Jackson, FL mayor tries to make lemonade out of… well, some yellow liquid:
peple are allowed to be upset that selfish and proudly misinformed people are prolonging a public health crisis. it’s a normal and correct feeling to have. https://t.co/xvUwcOniS9
— World Famous Art Thief (@CalmSporting) August 2, 2021
My kids can't get vaccinated, and we're burning through the Greek alphabet. Get vaccinated or fuck off.
— Fred Will Not Go To Space Today (@LesserFrederick) August 2, 2021
My son is 11. This is exactly what all vaccinated parents of young children are worried – and angry – about. https://t.co/KvD72MQ20B
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) August 2, 2021
Part of a thread from a pediatrician in Houston:
We are officially back to getting crushed by #COVID, and for #pediatricians this wave feels *worse* in many ways. And as a pediatric hospitalist who has been a front-line COVID doctor for the entire pandemic, I’m going to share what I’ve seen the last 8 days on service. 1/
— Heather #Vaccinated Haq, MD, MHS, FAAP (@heather_haq) July 31, 2021
COVID admissions in our medical center are up 500% and currently 80% of cases in our hospital are due to the highly contagious Delta variant. I worry that the Delta variant, in addition to being more contagious, *may* also be more virulent in children.
— Heather #Vaccinated Haq, MD, MHS, FAAP (@heather_haq) July 31, 2021
So we are on the front end of a huge COVID surge. But the difference this time compared to previous surges is we are simultaneously dealing with an unheard of summertime #RSV surge—creating a “surge upon surge” situation.
— Heather #Vaccinated Haq, MD, MHS, FAAP (@heather_haq) July 31, 2021
Reading more accounts from pediatricians, many sharing they are seeing respiratory complications in younger and younger children, including neonates. https://t.co/jA9zAX5AFm
— Heather #Vaccinated Haq, MD, MHS, FAAP (@heather_haq) July 31, 2021
Sidebar to teachers unions — I’d mute the ‘our FREEDUMBS’ yawps right now…
Parents do not care. Get the vaccine or stay away from our kids. https://t.co/ApLtbuKO7M
— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) August 2, 2021
Nina
Inevitably we will get to the Mu and Nu variants. “Did you hear about the Nu variant?”
“What new variant?”
“Not the new variant, the Nu variant…”
featheredsprite
I had always assumed that if covid started targeting children, the surrounding adults would come to their senses. I am really sorry that I was wrong.
dr. bloor
Too soon to say, but Lambda might prove to be the stupid-proof motivation to get vaxxed.
WaterGirl
Very distressing to hear about all these kids. Fucking people. Pro-life my ass.
featheredsprite
@Nina: Yeah. Lambda already has a bad reputation.
germy
@featheredsprite:
They didn’t care when children were gunned down in Sandy Hook.
Major Major Major Major
The good news is, there’s still plenty of evidence the vaccines are highly effective!
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
Odds without vax seems low.
debbie
I’ve never heard of NYSUT. They’re affiliated with the NEA and AFT, but the policies aren’t the same. Does anyone know about them?
prufrock
At work we had a period of a few weeks where those of us who were fully vaccinated were exempt from masks. That ends tomorrow because of all the dumbasses who aren’t vaxed, but are also not masking.
Morons.
Elizabelle
“Neonates with respiratory complications.” Jebus. Protect the babies, please, antivaxxers and rightwingers.
Agree with Bradley Moss on teachers refusing vaccine. No vaccine, no student-facing position. Students are too vulnerable. They can be too young to be vaccinated (or their siblings are), or be in fragile health.
Learn up, teachers and nurses. And law enforcement.
MattF
@dr. bloor: Lambda variant may be vaccine resistant… but is being crowded out by Delta. I guess we’ll just let the variants fight it outl
Martin
@featheredsprite: Oh, like how having 20 6-7 year-olds got herded into their classroom and gunned down in a pile of carnage? And then half the country accused the parents of being actors and the whole thing a hoax?
