Post by mhbruin on Apr 7, 2022 9:40:13 GMT -8
US Vaccine Data - We Have Now Administered 562 Million Shots (Population 333 Million)
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California Precipitation (Updated Tuesday April 5)
There was some rain in the Nor Cal. A little more in the ten-day.
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COVID Cases Seem to Have Stopped Falling Around 10 Days Ago
This seems to be a sustainable level, since hospitals are not overloaded.
However, if we continue with 500 deaths a day, that is around 182,000 deaths per year, far worse than the 30,000 - 60,000 from the flu.
That is still FAR better than our peak of 3,700 deaths per day, which would be almost 1.4 million deaths per year. Of course, that was a peak, not a sustained rate.
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
Russians Keep Finding New Ways to Be Evil.
Clear evidence of Russian troops rounding up Ukrainian civilians and using them as human shields has been found by the BBC. In multiple interviews in Obukhovychi, villagers say they were taken from their homes at gunpoint and held in a school by Russians trying to stop advancing Ukrainian forces. Local people also gave accounts of Russian troops shooting civilians and holding others captive in and around Ivankiv, the neighbouring town.
On the night of 14 March, Russian soldiers in Obukhovychi were under attack and losing men and armoured vehicles. The Ukrainians were regaining territory.
We have now managed to speak to many people about what happened that night. They all told us the same stories about 24 hours that traumatised the village.
Families described how the Russians went door-to-door, rounded them up at gunpoint, and marched them to the local school - where the Russian forces used them as protection.
None of This Makes Sense.
The trial in Turkey of 26 Saudi nationals accused over the notorious murder of dissident Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in 2018 has been halted.
A judge said the case would now be handed over to Saudi Arabia, which had refused to extradite the suspects.
Khashoggi's fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, said she would fight on.
The Washington Post journalist was killed inside the Saudi consulate after being lured there. His murder by Saudi agents sparked worldwide outrage.
A Saudi court convicted eight unnamed people over the murder in 2019.
Thursday's ruling comes after Turkey's justice minister agreed to a prosecutor's request to stop the trial on the grounds that it was impeded by the absence of the defendants. The prosecutor said Saudi judicial authorities had promised to evaluate the accusations against them.
The move however has been lambasted as a whitewash by human rights campaigners.
Amnesty International's Turkey official Milena Buyum said it was an "appalling and clearly political decision".
WTF?
Man who lived in daughter's Sarah Lawrence College dorm room convicted of sex trafficking, forced labor and other federal crimes
The father who lived in his daughter's college dorm room has been convicted of sex trafficking, forced labor, tax evasion and money laundering after less than a day of jury deliberations, the US Attorney's Office of the Southern District of New York announced Wednesday.
"Twelve years ago, Larry Ray moved into his daughter's dorm room at Sarah Lawrence College," US Attorney Damian Williams said in the news release. "And when he got there, he met a group of friends who had their whole lives ahead of them. For the next decade, he used violence, threats, and psychological abuse to try to control and destroy their lives. He exploited them. He terrorized them. He tortured them. Let me be very clear. Larry Ray is a predator. An evil man who did evil things."
He extorted payments from victims after getting them to make false confessions about causing damages to him, his family and associates, according to the indictment. Victims drained their parents savings, opened credit lines and sold real estate ownership to pay Ray. He also directed the victims to do unpaid labor for him and earn money for him through prostitution.
Ray forced one woman to engage in commercial sex acts to pay damages to Ray -- money she never owed, according to the US Attorney's Office. Ray groomed her when she was a college student and collected sexually explicit photos and other information to coerce her to commit more commercial sex acts, the office said.
In one instance of Ray's alleged brutality, he tied the woman to a chair, put a plastic bag over her head and nearly suffocated her, according to the indictment. He collected millions of dollars of forced prostitution proceeds from this victim, according to the US Attorney's Office.
Molasses Merrick Isn't Just Slow. He's Getting in the Way
The Justice Department is blocking the National Archives from sharing details with Congress on 15 boxes of records, including classified information that former President Donald Trump took to Mar-a-Lago after leaving office, the clearest indication yet that the matter is under investigation.
In a letter that the House Oversight Committee disclosed Thursday, Archives General Counsel Gary Stern said the agency was unable to respond to the panel's request for more information pertaining to its own investigation into the Mar-a-Lago boxes, based on the Archives' "consultation" with the Justice Department.
After receiving the March 28 letter from the National Archives, also known as NARA, House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat from New York, reached out to Attorney General Merrick Garland requesting additional information as to why the Justice Department is preventing the Archives from cooperating with the panel.
The AXOS of Evil
Donald Trump used to bank with the big guns. Now he’s borrowing from Axos Financial, an obscure, internet-only institution based in San Diego and Las Vegas.
In mid-February, Axos refinanced a $100 million Trump Tower mortgage due in September, a New York City Finance Department document shows. The new loan was made just days after The Trump Organization’s auditor resigned, saying that 10 years of the company’s financial statements could not be relied upon.
In lending to The Trump Organization, Axos is stepping up when other banks have balked. But this is not unheard-of for Axos. An examination of legal filings, internal documents and land records shows Axos has a history of handling atypical loans.
Axos has teamed up with nonbank lenders on loans to small businesses that carried cripplingly high double- and triple-digit effective annual interest rates, loan documents show. The bank has also specialized in loans to foreign nationals, internal documents and its website state, and has offered a type of loan that allows borrowers who paid cash for a property to turn around and instantly take money out. Such loans may pose money laundering risks, banking analysts say.
The bank has also been sued by two former employees who say they were wrongfully fired after they raised questions about its practices. On March 21, Jennifer Brear Brinker, hired in 2018 to review the bank’s loan portfolios for its Governance, Risk Management and Compliance Department, filed suit against Axos in federal court in California.
Brinker accused the bank of intentionally understaffing its compliance department “in an effort to conceal its failure to comply with federal banking regulations” and contends she was terminated in January 2021 while completing a report highlighting deficiencies at Axos including “significant issues in the bank’s anti-money laundering practices.”
Apparently the White House is Opaque to Lindsey
More From Steve
That Didn't Take Long. He'll Never Give Up His Principles ... Unless It Starts Costing Him.
Infowars host Alex Jones completed two days of depositions in a defamation lawsuit filed by families of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, court documents filed Wednesday show.
Connecticut Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis last week found Jones in contempt for failing twice to attend depositions on March 23 and 24.
She ordered him to pay daily fines amounting to tens of thousands of dollars for every day he didn't provide the sworn testimony. According to Wednesday's filing, Jones paid $75,000 — $25,000 on Friday and $50,000 on Monday.
At Least He Wasn't Blinded by Science
A Texas middle school teacher who burned a student when she put hand sanitizer on his hands and lit them on fire as part of a science experiment has resigned.
