A new spike in COVID-19 hopsitalizations and deaths, a failed insurrection, an attempted coup, vaccine protests, and blowback against addressing systemic racism. Some mornings it is hard to know where to start.
Younger, sicker, quicker
“This to us feels like an entirely different disease,” Dr. Cam Patterson, chancellor of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences tells the New York Times. The COVID-19 Delta variant is everywhere:
Doctors working in Covid-19 hot spots across the nation say that the patients in their hospitals are not like the patients they saw last year: The new arrivals are younger, many in their 20s or 30s.
These patients — almost all of them unvaccinated — also seem sicker than younger patients were last year. And they are deteriorating more rapidly.
Earlier in the pandemic, patients would come into the hospital after spending a week or two at home with symptoms. Often they were treated on a regular floor before needing intubation or intensive care, but doctors report some younger patients are experiencing more severe symptoms now.
Physicians have coined a new phrase to describe them: “younger, sicker, quicker.” Some have no underlying health conditions that would make them more susceptible. The culprit, many suspect, is the Delta variant, which now makes up 80 percent of cases nationwide.
Daddy Dearest
The “daddy party” once prided itself on it’s finely honed spider sense for danger. All the better to protect you and yours from harm those pansy Democrats would let git ya. Not anymore (CBS News):
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said Tuesday that his state will not shut down again despite a record-breaking influx of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, making the Sunshine State the nation’s new virus epicenter.
“We’re not shutting down,” DeSantis said Tuesday at a press conference. “These interventions have failed time and time again throughout this pandemic, not just in the United States but abroad. They have not stopped the spread. And particularly with Delta, which is even more transmissible, if it didn’t stop it before, it definitely ain’t going to stop it now.”
“[M]alevolent, depraved displays of hostility toward the public good” are the latest in seasonal Republican fashion. New policies in Florida and Texas “allow children to attend school maskless and bar vaccine mandates by local governments and state agencies,” Greg Sargent observes. Even with Florida being the epicenter of the latest Covid spike, DeSantis is all public safety be damned. Enjoy your cruise.
It’s fine, fine, everything’s fine
All that white grievance and bluster masks thins skins and deep-seated insecurity. (Resemble anyone you know?) “Shit’s fucked up, y’all,” tweets Chris Savage of Eclectablog, pointing to Education Week:
Tennessee aims to levy fines starting at $1 million and rising to $5 million on school districts each time one of their teachers is found to have “knowingly violated” state restrictions on classroom discussions about systemic racism, white privilege, and sexism, according to guidance proposed by the state’s department of education late last week.
Teachers could also be disciplined or lose their licenses for teaching that the United States is inherently racist or sexist or making a student feel “guilt or anguish” because of past actions committed by their race or sex.
Y’all, pay no attention to the chart at the top of this post. Find some sand and bury your heads.
The Purge
These last few years have played like a bad dystopian-future film. DeSantis hopes that should Donald Trump’s dreams of a presidential comeback fade, he’ll be the clear Republican frontrunner in 2024. He seems to be auditioning for the next installment of The Purge.