Continuing coronavirus happenings (Part 2)

Let’s just rebrand them the fucker party because every chance the get to be a fucker, they act like complete fuckers.

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Why yes, that guy who uploaded a 15 year old episode of Naruto is a threat to peoples’ lives and not those jackasses who intentionally coughed on people at the supermarket

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(Also posted on the thread about the variant.)

It’s unclear if this increase is due to something inherent about the virus, the behavior of people infected, or a combination of both.

What grabbed people’s attention was a correlation. In response to the winter wave of infections throughout Europe, the UK had restarted a set of social restrictions intended to bring infection levels back down. And in most of the country, those restrictions were working as intended. But not in the southeast and east of the UK. And it was precisely that region where levels of the B.1.1.7 strain were highest. In one county, B.1.1.7 accounted for over 20 percent of all new infections by mid-December, and that number has gone up since.

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‘Following the science’ rhetoric led to delay to UK COVID-19 lockdown and facemask rules

The UK government’s insistence that it was simply “following the science” during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic was a big factor in the costly delay to the nation’s first lockdown and postponed the introduction of face masks rules, according to an independent report.

[…]

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The NHS has signed a £23m two-year contract with Palantir without scrutiny, even though the controversial AI firm’s engagement with UK the health service was originally supposed to be a temporary, emergency measure to help address the COVID-19 pandemic.

The deal, published on 18 December, is already said to be providing the data platform to help with the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine.

[…]

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As per usual, ACAB.

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I hope the appeals for US intervention are ignored in this case:

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Children can rest assured the real Santa and Mrs. Claus have not tested positive for the virus and remain unaffected by the latest incident.

?

“I mean, these people might well die, but screw 'em. It’s not the real Santa Claus.”

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In Belgium, virologist Marc Van Ranst said the new variant was “minor” and had been detected in Belgium in recent months.

“We observed four cases in our lab,” he said. “Viruses are continually mutating, and when they do, they often become more transmissible but not more pathogenic.”

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The coronavirus pandemic is killing people with diabetes or Alzheimer’s who didn’t even contract the virus

The coronavirus has so far killed about 325,000 people in this country, but that staggering toll does not include the multitudes who have died because of disruptions, isolation, and destitution related to the pandemic.

People with diabetes or Alzheimer’s disease are particularly vulnerable.

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Not even close to final numbers, and they will go higher, but for anyone still asking “so where are all these excess deaths?” the answer is right here. So many dead. It did not have to be like this.

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So my brother (in upstate NY) is having some work done on his house. Actually, he is having his kitchen gutted and rebuilt. Must be nice. He found a contracting company up there who only hires workers who can prove they have already had covid. :flushed: Compared it to the Yellow Fever cards back in the 1800’s in New Orleans. Weird times indeed.

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The bill includes an additional unemployment benefits of $300 per week, on top of states’ unemployment insurance. The bill only ensures these additional benefits for ten weeks.
The CARES Act allowed for an additional $600 per week in unemployment benefits, but this provision expired at the end of July. Some Republicans raised concerns that the added benefit meant certain workers earned more while unemployed than they did while working, and argued that this could be a disincentive for returning to work.

You know what’s a real disincentive for returning to work? COVID-19!

Assholes.

Also, some weird stuff that just doesn’t belong in a relief package, and a crazy big bailout for the airline industry.

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On top of that:

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That is definitely a serious consideration. Oh, hey, I know how to resolve it: raise minimum wage!

Sigh. Come on Georgia.

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I don’t know all the details of the bill, but along with an eviction moratorium, that has to be the most important part of the bill to prevent the spread of COVID.

So here’s Mitchy, wearing his mask and acting like the lone Republican with sense, but in reality he’s the worst of them.

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KizzyPhD on Twitter: “But, don’t get in a panic over it. There will take a large amount of genetic diversity to completely make the current vaccines useless… And, here is why:” / Twitter

Nice thread

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