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Delta variant accounts for 83% of new cases in US, CDC director says
US newsDelta variant accounts for 83% of new cases in US, CDC director saysA cluster of midwestern and southern states have emerged as new hotspots for Covid
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Maya YangTue 20 Jul 2021 15.43 EDTFirst published on Tue 20 Jul 2021 12.26 EDTThe highly transmissible Delta variant of the coronavirus now accounts for 83% of all sequenced cases in the US, a top federal health official said on Tuesday.Fox News host Sean Hannity urges viewers to ‘take Covid seriously’Read more“This is a dramatic increase, up from 50% [in] the week of 4 July,” Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said in Senate testimony.Walensky also said Covid fatalities had risen by nearly 48% over the past week to an average of 239 a day.“Each death is tragic and even more heartbreaking when we know that the majority of these deaths could be prevented with a simple, safe available vaccine,” she said.A cluster of midwestern and southern states have emerged as the new hotspots for Covid-19.With less than half of the US population fully vaccinated, infection rates in Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi are among the highest – with vaccination rates among the lowest.Alabama ranks lowest in vaccination rates, with only 42.4% of its adult population fully vaccinated. Vermont has the highest fully vaccinated adult population, at 77.3%.In the last two weeks, the rate of infection across the US has increased by 198%. States that had some of the highest increases in that period include Oklahoma, at 387%, and Louisiana and Mississippi at 376% and 308%.The national vaccination campaign has slowed down significantly. The US is administering 521,000 doses daily, a 85% decrease from a peak in April when 3.38m doses were administered every day.“This is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Walensky said last week. “We are seeing outbreaks of cases in parts of the country that have low vaccination coverage because unvaccinated people are at risk. Communities that are fully vaccinated are generally faring well.”With the Biden administration having fallen short of its goal of administering at least one shot to 70% of adults by 4 July, the rapid transmission of the Delta variant poses a serious challenge to attempts to control the pandemic.In addition to prioritizing speed, the administration is focusing on distributing shots equitably to communities hardest hit.According to Jeff Zients, coordinator of the White House coronavirus team, the administration is working on outreach in communities with high vaccine hesitancy, as well as improving accessibility at doctors’ offices and workplaces.According to data from the New York Times, the most socially vulnerable counties have a lower average vaccination rate than the least vulnerable. The majority of the most disadvantaged counties are in the south.“The people who have not gotten vaccinated so far are a very diverse group,” said Dr David Dowdy, an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins University.“It’s easy to portray it as … a political stripe, but vaccination rates are higher, for example, in those who are older, and that’s irrespective of political leaning.”The most vaccinated and least vulnerable counties are in the midwest and north-east.There also remains a divide on Capitol Hill surrounding the role that the National Institutes of Health played in funding controversial research in Wuhan, China.During the Senate hearing on Tuesday, Senator Rand Paul accused Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, of previously lying to Congress about his knowledge of how the Wuhan lab used the NIH funds. He cited an academic paper that purportedly shows the lab was conducting research to create “potential pandemic pathogens that exist only in the lab, not in nature”.Fauci vehemently denied the claims, saying: “Senator Paul, you do not know what you are talking about,” before adding, “I totally resent the lie you are now propagating.” Fauci maintains that it is molecularly impossible that NIH-funded research was responsible for SARS-CoV-2.Overall, the US remains in significantly better shape than at all previous points of the pandemic, despite the national rise in infections. Death rates have remained near their lowest levels since last spring and hospitalization rates are much lower compared with last winter’s peak.TopicsUS newsCoronavirusVaccines and immunisationUS politicsBiden administrationnewsReuse this content More - in US Politics
Five Texas Democrats who fled state in protest test positive for Covid
TexasFive Texas Democrats who fled state in protest test positive for CovidState representative Gene Wu says they have ‘little to no symptoms, which is the point of the vaccine’ Vivian Ho and agenciesMon 19 Jul 2021 11.47 EDTTwo more Texas lawmakers who left their state to hobble efforts to pass voting restrictions have tested positive for the coronavirus, raising to five the number of infected people in the delegation.‘I think it kicked ass’: how Texas Democrats fought for voting rights by fleeing the stateRead moreState representative Trey Martinez Fischer of San Antonio said in a statement he had tested positive.“I am quarantining until I test negative, and I am grateful to be only experiencing extremely mild symptoms,” he said.“When my Texas House Democratic colleagues and I broke quorum to stop anti-voter legislation, we knew that tactic would come with real personal sacrifice.