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By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Wastewater stans, there’s an in depth overview of CDC’s new NWSS website within the Covid Circumstances part, below the Biobot charts. Take pleasure in! –lambert
Hen Tune of the Day
Northern Screamer, Sucre, Colombia. Heaps happening!
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Politics
“So lots of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are the truth is a rational administration of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles
Biden Administration
“Bombenomics: Biden admin circulates map displaying states that profit from Ukraine assist” [Politico]. “Battleground states Pennsylvania and Arizona are reaping billions of {dollars} from Washington’s efforts to arm Ukraine, in accordance with a graphic the Biden administration has circulated on Capitol Hill…. POLITICO reported final month that the White Home was switching up its messaging after operating into continued resistance on Capitol Hill, after figuring out that promoting the battle funding effort based mostly on nationwide safety wasn’t altering minds.” •
The Supremes
“The brand new SCOTUS Code of Conduct” [SCOTUSblog]. “There are issues to love in regards to the Code of Conduct that the Supreme Court docket promulgated earlier this month. It’s a bona fide code of conduct—one which, in the primary, tracks the Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges. It follows the identical construction, options the identical 5 canons, and consists of many of the identical provisions which are worded in the identical approach…. And it isn’t honest to sentence the brand new code as toothless as a result of it consists of no enforcement mechanism. That mentioned, there are some problematic variations between the brand new SCOTUS Code and the Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges…. The brand new code doesn’t impose an obligation to ‘be devoted to…the legislation,’ as required by Canon 3(A)(1) of the Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges. It’s attainable that this obligation was thought redundant of the Canon 2(A) obligation to ‘respect and adjust to the legislation’ (which the courtroom retained). The duty to respect and adjust to the legislation, nevertheless, considerations the obligation to abide by the legislation in a choose’s day by day life, whereas the obligation to be devoted to the legislation considerations an obligation to uphold and apply the legislation when deciding circumstances. For justices below elevated fireplace for ideological, partisan-seeming decision-making, the optics of the courtroom exempting itself from an obligation to uphold and apply the legislation is unlucky….. The brand new SCOTUS Code qualifies the statutory obligation to disqualify when a justice’s ‘impartiality would possibly moderately be questioned’ by including language decoding it to imply that ‘an unbiased and affordable one who is conscious of all related circumstances would doubt that the Justice might pretty discharge his or her duties.’ Whereas in line with interpretive precedent, this clause is cherry-picked to omit steerage that the ‘affordable particular person’ is just not a choose however an out of doors observer, who’s much less inclined than a choose to credit score the choose’s impartiality. ”
2024
Lower than a 12 months to go!
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“Appeals courtroom reinstates gag order that barred Trump from maligning courtroom workers in N.Y. fraud trial” [Boston Globe]. “A New York appeals courtroom Thursday reinstated a gag order that barred Donald Trump from commenting about courtroom personnel after he frequently disparaged a legislation clerk in his New York civil fraud trial. The one-sentence determination from a four-judge panel got here two weeks after a person appellate choose had put the order on maintain whereas the appeals course of performed out. Trial choose Arthur Engoron, who imposed the gag order, mentioned he now deliberate to implement it ‘rigorously and vigorously.’” • I don’t know in the event you’ve learn Frank Herbert’s fantastic The Dosadi Experiment, the place the authorized system constructed by the frog individuals, the Gowachin, permits anybody in “the Courtarena” to be killed, together with judges, legal professionals, and, in fact, clerks. Trump appears to assume he’s on the planet of the frog individuals, not planet Earth. Depart the workers alone, ffs. They shouldn’t be gamers!
“Choose and clerk in Trump civil fraud trial have acquired a whole bunch of ‘severe and credible’ threats” [CNN]. “Since October 3, when Trump posted on social media a baseless allegation about Choose Arthur Engoron’s legislation clerk, threats towards the choose ‘elevated exponentially’ and have been additionally directed to his clerk, in accordance with Charles Hollon, a courtroom officer-captain in New York assigned to the Judicial Threats Evaluation unit of the Division of Public Security, who signed a sworn assertion. Hollon mentioned the threats towards the choose and his clerk are ‘thought-about to be severe and credible and never hypothetical or speculative.’”
“Bid to carry Trump accountable for Jan. 6 violence stalls at appeals courtroom” [Politico]. “A federal appeals courtroom mulling Donald Trump’s authorized legal responsibility for Jan. 6 violence is approaching a conspicuous anniversary of inaction. Almost a 12 months in the past, the courtroom thought-about three lawsuits introduced by Capitol Cops and members of Congress accusing Trump and his allies of inciting the assault that threatened their lives and the federal government they have been sworn to guard. However their efforts to carry Trump accountable have languished. The D.C. Circuit Court docket of Appeals sometimes decides circumstances inside 4 months of oral arguments, however the trio of Trump lawsuits has been sitting on the courtroom’s docket with no ruling since they have been argued final December.”
