More insanely high case numbers in the US, as the delayed reporting from the weekend cascades in. Once again, we're making only minimal smoothing adjustments -- so take it with a grain of salt (and maybe a little Ivermectin).
Covid-2019
Covid-2019
Monday, January 10, 2022
Embattled CDC Director Rochelle Walensky got a promotion over the weekend. Last week she was the fall-guy for the Biden administration's confused response to Omicron. Now she has to do her best -- not good enough -- to evade demands that she contradict Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor's wildly incorrect claims about Omicron's impact on children. If the idea is for the CDC and the administration to regain credibility, we don't see how it helps to not frankly put forth the statistics, no matter whom that may prove to have spoken falsely. We have the whole transcript in Recommended Reading.
Covid-2019
Sunday, January 9, 2022
In Recommended Reading, a story from the New York Times that says it all about the state of elite opinion: "How to Think About Covid Data Right Now." It's no longer about news. It's no longer about opinion. It's not even about telling people what to think. It's telling people how to think. Ask yourself how the public can possibly get the facts about the pandemic when the objective of the industry that gathers the facts and disseminates them is preoccupied with the transformation of your mental processes -- and isn't even afraid of admitting that is its goal, indeed touting it as a virtue? Journalism isn't a profession anymore. It's a religion.
Covid-2019
Saturday, January 8, 2022
Been a long time since we've seen this: every single US state is in a two-week uptrend for both new cases and test-positivity ratios. Amazing how little public panic there actually is, considering that. Well, there's this story in Recommended Reading: "Mom allegedly stuffed son in trunk because he had COVID, needed to be quarantined." It happened in Texas (we have extremes of everything here).
Covid-2019
Friday, January 7, 2022
Bad day for officials who are stuck on vaccines as the one and only true path out of the pandemic -- a deadly "scientists say" story in the New York Times by Apoorva Mandavilli, the health establishment's most reliable shill. It begins with the obligatory mantra "Everyone should get a booster shot". But then the whole story is about why doing so is utterly pointless.
Covid-2019
Thursday, January 6, 2022
That ultimate shaper of elite opinion, the New York Times, is setting up Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, to take the fall for the Biden administration in the US Omicron wave. In a front-pager, the charges against her are "stumbling" in her explanations, and "not being on the same page" as the White House. Meanwhile on the left coast, the Los Angeles Times has come up with something to make up for the disappointment that Omicron doesn't have much power to titillate the public -- a whole new disease: "flu-rona." Do you have it yet? All the cool kids do. It's all in "Recommended Reading."
Covid-2019
Wednesday, January 5, 2022
The silent victims of the pandemic -- children deprived of in-person schooling. Now, in Chicago, the teachers' union insists on all-remote learning, and shut down the public schools for a day in protest. In retaliation, the city shut down the public schools for a day. What are we missing? See "Recommended Reading."
Covid-2019
Tuesday, January 4, 2022
Today's data marks the climax of the crazy holiday reporting glitches coincident with the Omicron wave, where health authorities skip a day or two and then load up a single day's case and fatality numbers with two or three days' worth. We're not really going out on a limb here to say that today's impossibly high reported global new cases, at about 2.4 million, almost half of that in the US, are the highest we will ever see. In the coming days we'll adjust the charts to smooth out the spurious peaks.
Covid-2019
Monday, January 3, 2022
If new cases in the US follow the lead of South Africa, where Omicron struck first, then we have seen the highs and can look forward to a rapid decline. Strikingly, this will almost perfectly recapitulate the timing of the 2020 "dark winter" wave-crest.
Covid-2019
Sunday, January 2, 2022
Sometimes in "Recommended Reading" we post things that we don't really recommend you read, but rather that you should simply be aware of to understand the way Covid is handled in the media (because that has a lot to do with consumer and investor sentiment). With that in mind, note that the New York Times today features a story headlined "Want A Covid Test with Your Viagra?" This tells us that fear-porn is running out of energy, so they have to resort to porn-porn to get your attention.