Granbury police said they responded to Granbury Middle School Friday "for a report of a student who had been burned on campus."
Investigators determined that a 37-year-old teacher "put hand sanitizer in the hands of a 12-year-old male student and lit the hand sanitizer as part of a science experiment," police said.
The experiment had been "done multiple times throughout the day with other students without incident," according to police. But the 12-year-old suffered possible third-degree burns on his hands. His condition was unknown Thursday.
Another Good Defense? He Never Had Any Good Defenses.
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon cannot argue at his trial that he is not guilty of contempt of Congress because he was following the advice of his lawyer, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols said such a defense is not available in a contempt of Congress case, dealing Bannon’s defense a major setback. He faces trial in July.
“It’s a serious blow, because he doesn’t have another good defense,” said Joyce Vance, a former federal prosecutor. “He’ll now have to make a decision about whether to proceed to trial or try to cut some kind of deal.”
A federal grand jury indicted Bannon in November on two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. One count accused him of refusing to appear for a deposition, and the other was for declining to produce documents requested by the committee.
They Should Replace Flag Lapel Pins With "I'm For Sale" Signs.
A handful of Republicans have introduced a bill that would prevent President Biden from taking substantive steps to address the climate crisis. Dubbed the “Real Emergencies Act,” the bill claims it attempts to “clarify the inability of the president to declare national emergencies under the National Emergencies Act, major disasters or emergencies under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, and public health emergencies under the Public Health Service Act on the premise of climate change, and for other purpose.”
What it really does is offer a cheat sheet on lawmakers absolutely loaded with campaign contributions from the very industry that threatens us most. Sen. Shelley Capito of West Virginia, who along with 10 other senators introduced the bill on Wednesday, has netted nearly $1 million from oil and gas and coal mining industry donations since taking office.
For Putin, Things Go Better With Koch. He'll Have a Koch and a Smile. He'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (in Russian).
Judd Legum at Popular Information has another damning exclusive report demonstrating how deep into Russia the Koch conglomerate of intertwined corporate and political interests really is. He obtained an internal email from one the network’s influential nonprofits, Stand Together, that argues the U.S. needs to deliver a partial “victory” to Russia in Ukraine. Perhaps not so coincidentally, the Koch network’s corporate and nonprofit opposition to sanctions on Russia happened at the same time congressional Republicans began obstructing them.
Koch Industries, the multinational conglomerate run by right-wing billionaire Charles Koch, is uncharacteristically making national news this week by remaining one of few Western companies to continue operations in Russia. The Koch operation generally flies under the radar of traditional media—which works just fine for all concerned, they prefer a low profile—but after Legum’s newsletter broke the story, pressure built on Koch Industries to respond.
The Koch group was forced to issue a statement on March 16 explaining—and doubling down on—the decision to keep their operations in Russia going. That same day, the email Legum has uncovered was sent by the supposedly independent think-tank internally. That raises some serious questions about how dependent upon Koch Industries profits the supposedly nonprofit side of the operation is.
Is Jimmy Kimmel Going to Hunt Her Down and Slap Her? Or is He Going to Hire Will Smith for the Hit?
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican who liked social media posts about executing prominent Democrats, said Wednesday she had reported comedian Jimmy Kimmel to the U.S. Capitol Police for making a slap joke about her.
During his monologue on Tuesday night, Kimmel ridiculed Greene for accusing three Republican senators of being “pro-pedophile” because they voted to confirm Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson.
“Wow, where is Will Smith when you really need him, huh?” Kimmel quipped, referring to the actor who slapped comedian Chris Rock onstage at the Oscars last month.
“This threat of violence against me by @jimmykimmel has been filed with the @capitolpolice,” Greene tweeted, attaching a clip of the segment from “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
Why Were They Doing This? Somehow, It Seems Like Their Ultimate Goal was Something Pretty Bad
The U.S. Secret Service said on Thursday it has placed some of its personnel on administrative leave for allegedly accepting gifts including rent-free apartments from two men now facing criminal charges for posing as Department of Homeland Security special agents.
The Secret Service's announcement came a day after the U.S. Justice Department said it had arrested the two suspects, Arian Taherzadeh and Haider Ali, in Washington. Officials said their actions were exposed when the suspects gave false statements about being members of law enforcement to a U.S. Postal inspector investigating the March assault of a letter carrier.
According to the criminal complaint, Taherzadeh and Ali had posed as special agents since at least February 2020 and offered a variety of gifts to Secret Service members and at least one homeland security employee, including rent-free apartments valued at $40,000 a year, iPhones, surveillance systems, a drone, a flat-screen television, a case for storing an assault rifle, a generator and other law enforcement paraphernalia.
The FBI also said that Taherzadeh offered to purchase a $2,000 assault rifle for an agent assigned to protect First Lady Jill Biden and told other government officials they could have access to what he claimed were "official government vehicles."
Not Even the QOP Should Find This Surprising
Former President Donald Trump is sitting on more than $110 million in campaign cash at a time when his party is trying to win control of Congress — and it's starting to irk some in the GOP.
They are watching him rake in money from persistent email solicitations to the party's small-donor base and at VIP receptions connected to a full schedule of campaign-style rallies. And they see a man stockpiling a war chest for another presidential run instead of using his prowess to boost the party.
Through his "Save America" super PAC in support of Republicans, Trump doled out just $205,000 to 41 federal candidates through Feb. 28, the last date covered by his most recent campaign finance disclosure. The vast majority of that money has gone to Republicans running in safe seats, or against incumbents he detests, rather than competitive races likely to help determine which party wins the House and Senate in November's midterms.
In the weeks since the latest disclosure, Trump has endorsed a handful of additional candidates who are battling for swing seats. His endorsement typically comes with a check for $5,000 — the maximum direct contribution the super PAC can make.
Republican campaign veterans and Trump insiders say they are disappointed but not surprised by what they describe as a combination of stinginess and selfishness by the former president.
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees
The Good Old Days.
The Obama years were filled with strife, controversy and partisanship. But looking back, it’s clear what will be remembered. It won’t be Sarah Palin’s infamous “death panels” myth or even the dreadful rollout of the Healthcare.gov website. What will matter are the things that helped Americans survive a financial crash (for example, saving the car industry and stabilizing the financial industry) and gain health-care coverage. Destruction and chaos might generate temporary fervor among voters, but it’s building something sustainable that defines a politician.
Will He Pity the Fool Who Dies Unvaccinated? Don't You Love It When a Plan Comes Together?
I Love It When A Plan Comes Together in Boston
Boston plans to replace its entire fleet of more than 700 school buses with electric vehicles by 2030, starting with 20 buses that will be taking kids to school some time during the next school year, Mayor Michelle Wu said Wednesday.