No, there’s an agenda that needs to be true, and we’ll dismiss any and all facts that threaten to undermine it.
germy
So Lindsey Graham has covid?
He was partying on Manchin’s houseboat a few days ago…
Elizabelle
@debbie: Guessing they’re an alternate union for those who don’t like the larger NYS teachers union??
dr. bloor
@germy: I wouldn’t put it past TFG (or Moscow Mitch, for that matter) to tell Lindsey to get infected and go party hearty with Democratic senators.
WaterGirl
@featheredsprite: Yeah, and when young kids were basically shredded in the Newtown shootings, I thought they would care about gun control.
Pro-life does not mean what they think it means.
Baud
I think a lot of unions aren’t being cool right now. Although I think AFL-CIO is one of the good guys.
dr. bloor
@Elizabelle:
Sorry, ma’am, they’re already born. Gotta learn how to fend for yourself sooner or later, right?
WaterGirl
@dr. bloor: @featheredsprite:
I am not getting the Lambda comments, what am I missing?Never mind.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: Not really. Arizona has 7.2 million people and during the period in question there were just under 30k cases.
Elizabelle
@germy: Hey there. I don’t like that framing WRT Sandy Hook. In its aftermath, the public at large absolutely supported stronger gun safety measures. Large majorities.
It was the GOP and NRA puppets who fought that legislation down.
Credit (or blame) where it belongs.
Cameron
@Elizabelle: Babies? They don’t give a shit about babies. Now, fetuses, that’s another story.
germy
@Elizabelle:
The public at large also supports vaccinations and masks.
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: I think Lambda is a symbol/name used by many LGBT organizations/activities.
Martin
@MattF: Yeah, there are no nations where Lambda has been observed (~30) where it has outcompeted Delta. My understanding is that it is more fatal than Delta but less transmissible.
WaterGirl
@dr. bloor: Babies are just moochers. They lie around all day, doing nothing! //
Major Major Major Major
@Nina: ha!
dr. bloor
@WaterGirl: Lab studies showing it might be vax resistant, and a couple of other mutations that have the potential to make it Delta+ in terms of transmission. To soon to say what happens to it in the wild.
That’s enough for me to move it from Bloor: Variant of Interest to Bloor: Holy Fuck.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
Unfortunately, I don’t think 0.6% is sufficiently frightening for people.
dr. bloor
@WaterGirl:
Counterpoint: they are excellent at turning adults into babbling morons and filling diapers with…well, never mind.
Cameron
@WaterGirl: I think it’s a reference to that William Blake COVID poem “Little Lambda, who made thee?”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I can’t find it now, but somebody tweeted today that we all have a good chance of learning the Greek alphabet
Elizabelle
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: If it’s not COVID, it will be extended hurricane seasons.
dr. bloor
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Edward Gorey approves, in his own way.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: Sure but this is about how the vaccine is 90% effective, consistent with the data from the UK. Given how freaked out everybody is about Provincetown Bear Week, I’m hoping to make folks feel better about the shots :)
Brachiator
I am tired of the “don’t shame me” stuff about the vaccine and pretty much everything.
Stop doing stupid shit.
MisterForkbeard
@Baud: Not all those people were exposed, is the thing.
The vaxx is really good if you’ve been exposed. This is just raw, historical odds per population type and it’s showing a 10x better response. That’s fantastic, I think.
rikyrah
Senator Pittypat has COVID ?
#ArrestTrumpNow NastyNastyVetBristola (@DWapenveld) tweeted at 5:30 PM on Mon, Aug 02, 2021:
Lindsey other Senators were partying on houseboat belonging to Joe Manchin
https://t.co/LVe5v2qTcI
(https://twitter.com/DWapenveld/status/1422324009711116292?s=03)
Ohio Mom
Yikes, just googled “Lambda variant” and found this on Reuters;
“The Lambda variant of the coronavirus, first identified in Peru and now spreading in South America, is highly infectious and more resistant to vaccines than the original version of the virus…Japanese researchers have found. In laboratory experiments…that three mutations in Lambda’s spike protein, known as RSYLTPGD246-253N, 260 L452Q and F490S, help it resist neutralization by vaccine-induced antibodies. Two additional mutations, T76I and L452Q, help make Lambda highly infectious…Although it is not clear yet whether this variant is more dangerous than the Delta…Lambda can be a potential threat…”
Let’s hope that what happens in test tubes doesn’t happen in people. Which very well could be — for example, a lot of the big cancer breakthroughs you read about take place in test tubes or mice but then fail to work in people.
