[Macros]

As if they are smart enough to understand a word like irony.

Fuck people

[Tsundoku]

The irony is that people like that would probably think the examples used by Alannis Morissette in her song are ironic when the true irony is none of them are.
They are just bad luck or bad decisions ("the good advice you just didn't take"), hence IMHO the great joke - or irony - of a song called "Ironic".

EDIT: 5 uses of irony or ironic. Not too bad.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 17 July 2021 - 03:29 AM

[Mezla PigDog]

First time out other than the school run post-England Freedom Day. I sat outside at the bar so didn't wear a mask. I did wear a mask to walk into the cinema and buy tickets and get to my seat but took it off once sat down. I felt kind of self-conscious wearing it and asked my friend if we looked like weirdos or really polite people. We didn't know. So I don't know if I'll manage to wear one long term if other people aren't... Unless the establishment asks me to.

Shits weird people.

Fortunately still hardly anyone was going to the cinema so no change there pre-Freedom Day. There were about double the people in the big screen compared to last time I went a few weeks back but double of 4 people in a huge screen still equals diddly squat.

[Gwynn ap Nudd]

There are a couple of hard splits here in terms of mask wearing. Most store clerks are still wearing them, and nobody has taken down the plexiglass shields. As far as everyone else, the South East Asian is still predominantly wearing masks, as are most elderly. Outside of the South East Asian population, very few people under 50 are still wearing masks unless required. My local grocery store still requires masks, which I am happy with.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Freedom' should include the freedom to wear a mask.

Went to the gym for the first time in over a year today. Lifting weights with a mask on is a little onerous, considered taking it off, but managed to power through. Kept going until the gym closed. Apparently they don't have any special forearm-isolating machines, and what I thought was their glutes-isolating machine actually focuses on the hip flexor muscles, but the ab machines should at least help my six pack pop a bit more without having to pull in my gut (it's visible when I'm relaxed, but only Jon Snow level if I flex, alas). For arms I'm better off doing it with free weights at my apartment, no covid worries. Aside from one of the guards, think I was the only one wearing a mask. (Noticed the seal slipping a bit when I broke from proper form by cheating with body weight... been trying to focus on better form anyway.)

But people should have been wearing N95 or P100 masks outside today anyway:

'Air quality in NYC, Philly plummets due to smoke from 2,500 miles away

After a smoky sunset Monday evening, heavy smoke continued to hang over the Northeast on Tuesday, as a result of more than 100 wildfires burning in the western U.S. and more in Canada. Air quality advisories were in effect for much of Canada and had been issued for Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and New York City as the smoke descended from the upper levels of the atmosphere.

[...] At this elevated number, health effects can be immediately felt by sensitive groups. Healthy individuals may experience difficulty breathing and throat irritation with prolonged exposure, and should limit outdoor activity.'

https://www.accuweat...DaSilva%20said.

Unfortunately N95/P100 filters become much less effective when wet... should have brought a spare.

Seemed like some good news:


'In work to be published later this week, Steves and her colleagues show that vaccination substantially reduces the risk of long Covid. "We are seeing a very clear reduction in the risk of long Covid in all age groups if you have had two shots of vaccine, ... if you are unlucky enough to get Covid we are showing your risk of long Covid is much reduced."'

https://www.theguard...with-long-covid

However it left out this qualification, which might be referring to the same study:

'Steves [...] who is the lead author on the study, says, "It's great to see this evidence that vaccinated people experience fewer symptoms, are less likely to be hospitalised and that the risk of developing long COVID is lower in older people at least."'

https://www.thehealt...er-vaccination/

Or maybe not? That 'to be published later this week' was 8 days ago. The recent one in the Lancet doesn't have Steves as lead author... but also doesn't explicitly mention long covid at all... and states 'we evaluated only short-term adverse effects, and long-term surveillance in the general population will be required to investigate possible future effects.'

The Lancet

Assuming that's not it, I'm having a surprisingly difficult time googling the article....

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 21 July 2021 - 02:26 AM

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

I was in the office yesterday (still the same rules as pre-19th July) and was surprised to see most people in Leeds are still wearing them, some outside but mostly inside shops. A couple of the supermarkets have mandated it and are still keeping reduced numbers in too, and buses still won't let you travel without one (or an exemption) - I assume trains will be the same.

[Maark Abbott]

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 21 July 2021 - 06:18 AM, said:

I was in the office yesterday (still the same rules as pre-19th July) and was surprised to see most people in Leeds are still wearing them, some outside but mostly inside shops. A couple of the supermarkets have mandated it and are still keeping reduced numbers in too, and buses still won't let you travel without one (or an exemption) - I assume trains will be the same.

As soon as guard is out of sight everyone on trains is masks down anyway. One large reason I wouldn't agree to returning to the office, but thankfully work are angling more towards the work from home side as it means they don't have to pay rent on the second building any more.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Before landing on the Greek alphabet, the organization's expert panel had also considered drawing variant names from a list of portmanteaus or Greek gods/goddesses [...] Still, it's proven difficult to create a naming system that has no risk of creating enemies: Delta airlines reportedly refuses to refer to the delta variant by name. Among employees, it is simply referred to as "the variant."'

https://slate.com/te...-gamma-who.html

Slate 5 days ago:

'"You are just as likely to be killed by a meteorite as die from Covid after a vaccine," one doctor said'

https://slate.com/te...irus-delta.html

Slate today:

'according the CDC, as of July 12, 5,189 vaccinated people have been hospitalized with COVID-19, and 1,093 have died [in the United States].'

https://slate.com/te...ough-cases.html

Of course, a large meteorite could kill a lot of people at once.

'Putting a probability number on the chances of being hit by a space rock is difficult, since the events are so rare. [...] a paper [...] that made the effort [...] put the lifetime odds of dying from a local meteorite, asteroid, or comet impact at 1 in 1,600,000.'

https://www.national...robability-odds

Even in the unlikely event that the doctor's claim turns out to be technically accurate, it's still wildly misleading, because fatal meteorite strikes happen so much less frequently (on Earth, recently, anyway...).

[Edit: just did a calculation based on US data:

(1093/(382.2 x 10^6))/((1/1600000)/(78.54/(8/12))) = at least 539.053186813
times more likely to die from Covid-19 than a meteorite when fully vaccinated. (Assuming fully vaccinated people are not significantly more cautious about meteorites... living in underground meteorite-proof bunker, etc.)

]

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 22 July 2021 - 12:00 AM

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Maark Abbott, on 21 July 2021 - 07:46 AM, said:

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 21 July 2021 - 06:18 AM, said:

I was in the office yesterday (still the same rules as pre-19th July) and was surprised to see most people in Leeds are still wearing them, some outside but mostly inside shops. A couple of the supermarkets have mandated it and are still keeping reduced numbers in too, and buses still won't let you travel without one (or an exemption) - I assume trains will be the same.

As soon as guard is out of sight everyone on trains is masks down anyway. One large reason I wouldn't agree to returning to the office, but thankfully work are angling more towards the work from home side as it means they don't have to pay rent on the second building any more.

We're going hybrid, minimum two days a week in. Hence me being in one day for a bit to adjust back. Are IM still at the Riverside site?

[Maark Abbott]

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 22 July 2021 - 07:03 AM, said:

Maark Abbott, on 21 July 2021 - 07:46 AM, said:

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 21 July 2021 - 06:18 AM, said:

I was in the office yesterday (still the same rules as pre-19th July) and was surprised to see most people in Leeds are still wearing them, some outside but mostly inside shops. A couple of the supermarkets have mandated it and are still keeping reduced numbers in too, and buses still won't let you travel without one (or an exemption) - I assume trains will be the same.

As soon as guard is out of sight everyone on trains is masks down anyway. One large reason I wouldn't agree to returning to the office, but thankfully work are angling more towards the work from home side as it means they don't have to pay rent on the second building any more.

We're going hybrid, minimum two days a week in. Hence me being in one day for a bit to adjust back. Are IM still at the Riverside site?

Yeah, although the smaller building is going. We've been told that the aim is to be flexible as possible so obviously they intend for most of us to work from home which is fine. Only issue is printing, but a mate on team can sort my printing if I sort his stuff to be printed for him or otherwise scratch his back in some way so it works out - a day in the office is long for me as I'm up 4:15am, walk to gym at 5:15, don't get home til 18:00. Plus it's expensive and sweaty and annoying and I just want to sit here in hotpants with cats nearby and not wear business dress.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Los Angeles County's top health official said fully vaccinated people made up one-in-five Covid-19 infections in June and warned that the figure may rise in July with a higher level of community transmission.'

https://www.bloomber...five-infections

Hmm, and experts in the US and UK had been claiming we should discount the Israeli studies and statistics because they contradicted the methodologically weak studies done in the US and UK (or the amounts by which those experts were being compensated---directly or indirectly---to downplay the potential risk, I wonder?)....


