Back-to-School with the Delta Variant

It’s Back-to-School time in America, but this year that doesn’t just mean pencil cases, it aslo means cases of Pediatric COVID-19, 250,000 in the last week. Kids in low-vaccination states are getting infected at greater rates. Emergency Room visits and hospital admissions in the states with the lowest vaccination coverage were 3.4 and 3.7 times higher than in states with the highest vaccination rates. Children’s hospitals are at or near capacity and asking for federal assistance. For the most recent reporting period, infections among children account for 22.4 percent of reported COVID-19 cases. That’s 204,000 infected kids in a week.

Even though most parents favor mask-wearing in schools, nine states prohibit school districts from setting mask requirements: Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah. Over 1,000 schools have closed due to COVID-19 outbreaks since late July.

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Kristi Noem Thins the MAGA Herd in South Dakota

Corona virus infections are rising faster in South Dakota than any other state, up +371%. Governor and beauty queen Kristi Noem may not be protecting her citizens from COVID, but she sure as shootin’ is gonna defend them from the federal gummit.

If @joebiden illegally mandates vaccines, I will take every action available under the law to protect South Dakotans from the federal government.

— Governor Kristi Noem (@govkristinoem) August 23, 2021

Bess Levin at Vanity Fair said it best: “South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem Joins Fellow Republicans in Quest to Kill Her Constituents.”

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Russia: Vaccine or Vodka, Your Choice

Last month, Russia’s Gamaleya Institute announced that its Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine is 92% effective, and Russia began mass vaccinations early this month. Many Russians have avoided getting innoculated, however. The rapid rollout of the vaccine leaves many Russians skeptical, but there may be another reason they’re staying away. Russia has one of the highest per capita rates of alcohol consumption in Europe, and Russian officials are saying the vaccinated should lay off the vodka for 42 days. A walk-back to 6 days followed, 3 days after each of the two injections, but that still may be too much for many hard-drinking Russians.

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South Dakota Death Cult

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, a pistol-packin’, hard-drivin’, snake-oil pushing, Trump-touting former beauty queen, has resisted implementing elementary coronavirus public health policies in her state, claiming they would infringe on personal freedom. Her libertarian lovefest has given her state the nation’s highest COVID-19 positivity rate. “I’ve consistently said that people that want to wear masks should wear masks, and people that don’t shouldn’t be shamed because they choose not to,” the governor reiterated on Wednesday.

While South Dakota’s hospitals are filling up and her constituents die thinking coronavirus is a hoax, Kristi Noem declares that, if President Biden enacts a national mask mandate, she won’t enforce it.

More:

“As deaths spiral, South Dakota governor opposes mask rules,” Stephen Groves, Associated Press

“‘It’s not real’: In South Dakota, which has shunned masks and other COVID rules, some people die in denial, nurse says,” Joel Shannon, USA Today

“What Nurses Are Seeing and Hearing in South Dakota,” Molly Olmstead, Slate

“South Dakota is grappling with the nation’s highest positivity rate. This Covid-19 widow wants a mask mandate,” Lucy Kafanov, Leslie Perrot and Hollie Silverman, CNN

Updates:

“Kristi Noem rigidly follows Trump strategy of denial as Covid ravages South Dakota,” Ed Pilkington, The Guardian

“South Dakota gripped by pandemic amid Kristi Noem’s no-mask approach,” Talli Nauman, The Guardian

“Some COVID-19 patients flown out of state as S.D. hospital ICU capacity dwindles,” Nick Lowrey, Argus Leader

“Federal Judge Scorches Gov. Kristi Noem Over COVID Response,” Tracy Connor, Daily Beast

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Back-to-School Special: COVID-19

Strained by managing on-line schooling and providing their own daytime childcare during this pandemic, many parents favor in-person schooling for their offspring. After all, the president says it’s safe, right?

The facts say otherwise. Last week, more than 61,000 American children caught the novel coronavirus, the highest weekly increase since the start of the pandemic. So far, 853,000 children in the U.S. have contracted the disease since the outbreak began, and a third of them needed ICU hospitalization. From February though July, at least 121 children have died. Long-term effects of COVID-19 infection in children are suspected.

