By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Bird Song of the Day
American Goldfinch, Hyland-Bush Lakes Park–Visitor Center, Hennepin, Minnesota, United States.
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In Case You Might Miss…
(1) Mandy Cohen et al. write a paywalled article in the NEJM that erases Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions from public health, and warns aerosol scientists and ventilation engineers that their work won’t be funded.
(2) Biden ballot access fight in Ohio and Alabama.
(3) Trump at Chick-Fil-A.
Politics
“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles
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Biden Administration
Four years after the start of an airborne pandemic:
Today, @ARPA_H announced the BREATHE program to revolutionize how we monitor and improve indoor air quality.
The Biden-Harris Administration has prioritized improving indoor air quality as an effective tool for keeping people healthy. https://t.co/YioYQLXimi
— White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (@WHOSTP) April 10, 2024
Sounds impressive, until you realize that CDC — our premier public health agency — just threw aerosol scientists and ventilation engineers under the bus and erased Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions from the public health lexicon. So you have to wonder what “revolutionize” and “prioritized” really mean.
2024
Less than a year to go!
RCP Poll Averages, April 5
Here is Friday’s RCP poll. Trump is still up in all the Swing States (more here), but still leading with one exception: PA. I’ve highlighted it again, (1) because BIden is now up there, and (2) it’s an outlier, has been for weeks. Why isn’t Trump doing well there? (I’ll work out a better way to do this, but for now: Blue dot = move toward Biden; red dot = move toward Trump. No statistical signficance to any of it, and state polls are bad anyhow!)
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Trump (R): “Prosecutor assigned to probe Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in Trump election interference case” [The Hill]. “A Georgia prosecutor has been assigned to criminally investigate the state’s Republican lieutenant governor, Burt Jones, for his alleged role in former President Trump’s attempt to subvert the state’s 2020 election results. Pete Skandalakis, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia, tasked himself with the probe 21 months after the Fulton County district attorney’s office was disqualified from Jones’s case. The office was disqualified because Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) headlined a fundraiser for a Democratic candidate who went on to face Jones in his race for lieutenant governor. The judge overseeing the matter described Willis’s decision to partake as a ‘what are you thinking?’ moment.” And not for the last time! More: “In a brief statement Thursday announcing his appointment, Skandalakis’s office said ‘no further comments will be made at this time.’ Jones was one of 16 pro-Trump electors who falsely signed documents claiming the former president won the state in 2020. While he was a state senator, he also attempted to convene a special session of Georgia’s Legislature with the aim of overturning President Biden’s win. Jones said in a statement to The Hill that he looks forward to a ‘quick resolution’ of the matter, slamming Willis for making a ‘mockery of this legal process.’”
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Trump (R): “Can I have thirty milkshakes?”
President Trump purchased milk shakes for everyone at a Chick-fil-A in Atlanta.
This President has so much charisma! pic.twitter.com/hGCjND0rSc
— Brigitte Gabriel (@ACTBrigitte) April 10, 2024
I don’t care of it’s a photo op. Of course it’s a photo op!
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Biden (D): “GOP-run states are warning that they could keep Biden off the ballot” [Business Insider]. “It all comes down to deadlines that fall before Biden is officially nominated, and both Ohio and Alabama officials say Biden could be too late…. [T]he state of Alabama requires political parties to provide their certificate of nomination no later than 82 days before the election, which is set for November 5. The Democratic National Convention — where Biden would get the formal nod — is scheduled to begin four days after that deadline, on August 19th. The same issue arose in 2020 when the Republican National Convention, where Trump was officially nominated, happened after Alabama’s deadline. But Trump was still allowed on the ballot that year because the state’s Republican-controlled legislature passed a special bill making a one-time exception to its deadline. Alabama officials could do the same thing again this year for the Democrats — if they wanted to. The state of Ohio, run by GOP Gov. Mike DeWine, has also flagged that the Democratic convention is happening after Ohio’s own August 7 deadline. Like Alabama, Ohio requires political parties to give their official nominations before the deadline if they want to appear on the ballot. And ahead of the 2020 election, the state also made a one-time exception to that rule because both the DNC and RNC that year were scheduled for after the deadline, a spokesperson for the Ohio Secretary of State confirmed to BI.” But: “‘Joe Biden will be on the ballot in all 50 states,’ a spokesperson for the Biden campaign said in a statement shared with BI. ‘State officials have the ability to grant provisional ballot access certification prior to the conclusion of presidential nominating conventions.’ ‘In 2020 alone,” the statement continues, ‘states like Alabama, Illinois, Montana, and Washington all allowed provisional certification for Democratic and Republican nominees.’”
