Unvaccinated

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Dr. Fauci said, that with 90 million Americans still not vaccinated, and even the vaccinated passing the virus to others, an alarming fact has arisen: You could unwittingly pass the COVID Delta variant on to an unvaccinated kid. Because more and more of them are getting sick.

The fact is however that many Americans could not give a damn about anyone but themselves. The days of personal sacrifice for the greater good of the country are long gone. All that remains seems to be a bullying mob mentality. Alexander the Great said, “Upon the conduct of each depends the fate of all.”

The nightmare of the former presidents mishandling of the pandemic did not end when he was voted out of office. Others hoping to fill his shoes follow his lead by listening to rumors instead of science based fact. America has developed a Neo Fascist Death Cult. Governors in Texas and Florida are literally blocking basic safety measures. Their anti mask mandate stances sicken school children in the name of parental freedom. People are willingly choosing to die and then begging for the vaccine when it is too late. Vaccines are free and readily available to all who want them.

The threat of home grown domestic terrorism continues to grow. The failure of the January 6 insurrection and the realization that the former president will not be reinstated as president is causing confusion and anger among the Q Anon fueled insane. The one thing they can do is to refuse to get vaccinated to assert their power and sense of freedom.

A new poll from the Economist and YouGov shows that some 30 percent of Republicans actually believe that the government put microchips inside the coronavirus vaccines to presumably track and otherwise control the American people.

Due to the Delta variant, the U.S. is now averaging 100,000 new COVID-19 infections a day, returning to a milestone last seen during the winter surge. The Delta wave may the the worst so far.

As the situation grows more dire, conservatives continue to sow disinformation along with mockery and distrust of proven methods of combating the disease, from masks to vaccines to social distancing. It is easy to see the results as their states become cesspools of disease and death. The world is in a free fall. Protect yourselves, this is far from over.

Two Americas

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Dr. Fauci said on an interview with Don Lemon of CNN, “When you have such a low level of vaccination superimposed upon a variant that has a high degree of efficiency of spread, what you are going to see among undervaccinated regions — be they states, cities or counties — you are going to see these individual types of blips. It’s almost like it’s going to be two Americas. You’re going to have areas where the vaccine rate is high, where more than 70% of the population has received at least one dose. When you compare that with areas where you may have 35% of the people vaccinated, you clearly have a high risk of seeing these spikes in those selected areas. The thing that’s so frustrating about this, Don, is that this is entirely avoidable, entirely preventable. If you are vaccinated, you diminish dramatically your risk of getting infected, and even more dramatically your risk of getting seriously ill. If you are not vaccinated, you are at considerable risk.”

In Florida Cruise ships have started sailing and unvaccinated guests are being allowed to board. Vaccinated guests, identified with special wristbands, get full run of the ship, while those unprotected from the virus won’t even be able to walk into the bar, casino, or spa. Since June there have already been cases of guests testing positive for COVID-19 while at sea. Two unvaccinated teenagers who tested positive and had to be flown back to the states from the Bahamas and  two asymptomatic guests testing positive on a ship from St. Maarten. Two vaccinated guests and one unvaccinated crew member on an Alaska cruise tested positive for COVID-19 as well.

The CDC recommends at least 95% of passengers and crew be vaccinated. However Florida’s governor Ron DeatSantis filed a lawsuit insisting that unvaccinated people must be allowed to sail. Norwegan Cruise Line is suing the state of Florida because of this ban on vaccine passports. The unvaccinated want total freedom and the vaccinated resent having to wear masks because unvaccinated lower class are on board. The only way to keep both sides happy is to insist that only vaccinated guests can go on the ships. Quite honestly anyone who wants to sail on a cruise death trap during a pandemic is insane. It turns out there are plenty of insane Americans.

Early Spike

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With COVID vaccines finally rolling out in a timely manner the tenancy of clueless governors is to assume the pandemic is over. The trouble is that the daily cases in America have plateaued at about 50,0000 to 60,000 cases a day which is similar to the case counts during last summer’s surge.

CDC officials warned a far more contagious variant of the coronavirus first identified in Britain (B.1.1.7) will likely become the dominant source of infection in the United States. Florida is leading the country with the most cases of the U.K. coronavirus variant. B.1.1.7 is about 50 percent more contagious than the original strain. This the virus can spread much faster and  cause more deaths than the original virus.

Dr. Fauci warned against early re-openings, he said, “We’re not in the end zone yet. And that’s one of the issues that when you plateau, there’s always the risk of a surge,” the top infectious disease expert added. Despite this warning, states like Texas and Mississippi have dropped mask mandates and opened 100%. President Joe Biden declared that every American should be eligible to get vaccinated by May 1, 2021. If everyone gets the first available vaccine tragedy can be averted. However about 49% the former president’s supporters have said they are against getting vaccinated. The former president and his wife were vaccinated in secret before leaving office. Fauci said he wishes the former President would use his popularity among Republicans to persuade more of his followers to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

Treading Water

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As of this writing the election for the President of the United States is still up in the air. Even if Joe Biden is elected into office, he will not take office until January 20, 2021. That means the United States will go through two more months with no leadership when it comes to handling the COVID-19 pandemic.