“Genius or Suicide” [Judith Butler, London Review of Books (Acacia)]. From 2019, nonetheless germane. “I’ve supplied not more than a dream sequence of my very own. It could be that disgrace and guilt has suffused all he has ever felt. The jury is out. My wager/dream is that he would reasonably die than pause to really feel the disgrace that passes by him and is externalised as destruction and rage. If he ever registers disgrace, it might be solely in that briefest second simply because it turns outwards, to be expelled into the world round him. It may well by no means correctly be lived as his personal, as a result of his psychic construction is constructed to dam it – a huge activity. If in the long run disgrace ever turns again on him, it might – in accordance with the foundations of his psychic playbook – be a suicidal submission. Count on then a really lengthy and loud howl, as he launches a climactic accusation towards the entire world. Allow us to hope that by then he has been disadvantaged of his entry to army energy.” • Wild stuff, particularly contemplating that Trump began zero (0) wars, and Biden began not less than one (1).
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“Can the Anti-Trump Coalition Maintain?” [The Bulwark]. “Quite a bit can change in a 12 months however the citizens is shifting, and the anti-MAGA coalition is splintering. Trump leads Biden in nationwide polling and swing state polling. Biden’s general approval hovers round 39 p.c, nowhere close to what’s required for an incumbent to win a second time period, and the numbers on his administration of the economic system—the primary problem—are worse… So who’re the voters being newly persuaded by Trump? These potential new swing voters aren’t MAGA, they aren’t pumped for the discharge of the J6 tapes, and so they don’t give a passing thought to the outrages of Hunter Biden. They’re nonwhite, younger, and unbiased, and so they belief Trump extra on the economic system, overseas coverage, and immigration. Whereas a second time period of Trump will destroy democracy and probably destabilize the complete world, these People both don’t know that, don’t consider it, or don’t care.” In phrase: Deplorables. Extra: “[T]hus far, it doesn’t seem the necessity to shield democracy is conserving collectively the voting bloc Biden wants to dam Trump. Pollster Stanley Greenberg concluded the Democracy Corps Battleground Survey findings present these points gained’t convey Democrats residence. ‘That may be a harmful technique when the bottom of Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, LGBTQ+ neighborhood, Gen Z, millennials, single and faculty ladies give Trump greater approval scores than Biden,’ he wrote.” • Yikes!
“Black Voters Are Drifting Away from Democrats. Will That Damage Biden in SC?” [Politico]. “Three years after Donald Trump pulled about 8 p.c of the Black vote nationally, polling this month by The New York Instances and Siena Faculty of six battleground states discovered his help had bumped as much as 22 p.c of the Black citizens if the election have been held in the present day. Different polls regarded even worse for the Democrats; a nationwide ballot by CNN registered Trump’s help amongst Black voters at 23 p.c, whereas an earlier Fox Information ballot put it at 26 p.c. These are jaw-dropping numbers for a demographic that, historically, has been the Democratic Occasion’s most dependable voting bloc. And it’d be unhealthy sufficient for the Democratic Occasion if the erosion of Black help was strictly about Biden or the probably Republican nominee, former President Trump. Among the many Democrats assembly right here, there was normal and disquieting settlement that Trump’s attraction is just a part of the rationale for the erosion of Black help. Jeremy Jones, a Democratic Occasion official from Lexington County, mentioned some Black individuals who noticed Trump’s identify on stimulus checks in 2020 inform him, ‘Not less than he acquired one thing carried out for the Black neighborhood.’ …. [Jay Parmley, the executive director of the state party’s] concern, shared by many Democrats, is just not a lot that Black voters will migrate to Trump in important numbers, however that, when November 2024 comes round, some would possibly merely not prove to vote. And there’s plenty of proof to again that concern. Turnout amongst Black voters within the midterm elections final 12 months dropped off practically 10 share factors from 2018.” • Hmm. The identical erosion was evident in 2016. Democrat being Democrats, nothing has been carried out.
