Team COVID-19

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Members of team COVID-19 do all in their power to deny, deflect and downplay the pandemic.They are doing everything in their power to kill anyone who listens to them.

Florida Governor Ron DeathSantis has been doing all he can to stop school boards from requiring mask mandates for children and he is also fighting against vaccine mandates for workers. He hired a new surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo who appeared in a Demon Sperm’ Doctor’s COVID Conspiracy Video. Ladapo has also promoted the anti-parasite medication ivermectin as a treatment for COVID-19 symptoms. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has advised against using ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment.

An unvaccinated Aaron Rogers lied to the press saying he was “immunized.” Rather than accepting medical advice from doctors he gets his advice from Joe Rogen, a podcaser who was also infected by COVID and treated himself with ivermectin. Rodgers justified being unvaccinated by speaking out against the highly effective vaccines and spewing a stream of misinformation and junk science. His misinformation will result in the deaths of football fans who believe his every word.

Paul Gosar who claims he was once a dentist has no idea how to wear a mask. As insurrectionists stormed the capitol building Gosar was droning on at the podium in the chamber with his mask sagging below his ample nose. Gosar wrote off our national catastrophe as something bordering on fake news, suggesting our interest in the pandemic will disappear after the election. As over 100 people continue to die each day from this virus, he is making anime style animation in which he violently kills a member of congress. I haven’t seen it and I don’t need to see it.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott is fighting OSHA’s vaccine and testing mandates in his state. Like DeathSantis he wrote an executing order banning mask mandates in schools. A judge rules that the governor’s order impedes children with disabilities from the benefits of public schools’ programs, services and activities, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Ted Cruz attacked Sesame Street’s Big Bird who expressed fears of getting vaccinated but bravely got vaccinated anyway. This is a fine example of the stupidity of political posturing in the COVID pandemic era.

Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota is known as the COVID Queen. She claimed that Covid was a Democratic plot to take over the country, masks were optional, and her state would always be open for business. She urged everyone to ride to her state for the Stugis motorcycle really twice during the pandemic. The first rally was proven to be a super spreader event that seeded the virus all over the country so the next year she decided to do it again.

President Jair Bolsanaro of Brazil seemed to follow the same COVID playbook f our last president. He has been accused of crimes against humanity. A report was drafted that outlines hat happens when a leader shows an utter disregard for human rights during a pandemic. Covid-19 killed more than 600,000 Brazilians, but thousands of those deaths could have been avoided, evidence presented in the report indicates. President  Bolsonaro spread false information about Covid-19, opposed social distancing, refused to wear masks, and routinely shook hands with crowds of supporters. His ultimate goal, the report concluded, was rapid contagion.

Sold Out Superspreader

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Globe Death Field in Arlington Texas will be the first Major League Baseball stadium to reopen at full capacity – roughly 40,000 seats – since the pandemic began. This decision was made one month after Texas Governor Greg Abbott ended the state’s mask mandate and insisted that businesses to reopen fully.

Everything is big in Texas including stupid. Half hearted measures will be in place for safety, like a gentle request that fans should wear masks except for while eating, guzzling beer and yelling. Over 38,000 fans packed the stands on opening day April 5, 2021.

“We made a commitment to everybody [season ticket holders] that they could hold tickets if we would allow them for the proper Opening Day,” executive vice president and chief revenue and marketing officer Joe Januszewski told MLB.com. “We’re going to honor that, so in order to do that, obviously we would be at a full capacity.”

When asked about the full capacity decision, President Joe Biden said, “They should listen to Dr. Fauci, the scientists and the experts. But I think it’s not responsible.” Biden warned about potential surges, citing the jumps in European nations that have reopened, and reiterated that vaccinations need to increase before businesses can reopen fully. “We have to get to the point where enough people have taken the vaccine, so we diminish the possibility for it to spread,” he said.

Texas ranked 47 out of all 50 states in percentage of the population to receive at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine. “I worry we’re in for the perfect storm. We’re lifting restrictions, the B.1.1.7 variant is here in a big way, and we’re lagging behind on vaccinations. None of that is good news,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, the Dean of Baylor College of Medicine. “We’re going to be in a much better shape in a couple of months from now. I don’t quite understand the urgency to lift restrictions.”

