With that, let's dig in to the latest state, national and global news about the coronavirus. There's plenty of it to look at as new medical news and new nuttery both pop up.
First, how deadly is it?
Newest work on the fatality rate and the spread rate of COVID-19? It's 100 times as deadly as "just the flu." And, James Scott of U Texas, one of the researchers in that story, was expecting just what Texas is currently getting. The New York Times weighs in with its own piece, which among other things, notes that coronaviruses can have a better transmission rate than the flu. It's not clear from reading the two in parallel, but both are referencing the same WHO meta-analysis out of Australia as a centerpiece of their work.
Breaking addition
State Fair of Texas is officially cancelled. How long before wingnuts call the fair's board snowflakes or similar?
Texas
Meanwhile, Gov. Abbott said "masks on"? But will it hold?
Abbott's already getting pushback from some wingnut counties, not all of them small. Ellis, Johnson and Upshur counties are among those where county judges said they won't enforce the mask order. A county with less than 20 active cases, Cass County, doesn't have to enforce the order IF it opts out. But, Judge Becky Wilbanks claiming Abbott's orders have been ambiguous? Not this one. His previous "blood on his hands"? Yes. Ellis and Johnson counties are both problematic. Both are over 150K and both are part of the Metromess. (Dunno about Johnson, or cities like Cleburne, but Ennis in Ellis County used to be a hotspot of racism to boot.) Smith County? That's Tyler. Over 200K people in the county, and also, a longtime wingnut hotbed of racism.
Denton County Sheriff Tracy Murphree, who looks like some home fries, says he won't enforce Abbott's order, either, and now there's a petition calling for his removal by trial for official misconduct. Petition is here.
Following up on the Bar Lives Matter stupidity from two weeks ago, over Abbott's orders to shutter bars, bar owners are suing the state. Dear bar owners, and a substantial minority of patrons. If bar lives really mattered, many of you bar patrons would get your ass to a sobriety meeting and many of you bar owners would tell those who needed to go that they indeed ... needed to go. Beyond that, as bobbies know, drunks can't socially distance.
Part of the problem of "superspreader churches"? It's superspreader church choirs. And, while I don't think bar owners have a legal leg to stand on, Abbott continuing to exempt churches is hypocritical.
Learn more about the false mask sales world.
The Texas Medical Association has reversed court on an in-person GOP convention (of which it was one of the sponsors) and said do it virtually.
If Abbott isn't primaried, Libertarian wingnut of wingnuts Dan Behrman, without mentioning names, called out Abbott, and has announced he's running for gov.
National and Global
Trump believes the coronavirus will disappear. Just like Hitler believed Gen. Felix Steiner was going to rescue him in late April 1945. As it turns out, a couple of days later, the White House word was that Trump was disappearing himself as the daily coronavirus voice.
Experts say, per my wonderings about summer AC, that indoor airborne transmission is looking like it's more and more part of the issue. Scientists saying this note that WHO is conservative and risk-averse on its medical angles and not willing to adequately consider aerosol transmission, as well as having its funding further tightened by Trump cutting off US funding. (That said, the "conservative and risk averse" is of little doubt to me; sounds just like the UNPCC on climate change.) On the other hand, for less developed countries, WHO saying, in essence, "Masks On," may require a significant financial diversion in controlling COVID. The group of scientists calling out WHO on aerosol transmission is releasing a public letter.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross' famous, or infamous, or just plain wrong, five stages of death and dying is being used as a cheap counseling tool in the time of COVID. (IMO, her stages appealed to Americans from the start, as our cultural DNA is a country that believes it can always be in control, likes things in black and white, likes quick ways to allegedly get in control, like lists and action plans, etc.)
Tony Fauci's boss, NIH head Francis Collins, talks COVID issues. That said, given that this is the man who saw proof of the Trinity in a waterfall, it should surprise nobody that, from the likelihood of when we get a vaccine to how well Americans are addressing the pandemic, Collins has been smoking some Pandora-level crack.
FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn disagrees with Collins' (and Trump's) rosy scenario on a vaccine. While not a pessimist entirely, he says "year's end or early next year," which I think is still too optimistic.
Hahn also disagrees with Trump on something else. He said it's "still too soon" to say that an in-person RNC can safely be held in Jacksonville. What if people a month from now say it can't? How many people still march into J-ville if Il Duce says march?
