Covid-19 miscellany

[lpetrich]

Author Charles Gaba considers the scenario of the movie  Class Action (film)

The story is about a lawsuit concerning injuries caused by a defective automobile.

...
The auto manufacturer in the film also utilizes a "bean-counting" approach to risk management, whereby the projections of actuaries for probable deaths and injured car-owners is weighed against the cost of re-tooling and re-manufacturing the car without the defect (exploding gas tanks) with the resulting decision to keep the car as-is to positively benefit short term profitability.

Much like the Ford Pinto case.

This is perhaps the most cynical thing I've ever typed in a blog entry, but there's no getting around it:

GOP leadership, FOX News, Trump/MAGA etc don't appear to care how many of their own voters die as long as they damage President Biden's approval rating in the process.

Many of these voters live in heavily D or heavily R districts, so their deaths won't flip those seats.

There may be a handful of swing districts which will be decided by just a few hundred votes where it ends up making a difference...but if losing 115,000 more GOP voters results in, say, 500,000 independent/swing voters flipping back to the GOP (or at least not bothering to vote at all) because "Biden said he'd stop the pandemic and he hasn't" etc etc, then that would still result in a net gain for Team Red.

Biden announces new vaccine mandates that could cover 100 million Americans - CNNPolitics

An ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted at the end of August found 52% of respondents approve of how Biden is handling the pandemic, a 10-point drop from June. Still, more respondents said they approved of his handling of Covid than disapproved.

At the same time, Biden's overall approval has slipped into negative territory amid a chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Delta variant's drag on the economic recovery. The President's aides view combating the pandemic as the single most important issue of his presidency, and the one that will determine his political fate.

 

[lpetrich]

Do they plan to blame President Biden for failing to control this disease? While calling it a non-issue and while calling measures to deal with it intolerable impositions.

I keep imagining this as like the president fighting a forest fire, and the right wingers blaming him for not putting it out while they spread kindling in every available space.

Sort of like killing one's parents and then begging for mercy because one is an orphan.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

A guy sees a man hitting himself on the head with a hammer. Wincing in pain the man finally stops, yells out an expletive laced tirade, then puts down the hammer. After a minute he does it again. This goes on for an hour. Curious, the guy finally walks over and asks the man why he keeps hitting himself with the hammer. The man replies, "Because it feels so good every time I get to stop."

 

[WAB]

A guy sees a man hitting himself on the head with a hammer. Wincing in pain the man finally stops, yells out an expletive laced tirade, then puts down the hammer. After a minute he does it again. This goes on for an hour. Curious, the guy finally walks over and asks the man why he keeps hitting himself with the hammer. The man replies, "Because it feels so good every time I get to stop."

Ha! My parents tell me that when I was a wee sprout, they asked me about a pain I was having and I said, "It feels better when it stops." No kidding.

/unintentional juvenile humour

 

[Elixir]

GOP leadership, FOX News, Trump/MAGA etc don't appear to care how many of their own voters die as long as they damage President Biden's approval rating retain their ad revenue in the process.

Fixed it for you (them). I don't think they care one bit about Biden's approval rating.

 

[ZiprHead]

Author Charles Gabs then found the death rates by county and compared those rates to the fractions who voted for Donald Trump.

Before 2020-11-04: (10%-step bins, per 100K population) 90.9, 109.1, 98.4, 71.7, 70.1, 56.3, 52.5, 53.8, 48.3, 48.0

"As you can see, the death rate in the bluest areas of the country was as much as 2.3x higher than in the redder counties nationally. Most of this is due to the massive, ugly first wave in New York, New Jersey and other Democratic-leaning states back in March/April 2020."

The author then split the post-election time in two, using June 30 as a dividing line because (1) the Delta variant emerged around then and (2) FL and NE stopped publishing per-county data.

From 2020-11-04 to 2021-06-30: 75.9 78.1 101.8 94.9 102.9 108.7 132.2 151.0 169.4 202.2

"As you can see, from Election Day through the end of June, the situation completely reversed itself: The COVID-19 death rates in the reddest counties began to run higher than in the bluest counties...as much as 2.66x as high, in fact."

and "That leaves perhaps 229,000 potential U.S. voters who died between 11/04/20 - 6/30/21." He estimates 87K D, 124K R, and 18K independent/swing voters. Meaning that 37,000 more Republican than Democratic voters died nationally.

From 2021-07-01 to 2021-09-07: 3.7 5.4 6.1 7.9 11.5 12.6 17.0 22.2 25.9 27.7

That's 3.3K D, 17.1K R, and 1.3K I voters -- 13,800 more R's dying than D's over the last two months.

As for Nebraska and Florida: Again, I'm reluctant to include this in the table above, but if you put a gun to my head I'd say the "net GOP voter deaths" since 6/30 would be around 4,000 higher if both of these states were included; call it perhaps ~18K more GOP than Dem voters having died of COVID since the end of June.

