Why Cuomo And Not Clinton?

The current predicament for New York Gov Andrew Cuomo represents a remarkable reversal. As of late 2020, Cuomo was promoted, according to The New Republic,

as “America’s governor,” a competent executive who had steered his state through a crisis and who, potentially, could be a Democratic presidential frontrunner in 2024 or 2028.

In November, he received an Emmy:

"The Governor's 111 daily briefings worked so well because he effectively created television shows, with characters, plot lines, and stories of success and failure," the academy's president and CEO, Bruce Paisner, explained in a statement announcing the decision. "People around the world tuned in to find out what was going on, and New York tough became a symbol of the determination to fight back."

Although the nursing home COVID scandal was a slight impediment, it's had notiong like the impact of the current sexual harassment scandal that could potentially bring him down. As I've posted before, this is C+ horndog stuff, at worst oblique propositions, furtive grabs and gropes. The complaint from the right is that there are demands for his resignation over this, but not over the thousands of COVID deaths he's alleged to have caused and then covered up in New York nursing homes.

Contrast this with Bill Clinton, who was dogged with allegations that included rape throughout his career. Surviving an impeachment attempt involving another impropriety, his popularity was higher afterward than before it. For that matter, even for Joe Biden, gropes and sniffs caught on film, as well as credible accounts of naked swimming in front of female Secret Service agents, go beyond anything alleged against Cuomo. (Come to think of it, there must certainly be security footage of the naked swimming as well.)

But so far, calls for his resignation are coming from national and state figures in his own party. Impeachment by the majority-Democrat state assembly appears to be a foregone conclusion:

One Assembly member said “not a single voice of support” was expressed in favor of Cuomo during an emergency State Assembly conference on Tuesday.

. . . Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-The Bronx) said Tuesday after the meeting with colleagues that it’s “abundantly clear” that Cuomo needs to leave office one way or another.

On one hand, I would not rule out that the calls from national Democrats for Cuomo's resignation are just kabuki, a scramble to get on the right side of an issue that could well blow over, especially as other news grabs the headlines, Cuomo holds on, and an impeachment effort fizzles. But at best, Cuomo is now damaged merchandise, and he's actually part of a potential two-shoe drop with his fellow governor Newsom in California.

I don't actually think Cuomo's p;roblem is either sexual harassment or nursing home deaths. People want him out due to his handling of COVID, the lockdowns, social distancing, masks, closed restaurants, and Karens. At minimum, people are tired of a failed narrative and failed strategies, and they want new figures and a new start. It's no coincidence that the two most prominent "blue" governors who've promoted the strictest COVID controls are now the ones in deep political trouble.

A recent poll in California that shows 51% of likely voters in favor of recalling Newsom also says "Newsom’s coronavirus restrictions were given as the most important reason to recall him by 34% of the voters in the poll."

I think this is also the underlying question in New York. The examples of Clinton and Biden show that sexual harassment -- especially when it's minor in contrast to the national figures who get away with worse -- isn't an important issue. What's really going on is that people want a new approach to COVID. The political establishment hasn't yet grasped this.

Fr Hunwicke Throttles Back To Modified Limited Intemperate

So OK, Fr Hunwicke is canonically, and certainly represents himself as, a priest of the Roman Catholic Church. But leaving aside his near-exclusive focus on pre-Conciliar liturgy, let's look at a Church teaching he so far hasn't disputed, the Fruits of the Holy Spirit. Now, I'm a Catholic convert, but then, so is he. As far as I can tell, this is the Catholic position:

In his letter to the Galatians, St. Paul lists the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal 5:22-23). These fruits emanate or proceed from the Holy Spirit and reveal what the Holy Spirit is like. . . . The grace and power of the Holy Spirit give increase to these fruits. A confirmed person cooperates with this grace, and with growth in holiness, these fruits expand and intensify.

We wpuld expect a Catholic priest to teach and even model these virtues. And this goes all the way back to St Paul, nothing novus ordo about it. So why is Fr Hunwicke such an angry hothead all the time? It almost sounds as though his conscience has pestered him, or people have maybe brought this to his attention. On Saturday, he posted this:

Furthermore: I ask those who comment to keep their voices down a bit. What I mean is: however strong your views, please express them moderately and without violence of language. I do not wish to waste what remains of my life wondering whether something is "bad enough" to be binned!