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“Group Biden’s nice double quarter pounder ‘misinformation’ marketing campaign” [Washington Examiner]. “On Sept. 20, Politico revealed an article headlined ‘Biden’s marketing campaign set to counterpunch on misinformation.’ The story reported that President Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection marketing campaign is ‘overhauling’ its technique to struggle ‘misinformation’ on social media. The brand new effort consists of ‘recruiting a whole bunch of staffers and volunteers to watch platforms.’ To oversee the work, the marketing campaign employed a former Biden White Home staffer named Rob Flaherty, who was described as a ‘bulldog’ and a ‘controversial determine’ whose ‘combative emails to social media companies have change into a part of a Republican-led federal courtroom case and a congressional investigation.’… The federal courtroom case is Missouri v. Biden, a landmark COVID-era case involving authorities censorship of social media. Discovery within the case introduced revelations that the Biden White Home and different Biden administration officers, working with outdoors activist teams, ‘held biweekly conferences with tech corporations over how one can curb the unfold of misinformation throughout the pandemic,’ with Flaherty ‘in fixed contact with social media executives,’ within the phrases of the Wall Avenue Journal editorial web page…. An essential reality to recollect is that Flaherty and his colleagues weren’t simply focusing on misinformation. Most of the postings they sought to ban have been “scientifically debatable,” within the Wall Avenue Journal’s phrases. What Flaherty and the Biden crew actually wished to do was ban speech that was opposite to or inconvenient for Biden administration coverage. And now Flaherty has a brand new position on the Biden 2024 marketing campaign.” • Flaherty acquired a promotion! That’s good. (Fascinating to think about that the efforts described in Missouri v. Biden are the PMC’s operational definition of “scientific communication.”
“Hunter Biden Artwork Purchaser Advocated for Her Grandniece’s Launch From Hamas Captivity” [RealClearInvestigations]. “The American kidnap sufferer launched by the terrorist group Hamas throughout its ongoing ceasefire with Israel is a great-niece of Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali, a serious Democratic occasion donor who paid handsomely for Hunter Biden’s artwork and gained an appointment to a plum cultural publish from President Biden…. Whereas noting that the Biden administration has labored with Qatari and Egyptian mediators to free all of the hostages, a senior administration official advised RealClearInvestigations that ‘U.S. officers insisted that Abigail be included on an early checklist in addition to the opposite two People on this class [of women and children].’ ‘The President raised Abigail in practically all of his telephone calls with counterparts in addition to with the Amir of Qatar on Saturday,’ the official mentioned, including that ‘U.S. officers have additionally remained in shut contact with Abigail’s relations together with these the President spoke with on Sunday,’ the day Abigail was returned from Gaza to Israel…. Republican Home members have been investigating attainable connections between Hirsh Naftali’s artwork shopping for and her authorities appointment to the U.S. Fee for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Overseas since July. In a letter that month to Hirsh Naftali, Oversight Committee chairman James Comer of Kentucky mentioned, ‘Your place on the Fee is especially suspicious due to Hunter Biden’s earlier actions to raise his enterprise accomplice—Eric Schwerin—to the identical publish whereas his father was Vice President.’” • Pretty. An inexpensive grift, proper in the midst of a hostage negotiation. ‘Twas ever thus?
“Biden’s polling is in additional harmful territory than Obama’s in 2011” [NBC]. “There’s one massive drawback with all of the discuss evaluating President Joe Biden’s standing within the 2023 polls with Barack Obama’s in 2011. Biden’s present numbers are in additional harmful territory for an incumbent than Obama’s ever have been at this identical cut-off date. For one factor, Obama held a constant lead over GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney within the polls — minus just a few exceptions instantly after the debt-ceiling disaster — till that first general-election debate…. What’s extra, our identical November 2011 ballot had Obama forward of a generic Republican, versus our November 2023 ballot displaying Biden trailing a generic Republican by double digits.”
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“Prime Ramaswamy aide leaves to affix Trump marketing campaign” [CNN]. “Brian Swensen formally resigned from his position as nationwide political director for the Ramaswamy marketing campaign over the weekend and has joined the Trump marketing campaign, a supply acquainted with his departure advised CNN. Swensen is anticipated to be engaged on the marketing campaign’s political operation within the early-voting states, particularly in Nevada, two Trump marketing campaign sources advised CNN. Swensen’s departure is the newest indicator of Ramaswamy’s stagnating marketing campaign, which has struggled to realize momentum even because the candidate intently aligns himself with Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 GOP nomination. Earlier this month, Brandon Goodyear, the Ramaswamy crew’s videographer, stepped away from the marketing campaign, a supply acquainted with the departure advised CNN.” • So, videographers are main indicators?
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“DeSantis to debate California Gov. Gavin Newsom tonight” [Axios]. • Can’t they each lose?
