Missouri is the most concerning state in the country as the Delta variant of the coronavirus continues to spread, the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) said Thursday.
“When I look at the map, Missouri actually jumps out as the place that I’m most worried about because there’s a lot of cases now happening very rapidly,” Dr. Francis Collins told McClatchy’s bureau in the District of Columbia.
Next month I’m planning to fly to NYC to see my grandbabies, and now I’m afraid they’re going to quarantine the bleeping state. See also a segment from last night’s Maddow.
The news stories keep talking about Springfield, but that’s because the cases are being taken to hospitals in Springfield. Springfield is smack in between two tourist destination areas, the Lake of the Ozarks to the north and Branson to the south. These are both popular vacation spots for people in Missouri and nearby states Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Kansas.
In May 2020, Lake of the Ozarks made international news because of a packed pool party. I complained about the place last September because of a massive multi-state motorcycle rally. If any businesses in either place closed for the pandemic it was only briefly. I believe both tourist areas were open last summer and have remained open since. Branson was advertising its Christmas entertainment last December, so I know it was open all winter. LotO and Branson are perfect for infecting lots of people and spreading it around the multi-state area.
If there are any saving graces operating here is that the weather has been conducive to outdoor activity. So far this summer hasn’t been quite as britally hot as summer usually is in these parts.
But the attention is on Springfield. The delta variant is ravaging this Missouri city. Many residents are still wary of vaccines. One sad young woman who survived covid is certain she gave it to her mother, who died. Yes, she’s very sad. People still aren’t getting vaccinated. They still think vaccines are a liberal plot, and the young folks believe they are immune.
Make sure you stay safe, maha!
Only slightly OT: The NY Yankees game against the Boston Red Sucks was postponed today because a handful of Yankees players are in Covid protocol, and a few with the actual vIrus.
This is a bit surprising since as a team, 85% of the players, coaches, and contact personnel have been vaccinated, so there's little chance of anything serious, but who knows?
It looks like it's the Delta variant that's to blame. So, people can still get the virus. The vaccine just pretty much guarantees that if you do get it, you won't die from it, and the symptom won't be as serious.
BTW: Los Angeles is going to mandate masking indoors again starting this weekend.
Maybe we should rename this variant of Covid-19, from Delta, to Freddy Kreuger-21.
Baseball players like to party.
In FL around the third week of June, the (fairly) steady daily number of new Covod cases was 1500 with some variance. That's the seven-day rolling average. (I'm using the NY Times numbers since the governor is known to hoax the numbers.) The most recent seven-day average of daily new cases is just over 5000. Fatalities lag new infections by a few weeks.
Daily fatalities on a seven-day average have gone from 25 to over 40. No biggie – yet. There's that doubling though and the incubation period between first symptoms and for some, hospitalization.
IMO, the cultists will die before they will learn. MAYBE, a group will see the light when they bury grandma. But Fox is gonna give Covid doubters prime time and the current 600K fatalities is still less than one person per 500 citizens. That leaves room for people to indulge in denial. But the new variant (so far) is taking the low-hanging fruit – non-vaxers. There's a doubling effect – ALL the new fatalities are among the denyers. At some point, it's gotta have an effect to make human sacrifices of your own voters.
After all the deaths, after all the stories of didn't take the vaccine or the virus serious and are now dead, people are STILL acting like its all a "liberal" plot.
What's it going to take?
The Trump/GOP is leaving a heck of a legacy.
We have been very lucky in this country. Many nation's political mistakes have cost way to many lives and huge property damage. This political damage (since vaccine availability) is self inflicted. We are a rich country, yet we have a high misery index. Much of this misery is self inflicted, it seems, and fostered by weak belief systems and ways of dealing with normal difficulties. How many times during the pandemic did we all have to hear complaints about having to wear a mask. Let me just say to all those complainers: "You just have no damn idea just how bad things can get". (One of my father's pet phases.)
Lower Missouri is getting an education from the school of hard knocks. The "show me" state has a reputation for not listening. The virus is more than happy to show them the consequences of such bad behavior. Some may even live through this and learn from this education. Many will, like their favorite leader, project the blame onto someone else. Pity. No malice. No mercy,
Vaccines are one of the greatest accomplishments of humanity and science. I was born in the early '50s, and was constantly told how lucky I was that the polio vaccine had been developed, though it was not available in the U.S. until I was three. One of my best childhood friends was not so lucky, and had to wear leg braces as a small child. His family was big into sports, and he was terrified he would never be able to run and jump. I never heard anyone warn parents to refuse polio vaccination for their kids. They would have been physically assaulted.
We live in a country that has forgotten just what vaccines have done to save our kids and ourselves. We live in a country that relies on many scientific innovations and medications that were properly developed and tested, and which we use without thinking.
Some nimrod on Newsmax suggested that horrible diseases exist to naturally reduce population. As if we should all just shut up and die, when we can save ourselves instead. This thinking exists in many religions and societies and is nothing more than ignorance. But here we are.
Conservatism has always been based on a lie, that we should stop progress and freeze human growth at a time they think was more to their liking. But life doesn't work like that. It never has and it never will. If you cower in fear and resist growth, you will not freeze at the point you'd like, but instead regress, go backward. Life is never static. If you try to stop it, you will die. Conservatism was always wrong, and leads only to an early grave.
Republicanism is nothing more than a death cult.
Thanatos or a death wish. Only later in life did Freud need it to plug the holes in his hydraulic model of human behavior. We have a Thanatos epidemic too in this country it seems.
Mention "Freud" to a Republican. Be prepared to laugh.