“Just as these new variants sweeping the country are more aggressive than ever, the wave of anti-voter legislation in this country is worse than we’ve seen in generations. That’s why, I will continue the fight for voting rights with every single fiber of my being.”A person familiar with the delegation told the Associated Press the number of infected members had risen to five. The person was not authorized to discuss the matter and requested anonymity.More than 50 Texas lawmakers traveled to Washington last Monday aboard a private charter flight. A caucus official has said all had been vaccinated. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says “breakthrough” infections – vaccinated people becoming infected – are rare.After a photo showed the Democrats maskless on the plane, Republicans and others criticized the lawmakers for traveling without masks. But federal guidelines don’t require masks to be worn on private aircraft.“That is the beauty of being vaccinated,” said another state representative, Gene Wu. “Every single person who has tested positive so far have little to no symptoms, which is the point of the vaccine. If nothing else, we want this to be a reminder to all Americans: get your stupid shot now.”Kamala Harris, who met last week with members of the Texas delegation, went to Walter Reed military hospital on Sunday for a routine doctor’s appointment, a White House official said. No other information was released, and the White House did not respond to questions about Harris’ the vice-president’s visit.After some of the lawmakers tested positive for the virus, Harris’ spokesperson said Harris and her staff were not at risk of exposure because they were not in close contact with those who tested positive and added that the vice-president and her staff were fully vaccinated.The Democrats fled the state to deny the Republican-controlled legislature the necessary quorum to pass the voting laws.TopicsTexasCoronavirusUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
Confronting America’s Drive to Collective Amnesia
It seems that there is a deep pent-up desire in America to avoid meaningful change at all cost. It is hard enough to confront issues honestly and forthrightly in the best of times. But it is nearly impossible to do so in an environment that prizes consensus over responsibility. The vocabulary of avoidance is everywhere and reaching epic proportions.
Nowhere is this more obvious and dangerous than the way in which the vaccinated dance around the unvaccinated. If you are paying attention, there is simply no good excuse not to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in America, with some very minor medically-sound exceptions. But instead of just saying that in a straightforward way and then demanding policies and programs that mandate vaccinations, we are acting like vaccinations are some prize for knocking over a stack of steel bottles at a carnival stand: “Step right up, little lady, a quick flick of the needle and you are on your way with this keepsake stuffed elephant. Bring that big guy along with you, and you win the daily double, the stuffed elephant and a genuine MAGA hat.”
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It is time to stop begging ignorant people to do something smart, and selfish people to do something selfless. How about: “Step right up little lady and show me your vaccination certificate if you want to eat here. Same for you big guy.” Or: “Mom, your kid wants to play high school football, but he hasn’t turned in the required COVID vaccination certificate.” Or my personal favorite: “I would have invited you to join us, but you are not vaccinated, and adding someone so stupid and selfish to the group seemed like a bad idea that would only serve to validate your stupidity and selfishness.”
Validating willful ignorance is never a good idea, but it is a really bad idea when doing so puts people at risk. Further, most of us usually try to avoid truly selfish people, so let’s double down now to contribute to the common good. For impact, we have to be willing to tell the ignorant and selfish what we are doing and why. We have to be willing to demand that our institutions meet this challenge as well. It is beyond time for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to aggressively mandate vaccinations wherever they are authorized to do so.
Another useful component of the avoidance vocabulary is the word “colleague.” The word seems to imply someone with whom you work, a co-worker. It shouldn’t apply to the SOB in your midst who seeks to undo everything you are trying to do. So, stop using the word “colleague” for those you believe to be willfully ignorant, selfish, dangerous and/or just plain too stupid to get out of your way. This is particularly so in the public arena, where every moron seems to be somebody’s colleague during any discourse — “My colleagues are unable to see that making it harder for black people to vote is racist behavior.” They could either not be your “colleague” or not be “racist,” but they shouldn’t ever be both.
Normal vs. New Normal
How about “normal” and “new normal” to make things sound just great as we surge forward as a nation? Returning to “normal” only works if your “normal” was fine with you. It avoids the uncomfortable truth that many people don’t want to return to their “normal,” because it sucked. As for a “new normal,” it is hard to imagine a less precise way of confronting the critical need for change to actually achieve a more perfect union. It surely creates an easy path to avoiding any measured discussion about hunger, poverty, access to meaningful health care, access to quality education, rampant gun violence, and racial and social justice, among other difficult issues.