“Haley and DeSantis are relying extra on outdoors marketing campaign teams with time operating out to cease Trump” [Associated Press]. “Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley are more and more outsourcing central components of their campaigns, drawing on the rising urgency of Donald Trump opponents to discover a single different to the previous president. Struggling to energise his marketing campaign, DeSantis this week privately inspired his donor community to help a newly shaped tremendous PAC that’s taking up promoting duties. That’s after a management shakeup on the pro-DeSantis tremendous PAC that for months has been dealing with the majority of each his promoting and his get-out-the-vote operation. On the identical time, Haley’s self-described ‘scrappy’ political marketing campaign, which has by no means loved the identical degree of funding or manpower as DeSantis’ operation, gained the help of the the Koch community, the most important conservative grassroots group within the nation. By week’s finish, scores of Koch-backed activists are anticipated to start advocating on Haley’s behalf on the doorsteps of tens of 1000’s of Republican major voters. The extraordinary reliance on unbiased teams for the 2 Republicans who more and more look like Trump’s closest challengers is testing the sensible and authorized limits of modern-day presidential campaigns.”
“Nikki Haley’s home-state technique faces a hitch: South Carolina is Trump nation” [NBC]. “Nikki Haley sees her residence state as a launchpad. It might change into her marketing campaign’s crash website…. Up to now, she hasn’t made the sale. That’s not less than partly as a result of Haley has but to offer voters a purpose to desert Trump — the dominant political determine within the state for nearly a decade — a recurring theme that emerged in interviews with virtually two dozen Republican voters, present and former elected officers, county occasion chairs and Republican strategists. The identical will be mentioned for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the remainder of a area that Trump leads by greater than 30 share factors in current polls of the state’s Feb. 24 major…. Haley is trying to reconnect with voters who haven’t seen her on a poll since 2014. She hosted a well-attended city corridor assembly Monday in Beaufort, her first occasion within the state in virtually a month. It got here on the heels of Trump’s highly-publicized go to to Saturday’s marquee soccer recreation between the College of South Carolina and Clemson, a free media bonanza for the previous president. Though Trump acquired a mixture of cheers and jeers, the dueling appearances served as a reminder of his capacity to dam out the solar — or the state’s favourite daughter — at a second’s discover. For Haley to win, she’ll should sway a big portion of voters who discover her interesting despite the fact that they at the moment again Trump.” • I preserve coming as much as stature. Love Trump or hate him, he appears constructed to a special scale, even a gargantuan one.
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“Scoop: No Labels abandons its in-person presidential conference” [Axios]. “No Labels — the bipartisan group plotting a third-party presidential bid — is pulling the plug on its Dallas conference subsequent spring and can as an alternative conduct its ‘choice course of just about,’ Axios has realized… No Labels’ earlier plan was to make use of the interval between Tremendous Tuesday on March 5 and the Dallas conference that had been set for April 14-15 to hearken to supporters after which make a ultimate determination on whether or not to launch a third-party ticket.” • So that they’re pushing the choice off, placing them on the volatility facet of the steadiness v. volatility dichotomy.
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* * *“West says third occasion critics have ‘good purpose to be afraid’” [The Hill]. “Impartial presidential candidate Cornel West mentioned Tuesday critics of a third-party ticket have a ‘good purpose to be afraid.’ ‘I feel they’ve good purpose to be afraid as a result of anyone who needs to talk the reality, when you might have a regime in energy that denies the reality, anyone who seeks justice, who runs away from justice, they should be afraid,’ West mentioned on Fox Information on Tuesday. ‘However that’s for the Republican Occasion and that’s for the Democratic Occasion.’”
2020 Put up Mortem
“Court docket submitting reveals Rep. Scott Perry’s huge net of contacts in bid to reverse 2020 election” [Politico]. “The newly disclosed paperwork reveal a rare net of communications between Perry, who’s now the chair of the Home Freedom Caucus, and key figures in Trump’s orbit…. the exchanges with DOJ’s [Jeff] Clark — described in Smith’s federal indictment of Trump as certainly one of six unnamed and unindicted co-conspirators in an effort to subvert the 2020 election — are maybe probably the most revealing. Clark, then a low-profile determine who oversaw the Justice Division’s civil litigation within the ultimate months of the presidential time period, was launched to Trump by Perry amid Trump’s effort to stay in workplace. Trump got here near appointing Clark as performing legal professional normal within the early days of 2021 earlier than backing down amid a mass resignation risk by senior DOJ and White Home officers. Throughout this time, Clark pressured high DOJ officers to ship a letter to state legislatures urging them to think about sending alternate slates of presidential electors to Congress, and he obtained a safety clearance to overview intelligence about potential overseas efforts to intervene within the election. Perry indicated in a single newly disclosed trade that Trump had personally permitted a ‘presidential safety clearance,’ a remark that adopted Clark asking Perry to make sure that Trump was conscious that CIA Director Gina Haspel wanted to provide him with ‘safety clearance tickets’ to entry intelligence associated to the 2020 election.’” And: “Most of the paperwork linked to the case had been saved below seal. However on Wednesday, the D.C. Circuit unsealed them — together with a decrease courtroom’s opinion that described and quoted from a big quantity of the very textual content messages that Smith has been in search of. By Wednesday night, the unsealed opinion appeared to have been faraway from the courtroom’s public docket, suggesting it might have been posted inadvertently.” • Oops?
