Becoming a disease that is always present

Coronavirus vaccines are in the news. Are they close yet? One reason why they’re in the news is the nasty guy saying one should be ready by early November (yeah, right around the time of the election). So Mary Louise Kelly of NPR had a long conversation with Moncef Slaoui, chief advisor for Operation Warp Speed, the vaccine development program. To me it sounded like Slaoui was carefully balancing the truth with what his boss has been saying.

More interesting is the summary from Mark Sumner of Daily Kos. The first problem with a rushed vaccine, issued before it was properly scientifically vetted, is that it may not actually work. At least 70% of the population needs to be immunized and if a vaccine is less than 70% effective we can never get there.

The second problem may be even worse. The nasty guy already has a reputation for pushing bogus remedies. If he pushes out a vaccine that is not fully tested then the public trust is lost. We already have an anti-vax movement. This would be much worse. Wrote Sumner:

Whether the U.S. moves forward with an ineffective vaccine, or rolls out a vaccine that works but which 83% of the population doesn’t trust, the effect is the same: An insufficient level of immunity to halt the spread of COVID-19. That kind of result would make it much more likely that COVID-19 moves from being epidemic to endemic—to becoming a disease that is always present, and always ready to flare up again in the population. It also increases the chance that a large pool of COVID-19 virus continues to exist in the population, creating a very real risk that mutations could occur to make the virus more contagious, or more deadly, or unphased by current vaccines.

Bernie Sanders tweeted:

The mainstream media doesn't talk about it.

Congress doesn't talk about it.

Trump doesn't talk about it.

But three multi-billionaires now own more wealth than the bottom half of our society.

That level of inequality is immoral and unsustainable.

This reminds me their goal isn’t to accumulate huge piles of money, their goal is to keep it out of the hands of that bottom half of society.



Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight tweeted:

Chance of a Biden Electoral college win if he wins the popular vote by X points:

0-1 points: just 6%!
1-2 points: 22%
2-3 points: 46%
3-4 points: 74%
4-5 points: 89%
5-6 points: 98%
6-7 points: 99%

You'll sometimes see people say stuff like "Biden MUST with the popular vote by 3 points or he's toast". Not true; at 2-3 points, the Electoral College is a tossup, not necessarily a Trump win.

OTOH, the Electoral College is not really *safe* for Biden unless he wins by 5+.

Two ways out of this. Get rid of the Electoral College. Or go to 50 Senate districts (and Electoral College districts) that are of equal population and independent of state boundaries.



The nasty guy talked about “people in dark shadows” controlling Joe Biden. Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg tweeted a thread, starting with:

Just so we’re all clear, “people behind the scenes secretly funding and controlling things” is a big antisemitic trope. And, one presumes, here, a dogwhistle to the people steeped in these theories.

And later:

Note that none of this minimizes his harm and threats to non-Jews who are Black, immigrants, Muslim, etc. but rather a) tells his base who to blame for the economy, protests etc (not him, never him) b) undermines the agency of communities fighting for their own liberation.

And c) gives them a focal point for their rage and despair right now, while stoking fears about how things will be if Biden is elected. It ticks a lot of boxes for him. It’s useful and convenient. (NB re: a), some Jews are Black and/or immigrant etc etc).

We are all in this together.

Solidarity is absolutely essential now.

The stakes are so, so high.

We all have to have each others’ backs.

This freedom is and must be a collective project.