'his case—a “mild one” by medical definitions—knocked him out for about a day and a half. He, his wife, and his father-in-law still had a lingering cough, and he was worried about long-term effects, particularly because his father-in-law is undergoing treatment for a serious health issue.


Mostly, he felt frustrated. He’s a journalist—he’s pretty tuned in to the news. He knew breakthrough cases were possible, but he had seen many assurances that they were extremely rare and not that big of a deal. “I feel like I had very inaccurate information, [...] and I would have made my decisions in a very different light if I knew what I know now.” He would have worn a mask at the hockey game, for example—even though no one was wearing a mask at the hockey game, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it’s fine for vaccinated people not to wear masks inside.


[...] “you can have fever, chills, body aches, and feel downright terrible for a week or more and still be categorized as ‘mild.’”


[...] “It really can be miserable. But you’re at home, not in the ICU.”


[...]


If the “mild” cases of COVID that can break through are more severe than the colds we used to accept as a normal consequence of traveling, that is worth being clear about. So, yes: Vaccines greatly reduce the severity of illness. But you can still get very sick, in layman’s terms. [...] (Frankly, the fact that you can get that sick from mild COVID should be yet another reason to avoid getting what doctors call severe COVID.)'


https://slate.com/te...ough-cases.html


The CDC and many health experts didn't learn their lesson about making recklessly optimistic, unjustified, or misleading statements... wonder how much it has discredited them among the general public. Though people trying to actually follow the research and apply a little bit of critical thinking could see through their shit easily enough. If not for the pandemic, I would have tended to believe what the CDC says about public health guidance unless given reason otherwise or special motivation---now, not so much....

' A 34-year-old [...] died [...] after a month-long bout with the coronavirus during which he posted jokes about the COVID-19 vaccine. “Biden’s door to door vaccine ‘surveyors’ really should be called JaCovid Witnesses. #keepmovingdork,” [...] “IF YOU’RE HAVING EMAIL PROBLEMS, I FEEL BAD FOR YOU, SON. I GOT 99 PROBLEMS BUT A VAX AIN’T ONE!” He made memes about trusting the Bible over Dr. Anthony Fauci. But in late July, Harmon wrote that he was “on max oxygen” and “struggling to function.” His final tweet July 21 asked supporters to pray for him as he was about to be intubated: “Don’t know when i’ll wake up, please pray.”'
Covid-19 defeats God yet again....
https://www.thedaily...e-dies-of-covid

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Israel says Pfizer Covid vaccine is just 39% effective as delta spreads

[...] 88% effectiveness against hospitalization and 91% effectiveness against severe illness'

https://www.cnbc.com...re-illness.html


Hopefully more people will start wearing masks again....

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Large study finds COVID-19 is linked to a substantial drop in intelligence


People who have recovered from COVID-19 tend to score significantly lower on an intelligence test compared to those who have not contracted the virus, according to new research published in The Lancet journal EClinicalMedicine. [...]


[...] The greatest deficits were observed on tasks requiring reasoning, planning and problem solving, which is in line “with reports of long-COVID, where ‘brain fog,’ trouble concentrating and difficulty finding the correct words are common,” [...]


Previous research has also found that a large proportion of COVID-19 survivors are affected by neuropsychiatric and cognitive complications.


[...] The level of cognitive underperformance was also associated with the level of illness severity, with those who were hospitalized on a ventilator showing the greatest deficits. The observed deficit for COVID-19 patients who had been put on a ventilator equated to a 7-point drop in IQ. The deficit was even larger than the deficits observed for individuals who had previously suffered a stroke and who reported learning disabilities.


“I think it is fair to say that those of us who have been analyzing data such as this are somewhat nervous at the decision to let the pandemic run its course within the UK,” [...]


[...] the large and socioeconomically diverse sample allowed the researchers to control for a wide variety of potentially cofounding variables, including pre-existing conditions.'

https://www.psypost....elligence-61577

'We further examined whether there was a relationship between cognitive performance and time since symptom onset (Fig. S1) amongst bio-confirmed cases who did not report residual symptoms. In this sub-group, mean time from symptom onset was 1.96 months +/- 1.65SDs with an upper limit of 9 months. Analyzing this sub-group with time since symptom onset as the predictor showed no significant correlation [...] expanding the analysis include those who were not bio-confirmed (mean time = 2.4610, SD=1.3481, max = 11) also showed no significant relationship between time and the magnitude of the observed deficit'



https://www.thelance...IIS2589-5370(21)00324-2/fulltext

Of course, some politicians might like this... especially if it lasts through the next election. Bring on more variants?...