The move to address climate change by reducing carbon emissions is the latest step in the city's Green New Deal, which includes a previously announced effort to convert much of its fleet of 1,200 vehicles — not including school buses or public safety vehicles — to zero-emissions vehicles.
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Invasions Have Consequences
Moscow's Gonna' Party Like It's 1929.
In December Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, said that inflation was “the main problem” for Russia’s economy and citizens. Today, the country’s greatest woe is its invasion of Ukraine, in which thousands of soldiers have already died. But inflation has not gone away. On the contrary, the war has sped it up to levels not seen since Russia’s financial crisis of 1998.
On March 23rd the government announced that consumer prices rose by 1.9% in the seven days to March 18th, following increases of 2.1% and 2.2% during the previous two weeks. In total, that brought inflation during the first 21 days of the war to 6.4%, compared with 0.8% in the 21 days preceding it. At the wartime rate, consumer prices would triple every year. Moreover, the inflation index assigns hefty weights to the prices of heating and petrol, which have been flat for weeks. Had they risen in line with the cost of fuel in global markets, inflation would have been even higher.
Surging demand and tightening supply have both played a role. As war broke out, fearful Russians stocked up on staple foods like sugar, flour and buckwheat. NielsenIQ, a research firm, estimates that between February 21st and March 6th retail sales of sugar, cereals and other non-perishable goods rose by 46% compared with a year earlier. Such panic buying, driven by viral photos of shoppers fighting over groceries, has led to shortages of what the government deems “socially important goods”. (Does that included Vodka?)
The Invasion WILL Be Televised
Drones, phones and satellite technology are exposing the truth about Russia's war in Ukraine in near real-time.
Russia's lies may be catching up with it faster than it ever imagined.
The war in Ukraine is defying President Vladimir Putin's expectations at every turn, not only with Russia's failure to capture Kyiv as planned but with the war crimes his soldiers are alleged to have committed in Bucha, a city close the capital, exposed for the world to see.
Satellite images of murdered civilians that match videos, recorded weeks later, of bodies at the roadside are providing compelling evidence of Russian war crimes, convincing Western leaders to ramp up sanctions on Russia and accelerate weapons supplies for Ukraine.
If Putin were to come to trial, his unravelling may turn out to have begun with his inability to understand his army's weaknesses and Ukraine's strengths. Failure to fulfil his first major objective, the capture of Kyiv, forced his troops to retreat, leaving their tide of terror exposed.
Russian defense officials claimed photos and videos that emerged on April 2, showing murdered civilians -- shot in the head, some with their hands and legs bound -- were fake, saying their troops left before the killings occurred. "The troops left the city on March 30," the defense ministry said in a statement. "Where was the footage for four days? Their absence only confirms the fake."
They were very clear about the date. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, one of Putin's most seasoned spin masters, doubled down on the clumsy cover-up, insisting "Russian forces left the Bucha town area as early as the 30th of March."
But publicly available satellite images from space-tech company Maxar, taken March 18 while Russian troops were in control, showed the civilians lying dead at the road side in exactly the same locations as Ukrainian forces discovered them when they re-entered the town in early April. And drone video shot before March 10 showed a cyclist being shot and killed by Russian troops. Ukrainian forces found his body weeks later, exactly where he fell.
This Isn't Normal In War
Contrary to the apologists for such abuses, these sorts of atrocities are not simply an inevitable part of war. Studies have shown that states directly target civilians in roughly 1/5 to 1/3 of all armed conflicts – an unacceptably high figure, but one which highlights how most states, most of the time, make serious attempts to respect the legal principles of distinction and non-combatant immunity.
Everybody Hates Vlad the Invader
More than 9 in 10 Americans (92%) said they have little or no confidence in Putin's handling of world affairs, compared with 6% who said they had at least some confidence.
That is a drastic change from 16 years ago, when less than a majority of Americans -- 45% -- said they had little or no confidence in Putin, while one-third said they had at least some confidence. (In 2006, 22% didn't provide an answer, compared with just 1% in 2022.)
In a Pew poll from January, 49% of Americans described Russia as a "competitor," while 41% said Russia was an "enemy" of the United States. In March, 70% of Americans called Russia an enemy, while 24% said Russia was a competitor, according to Pew. (Another 3% saw Russia as a "partner," which, well, whaaaaaat?!?)
"Frozen Dollars" Sound Like Something You Can Spend in the Shops at Disney World
Russia is in imminent danger of default after the United States cut off the country's ability to pay its debt using frozen dollars sitting in American banks.
Western countries sanctioned about half of Russia's foreign reserves — roughly $315 billion — because of its invasion of Ukraine. Although the US Treasury had been allowing Russia to use some of its frozen assets to pay back certain investors in dollars, the Biden administration this week blocked the country from accessing its stockpiles.
That could force Russia to offer pay its debts in rubles — or not at all. Either action would constitute a default, Fitch Ratings said last month.
How Many Ukrainians Died While the Senate Dawdled?
The Senate is expected to vote on legislation Thursday that would suspend normal trade relations between the U.S. and Russia, a move that President Joe Biden called for in March.
Lawmakers will also vote on a bill to codify a ban on oil imports from Russia, which follows the Biden administration's implementation of those sanctions last month.
Negotiators had worked for several weeks on the measures, but some senators had delayed the process over objections to certain provisions. Those proposals included sanctions on Russian gold, a lend-lease agreement with Ukraine to provide the country with military aid and a broadening of sanctions of human rights abusers under the Magnitsky Act.
Stuck in a Morass With Low Morale and High Morbidity
Russian troops are struggling with supply lines and ebbing morale, according to the latest assessment of the Ukrainian war from British intelligence.
The ministry of defense tweeted: “Despite refocusing forces and logistics capabilities to support operations in the Donbas, Russian forces are likely to continue facing morale issues and shortages of supplies and personnel.”
Russian losses are certainly high. At the end of last month, NATO estimated that up to 40,000 soldiers had been killed, wounded, captured or missing in action. This number is expected to have increased in April as Ukrainians managed to push the Russians out of various cities, including Kyiv and Kharkiv.
Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby went even further than the ministry of defense, and expressed his belief that the Ukrainian troops can win the war this week.
He told reporters on Wednesday: “Mr Putin has achieved exactly zero of his objectives inside Ukraine.
“He didn’t take Kyiv. He didn’t topple the government. He didn’t remove Ukraine as a nation state.
“And, he’s really only taken control of a small number of population centers and even those weren’t the ones he was really going after.”
He pointed out even Mariupol has not been taken – “the proof is literally in the outcomes you are seeing every day.”
That's It! I'm Not Flying Utair Again!
The Biden administration moved Thursday to choke off U.S. exports to three Russian airlines as part of what officials described as an unprecedented enforcement action.
