Locally, we are getting better. Masks work. 

More Good News About Pfizer’s Covid-19 Vaccine

(J. Harris: Statistical evidence that it works well)

Tough Pain Relief Choices in the COVID-19 Pandemic

J.Harris: A Webb MD article that quotes various good sources and the evidence indicates that NSAID like Aspirin, Motrin, Aleve and others cause no problem with worsening Covid. Tylenol is also OK. Webb MD is a good consumer web site. 

HOPKINS SUGGESTIONS:

1. Should People Who Have Recently Had COVID-19 Be Vaccinated? (Global Biodefense) A recent report from Public Health England showed that 83% of people who had had COVID were protected from reinfection five months later. Given that 3.7 million people in the UK have had COVID, should those with antibodies be at the back of the vaccine queue?

2. COVID-19 Antibodies Transmit from Moms to Babies During Pregnancy (CIDRAP) SARS-CoV-2 antibodies transferred across the placenta in 87% of pregnant women who had COVID-19 at some p3.oint, suggesting that newborns of seropositive mothers may have some protection against the novel coronavirus at birth, according to a study today in JAMA Pediatrics. However, a second, unpublished study suggests that the maternal-infant antibody transfer is lower than expected.

3.COVID-19 Rarely Spreads through Surfaces. So Why are we Still Deep Cleaning? (Nature) As evidence has accumulated over the course of the pandemic, scientific understanding about the virus has changed. Studies and investigations of outbreaks all point to the majority of transmissions occurring as a result of infected people spewing out large droplets and small particles called aerosols when they cough, talk or breathe. These can be directly inhaled by people close by. Surface transmission, although possible, is not thought to be a significant risk.

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After Trump

By George Smith

It’s an old adage that has common sense repercussions in 2021 A.T. (After Trump): Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.

In the 2020 presidential election, the National Republican Party made the same mistakes that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party did in 2016: Took certain states and electoral votes for granted.

Five years ago Hillary knew — KNEW! — she would win Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan; she campaigned little in those states. She was wrong. Last November Trump KNEW he would win Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, Utah, Arizona, Wisconsin and Michigan. He was wrong.

A sense of ego, inevitability and political history rocked both candidates in those respective elections.

What now? Where do the parties go?

For the next two years, the Democrats, controlling both the legislative and executive branches of government, plan to try and lead the country back onto a more unified approach to legislating. President Biden wants compromise and bipartisanship to be the driving force during his administration.

The GOP, at least at first blush, are digging in their heels and playing hardball, forgetting that Biden is the pitcher and they are outnumbered at every position. Plus, they are already proving they would rather fight than compromise by some of the statements by party leaders and  actions by states with Republican-held legislatures.

Rather than do an autopsy on the 2020 ejection/election disaster and try and figure out how to overcome the deficits they suffered in key states, and rather than strategizing on how to win more converts to the Republican Party through programs and reasonable inclusion platform planks, they are trying to figure out how to suppress votes.

Dumb. Blind turtle on the interstate dumb.

Several states, including Georgia and Arizona, have already floated voter suppression ideas designed to create barriers to certain voters — read: minorities and/or immigrants — even registering, much less casting votes.

In 2016, the GOP urged their constituents to vote absentee, either early or by mail. This year, with the pandemic requiring more absentee voting and an incredible registration and get-out-the-vote campaigns on swing states, the Democratic Party performed election cycle miracles, including creating a tsunami in Georgia, which went for Biden and followed up that stunner by shooing in two Democratic senators.

The brain-dead Republicans, rather that go “Hmmmmmm. We need to work harder and figure out to appeal to the new voters”, are trying to figure out how to keep folks from voting.

Dumb move, Elephant People. Most of the schemes you’ve already tried previously to suppress those you consider dissident voters have been ruled unconstitutional. Any new plans that are specifically aimed at lowering the number of people voting will suffer the same fate.

Idea: Stop. Regroup. Think. Ask the question: What do we need to do to appeal to a much larger voter base?

Well, staying the POT (Party of Trump) won’t work. That plan got slapped slobberjawed sideways in November.

Back to the drawing board, boys and girls and figure out how to shy away from the  Cray-Cray Chronicles of the last four years and return to some theme like…hmmm, maybe “Compassionate Conservatism.”

It worked before. And, Lord knows, it’s better than you have come up with lately.

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