2:00PM Water Cooler 10/24/2023 | bare capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Affected person readers, the Politics part is so skinny as a result of I made a decision to begin with Covid (and Verily’s horrid wastewater dashboards). I’ll beef it up shortly. –lambert

Chook Track of the Day

American White Pelican, Summer time Lake Wildlife Space, Lake, Oregon, United States. “Heavy wing beats and motion on water by two birds.”

Politics

“So most of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are actually a rational administration of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles

Biden Administration

“The five-front struggle that the US is unprepared to struggle” [Harlan Ullman, The Hill]. “In the present day, President Joe Biden faces extra difficult and risk-filled duties: the prospect of a five-front struggle with fewer allies. This five-front struggle is just not all “sizzling” in that bullets are flying in all places. Nevertheless, escalation is a rising hazard. The primary two fronts are [1] as ‘the pacing risk’ and [2] because the ‘acute risk.’ China is an financial and navy superpower; Russia is a navy one. And each are testing and difficult American world management…. With the Oct. 7 Hamas offensive in opposition to [3] … and the battle in [4] , two sizzling wars are underway. This accounts for 4 fronts. Maybe essentially the most debilitating is the [5] . Politics, regardless of the significance or triviality of the problem, is profoundly dividing the nation throughout get together and ideological strains. The 2 opposing sides have visceral and even irreparable variations not amenable to compromise…. White Homes have issue in coping with one disaster not to mention extra. Now, 5 imminent crises are in place. Regardless of how competent senior White Home officers are, the bandwidth and the flexibility to focus concurrently on a number of conflicts may be very restricted. Media calls for for briefings in addition to tough and embarrassing questions are unhelpful to any White Home. And the “loyal” opposition can be decided to eviscerate the president…. What does this imply? Since World Struggle II, it’s inconceivable to recall any time when the USA confronted as many testing points and crises as immediately. There isn’t any guide or e book in existence on the best way to handle a five-front struggle. Biden is essentially the most skilled overseas coverage president America has had since Bush 41. However how good is his strategic judgment? Might any single president safely navigate the terribly treacherous waters of a five-front struggle? We are going to see.” • First, the primary 4 fronts, and perhaps the fifth, will be collapsed into one: the tip of empire. (Easy, however not essentially tractable.) Second, Axios makes use of an analogous “5” trope, although they name “fronts” “crises.” Their Large 5: [1] Israel’s response to the Hamas terrorist assault, [2] Vladimir Putin assembly in China this week with Xi Jinping, [3] a malicious Iran, [4] North Korea, and [5] a large unfold of doctored or wholly faux movies to govern what individuals see and assume in actual time. Appears to me [5] from Axios and [5] from Ullman in The Hill are two sides of the identical coin: And the Censorship Industrial Advanced is the reply to each. (I ponder why 5?)

2024

Time for the Countdown Clock!

* * *

“Trump May Win and Have Dems To Thank” [RealClearPolitics]. “There are at all times numerous transferring items in an election and it’s early, however Trump’s present assist mainly comes from three teams: Those that know, love, and miss him; those that could not miss him however miss 2019’s peace and prosperity; and people who imagine Democrats are corrupting our justice system to persecute a political opponent. Since 2020, Democrats have solidified assist for Trump with the primary two teams to the purpose the place it’s important to ponder whether it was intentional – after which they actually created the third group…. And who doesn’t miss 2019’s low inflation, low rates of interest, low unemployment, safe border, city calm, peace breaking out within the Center East, and nobody critically considering World Struggle III.” • I ran this earlier than, but it surely’s value repeating. Additionally, Joe Biden owes me 600 bucks.

“Trump Plots to Pull Out of NATO — If He Doesn’t Get His Approach” [Rolling Stone]. Bastard retains asking for my vote. “[T]he former president mistakenly spoke of the alliance as a sort of safety racket, wherein members’ spending obligations have been paid to the U.S. as dues quite than a common requirement for nations to spend set quantities on protection as they noticed match.” • “Mistakenly”? Appears to me that Trump has an understanding of how the Empire operates of with The Different Bearded One would completely approve…