The Commerce Department said the move would prevent the airlines — Russian national flag carrier Aeroflot, Utair and Azur Air — from receiving items from the U.S., including parts to service their aircraft.
“Those restrictions are significant because it’s obviously difficult to keep flying if you can’t service your planes,” Matthew Axelrod, an assistant commerce secretary for export enforcement, told reporters.
The effect, he said, is that the sanctioned airlines “and their fleet of aircraft will, over time, largely be unable to continue flying, either internationally or domestically, as they are now cut off from the international support and the U.S. parts and related services they need to maintain and support their fleets.”
The actions, known as temporary denial orders, do allow the Commerce Department to grant exceptions when the safety of a flight would be at risk. The orders extend for 180 days, though they can be renewed.
The three airlines that were singled out had already violated U.S. government restrictions, and the actions were taken to prevent expected violations in the future, officials said.
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We Old Folks Have Another Reason to Want to Keep Living At Home
About 1.3 million Americans live in the country’s 15,000 nursing homes, where they are cared for by roughly 3 million staff members. As we write this, nearly 170,000 nursing home residents are estimated to have died from Covid-19. Many, many more were isolated from family and friends during the 20-month lockdown. Bed sores, severe weight loss, depression, and mental and functional decline have spiked among nursing home residents. And nurses, certified nurse aides, and others who work in these facilities, putting their own lives at risk, have worked in the most challenging of conditions without adequate pay or support.
Sadly, the care of nursing home residents and support for those providing that care have been long-standing issues. As we heard from a daughter and caregiver of two parents with dementia who needed nursing home care, “The pandemic has lifted the veil on what has been an invisible social ill for decades.”
President Biden recommended several reforms for nursing homes during his State of the Union address. These included minimum staffing standards, increased oversight, and better financial transparency. Although these provide a start, much more comprehensive and system-level action is necessary to transform this care in the United States.
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The Flu Doesn't Do This
Al-Aly and Yan Xie, an epidemiologist also at the VA St Louis Healthcare System, looked at the medical records of more than 180,000 people who had survived for longer than a month after catching COVID-19. They compared these with records from two groups, each of which comprised around four million people without SARS-CoV-2 infection who had used the VA health-care system, either before or during the pandemic. The pair previously used a similar method to show that COVID-19 increases the risk of kidney disease3, heart failure and stroke4.
The latest analysis found that people who had had COVID-19 were about 40% more likely to develop diabetes up to a year later than were veterans in the control groups. That meant that for every 1,000 people studied in each group, roughly 13 more individuals in the COVID-19 group were diagnosed with diabetes. (1.3%) Almost all cases detected were type 2 diabetes, in which the body becomes resistant to or doesn’t produce enough insulin.
The chance of developing diabetes rose with increasing severity of COVID-19. People who were hospitalized or admitted to intensive care had roughly triple the risk compared with control individuals who did not have COVID-19.
Even people who had mild infections and no previous risk factors for diabetes had increased odds of developing the chronic condition, says Al-Aly. Of the people with COVID-19 who avoided hospitalization, an extra 8 people out of every 1,000 studied had developed diabetes a year later compared with people who were not infected. People with a high body-mass index, a measure of obesity — and a considerable risk factor for type 2 diabetes — had more than double the risk of developing diabetes after a SARS-CoV-2 infection.
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We All Want to Put COVID Behind Us, But ...
1) Two new contenders for the dominant COVID variety within the Omicron lineage have emerged, with XE being calculated at 10% more transmissible than BA.2 and the mutated BA.2 + L452R just being discovered. The mutation at L452R is what made the Delta variant so transmissible and deadly.
2) The situation in Shanghai is getting increasingly dystopian and grim, with 26 million plus people in an indefinite lockdown. Can China save face when its Zero COVID policy is clearly no longer working in the megalopolis? There has been increasing pushback against the regime inside China. Watch this space.
3) The wave predicted by many consisting of the BA.2 variant of Omicron has failed to materialize in the USA. While BA.2 has established itself as the dominant strain, cases keep dropping and hospitalizations are at the lowest since right after Alpha and before Delta. This is excellent news for a COVID weary populace, but it has epidemiologists stumped. It is theorized that a paucity of data may be partially responsible as waste water starts to fill in the gaps.
4) People have been quick to declare the pandemic over, which is a problem once a new wave develops. However, the majority of people are reporting that they are still open to pandemic countermeasures on a personal level in a bit of cognitive dissonance. Anecdotally, only 1 in 8 to 1 in 10 are still wearing masks in my very liberal area.
5) The vaccines are alarmingly losing their efficacy against the onslaught of BA.2. Breakthrough infections are becoming alarmingly common once more, and although most of them still do not lead to hospitalization — it is only a matter of time before that changes. Every chance the virus has to mutate against the vaccines due to infection, the more likely our vaccines will not work.
6) Long COVID studies are coming out by the day. The news makes for very depressing reading, especially considering that most people have decided that the pandemic is over. Pulmonary embolisms are significantly more likely after COVID, and many other symptoms are increased in likelihood as well. There is something you can do that helps protect yourself even more… and it is a shocker!
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Tonight We're Going to Party Like It's 1968.
Jobless claims fell by 5,000 to 166,000 for the week ending April 2, the Labor Department reported Thursday — the lowest weekly figure since 1968.
The previous week's number was revised down by a whopping 31,000, thanks to a change in the Labor Department's reporting methods.
We're Going to Dance to Jumping Jack Flash and Watch Funny Girl.
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New Cases 7-Day Average | Deaths 7-Day Average | |
| Apr 6 | 26,595 | 496 |
| Apr 5 | 26,845 | 533 |
| Apr 4 | 25,537 | 537 |
| Apr 3 | 25,074 | 572 |
| Apr 2 | 25,787 | 576 |
| Apr 1 | 26,106 | 584 |
| Mar 31 | 25,980 | 605 |
| Mar 30 | 25,732 | 626 |
| Mar 29 | 25,218 | 644 |
| Mar 28 | 26,190 | 700 |
| Mar 27 | 26,487 | 690 |
| Mar 26 | 26,593 | 697 |
| Mar 25 | 26,874 | 705 |
| Mar 24 | 27,235 | 732 |
| Mar 23 | 27,134 | 753 |
| Mar 22 | 27,545 | 787 |
| Mar 21 | 28,657 | 861 |
| Mar 20 | 27,786 | 901 |
| Mar 19 | 27,747 | 909 |
| Mar 18 | 28,274 | 972 |
| Mar 17 | 29,317 | 1,035 |
| Mar 16 | 30,040 | 1,052 |
| Mar 15 | 30,934 | 1,107 |
| Mar 14 | 32,458 | 1,186 |
| Mar 13 | 34,113 | 1,187 |
| Mar 12 | 34,253 | 1,210 |
| Mar 11 | 34,805 | 1,198 |
| Mar 10 | 35,269 | 1,197 |
| Mar 9 | 37,146 | 1,179 |
| Mar 8 | 37,879 | 1,161 |
| Mar 7 | 40,433 | 1,208 |
| Mar 6 | 42,204 | 1,259 |
| Mar 5 | 43,665 | 1,281 |
| Mar 4 | 45,555 | 1,319 |
| Mar 3 | 49,888 | 1,413 |
| Mar 2 | 53,016 | 1,558 |
| Mar 1 | 56,253 | 1,674 |
| Feb 16, 2021 | 78,292 |
| At Least One Dose | Fully Vaccinated | % of Vaccinated W/ Boosters | |
| % of Total Population | 76.9% | 65.5% | 44.8% |
| % of Population 5+ | 81.7% | 69.6% | |
| % of Population 12+ | 86.5% | 73.9% | 46.4% |
| % of Population 18+ | 88.3% | 75.4% | 48.2% |
| % of Population 65+ | 95.0% | 89.0% | 67.2% |
California Precipitation (Updated Tuesday April 5)
There was some rain in the Nor Cal. A little more in the ten-day.
