Updates: Surges, Vaccine Wall, Ketchup Shortage, Brain Disorders, Marshmallow Wars

 

Today, I offer for your reading enjoyment updates on some topics discussed previously in this blog.

Surges

I've recently written about worries over new surges.  A piece in today's NYT declares the pandemic out-of-control in Michigan. 

Sadly, the governor there has been cowed into tepid pleas for responsible behavior in lieu of concrete action. Hard to blame her after armed covidiots plotted to kidnap and execute her. I hope those assholes are on ventilators right now.  

The surge there is blamed on the UK variant, which is apparently taking over the country.  The good news is that the vaccines seem pretty effective against it. The vaccine makers are also working on boosters, expected by the end of the year.   

That's good news.  The bad news is that there's a...

Vaccine Wall

As predicted here a month ago, vaccination rates are hitting a wall. We're starting to run out of people who want the shots. It's starting to show, especially in red states in the South because of course it is. Mississippi, for example, can't find enough people to take available doses.

Maybe the Morgan Freeman PSA will help.

We can credit a lot of wall construction to the efforts of looney-bin anti-vaxxers, now aided by the wing-nuts and abetted by Facebook. The latter keeps announcing bans of the anti-vaxxers. 

Somehow they can't quite find all the offenders, even though all you have to do is type "vaccine" in their own search box. To be fair, they may be making some progress as you have to go to the bottom of a groups search on that keyword to find the anti-vaxxers. 

Shortages

I've written before about supply chain chaos due to the pandemic. So far, the feared second wave of toilet paper shortages hasn't materialized...yet.

But just when you think things can't get any weirder, now there's a shortage of ketchup packets. Restaurants are being forced to buy giant jugs of the stuff at Costco and pour it into those little plastic cups. In a glimmer of hope, Heinz is promising to catch up.

Meanwhile, problems are getting worse in the auto industry. Chip shortages are idling plants all over the place.  It's causing shortages and driving up prices. Nobody expects the problem to resolve anytime soon.

Long Haulers

I've written before about how we shouldn't be blithe about COVID-19 when we don't know what the long term effects are like. In the latest example of how true that is, a new study shows that one-third of victims are diagnosed with one of 14 neurological or mental health disorders within six months of their infection. One-third!

Marshmallow Wars

In one of the more popular posts here on Corona-zona, I compared governors racing to remove pandemic mitigations to little kids who fail the marshmallow test because they lack self-control.

I'm happy to report that—here in Arizona at least—there are some adults in the room. Leaders in Tempe, Phoenix, Tuscon, and Flagstaff have decided to keep their mask mandates in place, notwithstanding the governor's executive order saying they can't. Good for them! 

Governor Ducey is grousing about it, calling their actions "grandstanding." Wait a minute, Doug. You pander to your extremist constituents with an executive order prohibiting public health measures, and they are grandstanding? 

I hereby nominate this textbook example of projection for inclusion in an actual  psychology textbook. 

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay 

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