* * *

“The Memo: Democrats divided on Biden’s vulnerabilities for 2024” [The Hill]. “[I]n head-to-head polls in opposition to four-times-indicted former President Trump, Biden is in a lifeless warmth at greatest. Now, polls in battleground states are flashing warning indicators as nicely…. ‘What the White Home has not come to phrases with is, subsequent 12 months’s election goes to be a referendum on the president — and proper now he’s shedding that vote,’ the [Democratic] strategist mentioned. ‘The truth that he’s tied with a former president who faces 91 prices — and but the White Home doesn’t appear to understand that they’ve a elementary reelection drawback — is unbelievable,’ the pissed off strategist added…. A number of polls in key states from Bloomberg/Morning Seek the advice of this week confirmed Biden behind, albeit by comparatively slim margins, in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The president carried all 4 states in 2020. Not each ballot predicts doom. Some current polls give Biden a slim edge nationwide — by 1 level in an Economist/YouGov ballot and by 3 factors in an NPR/PBS/Marist survey earlier this month. However the tightness of the numbers churns up considerations which were commonplace in Democratic circles for a while.”

* * *

“How has RFK Jr. raised all that cash?” [Politico]. “In actual fact, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — the environmental lawyer-turned-vaccine skeptic who has by no means held public workplace — raised extra money within the newest fundraising interval than anybody else working for president aside from Donald Trump, Joe Biden and Ron DeSantis. Now an unbiased candidate after leaving the Democratic major, Kennedy’s powerhouse fundraising — the Kennedy household scion collected an eyebrow-raising $8.7 million within the third quarter — is making it tougher to dismiss his potential impression as a participant in 2024…. In line with Federal Election Fee stories, Kennedy’s donors signify a variety of execs from throughout the leisure business…. A big variety of these artists and business professionals hail from Kennedy’s dwelling state of California — about $2.6 million of his take got here from California, greater than every other state. … A big chunk of Kennedy’s backers work within the well being business. There are physicians, dentists, psychologists and nurses, who make up greater than $500,000 of Kennedy’s haul thus far. And there’s additionally a brigade of practitioners of other medication… not less than $100,000 from donors who beforehand gave to committees related to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or former President Donald Trump donated to Kennedy within the first few months after his launch — and the entire from ex-Trump donors continued to develop in the latest quarter.”

Republican Funhouse

“Is There a New Left Stirring Inside The New Proper?” [John Judis, The Liberal Patriot]. By Betteridge’s Regulation, no. “[T]here’s a phase of current politics that’s generally recognized with the ‘new proper’ however in actuality affords a way more heterodox—and fascinating—method to politics and coverage, one which’s nicely value contemplating by liberals and left-wingers alike. This new tendency will be discovered within the coverage group, American Compass, the net journal Compact, and the journal American Affairs. Its main intellectuals are Oren Cass of American Compass, Julius Krein of American Affairs, Sohrab Ahmari of Compact, and creator Michael Lind. What distinguishes these thinkers from others is their engagement with what was once referred to as ‘the labor query’ specifically, how America can fulfill its unique promise of political and financial equality in a society the place the house owners and managers of capital have inordinate energy over labor and politics. These thinkers take into account questions that have been as soon as confined to the left: the best way to revive the American labor motion and now to tame the facility of multinational companies and world banks. They usually cite left-wing and liberal writers like John Kenneth Galbraith and Karl Polanyi. The newest and noteworthy examples are Lind’s Hell to Pay, Ahmari’s Tyranny, Inc., and Oren Cass and American Compass’s Rebuilding American Capitalism.”• Analytically, this isn’t exhausting. If you need “political and financial equality in a society the place the house owners and managers of capital have inordinate energy over labor and politics” then you definately give employees management over the technique of manufacturing. I doubt these contemporary doxies can be prepared to entertain the chance.

Democrats en Déshabillé

Affected person readers, it appears that evidently individuals are really studying the back-dated publish! However I’ve not up to date it, and there are lots of updates. So I must do this. –lambert

I’ve moved my standing remarks on the Democrat Celebration (“the Democrat Celebration is a rotting corpse that may’t bury itself”) to a separate, back-dated publish, to which I’ll periodically add materials, summarizing the addition right here in a “stay” Water Cooler. (Hopefully, some Bourdieu.) It seems that defining the Democrat Celebration is, actually, a tough drawback. I do assume the paragraph that follows is on level all the way in which again to 2016, if not earlier than:

The Democrat Celebration is the political expression of the category energy of PMC, their base (lucidly defined by Thomas Frank in Hear, Liberal!). ; if the Democrat Celebration didn’t exist, the PMC must invent it. . (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” after all.) Second, all of the working components of the Celebration reinforce one another. Depart apart characterizing the relationships between parts of the Celebration (ka-ching, however not completely) these parts comprise a community — a Flex Internet? An iron octagon? — of funders, distributors, apparatchiks, electeds, NGOs, and miscellaneous mercenaries, with belongings within the press and the intelligence neighborhood.