All Quiet on the Vaccine Front

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With vaccines slowly rolling out there is light at the end of the tunnel. My great great grandfather Augustus Arthur Thorspecken served in WWI and his army camp in Kansas was where Spanish flu broke out in America. I started to wonder what it must have been like for him at the end of the war as he hoped to avoid the flu and the final days of battle. Knowing the war was ending some soldiers let their guard down and that resulted in death.

All Quiet on the Western Front featured a soldier who was an artist and on the final day of battle he saw a butterfly. As he was distracted by the butterfly’s beauty he stood and was shot dead by a sniper from the enemy trenches.

As vaccines become available some state mayors have lost patience with mask mandates and trying to keep constituents safe. With only about 6% of people vaccinated there is no herd immunity. Only after about 70 to 95% or more of the population is vaccinated will it become safer to reopen state economies fully. Texas and Mississippi have decided to fully open which is a death sentence for people who will be subjected to new strains of the virus which will go unchecked. I had hoped that stupidity would end when the ex-president left office but there is plenty of stupid to go around.

We are all experiencing some form of pandemic fatigue but the solution is not to run into a machine gun firing line. Texas Governor Greg Abbott ignored the advice of health experts as he lifted his state’s mask mandates. Texas has had COVID deaths so far. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves announced March 22, 2021 that he’s lifting all state-imposed mask mandates and removing COVID-19 related restrictions on business operations. Mississippi has had COVID deaths so far. Of course I live in Florida and it is up to individuals to try and protect themselves from ignorant state leadership. Florida has had COVID deaths so far. Wear a mask, social distance and wash your hand often. State governors are trying to kill you.

Mad Mask Abbott

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Texas Governor Mad Max Greg Abbott announced on March 2, 2021 that the states mask mandate would be lifted and all business could open at 100% capacity starting March 10, 2021. The CDC had warned the day before that states should not ease public health safety restrictions. As of March 1, 2021, only 6.57% of Texans have been fully vaccinated, according to Johns Hopkins University.

COVID case numbers have fallen since the insanely high numbers of January driven by the holidays, New Years Eve and the Super Bowl. However the number of new cases have leveled off at about the worst of the summer surge which was the worst imaginable horror at the time. Since new cases of COVID-19 have been leveling off at about 50,000 new cases a day, there is a risk that there could be a 4th wave driven by states lifting health guidance too early. New variants of the virus are spreading and some are resistant to the vaccines being distributed. In Brazil, people who recovered from the COVID virus at the beginning of the pandemic are getting re-infected. The second infections are more severe and deadly.

A team of researchers in Houston, Texas, has sequenced the genomes of SARS-CoV-2 isolated from 20,400 COVID-19 patients treated at a single health system there, and they’ve found cases of all the major variants that public health experts say could increase the transmission of the virus or the severity of infection.

Ironically President Joe Biden‘s fast vaccine roll out is partly the cause of governor Abbott letting his guard down. President Joe Biden slammed Abbott on March 3, 2021 for putting lives at risk by clinging to “Neanderthal thinking” rather than heeding advice from the nation’s top scientists. “I think it’s a big mistake,” Biden told reporters during an Oval Office meeting with lawmakers. “We are on the cusp of being able to fundamentally change the nature of this disease because of the way in which we’re able to get vaccines in people’s arms….The last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking that in the meantime, everything’s fine, take off your mask. Forget it. It still matters.”

Biden noted the death toll, 511,874 Americans at last count. “We’re going to lose thousands more…. We’ll not have everybody vaccinated until sometime in the summer,” Biden said. “It’s critical, critical, critical, critical that they follow the science. Wash your hands, hot water. Do it frequently, wear a mask and stay socially distanced. … I wish the heck some of our elected officials knew it.” To date, Texas has lost 43,266 lives.

“We at the CDC have been very clear that now is not the time to release all restrictions,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, asked about Texas’ change of policy during a White House briefing. “The next month or two is really pivotal in terms of how this pandemic goes.”

No Facemasks Allowed

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Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared a state of disaster Due to COVID-19 on March 13, 2020 and the Texas Department of State Health Services declared a public health disaster six days later for the first time since 1901. Counties, cities, and other local jurisdictions began implementing stay-at-home and shelter-in-place orders as the virus spread throughout March. The state remained locked down for two months. Abbott and his administration began directing a “reopening” of the state’s economy in April, 2020.

