By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Wastewater stans, there’s an in depth evaluation of CDC’s new NWSS web site within the Covid Circumstances part, underneath the Biobot charts. Get pleasure from! –lambert
Fowl Music of the Day
Northern Screamer, Sucre, Colombia. Heaps happening!
Politics
“So most of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are the truth is a rational administration of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles
Biden Administration
“Bombenomics: Biden admin circulates map displaying states that profit from Ukraine help” [Politico]. “Battleground states Pennsylvania and Arizona are reaping billions of {dollars} from Washington’s efforts to arm Ukraine, based on a graphic the Biden administration has circulated on Capitol Hill…. POLITICO reported final month that the White Home was switching up its messaging after operating into continued resistance on Capitol Hill, after figuring out that promoting the conflict funding effort primarily based on nationwide safety wasn’t altering minds.” •
The Supremes
“The brand new SCOTUS Code of Conduct” [SCOTUSblog]. “There are issues to love concerning the Code of Conduct that the Supreme Courtroom promulgated earlier this month. It’s a bona fide code of conduct—one which, in the principle, tracks the Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges. It follows the identical construction, options the identical 5 canons, and contains many of the identical provisions which might be worded in the identical method…. And it’s not truthful to sentence the brand new code as toothless as a result of it contains no enforcement mechanism. That mentioned, there are some problematic variations between the brand new SCOTUS Code and the Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges…. The brand new code doesn’t impose an obligation to ‘be trustworthy to…the regulation,’ as required by Canon 3(A)(1) of the Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges. It’s potential that this obligation was thought redundant of the Canon 2(A) obligation to ‘respect and adjust to the regulation’ (which the courtroom retained). The duty to respect and adjust to the regulation, nonetheless, considerations the obligation to abide by the regulation in a choose’s every day life, whereas the obligation to be trustworthy to the regulation considerations an obligation to uphold and apply the regulation when deciding instances. For justices underneath elevated hearth for ideological, partisan-seeming decision-making, the optics of the courtroom exempting itself from an obligation to uphold and apply the regulation is unlucky….. The brand new SCOTUS Code qualifies the statutory obligation to disqualify when a justice’s ‘impartiality would possibly fairly be questioned’ by including language decoding it to imply that ‘an unbiased and affordable one who is conscious of all related circumstances would doubt that the Justice may pretty discharge his or her duties.’ Whereas in keeping with interpretive precedent, this clause is cherry-picked to omit steerage that the ‘affordable particular person’ will not be a choose however an outdoor observer, who’s much less inclined than a choose to credit score the choose’s impartiality. ”
2024
Lower than a 12 months to go!
* * * “Appeals courtroom reinstates gag order that barred Trump from maligning courtroom workers in N.Y. fraud trial” [Boston Globe]. “A New York appeals courtroom Thursday reinstated a gag order that barred Donald Trump from commenting about courtroom personnel after he frequently disparaged a regulation clerk in his New York civil fraud trial. The one-sentence resolution from a four-judge panel got here two weeks after a person appellate choose had put the order on maintain whereas the appeals course of performed out. Trial choose Arthur Engoron, who imposed the gag order, mentioned he now deliberate to implement it ‘rigorously and vigorously.’” • I don’t know if you happen to’ve learn Frank Herbert’s great The Dosadi Experiment, the place the authorized system constructed by the frog folks, the Gowachin, permits anybody in “the Courtarena” to be killed, together with judges, legal professionals, and, after all, clerks. Trump appears to suppose he’s on the planet of the frog folks, not planet Earth. Depart the workers alone, ffs. They shouldn’t be gamers!
“Choose and clerk in Trump civil fraud trial have acquired a whole bunch of ‘critical and credible’ threats” [CNN]. “Since October 3, when Trump posted on social media a baseless allegation about Choose Arthur Engoron’s regulation clerk, threats in opposition to the choose ‘elevated exponentially’ and have been additionally directed to his clerk, based on Charles Hollon, a courtroom officer-captain in New York assigned to the Judicial Threats Evaluation unit of the Division of Public Security, who signed a sworn assertion. Hollon mentioned the threats in opposition to the choose and his clerk are ‘thought of to be critical and credible and never hypothetical or speculative.’”
“Bid to carry Trump accountable for Jan. 6 violence stalls at appeals courtroom” [Politico]. “A federal appeals courtroom mulling Donald Trump’s authorized legal responsibility for Jan. 6 violence is approaching a conspicuous anniversary of inaction. Almost a 12 months in the past, the courtroom thought of three lawsuits introduced by Capitol Law enforcement officials and members of Congress accusing Trump and his allies of inciting the assault that threatened their lives and the federal government they have been sworn to guard. However their efforts to carry Trump accountable have languished. The D.C. Circuit Courtroom of Appeals usually decides instances inside 4 months of oral arguments, however the trio of Trump lawsuits has been sitting on the courtroom’s docket with no ruling since they have been argued final December.”