Word, after all, that the category energy of the PMC each expresses and is restricted by different courses; oligarchs and American gentry (see ‘industrial mannequin’ of Ferguson, Jorgensen, and Jie) and the working class spring to thoughts. Suck up, kick down.

* * *

The existential place of Democrat Celebration supporters:

Tu que no puedes, 1797-1798 https://t.co/pnbSDTP0ds pic.twitter.com/4WTaXgGZ7W

— Francisco Goya (@artistgoya) October 23, 2023

Some many years in the past, I bear in mind there was a joke on Each day Kos about this very situation: A person carrying (the Democrat) donkey on his again. He simply couldn’t give it up! However I can’t fairly bear in mind it. Readers?

“AG Ellison seeks to shutter almost two dozen nonprofits implicated in $250 million Feeding Our Future fraud” [Sahan Journal]. “Lawyer Common Keith Ellison is in search of to dissolve almost two dozen nonprofits that have been allegedly concerned in a federal food-aid fraud scandal. Ellison’s workplace filed civil lawsuits Wednesday to close down 23 nonprofits that have been both established or reestablished shortly earlier than the fraud allegedly began in 2020. The scandal, generally known as the Feeding Our Future case, concerned a number of dozen suspects stealing an estimated $250 million in federal COVID-19 aid {dollars} meant to feed underprivileged kids, prosecutors have mentioned. Minnesota U.S. Lawyer Andrew Luger has charged 60 defendants within the case with counts of conspiracy, wire fraud, and cash laundering. Fourteen defendants have pleaded responsible and await sentencing. The remaining defendants have pleaded not responsible. The alleged fraud concerned sponsor organizations like Feeding Our Future receiving federal funds by the Minnesota Division of Schooling. The sponsor organizations then distributed these funds to meals distributors and meals websites, which have been supposed to supply ready-to-eat meals to native kids. As an alternative, federal prosecutors say, the defendants spent a lot of the cash on non-public purchases like luxurious houses and flashy vehicles.” • Lots of the non-profits had different state contracts. Good for EIllison; a Democrat going after NGOs is exceptional. The scheme is of the type usually described as “sprawling,” and I ponder if Ilhan Omar is touched in any approach. (The tales don’t point out the get together to which the numerous defendants belong, however from class and cultural markers I infer Democrats.) Readers?

Realignment and Legitimacy

“A Month When A long time Occur” [William Kristol, The Bulwark]. Kristol quoting Lenin (the different Bearded One). What’s the world coming to? “Fifty years in the past, we had one other October wherein many years of historical past occurred. October 1973 noticed the Yom Kippur Struggle, a tense nuclear showdown between the USA and the Soviet Union, the oil embargo, Vice President Spiro Agnew’s resignation, and President Richard Nixon’s firing Archibald Cox, the particular prosecutor investigating Watergate…. However the occasions additionally stimulated a response that arguably led to the strengthening of democratic guardrails in the USA, to an Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty in 1978, to financial liberalization in China and India, and after 1979 to a flip in U.S. overseas coverage and a protection buildup that helped finish the Chilly Struggle.” • As I’ve mentioned, I detest that “guardrail” metaphor, probably 2023’s laziest trope, and the competitors is fierce. It implies, for starters, that the street was in-built the best place, and that one’s automobile is on the right track. And perhaps if the lunatic driver stopped swerving towards that darned cliff, the guardrail wouldn’t even be wanted.

#COVID19

“I’m in earnest — I can’t equivocate — I can’t excuse — I can’t retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison

Assets, United States (Nationwide): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; contains many counties; Wastewater Scan, contains drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, however nationwide information). “An infection Management, Emergency Administration, Security, and Common Ideas” (particularly on hospitalization by metropolis).

Lambert right here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To replace any entry, do be at liberty to contact me on the handle given with the vegetation. Please put “COVID” within the topic line. Thanks!

Assets, United States (Native): 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 stories); 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).

Assets, Canada (Nationwide): Wastewater (Authorities of Canada).

Assets, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).

Hat tricks to useful readers: 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, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, sq. coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Utah, Bob White (3).

Keep secure on the market!

