COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

'Terrific' 15% of Americans have had COVID-19 -Trump

Speaking at a White House coronavirus vaccine event, U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that 15% of the population having been infected with COVID-19 is “terrific.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/patrickdehahn/status/1336850552362315778

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https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1337107321365753856

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

The Deadliest Days In American History

Here are some of the deadliest days in American history:

    1. Galveston Hurricane – 8,000
    2. Battle of Antietam – 3,675
    3. Battle of Gettysburg – 3,155
    4. September 11 – 2,977
    5. Last Thursday – 2,879
    6. Last Wednesday – 2,804
    7. Last Friday – 2,607
    8. Last Tuesday – 2,597
    9. Pearl Harbor – 2,403

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

I don’t really see why life can’t return to close-to-normal once the majority of the vulnerable population has been vaccinated by February.  I mean, wearing masks im confined spaces is fine, but certainly nothing should be closed.  The virus is not enough of a threat to young and healthy people alone to merit that sort of disruption to our daily lives.

COVID-19 (coronavirus): Long-term effects

COVID-19 symptoms can sometimes persist for months. The virus can damage the lungs, heart and brain, which increases the risk of long-term health problems.

Older people and people with many serious medical conditions are the most likely to experience lingering COVID-19 symptoms, but even young, otherwise healthy people can feel unwell for weeks to months after infection

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/TimAlberta/status/1338246411675119618

I think the issue here is less govt officials getting vaccine first = bad and more that the people Trump has surrounded himself with are so sleazy that it offends the senses to read that this group of political rejects and perennial grifters are getting the vaccines first just because they hitched a ride to the right traveling circus at the right time.

Given the depraved indifference of Trump, his family, and his lackeys and grifters, vaccinating them will save hundreds, if not thousands, of lives. (They should, of course, still face criminal charges for said depraved indifference.)

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://mobile.twitter.com/prufrax/status/1339520859644579841

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https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1339110677638750208

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https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1340109457867624449

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https://twitter.com/someknew/status/1341248026719875072

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https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/1343575882619908096

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The US is vaccinating people way too slowly. A top doctor says the federal government is to blame.

Dr. Ashish K. Jha, a top US doctor and the dean of Brown University School of Public Health, on Tuesday shared in a Twitter thread why he believed the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in the US was flawed, and he said the issue begins with the federal government.

The US Food and Drug Administration in December authorised two different vaccines for COVID-19 — one created by Moderna and the National Institutes of Health, and another created by Pfizer and BioNTech — for emergency use in the US.

While people across the US have already begun to receive the vaccine, a limited supply means the vaccine won’t be widely available to all who need it well into 2021, prolonging the pandemic that has so far killed more than 336,000 people in the US, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

According to an analysis published Tuesday by NBC News, at the current pace, it could take the US nearly a decade to vaccinate enough Americans to meaningfully bring the pandemic under control. The White House previously said it aimed to vaccinate 80% of Americans by the end of June, which would require more than 3 million vaccinations per day, according to the report. So far, the US has vaccinated just about 2 million people in 16 days.

More Trump administration incompetence, or a deliberate effort to sabotage the Biden administration at the cost of American lives? Given the last four years, either (or even both) seem plausible.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Trump’s Focus as the Pandemic Raged: What Would It Mean for Him?

Throughout late summer and fall, in the heat of a re-election campaign that he would go on to lose, and in the face of mounting evidence of a surge in infections and deaths far worse than in the spring, Mr. Trump’s management of the crisis — unsteady, unscientific and colored by politics all year — was in effect reduced to a single question: What would it mean for him?

The result, according to interviews with more than two dozen current and former administration officials and others in contact with the White House, was a lose-lose situation. Mr. Trump not only ended up soundly defeated by Joseph R. Biden Jr., but missed his chance to show that he could rise to the moment in the final chapter of his presidency and meet the defining challenge of his tenure.

Efforts by his aides to persuade him to promote mask wearing, among the simplest and most effective ways to curb the spread of the disease, were derailed by his conviction that his political base would rebel against anything that would smack of limiting their personal freedom. Even his own campaign’s polling data to the contrary could not sway him.

His explicit demand for a vaccine by Election Day — a push that came to a head in a contentious Oval Office meeting with top health aides in late September — became a misguided substitute for warning the nation that failure to adhere to social distancing and other mitigation efforts would contribute to a slow-rolling disaster this winter.

His concern? That the man he called “Sleepy Joe” Biden, who was leading him in the polls, would get credit for a vaccine, not him.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

That’s the final straw. I refuse to vote for Jared Polis again for any office whatsoever. Whether that means voting GOP in the gubernatorial in 2022 is still up to debate although it’s not likely. And yes that means if he ever is VP or top ticket for a presidency run, I won’t vote for him. Considering the new jump coming post-holidays, the new strain found in Elbert which spreads easily among children, and all the other stupid libertarian crap he has done before Covid, I’m done.

https://www.denverpost.com/2021/01/01/colorado-covid-level-red-restrictions-polis/

Yeah. Polis' actions here are asinine (and borderline criminal negligence, if not depraved indifference). While I'll never vote for a Republican as long as I live, I'll vote for any sane, non-Republican opponent of his (but I repeat myself) or in the worst case, abstain from a race where he's the nominee.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1345819737389998082

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https://twitter.com/VanityFair/status/1348130418302849024

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https://twitter.com/samstein/status/1349909286336557056

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https://twitter.com/piyushmittal/status/1350868085129953281

Particularly chilling to me is this part:

Jones announced Saturday on Twitter that she learned of the warrant and plans to turn herself in on Sunday. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement confirmed there is a warrant for Jones’ arrest but said it cannot disclose what charges she faces until she is in custody.

I was not previously aware that premeditated "arrest first, charges afterward" was a thing that could happen in the United States.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Coronavirus updates: Death toll approaches 400,000, far exceeding Trump’s benchmark for success in containing the virus

The coronavirus death toll in the United States is fast approaching 400,000, double the upper limit of what President Trump said would signal his administration’s success in responding to the pandemic.

As of Friday morning, the virus had killed more than 388,000 people in the United States, according to The Washington Post’s analysis of pandemic data. With more than 3,000 Americans dying of the virus daily on average, the country could surpass the bleak figure before Trump leaves office Wednesday.

Hell needs to hire one of those companies that do London basements.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Almost a third of recovered Covid patients return to hospital in five months and one in eight die

Research by Leicester University and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found there is a devastating long-term toll on survivors of severe coronavirus, with many people developing heart problems, diabetes and chronic liver and kidney conditions.

Out of 47,780 people who were discharged from hospital in the first wave, 29.4 per cent were readmitted to hospital within 140 days, and 12.3 per cent of the total died.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1353436811276775425

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https://twitter.com/nycjim/status/1361344667405680646

The only good Republican is a Republican powerless to abuse anyone else.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/GregAbbott_TX/status/1366846908480815106

Homie knows that he finna keep slipping in the karen burbs, and he tryna get the same valley swings like Trump among the mask hating mexicans to offset those losses. Purely political move.

Like srsly, I am pissed off rn, i see like 4 mexicans working in my next doors neighbors yard with 0 distance apart and no masks, those people hate masks, I am no longer surprised at all they swung like 30pts in the valley towards Trump

Nah. I think he's worried that the Biden Administration's COVID-19 response is going too well, so he and his fellow Republican governors have decided to kill a few hundred-thousand more of us to make Biden look bad.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/1380533485857878018

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The one year anniversary of this:

Trump suggests 'injection' of disinfectant to beat coronavirus and 'clean' the lungs