Tracker

Experts say the now-waning delta surge may be the last major COVID-19 wave On Wednesday, the COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub, a group of researchers who have been studying and following the trajectory of the pandemic, announced a new prediction stating that the worst of the delta surge is likely behind us. Through combining nine different mathematical models, the researchers forecast that cases will finally start to fall again throughout the next few months and that the U.S. will avoid another winter surge like last year. "Any of us who have been following this closely, given what happened with delta, are going to be really cautious about too much optimism," Justin Lessler at the University of North Carolina, who helps run the hub, told NPR. "But I do think that the trajectory is towards improvement for most of the country." Indeed, the U.S. is already starting to see this happen in real-time. As a whole, COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are declining (once again) across the country and even the world. According to the World Health Organization's most recent report, the number of new COVID-19 cases fell to 3.6 million new cases globally, down from 4 million new infections the previous week. In parts of the U.S. where delta hit the hardest, like Florida and Texas, cases and hospitalizations have declined over the last week, too. Of course, this trend doesn't track everywhere across the country. In Ohio, some hospitals are at or reaching peak capacity, as the delta variant just now takes hold in various communities. "I think in general, with delta, we're peaking as a country, but there are going to be some states where they're on a different timescale and those states are less populous so they probably won't wouldn't affect the overall U.S. numbers," said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center. "But it may get difficult in some of those states if there are high-risk individuals getting infected as we've seen, for example in Idaho, where they're worried about the ability to care for patients." The country, Adalja emphasized, is pretty "heterogeneous" and even if U.S. numbers as a whole fall, that doesn't mean the delta surge is over for everyone. Still, a trend of cases and hospitalizations falling is a positive one. For Americans who recall over a year of surges in case numbers followed by declines followed by another inevitable surge, this prediction might induce deja vu. The delta variant surge has been dubbed the fourth officially COVID-19 wave since the pandemic began, and it certainly threw the pandemic on a different track. Unlike previous surges from 2020 and early 2021, vaccines were widely available for most people who were eligible during delta variant's rise. Now, as this wave crests, more people who previously were ineligible for vaccines will be able to obtain vaccinations. The two-shot Pfizer vaccine is expected to be approved in the coming weeks for children between the ages of five and 11; previously, the youngest vaccine-eligible age was 12. While there have not been official lockdowns during the delta surge in the U.S. (unlike previous surges), some parts of the country tightened pandemic restrictions because of the delta variant. These generally included rules about wearing masks indoors, regardless of vaccination status, or denying entry to businesses if patrons lacked vaccine cards. Indeed, the delta variant delayed society's timeline for returning to any semblance of normalcy. Unlike previous surges, experts like Adalja and those at the COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub do not believe another "surge" is in our future. "I think you have to also define what it means by surge — are we going to see an acceleration of cases when it gets colder, less sunny, less humid and people have to go indoors? Yes, that's just based on the biology of the virus," Adalja said. "There will be more cases during those periods of time, but will they be deadly? That's really a function of who's getting infected and how protected the high-risk populations are." Experts say the now-waning delta surge may be the last major COVID-19 wave | Salon.com

Michael Flynn Spreads Bizarre Conspiracy Theory About Vaccines In Salad Dressing Trump’s former national security adviser, a QAnon believer, seemed to suggest vaccines might be imposed on people via salad. Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn appears to be peddling a new conspiracy theory that salad dressing could contain the COVID-19 vaccine. Flynn, a QAnon conspiracy theory disciple who called for a military coup in the U.S. earlier this year, spread the false claim during an appearance on an internet show dedicated to COVID-19 and election fraud conspiracy theories, according to former federal prosecutor Ron Filipkowski, who shared a clip from the discussion on Twitter. “Somebody sent me a thing this morning where they’re talking about putting the vaccine into salad dressing. Or salads. Have you seen this? I mean it’s—and I’m thinking to myself, this is the Bizarro World, right?” Flynn can be heard saying in the clip. “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.” Michael Flynn Spreads Bizarre Conspiracy Theory About Vaccines In Salad Dressing | HuffPost

And, to be the Devils's advocate, if you add the NDP vote to the Liberals' votes, they would probably swept the election.

Agreed. As a measure, Cuba, with all its flaws, has a better infant and maternal mortality rate, and almost a year more longevity than the US, which has loads more meds, diagnostic equipment and ORs. Cubans eat more basic foods but any of them can access a doctor within 24 hours.

As of today, the death toll from COVID surpassed the total deaths from the Spanish Flu pandemic, and the daily death toll is accelerating- almost exclusively among the unvaccinated.

On the CBC radio news last night, they interviewed a political science professor from U of Calgary, and some interesting stuff was reported. Firstly, although the Cons nearly swept Alberta, their popular vote fell nearly 14%. Secondly, the recently demoted minister of health went to the home of a doctor in Calgary who had the temerity to openly criticize the Alberta opening up prematurely and screamed at him in front of the doctor's family. Damned if that doesn't sound like GOP politics.

During the pandemic, I decided to expand my linguistic skills.