So, when I hear people say they want a “new normal,” it sounds a lot to me like they are talking about some vision of a better world that will miraculously emerge if we hold hands and pray a lot. What is needed is not a “new normal” but a new and transformed America where eliminating poverty is more important than giving up a tax break for your vacation home, where health care isn’t rationed by insurance companies and their medical allies, where school buildings and the teachers in them provide the same resources to black children that are provided to white children, and no child, not a single one, goes to bed hungry in America.
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That’s the America that I want to see and to which there is so much resistance. “Normal” and “new normal” are comfort food concepts to spare the already comfortable the discomfort of sacrifice for the common good.
And then just when you think you might be getting at least some Americans to turn their attention to a better life on Earth for the community of man, along comes billionaire space “tourism” to further distract a population grasping for the most banal of distractions. If you can’t afford Disneyland, an RV or even a trip to Taco Bell, America’s wealthy can give you the illusion of tourism in space. It is truly heartening to hear the mega brats talk so lovingly of opening up space to the masses, while working so hard to avoid sharing their wealth with those same masses. And take note that this illusion is getting enough attention and gushing goodwill to give us another touchstone on the golden road to “normal.”
While I await my economy center seat with Kim Kardashian on one side and Martha Stewart on the other, I am getting pumped up for the debates to come as schools are about to open and the parental handwringing season of rage is commencing. This is so much fun, because in America’s dysfunctional democracy school decisions are seen as local decisions, thereby ensuring that everything from masks to midriffs, from black books to white books, from defunding teachers to defunding cops and the like, will be on the agenda somewhere everyday beginning now.
This will be fine theater that is inconsistent with informed dialogue and ensures further avoidance of confronting systemic issues of import. Optics again will win the day, and the symbolism of preserving norms will overwhelm the content of change. The real losers this time will be the kids who will have to watch their parents stuff social, political, economic and moral genies back into the bottles from which they have again emerged, while further polluting the minds of the same kids they say they are trying to save.
It seems beyond hope that all of this avoidance of meaningful change and the vocabulary that enables that avoidance will engender an equal and opposite reaction. The reason is simple: Only the forgotten are seeking meaningful change while so many in the rest of the nation want nothing more than continued amnesia.
*[A version of this article was co-published on the author’s blog, Hard Left Turn.]
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More
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US surgeon general: Covid misinformation ‘spreading like wildfire’ on social media
Biden administrationUS surgeon general: Covid misinformation ‘spreading like wildfire’ on social mediaVivek Murthy: rise seen ‘among the unvaccinated in particular’Biden administration renews attack on Facebook Richard Luscombe in Miami@ More
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China and Russia spreading anti-US vaccine misinformation, White House says – live
Key events
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17:00Afternoon summary
4.04pm EDT
16:04New Yorker: Milley stopped Trump attacking Iran
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13:57White House says Russia and China are spreading anti-Western vaccine misinformation on social media
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11:26CDC head says country is undergoing ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated’
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09:35Covid cases rising in every US state, data shows
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17:40Gabrielle Canon here, signing on from the west coast to take you through the rest of the afternoon.
First up—
Today a US federal judge in Texas has ordered the suspension of DACA program, which protects so-called “Dreamers” — immigrants who have been in the US since they were children — from deportation, arguing that it was illegally created by the Obama Administration.
US District Judge Andrew Hanen wrote in his ruling that the order won’t yet impact the more than 616,000 people are already enrolled in the program until other courts weigh in, but the program is otherwise put on pause.Zoe Tillman
(@ZoeTillman)
Just in: A federal judge in Texas has blocked the DACA program going forward — it won’t affect current recipients for now (judge is putting that issue on hold, pending expected appeals), but it blocks DHS from approving new applications https://t.co/urJh8jnJDd pic.twitter.com/LqvSDWx2aoJuly 16, 2021
“DHS violated the APA with the creation of DACA and its continued operation,” he wrote. “Nevertheless,” he added, “these rulings do not resolve the issue of the hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients and others who have relied upon this program for almost a decade. That reliance has not diminished and may, in fact, have increased over time.”
The order will be temporarily stayed in its application to current recipients until “further order of this Court, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, or the United States Supreme Court” the ruling says.5.00pm EDT
17:00Afternoon summary
Here’s a quick summary of what happened today.
Rochelle Walensky, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that the country is currently in a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” as 97% of people who are hospitalized with Covid-19 are unvaccinated. Every state has reported increases, and the federal government has been doubling down on messaging to get vaccinated, even though many Americans remain skeptical.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the state department has found that Russia and China have been spreading misinformation on social media that claims vaccines made in the West are ineffective. The White House has been calling out social media companies to do more to curb misinformation on their sites.