Democrats en Déshabillé
Affected person readers, evidently individuals are really studying the back-dated publish! However I’ve not up to date it, and there are various updates. So I must do this. –lambert
I’ve moved my standing remarks on the Democrat Occasion (“the Democrat Occasion 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 “reside” Water Cooler. (Hopefully, some Bourdieu.) It seems that defining the Democrat Occasion is, the truth is, a tough drawback. I do assume the paragraph that follows is on level all the best way again to 2016, if not earlier than:
The Democrat Occasion is the political expression of the category energy of PMC, their base (lucidly defined by Thomas Frank in Pay attention, Liberal!). It follows that the Democrat Occasion is as “unreformable” because the PMC is unreformable; if the Democrat Occasion didn’t exist, the PMC must invent it. If the Democrat Occasion fails to manipulate, that’s as a result of the PMC lacks the aptitude to manipulate. (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” in fact.) Second, all of the working components of the Occasion reinforce one another. Depart apart characterizing the relationships between components of the Occasion (ka-ching, however not fully) these components 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, in fact, that the category energy of the PMC each expresses and is proscribed 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.
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“Hollywood Goes Residence: How Movie star Endorsements Are Serving to Dems Win Down Poll” [The Messenger]. “In cities throughout the nation, there may be that particular person – the child who made it massive, starred in some films, turned an motion hero, perhaps even gained some awards. What if that particular person advised you about an upcoming native election? Or a candidate who it is best to take into account supporting? They’re well-known, certain, however they’re greater than that: They’re your city’s well-known particular person, somebody with native credibility as a result of they know what it’s prefer to develop up the place you probably did. That’s the idea behind The Hometown Undertaking, an progressive effort that appears to pair celebrities with candidates for state legislature, college board, or different native places of work from the areas they grew up in. The purpose is to make use of their native superstar to extend voter engagement, educate voters on the upcoming election, and help Democratic candidates in usually missed and underfunded campaigns. The speculation is easy: The Hometown Undertaking works with native organizations to search out aggressive races in key states, then makes use of its community to ask celebrities from these areas to tape brief movies both urging individuals to vote or endorsing a selected candidate. The group then runs these movies as digital advertisements focused to key voters within the district it’s trying to win.”• What’s is with “progressives” and celebrities?
Realignment and Legitimacy
“Anthony Fauci to Testify in Home on Covid-19 Pandemic’s Origins, U.S. Response” [Wall Street Journal]. “The preparations for Fauci’s testimony are intensive. They may start with two days of transcribed interviews behind closed doorways in January. A public listening to, which is anticipated to be contentious, will probably be held at a later date…. In a letter to Fauci in the present day, Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R., Ohio), chairman of the Choose Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, mentioned the committee and Fauci’s crew had agreed Fauci would give a transcribed interview on Jan. 8 and 9 for seven hours every day. The letter states that two authorities legal professionals and two private attorneys can accompany Fauci at these periods, which gained’t be public. The date for the general public listening to hasn’t but been set. Wenstrup and different Home Republicans, citing e-mail exchanges, have charged that Fauci labored with different scientists to minimize the potential of a lab leak in a seminal March 2020 scientific article, “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2,” within the journal Nature Drugs.” • And the spooks labored proper alone with Fauci (mentioned Kristian Andersen; too lazy to search out the hyperlink). I ponder if they are going to be questioned too? Or whether or not Fauci will attempt to drag them in?
#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
Sources, United States (Nationwide): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; consists of many counties; Wastewater Scan, consists of drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, however nationwide information). “An infection Management, Emergency Administration, Security, and Basic 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 tackle given with the vegetation. Please put “COVID” within the topic line. Thanks!
Sources, 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).
Sources, Canada (Nationwide): Wastewater (Authorities of Canada).
Sources, 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 protected on the market!
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Covid is Airborne
Novid success:
Takes self-discipline.
Maskstravaganza
I’m all for probiotics, garlic, ginger, and so on., however holy moley! #CovidIsAirborne!
PREVENT VIRAL ILLNESS WITH THIS ONE COOL TRICK.
Masks. It’s masks. Put on a masks. pic.twitter.com/5Vvoq6lXIX
— Jessy Roos (@jessyroos) November 29, 2023
Some air flow individuals actually should evangelize the Mommy Blogs…..