ETA: or what dr bloor says @28
Elizabelle
@rikyrah: Manchin lives on a houseboat while he’s in DC. That would be cool.
RSA
@Major Major Major Major: I’m unclear on how to interpret P(B|A). What is the probability of vaccination given COVID?
gwangung
@Ohio Mom: We are fucking around and finding out, apparently.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Senatorial sex parties are getting out of control!
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
@MisterForkbeard:
Sure. I’ve never had any doubts about the vaccine. The media hysteria was clearly bullshit.
andy
At this point the redcaps aren’t wrong, they’re complicit. They’re trying to run up the body count because they hope it’ll make Biden and the Democrats look bad, and other people’s kids in respirators are just meat to them. The irony here is that the vaccine is free, and NOBODY likes free stuff more than these people.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Dr Ashish Jha on the O’Bros podcast, in my ears right now, is a very good antidote to alarmism. He is concerned about children and the vulnerable elderly.
Major Major Major Major
@RSA: Yeah. We know that 5.9% of the cases during that period were breakthroughs.
Kent
Teacher here. Trust me, at least around here at LEAST 90% of teachers are completely on board and beyond frustrated with the few remaining dipshits. But every faculty has a few dipshit Ayn Rand aficionados who have bought into the MAGA bullshit. The Venn diagram between these folks and social studies teachers who are coaches has a lot of overlap. And then there are the evangelical women who are married to MAGA dipshits. they are not uncommon in education.
Kent
So same exact situation as with Covid then? It’s a GOP-driven minority that is bringing the country down. Not the majority that has already been vaccinated nationwide.
Kay
Biden’s sort of admirably blunt. He should just say this over and over.
Baud
@Kay:
They’re going to be in for a financial shock when they secede.
schrodingers_cat
What is it with RWNJs they want to be respected when they are out there doing self sabotaging and society damaging stuff. I see the same tendencies among Modi supporters among friends and family.
Bluegirlfromwyo
@WaterGirl: “Pro-life” means I’mma “let” you be born, then I don’t give a damn what happens to you until your spouse wants to end your life support.
lowtechcyclist
@featheredsprite:
The only ‘babies’ they care about are the unborn ones.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Their whole thing is status. When people they consider beneath them don’t respect them, they feel out of sorts.
Roger Moore
@schrodingers_cat:
It’s not enough to them that they be allowed to do as they please; everyone else must agree with them. I think it’s rooted in a lack of confidence in their convictions. They are worried they can’t sustain their beliefs in the face of criticism, and they read any form of disagreement, even just people who choose to live their life differently, as a tacit form of criticism. So they read your decision to wear a mask and get vaccinated as a criticism of their decision not to do those things. That makes them angry, because they’re deeply uncertain and react to that uncertainty by attacking the person who makes them think about it.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I think you have a point. I have respect for my elders but if they are going to forward eliminationist and bigoted stuff not to speak of blatant lies by dear leader Modi I am going to call them on it.
mrmoshpotato
@featheredsprite:
Optimistic with all of the Trump-humping fascist trash in this country.
lowtechcyclist
I am glad to say that the school board in my county (Calvert County, MD) just mandated masks for anyone in a school building this fall. Students, teachers, staff, casual visitors, everyone. No masky, no entry.
They just sent the word out a few hours ago. And this is definitely Trump country, so they’re gonna get a lot of flak. I’m gonna call up in the morning to thank them for doing the right thing.
Dan B
@germy: A wry comment about Lindsey is that he’s another case of superspreader Provincetown.
schrodingers_cat
@Dan B: Did you get my email?