Biden (D): “Joe Biden campaign hints at litigation if Alabama keeps president off ballot” [Alabama Reflector]. “In a letter to Mike Jones, general counsel for the Alabama Secretary of State’s office, Birmingham Attorney Barry Ragsdale, representing the campaign, said the party could provisionally certify Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris as Democratic Party’s nominees by an Aug. 15 deadline…. [Alabama Secretary of State Wes] Allen on Thursday doubled-down on his stance. ‘On January 16, 2023, I took an oath to uphold Alabama law and that is what I am going to do. My office will accept all certifications that comply with Alabama [law]. That statute does not provide for ‘provisional certifications’ or any other exceptions,’ he said in a statement to the Reflector.
Biden (D): “Ohio and Alabama Are Playing Ballot Games With Biden” [Bloomberg]. “Kyle Kondik, a political analyst at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, told Cleveland.com that no major-party presidential nominee, let alone the incumbent president, has ever been excluded from a state ballot over what is essentially a technicality. Deliberately leaving the Democratic nominee off the ballot because a deadline was missed by two weeks or less is a cynical and offensive approach to what should be a mostly nonpartisan office. Secretaries of state, no matter their party, are charged with administering elections on behalf of all voters. Most take a fair and scrupulously neutral approach to the job…. Rules for thee but not for me is seldom a good idea — especially when it comes to what should be the impartial administration of elections that are the very foundation on which our democracy rests.” • In this case, “our democracy” is not used cynically….
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“How Taxpayers Will Heavily Subsidize Democrat Boots on the Ground This Election” [RealClearInvestigations]. • Because tax-exempt Democrat NGOs optimize for demographics that will support them. Perhaps we should take out the demographic aspect and target based on sortition….
Pandemics
“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison
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Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).
Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!
Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (dashboard); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).
Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).
Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).
Stay safe out there!
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Transmission: H5N1
“CAFOs, novel influenza, and the need for One Health approaches” [One Health]. This is very dense and I can’t summarize it (though it’s worth a read, clearly). APHIS, in its mission statement, supports One Health. Here is a diagram of the “One Health Triad”:
Elite Maleficence
“Integrating Public Health and Health Care — Protecting Health as a Team Sport” [Charlene A. Wong, M.D., M.S.H.P., Debra Houry, M.D., M.P.H., and Mandy K. Cohen, M.D., M.P.H., NEJM]. Here, in its entirety, is the Abstract: “Protecting health is a team sport — yet the public health and clinical care systems meant to advance this goal have been siloed for too long.” • I guess the public isn’t on the team, the article is paywalled. (Strange that Mandy didn’t get the paywall lifted, because NEJM has been quite good at making Covid articles open access). Fortunately, some kind soul imaged the article:
It’s not the clearest high res, but it’ll do … pic.twitter.com/EyOZXTRCbk
— 4x💉 I am, according to Tшiттeг, a 13-54 y/o ♀🤣 (@ImmunoNucMed) April 10, 2024
And guess what! There are other people Mandy doesn’t want on her team besides the public! Table 1:
(For the panel at top left: CDC doubles or triples down on Covid as a seasonal respiratory virus, when (a) Covid is not seasonal, and (b) is respiratory in transmission but not in its effects, which are vascular, neurological, and long-lasting, unlike RSV, say. Of course, CDC wants to put all these infections in the same cubes and on the same lanyards back in Atlanta, so here we are.)
