Coronavirus, week 82B: COVID, Delta and Vietnam and elsewhere

To the degree that some countries like Vietnam DID "crush" earlier waves of COVID (I remain somewhat dubious that they did), it may have hindered them when Delta arrived. Counterpunch explains. (I remain somewhat dubious here, including wondering why China's Sinopharm et al didn't have at least a halfway decent number of its vaxxes sold/given to Vietnam. Or maybe it did and it's THAT bad a vax, relatively speaking.) The reality is that Vietnam is a much more rural and "undeveloped" country than the West, including Vietnam apologists, either know or admit outside a couple of big cities. Think 1980s China, if that. The story behind the story is that, to the degree Counterpunch's Jeff St. Clair and Josh Frank try to impose any degree of unified editorial strategy, it is one that, while not as kneejerk anti-American on the stage of world affairs as the alleged outside the box steno types, nonetheless can tout the non-Western world at times to try to give the U.S. a black eye.

Strangeabbott and Kenny Boy Paxton, along with other wingnut govs and state AGs, are suing the Biden Administration over its vaccine mandate. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and other wingnuts have filed another such suit. They'll almost certainly lose, in part given that the Supreme Court just rejected a broad-based religious exemption request at the state level versus a Maine vaccine mandate for health care workers. Plus, Kemp's claims 70 percent of the unvaxxed being ready to quit their jobs? By the paucity of people United Airlines fired, that's bullshit right there. Ditto for the 9 in 10 claiming they fear severe workforce reductions.

That said, re the larger issue of religious exemption requests? TNR shows that constitutional law on the issue is vague and arbitrary, but, as is no surprise to anybody who knows Ward's Cove, tilts strongly to White mainline Protestants.

Contra Disqus-commenting COVID obstructionist John Nutt, whom I finally blocked a couple of weeks ago, the evidence is in: the shot is better, more than five times better, than disease-created immunity, period and end of story.

Southwest's pilots lost their request for an injunction against Biden's vax mandate. Boo-hoo. (Sadly, Southworst, unlike United, is NOT firing disobedient employees, tho United's plan is on hold per a ruling by another judge.) On a non-COVID note, a pilot said "Let's go Brandon" on his PA greeting. SWAPA needs to disavow this pilot immediately to avoid a further loss of credibility. On the matter of credibility, SWAPA's head claimed it was NOT a sickout last month, though it looked that way here. Rather, he blamed the company's crew scheduling software program, saying it was glitchy, per the second link in this paragraph.

That said, vaccine mandates do work. Most of Tyson's people got the shot after the company posted a requirement. It's in no way connected to the federal mandate. 

Vaccine mandates work, part 2. This doesn't include the 8,500 or so of NYPD seeking religious exemptions, but as of Monday afternoon, less than 1 percent of NY's "finest" were on unpaid leave. As for those requesting exemptions? The city says that if they haven't made past previous requests, like leave for holidays, they're not likely to get this.

Zeynep Tufekci notes antivaxxers are now playing on antidiscrimination language. That's not her main point, though. The increased polarization on the issue is.

What will COVID do this winter? Meander, or maybe flare up again? Experts are divided.

Your Local Epidemiologist has the Cliff notes from the FDA scientific advisory committee meeting on COVID vaccines for 5 to 11 year olds. 

The Monthly fellates Strangeabbott as a hands-off COVID genyus before going antivaxxer. Reality? Several larger states, and the one state actually larger in population, have COVID death rates lower than Texas'.