NorthLeft12
@featheredsprite: Yeah, I remember how everyone got behind gun control after a classroom full of five and six year olds were massacred. So, of course once Covid begins to impact children it’s a no brainer that the responsible adults will step up and do what they can to protect them.
Cue the sad trombone.
Elizabelle
@lowtechcyclist: That’s excellent. Both the masking and your calling to thank them.
JMG
No vaccination, no vote. That should be the mandate.
Elizabelle
@Kent: the Sandy Hook rhetoric always sounds like a blanket condemnation of Americans. And it was not like that. It was the minority holding the majority impotent to make change through national legislation. I am no fan of fake narratives.
mrmoshpotato
@WaterGirl: They should pull themselves up by their own onesie straps!
And don’t get me started about them literally sucking on teats!
schrodingers_cat
On the whole a net plus. A gift that keeps giving.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@schrodingers_cat: didn’t Dennis Green used to be a front-pager here?
schrodingers_cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yes the same. We are Twitter mutuals.
Delk
CVS just texted me that my HIV med is ready for pickup. That’s for the virus I been dealing with for 36 years. Viruses are sort of smart when it comes to self protection.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
So this was nuts.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/07/31/business/it-has-be-known-what-was-done-us-natick-couple-harassed-by-ebay-tell-their-story-first-time/?outputType=amp&__twitter_impression=true
Ebay just needs to write the check. Ultra vires isn’t going to get them out of this.
chrome agnomen
@lowtechcyclist: and if the fetuses get covid, the mothers can always be blamed.
Spanky
@lowtechcyclist: I saw an alert from the Cal Co Health Dept about the rise in Delta infections in the county. I would assume the BOE is working in concert with the Health Dept.
And while the majority of the county voted for Trump, I don’t think he’d win today. Plus, the kids are really all right. They’re on board with the masking
ETA: Health Dept alert here
Edited again to post the relevant paragraph:
Kent
Here in WA it is a state-wide mask mandate for schools so not something the local school boards even need to waste time debating and deciding. Which is how it should be.
I’m not really looking forward to dealing with all the school bullshit next month when school starts. This has been my most-needed summer vacation ever. But at mask debates at the school board won’t be one of them.
Baud
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Read that earlier. That’s insane.
Kent
I never got the sense that lack of action after Sandy Hook was ever a condemnation of Americans. Or that was the “narrative.” I always had the sense that when it comes to gun control the narrative has always been that it is the strangle-hold that the NRA has over the GOP in Congress that always blocked any progress. Along with a few weak-kneed liberals like Bernie Sanders who felt the need to coddle their gun-fondling rural base.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Baud:
“Just because this thing involved a half dozen employees and our global security manager acting on the so-far-as-is-known vague request of the CEO, we’ll offer up a boilerplate defense based on claiming they were all acting ultra vires. That’s sure to scare the claimants off and wear them down while we deny access to internal communications with discovery stalling tactics.”
Baud
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
No true
Scotsmanebay executive would do such horrible things.Jeffro
@germy: I was gonna say the same thing.
It’s almost like…like we need a 24/7 propaganda network, complete with “BREAKING NEWS” gongs going off every 20 minutes and shit…one that tells people all day every day that the GQP is out to kill them and their kids.
Because, essentially, that’s what they’re about.
zhena gogolia
@featheredsprite:
Two words for you: Sandy. Hook.
zhena gogolia
@germy:
You always beat me to it!
Jeffro
All of this is true. The trumpies just want Covid to kneecap Biden & Co (despite the fact that he and his team were focused on it from Day One. Day Minus One, if you want to count the Obama-Biden pandemic response ‘playbook’) because to do the right things is to admit that trumpov was a fucking moron who didn’t give a shit and didn’t do jack squat about the pandemic. In face, his super-spreader rallies and “let’s open the churches for Easter!” and mocking mask-wearing has made it infinitely worse.
It’s all part of their ‘burn it down’ mentality, and I wish they would just hurry up and jump into the flames.