If so, that'd be a total of perhaps 55,000 more so far this cycle (~146K GOP, ~91K Dem, ~20K Swing/Indy).

What will happen between now and November 2022? The author assumes 150,000 more deaths, divided up 80% R, 15% D, 5% I.

The grand total would then stand at somewhere around ~105,000 Democratic voters, ~220,000 Republican voters and ~26,000 swing voters having died nationally between 11/04/20 - 11/08/22...or a net loss of perhaps 115,000 more Republicans than Democrats overall.

Now, you would think that this would cause Republican leadership to be deeply concerned...but they clearly aren't.

I say keep it up, Republicans. Keep killing your own voters.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Author Charles Gabs then found the death rates by county and compared those rates to the fractions who voted for Donald Trump.

Before 2020-11-04: (10%-step bins, per 100K population) 90.9, 109.1, 98.4, 71.7, 70.1, 56.3, 52.5, 53.8, 48.3, 48.0

"As you can see, the death rate in the bluest areas of the country was as much as 2.3x higher than in the redder counties nationally. Most of this is due to the massive, ugly first wave in New York, New Jersey and other Democratic-leaning states back in March/April 2020."

The author then split the post-election time in two, using June 30 as a dividing line because (1) the Delta variant emerged around then and (2) FL and NE stopped publishing per-county data.

From 2020-11-04 to 2021-06-30: 75.9 78.1 101.8 94.9 102.9 108.7 132.2 151.0 169.4 202.2

"As you can see, from Election Day through the end of June, the situation completely reversed itself: The COVID-19 death rates in the reddest counties began to run higher than in the bluest counties...as much as 2.66x as high, in fact."

and "That leaves perhaps 229,000 potential U.S. voters who died between 11/04/20 - 6/30/21." He estimates 87K D, 124K R, and 18K independent/swing voters. Meaning that 37,000 more Republican than Democratic voters died nationally.

From 2021-07-01 to 2021-09-07: 3.7 5.4 6.1 7.9 11.5 12.6 17.0 22.2 25.9 27.7

That's 3.3K D, 17.1K R, and 1.3K I voters -- 13,800 more R's dying than D's over the last two months.

What will happen between now and November 2022? The author assumes 150,000 more deaths, divided up 80% R, 15% D, 5% I.

I say keep it up, Republicans. Keep killing your own voters.

Except that in their infantile capacity for conspiracy they will blame the Dems.

We're going to see an update in that psychiatric journal of mental disorders. Passive Aggressive Moron, defined as Adult Right Wing Republican who commits suicide by refusing to vaccinate.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Except that in their infantile capacity for conspiracy they will blame the Dems.

WILL?

There's already someone on Breitbart saying Dems ard deliberately driving the Republicans to not vaccinate, because we know they'd do anything but 'cave' to Fauci and the Left. Even if it cost lives.

Dude, you guys picked masks and vaccines as the hill to die on, not us. Maybe not a coincidence this comes after a few decades of people horribly misusing 'literally....'

 

[ideologyhunter]

Except that in their infantile capacity for conspiracy they will blame the Dems.

WILL?

There's already someone on Breitbart saying Dems ard deliberately driving the Republicans to not vaccinate, because we know they'd do anything but 'cave' to Fauci and the Left. Even if it cost lives.

Dude, you guys picked masks and vaccines as the hill to die on, not us. Maybe not a coincidence this comes after a few decades of people horribly misusing 'literally....'

I heard this story on Chris Hays last night. The argument comes down to, "Unfair!! You knew we were clannish, rumor-mongering nimrods! You are deliberately using our patent stupidity to kill us!"

 

[ideologyhunter]

Do they plan to blame President Biden for failing to control this disease? While calling it a non-issue and while calling measures to deal with it intolerable impositions.

I keep imagining this as like the president fighting a forest fire, and the right wingers blaming him for not putting it out while they spread kindling in every available space.

Sort of like killing one's parents and then begging for mercy because one is an orphan.

Pat Buchanan wrote to this exact point in a column last month. He was listing Biden's liabilities in the midterms next year, and how the Repubs could capitalize on them -- inflation, Afghanistan, and...the fact that he's presiding over the third wave of covid deaths!!!! Right, Pat. That'll bring you the swing voters.

 

[Toni]

Sort of like killing one's parents and then begging for mercy because one is an orphan.

Pat Buchanan wrote to this exact point in a column last month. He was listing Biden's liabilities in the midterms next year, and how the Repubs could capitalize on them -- inflation, Afghanistan, and...the fact that he's presiding over the third wave of covid deaths!!!! Right, Pat. That'll bring you the swing voters.

Eh, there's a good point. Biden was suppopsed to fix all of that and while I think that he's doing a pretty decent job, we still have COVID 19. Don't think that the Republicans aren't doing their part to keep the pandemic going and to tank the economy to help them at midterms. Because that's exactly what they're doing.