An excerpt from an upcoming book by journalists Susan Glasser and Peter Baker revealed that Gen Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, stopped Donald Trump from launching an attack on Iran.
Anonymous sources have said that the ex-daughter-in-law of Allen Weisselberg, who has surrendered to Manhattan prosecutors in their investigation of the Trump Organization for tax fraud, has implicated Trump by telling prosecutors that she witnessed the former president offering to pay for her children’s tuition instead of giving her husband a raise.Stay tuned for more live updates.
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16:53Caitlyn Jenner, who is campaigning to replace California governor Gavin Newsom in his recall race, is currently in Australia to be a contestant on a reality show two months before the election takes place on 14 September.
On Twitter, Jenner said she is “honoring a work commitment that I had made prior to even deciding to run for governor” and said that she has not paused her campaign.Caitlyn Jenner
(@Caitlyn_Jenner)
I am honoring a work commitment that I had made prior to even deciding to run for governor. There is no pause at all on this race to save CA!July 16, 2021
Separate reports on Friday from Politico said that Jenner appears to be working on a documentary or series of sorts as a film crew has been following her on the campaign trail.
Jenner is part of a long slate of Republican candidates who are trying to oust Newsom. She held her first press conference last week, months after she first announced her run.4.39pm EDT
16:39Vulnerable Senate Democrats have gotten a flood of cash over the last few months as they gear up for the 2022 elections.
According to CQ Roll Call, four current Senator – Mark Kelly of Arizona, Raphael Warnock of Georgia, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire – raised a combined $19.2m between April and June of this year and ended the quarter with $31.3m in the bank.
Warnock raised $7.2m in the second quarter of 2021, which he ended with $10.5m in the bank. Kelly meanwhile raised $6m and had $7.6m in the bank.
The fundraising numbers suggest the candidates are out-raising Republicans who have started trickling into the Senate races.Kyle Griffin
(@kylegriffin1)
Punchbowl News: Cash on hand for senators in competitive races, per second-quarter FEC filings:→ Sen. Mark Kelly: $7.5 million→ Sen. Raphael Warnock: $10.5 million→ Sen. Maggie Hassan: $6.5 million→ Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto: $6.5 millionJuly 16, 2021
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16:23Over 1m people were arrested at the US-Mexico between October and June, according to US Border Patrol data released Friday. Over 178,000 people were arrested in June, a 20-year record for that month.
A bulk of the arrests were of people who are trying to recross the border after being turned away. Migrants looking to cross can immediately be turned away when the government uses Title 42, an order from the Trump administration that allows Border Patrol to bar entry to those who pose a public health risk.
About 455,000 unique individuals were arrested by US Border Patrol this past year, which is lower than the number of unique individuals who crossed in 2019.4.04pm EDT
16:04New Yorker: Milley stopped Trump attacking Iran
Martin Pengelly
Susan Glasser of the New Yorker and her husband, Peter Baker of the New York Times, have a Trump book coming out next year. Not to be left out this summer, as the bestseller lists are drenched in the things, Glasser has a piece of standardly startling reporting out on the subject today.
In short, Gen Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and star of many a Trump-related books story of late, reportedly did not only stop Trump from shooting protesters and muse to friends about “Reichstag moments” and “the gospel of the Führer”. He also did his best to stop Trump launching an attack on Iran.
Here’s the key passage:In the months after the election, with Trump seemingly willing to do anything to stay in power, the subject of Iran was repeatedly raised in White House meetings with the president, and Milley repeatedly argued against a strike. Trump did not want a war, the chairman believed, but he kept pushing for a missile strike in response to various provocations against US interests in the region. Milley, by statute the senior military adviser to the president, was worried that Trump might set in motion a full-scale conflict that was not justified. Trump had a circle of Iran hawks around him and was close with the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who was also urging the administration to act against Iran after it was clear that Trump had lost the election.
“If you do this, you’re gonna have a fucking war,” Milley would say.Trump did not do it.
For what it’s worth, Trump returned to the offensive against Milley on Friday, issuing yet another intemperate statement about the contents of books with which, in the most part, he himself co-operated. The gist: “’General’ Milley (who [former defense secretary James] Mattis wanted to send to Europe in order to get rid of him), if he said what was reported, perhaps should be impeached, or court-martialed and tried.”