[Tiste Simeon]

^ well it suits the Tories down to the ground to have a society of less than intelligent people so it makes sense they're doing a "let it run its course" plan.

[Tsundoku]

Hmmm ... how do you define "fucking stupidity" as a contributing pre-existing condition? "Muh freedumbz" indeed.

https://www.news.com...68ef55df78e6d33

America’s urgent dilemma: How to deal with people refusing to take the Covid-19 vaccines
Propped up in bed after recovering from Covid-induced pneumonia, this hospital patient said something that shocked the United States.

SamClench

JULY 24, 202111:15PM

Scott Roe sat upright and alert in his hospital bed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, having mostly recovered from the life-threatening pneumonia caused by his Covid-19 infection.

“Am I going to get a vaccine? No,” he told CBS reporter David Begnaud.

Nor did he regret avoiding the coronavirus vaccines before his hospitalisation. If he could go back in time, Mr Roe said, he would make the same choice.

“I’d have gone through this,” he said, referring to the ordeal of his illness.

“Don’t shove it down my throat. That’s what local, state, federal administrations are trying to do, is shove it down your throat.

“That’s their agenda. Their agenda is to get you vaccinated.”

That is indeed the government’s agenda here in the United States, where the covid vaccines are free and plentiful. Because if everyone gets vaccinated, fewer people will die.

“We are either going to get vaccinated and end the pandemic, or we’re going to accept death,” said Dr Catherine O’Neal, chief medical officer of the hospital in which Mr Roe was sitting.

For millions of Americans, that isn’t a good enough reason.

About half the US adult population is fully vaccinated, and 66 per cent of people have received at least one dose. But the country’s initially rapid vaccine rollout has hit a wall of hesitancy and, in some cases, outright hostility.

With a third of Americans still vulnerable to covid, case numbers and hospitalisations are rising again, this time driven by the more infectious Delta variant.

Here are the two most important statistics: of the people in hospital, about 97 per cent are unvaccinated. Among those who are dying, 99.5 per cent are unvaccinated.

Yet people are still refusing the vaccines. Polling consistently shows between 20 and 30 per cent of Americans do not intend to get vaccinated. That includes almost half of Republican voters.

They’re putting themselves and every other unprotected person around them at risk, and creating a potential breeding ground for even worse variants than Delta.

Mr Roe’s remorseless interview from that hospital bed in Louisiana this week was emblematic of the problem.

So was the palpable frustration of Kay Ivey, the conservative Republican Governor of Alabama, whose population has the lowest percentage of fully vaccinated people in the country.

“Folks are supposed to have common sense,” Ms Ivey vented on Friday, with the air of a person at the very end of her tether.

“It’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks. It’s the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down.

“I’ve done all I know how to do. I can encourage you do to something, but I can’t make you take care of yourself.”

It’s interesting to hear an American politician, particularly someone with Ms Ivey’s conservative bona fides, call for unvaccinated people to be “blamed”.

Other Republican leaders – even the ones encouraging vaccination, as opposed to the ones actively spreading misinformation about the vaccines and comparing health officials to Nazis – have typically warned against being too aggressive in efforts to convince the hesitant.

“You’re seeing some people try to bully people into doing things instead of just encouraging them,” pro-vaccine Congressman Steve Scalise said, for instance.

“We should be encouraging people to get it, not trying to threaten people.”

But gentle encouragement only goes so far.

“I have not and I will not (get the vaccine). I’m not a guinea pig. There’s not a chance,” Mike Clark, an elderly gentleman from rural Arkansas, told CNN reporter Elle Reeve this week.

“I believe that it’s a freedom issue.”

He said, proudly, that he’d probably worn a face mask for a total of one hour throughout the whole pandemic, despite the public health guidance recommending masks for many months to help stymie the spread of the virus.

“If it’s so communicable, why am I still standing?” Mr Clark asked, as though declaring checkmate in a game of rhetorical chess.

The answer is that he got lucky. Unlike 626,000 other Americans, who got Covid and died.

A person like Mr Clark, or like Mr Roe earlier, is practically unpersuadable. These guys are determined not to get the vaccine, don’t trust a word the government says, and no amount of “encouragement” will move them from that position.

So here’s the crux of the issue: at what point should the US stop coddling the anti-vaxxers? At what point should it concede the carrot isn’t working, and trade it for a stick? At what point does the government’s duty to protect public health outweigh an individual’s right to make poor decisions?