Maskstravaganza

ComicCons get it proper, versus, say, Infectious Illness conferences:

That is so nice. I want this have been the usual for all cons! Clinically susceptible and disabled people should take part in fandom pleasure too. We will make these occasions extra accessible and safer for everybody! #fansmaskup https://t.co/4EpuPeKrxg

— A. 🇵🇭🇸🇪🏳️‍🌈😷 (@coffeeteanxiety) October 24, 2023

Hey, bear in mind when CDC’s “an infection detective” convention was a superspreader occasion? CDC was going to research that. I ponder once we’ll hear in regards to the outcomes?

Covid is Airborne

Solely a month ’til superspreading season the Holidays, so begin negotiating your airborne protections now:

This highlights a tragic error made by good individuals selling security on this pandemic. Scientists work very slowly and emergencies require quick motion and sensible directions to save lots of lives. Households unfold Covid at vacation dinners Nov-Jan. Promote the usage of air purifiers now. https://t.co/HO5uNp16Ng

— mskathleenquinn (@mskathleenquinn) October 24, 2023

Immune System Dysregulation

“As we’re hit with yet one more Covid wave, I wish to mirror on the guarantees of herd immunity by an infection…” [Anthony J. Leonardi, ThreadReader]. “…..with particular consideration of claims that pre-existing cross-reactive T cell immunity to different coronaviruses was aiding in reaching the herd-immunity threshold . These two circumstances should not unrelated. The explanation we’re having fixed reinfection with sars cov 2 is as a result of we gave the virus the keys to the dominion: sufficient replication to allow evolution to flee key components of our immune techniques. In 2020, I warned that resting hopes of herd immunity on T cell immunity was perilous and a foul thought. I mentioned it will allow mutations and evolution of the virus to the extent to facilitate reinfection. Now, that is our actuality.” • A must-read, and usefully related each to the article from Cell beneath Variants, and Elite Maleficence.

Variants

“Inhabitants immunity predicts evolutionary trajectories of SARS-CoV-2” [Cell]. It does in a mannequin. From the Summary: “The big-scale evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been marked by fast turnover of genetic clades. New variants present intrinsic adjustments, notably elevated transmissibility, and antigenic adjustments that cut back cross-immunity induced by earlier infections or vaccinations. How this useful variation shapes world evolution has remained unclear. Right here, we set up a predictive health mannequin for SARS-CoV-2 that integrates antigenic and intrinsic choice. The mannequin is knowledgeable by monitoring of time-resolved sequence information, epidemiological data, and cross-neutralization information of viral variants. Our inference exhibits that . The health mannequin can serve continued surveillance in two methods. First, it efficiently predicts the short-term evolution of circulating strains and flags rising variants prone to displace the beforehand predominant variant. Second, it predicts seemingly antigenic profiles of profitable escape variants previous to their emergence.”• Hmm. Not likely my beat, and I hope any individual from the Mind Belief will weigh in. (FWIW, my first thought is that regardless of the “dominant pressure” is likely to be immediately, that has absolutely been formed by our abandonment of all non-pharmaceutical interventions (together with non-pissant lockdowns at first).

Sequelae

“COVID’s Harm Lingers within the Coronary heart” [Harvard Medicine]. “The variety of COVID-19 circumstances is as soon as once more spiking [wouldn’t know it from the news!] — and the coronavirus continues to evolve. The newest omicron variant, BA.2.86, has greater than thirty mutations that would permit it to evade the immune system’s defenses. Given the continuing risk, analysis into COVID-19’s cardiovascular results ‘stays vitally necessary,’ says Anne-Marie Anagnostopoulos, a heart specialist and an HMS teacher in medication at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Heart. ‘We’d like a higher understanding of the related pathophysiology to develop higher remedies…. In most individuals — particularly those that’ve been vaccinated — COVID-19 produces flu-like signs that usually resolve inside a number of days or even weeks. However different individuals progress to a second, and extra harmful, part of the illness, as pro-inflammatory proteins referred to as cytokines proliferate within the blood. Throughout this so-called cytokine storm, the immune system turns into hyperactive, ‘inflicting a special set of issues,’ says Dara Lee Lewis, MD ’92, an HMS teacher in medication at Brigham and Girls’s and director of noninvasive testing and co-director of the Girls’s Cardiology Program on the Lown Cardiology Group in Boston. ‘Sufferers can develop weakened coronary heart muscular tissues, low oxygen ranges, blood clots, fluid within the lungs — issues which will require hospitalization.’” • Cytokine storms are well-known, but it surely’s good to see an explainer attain the mainstream.