Ex-FDA Commish Scott Gottlieb, a voice indirectly critical of Trump while in office, also weighs in, saying that overuse of remdesivir could deplete all the stock the US bought from from Gilead last week.
Breaking addition
State Fair of Texas is officially cancelled. How long before wingnuts call the fair's board snowflakes or similar?
Texas
Meanwhile, Gov. Abbott said "masks on"? But will it hold?
Abbott's already getting pushback from some wingnut counties, not all of them small. Ellis, Johnson and Upshur counties are among those where county judges said they won't enforce the mask order. A county with less than 20 active cases, Cass County, doesn't have to enforce the order IF it opts out. But, Judge Becky Wilbanks claiming Abbott's orders have been ambiguous? Not this one. His previous "blood on his hands"? Yes. Ellis and Johnson counties are both problematic. Both are over 150K and both are part of the Metromess. (Dunno about Johnson, or cities like Cleburne, but Ennis in Ellis County used to be a hotspot of racism to boot.) Smith County? That's Tyler. Over 200K people in the county, and also, a longtime wingnut hotbed of racism.
Denton County Sheriff Tracy Murphree, who looks like some home fries, says he won't enforce Abbott's order, either, and now there's a petition calling for his removal by trial for official misconduct. Petition is here.
Following up on the Bar Lives Matter stupidity from two weeks ago, over Abbott's orders to shutter bars, bar owners are suing the state. Dear bar owners, and a substantial minority of patrons. If bar lives really mattered, many of you bar patrons would get your ass to a sobriety meeting and many of you bar owners would tell those who needed to go that they indeed ... needed to go. Beyond that, as bobbies know, drunks can't socially distance.
Part of the problem of "superspreader churches"? It's superspreader church choirs. And, while I don't think bar owners have a legal leg to stand on, Abbott continuing to exempt churches is hypocritical.
Learn more about the false mask sales world.
The Texas Medical Association has reversed court on an in-person GOP convention (of which it was one of the sponsors) and said do it virtually.
If Abbott isn't primaried, Libertarian wingnut of wingnuts Dan Behrman, without mentioning names, called out Abbott, and has announced he's running for gov.
National and Global
Trump believes the coronavirus will disappear. Just like Hitler believed Gen. Felix Steiner was going to rescue him in late April 1945. As it turns out, a couple of days later, the White House word was that Trump was disappearing himself as the daily coronavirus voice.
Experts say, per my wonderings about summer AC, that indoor airborne transmission is looking like it's more and more part of the issue. Scientists saying this note that WHO is conservative and risk-averse on its medical angles and not willing to adequately consider aerosol transmission, as well as having its funding further tightened by Trump cutting off US funding. (That said, the "conservative and risk averse" is of little doubt to me; sounds just like the UNPCC on climate change.) On the other hand, for less developed countries, WHO saying, in essence, "Masks On," may require a significant financial diversion in controlling COVID. The group of scientists calling out WHO on aerosol transmission is releasing a public letter.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross' famous, or infamous, or just plain wrong, five stages of death and dying is being used as a cheap counseling tool in the time of COVID. (IMO, her stages appealed to Americans from the start, as our cultural DNA is a country that believes it can always be in control, likes things in black and white, likes quick ways to allegedly get in control, like lists and action plans, etc.)
Tony Fauci's boss, NIH head Francis Collins, talks COVID issues. That said, given that this is the man who saw proof of the Trinity in a waterfall, it should surprise nobody that, from the likelihood of when we get a vaccine to how well Americans are addressing the pandemic, Collins has been smoking some Pandora-level crack.
FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn disagrees with Collins' (and Trump's) rosy scenario on a vaccine. While not a pessimist entirely, he says "year's end or early next year," which I think is still too optimistic.
Hahn also disagrees with Trump on something else. He said it's "still too soon" to say that an in-person RNC can safely be held in Jacksonville. What if people a month from now say it can't? How many people still march into J-ville if Il Duce says march?
Ex-FDA Commish Scott Gottlieb, a voice indirectly critical of Trump while in office, also weighs in, saying that overuse of remdesivir could deplete all the stock the US bought from from Gilead last week.
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