More importantly: Note the three-times repeated mantra: Vaccines, testing, treatment. Mandy erases non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) entirely, since NPIs are none of those there. Apparently, going forward as we say, ventilation, masking, and quarantine are to be erased from the public health lexicon (quarantine despite its use since the mid-17th century). Notice also that vaccines, testing, treatment do not include prevention (“better than cure”), which is what NPIs accomplish; so not only are NPIs erases, but the personnel who could design and implement preventive strategies for airborne diseases are comprehensively rejected. CDC wants no input from aerosol scientists or ventilation engineers (like ASHRAE or, for that matter, NIOSH). This is also shown in the text of the document:
The scope of “collaborative efforts” with “health care partners” is defined by Table 1. Hence, no investment for “data, lab, or workforce” that includes NPIs, ventilation, or aerosol tranmission generally. Needless to say, this does not bode well for the upcoming HICPAC guidance, where hospitals tried to ram through reducing NPIs until a public outcry stopped them, at least temporariliy.
Finally, “vaccines, testing, treatment” is also a comprehensive rejection of the “Swiss Cheese Model” of multiple layers of protection. Going forward, those are to be outside the scope of “public health” entirely.
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TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts
LEGEND
1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.
2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”
NOTES
[1] (Biobot) Our curve has now flattened out at a level far above valleys under Trump. Not a great victory. Note also the area “under the curve,” besides looking at peaks. That area is larger under Biden than under Trump, and it seems to be rising steadily if unevenly.
[2] (Biobot) No backward revisons….
[3] (CDC Variants) As of May 11, genomic surveillance data will be reported biweekly, based on the availability of positive test specimens.” “Biweeekly: 1. occurring every two weeks. 2. occurring twice a week; semiweekly.” Looks like CDC has chosen sense #1. In essence, they’re telling us variants are nothing to worry about. Time will tell.
[4] (ER) CDC seems to have killed this off, since the link is broken, I think in favor of this thing. I will try to confirm. UPDATE Yes, leave it to CDC to kill a page, and then announce it was archived a day later. And heaven forfend CDC should explain where to go to get equivalent data, if any. I liked the ER data, because it seemed really hard to game. And speaking of Emergency Departments:
Who is going to the emergency department most with covid, its kids, blue line ages 0-1, orange 2-4, and red 5-11, so make sure we all realize, covid puts kids in the emergency departments, when we choose not to make schools covid-threat-safe-zones, chart care of Louisiana DOH pic.twitter.com/iROnhCARP1
— Justin Lee (@DailyJLee) April 10, 2024
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Looks like a very gradual leveling off to a non-zero baseline, to me. I suppose to a tame epidemiologist it looks like “endemicity,” but to me it looks like another tranche of lethality.
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC) Still down. “Maps, charts, and data provided by CDC, updates weekly for the previous MMWR week (Sunday-Saturday) on Thursdays (Deaths, Emergency Department Visits, Test Positivity) and weekly the following Mondays (Hospitalizations) by 8 pm ET†”.
[7] (Walgreens) Leveling out.
[8] (Cleveland) Flattening.
[9] (Travelers: Posivitity) Now up, albeit in the rear view mirror.
[10] (Travelers: Variants) JN.1 dominates utterly.
[11] Looks like the Times isn’t reporting death data any more? Maybe I need to go back to The Economist:
The pandemic’s true death toll is 4x the officially reported number. 28.2 million dead. The magnitude of this human tragedy is difficult to comprehend. So much of this carnage was preventable but for the laissez faire attitude of our leaders. https://t.co/asiTYR8YvT
— Dr. Dick Zoutman (@DickZoutman) February 1, 2024
Stats Watch
Employment Situation: “United States Initial Jobless Claims” [Trading Economics]. “The number of people claiming unemployment benefits in the US fell by 11,000 to 211,000 in the week ending April 6th, the lowest in one month, and below market expectations of 215,000. The decline countered the increase brought by the upwardly revised, two-month high in the earlier week to add further evidence of a tight labor market in the US economy, in line with the strength in the latest jobs report, to add leeway for the Fed to hold rates higher for longer to combat inflation.”
Inflation: “United States Producer Prices” [Trading Economics]. “Producer Prices in the United States increased to 143.69 points in March from 143.47 points in February of 2024. Producer Prices in the United States averaged 116.59 points from 2009 until 2024, reaching an all time high of 143.69 points in March of 2024 and a record low of 100.20 points in November of 2009.”
