"It's Just Evil"

 

The Lincoln Project has a new spot out "honoring" COVIDiot AZ Governor Doug Ducey for his Orwellian plan to funnel COVID-19 relief funding to schools that are not relieving COVID-19.

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Another One Bites the Dust

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Hi all. Stepping out of retirement for a moment to say that the day has finally arrived. After four years of successfully avoiding COVID-19 infection I had a positive test yesterday. Symptoms are very mild—I've had worse colds. The provider at urgent care said almost all the cases they are seeing are the same. Mild symptoms may also be due to the fact that I had the original vaccine then the two boosters. All this time I thought I might be a NOVID —one of those people who never get the bug. But no, it must have been my assiduous mask wearing and avoidance of high-risk situations when things were bad. So here's double middle fingers to all the kooks who think masks don't work (I've not been wearing masks for months now). I don't know what variant I have but it's likely JN.1. It is said to be extraordinarily contagious and accounts for 60% of cases worldwide . It also tends to produce mild infections like the one I have.  This article claims that right now every...
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Preprint Study: Omicron Is Just as Pathogenic But Not As Deadly Because of Other Factors

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In an earlier blog , I summarized some information on why so many vaxxed people were getting infected and what immunity was doing to those at-home antigen texts.  In that post I said: "Omicron cousins are less likely to cause severe disease, even if they are more contagious." In response to that @SuziSuperKitn on Twitter sent me this link to a Reuters article about a month ago, that reported on a preprint study looking at the question of whether Omicron in its various flavors is really less pathogenic. Note that this is a preprint, which means it has still not been reviewed. It is not unusual for the peer review process to turn-up issues with the study methodology that invalidate the study or require modifications. But this one includes authors from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Med School. Such researchers don't usually do shoddy studies so it's a good bet it does not have fatal flaws. What they found, in a nutshell, is that if you just compare mortali...
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AZ Pandemic Numbers Summary for the Seven Days Ending June 22: Signs of Moderation?

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Here are the Arizona pandemic numbers and graph of statewide cases for the seven day period ending yesterday: Overall, not too bad looking! Cases are down around 5% for both the state overall and for Maricopa County. Wastewater signals are decreasing or nearly flat except for Mohave County.  The death rate has almost doubled, but that is to be expected as it's a lagging indicator. Also it's still low in absolute terms. Hospital beds are up but not by much and we're still not seeing the kind if acceleration is usage we have in past waves. When I went to add the test positivity rate, the Mayo Clinic site had this notice: "These data are not available for the state of Arizona at this time, due to lack of reliable reporting for negative test results." Sonora Quest is no longer reporting this data at all.  So I guess there's another leading indicator we don't have anymore. Makes me wonder whether the state is taking the strategy: Don't talk about it and peo...
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