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Patient readers, plenty more on the debate shortly. –lambert
Bird Song of the Day
Gray Catbird, Sapsucker Woods, Tompkins, New York, United States.
In Case You Might Miss…
- Kamala’s earrings.
- Do Covid tests work for the latest variants? Not immediately.
- Boeing should be kicked out of the Dow.
Politics
“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles
2024
Less than one hundred days to go!
Friday’s RCP Poll Averages:
I would say the bloom is off the rose for Harris, except for an upward blip in Georgia. Looks like the enormous liberalgasm afte the Convention was confined to party loyalists. The Kamala campaign must be sore as boils Trump is within striking distance, let alone tied with them. What could account for it? Perhaps that’s why the pivot to RussiaGate. Remember, however, that all the fluctuations — in fact, all the leads, top to bottom — are within the margin of error.
* * * Kamala (D): “Did Kamala Harris wear earpiece during debate with Donald Trump? What we know” [India Today]. “Many social media users claimed that the pearl earrings Kamal Harris wore were actually an audio earpiece, and she was being fed answers during the debate [,] a set of Nova H1 Audio Earrings, created by German startup NOVA Products…. However, some users highlighted that Kamala Harris was wearing a pair of Double Pearl Hinged Earrings from Tiffany & Co, which she has worn frequently…. After the 2020 presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, a similar claim circulated on social media, alleging that Biden wore a hidden earpiece.” • I’m so old I remember the same claim being made online about George W. Bush, who was said to be wearing a receiving device + antenna under his jacket (based on photos of lumps under his jacket). Big if true, but also a hardy perennial.
* * * Trump (R): World class trolling:
We’d like to announce that while we are not a hotel, we are a concept of a hotel.
— Four Seasons Total Landscaping (@TotalSeasons) September 11, 2024
For those who came in late, the Four Seasons Total Landscaping debacle in 2020.
* * * Kamala (D): Taylor Swift Endorses Kamala Harris: ‘I’ve Done My Research, and I’ve Made My Choice’” [Hollywood Reporter]. The deck: “The
superspreadingsongwritingbillionairesuperstar took to Instagram following Tuesday night’s debate to give Vice President Kamala Harris her highly influential endorsement, signing off her lengthy post, ‘With love and hope, Taylor Swift, Childless Cat Lady.’”
Realignment and Legitimacy
Double-think, but exponential:
It sure is something watching the same people who mourn and commemorate 9/11, also ended covid protocols that killed over 1 million Americans and are currently committing a genocide. The moral consistency is nonexistent.
— AshleyStevens (@The_Acumen) September 11, 2024
Syndemics
“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison
Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).
Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!
Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (dashboard); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).
Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).
Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).
Stay safe out there!
Vaccines: Covid
Having fought its way through the FDA, non-mRNA Novavax now has to fight the PBMs?
Got our appointments scheduled for Novavax this week!
Beyond the enormous barriers we’ve already faced…
☑️ CVS wasn’t accepting walk-ins (because “it’s Flu season” 👀 really?)
☑️ Novavax arrived at the pharmacy but it wasn’t listed on the form
☑️ Had to get tech to agree to…
— Dr. Sean Mullen (@drseanmullen) September 10, 2024
Testing and Tracking: Covid
“Do Covid Tests Work for Latest Variants? Yes, With Some Big Caveats” [Bloomberg]. ” I started to wonder: Are home Covid tests bad at detecting the latest variants? The short answer is no, the doctors I spoke with told me. But that answer comes with a big caveat. It turns out the way the immune system interacts with the virus these days means home tests may not turn positive until several days after you get sick. ‘That first negative test doesn’t mean you don’t have Covid,’ says Elizabeth Hudson, regional chief of infectious diseases at Southern California Permanente Medical Group. ‘We really noticed it earlier this year.’ Now, it can take several days for people with symptoms like mine to get a positive result from a home test, she says.
Here’s why: While gold-standard PCR assays detect minute quantities of virus, home antigen tests require a larger amount to turn positive. Early in the pandemic, viral levels peaked when symptoms appeared, says Nira Pollock, co-director of the Infectious Diseases Diagnostic Laboratory at Boston Children’s Hospital. But now that most people have at least some immunity, viral load peaks later…. In a study of 348 people with Covid that Pollock and her colleagues published last year, median viral load didn’t crest until around the fourth day of symptoms. The study estimated that home antigen tests would only detect around 30% to 60% of cases on the first day of symptoms, rising to 80% to 93% of cases on day four. In other words, there are lots of false negative tests early in the illness.” • So by all means keep going to work or school at the first sign of symptoms!
Elite Maleficence
“Zero-covid advocacy during the COVID-19 pandemic: a case study of views on Twitter/X” [Monash Bioethics Review]. From the Abstract: “The advocacy, , often appealed to emotions and values using anecdotes and strong criticism of authorities and other scientists.” The idea! Here is a brutal takedown of this paper, which will probably get a lot of traction because this is the stupidest timeline. Here is an entertainingly brutal takedown:
Kasper P. Kepp “has been engaged in the pandemic debate in Danish media and social media, where he has been critical of the studied zero-covid groups”
It’s wildly unethical to conduct a study *specifically* targeting entities you’ve personally had conflict with.
— Nick #RespiratorsFilterPathogens😷 Anderegg (@NickAnderegg) September 10, 2024
And more. Much more.
Social Norming
Propaganda works:
Covid-19 Gaslighting Bingo: Just a way to pass the time & realize we’re not alone. Inspired by all the back to school gaslighting.
