stuff in the near and long term pipeline.
However, one of the more useful parts of the conversation was the decision to send an idea of mine that has been bugging me for 6+ years to the big farm upstate where good projects go to play with other really good projects. I want to study negative premium plans in the ACA but we can’t figure out the data or the approach. I’m throwing this out there for anyone to steal and do really cool things with as I want to read your paper in 2027 but I don’t know how the hell to write that paper.
We know that zero premium plans are pretty common in the ACA (as well as Medicare Advantage and Medicaid Managed Care). We know token positive premiums create substantial administrative burden. Every ACA paper that I write (including my dissertation) has a line that says something to the effect “premiums are minimally bounded by zero….” That is not quite right! Sometimes there are extremely lagged negative premium plans or in non-econ language — sometimes there are plans where you eventually get paid to buy them.
WHAT?
Yeah, this is weird. It is an artifact of the Medical Loss Ratio(MLR) regulations. MLR rules state that over a 3 year rolling window, an insurer has to spend 80% of qualified premiums on either medical/pharmacy claims OR qualified quality improvement projects. In reality, gross premiums are greater than qualified premiums, so the actual ratio is around 75%(ish). If an insurer over that three year window in a state-market segment has an MLR below 80%, the insurer-segment has to send out rebate checks to enrollees from the last year of the three year window.
Most of the time, MLR rebates are going to be actuarial noise as insurers aim to be just above the cut-off point and sometimes they miss high and sometimes they miss low.
HOWEVER— in 2018, the ACA market was an ungodly mess.
Lots of insurers decided to leave in 2017 for the 2018 plan year as they had no idea if the market would still exist when they had to do their rate filings in summer 2017 due to Repeal and Replace and they had no idea what was happening with Cost Sharing Reduction subsidy payments. The surviving insurers did what insurers and actuarials do when they are scared — massively jack up rates. They also put the cost of CSR payments into their Silver premiums in a move known as Silverloading.
More particularly, a few insurers, including one in Virginia, were local monopolists and realized that they could send premiums through the roof and most enrollees who got subsidies would not be effected (interesting side note — GOLD enrollees facing a massive relative price shock… find new grad student minion to pitch). By summer 2018, it was obvious that insurers were Scrooge McDucking it for 2018 as premiums skyrocketed, enrollment stayed flat-ish and claims were flat-ish.
By the start of 2019 and especially the 2020 Open Enrollment Periods, it was obvious that a couple of insurers would need to issue huge ass MLR rebate checks for their 2018 pricing. And an individual who could buy a low to no premium plan in one of these insurers was effectively buying an option that was very likely to be in the money on one of those huge ass rebate checks. The combination of normal ACA subsidies, and Silverloading would drive down their premiums at the point of purchase and the MLR rebate check would, eighteen months later, make their effective net premium negative by a whole lot. In some cases it could be a several thousand dollar check.
The companies that were very likely to be giving out honking huge rebates was pretty predictable — so did attentive enrollees buy their option?
I want to answer this question but the data has never been good enough….
So feel free to use this set-up as I want to read your paper in 2027.
by WaterGirl| 87 Comments
This post is in: Cat Blogging, Open Threads, Pet Blogging, Something Good
Lots of life changes going on!
His name is Cygnus Eclipse. He’s 7 weeks old and 2 pounds.
Our vet runs a very limited stray kitten rescue. Asimov came from there, too. When I was in there saying goodbye to Heisenberg, I asked her to add me to the kitten list.
Fast forward to this past Thursday when I got a text from the tech who actually fosters the kitten. She sent me a picture and wanted to know if I was interested.
And here we are.
Manyakitty
Where’s Cygnus Eclipse? I’m sure he’s in there somewhere. 7 weeks and 2 pounds.
Here we are, indeed. Congratulations are in order!
Open thread!
Itty Bitty Kitty Adopts Manyakitty (Open Thread)Post + Comments (87)
This post is in: Open Threads, Politics, Project 2025, Republican Politics
We may all be aware of Project 2025, but I would bet that at least 80% of the population has either never heard of it or has no idea what it is.
I’ve written a few pieces on Project 2025 now, but this interview goes way more in depth than previous reporting on Trump’s plans. He says he:
– would let red states monitor and prosecute women who get abortions
– won’t commit to defending NATO nations
– would fire… https://t.co/iO5fT4Kqcl
— Angry Staffer 🌻 (@Angry_Staffer) April 30, 2024
I’ve written a few pieces on Project 2025 now, but this interview goes way more in depth than previous reporting on Trump’s plans. He says he:
– would let red states monitor and prosecute women who get abortions
– won’t commit to defending NATO nations
– would fire attorneys who won’t prosecute his political opponents
– would suspend posse comitatus and deploy the military on US soil
– would end the pandemic preparedness office
– would fire thousands of civil servants
– would pardon all of the J6 rioters
– would try to make law enforcement officers immune from prosecution
If this doesn’t scare the living shit out of you, you aren’t paying attention.
.
You’ve probably heard of #Project2025, but what is it?
LISTEN UP TO @marceelias and @paigemoskowitz explain everything you need to know about the right-wing effort and why it’s so dangerous.
— Skyleigh Heinen-Uhrich (@Sky_Lee_1) April 30, 2024
x
I would love it if various BJ peeps (I’m looking at you rikyrah, and others) wanted to choose one piece of Project 2025 and do a guest post. There’s just not enough time in the day!
No trial in NY today, so I thought that might make it a good day for this.
Open thread.
This post is in: Biden Administration in Action, NANCY SMASH!, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat
Cuz it’s been such a long week, already… (mildly NSFW)
— ??HiphOperaGanda?? (@hiphoperaganda) April 30, 2024
This is absolutely the right thing to do — long overdue, in fact. I’m crossing my fingers Biden’s people have timed the announcement early enough to attract ‘casual’ voters… and late enough the GOP can’t find material to gin up into a Reefer MADNESS!!! campaign.
Cannabis is classified along with drugs like heroin and LSD.
The DEA is expected to reschedule it into a category that includes Tylenol and steroids, marking the first time the U.S. govt would acknowledge its potential medical benefits and begin studying them in earnest.
— NBC News (@NBCNews) April 30, 2024
Floriduh bait!
Kamala Harris is campaigning in Jacksonville tomorrow
Again, hard to imagine POTUS & VPOTUS campaigning in a non-competitive state, especially twice in two weeks https://t.co/9upga9Vezf
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) April 30, 2024
Ignore the ridiculous public polling done on the cheap. Trump’s words & Biden’s schedule strongly suggest the campaigns’ internal polls show Biden is competitive in Florida. https://t.co/BMBqLJBc09
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) April 30, 2024
Agreed. This isn’t some feint to try to lure the Biden campaign in to a trap. They wouldn’t go there unless their polling sows a reason it’s worthwhile.
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) April 30, 2024
That’s one reason. Also 2020 was closer than most people realize (3 points, same margin as Michigan). People think DeSantis’ big win says a lot about FL, but I think it says more about him getting lucky & drawing Charlie Crist.
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) April 30, 2024
Pete Buttigieg was also recently dispatched to Florida on behalf of the campaign. And if he says we can win it, we can!
— 🇺🇸🇺🇦 Lisa Connelly-TeamPete-Barnstormers (@Lisa_Connelly) May 1, 2024
Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Small TreatsPost + Comments (142)
This post is in: Our Failed Media Experiment, Proud to Be A Democrat, Republican Venality, Trump Crime Cartel, Trumpery
Take him literally & seriously, but I wouldn’t expect many people coming out to support him. The most fervid Trump supporters seldom get off their couches. https://t.co/WLlqpvwwQT
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) April 30, 2024
There’s been a certain amount of hair-on-fire commentary on social media about this interview. It’s not the kind of reading I usually share before most of you have had breakfast, but before y’all get nervous: Yes, it’s pretty bad. Time found someone shameless enough to go back to the 2017 ‘intriguing dude talks tuff’ media smarmfest, because hateclicks spend just like honest labor:
Donald Trump thinks he’s identified a crucial mistake of his first term: He was too nice.
We’ve been talking for more than an hour on April 12 at his fever-dream palace in Palm Beach. Aides lurk around the perimeter of a gilded dining room overlooking the manicured lawn. When one nudges me to wrap up the interview, I bring up the many former Cabinet officials who refuse to endorse Trump this time. Some have publicly warned that he poses a danger to the Republic. Why should voters trust you, I ask, when some of the people who observed you most closely do not?
