From an epidemiologist’s point of view, the best “reference group” for a disease that kills 82-year-olds is 18-29-year-olds. If you’re old, you have a 63,000% chance of dying (“630x higher”).
After just one month scientific government by President Biden, Dr. Jill Biden, M.D., and President Harris, an old person has a 790,000% chance of dying (“7900x”). Get the great-grandkids to dig 7,900 graves in the backyard.
(Of course, the frightening 12.5X increase in the deadliness of COVID-19 is a result of changing the comparison group for this killer of the elderly to 5-17-year-olds.)
State health officials are trying to persuade the hesitant. In West Virginia, where just over a third of the population is fully vaccinated, Dr. Clay Marsh, the state’s coronavirus czar, said young people were proving especially difficult to win over.
“There was a narrative earlier in the pandemic that is really haunting us, which is that young people are really protected,” he said. “There’s a false belief that for many young people who are otherwise healthy that they still have a relatively free ride with this, and if they get infected, they’ll be fine.”
Dr. Joe Biden, M.D., Ph.D., to the rescue:
“The best way to protect yourself against these variants is to get vaccinated,” the president declared.
That should persuade healthy 16-year-olds that they need to take a few days off to get two injections, recover from the flu-style symptoms, etc.! Certainly they won’t continue to hold the “false belief” that they are roughly 1/8,000th as likely to die from COVID-19 as an old person.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday delayed by a month his plans to lift the last COVID-19 restrictions in England after modelling showed that thousands more people might die due unless reopening was pushed back.
The move was due to the rapid spread of the Delta coronavirus variant, which is more transmissible, associated with lower vaccine effectiveness against mild disease and could cause more hospitalisations in the unvaccinated.
Models commissioned by the government showed that without a delay to the planned June 21 reopening, in some scenarios hospitalisations could match previous peaks in cases when ministers feared the health system could be overwhelmed.
Britain has one of the fastest vaccine rollouts in the world, with over half of adults receiving both doses and more than three quarters receiving at least one, which has led some to question why restrictions need to be extended.
As Johnson announced the postponement, Public Health England published data showing shots made by Pfizer (PFE.N) and AstraZeneca (AZN.L) offer high protection against hospitalisation from the variant identified in India of 96% and 92% respectively after two doses. read more
Are we seeing the difference between the lab (the vaccines work against this variant) and the real world (the virus is smarter than humans)?
Separately, can we infer anything about our future based on the English experience? If the variant virus is overpowering the vaccinated herd in the U.K., should we expect a raging plague here by the fall (with associated lockdowns, mask orders, etc., in Church of Shutdown states)?
Summary: Based on observed behavior and discussions with folks we met on the street, New Yorkers continue to regard their city, including the outdoor environment, as contaminated. However, instead of taking the obvious step of moving somewhere that isn’t contaminated, e.g., Zoom it in from Vermont or Hawaii, they continue to reside in NYC and attempt to protect themselves from airborne contaminants via bandanas, paper surgical masks, and other non-N95 masks (keep in mind that N95 works only if professionally fitted).
The city has a moderately post-apocalyptic feel. As in Boston, many retail spaces are vacant while marijuana-related enterprises are thriving. “Safety First: No Entry Without a Face Mask” on the door of a shop selling cigarettes and vaping products and some of the numerous marijuana-related trucks that we observed:
(The city is awesome for parents who were looking forward to discussing the crucial benefits of cannabis with their young readers.)
Roughly half of New Yorkers seem to wear masks on the sidewalk. The younger and less at-risk the person is from COVID-19, the more likely he/she/ze/they is to be wearing a mask. Mask usage is less prevalent within Central Park.
Vaccination does not comfort the anxious. Nor does actual experience of COVID-19 infection as a mild illness. For example, on East 90th street we encountered a group of locals who were taking the ferry to East 34th. One appeared to be a white woman in her 30s. She said that she’d had COVID-19 in the spring of 2020 and that it was comparable to a bad cold. She said that she’d been fully vaccinated. Despite this background, she stated that she wouldn’t use the subway system anymore, however, “because of COVID.” (Masks are, in theory, required on these ferries, but if you sit on the open top deck the enforcement is non-existent and compliance is only about 70 percent.)
