Coronavirus, week 32: Texas is No. 1!

• For those who hadn't heard, Texas recently passed California, Florida, New York and elsewhere to lead the nation in coronavirus cases. One hotspot is El Paso, or per Texas Monthly, the binational El Paso-Juarez conurbation. Leaders of both cities blame each other, and on the Yanqui side, it's compounded by the El Paso County Judge wanting a firmer hand on business restrictions in the city of El Paso than does its mayor. El Paso now has four mobile morgues to deal with deaths there.

• Pandemic fatigue is a "global" thing, at least on both sides of the Atlantic among developed nations. I don't know about places like South Korea and Japan. And, we really won't be able to know, outside official narratives, about China. 

• STAT agrees with other projections last week — through the holidays season, we're screwed. Biden's coronavirus task force is a good idea, but like other things, can't start until Jan. 20. And, will have a tough uphill sled on pandemic fatigue, let alone pandemic denialism.

• Speaking of? A representative of a coalition of state health officials says that non-rural folks need to listen more to rural folks — and even, to me, implies that they ought to give credence to their alternative reality.

“Public health officials need to step back, listen to and understand the people who aren’t taking the same stance” on mask-wearing and other control measures, said Dr. Marcus Plescia of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. 

“I think there’s the potential for things to get less charged and divisive,” he said, adding that there’s a chance a retooled public health message might unify Americans around lowering case counts so hospitals won’t get swamped during the winter months.

WRONG, as I said on Twitter. I see this as coming very close to what I said in the paragraph above: an acceptance of an alternative reality of coronavirus minimalism at the least, full denialism at the most. That denialism includes, among Biden vs Trump voters, what percentage of people think COVID is largely or mainly under control, per the story link.

Now, if Plescia meant "re-explain" the current message of #SocialDistance + #WearADamnMask, he needs to say so. But, he did NOT say that in the AP story.

• Airlines MAY be safer than other indoor places, but they may NOT be as safe as many studies so far claim. Here's the latest, with the key point being? Airlines are pushing safety studies that — have been commissioned by airlines, and in the biggest, even conducted by one.

Reading the United survey, which did NOT have its mannequin acting like a WALKING passenger for the john, etc.? That's not very good.

• Pfizer's vaccine is (for now) the closest to public release. It's also the one with the biggest distribution headaches, especially for rural areas. It has to be kept at -100F and the two doses it uses have a 28-day spacing. ProPublica has more details.