Another from David Leonhardt’s NYT The Morning; collated data showing new Covid case rates by county and corresponding vaccination rates:
Get vaccinated; it’s not just for your benefit, but also for your friend’s, neighbor’s, family’s, country’s, and world’s.
• Do read Elizabeth Kolbert’s Under a White Sky. Accessible, enjoyable, well-written, but terrifying in the sense of foreboding/inevitability it provokes. Everyone should read this book and then do what they can to support efforts to mitigate climate change.
Some collated information from AP that should resonate – but will it?
Nearly all COVID deaths in US are now among unvaccinated
“An Associated Press analysis of available government data from May shows that “breakthrough” infections in fully vaccinated people accounted for fewer than 1,200 of more than 853,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations. That’s about 0.1%.
And only about 150 of the more than 18,000 COVID-19 deaths in May were in fully vaccinated people. That translates to about 0.8%, or five deaths per day on average.”
and
“Ross Bagne, a 68-year-old small-business owner in Cheyenne, Wyoming, was eligible for the vaccine in early February but didn’t get it. He died June 4, infected and unvaccinated, after spending more than three weeks in the hospital, his lungs filling with fluid. He was unable to swallow because of a stroke.
“He never went out, so he didn’t think he would catch it,” said his grieving sister, Karen McKnight. She wondered: “Why take the risk of not getting vaccinated?””
Why indeed. We are really bad at comparing relative risks, aren’t we? The Dunning Kruger effect in action…
•Linus Torvalds, responding to an anti-coronavirus vaccine post on the Linux Kernel mailing list:
“Please keep your insane and technically incorrect anti-vax comments to yourself.
You don’t know what you are talking about, you don’t know what mRNA is, and you’re spreading idiotic lies. Maybe you do so unwittingly, because of bad education. Maybe you do so because you’ve talked to “experts” or watched youtube videos by charlatans that don’t know what they are talking about.
But dammit, regardless of where you have gotten your mis-information from, any Linux kernel discussion list isn’t going to have your idiotic drivel pass uncontested from me.”
and:
"Get vaccinated. Stop believing the anti-vax lies.
And if you insist on believing in the crazy conspiracy theories, at
least SHUT THE HELL UP about it on Linux kernel discussion lists."
Go get em, Linus.
•The Statement of Concern regarding the current threats to American democracy, now signed by 120 (and counting) professors of public policy, political science, government, public policy, etc., tries to send a clarion call of alarm regarding the current actions of Republican politicians and legislatures. These actions will erode the will of the majority in an attempt to enshrine power in a minority that is increasingly out of touch with the electorate (and in some cases, reality). An excerpt:
“We, the undersigned, are scholars of democracy who have watched the recent deterioration of U.S. elections and liberal democracy with growing alarm. Specifically, we have watched with deep concern as Republican-led state legislatures across the country have in recent months proposed or implemented what we consider radical changes to core electoral procedures in response to unproven and intentionally destructive allegations of a stolen election. Collectively, these initiatives are transforming several states into political systems that no longer meet the minimum conditions for free and fair elections. Hence, our entire democracy is now at risk.
When democracy breaks down, it typically takes many years, often decades, to reverse the downward spiral. In the process, violence and corruption typically flourish, and talent and wealth flee to more stable countries, undermining national prosperity. It is not just our venerated institutions and norms that are at risk—it is our future national standing, strength, and ability to compete globally.”