“Is Restoration Simply the Starting? Persistent Signs and Well being and Efficiency Deterioration in Publish-COVID-19, non-hospitalised College College students – A Cross-Sectional Research” [medRxiv]. N = “214 college students, averaging 21.8 years of age.” Questionaire. From the Summary: “Tendencies of enchancment in bodily and psychological well being, in addition to error fee, have been noticed inside the first two years post-infection. Nevertheless, fatigue and response time confirmed a development of degradation. Past the two-year mark, bodily well being and error fee continued to enhance, whereas psychological well being started to deteriorate. Fatigue and response time continued to say no. General, .”

“Bacterial bloodstream an infection in critically ailing sufferers with COVID-19: a retrospective cohort research” [Therapeutic Advances in Infectious Disease]. “Among the many 201 included sufferers, 43 (21.4%) sufferers developed [bloodstream infections (BSIs)].” Nonetheless: “The prevalence of BSI didn’t considerably affect mortality, which can be attributed to immediate and acceptable interventions, together with early detection and acceptable administration. Immediate initiation of empirical antibiotics, adopted by adjustment in response to tradition outcomes, could assist stop hostile outcomes. Moreover, all sufferers on this research had extreme COVID-19, which can have been the foremost determinant of mortality.”

“One thing Terrible”

Lambert right here: I’m getting the sensation that the “One thing Terrible” is likely to be a sawtooth sample — variant after variant — that averages out to a completely excessive plateau. A number of exceptionally nasty sequelae, most certainly deriving from immune dysregulation (says this layperson). To which we would add mind harm, together with character adjustments therefrom.

* * *

Elite Maleficence

They knew (1):

Monday, March 30, 2020, a Dr. David H. Katz, M.D. says:
“For God’s sake, Tony — that is me, not merely an unknown “messenger” from most people!”
…
“As I wrote in my earlier e-mail , I’ve develop into satisfied that COVID-19 is behaving as an airborne virus, and, due to this fact,… pic.twitter.com/WKi63DTfAa

— Alexander Riccio (@co2trackers) (@ariccio) October 18, 2023

Going by a trove of FOIAed emails…

They knew (2):

🧵UK Covid Inquiry mixed with Fauci emails and some different sources has pealed again the curtain to permit us to see a few of the choice making course of in UK and US

Many parallels within the proof, the govs lined up aerosol transmission and the necessity of N95s to guard employees

— Counter Disinformation Mission (@CDPNetworkMap) October 21, 2023

A really lengthy thread from the UK Covid inquiry; I don’t know sufficient in regards to the gamers (aside from Ryan and Conley) to remark. Maybe some UK readers will step in.

Case Information

Lambert: Right here is the present state Verily’s wastewater dashboard, weeks after CDC gave the Alphabet mind geniuses the nationwide wastewater contract. Seamless transition, completely. That is the brutal UI/UX dashboard:

There’s, after all, no nationwide information. Hilariously, the pop-up that paperwork the color-coding for the places covers up the present information; I’ve helpfully highligheted the information that does present at proper. Who coded this? The boss’s brother-in-law?

That is the really useful clickthough at information.wastewaterscan.org:

Verily says the clickthrough is similar information “seen in additional element,” and one way or the other they’ve made it nationwide. At the least there’s a checkbox to that impact which, with some effort, you’ll find and choose. I managed to mess with the date-range slider bar at backside to get protection all the way in which again to July 2020, which misses the preliminary peak completely. However as you’ll be able to see, nonetheless, this information offers you no sense of the whole course of the pandemic, in nice distinction to Biobot’s easy, clear, and full presentation (beneath). Why, it’s virtually as is that if CDC employed Verily to erase the historical past!

NEVER TO BE UPDATED From BioBot wastewater information, October 2:

Lambert right here: Leveling out to a excessive plateau wasn’t on my Bingo card! Maybe FL.1.5.1, excessive within the Northeast, has one thing going for it that different variants don’t have?

Regional information:

Curiously, the upswing begins earlier than July 4, which neither accelerates nor retards it.

Variants

NOT UPDATED From CDC, October 14:

Lambert right here: High of the leaderboard: EG.5 (“Eris“), with HV.1 a powerful second, and XBB.1.1.16.6 and FL.1.15.1 trailing. No BA.2.86. Nonetheless a Bouillabaisse…

From CDC, September 16:

Lambert right here: I certain hope the volunteers doing Pangolin, on which this chart relies upon, don’t all transfer on the inexperienced fields and pastures new (or have their entry to services minimize by directors of ailing intent).