“Genius or Suicide” [Judith Butler, London Review of Books (Acacia)]. From 2019, nonetheless germane. “I’ve provided not more than a dream sequence of my very own. It could be that disgrace and guilt has suffused all he has ever felt. The jury is out. My wager/dream is that he would fairly die than pause to really feel the disgrace that passes by way of him and is externalised as destruction and rage. If he ever registers disgrace, it could be solely in that briefest second simply because it turns outwards, to be expelled into the world round him. It could possibly by no means correctly be lived as his personal, as a result of his psychic construction is constructed to dam it – a big process. If ultimately disgrace ever turns again on him, it could – based on the principles of his psychic playbook – be a suicidal submission. Anticipate then a really lengthy and loud howl, as he launches a climactic accusation in opposition to the entire world. Allow us to hope that by then he has been disadvantaged of his entry to navy energy.” • Wild stuff, particularly contemplating that Trump began zero (0) wars, and Biden began at the very least one (1).
* * * “Can the Anti-Trump Coalition Maintain?” [The Bulwark]. “Quite a bit can change in a 12 months however the voters is shifting, and the anti-MAGA coalition is splintering. Trump leads Biden in nationwide polling and swing state polling. Biden’s total approval hovers round 39 %, nowhere close to what’s required for an incumbent to win a second time period, and the numbers on his administration of the economic system—the primary subject—are worse… So who’re the voters being newly persuaded by Trump? These potential new swing voters usually are not MAGA, they aren’t pumped for the discharge of the J6 tapes, and so they don’t give a passing thought to the outrages of Hunter Biden. They’re nonwhite, younger, and unbiased, and so they belief Trump extra on the economic system, international coverage, and immigration. Whereas a second time period of Trump will destroy democracy and doubtlessly destabilize all the world, these People both don’t know that, don’t imagine it, or don’t care.” In phrase: Deplorables. Extra: “[T]hus far, it doesn’t seem the necessity to shield democracy is maintaining collectively the voting bloc Biden wants to dam Trump. Pollster Stanley Greenberg concluded the Democracy Corps Battleground Survey findings present these points received’t carry Democrats dwelling. ‘That may be a harmful technique when the bottom of Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, LGBTQ+ neighborhood, Gen Z, millennials, single and faculty girls give Trump greater approval scores than Biden,’ he wrote.” • Yikes!
“Black Voters Are Drifting Away from Democrats. Will That Harm Biden in SC?” [Politico]. “Three years after Donald Trump pulled about 8 % of the Black vote nationally, polling this month by The New York Occasions and Siena School of six battleground states discovered his assist had bumped as much as 22 % of the Black voters if the election have been held immediately. Different polls appeared even worse for the Democrats; a nationwide ballot by CNN registered Trump’s assist amongst Black voters at 23 %, whereas an earlier Fox Information ballot put it at 26 %. These are jaw-dropping numbers for a demographic that, historically, has been the Democratic Social gathering’s most dependable voting bloc. And it’d be dangerous sufficient for the Democratic Social gathering if the erosion of Black assist was strictly about Biden or the probably Republican nominee, former President Trump. Among the many Democrats assembly right here, there was normal and disquieting settlement that Trump’s attraction is barely a part of the explanation for the erosion of Black assist. Jeremy Jones, a Democratic Social gathering official from Lexington County, mentioned some Black individuals who noticed Trump’s title on stimulus checks in 2020 inform him, ‘A minimum of he obtained one thing achieved for the Black neighborhood.’ …. [Jay Parmley, the executive director of the state party’s] concern, shared by many Democrats, will not be a lot that Black voters will migrate to Trump in vital numbers, however that, when November 2024 comes round, some would possibly merely not prove to vote. And there’s a whole lot of proof to again that concern. Turnout amongst Black voters within the midterm elections final 12 months dropped off practically 10 proportion factors from 2018.” • Hmm. The identical erosion was evident in 2016. Democrat being Democrats, nothing has been achieved.
* * * “Staff Biden’s nice double quarter pounder ‘misinformation’ marketing campaign” [Washington Examiner]. “On Sept. 20, Politico printed an article headlined ‘Biden’s marketing campaign set to counterpunch on misinformation.’ The story reported that President Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection marketing campaign is ‘overhauling’ its technique to battle ‘misinformation’ on social media. The brand new effort contains ‘recruiting a whole bunch of staffers and volunteers to observe platforms.’ To oversee the work, the marketing campaign employed a former Biden White Home staffer named Rob Flaherty, who was described as a ‘bulldog’ and a ‘controversial determine’ whose ‘combative emails to social media corporations have develop into a part of a Republican-led federal courtroom case and a congressional investigation.’… The federal courtroom case is Missouri v. Biden, a landmark COVID-era case involving authorities censorship of social media. Discovery within the case introduced revelations that the Biden White Home and different Biden administration officers, working with exterior activist teams, ‘held biweekly conferences with tech corporations over methods to curb the unfold of misinformation in the course of the pandemic,’ with Flaherty ‘in fixed contact with social media executives,’ within the phrases of the Wall Avenue Journal editorial web page…. An necessary reality to recollect is that Flaherty and his colleagues weren’t simply focusing on misinformation. Lots of the postings they sought to ban have been “scientifically debatable,” within the Wall Avenue Journal’s phrases. . And now Flaherty has a brand new position on the Biden 2024 marketing campaign.” • Flaherty obtained a promotion! That’s good. (Fascinating to think about that the efforts described in Missouri v. Biden are the PMC’s operational definition of “scientific communication.”