Finally: I remind all readers that comments which state or imply that Pope Francis is not, or (even) may not be, the lawful occupant of the See of Rome, will not be accepted, even if the language is very restrained!! That subject is off limits. It is quite simply not up for discussion.

. . . But opinions expressed by those who submit comments to this blog should be low-key and never intemperate.

But this follows a week of posts where I've noted he compares Pope Francis to Hitler, Stalin, and Kim Jong-Un; calls him a "tyrant" (which I note is a ruler who is unrestrained by law, or one who has usurped a legitimate ruler's sovereignty); and accuses him of "Bergoglian rage". And after telling his commenters never to be intemperate, just yesterday he posted concernng the Holy See,

It is important to remember that we are not at the mercy of honourable or decent people, and that PF's hatred of us is, er, visceral.

Masks for thee but not for me, huh? One thing I've noted as a blogger and an observer of the blog phenomenon is that blogs get the comments that the bloggers encourage. My own experience is that even courteous and constructive comments that largely, but not completely, endorse most bloggers' opinions don't get approved. Fr Hunwicke's visitors have told me he's never approved comments that disagree. Now he's threatening not to approve even commeents that are correct but intemperate, while he continues to be as intemperate as he pleases.

Bloggers create the atmosphere on their blogs. Fr Hunwicke is scolding his visitors for endorsing his own opinions, which are never either low-key or temperate. Beyond that, Fr Hunwicke plays footsie himself with sedevacantism and pre-Conciliarism. The day after he threatened to moderate "comments which state or imply that Pope Francis is not, or (even) may not be, the lawful occupant of the See of Rome", he himself posted,

PF's evident policy of destroying the Authentic Roman Rite, and his recent purported legislative action, lack auctoritas and place no burden upon anybody's conscience.

I guess Fr Hunwicke means that Francis is sorta-kinda the lawful occupant of the See, but his actions sorta-kinda lack authority. A day after he's denounced any commenter who even tentatively suggests this. And of course, none of this represents love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness or self-control.

Fr Hunwicke tells us he's celebrated the Roman Canon daily since his youth. How come it's had so little effect on him personally, as St Paul says it should? If it's done him, one of its major proponents, so little apparent good, why should I prefer it? Where are his superiors? Maybe more important, where are his friends, especially the friends who daily send me links to his posts?

Growing Doubts About Dr Walensky

On Saturday, I linked to a New York Post editorial saying "The White House needs to find a different voice for public health pronouncements." Yesterday, a second center-right organ, the Washington Examiner, ran an editorial entitled Dr. Rochelle Walensky has made a mockery of the CDC.

This week, under her direction, the CDC changed its guidance to encourage fully vaccinated adults to put their masks back on in certain situations. This flip-flop is not based in science but in hysteria.

. . . When pressed about the guidance change, Walensky blamed the unvaccinated, who now make up the majority of coronavirus cases and deaths. But this does not justify the CDC’s recent decision. Why should the vaccinated be punished for the bad decisions of the unvaccinated?

. . . Under Walensky’s guidance, the CDC has become untrustworthy, illogical, and prone to reversing itself based on political nonsense. Its guidance has changed so many times, often in spite of scientific data, that the public can hardly know what to believe. The CDC needs better leadership if it is to maintain even a shred of credibility, and Walensky has proven that she is incapable of using the power entrusted to her.

A commentator farther to the right made a carefully reasoned post at RedState following Dr Walensky's interview with Bret Baier on Friday:

To those who watch public health policy, this week has been a shocking revelation, with the CDC and health policy “experts” making indiscriminate statements devoid of any reference to data, but tonight I have actually had to ask myself – does the Director of the CDC actually understand this virus?

. . . After being asked if she was considering vaccine mandates, Dr. Walensky returned to her usual indecisiveness, stating that it seemed to be a local and private business prerogative at this point but they were certainly “looking into the option.” It seems there is little more going on at the CDC at the moment than “looking into” things, whatever that actually means – and it certainly is a poor substitute for action or science. Later on, she walked back this statement, stating she meant a mask mandate rather than a vaccine mandate. Which would be easier to believe if, in her response to Baier, she had not explicitly mentioned vaccines.