More:

“More than 61,000 children got Covid-19 last week, a record,” Erika Edwards, NBC News

“Cases of Covid-19 in children on rise, with highest 1-week spike yet,” Sandee LaMotte, CNN

Related:

“I’m Scared to Death’: How Teachers Feel About COVID-19 School Safety,” Healthline

“Risk for Severe COVID-19 Illness Among Teachers and Adults Living With School-Aged Children,” Adam W. Gaffney, MD, MPH, David Himmelstein, MD, and Steffie Woolhandler, MD, MPH, Annals of Internal Medicine

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Anti-Science Governor Killing Off South Dakota Constituents

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, a pistol-packin’, hard-drivin’, snake-oil pushing, Trump-touting former beauty queen, has resisted implementing elementary coronavirus public health policies in her state, claiming they would infringe on personal freedom. That clearly includes freedom of infection, since South Dakota now has a 38% COVID-19 positivity rate. Governor Noem refused to take action against meatpacking plant hotspots, and praised a huge superspreading motorcyle rally in her state, an event that carried coronavirus throughout the Upper Midwest.

As South Dakota hospitals feel the strain of her laissez-faire health policies, Governor Noem is absent, on the campaign trail for Donald Trump.

More:

Trump backs South Dakota governor’s handling of COVID-19,” Associated Press

“As COVID-19 Cases Rise, Some Governors Resist Lockdowns, Mask Mandates,” Will Stone, NPR News

“South Dakota’s Positive Virus Rate Hits 46%—but Noem Aide Says ‘We Feel Pretty Good,’” Tori B. Powell, Daily Beast

Related:

“When Libertarianism Goes Bad,” Paul Krugman, New York Times

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Son-In-Law-In-Chief Kushner Reassures Us About COVID-19

Back in April, the Secretary of Slim Suits, Trump son-in-law, and Senior Advisor to the President Jared Kushner, fresh from bringing peace to the Middle East, was running a shadow task force on COVID-19. He called the Trump Administration’s coronavirus response “a great success story” on MAGA-friendly Fox & Friends.

It turns out he also told Bob Woodward the reason for this great success:

“There were three phases. There’s the panic phase, the pain phase and then the comeback phase. That doesn’t mean there’s not still a lot of pain and there won’t be pain for a while, but that basically was, we’ve now put out rules to get back to work. Trump’s now back in charge. It’s not the doctors. They’ve kind of — we have, like, a negotiated settlement.”

How COVID-19 Swept Across America

See in one minute how Covid-19 has torn across the U.S. since March in this one-minute video developed by Microsoft AI for Health, Brown School of Public Health, and Harvard Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics.

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Stephen Miller Contracts COVID-19, Just Like Humans Do

Senior Trump Advisor and venomous, loathsome lizard-person Stephen Miller has contracted Coronavirus. He has spent 5 days in isolation, perhaps at the National Zoo Reptile House, and is probably being treated by the Official White House Herpetologist.

More:

“Top Trump adviser Stephen Miller tests positive for coronavirus,” Maanvi Singh, The Guardian

“Stephen Miller tests positive for COVID-19, the disease that killed his grandmother,” The Forward

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Trump Administration Back-to-School Special

This summer, White House officials pressured the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to play down the risk of sending children back to school. White House Coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah L. Birx, and Marc Short, chief of staff for Vice President Mike Pence, and Paul Alexander, a senior adviser to HHS assistant secretary Michael Caputo, tried to get CDC scientists to downplay the danger of COVID-19 to children, teenagers, and young adults in a political effort to get schools to reopen.

More:

“Behind the White House Effort to Pressure the C.D.C. on School Openings,” Mark Mazzetti, Noah Weiland and Sharon LaFraniere, New York Times

“Trump official pressured CDC to change report on Covid and kids,” Dan Diamond, Politico

“We Can’t Allow the CDC to Be Tainted by Politics,” Richard E. Besser, Scientific American

Related:

“COVID-19 Cases Rising Among U.S. Children as Schools Reopen,” AP via Education Week

“‘Children have become acceptable carnage,’” Andrew Atterbury, Nicole Gaudiano, Mackenzie Mays, Juan Perez Jr., and Madina Touré, Politico

“Children’s role in spread of virus bigger than thought,” The Harvard Gazette

“10 facts about school reopenings in the Covid-19 pandemic,” Anna North, Vox

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