Here, meanwhile, is Lloyd Green’s review of perhaps the biggest of the Trump books, I Alone Can Fix It by Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker of the Washington Post, which includes a lot of Milley’s musings about the possibility of a coup, which have really angered Trump. The book is out next week but is No1 on Amazon already:3.42pm EDT
15:42US representative Joyce Beatty said in an interview that the arrest of her and eight others yesterday during a voting rights protest was ironic given how quick the response to the protest was compared to the Capitol riot 6 January.
“Here we are with the disparities of treatment with less than a hundred of people [compared to the] thousands and thousands of people who were not peacefully protesting,” she told SiriusXM Urban Vie’s The Joe Madison Show.
The protest was “in the same spirit” as protests that took place during the Civil Rights Movement that led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.Joyce Beatty
(@RepBeatty)
Let the people vote. Fight for justice. pic.twitter.com/JnEUPl9KJWJuly 15, 2021
“Fannie Lou Hamer and John Lewis and other marched, sang, protested and what happened? They got America’s attention,” she said. “We are in a critical point right now… voting rights is our power”
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15:08Speaking to the press briefly before he left for Camp David for the weekend, Joe Biden doubled down on the White House’s message against vaccine misinformation.
Kaitlan Collins
(@kaitlancollins)
Asked what his message is to platforms like Facebook on coronavirus misinformation, President Biden says, “They’re killing people. The only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated, and they’re killing people.” pic.twitter.com/Ke27Vi4M18July 16, 2021
At the White House’s daily press briefing yesterday, press secretary Jen Psaki said that Facebook and other social media companies aren’t doing enough to combat misinformation spreading on their platforms.
“We’re flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation. We’re working with doctors and medical professionals to connect medical experts who are popular with our audience with accurate information and boos trusted content,” she said.2.56pm EDT
14:56Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed a new bill into law Thursday barring police from lying to underage kids during interrogations. More
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As Covid cases rise in Florida, Governor DeSantis digs at Fauci with merchandise
FloridaAs Covid cases rise in Florida, Governor DeSantis digs at Fauci with merchandiseRepublican governor is hoping to ride Trump’s coattails to the White House and generate cash to fund 2022 re-election campaign Ed Pilkington in New York@ More
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US officials call for more data on vaccine boosters as Pfizer pushes for third shot
PfizerUS officials call for more data on vaccine boosters as Pfizer pushes for third shot Pharma company presses case with senior health officials WHO urges priority for nations with low Covid vaccination rates Ankita RaoTue 13 Jul 2021 08.29 EDTLast modified on Tue 13 Jul 2021 08.49 EDTPfizer, the pharmaceutical company that created one of the first Covid-19 vaccines to be approved, has been making a hard sell for emergency approval of boosters – additional doses given to those already vaccinated, especially immunocompromised adults.But in private meetings with Pfizer on Monday, senior US officials said they needed more data – prompting the latest debate over how to curb a pandemic which has claimed more than 620,000 lives in the country. Last week, the US health department also rebuked Pfizer for pressing for a booster shot, and Anthony Fauci, Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, has said there isn’t enough evidence to support needing a third shot.Pfizer pushes for US booster shots as WHO says greed is driving vaccine disparitiesRead more“It was an interesting meeting. They shared their data. There wasn’t anything resembling a decision,” Fauci said in a Monday evening interview with the New York Times. “This is just one piece of a much bigger puzzle, and it’s one part of the data, so there isn’t a question of a convincing case one way or the other.”In the US, almost half of the population is fully vaccinated, while a little over half has received one dose, according to data from the Mayo Clinic. Still, vaccination rates lag in huge swaths of the country, giving the virus more opportunities for community outbreaks.Pfizer’s experts have pointed to Israel, where the government has decided to give a third Pfizer vaccine shot to vulnerable adults. But leaders from the World Health Organization and other organizations have pushed back, highlighting the vast lack of access and inequality in global vaccine distribution. More than 3.4 billion people have been vaccinated worldwide, but some countries, such as India, have rates as low as 5%.The debate over booster shots is the latest in the many public health decisions the Biden administration has faced since January. With the country largely relaxing Covid-19 rules and opening the economy, the path forward continues to be difficult, with emerging science being incorporated in real time.In next steps, Pfizer says it will submit more evidence to the government. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, meanwhile, will further study breakthrough infections – which happen when people who are vaccinated contract Covid-19.TopicsPfizerCoronavirusPharmaceuticals industryVaccines and immunisationUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
