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top of the heap to third world status in one generation

Gry

Gry

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Omicron is on its way, and it loves to infect people who’ve been previously infected with other variants of Covid, the unvaccinated, and even people who think they’re fully vaccinated (but not boosted).

While all of us can get infected with Omicron, how sick you get from that infection is very different, depending on which category you belong to.

Consider this graphic of infections versus deaths in the United Kingdom, where 89.3% of citizens are vaccinated, 81.5% have received a second dose, and 44.3% have gotten a booster on top of the other two doses.

UK Covid cases (top) and UK Covid deaths (bottom)


The first bump in infections (top graphic, far left) lead to a massive increase in deaths (second graphic on the far left). That’s because it’s from the first wave of infection, before anybody knew how to treat Covid: many people died because physicians hadn’t yet figured out intubation and the use of steroids, and monoclonal antibodies didn’t exist.

In the second bump of infections (top, middle) Britain’s National Health Service had figured out how to treat Covid so the number of deaths, while high, is a fraction of what it would have been without the benefit of the experience they gained during the first wave of Covid.

The third bump of infections at the top of that graph, though, is where it gets very, very interesting. Omicron is burning through the UK right now, but deaths have not spiked in a way that even remotely correlates to infections (bottom graphic, far right).

Why is that?

We’re all waiting for peer-reviewed data, but the commonsense explanation is that Omicron is infecting already-vaccinated people, and because they’re vaccinated they’re getting mild cases of Covid but not dying.

In other words, when Covid burns through a country that’s heavily vaccinated it causes massive infection, but not so many deaths among vaccinated people.

While it’s remotely possible Omicron is just less deadly, the far more plausible explanation for the difference in the infection/death ratio is that, unlike “wild” and Delta Covid, Omicron pretty easily infects vaccinated people (particularly those without a booster) and that among the unvaccinated the “infection to death” lag hasn’t yet caught up.

While the vaccine can’t always stop the infection, it appears to usually stop the disease from progressing to hospitalization and/or death.

Which, if the science bears this out (and so far most data indicates it does), is very, very, very bad news for those counties in the US who voted for Donald Trump, the guy who got vaccinated in secret because he wanted President Biden to “fail” and not be able to get the Covid crisis under control.

A recent Yahoo/YouGov poll found that 48% of Republicans are unwilling to get vaccinated (down from 58% in August). That’s tens of millions of Americans who are refusing to protect themselves from death and disease just because their political party wants the country in a state of disruption when Democrats are in charge.

Between Fox “News,” rightwing hate radio, Donald Trump and Republican governors across the nation, vaccination rates in red counties (that voted for Trump) are pathetic: some are below 15%. Vaccination rates in blue counties (that voted for Biden) are really strong, sometimes over 90%. This graphic from the CDC makes it pretty clear:

CDC data on rates of vaccination by country 12/16/21


Which means if there’s a partisan split in vaccinations, there must be a similar red/blue split in deaths.

Epidemiologist Michael Olesen put together the amazing graphic below that compares death rates in US counties, with each colored line identifying red or blue counties, with the intensity of the red or blue indicating how strongly the county went for Trump or Biden:

Michael Olesen @maolesen
The difference in death rates from COVID between Republicans and Democrats is becoming even more striking.

December 15th 2021
3,606 Retweets10,027 Likes



Notice the first bump in deaths was when the virus first appeared, mostly in Washington State, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut early last year. Blue counties were being wiped out, because that’s where the big cities were and the virus was burning through them and nobody knew how to treat it (just like with the early UK spike).

The second bump was last winter when we’d figured out masking and social distancing but before the vaccine took effect. As you can see, just those simple public health measures kept deaths way down in blue counties while red counties, where “maskholes” were showing up maskless in restaurants and stores, had an explosion of deaths.

The third bump is the really bad news for Trump-humpers.

After a careful low-death-rate summer as states enforced mask mandates and people were able to easily social distance outdoors, we re-opened our schools in September and most red states reopened everything, often with no mask or other mandates.

That simple denial of the dangers of the Delta variant produced an explosion of cases in red counties while blue counties — where people are heavily vaccinated and mask mandates stayed in effect — saw just a small bump that probably represents the few anti-vaxxers who live in those blue counties.

Most urgently, check out the last two weeks on the chart, as both winter weather and Omicron hit us. Red counties are suddenly overflowing with deaths, while in the blue counties it’s just the vaccine stragglers who are ending up in the funeral parlor.

With this virus doubling every few days, we can expect a tidal wave of Omicron to sweep the entire nation over the next six to twelve weeks.

For the blue counties, this will be an inconvenience and will kill a few vaccinated folks who are either elderly, have health problems like type-2 diabetes, or are immune compromised by transplants, medication, or cancer treatments. But most people in blue counties — at least the vaccinated ones — will get a “bad covid flu” and make it through.