| Percent of Average for this Date | |
| Northern Sierra Precipitation | 74% (62% of full season average) |
| San Joaquin Precipitation | 66% (55%) |
| Tulare Basin Precipitation | 62% (53%) |
| Snow Water Content - North | 46% |
| Snow Water Content - Central | 55% |
| Snow Water Content - South | 52% |
COVID Cases Seem to Have Stopped Falling Around 10 Days Ago
This seems to be a sustainable level, since hospitals are not overloaded.
However, if we continue with 500 deaths a day, that is around 182,000 deaths per year, far worse than the 30,000 - 60,000 from the flu.
That is still FAR better than our peak of 3,700 deaths per day, which would be almost 1.4 million deaths per year. Of course, that was a peak, not a sustained rate.
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
Russians Keep Finding New Ways to Be Evil.
Clear evidence of Russian troops rounding up Ukrainian civilians and using them as human shields has been found by the BBC. In multiple interviews in Obukhovychi, villagers say they were taken from their homes at gunpoint and held in a school by Russians trying to stop advancing Ukrainian forces. Local people also gave accounts of Russian troops shooting civilians and holding others captive in and around Ivankiv, the neighbouring town.
On the night of 14 March, Russian soldiers in Obukhovychi were under attack and losing men and armoured vehicles. The Ukrainians were regaining territory.
We have now managed to speak to many people about what happened that night. They all told us the same stories about 24 hours that traumatised the village.
Families described how the Russians went door-to-door, rounded them up at gunpoint, and marched them to the local school - where the Russian forces used them as protection.
None of This Makes Sense.
The trial in Turkey of 26 Saudi nationals accused over the notorious murder of dissident Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in 2018 has been halted.
A judge said the case would now be handed over to Saudi Arabia, which had refused to extradite the suspects.
Khashoggi's fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, said she would fight on.
The Washington Post journalist was killed inside the Saudi consulate after being lured there. His murder by Saudi agents sparked worldwide outrage.
A Saudi court convicted eight unnamed people over the murder in 2019.
Thursday's ruling comes after Turkey's justice minister agreed to a prosecutor's request to stop the trial on the grounds that it was impeded by the absence of the defendants. The prosecutor said Saudi judicial authorities had promised to evaluate the accusations against them.
The move however has been lambasted as a whitewash by human rights campaigners.
Amnesty International's Turkey official Milena Buyum said it was an "appalling and clearly political decision".
WTF?
Man who lived in daughter's Sarah Lawrence College dorm room convicted of sex trafficking, forced labor and other federal crimes
The father who lived in his daughter's college dorm room has been convicted of sex trafficking, forced labor, tax evasion and money laundering after less than a day of jury deliberations, the US Attorney's Office of the Southern District of New York announced Wednesday.
"Twelve years ago, Larry Ray moved into his daughter's dorm room at Sarah Lawrence College," US Attorney Damian Williams said in the news release. "And when he got there, he met a group of friends who had their whole lives ahead of them. For the next decade, he used violence, threats, and psychological abuse to try to control and destroy their lives. He exploited them. He terrorized them. He tortured them. Let me be very clear. Larry Ray is a predator. An evil man who did evil things."
He extorted payments from victims after getting them to make false confessions about causing damages to him, his family and associates, according to the indictment. Victims drained their parents savings, opened credit lines and sold real estate ownership to pay Ray. He also directed the victims to do unpaid labor for him and earn money for him through prostitution.
Ray forced one woman to engage in commercial sex acts to pay damages to Ray -- money she never owed, according to the US Attorney's Office. Ray groomed her when she was a college student and collected sexually explicit photos and other information to coerce her to commit more commercial sex acts, the office said.
In one instance of Ray's alleged brutality, he tied the woman to a chair, put a plastic bag over her head and nearly suffocated her, according to the indictment. He collected millions of dollars of forced prostitution proceeds from this victim, according to the US Attorney's Office.
Molasses Merrick Isn't Just Slow. He's Getting in the Way
The Justice Department is blocking the National Archives from sharing details with Congress on 15 boxes of records, including classified information that former President Donald Trump took to Mar-a-Lago after leaving office, the clearest indication yet that the matter is under investigation.
In a letter that the House Oversight Committee disclosed Thursday, Archives General Counsel Gary Stern said the agency was unable to respond to the panel's request for more information pertaining to its own investigation into the Mar-a-Lago boxes, based on the Archives' "consultation" with the Justice Department.
After receiving the March 28 letter from the National Archives, also known as NARA, House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat from New York, reached out to Attorney General Merrick Garland requesting additional information as to why the Justice Department is preventing the Archives from cooperating with the panel.
The AXOS of Evil
Donald Trump used to bank with the big guns. Now he’s borrowing from Axos Financial, an obscure, internet-only institution based in San Diego and Las Vegas.
In mid-February, Axos refinanced a $100 million Trump Tower mortgage due in September, a New York City Finance Department document shows. The new loan was made just days after The Trump Organization’s auditor resigned, saying that 10 years of the company’s financial statements could not be relied upon.
In lending to The Trump Organization, Axos is stepping up when other banks have balked. But this is not unheard-of for Axos. An examination of legal filings, internal documents and land records shows Axos has a history of handling atypical loans.
Axos has teamed up with nonbank lenders on loans to small businesses that carried cripplingly high double- and triple-digit effective annual interest rates, loan documents show. The bank has also specialized in loans to foreign nationals, internal documents and its website state, and has offered a type of loan that allows borrowers who paid cash for a property to turn around and instantly take money out. Such loans may pose money laundering risks, banking analysts say.