. . . Concluding with a softball question, Baier asked which vaccine was best against the Delta variant. She denied there were data to suggest any one vaccine is better than another. Certainly, this might have come as a shock to those who have prepared the internal briefing slides and read the actual studies – many of which conclude the mRNA vaccines are significantly more effective than other vaccines against the Delta variant.

This is fundamental. This was something she should have known, with data she claimed she was specifically presented with earlier this week.

. . . The CDC’s display of incompetence, indecisiveness, and inadequacy is causing active harm. Every time Dr. Walensky is on air, it is not just her credibility that diminishes, but also that of the vaccination effort, testing, and the wider fight against COVID-19.

Another commentator noted that she's even gone back to the meme from March of last year:

Perhaps CDC Director Rochelle Walensky has no sense of irony. We recently passed the 500th day to slow the spread, which, as we all know, started with 15 days to slow the spread in March of 2020. Now, Walensky is saying that if we all put on a face diaper and get the jab, we can defeat the Delta variant in a few weeks:

I love how Walensky constantly says things that her own agency’s website does not support. The CDC will not consider any American who receives the vaccination today “fully vaccinated” for two weeks. . . . In fact, after two weeks, people vaccinated today will not receive their second dose for three weeks with Pfizer and four weeks with Moderna.

And about that two-week timeframe. It just might be that Walensky is being informed by the experience of a similar country. The United Kingdom started a sustained increase in the number of daily cases around June 3, 2021. They reached their peak on July 16 and have shown a sharp decline since. The United States started a sustained increase on July 3, 2021.

Using the UK as a guide, we could expect to turn the corner and start to decline in, wait for it, about two weeks. Dr. Scott Gottlieb has said publicly he believes this wave will be over by some point in September.

But another media expert talking head is piping up that most masks don't actually work. '

During a segment on CNN Monday afternoon, University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy Director Michael Osterholm said cloth or paper masks don't work to stop the spread of the disease.

This, of course, has been well known for over a year. Dr. Anthony Fauci told former Obama Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell that store-purchased masks do little to stop the spread of the disease.

The problem is clear: Dr Walensky, abetted by the White House, is sending vague non-messages on policy that are effectively enabling the hysteria of the press and local moral entrepreneurs. As a result, indoor mask mandates for the vaccinated are all the rage, and Louisiana's governor is the first to impose one statewide. I suspect pressure will mount on Gov Newsom now to impose one in California, though a number of counties have now imposed their own. This will certainly hurt him in the recall if he does it.

The problem is that people are getting smarter. This isn't 2020.

Newsom Sounding Nervous

California Gov Newsom's tone has shifted lately as he confronts the upcoming recall election on September 14. In March, he was assertive and combative, characterizing the recall as a fringe effort:

"I am not going to take this recall attempt lying down," he declared.

"And let's call it what it is: it's a partisan, Republican recall — backed by the [Republican National Committee], anti-mask and anti-vax extremists, and pro-Trump forces who want to overturn the last election and have opposed much of what we have done to fight the pandemic," Newsom wrote.

But last Thursday, he was sounding alarm bells.

Newsom predicted that nationwide, Democrats would see “consequences” from his recall effort for “many, many years,” and it might help Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections. During the interview with the editorial boards of the McClatchy Newspapers, Newsom also noted that he does not think the Democrats are considering the consequences of him possibly losing.

“I don’t think the national Democratic Party’s asking themselves that question,” Newsom told them. “If this was a successful recall, I think it would have profound consequences nationwide and go to not just politics, but to policy and policymaking.”

Clearly he's dropped the line that it's just a bunch of QAnon types and anti-vaxxers running the effort. Larry Elder's candicacy, which he announced only on July 12 but had his name added to the ballot after winning a court case July 21, clearly changed the nature of the race:

When Elder announced his candidacy, he immediately became one of the most recognized Republicans in the race, given his years on talk radio as well as appearances on Fox News and other media.

"One of the most recognized Republicans"? Leaving Caitlyn aside (she's quickly faded anyhow), Elder is the only recognized Republican.

I listened to a YouTube session wih lawyer-pundit Robert Barnes and pollster Richard Baris just before Elder's confirmation as a candidate, where they concluded that the California recall was iffy at best, with the Republican candidates uninspiring up to that point. They felt the race needed someone with a Hollywood or Kennedy style appeal and shook their heads at the unlikelihood of this happening. (Oddly, they seem to have forgotten that we got a Hollywood Kennedy in Arnold Schwarzenegger, who singlehandedly destroyed the California Republican party. As a radio commentator said at the time, he'd collapse any time a bunch of fat nurses demonstrated for something at the state capitol.)

