Saturday, August 10, 2024

COVID update; Fun and interesting headlines; From the tyranny files

RETRACTED: NPR reported yesterday that the CDC officially classifies COVID as endemic, no longer a pandemic. Endemic means it is similar to the flu and vaccinations need to be given periodically. I suspect new vaccines will come out about every 12 months. (this information is false and misleading)

The NYT reports that researchers are starting to get a handle on the impacts of long COVID:

About 400 Million People Worldwide Have 
Had Long Covid, Researchers Say

The condition has put significant strain on patients and society — at a global economic cost of about $1 trillion a year, a new report estimates

The authors evaluated scores of studies and metrics to estimate that as of the end of 2023, about 6 percent of adults and about 1 percent of children — or about 400 million people — had ever had long Covid since the pandemic began.

The authors cited studies suggesting that only 7 percent to 10 percent of long Covid patients fully recovered two years after developing long Covid. They added that “some manifestations of long Covid, including heart disease, diabetes, myalgic encephalomyelitis and dysautonomia are chronic conditions that last a lifetime.”

The report cited estimates that between two million and four million adults were out of work because of long Covid in 2022 and that people with long Covid were 10 percent less likely to be employed than those who were never infected with the virus. Long Covid patients often have to reduce their work hours, and one in four limit activities outside work in order to continue working, the report said.
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Trump Has Started to Piss Off White Supremacists - Donald Trump’s campaign strategy has shockingly lost support with a key part of his voter base -- darned picky White supremacists . . . . grumble, grumble . . . . . . now they're gonna vote for Harris . . . . . . no, wait, . . . . . never mind, they'll still vote for DJT, along with the Nazis, crackpots, cranks and freaks


Americans don't like Project 2025a significant number of Americans disapprove of it and closely associate it with Trump, despite his concerted attempts to distance himself from it -- darned picky Americans and their inconvenient democracy . . . . grumble, grumble . . . . . . now they're gonna vote for Harris, maybe 


Report: Trump calls Harris a "bitch" -- darned Harris . . . . grumble, grumble . . . .


Harris Leads Trump in Three Key States, Times/Siena Polls Find -- the Times/Siena poll is ranked #1 out of several hundred polls that 538 analyzed and ranked -- darned Harris . . . . grumble, grumble . . . .

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The radicalization of the Republican Party from a mostly pro-democracy party to a purely aggressive, vindictive, pro-tyranny party is basically complete. The corrupt dictator DJT owns and runs it. Business Insider reports about how the Repubs are going to do things if the GOP controls congress:
Marjorie Taylor Greene said a GOP-led House would probe firms that stopped donating to Republicans. She said some "big corporations" and lobbyists have ceased donations after the Capitol riots. Greene also accused the corporations of "corporate communism."
Speaking on former Trump adviser Steve Bannon's "War Room" podcast, Greene accused unnamed businesses of "corporate communism." .... "There is going to be investigations coming," Greene added. "And there should be. There definitely should be, because the way corporations have conducted themselves, I've always called it corporate communism." Greene also advised big businesses to "lawyer up" and focus on "customer service" instead of politics.  
It's unclear [as usual] what investigations Greene wants to conduct. She also did not provide a list of corporations that she wanted the GOP to investigate [also normal]. A spokesperson for Greene did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. [the KYMS propaganda tactic]
KYMS = Keep Your Mouth Shut -- usually observed in the face of inconvenient questions about the usually incredibly stupid or authoritarian things that prompted the questions in the first place

What is striking here is two things. First is the sheer irrational incoherence emanating from Repub elites like MTG (and DJT). On the one hand she clearly wants corporations to give big piles of cash, i.e., "free speech", to Repub politicians and their authoritarian party. But on the other, she complains about corporations being involved in politics.

The other striking thing is that at least some corporations seem to be not donating as much free speech to kleptocratic authoritarianism as the kleptocratic authoritarians want. That is a good sign, assuming the phenomenon is real.

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