Not so in the red counties.

The GOP’s decision to politicize a virus may well cost the lives of a million or more Republican voters over the next few months.

And that doesn’t include the sad fact that as many as a third of symptomatic Covid cases result in long-term disabilities including dementia, heart and lung insufficiency, chronic fatigue and what a recent National Institutes of Health publication called “an epidemic” of erectile dysfunction.

I take no joy in reporting this: I’m with John Donne that “every man’s death diminishes me” (not to mention the loss of mental or sexual function) and what we’re seeing coming is a full-blown tragedy.

And you can bet that Republicans will soon come up with Biden-related memes and monikers for the virus to make it seem as if he’s responsible for all these Trump-encouraged GOP deaths. If nothing else, they know how to politicize anything, from emails to ambassador’s deaths.

But science doesn’t lie. A true sh*tstorm is on its way, and it’s going to hit red-county Trump voters like the climate change hurricanes just hit Kentucky.

Get ready. Get boosted. Get a few extra N-95 masks and home Covid test kits. Start working from home if you can.

And get yourself psychologically and emotionally prepared for the mass illness and death that’s about to visit the red counties of our nation because Donald Trump and the GOP chose to downplay this deadly virus for political purposes.


https://hartmannreport.com/p/the-deadly-omicron-news-for-trump
 
Gry

Gry

Well-known member
Veteran
Gry

Gry

Well-known member
Veteran
Arthur McBride - Paul Brady 1977

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBGkhPx529g



Oh, me and my cousin, one Arthur McBride
As we went a walking down by the seaside
Now, mark what followed and what did betide
For it being on Christmas morning
Out for recreation, we went on a tramp
And we met Sergeant Napper and Corporal Vamp
And a little wee drummer, intending to camp
For the day being pleasant and charming
"Good morning, good morning" the sergeant did cry
"And the same to you gentlemen" we did reply
Intending no harm but meant to pass by
For it being on Christmas morning
But says he, "My fine fellows if you will enlist
It's ten guineas in gold I will slip in your fist
And a crown in the bargain for to kick up the dust
And drink the King's health in the morning"
"For a soldier he leads a very fine life
And he always is blessed with a charming young wife
And he pays all his debts without sorrow or strife
And always lives pleasant and charming"
"And a soldier he always is decent and clean
In the finest of clothing he's constantly seen
While other poor fellows go dirty and mean
And sup on thin gruel in the morning"
But, says Arthur, "I wouldn't be proud of your clothes
For you've only the lend of them as I suppose
And you dare not change them one night, for you know
If you do you'll be flogged in the morning"
"And although that we are single and free
We take great delight in our own company
And we have no desire strange faces to see
Although that your offers are charming"
"And we have no desire to take your advance
All hazards and dangers we barter on chance
For you would have no scruples for to send us to France
Where we would get shot without warning "
"Oh now!", says the sergeant, I'll have no such chat
And I neither will take it from spalpeen or brat
For if you insult me with one other word
I'll cut off your heads in the morning
And then Arthur and I we soon drew our hods
And we scarce gave them time for to draw their own blades
When a trusty shillelagh came over their heads
And bade them take that as fair warning
And their old rusty rapiers that hung by their side
We flung them as far as we could in the tide
"Now take them out, Devils", cried Arthur McBride
"And temper their edge in the morning"
And the little wee drummer we flattened his pow
And we made a football of his rowdeydowdow
Threw it in the tide for to rock and to row
And bade it a tedious returning
And we having no money, paid them off in cracks
And we paid no respect to their two bloody backs
For we lathered them there like a pair of wet sacks
And left them for dead in the morning
And so to conclude and to finish disputes
We obligingly asked if they wanted recruits
For we were the lads who would give them hard clouts
And bid them look sharp in the morning
Oh me and my cousin, one Arthur McBride
As we went a walkin' down by the seaside
Now mark what followed and what did betide
For it being on Christmas morning

Songwriters: Paul Brady
 
Gry

Gry

Well-known member
Veteran
This was a festival observed in Scandinavia when fires were lit to symbolize the heat, light and life-giving properties of the returning Sun. A Yule—or Juul—log was brought in and burned on the hearth in honor of the Scandinavian god, Thor. It was Thor’s job to bring the Sun’s warmth back to the people. The log, which was never allowed to burn entirely, was kept as both a token of good luck against misfortune and used as kindling for the following year’s log. In England, Germany, France, and other European countries, the Yule log was burned until nothing but ash remained. The ashes were then collected and spread into the fields as fertilizer every night until Twelfth Night, or worn around the neck as a charm. French peasants would place the cooled ashes from the log under their beds, believing they would protect the house against thunder and lightning. The present-day custom of lighting a Yule log at Christmas is believed to have originated with these fires associated with the Feast of Juul.
https://www.farmersalmanac.com/winter-solstice-first-day-winter
 
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