Beyond the entry of Elder, the link above also concludes,

[T]he field is “shaping up as one that will excite every kind of Republican,” said Thad Kousser, a political science professor at the University of California, San Diego. "There's someone for every part of the party.”

The question in the election is twofold. The first is whether to recall Newsom at all, which needs a majority. The difficulty for Newsom is that the Republicans are energized, while Democrats are less so. This conventionial wisdom is outlined in the news segment linked at the top of this post. Other issues include the fact that Newsom is untrustworthy on masks and lockdowns; the commentator on the news segment notes that he's been quiet on this issue due to the recall, but voters tired of restrictions will prefer someone who will act more like Govs DeSantis and Abbott in opposing local restrictions and won't impose new ones statewide.

The second question on the ballot will be to select a replacement from among 40-odd candidates. At this point, Elder is the clear front runner, with the conventional RINO Kevin Faulconer running second but well behind Elder. Without Elder in the race, the overall choice on the ballot would have been between a San Francisco leftist and a Mitt Romney, which is a proven formula to keep Republicans at home. Elder is a whole new factor.

We'll have to see what develops, but clearly Newsom is more pessimistic now than he was several months ago.

UK COVID Data, Provincetown, And Andrerw Sullivan

A chance mention of the UK's experience with the delta surge sent me to the usual charts on the web, Indeed, the UK experienced a surge in delta-variant COVID cases in late spring, but the surge looks just like every other peak we've had since late 2020. It reaches a summit, and then it falls off steeply on the other side.

In contrast, I looked up the graph for UK deaths. As I pretty much expected, unlike the graph for cases above, there was no peak at all in deaths over the same period. This has been the pattern for every geographical area I've checked. It also lends credence to the remark by former FDA commissioiner Dr Scott Gottlieb, "I think we’re further into this Delta wave than we’re picking up . . . I think, you know, in another 2 or 3 weeks we’ll be through this. This new [masking] guidance will have a negligible impact on it.”

Other remarks by Gottlieb suggest the CDC is continuing to damage its reputation by spreading panic over the delta variant.

Former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb warned Wednesday that the latest CDC mask reversal could have a "negligible impact" on the spread of the Delta variant, telling CNBC that "we're not going to get enough bang for our buck" by instructing those who have already received the COVID-19 vaccine to continue to mask up indoors.

. . . While Gottlieb believes the recent spike in positive cases will likely dissipate in the coming weeks, he worries the CDC's guidance will have a counterproductive impact by further dissuading those already on the fence about the vaccine.

The only reference the CDC has officially released as the basis for its new masking guidance is a study of an outbreak in Provincetown, MA in early July. (Other studies are mentioned in the PowerPoint that was leaked to the Washington Post, but they aren't mentioned in the official CDC release.) There have been numerous objections to this study, including its small sample size and its unrepresentative demographics -- Provincetown is a well-known gay center. Indeed, the circumstances contradict the conventional wisdom that the delta variant is spread by Trumpist anti-vaxxers.

Andrewe Sullivan, who lives in Provincetown, summed all this up in the UK Daily Mail:

Writer Andrew Sullivan says the COVID-19 outbreak in Provincetown, Massachusetts, that infected around 900 people and triggered CDC's mask U-turn was sparked by wild July 4 indoor parties following Pride Week.

. . . Sullivan said many had just come from Pride parties in New York City and packed into bars and dance clubs.

One of the bars is like a 'dang dungeon where sweat drips from the ceiling and mold reaches up the walls,' Sullivan said.

'It might have been designed for viral transmission,' he added.

But all the friends he described in his post on The Weekly Dish experienced mild symptoms after testing positive.

Town Manager Andrew Morse confirmed that most of the 900 people connected to the Provincetown COVID outbreak had mild symptoms. Only seven were hospitalized and no one died, Morse said.