“Hunter Biden Artwork Purchaser Advocated for Her Grandniece’s Launch From Hamas Captivity” [RealClearInvestigations]. “The American kidnap sufferer launched by the terrorist group Hamas throughout its ongoing ceasefire with Israel is a great-niece of Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali, a serious Democratic occasion donor who paid handsomely for Hunter Biden’s artwork and received an appointment to a plum cultural submit from President Biden…. Whereas noting that the Biden administration has labored with Qatari and Egyptian mediators to free all of the hostages, a senior administration official informed RealClearInvestigations that ‘U.S. officers insisted that Abigail be included on an early checklist in addition to the opposite two People on this class [of women and children].’ ‘The President raised Abigail in practically all of his telephone calls with counterparts in addition to with the Amir of Qatar on Saturday,’ the official mentioned, including that ‘U.S. officers have additionally remained in shut contact with Abigail’s members of the family together with these the President spoke with on Sunday,’ the day Abigail was returned from Gaza to Israel…. Republican Home members have been investigating potential connections between Hirsh Naftali’s artwork shopping for and her authorities appointment to the U.S. Fee for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Overseas since July. In a letter that month to Hirsh Naftali, Oversight Committee chairman James Comer of Kentucky mentioned, ‘Your place on the Fee is especially suspicious due to Hunter Biden’s earlier actions to raise his enterprise associate—Eric Schwerin—to the identical submit whereas his father was Vice President.’” • Beautiful. An affordable grift, proper in the course of a hostage negotiation. ‘Twas ever thus?
“Biden’s polling is in additional harmful territory than Obama’s in 2011” [NBC]. “There’s one huge drawback with all of the discuss evaluating President Joe Biden’s standing within the 2023 polls with Barack Obama’s in 2011. Biden’s present numbers are in additional harmful territory for an incumbent than Obama’s ever have been at this identical time limit. For one factor, Obama held a constant lead over GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney within the polls — minus a couple of exceptions instantly after the debt-ceiling disaster — till that first general-election debate…. What’s extra, our identical November 2011 ballot had Obama forward of a generic Republican, versus our November 2023 ballot displaying Biden trailing a generic Republican by double digits.”
* * * “High Ramaswamy aide leaves to affix Trump marketing campaign” [CNN]. “Brian Swensen formally resigned from his position as nationwide political director for the Ramaswamy marketing campaign over the weekend and has joined the Trump marketing campaign, a supply acquainted with his departure informed CNN. Swensen is anticipated to be engaged on the marketing campaign’s political operation within the early-voting states, particularly in Nevada, two Trump marketing campaign sources informed CNN. Swensen’s departure is the newest indicator of Ramaswamy’s stagnating marketing campaign, which has struggled to realize momentum even because the candidate carefully aligns himself with Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 GOP nomination. Earlier this month, Brandon Goodyear, the Ramaswamy staff’s videographer, stepped away from the marketing campaign, a supply acquainted with the departure informed CNN.” • So, videographers are main indicators?
* * * “DeSantis to debate California Gov. Gavin Newsom tonight” [Axios]. • Can’t they each lose?
“Haley and DeSantis are relying extra on exterior marketing campaign teams with time operating out to cease Trump” [Associated Press]. “Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley are more and more outsourcing central elements of their campaigns, drawing on the rising urgency of Donald Trump opponents to discover a single various to the previous president. Struggling to energise his marketing campaign, DeSantis this week privately inspired his donor community to assist a newly shaped tremendous PAC that’s taking on promoting obligations. That’s after a management shakeup on the pro-DeSantis tremendous PAC that for months has been dealing with the majority of each his promoting and his get-out-the-vote operation. On the identical time, Haley’s self-described ‘scrappy’ political marketing campaign, which has by no means loved the identical stage of funding or manpower as DeSantis’ operation, received the assist of the the Koch community, the most important conservative grassroots group within the nation. By week’s finish, scores of Koch-backed activists are anticipated to start advocating on Haley’s behalf on the doorsteps of tens of hundreds of Republican main voters. The extraordinary reliance on unbiased teams for the 2 Republicans who more and more seem like Trump’s closest challengers is testing the sensible and authorized limits of modern-day presidential campaigns.”
