Bring Your Passports

Viral Musings:  They’re not perfect but when a large percentage of the population get them vaccines really work.  At least that’s the indication out of test country Israel where only 50 new COVID cases, down from a peak of over 10,000 in January, were reported yesterday despite the relaxation of mask mandates and a return to a more normal life.  To put Israel’s case count in perspective, yesterday there were 1700 cases in similarly sized New Jersey, 4000 in New York State and 30,000 in the US with that US number probably a Sunday reporting anomaly as 50,000 US cases were counted on Saturday. The good news is that though they are still too high, the US numbers are trending in the right directions.  Notably hospitalizations in New York State are likely to dip below 3000 this week and daily positivity rates have been below 2% for two days straight. Worldwide the picture is bleaker, particularly in India where the daily new COVID case count is around 350,000.  Earlier in the pandemic it looked like India was going to be a success story, but taking a page from the Former Guy’s playbook, the Modi administration reopened the country too soon, part of an effort to look “good” during local election campaign season. That not so shrewd decision, combined with holiday celebrations and the explosion of new variants have put the country in dire straits.  Over the weekend the Biden administration, which has been facing criticism for not acting sooner,  joined a number of other countries in pledging to provide supplies and raw materials for vaccine production to India to help deal with the scourge.  What makes the India situation particularly horrifying is that unlike a lot of other suffering countries India has a huge pharmaceutical industry and has its own vaccine proving that production capabilities and scientific know how can only go so far without rational government leadership. Back to the US, on Friday the CDC and FDA lifted their pause on J&J’s one shot vaccine after determining that the risk of getting those particularly gnarly blood clots linked to the shot are extremely rare especially as compared to the risks of getting sick and suffering some of COVID’s awful consequences.  Over all there were 15 cases of blood clots; 13 were in women 18 to 49, 2 were in women 50 or older.  That is an incidence rate of 7 in 1 million in women younger than 50. For women 50 and older, the incidence rate of clots was 0.9 in 1 million. Though the CDC didn’t say it, if you’re a woman under the age of 50 and you have the option of getting and don’t mind the two shot regimen, go for one of the mRNA options because as rare as those J & J blood clots are they haven’t shown up in people getting either Moderna or Pfizer vaccines. In other vaccine news, a number of experts in the know have more than hinted that the Pfizer shot will be approved for use in the 12 to 15 year old set within weeks, with Modern approval to follow. It’s also expected that new guidance concerning outdoor mask wearing will be released this week.  And if you want to travel to an EU country this summer they’ll let you in, but you’ll need two passports, the usual one documenting your citizenship and another proving that you’ve been vaccinated.  Those heads on Fox News must already be spinning about that.   

Politics as Usual:  in case you’ve missed it, and I am guessing that you haven’t the political divide in the US remains huge.   Last week, Derek Chauvin was found guilty for George Floyd’s death but still there were so many more police shooting incidents that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep the names of the victims or the circumstances of their shootings straight.  Reports out of Washington are that Senate Republicans may agree to some form of police reform legislation, that they, or some of them at least, might line up to support legislation being negotiated by South Carolina’s Tim Scott with New Jersey’s Cory Booker and California House Democrat Karen Bass. It’s probably not a coincidence that Republicans have picked Tim Scott, the party’s one minority Senator, who is up for reelection in 2022 and could also be a Republican contender for the VP slot in 2024, to deliver their official response to President Biden’s 100 day address to the joint chambers of Congress scheduled to take place on Wednesday night.  During that speech Biden will most certainly discuss his all-encompassing infrastructure plan, his climate goals, a tax increase or two and everything else that the Democrats want to see passed ASAP. Maybe he’ll even mention statehood for DC, another one of those things that won’t be easy to achieve, and that’s not because DC is too small or lacks mines but because its population is largely Black and votes blue.  Much of Biden’s planned legislation relies on Republican buy in and/or the further dismantling of the filibuster, neither of which will be easy to accomplish.  Sadly, should GQP Kevin McCarthy take over the leadership of the House in 2022 and/or should undertaker Mitch McConnell regain his spot in the Senate much, if not all, of what Biden does accomplish will go down the drain.  While focus is starting to turn towards 2022, some in the Republican party haven’t given up on 2020.  Arizona’s Republicans are currently engaged in an audit of Maricopa County’s results.  They’ve hired a team of conspiracists who adhere to the myth that George Soros and dead Hugo Chavez teamed together to steal the vote from the Former Guy and for good measure are allowing right wing network OANN to serve as official observers of the recounting. The Former Guy wants Arizona’s Governor Ducey to send security to protect the “patriots” doing the recount, as if private citizens get to make requests like that.   Combine the Arizona insanity with all the states that have or are trying to pass legislation to make it harder for people they don’t like to vote and you can see that the picture going forward might not be all that rosy.

Human Resources:  With the surprising help of the Alaska’s somewhat unpredictable Senator Lisa Murkowski, Vanita Gupta was finally confirmed as Assistant Attorney General despite Mitch McConnell’s assertion that no one from his crowd would support her nomination largely because of her stellar record supporting civil rights.  The newest accusation against Panhandle Putz Matt Gaetz is that in addition to engaging in some minor trafficking funded through his Venmo account, he is also being probed for corruption.  The alleged corruption involves his demand for the inclusion of a provision in a Florida medical marijuana law to require the hiring of medical advisory firms like the one that his weed entrepreneur/hand surgeon friend owned in exchange for a jaunt to the Bahamas.  It’s probably not a coincidence that Gaetz has been paying Former Guy buddy Roger Stone for advice. Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson who received an endorsement from the Former Guy last week even though he hasn’t announced if he’s running for reelection in 2022, endorsed the vaccine free rider concept because basically he sees no reason why people should be encouraged to get vaccinated when they can stay healthy by hanging out with those who do. And because we need another reality TV star in the mix, Caitlin Jenner formally announced that she’s running for California Governor because why not, and anyway, there has to be a way for her to monetize the run.  On the international front Putin pulled back some of his troops from the Ukraine border and allowed his nemesis Alexei Navalny to be seen by some real doctors.  In response Navalny ended his hunger strike.  Also the Former Guy weighed in on things Korean, reupping his support for his good BFF North Korea’s Kim Jung un while slamming South Korea’s Moon Jae-in, as if anyone cares.  

572,200

228,661,408 shots in arms (42% of adults with one shot, 28% fully vaccinated)