The bank has also been sued by two former employees who say they were wrongfully fired after they raised questions about its practices. On March 21, Jennifer Brear Brinker, hired in 2018 to review the bank’s loan portfolios for its Governance, Risk Management and Compliance Department, filed suit against Axos in federal court in California.
Brinker accused the bank of intentionally understaffing its compliance department “in an effort to conceal its failure to comply with federal banking regulations” and contends she was terminated in January 2021 while completing a report highlighting deficiencies at Axos including “significant issues in the bank’s anti-money laundering practices.”
Apparently the White House is Opaque to Lindsey
More From Steve
That Didn't Take Long. He'll Never Give Up His Principles ... Unless It Starts Costing Him.
Infowars host Alex Jones completed two days of depositions in a defamation lawsuit filed by families of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, court documents filed Wednesday show.
Connecticut Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis last week found Jones in contempt for failing twice to attend depositions on March 23 and 24.
She ordered him to pay daily fines amounting to tens of thousands of dollars for every day he didn't provide the sworn testimony. According to Wednesday's filing, Jones paid $75,000 — $25,000 on Friday and $50,000 on Monday.
At Least He Wasn't Blinded by Science
A Texas middle school teacher who burned a student when she put hand sanitizer on his hands and lit them on fire as part of a science experiment has resigned.
Granbury police said they responded to Granbury Middle School Friday "for a report of a student who had been burned on campus."
Investigators determined that a 37-year-old teacher "put hand sanitizer in the hands of a 12-year-old male student and lit the hand sanitizer as part of a science experiment," police said.
The experiment had been "done multiple times throughout the day with other students without incident," according to police. But the 12-year-old suffered possible third-degree burns on his hands. His condition was unknown Thursday.
Another Good Defense? He Never Had Any Good Defenses.
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon cannot argue at his trial that he is not guilty of contempt of Congress because he was following the advice of his lawyer, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols said such a defense is not available in a contempt of Congress case, dealing Bannon’s defense a major setback. He faces trial in July.
“It’s a serious blow, because he doesn’t have another good defense,” said Joyce Vance, a former federal prosecutor. “He’ll now have to make a decision about whether to proceed to trial or try to cut some kind of deal.”
A federal grand jury indicted Bannon in November on two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. One count accused him of refusing to appear for a deposition, and the other was for declining to produce documents requested by the committee.
They Should Replace Flag Lapel Pins With "I'm For Sale" Signs.
A handful of Republicans have introduced a bill that would prevent President Biden from taking substantive steps to address the climate crisis. Dubbed the “Real Emergencies Act,” the bill claims it attempts to “clarify the inability of the president to declare national emergencies under the National Emergencies Act, major disasters or emergencies under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, and public health emergencies under the Public Health Service Act on the premise of climate change, and for other purpose.”
What it really does is offer a cheat sheet on lawmakers absolutely loaded with campaign contributions from the very industry that threatens us most. Sen. Shelley Capito of West Virginia, who along with 10 other senators introduced the bill on Wednesday, has netted nearly $1 million from oil and gas and coal mining industry donations since taking office.
For Putin, Things Go Better With Koch. He'll Have a Koch and a Smile. He'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (in Russian).
Judd Legum at Popular Information has another damning exclusive report demonstrating how deep into Russia the Koch conglomerate of intertwined corporate and political interests really is. He obtained an internal email from one the network’s influential nonprofits, Stand Together, that argues the U.S. needs to deliver a partial “victory” to Russia in Ukraine. Perhaps not so coincidentally, the Koch network’s corporate and nonprofit opposition to sanctions on Russia happened at the same time congressional Republicans began obstructing them.
Koch Industries, the multinational conglomerate run by right-wing billionaire Charles Koch, is uncharacteristically making national news this week by remaining one of few Western companies to continue operations in Russia. The Koch operation generally flies under the radar of traditional media—which works just fine for all concerned, they prefer a low profile—but after Legum’s newsletter broke the story, pressure built on Koch Industries to respond.
The Koch group was forced to issue a statement on March 16 explaining—and doubling down on—the decision to keep their operations in Russia going. That same day, the email Legum has uncovered was sent by the supposedly independent think-tank internally. That raises some serious questions about how dependent upon Koch Industries profits the supposedly nonprofit side of the operation is.
Is Jimmy Kimmel Going to Hunt Her Down and Slap Her? Or is He Going to Hire Will Smith for the Hit?
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican who liked social media posts about executing prominent Democrats, said Wednesday she had reported comedian Jimmy Kimmel to the U.S. Capitol Police for making a slap joke about her.
During his monologue on Tuesday night, Kimmel ridiculed Greene for accusing three Republican senators of being “pro-pedophile” because they voted to confirm Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson.
“Wow, where is Will Smith when you really need him, huh?” Kimmel quipped, referring to the actor who slapped comedian Chris Rock onstage at the Oscars last month.
“This threat of violence against me by @jimmykimmel has been filed with the @capitolpolice,” Greene tweeted, attaching a clip of the segment from “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
Why Were They Doing This? Somehow, It Seems Like Their Ultimate Goal was Something Pretty Bad
The U.S. Secret Service said on Thursday it has placed some of its personnel on administrative leave for allegedly accepting gifts including rent-free apartments from two men now facing criminal charges for posing as Department of Homeland Security special agents.
The Secret Service's announcement came a day after the U.S. Justice Department said it had arrested the two suspects, Arian Taherzadeh and Haider Ali, in Washington. Officials said their actions were exposed when the suspects gave false statements about being members of law enforcement to a U.S. Postal inspector investigating the March assault of a letter carrier.
According to the criminal complaint, Taherzadeh and Ali had posed as special agents since at least February 2020 and offered a variety of gifts to Secret Service members and at least one homeland security employee, including rent-free apartments valued at $40,000 a year, iPhones, surveillance systems, a drone, a flat-screen television, a case for storing an assault rifle, a generator and other law enforcement paraphernalia.
The FBI also said that Taherzadeh offered to purchase a $2,000 assault rifle for an agent assigned to protect First Lady Jill Biden and told other government officials they could have access to what he claimed were "official government vehicles."
Not Even the QOP Should Find This Surprising
Former President Donald Trump is sitting on more than $110 million in campaign cash at a time when his party is trying to win control of Congress — and it's starting to irk some in the GOP.
They are watching him rake in money from persistent email solicitations to the party's small-donor base and at VIP receptions connected to a full schedule of campaign-style rallies. And they see a man stockpiling a war chest for another presidential run instead of using his prowess to boost the party.
Through his "Save America" super PAC in support of Republicans, Trump doled out just $205,000 to 41 federal candidates through Feb. 28, the last date covered by his most recent campaign finance disclosure. The vast majority of that money has gone to Republicans running in safe seats, or against incumbents he detests, rather than competitive races likely to help determine which party wins the House and Senate in November's midterms.