“Ordinary Masks Sporting as A part of COVID-19 Management in Japan: An Evaluation Utilizing the Self-Report Behavior Index” [Behavioral Sciences]. N = 2640. “Though the Japanese authorities eliminated mask-wearing necessities in 2023, comparatively excessive charges of masks sporting have continued in Japan. We aimed to evaluate psychological causes and the energy of routine masks sporting in Japan…. A regression evaluation examined the affiliation between psychological causes and the frequency of masks sporting. The routine use of masks was assessed within the participant’s most often visited indoor area and public transport utilizing the self-report behavior index. The principal element evaluation with varimax rotation revealed distinct routine traits. Among the many 2640 contributors surveyed from 6 to 9 February 2023, solely 4.9% reported not sporting masks in any respect. Conformity to social norms was a very powerful purpose for masks. Individuals exhibited a barely greater diploma of habituation in direction of masks sporting on public transport in comparison with indoor areas. The mask-wearing charge was greater in females than in males, and no important distinction was recognized by age group. Day by day masks sporting in indoor areas was characterised by two traits (automaticity and behavioral frequency). A excessive mask-wearing frequency has been maintained in Japan throughout the social reopening transition interval. Masks sporting has change into part of day by day behavior, particularly on public transport, largely pushed by computerized and frequent follow.”
Immune Dysregulation
“What we find out about threat of a ‘triple-demic’ this respiratory virus season” [National Post]. “One current research instructed COVID-19 infections could have been a driving power for the 2022 surge in RSV infections amongst kids 5 and below, presumably due to the consequences of SARS-CoV-2 on a toddler’s immune and respiratory programs.” • Remarkably, no point out of so-called “immunity debt.”
Testing and Monitoring
A really lengthy thread on testing:
2) One of the fascinating research :
“Testing at scale throughout the COVID-19 pandemic”https://t.co/LZRfXh2GRp”Even probably the most intensive testing schemes have been discovered to overlook many infectious people and to supply solely partial inhabitants protection.” pic.twitter.com/VIpeo3h1ZI
— Emmanuel (@ejustin46) November 26, 2023
“One thing Terrible”
Lambert right here: I’m getting the sensation that the “One thing Terrible” could be a sawtooth sample — variant after variant — that averages out to a completely excessive plateau. A lot of exceptionally nasty sequelae, almost definitely deriving from immune dysregulation (says this layperson). To which we would add mind harm, together with persona adjustments therefrom.
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Case Information
NOT UPDATED From BioBot wastewater information, November 27:
Lambert right here: Case counts shifting neatly upward (and tinfoil hat time: That is the, er, inflection level CDC was attempting to hide once they gave the contract to Verily and didn’t guarantee a seamless transition).
Regional information:
That Midwest near-vertical curve is regarding, though as ever with Biobot you must look ahead to backward revisions.
• “CDC revamps wastewater COVID information reporting” [Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy]. “The Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) lately unveiled new wastewater information monitoring dashboard to make it simpler to trace native and nationwide tendencies, even by variant. Wastewater monitoring is without doubt one of the early indicators well being officers use to gauge the exercise of SARS-CoV-2 and different viruses. Known as the Nationwide Wastewater Surveillance Program [NWSS], the primary web page says that, nationally, wastewater viral exercise of COVID is excessive. On Twitter (X), Niall Brennan, MPP, senior adviser to the CDC’s director, mentioned the makeover was carried out over a 4-week interval by a crew informally known as “Poo’s Clues.” He added that the purpose was to reimagine how one can current the information and enhance the visualizations, which have been beforehand underwhelming. Wastewater monitoring customers can now see nationwide tendencies in 1-year, 6-month, and 45-day increments and look at regional and native tendencies. The brand new portal additionally has maps displaying wastewater viral exercise ranges and reveals shifts in variants over time. ‘It was enjoyable and quick paced and my due to the unbelievable crew at CDC who willingly ripped up the rule ebook within the course of of creating this unbelievable useful resource extra accessible to a wider viewers. Far more to return!,’ Brennan mentioned.” • Hopefully. CDC being CDC, the previous wastewater web page doesn’t seek advice from the brand new. Confusingly, CDC being CDC, the primary NWSS web page (up to date November 29) has a near-useless chart (examine to BioBot’s). I’ll begin with the nationwide information, then regional (Midwest, as a result of ranges are excessive there), then Minnesota. I’ve helpfully annotated and added notes to every chart. On the nationwide degree:
“Close to ineffective,” as I mentioned. NOTES [1] “FromDB”? Who let that slip by? [2] The colour scale doesn’t appear to narrate to something. [3] The chart truncates the course of the pandemic, starting solely in January 2022, which is flat-out ridiculous.
