Saturday, November 26, 2022
Friday, November 25, 2022
WaPo: We can no longer say this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated
For the first time, a majority of Americans dying from the coronavirus received at least the primary series of the vaccine.
Fifty-eight percent of coronavirus deaths in August were people who were vaccinated or boosted, according to an analysis conducted for The Health 202 by Cynthia Cox, vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation.
It’s a continuation of a troubling trend that has emerged over the past year. As vaccination rates have increased and new variants appeared, the share of deaths of people who were vaccinated has been steadily rising.
In September 2021, vaccinated people made up just 23 percent of coronavirus fatalities. In January and February this year, it was up to 42 percent, per our colleagues Fenit Nirappil and Dan Keating.
“We can no longer say this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Cox told The Health 202.
Being unvaccinated is still a major risk factor for dying from covid-19. But efficacy wanes over time, and an analysis out last week from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlights the need to get regular booster shots to keep one’s risk of death from the coronavirus low, especially for the elderly. ...
Around 35 million people have received the updated boosters that became available to people 12 and over in September and to children as young as 5 last month. That’s a little over 10 percent of the U.S. population, amid concern that cooler weather will bring a surge of covid cases as people move indoors and respiratory infections spread.
More.
The progress of the pandemic has demonstrated the following facts.
There has been an annual increase in the percentage of the population infected every year, from 6% in 2020 to 10.5% in 2021 to 13.1% in 2022 to date, per Our World in Data and the US Census Population Clock.
Clearly the introduction of vaccines from early 2021 has not stopped the spread, and spread is probably a lot worse than the 2022 data suggest because of a complete breakdown in the testing regime.
On the other hand, while the percentage of the population which died from the pandemic surged by 35% in 2021 from 0.106% in 2020 to 0.143% in 2021, 2022 to date has marked a huge reversal with just 0.076% dead. That's down 47% from 2021 and 28% from 2020.
Why is that?
Vaccine advocates will credit the vaccines, yet vaccine uptake in the United States is at record lows throughout 2022. Since we know that vaccine protection wears out in mere months and requires repeated boosters, hence the continued drumbeat to get vaccinated, the dramatic decline in deaths cannot be ascribed to the low-uptake environment, especially with the transition from a pandemic of the unvaccinated to a pandemic of the vaccinated admitted publicly by the likes of Kaiser and WaPo.
There could be any number of other reasons for the decline in deaths which when combined account for the improved death numbers. These include fewer vulnerable people, more widespread natural immunity, and improved clinical practice and treatment, especially with drugs such as Paxlovid.
But perhaps the most important consideration continues to be virus mutation, which explains both the higher percentage of infections and the lower percentage of deaths.
The virus has continued to mutate to spread, at the expense of relative lethality.
That's what 254k record low deaths in 2022 with 43.6m record high cases tells you.
Wednesday, November 23, 2022
The Trump witch hunt continues: Garland's new special counsel is linked to Lois Lerner while the wife is linked to antisemitic Democrat Rep. Rashida Tlaib
Mr. Smith set up a meeting in October 2010 with IRS official Lois Lerner “to discuss how the IRS could assist in the criminal enforcement of campaign-finance laws against politically active nonprofits.” ... Federal Election Commission records show that Ms. Chevigny contributed $1,000 each to Mr. Biden’s 2020 campaign, Biden for President and the Biden Victory Fund super PAC, in September 2020. She also donated $150 to a campaign committee supporting Democrat Rashida Tlaib in 2008, when Ms. Tlaib was running for the Michigan House of Representatives.
More.
Tuesday, November 22, 2022
Sunday, November 20, 2022
The investment cheerleaders in the US are arrayed against the Fed's rising interest rate regime and lie when they say interest rates are coming down
The yield curve recovered 98 basis points in the last week to close at 5488 on Nov 18.
Despite all the alarming volatility in US Treasuries, the curve is little changed from Oct 28 at 5487 or Oct 19 at 5486, one month ago.
The upward trend remains intact. Raising the Fed Funds rate to 3.83% has produced an overall yield curve at 4.22%.
There's plenty more to be done.
The lying rhetoric is designed to persuade the Fed to halt ("You've done enough!"), enlisting as many dupes along the way as it can to join the chorus, since easy money is the industry's goose that laid the golden egg.
But easy money is why this country is $31 trillion in debt, and why inflation is raging at an average of 8.3% in the first half of 2022.
Since March foreigners have held $300 billion less of the stuff on net through September, which is not a good sign.
But consider that there's about $2.9 trillion in US Treasury notes issued in 2020 alone paying just 0.6% on average and maybe you can understand why.
Meanwhile investors holding bonds are down 30.95% year to date (TLT) at the same time the S&P 500 is down 17.33%. A total bond index like VTSAX is down less, 16.92% year to date, which is cold comfort.
But that's not the Fed's biggest problem.
The Fed's biggest problem remains the so-called "dual mandate", to maintain stable prices AND full employment at the same time.
Our disgusting Congress foisted the latter on the Fed in 1978, which was nothing but a damned if you do, damned if you don't abdication of its own political responsibility dumped onto the appointee of the executive.
But the disgusting Congress represents the disgusting people, who want tax cuts AND infrastructure spending at the same time.
The dual mandate didn't stop Paul Volcker from doing what needed to be done to subdue inflation from 1979, but those were different times when the political tables were the reverse. Volcker was a Democrat appointee saddling a new Republican president with an unemployment rate of 9.7% by jacking up the cost of money.