What about being 18 years old, rich, white, and healthy? The Dalton School for Rich Kids says that you should be “unafraid” …. and fully masked:
Capitol One, powered by Pride and “face masks or covering” (a bandana is fine!):
Here’s the restroom in the restaurant section of the Time Warner mall at Columbus Circle (when will that be renamed?):
They’d gotten organized enough to block off sinks, but were not organized enough to fill the soap or paper towel dispensers (we were there at 6 pm on a Saturday evening, so there were quite a few hours left before cleaning/replenishing).
Evidence that almost everything related to COVID-19 is religious… here’s a restaurant’s “outdoor dining” area. It is fully enclosed with no windows. Air is provided by a standard AC/heat pump.
But you can’t get COVID, unlike in a restaurant’s standard indoor space, because it is outdoors.
The most orthodox Churches of Shutdown that we found are the art museums. Email from the Guggenheim Museum after after making a mandatory reservation:
You’ll need to wear a three-ply mask regardless of vaccination status — staff is required to, too — practice social distancing, wash or sanitize your hands frequently, and pack light as our coat check is temporarily closed. Please plan ahead and read COVID-19 Safety Measures: What to Expect When Visiting.
In other words, they are fighting against an aerosol virus by cleaning surfaces and not touching their (rich white) visitors’ backpacks. (from November 2020: “The Coronavirus Is Airborne Indoors. Why Are We Still Scrubbing Surfaces?” (NYT): “Scientists who initially warned about contaminated surfaces now say that the virus spreads primarily through inhaled droplets, and that there is little to no evidence that deep cleaning mitigates the threat indoors.”). Among the below, my favorite is the exhortation to “Report violations of COVID-19 requirements by calling 311 or by texting ‘violation’ to 855 9044036.”
(How was the art? Nearly the entire museum is given over to a TV screen in the middle and visitors are supposed to stand and watch TV. Re/Projections:
To emphasize the works on display, many of the rotunda walls remain empty during Re/Projections.
Conceived in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, these projects rethink the Guggenheim’s iconic rotunda as a site of assembly, reflection, and amplification.
Artist Christian Nyampeta considers new models for globalism based in reparation and the possibility of a common world in an age dominated by difference.
Featuring renowned love songs written by men and played by women and nonbinary musicians, Ragnar Kjartansson’s performance celebrates pop music while revealing a culture shaped by chauvinism.
Our visit coincided with Christian Nyampeta’s work. It is unclear how much in reparations the (overwhelmingly white) visitors will want to pay after shelling out $25/ticket to the Guggenheim.)
Email from the Metropolitan Museum: “Face coverings are required for all visitors age two and older, even if you are vaccinated.” In other words, they’re somewhat less strict than the Guggenheim in that a bandana is considered effective PPE and museum employees won’t be inspecting your mask to determine the number of plies. Where the Met has the Guggenheim beat is in requiring visitors to wear masks in outdoor spaces, e.g., the rooftop garden:
The museum employs an official mask karen for this garden and he would periodically remind the scattered folks on the roof to keep their masks on. He also hassled a mom and dad for walking 20′ away from their two-brat stroller while taking a photo. Separately, where is Big Bird’s mask? (or maybe this isn’t Big Bird due to copyright issues? Big Bird is yellow)
The museum was mostly empty, possibly a consequence of the reservations required policy (though, as a practical matter, nobody checked whether or not we had a reservation). The slightly tighter spaces in the museum are closed off for safety:
There are COVID-19-related signs roughly every 10-20 feet throughout the museum. And, of course, water fountains are closed. Here is a sampling:
If you’re passionate about 1 gender ID out of 50+, make sure to get to the Met between July 2 and October 3 for “The New Woman Behind the Camera”:
The New Woman of the 1920s was a powerful expression of modernity, a global phenomenon that embodied an ideal of female empowerment based on real women making revolutionary changes in life and art. Featuring more than 120 photographers from over 20 countries, this groundbreaking exhibition explores the work of the diverse “new” women who embraced photography as a mode of professional and artistic expression from the 1920s through the 1950s. During this tumultuous period shaped by two world wars, women stood at the forefront of experimentation with the camera and produced invaluable visual testimony that reflects both their personal experiences and the extraordinary social and political transformations of the era.
