The Week in News

The Delta variant is the big story. But are Republicans shifting their messaging to blaming Biden for Trump's mistakes?

Jul 18, 2021

The Delta variant continues to be the big story, with Covid cases and, most importantly, hospitalizations growing significantly in July. (Hospitalization matter more than cases, because mild cases are irrelevant — but only serious cases get hospitalized. So when you see a jump in hospitalizations, it means a jump in serious illness.)

Here are some national numbers:

Ryan Struyk @ryanstruyk

US coronavirus cases/day via @CNN: Right now: 30,887 cases/day 7 days ago: 18,489 cases/day 14 days ago: 13,562 cases/day 21 days ago: 10,525 cases/day

Missouri continues to be a hot mess, and even California isn’t doing well:

Peter H. Diamandis, MD @PeterDiamandis

COVID IS BACK IN LA. A friend of mine (a medical resident at UCLA) admitted over 12 people with COVID last night (all very serious cases). In her words, "it was too deja vu. I think the US is in for a really rough end of the year."... GET VACCINATED ***PLEASE*** @CovidVaccineLA

Here’s a thread on Missouri, click through to read all of it:

Ed Yong @edyong209

🚨I wrote about what Delta is doing to Missouri. Some hospitals have accrued as many COVID-19 patients in 5 weeks as they got in 5 months last year. Almost all those patients are unvaccinated. HCWs can't believe they're being overwhelmed *again*. 1/ theatlantic.com/health/archive…

theatlantic.comDelta Is Driving a Wedge Through MissouriFor America as a whole, the pandemic might be fading. For some communities, this year will be worse than last.

And Florida has quickly become Covid Central, again:

John Aravosis 🇺🇸🇬🇷🏳️‍🌈 @aravosis

And Florida only accounts for 6% of the US population.

Rick Wilson @TheRickWilson

Heckuva job, Ron White House: Florida accounts for 20 percent of all new COVID-19 infections https://t.co/xx14Lt529k

As for GOP messaging around Covid, I’m sensing a shift from “it’s a hoax that isn’t that deadly” to “oh my God, it’s killing everyone and Biden is to blame!” It’s subtle, and maybe I’m wrong, but I’m sensing a change in message from the online social media trolls and from some Republicans in Congress.

For example, Louisiana US Senator Bill Cassidy is now blaming Biden’s “partisanship” for low vaccination rates in Louisiana. As if!

Aaron Rupar @atrupar

Asked about Louisiana's low vaccination rate, Sen. Bill Cassidy blames the White House's alleged "incredibly partisan statements" for the fact his constituents don't trust officials when they say the vaccine is safe (this receives no pushback from Chris Wallace)

Then there’s this from the National Review. If only Democrats were nicer to Trump voters.

National Review @NRO

Vaccine resisters can’t be persuaded if they feel disrespected | Opinion by @michaelbd

nationalreview.comConvincing the Skeptics | National ReviewVaccine resisters can’t be persuaded if they feel disrespected.

Call me crazy, but normal people don’t care if the guy throwing you a life preserver is showing sufficient “respect.” (I WAS going to let you save my life, but now I’m going to drown because I’ve thought about it, and you’ve been a little TOO insistent about stopping me from killing myself.)

In other news, sharks can’t be persuaded if they feel disrespected:

New York Post @nypost

Shark advocates call for rebranding violent attacks as 'interactions' trib.al/H0zzgGU

I’ve also seen a number of social media trolls shift from their usual talking point — that Covid “only” kills 2% of the people who get it, to “Biden has killed more people than Trump!”

First, the 2% claim. It sounds about right, but it’s hiding a simple fact that 2% deaths from a virus is an incredibly high number (the flu has around 0.1% deaths, that’s 20x less deadly). Think about it. Two percent of the US population is nearly 7 million people dying in one year. The flu normally kills up to 60,000 in a year. Seven million is is more deaths than the number of Jews Hitler killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust. It’s 15x the number of dead, on both sides, during the Civil War. It’s seventeen times the US war dead in World War II.

And, considering the normal number of Americans who die annually — a little under 3 million — adding 7 million more deaths in that same year would triple the number of dead we normally see in our country on an annual basis.

Losing 7 million Americans overnight is not “no big deal.

Now, as for Biden being responsible for those who have died — yeah, not so much. 400,000 American died from Covid under Trump. Another 200,000 have died under Biden. So right there, Trump does worse than Biden. But Covid deaths were accelerating as Trump left office, because Trump did such a horrible job with vaccine roll out, but he also mocked social distancing and mask wearing. It was only after Biden turned things around that the death rate dropped. And now, the people dying are the unvaccinated, many of whom listened to the disinformation coming from Trump and the Republicans. So, again, it’s Trump’s fault.

As for where we go from here, France has taken a novel approach — banning people from public life if they don’t show they’re vaccinated:

Edouard Mathieu @redouad

Emmanuel Macron announced on Monday that a proof of vaccination (or a negative test) would very soon be needed to access public events, restaurants, cinemas, stations & airports… Since then, more than 2.2 million vaccination appointments have been booked in less than 48 hours.

President Biden has also upped the pressure on social media companies like Facebook, accusing them of “killing people” by tolerating anti-vaccine propaganda on their site. And here’s what White House press secretary Jen Psaki noted: