Republicans are literally murdering their margin of victory

Dartagnan of the Daily Kos community quoted a report by Berkeley Lovelace Jr. of CNBC as he discussed the COVID pandemic is now the deadliest US pandemic. The official number for COVID, above 670,000, has passed the official number for the 1918 flu pandemic. I used the word “official” because the real numbers for both are much higher, with the number of COVID deaths likely above 1 million. Dartagnan wrote:

The most appalling aspect of this country’s death toll caused by the COVID-19 pandemic versus the 1918 Spanish flu is the extent to which this nation in 2020 had the tools available to mitigate it. As Lovelace explains:

Unlike today, there was no vaccine for the 1918 flu. There was also no CDC or national public health department. The Food and Drug Administration existed but consisted of a very small group of people. Additionally, there were no antibiotics, intensive care units, ventilators or IV fluids.

Nor was there any mature science of virology in 1918, and, as Lovelace points out, “Scientists hadn’t even seen a virus under a microscope.”

Leah McElrath tweeted a few more comparisons:

In the past year and a half: More Americans have died from COVID-19 than total military deaths on both sides in the Civil War. Five times as many as US military deaths in WWI. 200,000 more than US military deaths in WWII. Ten times as many as US military deaths in Vietnam.

Ryan Struyk of CNN tweeted some numbers. This is over the last two months, not the whole pandemic.

Right now: 2,031 deaths/day 10 days ago: 1,655 deaths/day 20 days ago: 1,401 deaths/day 30 days ago: 1,000 deaths/day 40 days ago: 535 deaths/day 50 days ago: 386 deaths/day 60 days ago: 272 deaths/day

Kos of Kos included a chart from Dr. Christopher Johnson. It is a bar graph with each bar representing counties with the same percentage of people voting for the nasty guy. The length of the bar is the death rate per 100K from July 1 to Sept. 7, 2021. On the left is the bar for counties where less than 10% voted for the nasty guy. The death rate in these counties is 3.7 per 100K. On the right is the bar for counties where more than 90% voted for the nasty guy. The death rate here is 27.7. Several bars in between show the more counties voted for the nasty guy the higher the death rate during this time. Kos then looked at the statewide margin of victory in a couple close races. GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis won in 2018 by 32,463 votes. Also that year GOP Sen. Rick Scott won by 10,033 votes. Kos wrote, “Republicans are literally murdering their margin of victory.” For that conservative voices blame liberals. John Nolte of Breitbart is one of those voices. I won’t bother with his ramblings or with the way Kos pulled it apart. I will include Kos’ summary:

Conservatives have no agency. They have no ability to think for themselves. They are driven by “feelings” of being mocked or ridiculed. They are so weak that they would rather die than listen to sage medical advice. Nolte may not mean to make such a ridiculous argument, and make such a stark admission about his own people, but that’s the end result. Conservatives are so weak that they would rather die than to feel like a liberal “cucked” them. I didn’t realize we had that massive power, to exterminate an entire political movement by simply asking them to not die.

Conservatives are saying their perceived position in the social hierarchy (and that position had better be above you liberals) is more important to them than their lives. David Neiwert of Kos wrote that some of the defiantly unvaccinated are starting to use a name for themselves: Pureblood. That name is supposed to indicate their blood has not been contaminated by the vaccine. Some go as far as declaring they will not date or have a child with a vaccinated person. Of course that name was chosen for a reason. In the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling many of the followers of Voldemort claimed they were pureblood, that their lineage all the way back was only magicians, not like other magicians who had muggle (non magician) parents. The claim was ancestry was more important than magical ability. Not surprisingly, many did have muggle ancestry they tried to hide. These were the people defeated by the end of the seventh book. The other people insistent on racial purity: Nazis. Dartagnan also wrote about Elkhart County, Indiana. The county health department applied for and were set to receive a $3 million federal grant to help the two big hospitals reach out to Black, Hispanic, and Amish residents to help treat such things as diabetes, cancer, heart disease and other chronic conditions as well as mental health. And work with the CDC to track local COVID infections and assist with contact tracing. That last little bit brought out the conservative voices who loudly shouted their “concerns” of government tyranny. The county council unanimously rejected the grant. Since most of those who would have benefited from the grant were people of color there was probably some racism in there too. Kathryn Ivey, an ICU nurse, tweeted:

I really wish yall non healthcare folk understood the straight up apocalyptic vibe in hospitals right now. I'm good at words and this is truly beyond me to describe. The stress. The constant death. The overflow units that were never meant to house vented patients. Every bed full. One patient not on a ventilator. Nurses are pissed as hell that we're still doing this. Docs exhausted.

Ratchet Nurse, who works in the ER, tweeted:

A patient had the nerve to say to me "this is what you signed up for when you do this job." when discussing Covid. I corrected him & said, "no, sir. This is absolutely NOT what I signed up for. I can handle the virus. I've never been treated like the enemy till now."

Aysha Qamar of Kos reported Lewis County General Hospital in upstate New York has mandated the vaccine, in line with a mandate from former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. In response, at least six employees of the maternity ward resigned. Gerald Cayer, CEO of the Lewis County Health System said at a news conference, “We are unable to safely staff the service after 24 September. The number of resignations received leaves us no choice but to pause delivering babies at Lewis County General Hospital.” Pregnant women will have to find another hospital. In a post from a week ago Mark Sumner of Kos discussed the request that a vaccine booster shot be authorized. Here’s the summary: Yes, a booster would improve protection against severe illness and death. But protection, even if down a bit, remains quite high. The exception is people with compromised immune systems. The much better use of vaccine doses is to get them into the arms of the unvaccinated, both in America and in countries around the world. In October 2020 artist Sucanne Brennan Firstenberg put 150,000 small white flags outside RFK Stadium in Washington, DC. That was one flag for each person who had died of COVID at that time. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported Firstenberg has installed the flags again. This time they are on the National Mall near the Washington Monument. And this time she placed more than 670,000 flags. The flags cover more than 20 acres. Every flag represents a loved one who died. Many of the flags have messages from survivors to those they lost. They’ll be there until October 3. The delta wave has been so deadly Firstenberg had to order an extra 60,000 flags. Einenkel included a few pictures, including one from the top of the Washington Monument that shows a bit of the size. He also included tweets from Democratic Rep. Andy Kim of New Jersey. These tweets include closeups of some of those personal messages.