We as a nation have to tread water during a huge spike in COVID-19 cases. The worst is ahead of us. Waiting for the election results feels like dropping below the waters surface.

By late November to early December each state has its own deadline to certify the election. However, if ballot disputes, litigation or other factors delay the count, blowing this deadline doesn’t invoke a penalty in the presidential race.

December 8, 2020 is the safe harbor deadline. Congress can no longer challenge any state electors.

December 14, 2020 is the date when electors are required to meet in their states and cast their ballots for President.

December 23, 2020 the states electors are supposed to transmit their votes to Congress by this date.

January 3, 2020 the new Congress is sworn in.

January 20, 2021 the Constitution says a new presidential term begins.

So, until January 20, 2021 Trump is in charge and likely ignoring the pandemic as he always has. Over 100,000 American are now being infected each day, which is a new record, and death rates continue to rise as hospitals are strained to their breaking points. In recent weeks, Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci have become increasingly outspoken about the dangers of the president’s approach with the virus. Trump has pushed Birx and Fauci aside in favor of Dr. Atlas who is not an expert on infectious diseases and claimed masks do not work.  Masks do work, wear a mask.

If he’s elected, Biden’s COVID-19 advisory panel would work in parallel to President Trump’s diminished coronavirus task force. The task force would include former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler, New York University’s Dr. Celine Gounder, Yale’s Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, former Obama White House aide Dr. Zeke Emanuel and former Chicago Health Commissioner Dr. Julie Morita, who is now an executive vice president at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The team is expected to advise transition officials on managing the latest spike of Covid-19 cases, ensuring vaccines are safe, and protecting at risk populations. It is unclear how much this new task force can accomplish before the inauguration. The Biden transition team has also discussed contingency plans for the possibility that the Trump administration would refuse to cooperate and share information during a transition.

As of Election Day, the virus has killed more than 230,000 people in the U.S. and infected more than 9 million. In the 86 days until he inauguration, 100,000 more Americans will likely die from the virus if the president doesn’t shift course, said Dr. Robert Murphy, executive director of the Institute for Global Health at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, echoing estimates from other public health experts. Stay safe and keep treading water.

Rush to Donner Pass and a Hill of Beans

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Donald Trump who described himself as a “wartime president” wants Americans to adapt to the COVID-19 virus in his rush to open the economy before the November election. As he put it, “Americans are warriors in the fight to re-open the economy.” He pushes Americans into the workplace despite the risks to their health. As he said, “Will some people be affected? Yes,” and followed with, “Will some people be affected badly (Die)? Yes. But we have to get our country open, and we have to get it open soon (before the election).”

Rush Limbaugh mentioned the Donner Party as an example of how we should adapt to the virus. The Donner Party was trying to get to California over the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. They made the mistake of trying to make the trip in the middle of winter. They got to the peak and it got so bad that they had to turn to cannibalism to survive. According to Rush, the diaries of the leaders of the party had only one sentence about how cold it was, “It was a particularly tough winter.” It is just what it was. He said they didn’t complain about it because there was nothing they could do. They adapted by eating each other. Oh, just 45 of the 81 pioneers survived. They didn’t do such a good job of adapting.

Of course there is something we all can do and that is to wear a mask, social distance and wash hands regularly. That is adaptation. We don’t have to resort to cannibalism as suggested by Rush. The Trumps response is, let them eat beans. On July 9, 2020, Goya CEO Robert Unanue appeared at the White House and praised the president. This resulted in Trump’s critics calling to boycott the Goya brand. Trump and then his daughter Ivanka posed for a photos to promote the beans.

These idiotic and petty photos earned criticism from government ethics experts, who said that the product plugging violated anti-corruption rules. “As a pictorial representation of the Trump administration’s war on government ethics, both photos are perfectly clear,” wrote Walter Shaub, the former director of the U.S. Office of Governmental Ethics. “They scream ‘the rules don’t apply to us,’ a central message of the Trump administration from the start.” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, “If it’s Trump, it has to be corrupt.”

What is so sickening about “Beangate” is that this is the presidents priority as the COVID-19 virus has taken more than 137,000 American lives and is surging to higher case numbers every day. Trump has been undermining the work of his own infectious disease experts instead of doing everything in his power to combat the virus. Though largely sidelined by the president, Dr. Fauci said, “The problem is, since we started our baseline so high, as we tried to open up, what we saw was it went from 20,000 cases a day to 30, 40 50 and now we are hanging around 60,000. That’s untenable we have to turn that around.”

New data from the John’s Hopkins School of Public Health showed more than 75,000 new cases on July 18, 2020. That is the highest number of cases in a single day anywhere on earth. By current mortality estimates about 2,700 of those people will die. Nationwide cases are rising in 38 of 50 states. Miami-Dade Couunty in Florida is now out of ICU beds. Dr. Aline Marty said, “On a scale of 1 to 10, we are at maximum urgency, we need to turn this thing around right now.” Florida Governor Ron DuhSantis has still not issued a state wide mandate to wear masks. On July 16, 2020 Trump refused to wear a mask on his trip to Atlanta Georgia. He has more interest in pimping beans. Body bags and 14 refrigerator trucks are being sent to Texas to handle all the bodies.