“Nikki Haley’s home-state technique faces a hitch: South Carolina is Trump nation” [NBC]. “Nikki Haley sees her dwelling state as a launchpad. It may develop into her marketing campaign’s crash web site…. Up to now, she hasn’t made the sale. That’s at the very least partly as a result of Haley has but to offer voters a cause to desert Trump — the dominant political determine within the state for nearly a decade — a recurring theme that emerged in interviews with virtually two dozen Republican voters, present and former elected officers, county occasion chairs and Republican strategists. The identical could be mentioned for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the remainder of a area that Trump leads by greater than 30 proportion factors in latest polls of the state’s Feb. 24 main…. Haley is trying to reconnect with voters who haven’t seen her on a poll since 2014. She hosted a well-attended city corridor assembly Monday in Beaufort, her first occasion within the state in virtually a month. It got here on the heels of Trump’s highly-publicized go to to Saturday’s marquee soccer sport between the College of South Carolina and Clemson, a free media bonanza for the previous president. Although Trump acquired a mixture of cheers and jeers, the dueling appearances served as a reminder of his capacity to dam out the solar — or the state’s favourite daughter — at a second’s discover. For Haley to win, she’ll must sway a big portion of voters who discover her interesting though they at the moment again Trump.” • I hold coming as much as stature. Love Trump or hate him, he appears constructed to a special scale, even a gargantuan one.
* * * “Scoop: No Labels abandons its in-person presidential conference” [Axios]. “No Labels — the bipartisan group plotting a third-party presidential bid — is pulling the plug on its Dallas conference subsequent spring and can as a substitute conduct its ‘choice course of just about,’ Axios has realized… No Labels’ earlier plan was to make use of the interval between Tremendous Tuesday on March 5 and the Dallas conference that had been set for April 14-15 to hearken to supporters after which make a last resolution on whether or not to launch a third-party ticket.” • In order that they’re pushing the choice off, placing them on the volatility facet of the steadiness v. volatility dichotomy.
* * *
* * *
* * * “West says third occasion critics have ‘good cause to be afraid’” [The Hill]. “Unbiased presidential candidate Cornel West mentioned Tuesday critics of a third-party ticket have a ‘good cause to be afraid.’ ‘I believe they’ve good cause to be afraid as a result of anyone who desires to talk the reality, when you may have a regime in energy that denies the reality, anyone who seeks justice, who runs away from justice, they should be afraid,’ West mentioned on Fox Information on Tuesday. ‘However that’s for the Republican Social gathering and that’s for the Democratic Social gathering.’”
2020 Publish Mortem
“Courtroom submitting reveals Rep. Scott Perry’s huge internet of contacts in bid to reverse 2020 election” [Politico]. “The newly disclosed paperwork reveal a rare internet of communications between Perry, who’s now the chair of the Home Freedom Caucus, and key figures in Trump’s orbit…. the exchanges with DOJ’s [Jeff] Clark — described in Smith’s federal indictment of Trump as one in all six unnamed and unindicted co-conspirators in an effort to subvert the 2020 election — are maybe probably the most revealing. Clark, then a low-profile determine who oversaw the Justice Division’s civil litigation within the last months of the presidential time period, was launched to Trump by Perry amid Trump’s effort to stay in workplace. Trump got here near appointing Clark as performing legal professional normal within the early days of 2021 earlier than backing down amid a mass resignation menace by senior DOJ and White Home officers. Throughout this time, Clark pressured high DOJ officers to ship a letter to state legislatures urging them to contemplate sending alternate slates of presidential electors to Congress, and he obtained a safety clearance to evaluation intelligence about potential international efforts to intrude within the election. Perry indicated in a single newly disclosed trade that Trump had personally authorized a ‘presidential safety clearance,’ a remark that adopted Clark asking Perry to make sure that Trump was conscious that CIA Director Gina Haspel wanted to provide him with ‘safety clearance tickets’ to entry intelligence associated to the 2020 election.’” And: “Lots of the paperwork related to the case had been stored underneath seal. However on Wednesday, the D.C. Circuit unsealed them — together with a decrease courtroom’s opinion that described and quoted from a big quantity of the very textual content messages that Smith has been searching for. By Wednesday night, the unsealed opinion appeared to have been faraway from the courtroom’s public docket, suggesting it could have been posted inadvertently.” • Oops?