CDC: “As of Could 11, genomic surveillance information can be reported biweekly, primarily based on the supply of constructive check specimens.” “Biweeekly: 1. occurring each two weeks. 2. occurring twice per week; semiweekly.” Appears like CDC has chosen sense #1. In essence, they’re telling us variants are nothing to fret about. Time will inform.

Covid Emergency Room Visits

NOT UPDATED From CDC NCIRD Surveillance, October 14:

Lambert right here: Solely per week’s lag, so this can be our greatest present nationwide, present indicator till Verily will get its home so as (and dealing class-centric, since I’d doubt the higher crust goes to the ER).

NOTE “Charts and information supplied by CDC, updates Wednesday by 8am. For the previous 12 months, utilizing a rolling 52-week interval.” So not your entire pandemic, FFS (the implicit message right here being that Covid is “identical to the flu,” which is why the seasonal “rolling 52-week interval” is suitable for each_{MR SUBLIMINAL I hate these individuals a lot}. Discover additionally that this chart exhibits, not less than for its time interval, that Covid is not seasonal, though CDC is attempting to get us to imagine that it’s, presumably to allow them to piggyback on the prevailing institutional equipment for injections.

Hospitalization

Bellwether New York Metropolis, information as of October 24:

Nonetheless lowering. (New York State is now falling, too.) I hate this metric as a result of the lag makes it misleading (though the hospital-centric public well being institution loves it, hospitalization and deaths being the one metrics that matter).

Right here’s a special CDC visualization on hospitalization, nationwide, not by state, however with a date, not less than. October 14:

Lambert right here: “Maps, charts, and information supplied by CDC, updates weekly for the earlier MMWR week (Sunday-Saturday) on Thursdays (Deaths, Emergency Division Visits, Take a look at Positivity) and weekly the next Mondays (Hospitalizations) by 8 pm ET†”. So the place the heck is the replace, CDC?

Positivity

Lambert right here: In no way completely happy to see positivity upticks when CDC has knocked out our wastewater information. Good timing, guys!

From Walgreens, October 23:

0.7%. Slight enhance. (It will be fascinating to survey this inhabitants usually; these are individuals who, regardless of a tsunami of official propaganda and large peer stress, went and obtained examined anyhow.)

From Cleveland Clinic, October 21:

Lambert right here: Slight enhance. I do know that is simply Ohio, however the Cleveland Clinic is nice*, and we’re starved for information, so…. NOTE * Even when hospital an infection management is attempting to kill sufferers by eliminating common masking with N95s.

From CDC, traveler’s information, October 2:

Down, albeit within the rear view mirror. And listed below are the variants for vacationers:

Sudden massive BA.2.86 look.

• “Neutralization escape by SARS-CoV-2 Omicron subvariant BA.2.86” [Vaccine]. From the Dialogue: These information counsel that BA.2.86 developed instantly from the much less resistant BA.2 variant, quite than from the present extremely resistant circulating recombinant variants, which presumably have been chosen for elevated NAb escape following an infection with XBB lineage viruses. Thus, . Our findings are concordant with different research from the U.S [4], [5] however distinction with research from Asia [6], [7], which can mirror variations in inhabitants immunity as a consequence of completely different vaccine and variant exposures in numerous areas of the world.” • [wipes brow].

Deaths

NOT UPDATED Iowa COVID-19 Tracker, September 27:

Lambert right here: The WHO information is nugatory, so I changed it with the Iowa Covid Information Tracker. Their methodology: “These information have been sourced, through the API from the CDC: https://information.cdc.gov/NCHS/Circumstances-Contributing-to-COVID-19-Deaths-by-Stat/hk9y-quqm. This visualization updates on Wednesday evenings. Information are provisional and are adjusted weekly by the CDC.” I can’t appear to get a pop-up that exhibits a complete of the three causes (high proper). Readers?

Whole: 1,180,119 – 1,179,671 = 448 (448 * 365 = 163,520 deaths per 12 months, immediately’s YouGenicist™ quantity for “dwelling with” Covid (fairly a bit greater than the minimizers would love, although they’ll speak themselves into something. If the YouGenicist™ metric retains chugging alongside like this, I may should resolve that is what the powers-that-be take into account “mission completed” for this specific tranche of loss of life and illness). 

Extra Deaths

The Economist, October 23:

Lambert right here: Primarily based on a machine-learning mannequin.

Stats Watch

Manufacturing: “United States Richmond Fed Manufacturing Index” [Trading Economics]. “The Manufacturing Exercise Index within the Richmond space decreased to three in October 2023 from 5 in September. Of its three element indexes, shipments edged as much as 9 from 7, new orders fell to -4 from 3, and employment remained at 7. Most corporations continued to report declining backlogs and vendor lead time as these indexes each remained destructive. In the meantime, two of the three spending indexes decreased.”