As always, Trump punches back, denigrating his former top advisers. But beneath the typical torrent of invective, there is a larger lesson he has taken away. “I let them quit because I have a heart. I don’t want to embarrass anybody,” Trump says. “I don’t think I’ll do that again. From now on, I’ll fire.”
Six months from the 2024 presidential election, Trump is better positioned to win the White House than at any point in either of his previous campaigns. He leads Joe Biden by slim margins in most polls, including in several of the seven swing states likely to determine the outcome. But I had not come to ask about the election, the disgrace that followed the last one, or how he has become the first former—and perhaps future—American President to face a criminal trial. I wanted to know what Trump would do if he wins a second term, to hear his vision for the nation, in his own words…
The most important thing about this whole document: Yes, it’s full of objectively terrifying ideas from someone who was given a uniquely awful chance to destroy our country. But there’s not one thing in it we haven’t already heard about. Stripped of the interviewer’s fanboi message-massaging, you’ve got an angry old man letting himself be shipped from one friendly venue to another, like an over-the-hill country musician playing his greatest hits (not as well as he once did, but the audience just wants to say they saw their god-emperor live in person, while he’s still around). If you know an undecided voter who’s been in a coma or an alien spaceship for the last several years, this would be an introduction to The Very Worst of Donald Trump. For the rest of us, IMO, it’s gonna be useful mostly as a source of political ads for his opponents. Especially for President Biden’s team!
At their most basic level the first two Alien movies are about a bunch of people suffering and dying because they wouldn't listen to a woman who was right about the threat all along.
Quoted tweet unrelated. https://t.co/LkGTmYJ2oF
— Jean-Michel Connard ??? (@torriangray) April 30, 2024
Trump’s ramblings on reproductive health care are second worse only to his ideas about immigration, but again: We already knew all this! He doesn’t give a flying fart about abortion, but he’ll parrot whatever bullsh*t he’s heard most recently. He does care about immigration — only White people from White countries, preferably people who’ve passed the Bannon / Miller How big a bigot are you? test, should be permitted to enter Trump’s nationwide HOA. But this is not ‘news’!
What kind of answer is this? pic.twitter.com/bFfOzeFGVK
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) April 30, 2024
Don’t turn these freaks loose https://t.co/D9KGOWVsXm pic.twitter.com/qATrI8wcLv
— Clean Observer (@Hammbear2024) April 30, 2024
Don’t forget: when they were putting people in cages in the desert, a Trump creep was already doing this with spreadsheets. https://t.co/nT4CI4bvrU
— Clean Observer (@Hammbear2024) April 30, 2024
For him it's not a problem. Because he doesn't run on policies.
He runs on viciousness.
His fans love that he's going to hurt the people they hate. They don't even mind if (or block out that) they'll get hurt themselves.
They can't be reasoned with;they can only be outvoted. https://t.co/8654J1rOoM
— Roy Edroso (@edroso) April 30, 2024
"Express your utmost horror and detestation of the Man who wishes, under any specious pretences, to overturn the liberties of our Country, and who wickedly attempts to open the flood Gates of Civil discord, and deluge our rising Empire in Blood."
– George Washington https://t.co/DNYDAWWR8g— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) April 30, 2024
And President Biden has a damned good social-media team, as the NYTimes grugdingly admits…
President Biden and other top Democrats moved quickly to capitalize politically on Donald Trump’s interview with Time magazine, particularly his comments on abortion. https://t.co/EOv2Hz6CtD
— The New York Times (@nytimes) April 30, 2024
The Biden campaign is mounting a concerted push to attack former President Donald J. Trump over statements he made to Time magazine in a wide-ranging interview published Tuesday morning, particularly on abortion.
In the interview, Mr. Trump refused to commit to vetoing a national abortion ban and said he would allow states to monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violated abortion restrictions.
“This is reprehensible,” President Biden wrote on X. “Donald Trump doesn’t trust women. I do.”
Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Mr. Biden’s campaign manager, said in a statement that Mr. Trump would “sign a national abortion ban, allow women who have an abortion to be prosecuted and punished, allow the government to invade women’s privacy to monitor their pregnancies and put I.V.F. and contraception in jeopardy nationwide.”
