Tracker

China Finally Admits Its COVID-19 Vaccine Isn't Working So Well -Reuters In a somewhat unusual moment of transparency, China has finally admitted its COVID—19 vaccines don't all provide much protection. China's Sinovac previously said trials in Brazil showed around 50 percent efficacy in preventing infection and Sinopharm's vaccines have efficacy rates of 79.34 percent, while the efficacy for CanSino is 65. Pfizer and Moderna have efficacy rates of 95 and 94 percent, respectively. Speaking at a medical conference Saturday, Gao Fu, the director of the China Centers for Disease Control, admitted that Chinese vaccines “don’t have very high protection rates,” and questioned whether it was time to pair them with other vaccines. “It’s now under formal consideration whether we should use different vaccines from different technical lines for the immunization process,” he added, according to the Associated Press. Beijing has not approved any foreign-made vaccines for use in China, where the pandemic started in late 2019.

Busted: Mike Pence quietly adds hate group leader to advisory board for his new organization Former Vice President Mike Pence launched his new organization, Advancing American Freedom, on Wednesday. Since then, one name has quietly been added to the advisory boardthat was announced at launch. Pence's advisory board now includes Mike Farris, the president and CEO of the group Alliance Defending Freedom. In 2016, Alliance Defending Freedom was declared a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). "The SPLC lists ADF as a hate group because it has supported the idea that being LGBTQ+ should be a crime in the U.S. and abroad and believes that is OK to put LGBTQ+ people in prison for engaging in consensual sex," SPLC explained. "It has also supported laws that required the forced sterilization of transgender Europeans." "ADF has spread lies about the LGBTQ+ community. It has, for example, linked being LGBTQ+ to pedophilia and claimed that a "homosexual agenda" will destroy society. ADF tries to couch its rhetoric in benign-sounding phrases, but the truth is that it works to dehumanize LGBTQ+ people and restrict their rights for being who they are," SPLC explained. Busted: Mike Pence quietly adds hate group leader to advisory board for his new organization - Alternet.org

That Cuba is an relatively isolated island helps, but their infant mortality, maternal morbidity and life expectancy is better than the USA. And they do not have access to the drugs, MRIs and so forth that Americans do.

How Cuba beat the pandemic: From developing new vaccines to sending doctors overseas to help others Since last year, approximately 440 Cubans have died from COVID-19, giving Cuba one of the lowest death rates per capita in the world. Cuba is also developing five COVID-19 vaccines, including two which have entered stage 3 trials. Cuba has heavily invested in its medical and pharmaceutical system for decades, in part because of the six-decade U.S. embargo that has made it harder for Cuba to import equipment and raw materials from other countries. That investment, coupled with the country's free, universal healthcare system, has helped Cuba keep the virus under control and quickly develop vaccines against it, says Dr. Rolando Pérez Rodríguez, the director of science and innovation at BioCubaFarma, which oversees Cuba's medicine development. "We have long experience with these kinds of technologies," he says. We also speak with Reed Lindsay, journalist and founder of the independent, Cuba-focused media organization Belly of the Beast, who says U.S. sanctions on Cuba continue to cripple the country. "Cuba is going through an unbelievable economic crisis, and the sanctions have been absolutely devastating," says Lindsay. How Cuba beat the pandemic: From developing new vaccines to sending doctors overseas to help others - Alternet.org

Yup. Pure economics and the slave-breeding records are still extant. The owners/breeders deliberately often moved the men from one woman to another to prevent the formation of family ties. This phenomenon of absent fathers has persisted to this day and is used by racists to mock black men and families. It takes generations for nuclear families to form and survive.

We have a week, maybe two to curtail the spread before we experience what Ontario is going through.

A sad commentary is that there is a small but vocal segment of Judaism that has been actively supporting Trump and ignoring all the racist rhetoric he and his followers have been spouting- some of it overtly anti-Semitic. A rabbi was even involved in the January 6th insurrection.