The clickthrough regional web page chart (up to date November 25) is extra helpful, and reveals the regarding spike within the Midwest:
NOTES [1] There isn’t a coloration scale. The nationwide and regional charts needs to be constant. [2] “Choose a geography” isn’t English; substitute with “Choose a area.” Additionally, clarify which area, utilizing (one assumes) the identical terminology because the CDC variant chart.
The second degree of clickthrough (up to date November 25), for nationwide, state, and regional information, is much more helpful, and reveals a extremely regarding near-vertical in Minnesota:
NOTES [1] The grey shading is an effective characteristic! [2] Presumably an indirect reference to the Biobot lawsuit. [3] There isn’t a Stage indicator (“Excessive”, or no matter), whether or not accompanied by a coloration scale or not.
Lambert right here, general feedback: (1) Three clickthroughs is dumb. Consolidate to 1 chart on the primary web page. (2) Institutionally, it seems like three groups have been at work, one per chart, and their work was incompletely built-in, as proven by inconsistencies within the Stage indicators and coloration scale, and the huge typo on the nationwide chart. So no matter org chart debacle produced that end result needs to be mounted. (3) The cadence with which the information is refreshed is nowhere documented. (4) Regional names needs to be in line with CDC variants, e.g. (5) “All Outcomes” (nationwide chart) ought to imply simply that: Information for the complete course of the pandemic (so combine the [family-blogging] Biobot information ffs, if that’s what it takes). As issues stand, it seems like CDC is attempting to erase the primary two years of the pandemic — together with the Biden Administration’s monumental Omicron spike — and that’s not look. (Additionally, I checked the Verily website, and it appears as horrid as ever. Maybe they have been a part of the CDC NWSS growth crew, I don’t know.)
Variants
NOT UPDATED From CDC, November25:
Lambert right here: Prime of the leaderboard: HV.1, EG.5 a powerful second, however BA.2.86 developing quick on the surface.
From CDC, November 11:
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 reduce by directors of in poor health intent).
CDC: “As of Could 11, genomic surveillance information will probably be reported biweekly, based mostly on the provision of optimistic 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, November 25:
Lambert right here: Slight will increase in some age teams, conforming to wastewater information. Solely per week’s lag, so this can be our greatest present nationwide, present indicator.
NOTE “Charts and information offered by CDC, updates Wednesday by 8am. For the previous 12 months, utilizing a rolling 52-week interval.” So not the complete 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 acceptable for bothMR SUBLIMINAL I hate these individuals a lot. Discover additionally that this chart reveals, not less than for its time interval, that Covid is just not seasonal, despite the fact that CDC is attempting to get us to consider that it’s, presumably to allow them to piggyback on the prevailing institutional equipment for injections. And naturally, we’re not even entering into the standard of the wastewater websites that we now have as a proxy for Covid an infection general.
• Here’s a utterly unserious overview from Mom Jones (you simply learn a severe overview [lambert blushes modestly]).
Hospitalization
Bellwether New York Metropolis, information as of November 30:
Up. Stage-ish, however I guess hospitalization drops over the vacation weekend. Let’s wait and see. New York state as a complete seems extra like a spike. (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 [snort]).
NOT UPDATED Right here’s a special CDC visualization on hospitalization, nationwide, not by state, however with a date, not less than. November 18:
Lambert right here: “Maps, charts, and information offered 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
NOT UPDATED From Walgreens, November 27:
0.4%. Up. (It will be fascinating to survey this inhabitants usually; these are individuals who, regardless of a tsunami of official propaganda and massive peer strain, went and acquired examined anyhow.)
NOT UPDATED From Cleveland Clinic, November 25:
Lambert right here: Improve (with backward revision; guess they thought it was over). 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.
NOT UPDATED From CDC, traveler’s information, November 6:
Down, albeit within the rear view mirror. And listed here are the variants for vacationers, November 6:
BA.2.86 coming alongside properly.
Deaths
Complete: 1,183,664 – 1,183,455 = 209 (209 * 365 = 76,285 deaths per 12 months, in the present day’s YouGenicist™ quantity for “dwelling with” Covid (fairly a bit greater than the minimizers would love, although they will discuss themselves into something. If the YouGenicist™ metric retains chugging alongside like this, I could should determine that is what the powers-that-be take into account “mission achieved” for this specific tranche of loss of life and illness).
Lambert right here: This quantity is just too small it doesn’t matter what. Iowa Covid19 Tracker hasn’t been up to date since September 27, 2023. I’ll should revert to CDC information. Yech.
Extra Deaths
NOT UPDATED The Economist, November 18:
Lambert right here: Gonna should whack this, too. How does an automatic mannequin not replace? Based mostly on a machine-learning mannequin.