In the weeks since the latest disclosure, Trump has endorsed a handful of additional candidates who are battling for swing seats. His endorsement typically comes with a check for $5,000 — the maximum direct contribution the super PAC can make.
Republican campaign veterans and Trump insiders say they are disappointed but not surprised by what they describe as a combination of stinginess and selfishness by the former president.
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees
The Good Old Days.
The Obama years were filled with strife, controversy and partisanship. But looking back, it’s clear what will be remembered. It won’t be Sarah Palin’s infamous “death panels” myth or even the dreadful rollout of the Healthcare.gov website. What will matter are the things that helped Americans survive a financial crash (for example, saving the car industry and stabilizing the financial industry) and gain health-care coverage. Destruction and chaos might generate temporary fervor among voters, but it’s building something sustainable that defines a politician.
Will He Pity the Fool Who Dies Unvaccinated? Don't You Love It When a Plan Comes Together?
I Love It When A Plan Comes Together in Boston
Boston plans to replace its entire fleet of more than 700 school buses with electric vehicles by 2030, starting with 20 buses that will be taking kids to school some time during the next school year, Mayor Michelle Wu said Wednesday.
The move to address climate change by reducing carbon emissions is the latest step in the city's Green New Deal, which includes a previously announced effort to convert much of its fleet of 1,200 vehicles — not including school buses or public safety vehicles — to zero-emissions vehicles.
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Invasions Have Consequences
Moscow's Gonna' Party Like It's 1929.
In December Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, said that inflation was “the main problem” for Russia’s economy and citizens. Today, the country’s greatest woe is its invasion of Ukraine, in which thousands of soldiers have already died. But inflation has not gone away. On the contrary, the war has sped it up to levels not seen since Russia’s financial crisis of 1998.
On March 23rd the government announced that consumer prices rose by 1.9% in the seven days to March 18th, following increases of 2.1% and 2.2% during the previous two weeks. In total, that brought inflation during the first 21 days of the war to 6.4%, compared with 0.8% in the 21 days preceding it. At the wartime rate, consumer prices would triple every year. Moreover, the inflation index assigns hefty weights to the prices of heating and petrol, which have been flat for weeks. Had they risen in line with the cost of fuel in global markets, inflation would have been even higher.
Surging demand and tightening supply have both played a role. As war broke out, fearful Russians stocked up on staple foods like sugar, flour and buckwheat. NielsenIQ, a research firm, estimates that between February 21st and March 6th retail sales of sugar, cereals and other non-perishable goods rose by 46% compared with a year earlier. Such panic buying, driven by viral photos of shoppers fighting over groceries, has led to shortages of what the government deems “socially important goods”. (Does that included Vodka?)
The Invasion WILL Be Televised
Drones, phones and satellite technology are exposing the truth about Russia's war in Ukraine in near real-time.
Russia's lies may be catching up with it faster than it ever imagined.
The war in Ukraine is defying President Vladimir Putin's expectations at every turn, not only with Russia's failure to capture Kyiv as planned but with the war crimes his soldiers are alleged to have committed in Bucha, a city close the capital, exposed for the world to see.
Satellite images of murdered civilians that match videos, recorded weeks later, of bodies at the roadside are providing compelling evidence of Russian war crimes, convincing Western leaders to ramp up sanctions on Russia and accelerate weapons supplies for Ukraine.
If Putin were to come to trial, his unravelling may turn out to have begun with his inability to understand his army's weaknesses and Ukraine's strengths. Failure to fulfil his first major objective, the capture of Kyiv, forced his troops to retreat, leaving their tide of terror exposed.
Russian defense officials claimed photos and videos that emerged on April 2, showing murdered civilians -- shot in the head, some with their hands and legs bound -- were fake, saying their troops left before the killings occurred. "The troops left the city on March 30," the defense ministry said in a statement. "Where was the footage for four days? Their absence only confirms the fake."
They were very clear about the date. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, one of Putin's most seasoned spin masters, doubled down on the clumsy cover-up, insisting "Russian forces left the Bucha town area as early as the 30th of March."
But publicly available satellite images from space-tech company Maxar, taken March 18 while Russian troops were in control, showed the civilians lying dead at the road side in exactly the same locations as Ukrainian forces discovered them when they re-entered the town in early April. And drone video shot before March 10 showed a cyclist being shot and killed by Russian troops. Ukrainian forces found his body weeks later, exactly where he fell.
This Isn't Normal In War
Contrary to the apologists for such abuses, these sorts of atrocities are not simply an inevitable part of war. Studies have shown that states directly target civilians in roughly 1/5 to 1/3 of all armed conflicts – an unacceptably high figure, but one which highlights how most states, most of the time, make serious attempts to respect the legal principles of distinction and non-combatant immunity.
Everybody Hates Vlad the Invader
More than 9 in 10 Americans (92%) said they have little or no confidence in Putin's handling of world affairs, compared with 6% who said they had at least some confidence.
That is a drastic change from 16 years ago, when less than a majority of Americans -- 45% -- said they had little or no confidence in Putin, while one-third said they had at least some confidence. (In 2006, 22% didn't provide an answer, compared with just 1% in 2022.)
In a Pew poll from January, 49% of Americans described Russia as a "competitor," while 41% said Russia was an "enemy" of the United States. In March, 70% of Americans called Russia an enemy, while 24% said Russia was a competitor, according to Pew. (Another 3% saw Russia as a "partner," which, well, whaaaaaat?!?)
"Frozen Dollars" Sound Like Something You Can Spend in the Shops at Disney World
Russia is in imminent danger of default after the United States cut off the country's ability to pay its debt using frozen dollars sitting in American banks.
Western countries sanctioned about half of Russia's foreign reserves — roughly $315 billion — because of its invasion of Ukraine. Although the US Treasury had been allowing Russia to use some of its frozen assets to pay back certain investors in dollars, the Biden administration this week blocked the country from accessing its stockpiles.
That could force Russia to offer pay its debts in rubles — or not at all. Either action would constitute a default, Fitch Ratings said last month.
How Many Ukrainians Died While the Senate Dawdled?
The Senate is expected to vote on legislation Thursday that would suspend normal trade relations between the U.S. and Russia, a move that President Joe Biden called for in March.
Lawmakers will also vote on a bill to codify a ban on oil imports from Russia, which follows the Biden administration's implementation of those sanctions last month.
Negotiators had worked for several weeks on the measures, but some senators had delayed the process over objections to certain provisions. Those proposals included sanctions on Russian gold, a lend-lease agreement with Ukraine to provide the country with military aid and a broadening of sanctions of human rights abusers under the Magnitsky Act.