Texas Republican Caught on Video Organizing 'Brigade' of Volunteers to Watch Voters in Mostly Black and Latinx Houston Precincts A Republican official in Harris County, Texas, was heard on a video presentation saying that 10,000 volunteers were needed to form an “election integrity brigade” in Houston to fight against election fraud, the Washington Post reports. We know that there is no evidence of election fraud in Harris County, but the person in the video insists that there is. In the video, the unnamed official pulls up a map of the county’s voting locations—basically, the diverse areas where people of color vote—and said the GOP needed volunteers with “the confidence and courage to come down here” to look out for irregularities. “This is where the fraud is occurring,” the official added. Common Cause Texas, a government accountability group, which published the video Thursday, is rightfully claiming that the video is a warning that Republicans are planning to intimidate and suppress voters in metro Houston, where large numbers of people of color live. “It’s very clear that we’re talking about recruiting people from the predominantly Anglo parts of town to go to Black and brown neighborhoods,” Anthony Gutierrez, the group’s executive director, told the Washington Post. Video Catches Texas Republicans' Calling for 'Election Integrity' Brigade in Diverse Harris County (theroot.com)

Tucker Carlson: ‘Obedient Voters From Third World’ Are Replacing Me Tucker Carlson on Thursday served up a blatantly racist hot take on immigration at the border, saying Democrats are trying to “replace the current electorate” with “more obedient voters from the Third World.” (Watch the video below.) “That’s what’s actually happening,” the Fox News host insisted, dismissing suggestions he’s preaching “white replacement theory.” “Everybody wants to make a racial issue out of it,” he said. “This is a voting rights question.” (Sure sounds like a rephrase of the Nazi "we will not be replaced")

The right-wing extremists will fracture and implode, but not before doing a lot of damage and the real concern is whether the damage will be permanent. Newly revealed Trump administration emails show depravity and conspiracy against the country The select subcommittee in the United States House of Representatives that is now investigating how the federal government managed the country's response to the covid pandemic released emails Thursday showing top officials in the Trump administration knowingly, carefully and deliberately sabotaged public understanding of the disease. According to the Post's Dan Diamond, "The documents provide further insight into how senior Trump officials approached last year's explosion of coronavirus cases in the United States. Even as career government scientists worked to combat the virus, a cadre of Trump appointees were attempting to blunt the scientists' messages, edit their findings and equip the president with an alternate set of talking points." Diamond's story is about "political interference" in what should have been the neutral administration of public health policy in the face of a once-a-century plague. That framing of the issue will likely be adopted by the Washington pundit corps. That framing has been adopted by the House investigators, too. "Our investigation has shown that Trump Administration officials engaged in a persistent pattern of political interference in the nation's public health response to the coronavirus pandemic, overruling and bullying scientists and making harmful decisions that allowed the virus to spread more rapidly," said House Whip James Clyburn, the subcommittee chair. But while the press and investigators are right to be careful with language, the court of public opinion, which may be the only court demanding justice in the end, need not be so careful. Let's not obscure the body-count reality of what Michael Caputo and Paul Alexander have done with gauzy abstractions like "political interference." As of this writing, the covid has killed over 573,000 Americans. These men, along with others, including the former president, were engaged in crimes. The question shouldn't be whether this was "political interference." It should be whether this was homicide. Newly revealed Trump administration emails show depravity and conspiracy against the country - Alternet.org

I think that the GOP has become a wing of Fox News and both cater to the worst that human beings can demonstrate. Fox and many of the GOP have sold their souls in exchange for wealth and power. In exchange, the faces of Fox and the GOP validate and empower the racism, sexism and intolerance of their troglodyte followers.

Greenberg's deal is 'devastating' for Matt Gaetz and could 'destroy' all his defenses: Florida prosecutor On Thursday, following the news that former Florida tax official Joel Greenberg had cut a plea deal in the case that led to the sex trafficking investigation of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Florida attorney Dave Aronberg broke down why Gaetz could now be in serious trouble. "This is devastating news for Matt Gaetz," said Aronberg. "Matt Gaetz's defense is number one, he has never paid for sex, number two, he has never had sex with an underage girl. Greenberg's testimony could totally destroy those defenses, especially if he has incriminating messages from Gaetz." "When it comes to child sex trafficking, the laws are so broad, powerful, and the sentences are so harsh, so tough," said Aronberg. "And rightly so, because we're talking about a very serious crime. You don't even need to show sex with a minor. It's enough if Gaetz enticed a girl to have Greenberg. It's enough if he paid for the hotel room. It's enough if he provided her with the drug ecstasy. It's enough if he stood at the airport with a sign with her name and drove her to the hotel. Any of those things would be enough to charge and possibly convict Matt Gaetz of child sex trafficking." Greenberg's deal is 'devastating' for Matt Gaetz and could 'destroy' all his defenses: Florida prosecutor - Alternet.org

My apologies for misunderstanding you.