The exhibition is the first to take an international approach to the subject, highlighting female photographers’ innovative work…
Is it fair to say that referring to “female photographers” reflects cisgender-normative prejudice? Holding the phone just above a 6′ screen:
The Museum has a new Dr. Fauci section. Truth and Research:
What does Research tell us about the Truth regarding the origins of this most pernicious virus? The New York City government wants to remind you that it is Asians who are responsible for COVID. Times Square:
“Fight the virus, not the people” and “Stop Asian Hate”! Who are “the people” that we’re told to associate with “the virus”?
One of the more peculiar aspects of NYC and COVID today is that the stay-in-NYC New Yorkers assert that they’re lives are completely back to “normal”. Yes, they’re wearing masks indoors and out, avoiding the subway, mostly not working in offices, not going to concerts or theater, etc. But this is indistinguishable from the way that life was in 2019. In some ways, they seem to be correct. Traffic leaving Manhattan on a Sunday was bad and traffic returning was terrible, with at least 5 miles of parked cars jamming the approaches to the Lincoln Tunnel from the New Jersey side.
The cost of an Uber is up roughly 50 percent:
Inequality continues to be a public health emergency at Teterboro (ancient V-tail Bonanza in front of a Gulfstream V):
(Excellent service as always at Meridian and parking a four-seat piston-powered plane is cheaper than parking a car oin Manhattan! (parking fee waived with purchase of 20 gallons of 100LL) My standard tip of $20 for the line guys will soon be insulting; inflation is already at 8% per year.)
On the way out we did the Skyline Route down the Hudson at 2,000′, turned around at the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and came back up at 1,500′. If you don’t count LaGuardia Tower and Newark Tower, a good time was had by all!
“In consideration of the health and safety of our employees and guests who have not been fully vaccinated, Masks are Required AT ALL TIMES Inside the Cheese Shop.”
Vaccinations have been widely available for two months here in Maskachusetts. There will always be those who aren’t vaccinated, however, either because they #DenyScience, have an unusual medical situation, are infants (though maybe the vaccine can be given right as a baby is coming out?), etc. Therefore, doesn’t this sign translate to “masks now, masks tomorrow, masks forever”?
#AbundanceOfCaution was the general rule for the shopping district. Although the governor’s 69 orders no longer require masks, the merchants have stepped in with their own unconditional mask requirements:
The ultimate expression of caution is to close the retail store altogether:
All photos from June 8.
A few sights on the way to/from this shopping experience… a group of preschool children, age 2 and 3, marching outdoors in masks. It was 93 degrees out. A neighbor with a zoning-minimum 2-acre lot (welcome the undocumented so long as they can afford a $1 million vacant lot on which to build a $1 million structure) riding a lawnmower… in a surgical mask.
“The recent Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act ruled that states could decide whether or not they wanted to participate in the health care law’s Medicaid expansion. Our study provides evidence suggesting that expanding Medicaid has a major positive effect on people’s health,” said [[Benjamin Sommers]], assistant professor of health policy and economics at HSPH and the study’s lead author.
The results showed that Medicaid expansions in three states were associated with a significant reduction in mortality of 6.1% compared with neighboring states that did not expand Medicaid, which corresponds to 2,840 deaths prevented per year for each 500,000 adults gaining Medicaid coverage.
Each year in which low-income Americans had better access to office visits with physicians (not just the emergency departments of hospitals, which, of course, always had to take them in) resulted in saving the lives of 0.57 percent.