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Finance: “Credit-card delinquency rates were worst on record in Fed study” [Yahoo Finance]. “Almost 3.5% of card balances were at least 30 days past due as of the end of December, the Philadelphia Fed said. That’s the highest figure in the data series going back to 2012, and up by about 30 basis points from the previous quarter. The ‘Stress among cardholders was further underscored in payment behavior, as the share of accounts making minimum payments rose 34 basis points to a series high,’ according to the report.” • Best economy ever!
Tech: We own our own search data:
Court says: “Indeed, Google’s licensing agreement makes clear that it does not own its users’ content. Instead, users own their Google content, which, according to testimony from a Google policy specialist, includes their search histories.”
— Brent Skorup (@bskorup) April 11, 2024
So, does that mean the NSA has to disgorge all Google search histories from its Utah Data Center?
Manufacturing: “Amid cover-up of whistleblower John Barnett’s ‘suicide,’ new Boeing whistleblower exposes safety violations in manufacture of 787 Dreamliner” [WSWS]. “Like Barnett, Salehpour told the Times he had been repeatedly retaliated against for bringing up his concerns about the shortcut methods employed by Boeing on Dreamliner jets. The engineer’s attorney, Debra S. Katz, said that when Salehpour approached his supervisors with his concerns or tried to bring them up at safety meetings, he was silenced and transferred to another product line, the 777.” • Surprisingly, WSWS omits that Salehpour was threatened with violence by his superiors. Hat tip to alert reader Car Burglar for noticing this passage in the Seattle Times piece:
“At one point, his [787] boss threatened him with physical violence,” [Salehpour lawyer Debra Katz] added. “That was documented. That actually was in writing. He turned the threat of physical violence over to HR and HR did not discipline the offending supervisor.”
Given the threat of violence, no doubt the Charleston police are diligently interviewing Boeing’s managers. Although the fact that the supervisor feft free to put a threat of violence in writing suggests a sense of impunity…
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 54 Neutral (previous close: 61 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 63 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Apr 10 at 2:00:01 PM ET.
Zeitgeist Watch
“As bans spread, fluoride in drinking water divides communities across the US” [USA Today]. “In February, the Board of County Commissioners in Union County, whose seat is Monroe, voted 3-2 to stop adding fluoride to drinking water at the Yadkin River Water Treatment Plant, the only water source wholly owned and operated by the county. But the decision came after heated discussions among residents and county officials. ‘My children had the blessing of growing up with fluoride in their water and … they have very little dental issues,’ said Commissioner Richard Helms ahead of the vote. A fellow commissioner saw it differently: ‘Let’s stop putting something in the water that’s meant to treat us, and give people the freedom to choose,’ said David Williams.” • For those who came in late:
I have often thought that General Ripper was directionallly correct — flouride, no; but PFAS, Endocrine Disruptors, and heaven knows what else.
The Gallery
“Pompeii: Breathtaking new paintings found at ancient city” [BBC]. “A third of the lost city has still to be cleared of volcanic debris. The current dig, the biggest in a generation, is underlining Pompeii’s position as the world’s premier window on the people and culture of the Roman empire. Park director Dr Gabriel Zuchtriegel presented the ‘black room’ exclusively to the BBC on Thursday. It was likely the walls’ stark colour was chosen to hide the smoke deposits from lamps used during entertaining after sunset. ‘In the shimmering light, the paintings would have almost come to life,’ he said.” • For example:
Class Warfare
News of the Wired
“Watch your garden glow with new genetically modified bioluminescent petunias” [NPR]. “The petunia with bright, white flowers looks like something you’d buy in spring at a garden nursery. But, when the lights are turned out, the petals slowly start lighting up with a greenish, white glow. The plant is always glowing, it’s just our eyes that need to adjust to see the light. The newest buds are the brightest and punctuate the glowing flowers. ‘That’s why we call it the Firefly Petunia. Because these bright buds resemble fireflies sitting on top of the plant,’ [Keith] Wood [of Light Bio] explained. And despite its name, this plant doesn’t have any firefly genes, rather four genes from a bioluminescent mushroom and a fifth from a fungi.” • Perhaps a kind reader would like to test?
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Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From A:
A writes: “Here are a couple of wintry milkweed views. They come from a neighbor’s sidewalk garden just east of the Union Street bridge over the Gowanus Canal. Having no outdoor space to cultivate, I am most grateful to those who gladden my eyes by their urban gardening.”
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