Muh Muh Muh My Corona (virus)

The 7-day rolling average on covid tracking project is up to 191k and there are two post-thanksgiving depressed days about to fall off. We will shoot right past 200k on the average this week.

Based on estimates of how many cases go undiagnosed, that would put us at about 2% of the US population per week. And the trajectory doesn’t look like it’s slowing down at all, so that could easily go up from here.

 

The FBI said in a public service announcement Friday that the facility, Infinity Diagnostic Laboratory in Ventnor, was offering active virus tests in addition to antibody tests. The lab called it "rapid 10-minute testing" on a sign that was taken down Friday, NBC Philadelphia reported. Finger prick blood tests can detect Covid-19 antibodies, but only nasal or saliva tests should be used to diagnose active cases, the FBI said.

FBI agents raided the location Thursday but did not explain why, NBC Philadelphia confirmed.

Anyone who was tested at the lab should be retested, and the FBI asked that they contact the agency because their responses "would be useful in a federal investigation."​

That’s interesting.

 

The big, baby-eating hematoma of Vinegar Hill.
#BowlingGreenMassacree #NeverRemember

If people did this at my hypothetical wedding reception, I would go to the kitchen, find the largest utensil I could swing, and the beatings would happen in this order:
1.) Everyone waving a red towel.
b.) Big Red. No. At that point, I would hand the first small child I could find my car keys and tell them to bring in my bow and quiver. Then I would deal with Big Red.
#BowlingGreenMassacree #NeverRemember #WhyIsOscarSingle?

 

Were you around for the infamous UAB-WKU Mars bar game? Mid-80's?

 

A daughter’s promise: An unbreakable bond that withstood the test of a lifetime | TribLIVE.com

I just finished reading this. Back in March as things started to shut down, JoAnne Klimovich Harrop moved in with her 93-year-old mother, who was living in a nursing home in the Squirrel Hill section of Pittsburgh. Harrop is a reporter with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. She knew the lockdown of nursing homes was coming and didn't want her mother to be alone. She knew she wouldn't be able to leave any time soon. Harrop spent the next 84 days there and shared her story.

I know JoAnne from my reporting days in Pittsburgh. She is one of the most decent people I've met. I knew some of the things that came up throughout those 84 days, but I actually didn't know she was living at the nursing home as it all happened.

 

As you mentioned, Trump didn't "politicize" the virus any more than any other situation that would have reflected badly upon him, because he's too stupid to do anything else, though honestly as soon as the Dems sorted their shit out he was probably fairly fucked as it is. If we'd been invaded by aliens from Alpha Centauri and Omaha had been destroyed, he would have figured out a way to blame NASA, Space Force, the Air Force and Tom Osborne.

 

What a story, and what a magnificent thing JoAnne did. As an aside, I think we can see why 'quarantining' the nursing homes didn't work. Seems like a lot of people coming and going.. delivery, rabbi, staff. But, still, incredible story.

 

I'm not trying to impute motive or assign political blame or point a finger at bad people.

The initial messaging was bad. Our national response was scattered and uncertain. People were confused by it in the spring and remain so.

And as you say, masks and distancing and inconsistent closures aren't enough and we haven't really experimented with a broader, more flexible range of interventions. Now it's winter and a lot of us are headed back indoors, and the advice to gather safely outside won't apply.

Some things are open some places and some things are closed in others and we're getting rolled by the second wave - even if not everywhere all at once.

That most people in most places are now transmitting the virus in their own home likely means they brought the virus home from somewhere.

Which is what gets us to the CDC universal mask directive and the suggestion folks who've likely been exposed mask up even at home.

Like you, I'm not sure how much more we can do right now. I think we ride it out until we get a vaccine circulating in quantity sufficient to slow down the current viral wildfire. How long that takes, I don't know.

 

contra

Opinion | It’s Time to Scare People About Covid

 

You can take some comfort in the fact that the FDA isn't getting in any hurry ...

FDA Career Staff Are Delaying the Vaccine As Thousands of Americans Die

 

Too slow for sure.

But recalling the Cutter polio vaccine disaster and even the troubles with Swine Flu in '76, I'm not sure a deliberate review process is a bad idea.

Additionally, weirdly, in 2020 we have a population even more skittish about vaccines. Terrible dilemma.