This confirms occasional observations that most people who test positive for the delta variant are asymptomatic, while those who have symptoms suffer only a mild case of the flu -- and overall, the delta variant is little different from a normal flu season. But the public health bigwigs are continuindg to muddle the issues on the Sunday talks:

Fauci, speaking on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, said he doesn’t foresee more lockdowns in the U.S., but warned that the situation surrounding the coronavirus pandemic will continue to get worse because so many Americans are still unvaccinated. While this week the nation saw a surge in Americans getting the shot, as coronavirus cases rise driven largely by the more infectious delta variant, still only about 60% of Americans are fully vaccinated.

But wait -- isn't the big takeaway from the Provincetown study that even the vaccinated can spread the virus, and this is why the vaccinated need to wear masks? If it doesn't matter if you're vaccinated or not, why get vaccinated?

The CDC Has Lost The Bubble

I woke up this morning to see new signs -- unusual for a weekend -- that the CDC is losing control of the narrative. A big one is that people there are leaking. As of Thursday, an internal PowerPoint reached the Washington Post:

It captures the struggle of the nation’s top public health agency to persuade the public to embrace vaccination and prevention measures, including mask-wearing, as cases surge across the United States and new research suggests vaccinated people can spread the virus.

. . . The data and studies cited in the document played a key role in revamped recommendations that call for everyone — vaccinated or not — to wear masks indoors in public settings in certain circumstances, a federal health official said. That official told The Post that the data will be published in full on Friday.

However, this didn't happen. Instead,

The White House on Friday struggled to explain to reporters why it suddenly stopped holding coronavirus briefings after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued its latest masking guidance.

“Why are the doctors not here in the briefing to take our questions?” asked NBC reporter Kelly O’Donnell during the White House press briefing on Friday.

. . . Since President Joe Biden took office, he promised regular public briefings with federal health officials to talk about the ongoing battle against the coronavirus pandemic.

. . . But the briefings stopped after the CDC announced new masking guidelines on Tuesday, even for fully vaccinated Americans.

“Of all the weeks not to hold have a COVID briefing, why this week?” asked CBS reporter Weijia Jiang.

That the legacy media, NBC and CBS, would be asking essentially hostile questions is a bad sign. The ongoing mask mandates are increasingly unpopular, and the masks cause stress. Add to that the normally high stress level of air travel, and the result should be predictable:

Nearly one in five flight attendants say they have witnessed physical incidents involving passengers this year, and their union is calling for criminal prosecution of people who act up on planes.

A union survey supports what airlines and federal officials have been saying: There has been a surge in unruly passengers this year, who sometimes become violent.

The most common trigger is passengers who refuse to follow the federal requirement that they wear face masks during flights, according to the survey by the Association of Flight Attendants.

And then add to that the sense that arbitrary increases in controls are inevitable.

President Joe Biden confirmed Friday that Americans should expect more coronavirus-related restrictions, as the Delta variant of the virus continues to spread.

Biden spoke about more restrictions on Americans after CBS reporter Weijia Jiang asked him if he expected more restrictions as the virus spreads across the country.

“In all probability,” he replied as he left the White House for a weekend trip to Camp David.

. . . The White House continues to fail to explain to Americans why fully vaccinated people in some areas have to wear masks, leaving future restrictions entirely up to public health officials.

Another commentator in independent media said,

That response set off alarm bells on social media, with lots of expletives being shared. Most Americans are simply not up for another round of science-less proclamations made to protect politicians more than people.

So is there something in the works here? Or is Biden just doing the “old man says stuff” routine he’s so fond of?

Earlier today, CDC Dir. Rochelle Walensky stated that there will be no national mask or vaccine mandates, claiming that any prior comments to that effect were speaking strictly about private entities. Further, Deputy White House Press Sec. Karine Jean-Pierre said that lockdowns were not in the cards despite indicating a day earlier that Biden would do whatever the CDC recommends.

Given that, what other restrictions could Joe Biden be talking about? While I could spend the next few minutes racking my brain to try to come up with hypotheticals, I think the answer is simple enough — Joe Biden does not know what he’s talking about.

It's interesting that the CDC gave the impression that it was issuing a national mask mandate, or recommendation, or exhortation or whatever it was, on Tuesday, but by yesterday, Dr Walensky said she hadn't done that at all, except that President Biden thinks they're going to go ahead and issue more something or others. Meanwhile, the New York Post Editorial Board says It’s time to take CDC chief Rochelle Walensky off the air:

Even if it were better qualified, the message all too many Americans get is that the agency’s advisories are arbitrary and senseless — or, worse, that it has lost confidence in the vaccines to protect us right now.

