What's In It For Dr Walensky?

The phenomenon of Drs Fauci and Walensky, with the surrounding cast of characters like Drs Baric, Collins, and Daszak. has fascinated me from the start. They're clearly members of the credentialed elite, unelected and unaccountable, in many ways impervious to the sorts of scrutiny to which even powerful politicians are subject. In the past two weeks, Dr Walensky has had editorial calls for her removal amid clear indications of public incompetence, but this is unlikely. It brings me back to Ferdinand Lundberg and the sense that such decisions are made by people largely unknown to us and well above our pay grade.

If they're actually lizard-like humanoids, well, maybe so for all we know. (I realized the other day that the lizards in our back yard only speak Spanish, the way police dogs only understand German. I'm studying Spanish so I can talk to them.)

In the last several weeks, I've run into two articles about Dr Walensky that nobody else seems to have noticed. The first, by Sam Faddis, is CDC Head Rochelle Walensky Knows What She’s Doing – She’s Selling Vaccines. The other, by Scott Hounsell, is CDC Director Walensky's Husband Received $5 Million in HHS Grants - and That's Just the Start of It. The takeaway from both is that Dr Walensky in particular sits atop what appears to be a multibillion-dollar public health boodle involving big pharma, grants, preferences, approvals, policy advantages, and inevitable baksheesh.

The Faddis piece gives important bacground on Walensky's rise:

Walensky came to her current job as head of the CDC from Massachusetts General Hospital where she was the head of the Infectious Disease Department. Mass General is the original teaching hospital for Harvard University. It includes the Mass General Research Institute, which is the largest hospital-based research program in the nation. It conducts $1 billion in operations yearly and employs 9500 researchers that work in more than 30 institutes, centers, and departments.

Mass General has a host of contracts with U.S. government agencies. Almost a decade before the COVID-19 outbreak, Mass General investigator and Infectious Diseases Physician, Mark Poznansky, MD, Ph.D., received funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop a platform for accelerated vaccine development in the event of a rapidly spreading infectious disease. The focus of this work was on the development and deployment of a vaccine on a timeline not previously considered possible.

In other words, over a decade ago DARPA and Mass General were laser-focused on confronting any new emerging disease via the deployment of a vaccine on an extremely short timeline. They were not discussing or planning for the treatment of individuals affected or the employment of other measures to mitigate the spread of the disease and/or to isolate those infected. The answer to a pandemic would be the deployment of a new, essentially experimental, vaccine.

. . . In the first quarter of 2021 alone, Mass General Brigham, the umbrella entity of which Mass General is the largest piece, earned in excess of $1 billion dollars. Pfizer alone stands to make in excess of $26 billion just this year from sales of its vaccine.

Walensky was chosen then not because of some unique track record in curing disease and saving lives but because she is a representative of perhaps the single most important institution in a giant complex involving huge quantities of taxpayer’s money, research institutions, and scientists getting rich off of their discoveries. This complex decided years ago that its approach to combatting the emergence of a virus – like COVID – would be the development and marketing of a vaccine on an accelerated timetable. It has worked toward that goal ever since.

The only possible fly in the ointment for such an approach would, of course, be “vaccine hesitancy.” Developing a vaccine and manufacturing is pointless if people will not take it. Walensky recognized this problem long ago.

I'm not an anti-vaxxer; I got the shots months ago. I don't give medical advice. On the other hand, one thing that's pestered me from the start of the year is that the late 2020 COVID surge peaked and began its sharp decline in mid-January 2021, only weeks after any vaccines were available at all, and well before anyone had been "fully vaccinated" with two shots and weeks of waiting between them. There may be a good explanation for this, but I haven't heard one.

And it's worth noting that the delta surge, wildly overhyped in the media, is being attributed to "vaccine hesitancy", but nevertheless people are being told to revert to the ineffective paper and cloth masks as well. There's a folk medicine atmosphere to the whole thing. And again, much as people like Dr Scott Gottlieb predicted, the delta surge is in the process of peaking weeks before those who've been induced to overcome their hesitancy are "fully vaccinated".

The Scott Hounsell piece on the Dr Walensky who's married to Dr Walensky is also revealing:

Walensky, who took over as director with Biden’s inauguration, is married to Loren D. Walensky, a renowned pediatric oncology researcher at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard. In October 2019 Loren Walensky became the scientific co-founder and a member of the Board of Directors of Lytica Therapeutics, “an early-stage biotechnology company working on an innovative platform for developing next-generation antimicrobials.”

Just four months later, Walensky’s Lytica received a $16.9 million dollar HHS grant to “develop antibacterial peptides with broad activity against multidrug-resistant bacteria.” Only $5.3 million of that money was initially disbursed to Lytica, and the remaining $11.6 million is scheduled to be disbursed upon the achievement of “certain development milestones.” I have previously worked in the world of grant writing and can tell you most agencies will not give grants to organizations that have existed for less than a year and organizations that have no other stream of funding. In this particular case Crunchbase, which monitors funding for corporations and non-profits, shows that the only funding that Lytica has received to date is the $5.3 million allocated from the grant received.

. . . While Walensky received the grant prior to his wife becoming director of an HHS-governed organization, his wife was directly associated with HHS for more than a decade when his company was awarded the grant. Rochelle Walensky served as the chair of the Office of AIDS Research Advisory Council, which put her in close contact with Dr. Antnony Fauci, and as a member of the US Department of Health and Human Services Panel on Antiretroviral Guidelines for Adults and Adolescents (again, with Dr. Fauci). In fact, when “insiders” were surprised that Walensky was picked, it was revealed that Fauci had a lot to do with her appointment[.]