JaySinWa
@Nina: The Nu version of Who’s on first bit is coming.
zhena gogolia
@prufrock:
It’s infuriating.
Tim C.
Not sure I know anything about NYSUT, but my local is asking for a mandate for Teacher’s and eligible students. We won’t get it, the board has a 4-3 spreadneck majority, but we are hoping to push the needle the right direction when they set a policy.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Baud:
From Techdirt:
This week saw the manager of eBay’s global security team Philip Cooke plead guilty to the charges in court. At his sentencing hearing, Cooke insisted that it was eBay’s “drinking culture” that was apparently responsible for his atrocious judgement:
Jeffro
@Jeffro: *in fact, not ‘in face’, LOL
Another Scott
ObOpenThread – AP – Kathy Griffin says she is undergoing surgery for lung cancer.
Sorry to read this. I’ve enjoyed her TV show and comedy shows. She’s had a tough time in her personal life, several times. Here’s hoping she pulls through this fully and comes back even stronger.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jerzy Russian
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
That has to be the nucking-futtiest thing I have read in the last 5 years. I hope Ebay is taken to the cleaners.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
His fellow god-botherers turned him in!
Huntington Beach, man, I don’t know
ETA: Also, The Daily Mail, about which I also don’t know. Really shitty website
Another Scott
ObOpenThread – TheVerge:
“We need higher quality Algorithms.” – Kay, potentially.
Cheers,
Scott.
Elizabelle
@Another Scott: It’s Stage One, and does not seem to have been there a year ago when they did a lung scan because she thought she might have Covid.
KG says she may not need chemo or radiation, just surgery. I hope that takes the cancer out, forever.
Ivan X
I can’t wait to die.
schrodingers_cat
@Another Scott: The tweets were deadpan and funny.
trollhattan
@Elizabelle:
Now then, what about The Lambada?
trollhattan
If I have an Omega watch, am I immune?
Citizen Alan
@lowtechcyclist:
This is not true. They don’t care about fetuses either except as a means to impose suffering on the mothers. If they cared about the unborn, they would do something about this country’s abysmal infant mortality and miscarriage rates, and none of them give a shit.
James E Powell
@Kent:
LOL because it’s true, but would add that most schools I’ve worked at had a least one radical libertarian math teacher.
James E Powell
@Elizabelle:
Hey, those large majorities were just, like their opinions, man. The Republican ones continued voting for Republicans. The low participation ones continued not doing anything about anything.
Citizen Alan
@Kent: Honestly, I genuinely think it’s a moot point. I really don’t there’s any meaningful form of gun control that could survive SCOTUS scrutiny. Well, I mean, I guess if you could write a law that allowed unlimited gun ownership but only for white people while banning it for everyone else, maybe SCOTUS would be okay with that.
Elizabelle
@trollhattan: Straight to video!
Another Scott
@Citizen Alan: Yup. Their stand on abortion is just a tool for political power that divides natural Democratic constituencies. They were explicit about it (see Jill LePore’s “Birthright” article). They don’t care about fetuses.
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
@Citizen Alan
For starters, adjust licensing fees and make them renewable by payment annually (as is done for vehicle registration)..
Second gun, license costs 2× the cost of the first’s license. Third gun costs 3×, and so on.
Exemptions to multiplicative costs for collectors who can certify a gun on display has been rendered inoperable.
trollhattan
Lindsay Graham, Senator or patient zero–why not both?
NotMax
@trollhattan
If it’s one of those double sawbuck sidewalk specials bought in Times Square, don’t look now but it’s branded Onega.
;)
dr. bloor
@trollhattan: We’ve evolved as a nation so much since the Brooks-Sumner affair.
NotMax
@https://balloon-juice.com/2021/08/02/pandemic-open-thread-now-that-kids-are-more-threatened/#comment-8243800
For the G.O.P., from raising cane to raising pain?