It’s not that her science is wrong, but that she has no understanding of how to communicate to the general public — or that, as is the habit of public health bureaucracies, her only concern is that something awful will happen without her having covered her butt in advance.

This pandemic is over; loose talk about remote possibilities is the last thing the public needs as it strives to get back to work, to school and to normal socializing.

The last time Dr Walensky took such a high media profile was last March, when she said, verging on tears,

I'm going to lose the script, and I'm going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom. We have so much to look forward to so much promise and potential of where we are, and so much reason for hope. But right now I'm scared.

The basic problem, I'm beginning to conclude, is that Dr Walensky is a ditz. We basically have a ditz feeding policy advice to a guy who's not all there. I'm not sure how this is going to turn out.

Something's Hinky About The COVID Data

I've never stopped checking the daily Los Angeles County COVID statistics. The graph above is a screen shot from today's report. While other graphs show sharp increaes in positive tests and hospitalizations, there's been no eqwuivalent rise in deaths. The graph is based on seven-day averages to compensate for daily fluctuation. By early June, the averages reached a floor of about four deaths per day in the county of over 10 million. Since then, they've fluctuated between two and four, with no increase equivalent to those for positive teats and hospitalizations.

Among other things, it's hard not to conclude that whatever the reason for an increase in hospitalizations, there are far fewer deaths resulting from them. So I went to find a graph of total COVID deaths in the US. Here it is at right (click on all the images for larger copies). A key takeaway is that, if in the past the public health authorities took cases as a leading indicator of deaths, so far, this doesn't seem to be happening with the delta variant.

As you can see, there's an uptick in the cases graph at right that simply doesn't appear on the deaths graph above it. These were taken from screen prints of web searches, both using New York Times data, within minutes of each other this morning. A smaller takeaway is that the uptick in cases that had Dr Walensky in tears on national TV last April, which she took as a leading indicator of deaths, was in fact never reflected in any actual increase in deaths. (It's worth revisiting what she and Dr Fauci said then, which I covered at the time in this post.) It's also worth noting that deaths began to decline in mid-January nationally, well before significant numbers of people were fully vaccinated.

It's hard to avoid a conclusion that as the pandemic proceeded, aftrer mid-January 2021, the disease itself became less fatal, and medical treatments became more effective. It's also hard to disagree with conclusions by variouis observers that herd immunity based on people who were already infected but had recovered was an important factor in the overall improvement.

I also ran across an intriguimig story at the Foundation for Economic Educdation, Despite ‘Delta’ Alarmism, US COVID Deaths Are at Lowest Level Since March 2020, Harvard and Stanford Professors Explain. Rather than using raw totals as the graphs above do, this graph from the story normalizes the data to deaths per million, but it draws a very similar conclusion.

[T}he actual number of COVID-19 deaths is at a nadir. Harvard Medical School Professor Martin Kulldorff pointed this out on Twitter, writing that “In [the] USA, COVID mortality is now the lowest since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.”

He shared this graph [the one at right] from OurWorldInData which clearly shows how COVID deaths per million are at, relatively speaking, extreme lows. Far more people were dying from COVID-19 months ago as we were winding down restrictions than are dying today as some call to reinstate them.

. . . Now, some would cite rising COVID-19 case counts or hospitalizations in certain parts of the country as evidence that the pandemic is indeed once again spiraling out of control. But many COVID-19 cases recorded as positive are either asymptomatic or come with very mild symptoms—especially the cases confirmed among vaccinated individuals—so high case counts are not necessarily proof of a serious problem. Hospitalizations are concerning, yes, but primarily insofar as they lead to high numbers of deaths, which, thankfully, is not the case so far with the Delta variant.

Others would say that deaths are a “lagging indicator” that come in several weeks after the increased spread of the disease. But the Delta variant has been spreading in the US for months now, and deaths have remained relatively flat, in part due to widespread vaccination.

I think a major difference between now and 2020 is that the population is getting smarter and will push back more readily against new calls for controls. Governors like DeSantis and Abbott will publicly resist reinstatment of masking, social distance, and whatever else, and the problem for the public health authorities will be that there will be no difference in statistics between states like Texas and Florida and the rest of the country.

Why the calls for reinstatement are coming is another question, which i'll tackle tomorrow if nothing intervenes.