Why legal experts are so disturbed by a Trump lawyer's 6-point plan to overturn the 2020 election A new CNN report on Monday revealed a memo from a lawyer working with former President Donald Trump that detailed a plan to overturn his loss to Joe Biden on Jan. 6. The report reveals findings from the new book, "Peril," by reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. It included a copy of the memo from conservative law professor John Eastman, showing a six-point plan to leverage then-Vice President Mike Pence's role as the president of the Senate to control Congress's vote counting and throw out the votes of seven states. This would leave Trump in the lead with 232 Electoral College votes over Biden's 228. Then, according to Eastman, Democrats would let out "howls." (The whole memo shows open contempt for Democrats.) But if they object, he argued, Pence could declare the election inconclusive, at which point it would move into the House. And because Republicans control a majority of the House delegations, they could select Trump to carry out a second term. "The main thing here is that Pence should do this without asking for permission – either from a vote of the joint session [of Congress] or from the Court," the memo said. "The fact is that the Constitution assigns this power to the Vice President as the ultimate arbiter. We should take all of our actions with that in mind." Pence, of course, ultimately disagreed with these arguments and refused Trump's pleas to carry out the plan. And despite the insurrection carried out by Trump's followers on the Capitol that day, Pence fulfilled his role as expected, and Congress counted all the Electoral Votes as they were actually awarded, affirming Biden as the winner. But even though the plan failed, the document remains a disturbing record of the time. It's impossible to know what would have happened if Pence had tried to go along with the plan — there might've been outrage and chaos in the streets, just as there were outbursts of celebration when Biden was declared the winner in November 2020. But if the vice president could just throw out the votes of states he didn't like, it would indisputably be the end of democracy in the United States. Many legal experts found the document chilling, deeply disturbing, and absurd. "This 'plan' is laughable, but we shouldn't laugh," said conservative lawyer David French. "If carried out, it would have led to the country's greatest political crisis since April 1861. And Eastman was no mere internet crank. He was a law professor and close to POTUS in the final days." Steve Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas, agreed: "This memo is horrifying. As is the fact that it was written by a (former) law professor. As is the reporting that Pence agonized over the matter. As is so much else about how close we came to a coup (fine — an autogolpe) on 1/6. As is how little we're doing to respond to it." Asha Rangappa, who teaches at Yale Law School, called the memo a "sinister plan" that would let "Trump to unconstitutionally grab and hold on to power." She added: "Note, by the way, that he's pretty confident the R's would go along with it until the end." Why legal experts are so disturbed by a Trump lawyer's 6-point plan to overturn the 2020 election - Alternet.org

Looks grim and funny at the same time, but they didn't give the dog proper star billing.

They have an interesting concept of "legal". Perhaps they ought to consult an attorney.

Trudeau's response to the pandemic was appropriate and effective, gaining him a lot of voter support, but he damned near blew it by calling an election when no one wanted it. I am assuming it was his call, but somehow I doubt it.

A quote from Winston Churchill" Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the other forms that have been tried". And so it is.

And head coach in waiting.

The takeaways from the election: 1. Trudeau had a majority of Canadians supporting him until he decided to call an election in the middle of a pandemic. I suspect he and his advisors decided that the pandemic would be mostly over by mid-September and decided to roll the dice. Such is politics. 2. O'Toole was not a popular enough figurehead to offset core PC ideology that is way behind most Canadian values on abortion, carbon taxing, environment, Medicare, and gun control. The right-wingers will agonize over their losses but cannot see that they will keep wandering in the political wilderness with that mindset. 3. Trudeau did much to disqualify himself from a second term, but I believe that it came down to him being the lesser of evils. 4. The NDP is still not seen as a viable option as a governing federal party. 5. Trudeau will be gone by spring, and the PCs will resort to their traditional back-stabbing of a failed leader by that time as well.

Texas Abortion Doctor Sued For Violating State’s New Abortion Ban A San Antonio doctor who admitted defying Texas’ new abortion law by performing the procedure on a woman who was more than six weeks pregnant may have to defend his decision in court. Dr. Alan Braid wrote an essay published Saturday in The Washington Post in which he said he’d performed the abortion on the woman earlier this month, despite the state law that now bans abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy. The doctor’s goal, besides a “duty of care” to his patient, was to “make sure that Texas didn’t get away with its bid to prevent this blatantly unconstitutional law from being tested,” he wrote in an essay published Saturday in The Washington Post. Now it looks like Braid will get to say more: An Arkansas man filed a lawsuit against him on Monday, according to The Washington Post. Oscar Stilley, a former lawyer convicted of tax fraud in 2010 and serving a 15-year sentence on home confinement, told the paper that, though he is not personally opposed to abortion, he thinks the measure should be subject to judicial review. “If the law is no good, why should we have to go through a long, drawn-out process to find out if it’s garbage?” Stilley told the Post after filing the complaint in state court in Bexar County, where San Antonio is located. The new law skirts judicial scrutiny by letting people file civil lawsuits against abortion practitioners and anyone who “aids” in an illegal abortion. Plaintiffs who win in court can receive bounties of at least $10,000, and Stilley admits he wouldn’t mind the cash. “If the state of Texas decided it’s going to give a $10,000 bounty, why shouldn’t I get that 10,000 bounty?” he said. Texas Abortion Doctor Sued For Violating State's New Abortion Ban | HuffPost

That is a tough call. Sometimes if an athlete is struggling, pulling him/her out for a bit allows for a reset of the mind. Leaving him/her in can really screw up a struggling athlete.

The same is now true in Idaho, Florida and a couple of others. Many states are at that point as well but are trying to keep it quiet to avoid panic.

Sooooo,,,they've been drinking?

Can we say "hypocrisy", children?

This is probably the new baseline and there will probably be a few spikes. I am most concerned by the number of patients in the ICUs. If they drop, it would be a great sign.

Even if its a Liberal majority, he's a goner.