Stats Watch
Employment Scenario: “United States Preliminary Jobless Claims” [Trading Economics]. “The variety of People submitting for unemployment advantages rose by 7,000 to 218,000 within the week ending November twenty fifth, a rise from the revised variety of 211,000 reported within the earlier week however barely under market expectations of 220,000. In the meantime, persevering with claims surged by 86,000 to 1.927 million within the prior week, marking the best degree since November 2021 and hinting at a softening labor market. ”
Private Earnings: “United States Private Earnings” [Trading Economics]. “Private revenue in the US elevated 0.2% month-over-month in October 2023, the least in 4 months, and matching market forecasts.”
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Tech: Zuckerberg is just not a pleasant particular person in any respect:
What’s Fb’s response to the ugly tales on the way it tracks and manipulates kids? To apologize? To obey the Federal Commerce Fee’s order to cease? Nope.
Zuckerberg simply requested a courtroom to declare the FTC unconstitutional. https://t.co/xHq5O29DBW
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) November 30, 2023
Tech: “Google to pay Canada’s ‘hyperlink tax,’ drops risk of eradicating information from search” [Ars Technica]. “Google has agreed to pay Canadian information companies $100 million a 12 months to adjust to the nation’s On-line Information Act, regardless of beforehand saying it might take away Canadian information hyperlinks from search reasonably than make the required funds. Google and authorities officers agreed to a deal that lets Google negotiate with a single information collective and cut back its general monetary obligation. Fb proprietor Meta is in the meantime holding agency in its opposition to funds. ‘Google will contribute $100 million in monetary help yearly, listed to inflation, for a variety of stories companies throughout the nation, together with unbiased information companies and people from Indigenous and official-language minority communities,’ Minister of Canadian Heritage Pascale St-Onge mentioned in an announcement in the present day. The $100 million in Canadian foreign money is price about $74 million in US foreign money. Earlier than in the present day’s deal, the federal authorities estimated that Google must pay $172 million a 12 months.” • Chump change! What Google needs to be paying is regardless of the newspaper trade made earlier than Google gutted it.
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At the moment’s Worry & Greed Index: 64 Greed (earlier shut: 63 Greed) [CNN]. One week in the past: 66 (Greed). (0 is Excessive Worry; 100 is Excessive Greed). Final up to date Nov 30 at 1:32:29 PM ET.
Information of the Wired
“On Pneumatic Tires” [Scope of Work]. “The invention of the wheel is commonly put ahead as a pinnacle of human ingenuity, however it strikes me that the defining attribute of recent transportation programs is just not the wheel however the pneumatic tire. In the US, automobiles with tires carry twice as a lot freight as automobiles with out them. Tires have an outsized position in particular person transportation: The overwhelming majority of People commute on tires, outweighing all different modes by about fourteen to 1. Tires are on our lawnmowers, these iconic symbols of twentieth-century middle-class independence, and so they’re on our e-scooters, maybe the zenith of twenty-first century globalization and consumerism. The tire’s meteoric rise might need shocked nineteenth-century observers of the wheel, which took millennia to penetrate (and form) human tradition. Wheels emerged in numerous varieties between 3000 and 4000 BCE. But even despite its apparent utility, wheeled transportation remained costly, uncomfortable, and comparatively uncommon nicely into the early trendy interval. Richard Bulliet writes that as late as 1570, the variety of four-wheeled carriages in Britain ‘might be counted on one hand,’ and even in 1814 there was just one carriage for each 145 British inhabitants. By comparability, in the present day Britain has about one automobile for each 1.6 individuals – and roughly half of Brits personal or have entry to a bicycle. Wrapped in leather-based and riveted to an iron ‘tyre,’ the primary pneumatic tire took place fifteen years earlier than the velocipede – the primary extensively profitable bicycle. The tire was patented, evaluated positively by engineers, after which promptly forgotten. The recognition of bikes, vehicles, and wheeled transportation usually has a lot to do with the tire – and the recognition of the tire owes rather a lot to bikes and vehicles.” • With the ability to repair punctures in my bicyle tires all on my own was an enormous step ahead in autonomy for me as a toddler (as was the bicycle itself, in fact).
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Contact info for vegetation: Readers, be at liberty to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) learn the way to ship me a examine in case you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to learn the way 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 look as a credit score, please place it in the beginning of your mail in parentheses: (thus). In any other case, I’ll anonymize by utilizing your initials. See the earlier Water Cooler (with plant) right here. From SC:
SC writes: “Picture taken within the drought stricken riparian woods of Buffalo Bayou in Memorial Park in the midst of Houston, Texas. Edible and medicinal. Berries have a peppery, considerably bitter style.”
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