Quick Jots: January 2022

Fauci catches up a bit
#covid-19
Upon the controversial CDC reduction of quarantine length from 10 days to 5, Fauci cleared the air a bit following the controversial move. He said that with the volume of those getting infected with Omicron, a 10-day quarantine would devastate the workforce, implying that yes, there are things to worry about other than a singular focus on COVID. He also seems to have woken up to the difference between being hospitalized with COVID and being hospitalized due to COVID. Welcome to 2020, Fauci. It's nice to finally see you there. Maybe in four years, you'll catch up to 2022.

California sends COVID-positive healthcare workers in to work
#covid-19
Back in September, the state of California issued a brilliant order to require all healthcare workers be vaccinated, and by December, hundreds of healthcare workers in California were fired for refusing to get vaccinated. In January, there was a shortage of healthcare workers as Omicron began to peak. Somebody find by surprised face, I seem to have left it back in December. In the move-too-stupid-to-believe-until-you-see-it department, California officials are now asking asymptomatic workers who tested positive for COVID-19 to show up for work, mostly at Southern California hospitals. There have been reports of workers in close contact with chemotherapy patients! I don't know if California is actively trying to kill immunocompromised people or what, but this is a pretty good way to do it.

Dr. Robert-Kim Farley, an epidemiologist, said, "Is it the lesser of the two evils of having no one to care for patients, versus having staff caring for them that may have COVID? Yes, it’s the lesser of two evils."

Spoken like someone who has only voted either Democrat or Republican all their life. There is a third option. There was this thing that happened in the previous month that involved a bunch of healthcare workers. Oh, what was it? Oh, yeah. A bunch of them were fired. I hear they're looking for work.

Antarctica COVID outbreak
#covid-19
In one of the most remote regions in the world, Prince Elisabeth station in Antarctica experienced a COVID outbreak in the second half of December. All were vaccinated. After being given a chance to leave the station, all researchers opted to stay and complete their work. Good for them for being level-headed about it. I have a feeling half my coworkers would have tucked tail and fled.

SCOTUS strikes down OSHA vaccine mandate
#covid-19
Biden's vaccine mandate directive to OSHA to require all employees at companies with over 100 employees was struck down by the Supreme Court. At the same time, it upheld the regulation to require medical centers receiving Medicare and Medicaid funds to mandate their employees to vaccinate. Unfortunately, the court decided to focus on OSHA's intended sphere of legal influence rather than the constitutionality of requiring someone to inject a chemical into oneself just to make a living.

Half of Democrats are fascists, according to poll
#covid-19 #democrats
Well, of course, they didn't come out and say it, outright, but an opinion poll by Rasmussen regarding COVID showed the fascistic tendencies of Democrats. Fifty-nine percent of Democrats would favor a policy that would place those who don't get vaccinated on house arrest. Maybe...they can confine them to certain areas of society. We can call them...ghettos or something. Just spitballing, here. Forty-eight percent think the government should imprison individuals who dare question the efficacy of a product from a $300 billion market cap corporation at the direction and iron-fisted support of the government. Yes, anyone who dares to even question the word of the government should be punished. Maybe even bring back guillotines. Forty-five percent of Democrats think that those who don't get a vaccine should be forced to live in certain designated facilities. What would these facilities that concentrate people into camps be called? Hrm. Even more disgustingly, twenty-nine percent of Democrats think the government should kidnap people's children, should they dare to refuse to get the vaccine. 

Vaccinated more worried about COVID than unvaccinated
#covid-19
Speaking of opinion polls, it appears that the vaccinated are more worried about COVID than the unvaccinated. Talk about living in the backward times. While I'm sure that people who are more anxious are more likely to get the vaccine, shouldn't they calm down after getting it? Do they not know that vaccines drastically reduce their chances of a severe reaction to COVID? Why are they such anti-vaxxers? This is truly bizarro-world.

England drops most COVID restrictions
#covid-19 #england #denmark
Mask and vaccine mandates have come to an end in England, citing declining Omicron cases. Boris Johnson said that we need to learn how to live with COVID like we learned to live with the flu. It's about freaking time they caught up to this realization. Denmark has done the same, dropping nearly all COVID restrictions except for testing upon entry into the country, but even that will be phased out in a month.

China's COVID-zero policy
#covid-19 #china
The Chinese Communist Party painted itself into a corner as they go all-in on a COVID-zero policy. I don't know if they just thought this goal was achievable because they believed their own bullshit numbers or what, but that's their target. Zero COVID cases. Of course, they are doing this by doing what they do best: Massive human rights abuses. The entire city of Xian had been under lockdown for weeks, with residents not even allowed to leave their homes and tens of thousands sent off to quarantine camps. As one can imagine, this led to massive food shortages, and the denial of health care led to loss of life. Many, including residents of entire buildings, were sent indiscriminately to quarantine camps where they can more easily infect each other in facilities out in the freezing cold with barely any food supplies. Local authorities quickly banned any posts of negative news about pandemic restrictions on social media, a foreshadowing of where "banning disinformation" ultimately leads. It's not just Xian. The AP reported that the number of people forcibly shut in their homes is at around 20 million across three cities, not including partial lockdowns in other cities.