Democrats en Déshabillé
Affected person readers, it appears that evidently individuals are truly studying the back-dated submit! However I’ve not up to date it, and there are lots of updates. So I must do this. –lambert
I’ve moved my standing remarks on the Democrat Social gathering (“the Democrat Social gathering is a rotting corpse that may’t bury itself”) to a separate, back-dated submit, to which I’ll periodically add materials, summarizing the addition right here in a “reside” Water Cooler. (Hopefully, some Bourdieu.) It seems that defining the Democrat Social gathering is, the truth is, a tough drawback. I do suppose the paragraph that follows is on level all the way in which again to 2016, if not earlier than:
The Democrat Social gathering is the political expression of the category energy of PMC, their base (lucidly defined by Thomas Frank in Hear, Liberal!). ; if the Democrat Social gathering didn’t exist, the PMC must invent it. . (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” after all.) Second, all of the working elements of the Social gathering reinforce one another. Depart apart characterizing the relationships between components of the Social gathering (ka-ching, however not totally) these components comprise a community — a Flex Internet? An iron octagon? — of funders, distributors, apparatchiks, electeds, NGOs, and miscellaneous mercenaries, with property within the press and the intelligence neighborhood.
Word, after all, that the category energy of the PMC each expresses and is proscribed by different lessons; oligarchs and American gentry (see ‘industrial mannequin’ of Ferguson, Jorgensen, and Jie) and the working class spring to thoughts. Suck up, kick down.
* * * “Hollywood Goes Residence: How Movie star Endorsements Are Serving to Dems Win Down Poll” [The Messenger]. “In cities throughout the nation, there may be that particular person – the child who made it huge, starred in some films, turned an motion hero, possibly even received some awards. What if that particular person informed you about an upcoming native election? Or a candidate who it is best to take into account supporting? They’re well-known, positive, however they’re greater than that: They’re your city’s well-known particular person, somebody with native credibility as a result of they know what it’s prefer to develop up the place you probably did. That’s the idea behind The Hometown Mission, an progressive effort that appears to pair celebrities with candidates for state legislature, faculty board, or different native workplaces from the areas they grew up in. The aim is to make use of their native superstar to extend voter engagement, educate voters on the upcoming election, and assist Democratic candidates in typically ignored and underfunded campaigns. The speculation is easy: The Hometown Mission works with native organizations to search out aggressive races in key states, then makes use of its community to ask celebrities from these areas to tape brief movies both urging folks to vote or endorsing a selected candidate. The group then runs these movies as digital advertisements focused to key voters within the district it’s trying to win.”• What is is with “progressives” and celebrities?
Realignment and Legitimacy
“Anthony Fauci to Testify in Home on Covid-19 Pandemic’s Origins, U.S. Response” [Wall Street Journal]. “The preparations for Fauci’s testimony are in depth. They’ll start with two days of transcribed interviews behind closed doorways in January. A public listening to, which is anticipated to be contentious, will probably be held at a later date…. In a letter to Fauci immediately, Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R., Ohio), chairman of the Choose Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, mentioned the committee and Fauci’s staff had agreed Fauci would give a transcribed interview on Jan. 8 and 9 for seven hours every day. The letter states that two authorities legal professionals and two private attorneys can accompany Fauci at these classes, which received’t be public. The date for the general public listening to hasn’t but been set. Wenstrup and different Home Republicans, citing e-mail exchanges, have charged that Fauci labored with different scientists to minimize the opportunity of a lab leak in a seminal March 2020 scientific article, “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2,” within the journal Nature Medication.” • And the spooks labored proper alone with Fauci (mentioned Kristian Andersen; too lazy to search out the hyperlink). I ponder if they are going to be questioned too? Or whether or not Fauci will attempt to drag them in?
#COVID19
“I’m in earnest — I cannot equivocate — I cannot excuse — I cannot retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison
Sources, United States (Nationwide): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; contains many counties; Wastewater Scan, contains drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, however nationwide knowledge). “An infection Management, Emergency Administration, Security, and Basic Ideas” (particularly on hospitalization by metropolis).
Lambert right here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To replace any entry, do be at liberty to contact me on the tackle given with the vegetation. Please put “COVID” within the topic line. Thanks!
Sources, United States (Native): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reviews); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (dashboard); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).
Sources, Canada (Nationwide): Wastewater (Authorities of Canada).
Sources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tricks to useful readers: anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, sq. coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Utah, Bob White (3).
Keep secure on the market!
Covid is Airborne
Novid success:
Takes self-discipline.
Maskstravaganza
I’m all for probiotics, garlic, ginger, and many others., however holy moley! #CovidIsAirborne!
PREVENT VIRAL ILLNESS WITH THIS ONE COOL TRICK.
Masks. It’s masks. Put on a masks. pic.twitter.com/5Vvoq6lXIX
— Jessy Roos (@jessyroos) November 29, 2023
Some air flow folks actually should evangelize the Mommy Blogs…..