Some would say never.

Here’s what I think is a more balanced position: in a liberal democracy, you should generally be able to do whatever you want, until your behaviour clearly harms someone else.

This is the principle that limits freedom of speech, for example. The First Amendment to the US Constitution protects most forms of speech, but does not give people the right to incite “lawless action” or violence.

You can say dumb stuff. You can be cruel, or ignorant. But you can’t say something that will bring harm to another person.

And that really is the key point when it comes to people refusing to take the covid vaccines.

If you decide to go for a private swim in shark-infested waters, the only person you’re endangering is yourself. It’s idiotic, and you might end up dead, but shark bites are not transmissible.

Covid is. If you deliberately remain unvaccinated when vaccines are available, you are not just risking your own life, but the lives of your loved ones, and any other unvaccinated person unfortunate enough to cross your path.

This isn’t complicated. The more the virus is transmitted, the more likely it is to kill someone.

There’s an additional risk. Should the virus circulate in the community for long enough, there is a chance it will mutate into a variant that can overcome the vaccines.

We’ve seen an unsettling degree of selfishness in the US throughout the pandemic, more so than in Australia.

Last year it was people refusing to wear masks or practise social distancing. Now it’s people rejecting the vaccines. In spirit they boil down to the same thing: some Americans think their desire to defy the rules is more important than protecting other people’s lives.

Other countries have chosen not to accept that attitude.

Today Israel’s Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, told unvaccinated citizens they would need to present a negative covid test result – obtained at their own expense – to attend large events.

“I respect different views, but there is a time and a place in which this discussion needs to stop,” Mr Bennett said.

“The science is unequivocal: the vaccines work. They are effective and safe.

“Those who refuse vaccines are endangering their health, those around them, and the freedom of every Israeli citizen. Those who refuse vaccines hurt us all.

“As of August 8, those who refuse vaccines will not be able to go to the cinema, the theatre, the synagogue, the amusement park, the football game, or any activity with over 100 people, unless they bring a negative result from a coronavirus test, at their expense.

“Yes, they will fully bear the cost of the test. There is no reason why taxpayers and people who have carried out their civic duty to get vaccinated should fund tests for those who refuse to get vaccinated.”

French President Emmanuel Macron took a similar approach recently. The number of people booking vaccine appointments in France immediately shot up.

America is a different beast, and there’s no doubt that more coercive measures from the government – requiring vaccination to board domestic flights, for example, or to enter sport stadiums – would spark a fierce backlash.

Heck, the Republican Party positively convulsed with outrage earlier this month when President Joe Biden suggested going “door to door” to inform people about the vaccines, as though the government talking to its constituents were somehow a scandalous intrusion upon their personal freedoms.

The objections just don’t stack up.

You want to refuse the vaccines? Fine. That’s your right. But you don’t have a right to endanger other people.

This is the debate the US is enduring at the moment. Let’s hope Australia can avoid it, once there are enough vaccines to go around.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 24 July 2021 - 10:52 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Young children in Indonesia are dying of Covid at an alarming rate


Hundreds of children in Indonesia have died from the coronavirus in recent weeks, many of them under 5, running counter to the long-term pandemic trend of children facing minimal risk[...]


[...] children now make up 12.5 percent of the country’s confirmed cases[...] More than 150 children died from Covid-19 during the week of July 12 alone[...] with half the recent deaths involving those younger than 5.'

https://www.nytimes....n-alarming-rate


0.26*276,361,783 = about 71,854,064 children in Indonesia though (4th largest country by population, right after the United States...).

No mention of whether this could be a new strain... news seems to assume it's just plain old Delta.

In North Carolina, 'over the first two weeks of July, children have made up 15.3 percent of all new cases.

National data shows a similar trend[...]


[...] rate of hospitalizations for the Delta variant is two times higher than that of earlier variants [...]


[...] But the rising infection rate has not resulted in rising hospitalization rates among children in the Atrium Health service area.


[...] Nationally, it’s a slightly different story, with hospitalizations for 12-to-17 year olds increasing'


https://www.northcar...north-carolina/

'Delta Variant Will Drive A Steep Rise In U.S. COVID Deaths, A New Model Shows


The current COVID-19 surge in the U.S. — fueled by the highly contagious delta variant — will steadily accelerate through the summer and fall, peaking in mid-October, with daily deaths more than triple what they are now.