Tech: “Research Reveals: Threads is essentially the most Invasive apps, shares 86% of your information with others” [The Money Mongers]. • What, Zuckerberg? (See dialogue of social media, together with Threads, right here.)

Tech: “Cloud giants sound alarm on record-breaking DDoS assaults” [Cybersecurity Dive]. “AWS, Cloudflare and Google noticed mass exploits of a novel zero-day vulnerability used to launch distributed denial of service assaults reaching a record-breaking scale, the businesses mentioned Tuesday. Safety researchers warned risk actors are exploiting the zero-day vulnerability, HTTP/2 Fast Reset, to launch a sequence of assaults. Observations of peak requests per second through the assaults diverse broadly between AWS, Cloudflare and Google.”

In the present day’s Worry & Greed Index: 28 Worry (earlier shut: 26 Worry) [CNN]. One week in the past: 34 (Worry). (0 is Excessive Worry; 100 is Excessive Greed). Final up to date Oct 24 at 12:52:40 PM ET.

Rapture Index: Closes down one Date Settings. “The shortage of exercise has downgraded this class” [Rapture Ready]. Report Excessive, October 10, 2016: 189. Present: 185. (Do not forget that bringing on the Rapture is good.) NOTE on #42 Plagues: “The coronavirus pandemic has maxed out this class.” Extra sincere than most! • The goat sacrificers are going to defile the Al Aqsa mosque, and the Rapture Index is down? I hardly had them within the contrarian field!

The Jackpot

“Transcript: Bethany McLean on Pandemic Fails” (interview) [The Big Picture]. Attention-grabbing, although not particularly rigorous, however value a skim. Attention-grabbing to see these concepts percolating out into the enterprise press. “The anti-vax sentiment did begin beneath Democrats after they have been, after they have been the Trump vaccines. And so that you had Democrats like Cuomo saying, I don’t find out about this stuff. They’re being rushed by Trump. And also you had numerous skepticism in regards to the vaccines being generated by Democrats earlier than the vaccines have been even produced. After which as soon as they have been produced and as soon as the Biden administration began pushing them, it’s as if as quickly as Biden mentioned that these vaccines are good, the anti-vax sentiment shifted to the best as a result of it flipped. Heaven forbid that Biden was saying, and Democrats have been saying one thing was good, then it needed to be unhealthy. And it simply, it truly is simply profoundly miserable and upsetting.”

Zeitgeist Watch

Yikes:

I’ve gotta say that “entrance gap” (which I’ve seen elsewhere) is essentially the most obscene language I’ve ever encountered for genitalia. Maybe I’m old style, but when we’re instructing our youngsters this, we should always cease.

The Gallery

It hadn’t occurred to me that Hieronymus Bosch was a style painter, however look:

And look:

And whereas we’re at it, right here’s some catastrophe pr0n:

Groves of Academe

I hope you don’t know anyone who operates this manner:

Class Warfare

“5,000 UAW members go on strike at Arlington Meeting Plant in Texas” [CBS]. “The UAW has expanded its strike once more, and referred to as 5,000 members at one in all Common Motors’ most worthwhile vegetation to affix the strike. UAW members on the Arlington Meeting Plant in Texas joined the strike on Tuesday, Oct. 24. This comes hours after GM introduced a quarterly revenue of greater than $3 billion. The earnings are down 7% from final 12 months as a result of UAW strike and elevated guarantee prices. ‘One other report quarter, one other report 12 months. As we’ve mentioned for months: report earnings equal report contracts,’ mentioned UAW President Shawn Fain. ‘It’s time GM employees, and the entire working class, get their justifiable share.’ In line with the UAW, regardless of having report earnings, GM’s supply is behind Ford’s supply and contains, ‘a two-tier wage development, the weakest 401(ok) contribution supply on the desk, a poor COLA and different shortcomings.’”