Suspect Found In South Carolina Killings Of 5 Was Former NFL Pro Phillip Adams: Source COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The gunman who killed five people including a prominent doctor in South Carolina was former NFL pro Phillip Adams, who killed himself early Thursday, according to a source who was briefed on the investigation. The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly, said Adams’ parents live near the doctor’s home in Rock Hill, and that he had been treated by the doctor. The source said Phillips killed himself after midnight with a .45 caliber weapon. The York County Sheriff’s Office said they had searched for hours before finding the suspect in a nearby home. The York County coroner’s office said Dr. Robert Lesslie, 70, and his wife, Barbara Lesslie, 69, were pronounced dead at the scene along with grandchildren Adah Lesslie, 9, and Noah Lesslie, 5. A man who had been working at the home, James Lewis, 38, from Gaston, was found shot to death outside, and a sixth person was hospitalized with “serious gunshot wounds,” York County Sheriff’s Office’s spokesperson Trent Faris said.

I am truly sorry to see that you have such a fatalistic view of people. The hard reality is that the more often and longer that people get sent to jail, the more likely they are to re-offend. In sending people to jail, all we are doing is gaining a temporary sense of safety and increasing the likelihood that our children and grandchildren will inherit even greater problems.

If you want to over-simplify the issue of criminality, you will miss a lot of truths. I have worked with those who have committed serious crimes, and almost all have come through horrible childhoods and adolescences. This does not justify them committing crimes, but it does underscore that unless we intervene with people who have been brutalized, we will continue to fill our courts and jails. In Holland where non-violent offenders are not sent to jails but to alternate measures, the crime rates have fallen so far that they have been closing jails. That said, there have been a few that scared the poop out of me, even in a closed setting. These few need to be incarcerated for the rest of their lives.

It seems that an increase in the variant infections, and a sharp increase at that, is pretty much inevitable here. How bad it gets is the only question.

Video emerges of Trump and Ron DeSantis meeting man being investigated for human trafficking with Matt Gaetz On Wednesday, CBS News revealed that Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) went to the Bahamas in late 2018 or early 2019 with a marijuana entrepreneur and hand surgeon that ultimately triggered a sex trafficking investigation.' The man, named Jason Pirozzolo, "allegedly paid for the travel expenses, accommodations, and female escorts," the report revealed. Whether the escorts were hired for sex across state or international lines is part of the investigation by the Justice Department, and it includes both Gaetz and Pirozzolo as part of that probe. A new development occurred Thursday when an old video was unearthed of then-President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump meeting Pirozzolo as they landed in Orlando in June 2019, months after the now-infamous Bahamas trip. Trump was there to launch his 2020 presidential campaign with a large rally. He, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and Casey DeSantis were the only three guests waiting on the tarmac in Orlando that day. It's unknown who helped Pirozzolo score the unique opportunity to greet the president. https://t.co/jtW0Y1K3qe

Trump is intimately acquainted with the concept of blackmail.

The CDC in Atlanta is reported by CNN as stating that "long-hauler" COVID victims who have recovered but are still feeling dysphoric are feeling better after the second vaccination. Not all but about 30-40%. No reason has so far been identified.

Apparently not. Tom Selleck's arthritis has progressed to the point where he is almost immobilized. All of the bad press police have been receiving in the media haven't helped their image, either.

There is an unconfirmed report/rumour out of the US that the US only offered the vaccines to Canada after Canada approached Russia.

Apparently about a quarter of all the new cases reported yesterday are the variant(s). The enemy is within our gates.

U.K. Variant Now the Dominant Strain of COVID in United States: CDC -Reuters The U.K. variant of COVID-19 is now making up the majority of new coronavirus cases in the United States, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said Wednesday. “Based on our most recent estimates from CDC surveillance, the B.1.1.7 variant is now the most common lineage circulating in the United States,” she said. There are 16,275 confirmed cases of the strain, according to the CDC. The U.S. has seen a surge in cases in the last few weeks, partly because of the U.K. variant, Walensky said. Some research suggests that the strain is said to be more contagious, and possibly more deadly than other coronavirus mutations. Last month, experts anticipated that the variant would become dominant if it had not already taken over. At the time, the CDC did not release any information regarding the prevalence of the strain, but did agree that it was only a matter of time before it made up the majority of cases.

I am more concerned now than I have been in the past 12 months. There is so much unknown about the variants, but what there is known is scary.