//
NotMax
#107 supposed to be @trollhattan.
debbie
I’m looking forward to the shitshow tomorrow that will be the special election for Steve Stiver’s seat. Only 11 candidates! However will they decide? If you want to root for injuries or for a loss, Carey is the TFG-endorsed candidate.
I also just learned 10 and possibly more white cops are planning to file a discrimination lawsuit against the city of Columbus. Oy.
mrmoshpotato
@debbie:
Got anymore details on this?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Jim, Foolish Literalist
OKay, I laughed
gwangung
@Another Scott: Ah. The same Twitter verification that refuses to give a blue check mark to Paula Vogel, Tony and Pulitzer Prize winner author and one the foremost playwrights of our time.
Yup.
Steeplejack
Always interesting how commenting seems to go off a cliff when the cache goes into late-night snooze mode.
Kay
Good.
burnspbesq
ICYMI, Judge Easterbrook’s concise and elegant smackdown of the challenge to Indiana University’s vaccination mandate for students.
http://media.ca7.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/rssExec.pl?Submit=Display&Path=Y2021/D08-02/C:21-2326:J:Easterbrook:aut:T:op:N:2741753:S:0
mrmoshpotato
@Steeplejack: You sure it’s not people going into late night snooze mode?
Steeplejack
@mrmoshpotato:
It’s 9:30 on the West Coast! Are we that doddering?
Steeplejack
@Kay:
This is good.
Steeplejack
Well, new thread upstairs.
Ruckus
@Cameron:
I’m not sure they actually care about fetuses either, what they really care about is winning the war on abortion. It is about control and women having agency. Women fall behind men in the order of control, it goes:
white republican men
white republican women
white republican children
white democratic men
white democratic women
white democratic children
white fetuses (they can grow up to be republicans doncha know)
minority fetuses (they can grow up to be low paid workers)
minority men (they can work the jobs that WRM won’t do)
minority women
minority children. (they just require tax money to educate so they can work for low pay)
I know it sounds callous but I didn’t make up the rules….
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
You want them to stop being republicans? Damn man, that’s harsh. I mean how will they get their hate and control on if they stop being republicans?
mrmoshpotato
@Steeplejack: You west coasters! (and NotMax) ?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Yes, but I don’t think it’s some plan to take power back, I think this is more of a childish tantrum because Trump sucked. “Well Biden sucks too, everyone sucks, so there” kind of thing like them refusing to take the vaccine. The polling is showing a lot of despair out in MAGA land.
206inKY
My son is starting 1st grade and open house was tonight. School starts later this week. No teachers were masked and very few parents or students. Total nightmare. We were hyper-vigilant through the pandemic, and now it looks like another year of homeschooling. Can’t express the despair.
Steeplejack (phone)
@206inKY:
Are you in a MAGAt-ridden part of the state? Condolences.
RSA
@Major Major Major Major: Ah, breakthrough cases. Okay, that makes sense. I didn’t realize that was the domain. Thanks.
Gvg
@206inKY
My sympathies. My very social nephew has had a year and a half of homeschool including starting middle school. Now our part of Florida leads the nation in delta covid cases and the Governor and legislature have mandated no mask and in person school with penalties to districts that try. School starts in 9 days. My sister is a hospital doctor who is just beside herself. She feels it is inevitable he’s son gets Covid. A week ago an older doctor she admires died of it. So she is talking with grandparents about maybe another 9 weeks of home school. Guessing it will have peaked by then. Grandparents also very disappointed their hoped for summer travel couldn’t quite happen.
the homeschooling plus mom is doctor in a hospital means nephew has to live with grandparents and mom can’t see him for weeks at a time. She knows nurses who have died too but has to try to stay calm and pleasant to anti vaxers and other idiots.
debbie
@mrmoshpotato:
Not yet.
206inKY
@Gvg: I’m so sorry—that sounds incredibly hard. I’m lucky to be able to work from home, so homeschooling is feasible even though my wife lives and works in another state and has to go back next month after 18 months of remote work. School was the glue that made the logistics of our professional lives possible, but it’ll be okay for as long as our son is back in school by the time my own ability to work from home comes to an end.