First one to get a line wins! pic.twitter.com/g2kQVq9RoP
— chantzy (@chantz_y) September 11, 2024
“Stupid”:
A woman holding her toddler in a coffee shop filled with older people: “So the stupid nurse did a Covid test yesterday and it was positive and now [the toddler] has to miss three days in nursery”. Our CV member tightened her mask and left…
— Buckinghamshire Disability Service BuDS (@BuDs_UK) September 9, 2024
Sobriety vs. normalization and denial:
Perceptive. I am sympathetic to this view. However, in my view sobriety also demands restraining judgment over one’s fellows (“There but for the grace of God go I”) and this view comes perilously close to creating a two-tier society of the elect and the damned; something I tend to do myself! One of the great things about A.A. is that it created a method for sobriety that at least many have been able to travel; it’s a big ask, but the Covid Conscious community has not done that.
| Wastewater | |
| This week[1] CDC August 27 | Last Week[2] CDC (until next week): |
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| Variants [3] CDC August 31 | Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC August 31 |
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| Hospitalization | |
| ★ New York[5] New York State, data September 10: | National [6] CDC August 17: |
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| Positivity | |
| National[7] Walgreens September 9: | Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic August 24: |
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| Travelers Data | |
| Positivity[9] CDC August 19: | Variants[10] CDC August 19: |
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| Deaths | |
| Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11]CDC August 31: | Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12]CDC August 31: |
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LEGEND
1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.
2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”
NOTES
[1] (CDC) This week’s wastewater map, with hot spots annotated. Keeps spreading. NOTE The date seems to be wrong, but the number of sites has changed so this is new.
[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.
[3] (CDC Variants) KP.* very popular. XDV.1 flat.
[4] (ED) Down, but worth noting that Emergency Department use is now on a par with the first wave, in 2020.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Definitely down.
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). The visualization suppresses what is, in percentage terms, a significant increase.
[7] (Walgreens) Big drop continues!
[8] (Cleveland) Dropping.
[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Down. Those sh*theads at CDC have changed the chart so that it doesn’t even run back to 1/21/23, as it used to, but now starts 1/1/24. There’s also no way to adjust the time range. CDC really doesn’t want you to be able to take a historical view of the pandemic, or compare one surge to another. In an any case, that’s why the shape of the curve has changed.
[10] (Travelers: Variants) What the heck is LB.1?
[11] Deaths low, but positivity up.
[12] Deaths low, ED up.
Stats Watch
Inflation: “United States Consumer Price Index (CPI)” [Trading Economics]. “Consumer Price Index CPI in the United States increased to 314.80 points in August from 314.54 points in July of 2024. Consumer Price Index CPI in the United States averaged 124.59 points from 1950 until 2024, reaching an all time high of 314.80 points in August of 2024 and a record low of 23.50 points in February of 1950.”
Tech: “Google will now link to The Internet Archive to add more context to Search results” [9to5 Google]. “Google has partnered with The Internet Archive, a non-profit research library that, in part, stores and preserves massive portions of the web to be easily referenced later. This is done through the ‘Wayback Machine’ which can show a website or specific page as it existed on a previous date. Through this new partnership, Google will link directly to The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine for pages that you find in Search.”
Tech: Innovation:
Who did this 😂 pic.twitter.com/d1ITbdMNjV
— Jen Zhu (@jenzhuscott) September 10, 2024
Manufacturing: “Boeing should be kicked out of the Dow” [CNN]. “It’s a legitimate question if the aircraft maker still belongs in the blue-chip index. And it’s a question with only one correct answer: No. ‘If you want bellwether, strong balance sheet companies, they don’t check those boxes any longer,’ said Ron Epstein, aerospace analyst for Bank of America. ‘I don’t think Boeing has to be there.’… There are many problems at Boeing that make its continued presence in the index perplexing…. It hasn’t reported an annual profit since 2018… the company has become the subject of numerous federal investigations, as more than a dozen whistleblowers have come forward to warn of a company culture that put a failed attempt at profitability ahead of the quality and safety of its planes…. Its credit rating has fallen to the lowest rung of what is considered “investment grade” debt, and indications are that sometime relatively soon it will fall into junk bond status… ‘If not an albatross, it’s at least an anchor,’ said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist for CFRA Research.” • Ouch!
Manufacturing: “Starliner Suffers New Problems While Coming Back To Earth” [Futurism]. The deck: “We would not be surprised if Boeing were to divest the manned spaceflight business.” More: “On the one hand, according to NASA’s commercial crew program manager Steve Stich, it pulled off a ‘bullseye landing.’ On the other, the agency admitted that a new thruster had failed during its descent. The capsule also experienced a temporary blackout of Starliner’s guidance system during reentry. It’s an awkward situation for the space agency: would Starliner have been able to ferry NASA’s missing crew members in the end?”
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 40 Fear (previous close: 39 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 49 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Sep 11 at 1:51:10 PM ET.
Gallery
Key word being “effect”:
Snow Effect at Eragny pic.twitter.com/qM5Cx1ECH0
— Camille Pissarro (@artpissarro) September 11, 2024
I believe I saw this painting years ago at the Boston MFA. Putting my eye up close to the paint, I saw no white; the effect of white was created by the juxtapostion of other colors.
Who among us….
— Eric Alper 🎧 (@ThatEricAlper) September 7, 2024
Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From SR:
SR writes: “Blooming atop the gigantic cinder cone at Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho: rabbit brush (a member of the aster family).”