Abortion has become a winning issue for Democrats, and Mr. Biden has argued that Mr. Trump and Republicans will continue to erode abortion rights. He and Vice President Kamala Harris have campaigned heavily on the issue in battleground states, and Democrats hope that state ballot initiatives to protect abortion rights will help their candidates for president, Congress and state offices. Their messaging has sought to pin state abortion bans directly on Mr. Trump, whose appointees to the Supreme Court helped overturn Roe v. Wade…
The former president also told Time that he would deploy the U.S. military to detain and deport migrants, and did not dismiss the possibility of political violence should he lose the election.
Democrats highlighted some of those statements as well.
“Donald Trump’s repeated threats of political violence are as horrifying and dangerous as they are un-American,” said Alex Floyd, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee. “Trump is hellbent on threatening our democracy, win or lose.”…
This is reprehensible.
Donald Trump doesn’t trust women. I do. https://t.co/L0JbgsFWvX
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) April 30, 2024
This post is in: COVID-19 Coronavirus, Foreign Affairs
Bowing to the — hopefully temporary! — inevitable.
The U.S. is struggling to mount an appropriate response to bird flu, and other pressing infectious threats, because we’re simultaneously ignoring and overlearning the lessons of COVID, @katherinejwu writes: https://t.co/YbbXkUXv7B
— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) April 30, 2024
Katherine Wu is always an excellent read, and this (IMO) is a good summary of the current status of H5N1 infection in the United States [gift link]:
… Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the nation’s alertness to infectious disease remains high. But both federal action and public attention are focusing on the wrong aspects of avian flu and other pressing infectious dangers, including outbreaks of measles within U.S. borders and epidemics of mosquito-borne pathogens abroad. To be fair, the United States (much like the rest of the world) was not terribly good at gauging such threats before COVID, but now “we have had our reactions thrown completely out of whack,” Bill Hanage, an infectious-disease epidemiologist and a co-director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at Harvard’s School of Public Health, told me. Despite all that COVID put us through—perhaps because of it—our infectious-disease barometer is broken.
H5N1 is undoubtedly concerning: No version of this virus has ever before spread this rampantly across this many mammal species, or so thoroughly infiltrated American livestock, Jeanne Marrazzo, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told me. But she and other experts maintain that the likelihood of H5N1 becoming our next pandemic remains quite low. No evidence currently suggests that the virus can spread efficiently between people, and it would still likely have to accumulate several more mutations to do so…
During this outbreak, experts have called for better testing and surveillance—first of avian and mammalian wildlife, now of livestock. But federal agencies have been slow to respond. Testing of dairy cows was voluntary until last week. Now groups of lactating dairy cows must be screened for the virus before they move across state lines, but by testing just 30 animals, often out of hundreds. Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told me he would also like to see more testing of other livestock, especially pigs, which have previously served as mixing vessels for flu viruses that eventually jumped into humans. More sampling would give researchers a stronger sense of where the virus has been and how it’s spreading within and between species. And it could help reveal the genomic changes that the virus may be accumulating. The U.S. Department of Agriculture and other federal agencies could also stand to shift from “almost this paternalistic view of, ‘We’ll tell you if you need to know,’” Osterholm said, to greater data transparency. (The USDA did not respond to a request for comment.)
Testing and other protections for people who work with cows have been lacking, too. Many farm workers in the U.S. are mobile, uninsured, and undocumented; some of their employers may also fear the practical and financial repercussions of testing workers. All of that means a virus could sicken farm workers without being detected—which is likely already the case—then spread to their networks…
In other ways, experts told me, the U.S. may have overlearned certain COVID lessons. Several researchers imagine that wastewater could again be a useful tool to track viral spread. But, Sosin pointed out, that sort of tracking won’t work as well for a virus that may currently be concentrated in rural areas, where private septic systems are common. Flu viruses, unlike SARS-CoV-2, also tend to be more severe for young children than adults. Should H5N1 start spreading in earnest among humans, closing schools “is probably one of the single most effective interventions that you could do,” Bill Hanage said. Yet many politicians and members of the public are now dead set on never barring kids from classrooms to control an outbreak again…
The intensity of living through the early years of COVID split Americans into two camps: one overly sensitized to infectious threats, and the other overly, perhaps even willfully, numbed. Many people fear that H5N1 will be “the next big one,” while others tend to roll their eyes, Hanage told me. Either way, public trust in health authorities has degraded. Now, “no matter what happens, you could be accused of not sounding the alarm, or saying, ‘Oh my God, here we go again,’” Jeanne Marrazzo told me. As long as infectious threats to humanity are growing, however, recalibrating our sense of infectious danger is imperative to keeping those perils in check. If a broken barometer fails to detect a storm and no one prepares for the impact, the damage might be greater, but the storm itself will still resolve as it otherwise would. But if the systems that warn us about infectious threats are on the fritz, our neglect may cause the problem to grow.
***********
Stat’s @HelenBranswell talking about covid vaccine messaging and „The curse of the 95%“ now at @ESCMID #ECCMID2024 pic.twitter.com/IJ2zBEmBMV
— Kai Kupferschmidt (@kakape) April 27, 2024
The Great Pandemic Winding Down continues, for the moment. I’ll keep posting every week while we all wait to see what happens next…
Best Covid news I’ve seen in a while: US covid Hospital admissions are lower than they’ve been this *entire* pandemic! Week ending 4/20/24 is the 1st week we’ve had under 6000 new covid hospitalizations. Still a lot, and no this metric isn’t perfect, but this is good news. 1/3 pic.twitter.com/tc8EQ8MOCs
— Noha Aboelata, MD (@NohaAboelataMD) April 30, 2024
As we grapple with the ongoing pandemic, including the mounting burden of long covid and post covid impacts, any good news is welcome. But there’s still no shortage of SARS-CoV-2 circulating, so please continue to protect yourself and others. 🙏🏾💕
— Noha Aboelata, MD (@NohaAboelataMD) April 30, 2024
The Biobot Analytics wastewater data shows rates of infection continuing to drop at a steady rate.
Last night’s update: 54,619 new cases, 624 new deaths https://t.co/8TqmTMihUO
— BNO News (@BNOFeed) April 29, 2024
This is the 41st week in a row with more than 500 new COVID deaths in the U.S., or 56,954 deaths during the same period.
— BNO News (@BNOFeed) April 28, 2024
======
China: First scientist to publish Covid sequence protests over lab ‘eviction’
“Zhang Yongzhen stages sit-in protest, as government attempts to avoid scrutiny over handling of outbreak.”
The Guardianhttps://t.co/9pmtS9JK6Q
— CoronaHeadsUp (@CoronaHeadsUp) April 30, 2024
How soon we (choose to) forget:
… Zhang Yongzhen, a virologist, said in an online post on Monday that he and his team had been given a sudden eviction notice from their lab, and guards had barred him from entering it over the weekend. The post, published on Weibo, was later deleted, Associated Press (AP) reported.
After extensive media and social media coverage, on Wednesday Zhang said he and his team had been “tentatively” allowed to resume work inside the lab.
“I would like to sincerely thank all the netizens and people from all walks of life who have supported me and my team for a long time,” he said on Weibo…
Zhang published his scientific findings about Covid-19 without government approval in January 2020. He and his team have since been subject to a series of setbacks, demotions and oustings, of which the eviction appears to be the latest.
The Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center said in a statement that Zhang’s lab was closed for “safety reasons” and renovations. It said Zhang’s team had been given alternative lab space.
However, Zhang said the offer was not made until after his team was evicted, and that the new lab did not meet the team’s required safety standards…
The move shows how the Chinese government continues to pressure and control scientists, seeking to avoid scrutiny of its handling of the coronavirus outbreak.
After sequencing the virus on 5 January 2020 Zhang and his team initially sent a notice to Chinese authorities warning of its potential to spread. The next day his lab was temporarily shut down by China’s top health official.
Foreign scientists called for Zhang and other Chinese scientists to be allowed to publish the sequencing. The following week Zhang published his sequence – without authority – allowing global health authorities to begin testing for Covid-19, finding that it was spreading outside China. It also kickstarted the development of tests, vaccinations and other pandemic measures.
Internationally Zhang was lauded, receiving prizes in recognition of his work, but domestically he came under pressure. He was barred from collaborating with some former research partners and removed from his post at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention…
Zhang’s team appeared to receive a lot of public support on Weibo, where related hashtags were viewed by tens of millions of Chinese. “How can the country develop if we treat scientific researchers like this?” one said.
Some article links appeared to have been removed since they were posted but extensive discussion of Zhang’s dispute with the Shanghai health authority remained online on Tuesday afternoon.
Thailand: Doctor raises alarm over rising Covid-19 admissions and deaths
“Infection rates appeared to be worsening, with higher hospital admissions, deaths and severe cases.”
