Covid-2019

Covid-2019
Tuesday, February 7, 2023
In "Recommended Reading," the Wall Street Journal examines the exhaustion of pandemic-era savings from stimulus payments. By our reckoning, there's still about $1.3 trillion left in median-and-below households (the pre-pandemic historical average is no more than zero). 
Covid-2019
Monday, February 6, 2023
In "Recommended Reading," our friend Allysia Finley from the Wall Street Journal remembers when Republicans first greeted the vaccines as liberators. Then came the Democratic government, mandates and the mixed messages -- and no vaccine skepticism is a staple of the political right. 
Covid-2019
Sunday, February 5, 2023
In "Recommended Reading," USA Today lists all the freebies you will lose when (if, according to "plans") the Biden administration officially ends the Covid emergency.
Covid-2019
Saturday, February 4, 2023
An amazing article from NPR in "Recommended Reading," revealing how much the mainstream narrative has changed on the vaccines. In an article on why the winter Covid wave is so surprisingly mild, even this normally submissive state-funded outlet writes about "viral interference," "avoiding crowds" and "prior infections" as the reasons. It's not until the 15th paragraph that vaccines are even mentioned. Whatever virtues (at whatever cost) the vaccines may have, this is surely evidence that the mainstream of opinion now understands that the vaccines don't protect you from catching Covid.
Covid-2019
Friday, February 3, 2023
China's CDC has taken over the responsibility for reporting data. It's no longer daily, but weekly. And the definitions and standards are ambiguous. We're doing our best with it. But Japan's data remains among the most reliable in the world, and historically Japan's new cases match China's as to incidence and relative magnitude. There's been a lot of improvement after a record case-wave in Japan, so our guess is that China is improving too (as its unreliable numbers suggest).
Covid-2019
Thursday, February 2, 2023
In "Recommended Reading," here's a study to study. In a survey of 2840 Americans, 612 said they knew someone with a health problem from Covid vaccines. Filtering for confounding causes, this implies 278,000 vaccine deaths in 2021. Yes, it's a poll based on what amounts to hearsay. But even if it doesn't speak to the reality of vaccine side-effects (which it actually may), it definitely speaks to public perception. What a tragedy that government health officials did such a poor job at obtaining public trust. (That said, if there really is a health problem with the vaccines, better that they did a poor job of getting people to take them!)
Covid-2019
Thursday, February 2, 2023
In "Recommended Reading," the Supreme Court of medical research -- the Cochrane Library -- has just ruled: no, masks don't work.
Covid-2019
Tuesday, January 31, 2023
In "Recommended Reading," a statement from the White House declaring that the administration "plans" to terminate the federal state of emergency for Covid on May 11. Just a coincidence that the new House majority is passing resolutions to do it now. In fact, the administration strongly opposes such reckless plans. It has to be May. May is the thing. May is the only right time. (Should have been two Mays ago in our humble opinion.)
Covid-2019
Monday, January 30, 2023
In "Recommended Reading," CNN reports that Trump is on the campaign trail attacking DeSantis for "rewriting history" on his record for dealing with Covid. Trump has his own problems with that now, considering that the vast majority of his base is existentially opposed to the MRNA vaccines that he is proud to have rushed to market. Politics is the art of the implausible.
Covid-2019
Sunday, January 29, 2023
We've been waiting for US daily fatalities to break out of their weirdly reliable 500-a-day pattern for nine months. Sorry to say, but they just haven't. Average over the last 40 days? Yep. 500. Not 499. Not 501. 500.

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