That's according to new projections [...] from the COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub, a consortium of researchers working in consultation with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help the agency track the course of the pandemic.


It's a deflating prospect for parents looking ahead to the coming school year, employers planning to get people back to the workplace [...]


"What's going on in the country with the virus is matching our most pessimistic scenarios, [...] We might be seeing synergistic effects of people becoming less cautious in addition to the impacts of the delta variant.


"I think it's a big call for caution,"'


https://www.npr.org/...ths-model-shows


CDC's 'get vaccinated so you don't have to wear masks indoors, even though no one's going to actually check' gambit already got almost everyone susceptible to that sort of ploy, so they should move on....

Pfizer plans to start clinical trials for their Delta booster in August:

https://www.newsweek...variant-1608123


Though my first two shots were Moderna... IDK when it will be determined whether mixing Pfizer and Moderna introduces any significant negative side effects. Probably not....

[Tsundoku]

In other parody news ...

BREAKING: 10,000 New Cases Of Fuckwit Confirmed In Sydney

https://www.theshove...rmed-in-sydney/

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 26 July 2021 - 01:38 PM

[Aptorian]

Tsundoku, on 26 July 2021 - 01:37 PM, said:

In other parody news ...

BREAKING: 10,000 New Cases Of Fuckwit Confirmed In Sydney

https://www.theshove...rmed-in-sydney/

5G Speeds in Australia are Almost Twice the Global Average

Coincidence? I think not.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

My anti-vax, pro-Trump, police officer cousin down in Florida is infected. He's been miserable for a few days but feeling better (for now...). Gave it to his fully vaccinated wife (a psychologist who couldn't convince him to get vaccinated). Hopefully their young child won't become seriously ill.

'Ron DeSantis under fire as Florida now accounts for 1 in 5 new US COVID cases


[...] Florida also logged the most coronavirus deaths of any U.S. state in the last seven days[...] and hospitalizations are spiking, prompting dire warnings from physicians and calls for public safety measures to stop the spread.


But Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican and likely 2024 presidential candidate, has recently taken to mocking such measures; earlier this month, the governor's team launched a new merchandise line that includes a koozie with the quote, "How the hell am I going to be able to drink a beer with a mask on?"
Other items take aim at Dr. Anthony Fauci[...] "Don't Fauci My Florida," declares a shirt selling [...] on a DeSantis campaign website.

[...] Florida physicians have attributed the surge in infections, hospitalizations, and deaths in the state to the governor's rush to end public health restrictions.

"While hospitals in our state were filling up, DeSantis was shouting about 'Freedom over Faucism,'" [...]


[...] "various factors" are behind the Florida crisis, including[...] "[...] the congregation of people indoors during hot summer months."'


https://www.alternet...tis-2653976104/

Usually nice weather brings people outdoors, but extreme heat has the opposite effect... if the expected heat dome across most of the US materializes this week, it could be bad.

Also, I was surprised to learn DeSantis isn't actually an idiot. Graduated magna cum laude from Yale, Harvard Law graduate. Might actually make him more dangerous. (Still hard to tell how much of it is cynical psychopathy and how much of it might be believing in Christian superstition; or how much his capacity or willingness for critical thinking may have declined since going into politics.)

'"The last thing you want is to loosen restrictions when you're confronting the most formidable version of the virus yet."

[...] people infected with the Delta variant carry 1,000 times more virus in their noses compared with the original version'

https://www.reuters....rus-2021-07-26/

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Lighter news:

'Anti-Vaxxer Allegedly Threatened Fauci With Scalping, Torture, Death

[...] apparently infuriated over the government’s advice to get vaccinated [...] sent numerous violent emails to [...] Fauci, threatening to—among other things—break every bone in his “disgusting elf skull” and sew his scalp onto a rat, while warning [he] would soon be “hunted, tortured, beaten, [and] enslaved,” [...] now faces charges [...]

[...] calling [Fauci] “a sickening, compromised satanic freemason criminal,” a “disgusting piece of elf garbage,” and that his wife and daughters would each be shot in “their disgusting pig snouts while you watch,” Connally, described in the complaint as a technical writer, also menaced NIH Director [...] Collins via Collins’ official government email account[...] “Drop the ‘mandatory vaccine’ talk, maggot, or you’re getting 6 mandatory shots in your worthless satanist faggot skull, [...] You and your buddies Gates and Soros too, you sick little fuck. I’ll smash every tooth out of your faggot skull.”'


https://www.thedaily...f=home?ref=home