FUCKDOWN, U.S.A.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Trump's executions may have killed more people than expected:

As the Trump administration was nearing the end of an unprecedented string of executions, 70% of death row inmates were sick with COVID-19. Guards were ill. Traveling prison staff on the execution team were infected with the coronavirus. So were media witnesses, who may have unknowingly infected others when they returned home because they were never told about the spreading cases.

Records obtained by the Associated Press show that employees at the Indiana prison complex where the 13 executions were carried out over six months had contact with inmates and other people infected with the coronavirus but were able to refuse testing and declined to participate in contact tracing efforts — and were still permitted to return to their work assignments.

Other staff members, including those brought in to help with executions, spread tips to their colleagues about how they could avoid quarantines and skirt public health guidance from the federal government and Indiana health officials.

The executions at the end of Trump's presidency, completed in a short window over a few weeks, likely acted as a superspreader event, according to the records reviewed by AP. It was something health experts warned could happen when the Justice Department insisted on resuming executions during the pandemic...

Of the 47 people on death row, 33 tested positive between Dec. 16 and Dec. 20, becoming infected soon after the executions of Brandon Bernard on Dec. 10 and Alfred Bourgeois on Dec. 11, according to Colorado-based attorney Madeline Cohen, who compiled the names of those who tested positive by reaching out to other federal death row lawyers. Other lawyers, as well as activists in contact with death row inmates, told AP they were told that a large numbers of death row inmates tested positive in mid-December.

In addition, at least a dozen other people, including execution team members, media witnesses and a spiritual adviser, tested positive within the incubation period of the virus, meeting the criteria of a superspreader event, in which one or more individuals trigger an outbreak that spreads to many others outside their circle of acquaintances. The tally could be far higher, but without contact tracing, it's impossible to be sure...

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-02-05/ap-analysis-federal-executions-likely-a-covid-superspreader

[Fambo Number Mive]

LA resident owes $42,184.20 after being hospitalised for COVID: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-02-08/covid-treatment-hospital-bills-health-insurance-waivers

[bgmnts]

Serves him right the daft sod/goddamn asshole.

[Ferris]

I see testing numbers are way down and top yankee boffins are scratching their heads trying to work out why, in the midst of a pandemic, their for-profit doctors aren't testing people.

Anyway.

Burned by Low Reimbursements, Some Doctors Stop Testing for Covid
Some insurers pay pediatricians less than the cost of the test itself, jeopardizing a tool to help control the pandemic.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/03/upshot/covid-testing-children-pediatricians.html

[Fambo Number Mive]

Not sure how good a source Mother Jones is, but this is a concerning story:

In most places in the United States, teachers don't yet qualify for COVID-19 vaccines. But one county in rural Georgia decided several weeks ago that its educators deserved early protection from the coronavirus—and now will face stiff consequences as a result.

Bucking designated priority group orders from the Georgia Department of Public Health, officials in Elbert County allowed teachers to be vaccinated at the same time as senior citizens over the age of 65. The county, which is in the northeast corner of Georgia, opened schools for in-person learning in the fall. Elbert County officials explained to the Atlanta Journal Constitution that many local students lack internet required for remote learning, and some rely on schools for food. The teachers are "seeing it, they're facing it every day, a lot of times with 20 kids in their classroom," Elbert County School District superintendent Jon Jarvis told the Atlanta Journal Constitution earlier this week. 

"I think it's really important that we stop punishing groups or individuals for vaccinating those outside state or [national] COVID-19 vaccination guidelines."

But yesterday, Elbert County got word from the Georgia Department of Public Health that it would be punished for flouting the guidelines. The state plans to suspend all vaccine shipments to Elbert County for six months. According to Georgia DPH spokesperson Nancy Nydam, the state will not resume shipments to Elbert County until late July. "It is critical that DPH maintains the highest standards for vaccine accountability to ensure all federal and state requirements are adhered to by all parties, and vaccine is administered efficiently and equitably," Nydam wrote to me in an email...

https://www.motherjones.com/coronavirus-updates/2021/01/a-rural-county-in-georgia-vaccinated-teachers-the-state-suspended-vaccine-shipments-to-punish-them/

That's punishing the residents of Elbert County for the actions of its officials, and if teachers are having to teach 20 children in classrooms I don't blame the officials for wanting to give them the vaccine earlier.

[Fambo Number Mive]

US Senator who refuses to wear a mask has to sit in plexiglass box during Senate sessions: https://twitter.com/nickconfessore/status/1362754513967456261

I presume the box has a lid, can't see from that angle.

[Dog Botherer]

don't know about that one in particular but i've yet to see one of those plexiglass things with a lid

[Fambo Number Mive]

I presume someone has to clean the inside of that box after every Senate session. That must be fun.

It would be better to make her take part over Zoom if she refuses to wear a mask.

[Ferris]

US Senator who refuses to wear a mask has to sit in plexiglass box during Senate sessions: https://twitter.com/nickconfessore/status/1362754513967456261

I presume the box has a lid, can't see from that angle.

Should point out she's a state senator, and this is the Virginia state senate rather than the US Federal gov.

You get more lunatics at the lower levels of government. Still absolutely baffling though.

[Ferris]

What's going on with the US death rate? Caseload has plummeted back to where it was in October, but instead of a similar number of deaths (700+ a day) its ~3200 or nearly 5x times what you'd expect and similar to the worst levels of pandemic. Virginia's map in particular is worrying - their death toll has shot up and I haven't seen a reason why that would be.