What about shutting down health care, including most hospital services, for 330 million Americans (or 350 million, depending on how many undocumented are among us)? Could that result in 0.57 percent of 330 million people dying? That would be 1.88 million or 157,000 per month of shutdown. I’m going to guess that the expert scientific consensus will be “no” and that, in fact, there were only minimal effects from shutting down the U.S. healthcare system that had previously been so important to prop up with $trillions of tax dollars.
So… opening up some doctors’ offices to more people saved lives bigly. Shutting down the nation’s entire hospital system, except for procedures considered to be emergencies, did not cost any lives.
We are a family owned business that offers Americana comfort food at a reasonable price. Our portions are huge and everything is prepared fresh and you can sit along the runway and watch the planes. (318 Likes; 334 followers; 230 check-ins)
March 8, 2020: Happy Sunday. Come out and enjoy this great day at Mike’s Runway Diner. Sit along side the runway and watch the Planes take off and land while enjoying a great meal.
March 18, 2020: As many of you have heard we had to close the Restaurant due to the Coronavirus pandemic. We will be open tomorrow Thursday from 7am to 11am for to go orders only. We will keep the page updated as to when restaurants can open again. Remember to isolate and wash your hands
April 17, 2020: Mike and I are still unable to get certain provisions to run the restaurant. We will keep every one updated on when we will be able to open back up. Stay safe and indoors.
May 14, 2020: Good morning. As of now Mike’s Runway Diner is on track for opening at the beginning of June. We will keep our page updated . Thank you for all the support we have received during the closure. Mike and I look forward to seeing our favorite people (our customers). See you soon 🙂 Mike and Heather
July 5, 2020: We are still working on trying to open back up. Waiting on the restrictions to lift. We look forward to seeing everyone again soon. Mike and Heather
July 29, 2020: Well the time has come to say good by. Corona got the best of our restaurant and we were not able to move forward. Mike and I thank everyone for your business, love and support. We will cherish everyone and the memories for ever. Thank you and we will miss you all. Mike and Heather
(Minor corrections made to the above for readability.)
The Church of Shutdown abandoned the Sacrament of Masks, at least for the vaccinated, here in Massachusetts at the end of May. The ritual is kept alive at the Apple Store, however. From the Burlington Mall, today:
Things are quieter at the Microsoft Store and Lord & Taylor (both closed):
Adjacent parking lot (Burlington, MA is 3.3 percent Black, so Black Lives Matter… mostly in other towns):
We risked death-by-variant-COVID-19 today at the Watertown Mall, meeting friends for dim sum. Although the Massachusetts state of emergency persists at least until June 15, a combination of 69 governor’s orders as of yesterday boiled down to “masks are no longer required indoors”. (Or at least, “you can’t be arrested or fined under state law for not wearing a mask indoors”; maybe a city or town could order you to wear a mask.)
I would have expected an enterprise that makes money from inviting the public to share an indoor space to deemphasize the risk of sharing an indoor space as soon as that deemphasis was legal. To the contrary, however, the shopping mall operator and some individual stores had kept up their sign barrage. We walked by at least 40 COVID-related signs between the door to the small mall and the restaurant itself (waitstaff still fully masked). How does this help their business? Wouldn’t an intelligent person who believed all of these signs decide to stay home and order everything from Amazon rather than take the risk of in-person shopping?
A sampling:
The mall includes a Target and 100 percent of the shoppers whom I observed were masked, both in the Target and in the rest of the mall.
I asked two of our (adult) friends how many COVID signs they’d walked past in getting from their respective cars to the restaurant. Both answered “none”. One was sufficiently mindful of COVID-19 that he arrived in a double-mask (fabric over N95) while the other sported a plain N95 mask. Yet their minds hadn’t registered the signs.
Note that the public health experts who have technocratically managed the Massachusetts plague such that our COVID-19 death rate, adjusted for population over 65, is only 3X that of Florida’s (a Robert S. McNamara-style victory?), still advise subjects to wear masks, especially for those who are not vaccinated.