“Routine Masks Sporting as A part of COVID-19 Management in Japan: An Evaluation Utilizing the Self-Report Behavior Index” [Behavioral Sciences]. N = 2640. “Though the Japanese authorities eliminated mask-wearing necessities in 2023, comparatively excessive charges of masks carrying have continued in Japan. We aimed to evaluate psychological causes and the power of ordinary masks carrying in Japan…. A regression evaluation examined the affiliation between psychological causes and the frequency of masks carrying. The ordinary use of masks was assessed within the participant’s most incessantly visited indoor area and public transport utilizing the self-report behavior index. The principal part evaluation with varimax rotation revealed distinct ordinary traits. Among the many 2640 contributors surveyed from 6 to 9 February 2023, solely 4.9% reported not carrying masks in any respect. Conformity to social norms was a very powerful cause for masks. Individuals exhibited a barely greater diploma of habituation in the direction of masks carrying on public transport in comparison with indoor areas. The mask-wearing fee was greater in females than in males, and no vital distinction was recognized by age group. Every day masks carrying in indoor areas was characterised by two traits (automaticity and behavioral frequency). A excessive mask-wearing frequency has been maintained in Japan in the course of the social reopening transition interval. Masks carrying has develop into part of every day behavior, particularly on public transport, largely pushed by computerized and frequent apply.”
Immune Dysregulation
“What we learn about threat of a ‘triple-demic’ this respiratory virus season” [National Post]. “One latest research recommended COVID-19 infections could have been a driving drive for the 2022 surge in RSV infections amongst kids 5 and underneath, presumably due to the consequences of SARS-CoV-2 on a toddler’s immune and respiratory techniques.” • Remarkably, no point out of so-called “immunity debt.”
Testing and Monitoring
A really lengthy thread on testing:
2) Some of the fascinating research :
“Testing at scale in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic”https://t.co/LZRfXh2GRp
“Even probably the most in depth testing schemes have been discovered to overlook many infectious people and to offer solely partial inhabitants protection.” pic.twitter.com/VIpeo3h1ZI— Emmanuel (@ejustin46) November 26, 2023
“One thing Terrible”
Lambert right here: I’m getting the sensation that the “One thing Terrible” may be a sawtooth sample — variant after variant — that averages out to a completely excessive plateau. Plenty of exceptionally nasty sequelae, almost certainly deriving from immune dysregulation (says this layperson). To which we’d add mind injury, together with character modifications therefrom.
* * *
Case Information
NOT UPDATED From BioBot wastewater knowledge, November 27:
Lambert right here: Case counts shifting well upward (and tinfoil hat time: That is the, er, inflection level CDC was making an attempt to hide after they gave the contract to Verily and didn’t guarantee a seamless transition).
Regional knowledge:
That Midwest near-vertical curve is regarding, though as ever with Biobot it’s a must to look ahead to backward revisions.
• “CDC revamps wastewater COVID knowledge reporting” [Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy]. “The Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) just lately unveiled new wastewater knowledge monitoring dashboard to make it simpler to trace native and nationwide tendencies, even by variant. Wastewater monitoring is without doubt one of the early indicators well being officers use to gauge the exercise of SARS-CoV-2 and different viruses. Referred to as the Nationwide Wastewater Surveillance Program [NWSS], the principle web page says that, nationally, wastewater viral exercise of COVID is excessive. On Twitter (X), Niall Brennan, MPP, senior adviser to the CDC’s director, mentioned the makeover was achieved over a 4-week interval by a staff informally known as “Poo’s Clues.” He added that the aim was to reimagine methods to current the info and enhance the visualizations, which have been beforehand underwhelming. Wastewater monitoring customers can now see nationwide tendencies in 1-year, 6-month, and 45-day increments and study regional and native tendencies. The brand new portal additionally has maps displaying wastewater viral exercise ranges and exhibits shifts in variants over time. ‘It was enjoyable and quick paced and my due to the unimaginable staff at CDC who willingly ripped up the rule e book within the course of of creating this unimaginable useful resource extra accessible to a wider viewers. Way more to come back!,’ Brennan mentioned.” • Hopefully. CDC being CDC, the previous wastewater web page doesn’t discuss with the brand new. Confusingly, CDC being CDC, the principle NWSS web page (up to date November 29) has a near-useless chart (examine to BioBot’s). I’ll begin with the nationwide knowledge, then regional (Midwest, as a result of ranges are excessive there), then Minnesota. I’ve helpfully annotated and added notes to every chart. On the nationwide stage:
“Close to ineffective,” as I mentioned. NOTES [1] “FromDB”? Who let that slip by way of? [2] The colour scale doesn’t appear to narrate to something. [3] The chart truncates the course of the pandemic, starting solely in January 2022, which is flat-out ridiculous.
The clickthrough regional web page chart (up to date November 25) is extra helpful, and exhibits the regarding spike within the Midwest:
NOTES [1] There isn’t any coloration scale. The nationwide and regional charts ought to be constant. [2] “Choose a geography” isn’t English; change with “Choose a area.” Additionally, clarify which area, utilizing (one assumes) the identical terminology because the CDC variant chart.