Stuck in a Morass With Low Morale and High Morbidity
Russian troops are struggling with supply lines and ebbing morale, according to the latest assessment of the Ukrainian war from British intelligence.
The ministry of defense tweeted: “Despite refocusing forces and logistics capabilities to support operations in the Donbas, Russian forces are likely to continue facing morale issues and shortages of supplies and personnel.”
Russian losses are certainly high. At the end of last month, NATO estimated that up to 40,000 soldiers had been killed, wounded, captured or missing in action. This number is expected to have increased in April as Ukrainians managed to push the Russians out of various cities, including Kyiv and Kharkiv.
Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby went even further than the ministry of defense, and expressed his belief that the Ukrainian troops can win the war this week.
He told reporters on Wednesday: “Mr Putin has achieved exactly zero of his objectives inside Ukraine.
“He didn’t take Kyiv. He didn’t topple the government. He didn’t remove Ukraine as a nation state.
“And, he’s really only taken control of a small number of population centers and even those weren’t the ones he was really going after.”
He pointed out even Mariupol has not been taken – “the proof is literally in the outcomes you are seeing every day.”
That's It! I'm Not Flying Utair Again!
The Biden administration moved Thursday to choke off U.S. exports to three Russian airlines as part of what officials described as an unprecedented enforcement action.
The Commerce Department said the move would prevent the airlines — Russian national flag carrier Aeroflot, Utair and Azur Air — from receiving items from the U.S., including parts to service their aircraft.
“Those restrictions are significant because it’s obviously difficult to keep flying if you can’t service your planes,” Matthew Axelrod, an assistant commerce secretary for export enforcement, told reporters.
The effect, he said, is that the sanctioned airlines “and their fleet of aircraft will, over time, largely be unable to continue flying, either internationally or domestically, as they are now cut off from the international support and the U.S. parts and related services they need to maintain and support their fleets.”
The actions, known as temporary denial orders, do allow the Commerce Department to grant exceptions when the safety of a flight would be at risk. The orders extend for 180 days, though they can be renewed.
The three airlines that were singled out had already violated U.S. government restrictions, and the actions were taken to prevent expected violations in the future, officials said.
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We Old Folks Have Another Reason to Want to Keep Living At Home
About 1.3 million Americans live in the country’s 15,000 nursing homes, where they are cared for by roughly 3 million staff members. As we write this, nearly 170,000 nursing home residents are estimated to have died from Covid-19. Many, many more were isolated from family and friends during the 20-month lockdown. Bed sores, severe weight loss, depression, and mental and functional decline have spiked among nursing home residents. And nurses, certified nurse aides, and others who work in these facilities, putting their own lives at risk, have worked in the most challenging of conditions without adequate pay or support.
Sadly, the care of nursing home residents and support for those providing that care have been long-standing issues. As we heard from a daughter and caregiver of two parents with dementia who needed nursing home care, “The pandemic has lifted the veil on what has been an invisible social ill for decades.”
President Biden recommended several reforms for nursing homes during his State of the Union address. These included minimum staffing standards, increased oversight, and better financial transparency. Although these provide a start, much more comprehensive and system-level action is necessary to transform this care in the United States.
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The Flu Doesn't Do This
Al-Aly and Yan Xie, an epidemiologist also at the VA St Louis Healthcare System, looked at the medical records of more than 180,000 people who had survived for longer than a month after catching COVID-19. They compared these with records from two groups, each of which comprised around four million people without SARS-CoV-2 infection who had used the VA health-care system, either before or during the pandemic. The pair previously used a similar method to show that COVID-19 increases the risk of kidney disease3, heart failure and stroke4.
The latest analysis found that people who had had COVID-19 were about 40% more likely to develop diabetes up to a year later than were veterans in the control groups. That meant that for every 1,000 people studied in each group, roughly 13 more individuals in the COVID-19 group were diagnosed with diabetes. (1.3%) Almost all cases detected were type 2 diabetes, in which the body becomes resistant to or doesn’t produce enough insulin.
The chance of developing diabetes rose with increasing severity of COVID-19. People who were hospitalized or admitted to intensive care had roughly triple the risk compared with control individuals who did not have COVID-19.
Even people who had mild infections and no previous risk factors for diabetes had increased odds of developing the chronic condition, says Al-Aly. Of the people with COVID-19 who avoided hospitalization, an extra 8 people out of every 1,000 studied had developed diabetes a year later compared with people who were not infected. People with a high body-mass index, a measure of obesity — and a considerable risk factor for type 2 diabetes — had more than double the risk of developing diabetes after a SARS-CoV-2 infection.
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We All Want to Put COVID Behind Us, But ...
1) Two new contenders for the dominant COVID variety within the Omicron lineage have emerged, with XE being calculated at 10% more transmissible than BA.2 and the mutated BA.2 + L452R just being discovered. The mutation at L452R is what made the Delta variant so transmissible and deadly.
2) The situation in Shanghai is getting increasingly dystopian and grim, with 26 million plus people in an indefinite lockdown. Can China save face when its Zero COVID policy is clearly no longer working in the megalopolis? There has been increasing pushback against the regime inside China. Watch this space.
3) The wave predicted by many consisting of the BA.2 variant of Omicron has failed to materialize in the USA. While BA.2 has established itself as the dominant strain, cases keep dropping and hospitalizations are at the lowest since right after Alpha and before Delta. This is excellent news for a COVID weary populace, but it has epidemiologists stumped. It is theorized that a paucity of data may be partially responsible as waste water starts to fill in the gaps.
4) People have been quick to declare the pandemic over, which is a problem once a new wave develops. However, the majority of people are reporting that they are still open to pandemic countermeasures on a personal level in a bit of cognitive dissonance. Anecdotally, only 1 in 8 to 1 in 10 are still wearing masks in my very liberal area.
5) The vaccines are alarmingly losing their efficacy against the onslaught of BA.2. Breakthrough infections are becoming alarmingly common once more, and although most of them still do not lead to hospitalization — it is only a matter of time before that changes. Every chance the virus has to mutate against the vaccines due to infection, the more likely our vaccines will not work.
6) Long COVID studies are coming out by the day. The news makes for very depressing reading, especially considering that most people have decided that the pandemic is over. Pulmonary embolisms are significantly more likely after COVID, and many other symptoms are increased in likelihood as well. There is something you can do that helps protect yourself even more… and it is a shocker!
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Tonight We're Going to Party Like It's 1968.
Jobless claims fell by 5,000 to 166,000 for the week ending April 2, the Labor Department reported Thursday — the lowest weekly figure since 1968.
The previous week's number was revised down by a whopping 31,000, thanks to a change in the Labor Department's reporting methods.
We're Going to Dance to Jumping Jack Flash and Watch Funny Girl.
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