Today is looking like it will blow yesterdayâs record 32,000 cases out of the water. Tokyo is looking at around 7,300 (the previous record was 5,900 last August), Osaka is looking to exceed 6,000 for the first time, Aichi (home to Nagoya) is looking at 2,800, Hyogo (home to Kobe and yours truly) is looking at around 2,500 (above 2,000 for the first time), Fukuoka is looking at around 2,200 (ditto) and many other prefectures are above 1,000 or in the high triple digits for the first time. Even very rural prefectures, which have spent most of the pandemic in single digits, are seeing hundreds of cases per day.
I am trying to turn people on to (K)N-94/95 masks, but not many people seem to be aware of the different mask standards. And I am alarmed by how many of my coworkers are going into the office instead of working from home (which my company is actively encouragingâŠin fact, my company just established a 300 yen per day allowance for people working from home to offset increased utilities costsâŠ)
It just doesnât stop.
Itâs like they want nothing more than to fill up all of the hospital rooms. Whatâs next? Sticking forks in electrical outlets?
Iâd forgotten who Lara Logan was
She was the Benghazi hoax lady at 60 Minutes
Then she was the Antifa hoax lady at Fox News
Sheâs like a more âsuccessfulâ version of Andy Ngo
For example, sonic screwdrivers and jelly babies.
Any chance that guy isnât trilling people? His carefully arranged symbols in the room â the âsupport firefightersâ flag, the masonic pyramid, the Guy Fawkes mask, etc â seem like a deliberate âI am over the topâ statement. (Also, if heâs for real, I donât see how anyone that stupid made it to adulthood.)
I guess if you wonât spend on prevention, it makes some sense.
Two thousand trucks are stuck in a road in Argentina, waiting for covid tests to enter in Chile. The âjammingâ began after the Chilean government tightened its health controls on foreign drivers, requiring truck drivers to test negative for Covid-19, according to Argentine transport workers.
More too little too late.
Sounds good, but that is 1 per person. 1 point something accounting for kids too small to wear them. Yeah, too little, too late. Of course, once you factor in all the idiots who refuse to wear a mask at all, the quantity may be plenty sufficient and just too late. Sigh.
The bullshit in Missouri continues to flow from the office of the Attorney General.
Now the threat is explicit: Infected students may not be sent home.
Can they be sent to the AGâs instead? I mean, heâs so sure that would be safe, right? 
âIn response to updated guidance received from the office of the governor, James Madison University is no longer requiring for employees to receive the vaccination, report their vaccination status or undergo the weekly screening testing that had been taking place on campus,â said Mary-Hope Vass, spokesperson for James Madison University.
In an email, Blue Ridge Community College (BRCC) reported the same changes.
This will end well, I am sure,
For those who donât know, thatâs where Notre Dame University is located.
A less educated county in Indiana wouldnât be so open about needing a morgue. No, seriously.
Um⊠hang on⊠the cases arenât doubling as quickly⊠second derivative of rate⊠
ICU cases arenât increasing as quickly but weâve hit a daily record death rate for this wave for the past week. That is one way to clear ICU beds, but it strikes me as disingenuous to represent that as âimprovementâ. 
Plus with schools back in-person today (after the big snow storm) weâll have to see. Since we canât track case rates the lag is going to be at least 2 weeks before anything definitive can be said about the effect of that change. Our n=4 sample indicates 15% to 50% of local high-school students are staying home anyway.
(âŠand, canât resist, via todayâs Toronto Star)