(A few days ago we went on a bicycle ride with the kids in a quiet exurb. Slender apparently health people aged 10-20 would jump off the sidewalk in order to maintain at least 10′ of distance and if they weren’t already masked would rush to raise up their chin diapers.)
From Twitter, a chart of intensive care utilization by COVID-19 patients in Stockholm versus Hamburg:
Related:
Analysis of Sweden versus UK COVID-19 outcomes (see chart of population-weighted density; the average Swede actually lives in a more densely populated environment than the average German)
“Mask mandate and use efficacy in state-level COVID-19 containment” (MedRxiv): “Case growth was not significantly different between mandate and non-mandate states at low or high transmission rates, and surges were equivocal. … Mask use did not predict Summer 2020 case growth for non-Northeast states or Fall-Winter 2020 growth for all continental states.”
U.S. companies can mandate that employees in a workplace must be vaccinated against COVID-19, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) said on Friday.
The EEOC, in a statement posted on its website explaining its updated guidance, said employees can be required to be vaccinated as long as employers comply with the reasonable accommodation provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act and other laws.
In other words, a healthy 25-year-old does not have to agree to take an “investigational” non-FDA-approved vaccine designed to prevent deaths among the unhealthy elderly, but he/she/ze/they will not be receiving a paycheck if he/she/ze/they refuses.
For anyone whose earning potential is near the median, this is another great argument in favor of choosing the welfare lifestyle. The is no vaccine requirement to continue occupying means-tested public housing. There is no vaccine requirement to continue receiving free health insurance via Medicaid. There is no vaccine requirement to continue purchasing food via SNAP/EBT. There is no vaccine requirement to continue chatting on an Obamaphone. Employers can mandate random drug and alcohol tests and transportation-related employers are required to conduct random drug and alcohol tests, but, at least here in Maskachusetts, a resident of public housing can enjoy “essential” alcohol and marijuana every day. In other words, an American with a job is not free to decide what drugs to take and what drugs not to take while an American on welfare is free to choose what drugs and medical treatments to accept and what recreational drugs to consume.
(The American on welfare is, of course, much better situated for avoiding coronavirus infection than the American who goes to work. The American on welfare need not leave his/her/zir/their apartment when variant COVID is raging. The American on welfare need not commute in a bus or subway. The American on welfare need never be in a public indoor environment.)
How about the spending power? From back in 2013, before all of the coronapanic-related enhancements to government programs, The Work versus Welfare Trade-Off (CATO):
But “Sinclair Jenkins,” HuffPost has now confirmed, is really a pseudonym for Benjamin Welton, a 33-year-old Boston University history PhD candidate who, until this week, taught English, social studies and computer science at Star Academy, an elementary school in Massachusetts. When HuffPost contacted the school for comment, Welton was put on leave, and was fired shortly before this article was published.
Like many conservatives, Welton has expressed anger about the teaching of “critical race theory” in American schools. Last August, shortly before he began teaching at the Star Academy, he tweeted under a pseudonym that a return to American greatness “requires defunding critical race theory.” It’s clear from his pseudonymous writings where his real objection lies: criticism of white people.
A group of anti-fascist researchers, the Anonymous Comrades Collective, figured out Welton’s double life and shared the details with HuffPost.
Regardless of the content of his thought, speech, and writing, Mr. Welton (unlikely to become “Dr. Welton” given that his Ph.D. program at Boston University is right next to a Center for Antiracist Research) would have enjoyed a secure spending power and standard of living if he’d chosen welfare rather than work.
Related:
“Child Support Litigation without a Marriage” (Real World Divorce); the American who has sex with two already-married dentists and harvests the resulting child support can enjoy the same spending power as a dentist without the need to accept non-FDA-approved pharmaceuticals, interact with the COVID-plagued public, or worry about the reaction to what is said or written (alimony also works since family court profits are not conditional on medical decisions or thought/speech/writing content, but collecting alimony requires persuading a future divorce lawsuit defendant to agree to get married rather than a future slam-dunk child support lawsuit defendant to agree to have sex for one night or one hour (see Hunter Biden, for example))