The Starhttps://t.co/oHUzHsw7kk
— CoronaHeadsUp (@CoronaHeadsUp) April 30, 2024
======
Terrible news, as far as I’m concerned:
My former journalism colleague @DelthiaRick’s account has been permanently locked by X because X claims it can no longer verify who she is. X says she can open a new account with zero followers.
WHAT?
When this happen people believe it’s censorship. Or X incompetence.— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) April 26, 2024
Ricks has been my personal go-to pandemic aggregator for a long time. She’s gotten sideswiped by Elon’s minions a couple times before, so this might be a temporary situation… or the poor woman might just decide that she’s been a target for long enough. Yes, I checked BlueSky… she’s got an account there, but it’s not very active (yet):
Long Covid taste loss may not involve taste buds. New
study attempts to untangle taste and olfactory dysfunction 1 year after infection www.medpagetoday.com/neurology/lo…— delthia ricks science writer (@dricks.bsky.social) Apr 26, 2024 at 7:52 AM
Up-to-date summary https://t.co/Af7tZ5426M@TIME @TIMEHealth @Jamie_Ducharme
— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) April 29, 2024
======
Anthony S. Fauci has agreed to testify in front of the House panel investigating the nation’s coronavirus response, the first time the prominent infectious-disease expert will publicly face Congress since leaving government nearly 1½ years ago. https://t.co/Nm9FEY06O2
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) April 24, 2024
Unpaywalled version, via Stripes:
… Fauci, who helped steer the Trump and Biden administrations’ efforts to fight the virus, is scheduled to testify June 3 in front of the House Oversight select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic, with lawmakers expected to press him on the still-unknown origins of the pandemic, the government’s vaccine mandates and other issues that remain politically divisive, more than four years after the outbreak began.
The GOP-led panel includes some of Fauci’s most persistent critics in Congress, such as Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-La.) and Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), who have repeatedly alleged that the pandemic began with an accident at a lab in China funded by Fauci’s agency and covered up by U.S. officials.
“Retirement from public service does not excuse Dr. Fauci from accountability to the American people,” Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), who chairs the panel, said in a statement. “On June 3, Americans will have an opportunity to hear directly from Dr. Fauci about his role in overseeing our nation’s pandemic response, shaping pandemic-era policies, and promoting singular questionable narratives about the origins of COVID-19.”
Fauci has denied wrongdoing, and public health leaders have praised his work and said Republicans have unfairly targeted him…
“The select subcommittee has not uncovered any evidence that directly implicates Dr. Fauci and [former National Institutes of Health director Francis] Collins in a coverup of the pandemic’s origin or collusion with scientific journals to suppress the lab-leak hypothesis,” Rep. Raul Ruiz (Calif.), the panel’s top Democrat, said at a hearing last week…
But public confidence in Fauci and other health officials deteriorated amid frustrations about pandemic-era policies such as remote schooling and attacks from GOP lawmakers. Fifty-three percent of Americans in April 2022 said they trusted Fauci’s recommendations on coronavirus vaccines, down from 68% in December 2020, according to polling by KFF, a nonpartisan health research organization. The dip was driven by growing Republican skepticism; just 25 percent of Republicans said they trusted Fauci’s coronavirus vaccine recommendations in April 2022, down from 47 percent in December 2020, while Democrats’ trust in Fauci remained largely unchanged.
After leaving government in December 2022, Fauci joined the Georgetown University faculty as a distinguished professor and wrote a memoir set to publish in June…
So, maybe Fauci can expense this sideshow as part of his book tour on his next tax return. (Me, I’d drop trou and give the Repubs the full moon, but that’s why Fauci was a government official and I’ll never be one.)
Somewhere around 12% of the U.S. population—virtually all of them Republicans—saw the tremendous success of the COVID vaccines and decided to become *less* supportive of mandatory MMR vaccination for children in public school.
— Max Kennerly (@maxkennerly.bsky.social) Apr 21, 2024 at 7:04 PM
…even if it’s not what some want to hear. With the potential for a new pandemic happening sooner than later, with the specter of H5N1…on the horizon, this revisionism needs to be nipped in the bud now.” YES
Powerful well-cited piece by Gregg Gonsalveshttps://t.co/wC74lJR6iK
— Noha Aboelata, MD (@NohaAboelataMD) April 28, 2024
COVID-19 Coronavirus (& H5N1) Updates: May 1, 2024Post + Comments (15)