Coronavirus news, week 51: Impending doom ahead? Chinese obstruction ongoing?

• Yesterday, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the new CDC head, decided to "lose the script" and warned of a feeling of "impending doom" with a new spike in COVID cases. She specifically pointed toward more travel (spring break in Florida, are you listeninig, Ron DeSantis?) and loosening restrictions (are you listening, Strangeabbott) as among causes.

That said, overall, I'm glass-half-full on this. The spike isn't bad, and it's just one week. That said, I'm glass-half-empty, too. A renewed word of caution isn't bad.

 

Update: Zeynep Tufekci weighs in, and says that with the spread of the B.1.1.7 variant, Walensky is not all wrong to be worried. She adds that, if a fourth surge takes off, it's likely to hit mainly the young. That may — or may not — have a lower death rate. Stay tuned.  Tufekci also recommends governments being prepared to induce ring immunity, as much as they can, with targeted vaccination protocols as needed, in the face of localized surges.

• The same first link notes the Biden Admin will NOT have a "vaccination passport." That said, for non-domestic travel, it doesn't matter, as many European and Asian countries DO have something like this. And, stop lying about this, wingnuts.

 

• On "60 Minutes," Lesley Stahl looked at continued Chinese slow-walking (and gutting of the terms of conduct) of the WHO investigation. Jamie Metzl, a Clinton NSC staffer, called out the Potemkin village nature of this. He also is a cosigner of a letter calling for full WHO access to the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab. I don't think this was anything weaponized. Was it research that got screwed up, or had inadequate containment controls, though? From what I've read before, quite possible.

But British zoologist Peter Dazsak is still trying to peddle the "wet markets" idea. I don't where where SARS-COVID2 DID come from. I do know the wet markets theory sounds less and less plausible. And Dazsak admits his WHO team, the one that went there, was not tasked to look at the possibility of China selling them a line of bull.

There's a lot more there. And a third interviewee. Read the whole thing.

The Xi Jinping Thought Kool-Aid drinkers will probably attack Metzl.

• The drive for a COVID vaccine has opened the doors to new vaccines. Many, like the Salk oral polio vaccine, will not use needles. And, of the needle vaccines, new "building blocks" for them may hit the market. Read more here.

• Two Houston restaurants, next to each other, and both Italian. One still requires masks, the other doesn't. Given the size of Roma's dining area, and that it's open at 100 percent, as well as not masking? No way in hell I'd go there.

• Sorry for restaurant employees, and those in other businesses hit hardest by COVID, on trying to get unemployment bennies. But, I've not sat down inside a restaurant for over a year now and things aren't changing anytime soon.

• Masks on is still the rule in Austin for right now.

• COVID was Dallas County's No. 1 cause of death in the last year.