“California’s Labor Victories Might Be Contagious” [The Nation]. “Final week, labor scored its newest victory in a long term of success tales in 2023. Within the face of a three-day strike by nurses, ER technicians, and pharmacists earlier within the month, and the prospect of further strike motion in November by the coalition of unions representing 85,000 employees until an settlement was reached, Kaiser Permanente agreed to a minimal wage of $25 per hour for California staff—90 % of its staff are primarily based within the Golden State—and $23 for workers elsewhere within the nation. The healthcare large additionally accepted a 21 % pay enhance for employees over 4 years, and the hiring of extra workers to deal with power labor shortages. The deal was finalized in a gathering in San Francisco that ended in the midst of the evening, presided over by performing Labor Secretary Julie Su. It had the backing of President Biden and Vice President Harris, each of whom made sturdy statements in favor of collective bargaining and the best to arrange. Extra healthcare employees went out on strike through the three-day motion than had ever earlier than walked off the job in the USA in a single motion. It was, fairly rightly, seen as a historic second, wherein organized labor asserted its energy inside the healthcare system greater than it has ever beforehand managed to do.” • I can’t assist however marvel if the “labor coalition” (fascinating in itself) would have gained even larger beneficial properties if the nationwide Democrats had not bee concerned.

“The Ethical Authority of Marc Rowan” [Maureen Tkacik, The American Prospect]. The deck: “The non-public fairness billionaire is main a boycott of an Ivy League oligarch manufacturing facility over a Palestinian literary competition it held final month.” The “Ivy League oligarch manufacturing facility” is Penn’s well-known Wharton Enterprise Faculty. But it surely will get much more repugnant: “Within the 33 years since a bunch of Michael Milken protégés based the consummate trendy non-public fairness agency, Apollo has run its companies ragged. The financial analysts at Moody’s have constantly discovered that Apollo portfolio corporations plunged into misery or default round two-thirds of the time, the very best fee within the enterprise. For the reason that pandemic started, the monetary large and its subsidiaries have been concerned in not less than 20 company bankruptcies, from the dramatic (and ‘perplexing,’ within the Monetary Occasions’ characterization) liquidation of the trucking firm Yellow to the unexpectedly ‘messy’ chapter of serial looting sufferer Serta Simmons Bedding…. Typically Apollo’s ‘investments’ fail because of having made Apollo insiders unimaginably wealthy; different occasions, Apollo leverages its mastery of the chapter code to complement itself off different non-public fairness corporations’ failures. First-year associates, in response to Enterprise Insider, usually make a base wage of $450,000; Apollo founder Leon Black is value greater than $12 billion. And Black’s longtime disciple and present Apollo chief govt officer Marc Rowan is estimated to be value $5.8 billion. I deliver this up immediately solely as a result of that very same Marc Rowan has spent the previous week casting himself on cable information and on the anti-woke celeb writer Bari Weiss’s Free Press web site as some sort of ethical authority.” And “If Rowan have been really enthusiastic about rehabilitating the repute of the agency he co-founded, he may forswear wage theft or dividends that depart massive employers bancrupt or strategic bankruptcies designed particularly to bust unions and plunder their pension funds. However that might require Rowan to acknowledge the carnage with which his firm’s insatiable drive for fast funding returns has littered flyover nation. Because the scheme to punish his alma mater illustrates, ‘bullying detractors into exhausted submission’ is extra amenable to his consolation zone.” • “Anti-woke celeb writer Bari Weiss” is just not unfair, not unfair in any respect. Enjoyable stuff. Tkacik is at all times value a learn!

Information of the Wired

“When is a privateness button not a privateness button? When Google runs it, claims lawsuit” [The Register]. “The criticism cites inner Google communication in regards to the true nature of the WAA management: “As summarized by a Google worker in an inner e mail, ‘WAA (or any of the opposite controls) doesn’t really management what’s saved by Google, however merely what the person has entry to. That is actually unhealthy. … I for one didn’t understand Google really saved all of my exercise even when these controls have been off and I work at Google! Appears kind of foolish to show them off as I’m not any safer with them off than on.’” • Denialist mind harm, simply in a much less normal context….

Contact info for vegetation: Readers, be at liberty to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) learn how to ship me a verify if you’re allergic to PayPal and (b) to learn how to ship me photographs of vegetation. Greens are tremendous! Fungi and coral are deemed to be honorary vegetation! If you need your deal with to seem as a credit score, please place it in the beginning of your mail in parentheses: (thus). In any other case, I’ll anonymize through the use of your initials. See the earlier Water Cooler (with plant) right here. From IM:

IM writes: “The neighbourhood Amanita Muscaria is again! It was so dry final autumn that the mycelium gave fruiting our bodies a move, however this 12 months, there was sufficient rain to deliver them out. They love the European hornbeams. The edgy, city nature of this specific shroom is highlighted by the automobile within the background.” Don’t eat this mushroom! It’s poisonous!

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