In May of 2020 Liberty Tree Tavern in Texas had a sign up that read, “No Face Masks Allowed“. Neighbors in Elgin, Texas were still wearing masks outside, even after it was no longer mandated by the county. The tavern owner did not think such a response was necessary, he said, and he wanted to push back. Many stores and restaurants across the country took the opposite approach asking patrons to wear masks, even kicking out those who fail to comply.

In the emergent political war over masks, a handful of businesses are fashioning themselves as fortresses for the resistance. If the bar is only allowed to be at 25 percent capacity, then he didn’t want those 25% to be sheep,”  “Being scared all the time isn’t good for your health. It suppresses your immune system.” he said. Bartenders need to see their customers’ faces to check IDs and make sure no one gets served too many drinks, he argued. Anyone with the virus, including those who are asymptomatic, should not be coming out to begin with. Besides, he asked: How are you supposed to down a beer with a bandanna stretched across your lips? One customer’s son, who has intellectual disabilities, was allowed to keep his mask on.

Bars create a risky combination of tight quarters, young adults unbowed by the fear of illness and, in some instances, proprietors who don’t enforce crowd limits and social distancing rules. Texas alcohol licensing board suspended the liquor licenses of 17 bars after undercover agents observed crowds disregarding emergency rules that required patrons to keep a safe distance from one another and limit tavern occupancy. Bars are tailor-made for the spread of the virus, with loud music and a cacophony of conversations that require raised voices. The alcohol can impede judgment about following rules meant to prevent contagion.

June 26, 2020 Texas Governor Greg Abbott had to order all bars closed for a second time because of a huge spike in COVID-19 cases. “At this time, it is clear that the rise in cases is largely driven by certain types of activities, including Texans congregating in bars,” Abbott said in a news release. “The actions in this executive order are essential to our mission to swiftly contain this virus and protect public health.” “If I could go back and redo anything, it probably would have been to slow down the opening of bars, now seeing in the aftermath of how quickly the coronavirus spread in the bar setting,” he said during an  interview with KVIA in El Paso.

Texas hospitals are running out of drugs, beds, ventilators and even staff. Short-staffed hospitals in Midland and Odessa have had to turn away ailing COVID-19 patients from rural West Texas facilities that can’t offer the care they need. And epidemiologists say the state’s hospitals may be in for a longer, harder ride than places like New York, where hospitals were stretched to capacity in the spring and some parked refrigerated trailers outside to store bodies of people who died from COVID-19. On  July 10, 2020 a patient in his 30’s who attended a coronavirus party later became seriously ill. The patient said to his nurse before dying, ‘I think I made a mistake, I thought this was a hoax, but it’s not,’ said Methodist Healthcare’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jane Appleby.

They Know Not What They Do

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Vice President Mike Pence took a trip to Texas where he visited the First Baptist Church in Dallas on Sunday June 28, 2020. A choir of more than 100 people performed without masks spraying each other and the audience with aerosolized droplets which spread COVID-19.  According to organizers, nearly 2,200 people attended the Celebrate Freedom Rally.

Studies have suggested that COVID-19 can spread through respiratory droplets in the air that can linger inside buildings. High-powered vocalizations, for instance loud talking or singing, are particularly efficient in producing these tiny particles. Other choir-linked outbreaks have occurred in Britain, Germany and the Netherlands.

Throughout the service, the members of the choir sang at full volume, behind an orchestra. I really feel bad for the orchestra who would have gotten the full force of the fire hose. Singers were not six feet apart. The audience packed in a few rows back were also not practicing social distancing. Face masks at the event were “strongly encouraged,” with signs posted around the venue signaling the suggestion. Perhaps 50% of the audience took the suggestion while some wore the masks incorrectly. The choir put their masks on between songs which is counter intuitive since the singing is the best way to spray the virus into the venue. Secret Service agents must have known to place the Vice President off to the side rather than being seated front and center. The indoor service lasted for about one and a half hours.

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an outbreak in a 122-member choir in Washington state. 86% of singers that attended that one rehearsal contracted the deadly virus. At that 2.5-hour choir practice attended by 61 persons, including an symptomatic patient, there were 32 confirmed and 20 probable secondary COVID-19 cases that occurred. Three patients were hospitalized, and two died.