. . . The fact that Walensky’s grant was not disclosed as a portion of his wife’s appointment amounts to a massive lack of transparency. In her financial disclosures, submitted January 13, 2021, she lists her husband’s interest in Lytica Therapeutics as a “spousal holding,” but doesn’t indicate that he is the co-founder of the company and ostensibly working there since he is the inventor of the technology subject to the CARB-X grant. She also doesn’t indicate in that filing that his company is receiving a federal grant from the very agency in which she’s being appointed to a leadership position – and the agency that still has to make decisions on whether to award the additional $11.6 million.

Director Walensky had a responsibility to report this conflict of interest upon taking office, however, no records exist of her doing so.

Having spouses and other relatives collect what amount to bribes is a long-established technique practiced by families like the Clintons and Bidens. My guess would be that serious inquiry would lead to other connections between Walensky and Fauci, and other income to Fauci and other figures that violates what we would expect to be transparency.

And this leaves aside the clear circumstance that NIH and CDC money went to the Wuhan lab that was the cause of COVID in the first place.

Newsom's Dilemma

California Gov Newsom is the second nationally prominent Democrat governor in danger of removal from office. His current predicament is an illustration of how the political environment is shifting. Last spring, the movement to recall Newsom looked like a long shot, although the signatures on the recall petition far exceeded the required minimum. The mid-July entry of Larry Elder, best known as a second-string Salem Radio talk show host with no electoral experience, immediately transformed the race.

A July 23 poll, taken shortly after Elder won a court case to put him on the ballot, had 43% of likely voters in favor of recall. An August 3 poll put the number at 46%. By August 5, the number in favor of removal had risen to 51%, with only 40% in favor of retaining Newsom. Elder's entry into the race clearly focused public interest.

But an August 4 debate among four Republican recall candidates, sponsored by behind-the-curve Salem Radio and moderated by NeverTrump Salem host Hugh Hewitt, included neither Elder nor the target of the recall, Newsom. Assemblymember Kevin Kiley of Sacramento suburb Rocklin, 2018 gubernatorial candidate John Cox, NeverTrump former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, and former Sacramento-area U.S. Rep. Doug Ose were present. Faulconer and Cox had briefly led polls in late July, but they quickly faded with Elder's entry. '

However, a new poll that concluded the same day as the debate showed that none of those conventional Republican candidates is now a serious contender.

The poll came from Survey USA and the San Diego Union Tribune, and was conducted among 1,100 Californians from Aug. 2 to Aug. 4. It found that 51% of respondents were in favor of recalling Newsom, while only 40% wanted to keep him in power.

. . . The new poll's other shocking finding is a new leader on question two ("Which candidate should replace Newsom if he loses question one"): YouTuber Kevin Paffrath, the most high-profile Democrat on the bottom of the ballot.

. . . Paffrath received 27% support, with conservative radio host Larry Elder, who led three separate polls released in recent weeks, at 23% support. The only other candidate with double-digit support was businessman John Cox (10%).

Paffrath definitely comes out of left field. Wikipedia describes him as "an American YouTuber, landlord, and real estate broker". He is a 29-year-old self-promoter whose YouTube channel up to the current election had focused largely on flipping houses and the real estate market. Faulconer, the only professional politician in the field, who'd led early polls, was no longer anywhere near the top. In addition,

As in the [August 3] Emerson College poll, a majority of Latinos said they would vote to recall Newsom; in the new poll, a majority of whites said they would do so as well.

The poll also asked vaccinated voters about their preference, and a majority favored recalling Newsom, 47% to 43%.

Once I heard of Paffrath, I went to his YouTube channel Meet Kevin and his campaign site stopthebullship.com to get a sense of his political views. He definitely isn't running on the current Democrat brand. His issues include Crime and Community Policing, Enforcing our Laws, Traffic, No Lockdowns, and Ending High Taxes. These are middle and working class issues, clearly opposed to the alliance of wealthy elites and the Lumpenproletariat that dominates the Democrat establishment, which Newsom represents.

I don't know if Paffrath is some kind of outlier result in the most recent poll, but he represents the same range of views that supports Elder, and which the current electorate clearly doesn't trust members of the Republican establishment to support. If the recall election were held today, it's likely that either Elder or Paffrath would replace Newsom. This does make me more than a little nervous; the first people who walk into the new governor's office in such a case could well try to bully or panic him into imposing new lockdowns, for instance. I would have somewhat more confidence in Elder with such an outcome in view.

Newsom, meanwhile, has had little to say over the past several weeks. Yesterday, in a Zoom call with campaign volunteers,

Newsom hit out at Elder, calling him a major Trump supporter — a rallying cry in a state won overwhelmingly by President Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Newsom also accused Elder of being a threat to abortion rights established under the landmark Roe vs. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1973.

The problem is that if he's talking only to campaign volunteers, he's preaching to the choir and not to the majority of Californians who now want him out. And at this point, he's running in the 2020 election, not in 2021, where the major issues are things like crime and lockdowns, not Donald Trump. And unlike 2020, where the issue was in fact Trump, the 2021 recall is about Newsom. If he attacks Elder -- indeed, even if he gets the LA Times to issue a hit piece tying Elder to a kiddie porn ring or something -- the electorate has over 40 other choices to replace Newsom. It's not either-or; it's we're sick of one, and we'll try others.

And as Newsom himself has put it, this is a national election. Salem Radio isn't the only one who's behind the curve.

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?