The second stage of clickthrough (up to date November 25), for nationwide, state, and regional knowledge, is much more helpful, and exhibits a actually regarding near-vertical in Minnesota:
NOTES [1] The grey shading is an effective characteristic! [2] Presumably an indirect reference to the Biobot lawsuit. [3] There isn’t any Degree indicator (“Excessive”, or no matter), whether or not accompanied by a coloration scale or not.
Lambert right here, total feedback: (1) Three clickthroughs is dumb. Consolidate to at least one chart on the principle web page. (2) Institutionally, it appears like three groups have been at work, one per chart, and their work was incompletely built-in, as proven by inconsistencies within the Degree indicators and coloration scale, and the large typo on the nationwide chart. So no matter org chart debacle produced that consequence ought to be mounted. (3) The cadence with which the info is refreshed is nowhere documented. (4) Regional names ought to be in keeping with CDC variants, e.g. (5) “All Outcomes” (nationwide chart) ought to imply simply that: Information for all the course of the pandemic (so combine the [family-blogging] Biobot knowledge ffs, if that’s what it takes). As issues stand, it appears like CDC is making an attempt to erase the primary two years of the pandemic — together with the Biden Administration’s huge Omicron spike — and that’s not a very good look. (Additionally, I checked the Verily web site, and it appears as horrid as ever. Maybe they have been a part of the CDC NWSS growth staff, I don’t know.)
Variants
NOT UPDATED From CDC, November25:
Lambert right here: High of the leaderboard: HV.1, EG.5 a robust second, however BA.2.86 arising quick on the surface.
From CDC, November 11:
Lambert right here: I positive hope the volunteers doing Pangolin, on which this chart relies upon, don’t all transfer on the inexperienced fields and pastures new (or have their entry to amenities minimize by directors of in poor health intent).
CDC: “As of Could 11, genomic surveillance knowledge will probably be reported biweekly, primarily based on the supply of constructive check specimens.” “Biweeekly: 1. occurring each two weeks. 2. occurring twice per week; semiweekly.” Appears like CDC has chosen sense #1. In essence, they’re telling us variants are nothing to fret about. Time will inform.
Covid Emergency Room Visits
NOT UPDATED From CDC NCIRD Surveillance, November 25:
Lambert right here: Slight will increase in some age teams, conforming to wastewater knowledge. Solely per week’s lag, so this can be our greatest present nationwide, present indicator.
NOTE “Charts and knowledge supplied by CDC, updates Wednesday by 8am. For the previous 12 months, utilizing a rolling 52-week interval.” So not all the pandemic, FFS (the implicit message right here being that Covid is “similar to the flu,” which is why the seasonal “rolling 52-week interval” is suitable for eachMR SUBLIMINAL I hate these folks a lot. Discover additionally that this chart exhibits, at the very least for its time interval, that Covid is not seasonal, though CDC is making an attempt to get us to imagine that it’s, presumably to allow them to piggyback on the present institutional equipment for injections. And naturally, we’re not even stepping into the standard of the wastewater websites that now we have as a proxy for Covid an infection total.
• Right here is a very unserious evaluation from Mom Jones (you simply learn a critical evaluation [lambert blushes modestly]).
Hospitalization
Bellwether New York Metropolis, knowledge as of November 30:
Up. Degree-ish, however I guess hospitalization drops over the vacation weekend. Let’s wait and see. New York state as an entire appears extra like a spike. (I hate this metric as a result of the lag makes it misleading, though the hospital-centric public well being institution loves it, hospitalization and deaths being the one metrics that matter [snort]).
NOT UPDATED Right here’s a special CDC visualization on hospitalization, nationwide, not by state, however with a date, at the very least. November 18:
Lambert right here: “Maps, charts, and knowledge supplied by CDC, updates weekly for the earlier MMWR week (Sunday-Saturday) on Thursdays (Deaths, Emergency Division Visits, Take a look at Positivity) and weekly the next Mondays (Hospitalizations) by 8 pm ET†”. So the place the heck is the replace, CDC?
Positivity
NOT UPDATED From Walgreens, November 27:
0.4%. Up. (It will be fascinating to survey this inhabitants typically; these are individuals who, regardless of a tsunami of official propaganda and massive peer stress, went and obtained examined anyhow.)
NOT UPDATED From Cleveland Clinic, November 25:
Lambert right here: Enhance (with backward revision; guess they thought it was over). I do know that is simply Ohio, however the Cleveland Clinic is sweet*, and we’re starved for knowledge, so…. NOTE * Even when hospital an infection management is making an attempt to kill sufferers by eliminating common masking with N95s.
NOT UPDATED From CDC, traveler’s knowledge, November 6:
Down, albeit within the rear view mirror. And listed below are the variants for vacationers, November 6:
BA.2.86 coming alongside properly.