In an interview Pence said that “people should listen to state and local officials on wearing masks in public, every state has a unique situation.” Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott opened his state early. The state has become a hot spot for the spread of the virus in recent weeks and he has had to reverse his position by requiring bars to close, putting restrictions on outdoor gatherings, and scaling back restaurant dining to help stop the spread.

The CDC initially recommended that churches consider suspending or at least decreasing the use of a choir and congregants singing during services. The CDC asserted that “The act of singing may contribute to transmission of Covid-19, possibly through emission of aerosols.” They have had to soften their language by “suggesting” or asking people to please “consider” life saving measures. Late last month however, the agency quietly removed that guidance from its website. According to The Washington Post, the White House requested that change.

I actually got sick to my stomach working on this illustration. I went into the bathroom and dry heaved. I am being physically affected by blatant the irresponsibility I see all around me. I scrubbed the bowl while kneeling before it. That is when the image of the Exorcist pea soup fire hose effect hit me. It occurred to me that Trump uses the same distraction technique when he doesn’t have an answer to any policy question. Denying reality does not defeat reality.

“Forgive them father for they know not what they do.”

Haircut Hotspot

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A hairstylist in Missouri may have exposed 91 clients to Covid-19. After the Missouri governor opened the state including salons to open on May 4, 2020. The worker at a Great Clips in Springfield worked on on eight different days while experiencing symptoms from Covid-19. The worker then tested positive for Covid-19. Since he and his costumers both wore face coverings it is hoped that there will be no new cases. Anyone who had their hair cut by this technician should get tested. The infections began one week after the state opened. The infectious hair stylist also went to Walmart and a Dairy Queen and made three visits to a local gym.

A second hair stylist in the same Great Clips shop also became infected and may have infected 56 other  clients. The two cases came just days after city officials announced plans to relax even more distancing requirements and about a week after the health department started seeing an influx of new travel-related infections. The salon has been closed for sanitizing.

The push by Donald Trump and some state governors to reopen most businesses with some public health modifications, such as social distancing and masks, comes as public health officials warn that relaxing restrictions will certainly lead to new outbreaks. Even if you wear a mask it is not a great idea to let a stranger run his fingers through our hair.

In debates over how quickly to reopen different businesses across the country, barbershops and hair salons have become a political flashpoint among conservative Americans, with some owners reopening in defiance of public health measures. In Michigan, a barber who refused to close his shop despite shelter-at-home orders staged a hair-cutting protest at the state capitol which was dubbed “Operation Haircut”, the Lansing State Journal reported.

A New York State barber also defied stay-at-home orders and continued to “illicitly” cut hair. He has also tested positive for Covid-19, county officials said in a public health notice. Ulster County officials are now recommending anyone who received a haircut from the barber in the past three weeks should seek a Covid-19 test.

“We are taking extraordinary measures to try and minimize the spread of this dangerous disease,” Dr. Carol Smith said. “Learning that a barbershop has been operating illicitly for weeks with a COVID-19 positive employee is extraordinarily disheartening.”  “As much as we would all like to go out and get a professional haircut, this kind of direct contact has the potential to dramatically spread this virus throughout our community and beyond,” she continued. This barber is believed to have infected over a dozen people. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said, “You know, that is a occupation of close proximity, right? You can’t really socially distance and do a haircut … that is by definition an up-close-and-personal occupation.”

In Texas, a hair salon owner, Shelley Luther, violated a stay-at-home order by keeping her Dallas-area salon open, was sentenced to jail time. A few days later, Texas Governor Greg Abbott modified his COVID-19 executive orders, effectively setting Luther free. She then refused to apologize in court for what she had done, has been championed by Republican leaders.

The Orange County Economic Recovery Task Force asked Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings to fight to get salons and barbershops back open. He wrote State governor Ron DeSantis and two days later DeSantis came to Central Florida where he met with hair stylists in OhSoooJazzy Hair Salon in Orange County. Hair Salons had been closes as part of his first phase of opening the Florida Economy. In a surprise move on Monday May 11, 2020, the governor allowed hair salons to open across the state. That excludes the two big southeast counties — Broward and Miami-Dade. DeSantis said, “I mean I haven’t had a haircut in two months, not that that’s the important thing, I am coming on a mullet almost because of how much my hair has grown.”

For my part, I plan to continue to buzz cut my own hair during the pandemic. Learn from the mistakes of others.