It would appear they have three general paths they can take. They can back off on their zero-cases target, which would be an admission to utter failure, which an authoritarian would never do. Or they can lie about their numbers, which they've been doing all along, depreciating the value of their statistics, which, I suppose, have no value left except to western media outlets trying to justify their lockdown case. Or they can wait for the infection spread to die down and then apply method 2 to claim zero cases...until the next wave hits, at which point, they can do it all over again. All paths include eating a complimentary shit sandwich for CCP officials.

Efficacy of lockdowns (or lack thereof)
#covid-19
Speaking of lockdowns, Johns Hopkins released a new working paper, a metastudy of 24 studies (pared down from over 18,000) on lockdowns and their effects. They didn't mince words. In the abstract, they write, "lockdowns have had little to no effect on COVID-19 mortality." While certain aspects of the study found marginal decreases in COVID-19 mortality (largest positive correlation, by far, was the closure of bars that showed 10.6% efficacy), when compared to the economic and social costs, they confidently conclude that "lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument." Somebody show this study to Xi Jinping. It won't change his strict lockdown policy, but at least it might give him some heartburn. Unsurprisingly, zero left-leaning outlets and corporate media outlets are reporting on this.

Truckers descend on Ottawa
#covid-19 #canada
Hundreds of truckers drove into Ottawa along with thousands of people to protest the vaccine mandates imposed on truckers and COVID restrictions in general. Although prime minister Justin Trudeau denounced the gathering as a small minority, pointing to a 90% vaccination rate among truckers, many vaccinated truckers joined in support of their fellows' fight against massive government overreach. Trudeau can't figure out why people would be pissed at him for requiring people who spend their whole day in a truck cab to get a vaccine. The raw video below is a thing of beauty (point out where anyone sees any violence or racism in the two and a half-hour clip):

Political leaders and corporate media outlets were quick to denounce the demonstrations, in an obvious smear campaign against the protesters. In the New York Times article linked above, for example, the title, subtitle, and opening paragraph were designed to set the stage that the protesters are evil, including saying things like "wielding Nazi symbols." It's not until nearly the end of the article, and in piecemeal so it's not obvious, that the opening paragraph is based on ONE Canadian flag with swastikas on it, out of a protest of 8,000 people. What the article didn't elaborate on was that the swastikas were utilized, albeit in a clumsy manner, to criticize the government of being Nazis, not that the person was supporting Nazis. If one recalls back to the BLM riots, there were buildings and cars burning in the background as the corporate media stated "mostly peaceful protests" as they downplay the vandalism and assaults, all captured on video. Here, while they did say "majority peaceful", they played up the "vandalism" which the article eventually admits the vandalism was placing a sign on a statue. The accusations of assault and "stealing meals from the homeless" appeared to be one example derived from one tweet from one shelter. So, what, like 10 people out of eight thousand, if that? No number was given. No evidence was provided. The entire article was textbook propaganda while being technically factual.

Hispanic students fail critical race theory
#crt
I suppose some non-COVID-related things did happen this month. In Salinas, California, Kali Fontanilla, a rare astute teacher, discovered that many of her minority students were failing the ethnic studies class as required by the state of California. When she delved into the issue, she discovered that they were teaching critical race theory, a practice the left swears up and down is not happening anywhere. When pressured, the school district withheld evidence of this and even banned its criticism at the public school board meeting. Fontanilla, a black woman, was subjected to harassment, including racial epithets, from those that instinctually defend critical race theory, and eventually fled to Florida to seek asylum from crazy racists. To recap, the state of California introduced a class that minority students failed in high numbers and chased a black teacher out of the state. These geniuses probably patted themselves on the back for being such wonderful anti-racists.

San Jose to require gun owners to purchase liability insurance
#gunrights
San Jose mayor Sam Liccardo proudly announced San Jose's requirement for gun owners to purchase liability insurance to offset the violence caused by guns, apparently oblivious that defensive gun uses likely outnumber the rate firearms are used to commit violent crimes. Liccardo actually remarked, "This isn't actually governmental regulation." It is not exactly clear how the government requiring people to purchase insurance is not governmental regulation, in his bout of mental gymnastics. I suppose since retailers collect sales taxes on behalf of the government, he thinks that there is no sales tax in San Jose, either. That makes the same amount of sense in the same stupid way.