 

[barbos]

Nikki Minaj has a bunch of fans who value her medical expertise. So Fauci can't just say "Nikki, go and fuck yourself you stupid bitch, yeah, and your music is shit, I researched it"

Of course, I think this is exactly what he should say.

He isn't allowed to throw shade unless he has a music video. And butt implants.

And she is not allowed to do her own research unless she has PhD in microbiology,

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Sort of like killing one's parents and then begging for mercy because one is an orphan.

Pat Buchanan wrote to this exact point in a column last month. He was listing Biden's liabilities in the midterms next year, and how the Repubs could capitalize on them -- inflation, Afghanistan, and...the fact that he's presiding over the third wave of covid deaths!!!! Right, Pat. That'll bring you the swing voters.

Eh, there's a good point. Biden was suppopsed to fix all of that and while I think that he's doing a pretty decent job, we still have COVID 19. Don't think that the Republicans aren't doing their part to keep the pandemic going and to tank the economy to help them at midterms. Because that's exactly what they're doing.

The GOP trouble is quite apparent. Biden got out of Afghanistan in the politically most beneficial, no where near an election. People won't care about Afghanistan 11/2022. Biden is taking some lumps but at the right time. Inflation (not of his doing) is already easing. Covid, well, we know who is to blame for that. And of course, the big issue now isn't any of these things. It'll be abortion. In 2008, Dems came out strong because of W. In 2020, again strong against Trump. That is nothing compared to abortion and the kick in the ass it will lead to in the younger (and not so younger) parts of the electorate to get to the polls.

The dog caught car with the GOP and abortion... and now it might get run over by it. Hence why the GOP has been lighting fires over CRT.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Two folks down the street just passed from COVID. The wife of one is in the hospital not likely to survive. All in their 70s.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Nikki Minaj has a bunch of fans who value her medical expertise. So Fauci can't just say "Nikki, go and fuck yourself you stupid bitch, yeah, and your music is shit, I researched it"

Of course, I think this is exactly what he should say.

He isn't allowed to throw shade unless he has a music video. And butt implants.

And she is not allowed to do her own research unless she has PhD in microbiology,

Naw. She can do her own 30,000+ patient double blind study if she wants.

 

[ZiprHead]

And she is not allowed to do her own research unless she has PhD in microbiology,

Naw. She can do her own 30,000+ patient double blind study if she wants.

Wait 'til she finds out ass silicone gives you covid.

 

[Keith&Co.]

GOP leadership, FOX News, Trump/MAGA etc don't appear to care how many of their own voters die as long as they damage President Biden's approval rating retain their ad revenue in the process.

Fixed it for you (them). I don't think they care one bit about Biden's approval rating.

Of course they care. It's a metric they can show their advertisers.
"See, here's us convincing everyone it was Biden's fault that the aliens invaded, driving his numbers down to THERE. So you can see how many people you'd reach by advertising on Fucker Carlson's Fantasy Story Hour."

 

[repoman]

What are the barriers to entry to make and sell better vaccines for covid?

Are better vaccines possible for it?

Eric Topol has some interesting twitter threads about nasal vaccines

https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1419717402812567560

referencing this Nature article:

Mucosal vaccines — fortifying the frontiers

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-021-00583-2?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Germane to this board, what are the political obstacles to having better vaccines?

If intranasal vaccines are better, some government interference to make sure they enter the market in a massive way would be great.

I don't even care if Pfizer buys out a companies patents and makes it themselves. But their even accidental blocking of nasal vaccines via their current market share is not a good thing.

 

[TomC]

What are the barriers to entry to make and sell better vaccines for covid?

A huge one is simple economics.

It costs a gazillion dollars to research, develop, test, and get approval for the first vaccination. After that, it costs a couple of bucks to make another. The general term for such products is "front loaded investment". Vaccines are more front loaded than nearly anything else.
Tom

 

[ZiprHead]

Michael Flynn: The 'Deep State' is plotting to spike your salad dressing with the COVID vaccine

Michael Flynn, the former National Security Adviser to the Trump administration who has embraced the QAnon conspiracy theory and advocated the violent military overthrow of the United States, has a new conspiracy theory: the Deep State is going to vaccinate your salad dressing.

Flynn, who was fired, prosecuted, and ultimately pardoned over his lies to the FBI in the Russia investigation, brought up the idea on a far-right internet show on Wednesday.

"Somebody sent me a thing this morning where they're talking about putting the vaccine in salad dressing," said Flynn. "Have you seen this? I mean it's — and I'm thinking to myself, this is the Bizarro World, right? This is definitely the Bizarro World ... these people are seriously thinking about how to impose their will on us in our society, and it has to stop."

[TWEET]<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">In a show dedicated to covid and election fraud conspiracies, Michael Flynn yesterday brings up an article he read that the Deep State medical establishment is planning to secretly put the covid vaccine in salad dressing. <a href="https://t.co/45LniXtnYA">pic.twitter.com/45LniXtnYA</a></p>— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) <a href="https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1440644282759614478?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 22, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>[/TWEET]