Deaths
Whole: 1,183,664 – 1,183,455 = 209 (209 * 365 = 76,285 deaths per 12 months, immediately’s YouGenicist™ quantity for “dwelling with” Covid (fairly a bit greater than the minimizers would love, although they will discuss themselves into something. If the YouGenicist™ metric retains chugging alongside like this, I may must determine that is what the powers-that-be take into account “mission completed” for this explicit tranche of demise and illness).
Lambert right here: This quantity is simply too small it doesn’t matter what. Iowa Covid19 Tracker hasn’t been up to date since September 27, 2023. I could must revert to CDC knowledge. Yech.
Extra Deaths
NOT UPDATED The Economist, November 18:
Lambert right here: Gonna must whack this, too. How does an automatic mannequin not replace? Primarily based on a machine-learning mannequin.
Stats Watch
Employment State of affairs: “United States Preliminary Jobless Claims” [Trading Economics]. “The variety of People submitting for unemployment advantages rose by 7,000 to 218,000 within the week ending November twenty fifth, a rise from the revised variety of 211,000 reported within the earlier week however barely beneath market expectations of 220,000. In the meantime, persevering with claims surged by 86,000 to 1.927 million within the prior week, marking the very best stage since November 2021 and hinting at a softening labor market. ”
Private Earnings: “United States Private Earnings” [Trading Economics]. “Private earnings in the US elevated 0.2% month-over-month in October 2023, the least in 4 months, and matching market forecasts.”
Tech: Zuckerberg is not a pleasant particular person in any respect:
What’s Fb’s response to the ugly tales on the way it tracks and manipulates kids? To apologize? To obey the Federal Commerce Fee’s order to cease? Nope.
Zuckerberg simply requested a courtroom to declare the FTC unconstitutional. https://t.co/xHq5O29DBW
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) November 30, 2023
Tech: “Google to pay Canada’s ‘hyperlink tax,’ drops menace of eradicating information from search” [Ars Technica]. “Google has agreed to pay Canadian information companies $100 million a 12 months to adjust to the nation’s On-line Information Act, regardless of beforehand saying it could take away Canadian information hyperlinks from search fairly than make the required funds. Google and authorities officers agreed to a deal that lets Google negotiate with a single information collective and cut back its total monetary obligation. Fb proprietor Meta is in the meantime holding agency in its opposition to funds. ‘Google will contribute $100 million in monetary assist yearly, listed to inflation, for a variety of reports companies throughout the nation, together with unbiased information companies and people from Indigenous and official-language minority communities,’ Minister of Canadian Heritage Pascale St-Onge mentioned in a press release immediately. The $100 million in Canadian forex is price about $74 million in US forex. Earlier than immediately’s deal, the federal authorities estimated that Google must pay $172 million a 12 months.” • Chump change! What Google ought to be paying is regardless of the newspaper trade made earlier than Google gutted it.
Right this moment’s Concern & Greed Index: 64 Greed (earlier shut: 63 Greed) [CNN]. One week in the past: 66 (Greed). (0 is Excessive Concern; 100 is Excessive Greed). Final up to date Nov 30 at 1:32:29 PM ET.
Information of the Wired
“On Pneumatic Tires” [Scope of Work]. “The invention of the wheel is commonly put ahead as a pinnacle of human ingenuity, however it strikes me that the defining attribute of recent transportation techniques will not be the wheel however the pneumatic tire. In the US, automobiles with tires carry twice as a lot freight as automobiles with out them. Tires have an outsized position in particular person transportation: The overwhelming majority of People commute on tires, outweighing all different modes by about fourteen to at least one. Tires are on our lawnmowers, these iconic symbols of twentieth-century middle-class independence, and so they’re on our e-scooters, maybe the zenith of twenty-first century globalization and consumerism. The tire’s meteoric rise might need stunned nineteenth-century observers of the wheel, which took millennia to penetrate (and form) human tradition. Wheels emerged in varied types between 3000 and 4000 BCE. But even despite its apparent utility, wheeled transportation remained costly, uncomfortable, and comparatively uncommon effectively into the early fashionable interval. Richard Bulliet writes that as late as 1570, the variety of four-wheeled carriages in Britain ‘might be counted on one hand,’ and even in 1814 there was just one carriage for each 145 British inhabitants. By comparability, immediately Britain has about one automotive for each 1.6 folks – and roughly half of Brits personal or have entry to a bicycle. Wrapped in leather-based and riveted to an iron ‘tyre,’ the primary pneumatic tire happened fifteen years earlier than the velocipede – the primary extensively profitable bicycle. The tire was patented, evaluated positively by engineers, after which promptly forgotten. The recognition of bikes, automobiles, and wheeled transportation typically has a lot to do with the tire – and the recognition of the tire owes loads to bikes and automobiles.” • Having the ability to repair punctures in my bicyle tires all on my own was an enormous step ahead in autonomy for me as a toddler (as was the bicycle itself, after all).
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