The Week in News
Covid is the big story this week. It's on the march, regardless of GOP denial.
Lots of news this past week, with Covid really stealing most of the thunder. The Delta variant marches on. Lots of debate as to whether or not we need boosters yet — Pfizer is suggesting that we do (they just asked the FDA to approve one), whereas US government health experts are saying it’s not needed yet. So who knows.
The GOP war on Covid marches on. It’s hard to imagine Fox news being WORSE than it’s already been, but this past week, they got even worse. Multiple shows on Fox openly-mocked vaccines, and compared them to the Nazis (who are world-famous for trying to save millions of lives). Then Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Q) brought up the Nazis too, even though three weeks ago she promised she’d stop. Greene — and much of Fox News and the GOP — is upset that President Biden wants to send people door-to-door to urge the unvaccinated to get vaccinated, answering any questions they have and allaying any concerns. Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-Himbo) says that the door-to-door folks were going to force you to get vaccinated, and, for good measure, they might just take your guns and your Bibles too (he actually said that).
And finally, what’s his name, the new idiot from Texas who thinks he’s Rambo — oh, Dan Crenshaw! — was simply outraged that someone might come to his door to answer questions about Covid, and he suggested they’d better not.
And then, at the biggest of the year conservative conference, CPAC, this weekend, the crowd cheered an anti-vaxxer who said that the Biden administration had fallen short of its goal to vaccinate 70% of Americans with at least one dose by July 4th. They literally cheered.
Meanwhile, Delta is spreading nationwide, particularly in the lesser-vaccinated states. Missouri is a slow-rolling disaster, while the state’s Republican governor continues to insist there’s no problem.
Las Vegas now has a 10% Covid test positivity rate (meaning 10% of those tested are positive), which is considered quite high. There’s concern that with only 42% of Nevada’s population vaccinated — and who knows if the typical Vegas-goer would tend towards or away from vaccines — people are going to go to Vegas from around the country, get and share infections, then head back home and share it some more. The Fall could be a real mess.
There are also increasing stories of vaccinated people catching Delta, and it ain’t pretty. CNN had one guy on who had to be hospitalized. And writer John Pavlovitz’s entire family of four caught Covid a week ago while on vacation, even though both parents, and one teenage kid, were vaccinated (the 4th kid was under 12, so unvaccinated). The teenager had no symptoms, mom and the other kid had cold symptoms, while Pavlovitz what was akin to a bad flu that put him in bed for a week. Thanks to the vaccine he didn’t need hospitalization, but to get that sick after being vaccinated is scary.
And the big scary is whether having so many people unvaccinated — 55.8% of Americans have had at least one dose, while 48.2% are fully vaccinated — and a particularly high unvaccinated rate in more conservative parts of the country, will eventually lead to the creation of a new variant that can significantly evade the vaccine and cause serious illness, hospitalization and death among the vaccinated. Not to mention, wiping out the unvaccinated this Fall yet again, like it did last winter.
Here are the US’s lowest fully-vaccinated rates (those below 40% fully vaccinated):
Back to Marjorie Taylor Greene, she’s also claiming that nearly 6,000 Americans have died as a result of being vaccinated against Covid. She’s lying. The CDC says there’s not yet been established even one death attributed to the vaccine, while other says that perhaps the number of dead is three out of 330 million Covid vaccines administered to date — an infinitesimally small number. What Greene is doing is taking the number of people who died after having been vaccinated — every death gets reported, and then the scientists later figure out if it was Covid-related — and claiming that ALL of them died due to the vaccine.
Look, we’ve had 330 million vaccinations so far, with 183 million Americans (55.8%) getting at least one dose. At the same time, nearly 3 million Americans die every year from all causes, with 45% of the deaths being from cancer and heart disease. The math suggests that with more than half the country already getting one vaccine, roughly 1.5 million of those already vaccinated are going to die this year from other causes (i.e., half the population gets half of the annual deaths).
Thus is the stuff of conspiracies.
Other Stuff
Freaky boxes
Fox News & Trump still defending the Insurrection
Trump suckering people with his social media lawsuit
Big Clown is upset with CNN for being compared to Trump
Kid needs a leash, or a responsible parent
Sean Hannity may be an even bigger moron than Trump
And finally, this is very disturbing
Alrighty, that’s it for this week. I’ll be back tomorrow with a whole new week of news! Hope you enjoyed the weekend. JOHN