Jay Powell is a Republican appointee who will have to do the same to a Democrat president to end the current madness.
The pressure on him to relent comes from every quarter.
We'll see if the new Republican House has the cojones to back him, which it should if it gives a fig about the future of the country.
But Jay Powell will have to prove that he has the cojones first, because the Congress is full of girly men.
He has hardly begun to fight.
Buffalo, New York gets all the headlines, but Grand Rapids, Michigan has already had its second snowiest November ever
We've been busy around here with three days in a row of 7+ inches of snow each, and in excess of two feet in five days.
Total November snow is already at 27.3 inches, which beats November 1951 at 26.9.
The snowiest November of all time at KGRR was November 2014 with 31 inches.
It was 75 degrees F here in Grand Rapids on November 10.
We dropped to 18 F last night.
Record November snow in Buffalo was 45.6 inches in November 2000. The second snowiest November was 31.3 inches in November 1976.
BUF is officially at 36.9 inches already through the 19th, also making November 2022 its second snowiest November ever, with ten more days left in the month.
Its three-day history is 9.4, 5.7, and 21.5 inches yesterday.
It was 79 F in Buffalo on the 5th, and dropped to 23 F in Buffalo last night.
Thursday, November 17, 2022
Liberal Republicans in the Senate and the House again betray the Republican base, work with Democrats to advance same-sex-marriage rights but delayed action to avoid election consequences
Same-sex marriage protections clear critical Senate hurdle
Twelve Republicans voted with all Democrats to move forward on the bill, after negotiators reached a bipartisan deal to include protections for religious liberty.
In a 62-37 vote, 12 Republicans voted with all Democrats to move forward on the bill, after negotiators reached a bipartisan deal to include protections for religious liberty. The vote on final passage could occur as soon as this week. ...
Wednesday’s vote showed Majority Leader Chuck Schumer might get what he hoped for when he delayed the bill to protect same-sex marriage rights from coming to the floor in September, agreeing to Republican requests that the chamber take it up after the election. ... negotiators bet that waiting would help solidify support and allow senators to vote without considering the midterms. ...
While the House passed its same-sex marriage bill in July with support from nearly 50 House Republicans, the process in the Senate has taken more time amid GOP concerns about religious liberty. If the Senate does pass its version, the legislation will need another vote of approval from the House to head to President Joe Biden’s desk. ...
It also would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act signed in 1996, which defined marriage as between one man and one woman under federal laws.
Wednesday, November 16, 2022
Republicans win the majority in the US House
The GOP has now won 218 seats after the Associated Press projected that Republican Mike Garcia will win reelection in California's 27th Congressional District.
Democrats, meanwhile, have secured 209 seats as vote counting continues more than a week after Election Day. Eight seats are still in play.
Monday, November 14, 2022
Sunday, November 13, 2022
Saturday, November 12, 2022
Salena Zito is obviously channeling Peggy Noonan: The women recommend just giving up on secure chain of custody voting
The weaker sex recommends you give in. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
That right there is the whole history of conservatism, from the advent of the Progressive Era 130 years ago until now.
Currently, Democrats are miles ahead of Republicans at targeting specific races and voters. Through mail balloting, they put those voters in the bank early. ... Republicans can complain about the current rules all they want, but what they need to do is wake up and start competing with the Democrats where they are. Otherwise, they're just leaving winnable races on the table.
Florida Republicans certainly have figured it out. In 2018 and 2020, the Democrats went into Election Day with more ballots cast than Republicans in early voting. This year, Florida Republicans flipped that on its head. Republicans in other states should take note.
-- Salena Zito, in her conclusion here
It is rude of Arizona and Nevada to keep the country waiting to know the composition of its Senate. Why, days after the election, don’t we know which party controls the House? Why can’t the late-reporting states get their act together on vote counting? It’s the increase in mail-in ballots? So what? You roll with life and adapt. Florida, which spans two time zones, reports its tallies with professionalism and dispatch.
-- Peggy Noonan, from her lede here
Four true words
Trump lacked the discipline.
Stated here.
That's still the fundamental problem, but that's been the case from the beginning.
Character counts. Trump has never had it and never will. I cut my losses with Trump in 2018 when he exposed himself as a phony on his chief plank, illegal immigration. He already did that in August 2016, so fool me once, shame on Trump. I am not ashamed to state it over and over again.
The rest of the party still hasn't come around, however, with so-called conservatives still yammering on about stuff like pOPuLiSm. But that's because opposition to illegal immigration was never a GOP value. The GOP would never be upset because he lied about that.
It's hard to imagine the GOP pointing to anything in particular which was a line too far. 121 voted in the House to object to the 2020 Arizona vote, 138 to the Pennsylvania vote. Not even three horrible elections in a row is proving to be decisive.
Meanwhile Democrats have exploited Trump's weakness, and therefore the GOP's, to consolidate power with extraordinary new depth. The new regime of mail-in voting everywhere changes everything. The chain of custody of ballots in voting precincts is broken forever.
It's the end run around representative government we only imagined the National Popular Vote Compact would be. It's the path to pure democracy. It's the end of legislatures, the end of republicanism, and makes the tyranny of the majority and the repression of the minority the new, terrible future.
A Supreme Court in principle deferring to the states on everything from election law to drugs, marriage, abortion, gender, etc. is no bulwark against what's coming, indeed, what's already here.
The people will decide by referendum.
The people be damned.
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