Hoping it is an anomaly.

[Dog Botherer]

What's going on with the US death rate? Caseload has plummeted back to where it was in October, but instead of a similar number of deaths (700+ a day) its ~3200 or nearly 5x times what you'd expect and similar to the worst levels of pandemic. Virginia's map in particular is worrying - their death toll has shot up and I haven't seen a reason why that would be.

Hoping it is an anomaly.

i've been trying to tune out the covid news a bit but could it be related to the US mutation that absolutely ripped through LA?

[Fambo Number Mive]

LA County  has reported a backlog of over 800 deaths from the autumn and winter surge, taking California over 50,000 deaths : https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-02-25/la-county-discovers-806-new-winter-covid-deaths

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

More people in the at risk category or really band concentrations in certain areas would keep the deaths relatively high while infections drop off nationwide.

[MojoJojo]

Why are cases dropping? Are states implementing more lockdown? Most of the media I look at only covers the federal level, or extreme state level stuff, so I don't understand why cases would be dropping at the moment.

[Dog Botherer]

nowhere is locking down more strictly, i'll say that much. if anything it's the opposite, most places have given up any pretense of containment.

[MojoJojo]

One explanation about why reported cases are dropping for no apparent reason with death rates remaining high is that reported cases are being lied about. Most likely by reducing the number of tests administered.

[Dex Sawash]

nowhere is locking down more strictly, i'll say that much. if anything it's the opposite, most places have given up any pretense of containment.

Road traffic is back to normal here (NC america)

[Dog Botherer]

Road traffic is back to normal here (NC america)

there are effectively no measures in place in the city i'm in. people wear masks but depending on what part of town you're in compliance can range from 95~% to basically non existent.

i think the only time there was ever a noticeable drop in road traffic here (midwest small city) was during the first lockdown. been pretty much normal since.

[Ferris]

The bit of Toronto I used to live in had some tourist shit nearby, and those cunts were aggressively advertising free parking (billboards, instagram posts, native news stories in local mags, the works) to get more people to basically come on down to Ferris' gaff and get livin covid-a loca. What on earth were they thinking[nb]they were thinking about money[/nb].

[BlodwynPig]

The bit of Toronto I used to live in had some tourist shit nearby, and those cunts were aggressively advertising free parking (billboards, instagram posts, native news stories in local mags, the works) to get more people to basically come on down to Ferris' gaff and get livin covid-a loca. What on earth were they thinking[nb]they were thinking about money[/nb].

what tourist shit? the hockey hall of fame?

[Ferris]

what tourist shit? the hockey hall of fame?

You bought a suit in the area I'm talking about! How quickly we forget.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Trump to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference today in Orlando, Florida at 3:40pm ET.

Looks like a superspreader event from this photo: https://twitter.com/RobertShermanTV/status/1366068019550687235/photo/1

Doesn't seem to be much in the way of masks either:
https://twitter.com/JennaEllisEsq/status/1365808075547037701
https://twitter.com/FOVaughan/status/1365750057509740545

[BlodwynPig]

You bought a suit in the area I'm talking about! How quickly we forget.

I thought it was that area, but its a nice area - lovely in comparison to Picadilly Circus or Times Square, which is the image that sprang to mind.

[Ferris]

Fair point.

Still glad to be out of there though, it'll be vid mania there nowadays.

[Fambo Number Mive]

In Texas Governor Greg Abbott has issued an executive order to lift the mask mandate and open Texas to 100 percent:

Gov. Greg Abbott announced Tuesday that he is ending Texas' statewide mask mandate next week and will allow all businesses to operate at full capacity.

"It is now time to open Texas 100%," Abbott said from a Mexican restaurant in Lubbock, arguing that Texas has fought the coronavirus pandemic to the point that "people and businesses don't need the state telling them how to operate" any longer...

The current trajectory of the virus has been difficult to measure in recent days due last month's winter storm, which forced many large counties to close their testing centers and not report any cases. Daily confirmed cases and deaths are clearly down compared to a statewide peak in January. Hospitalization data has been less disrupted, though, and has shown a consistent decline since late January.

But only 6.5% of Texans had been fully vaccinated as of Sunday, though Abbott has been optimistic that the pace will pick up as more vaccines are made available to Texas.

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/03/02/greg-abbott-texas-announcement/

https://twitter.com/GovAbbott/status/1366843339836977165

Cases appear to be low with 1,637 new confirmed cases and 344 new probable cases reported in Texas on March 1st, but it seems very early to open everything up and remove the mask mandate with so few people vaccinated. It's like the England opening up last June, doing everything at once.

[Ferris]

Yeah but crucially June is 3 months away.

A full reopening now just seems mad - if you've vaccinated every vulnerable person then fine (they haven't), but you're also opening up an incubator for new (and more deadly) variants which puts every cunt on the planet at risk.

Still, got to think of big business first and foremost.

[evilcommiedictator]

Amusingly it's being reported that Trump got the vaccine in January on the quiet. Wonder why he's been quiet about it eh lads?

[Fambo Number Mive]

I'm sure Abbott's removal of the mask mandate will increase support for him in the Republican primaries should he run in 2024 as well as help kill thousands of Texans.

[Chedney Honks]

Without being rude, who cares? They're only Americans.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

It's natural when a load of idiots inflict pain on everyone else that you lose any stake in their own existence, or worse, quite desire for them to suffer in punishment.

Ultimately it is still a load of cunts at the top who are to blame for brainwashing and misleading them.