2:00PM Water Cooler 12/13/2023

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Patient readers, this is a bit light at present, because I got wrapped round the axle reading Trump’s appeal on immunity. –lambert

Bird Song of the Day

Pacific Loon, Churchill and Northern Manitoba, Manitoba, Canada
Media from this location Illustrated Checklist. “Intervals shortened a bit to remove worst insect noise.” That wierd, unmusical croaking is the loon!

* * *

Politics

“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles

Capitol Seizure

“Supreme Court will hear a case that could undo Capitol riot charge against hundreds, including Trump” [Orlando Sentinel]. ” The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it will hear an appeal that could upend hundreds of charges stemming from the Capitol riot, including against former President Donald Trump. The justices will review an appellate ruling that revived a charge against three defendants accused of obstruction of an official proceeding. The charge refers to the disruption of Congress’ certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory over Trump. That’s among four counts brought against Trump in special counsel Jack Smith’s case that accuses the 2024 Republican presidential primary front-runner of conspiring to overturn the results of his election loss. Trump is also charged with conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. The court’s decision to weigh in on the obstruction charge could threaten the start of Trump’s trial, currently scheduled for March 4. The justices separately are considering whether to rule quickly on Trump’s claim that he can’t be prosecuted for actions taken within his role as president. A federal judge already has rejected that argument.” • Gonna wait for the lawyers to weigh on on this one. That said, if Januaruy 6 was an insurrection, why wasn’t that the charge?

Biden Administration

“White House open to new border expulsion law, mandatory detention and increased deportations in talks with Congress” [CBS]. “Specifically, the White House indicated that it would support a new, far-reaching legal authority to allow U.S. border officials to summarily expel migrants without processing their asylum claims. The measure would effectively revive the Trump-era Title 42 pandemic order and allow officials to pause U.S. asylum law, without a public health justification.” • Biden is a liberal Democrat, let us remember. But anything for Israel.

“Remarks by President Biden at a Campaign Reception” [Whitehouse.gov]. Worth reading in full. This:

Bibi and I talk a lot. I’ve known him for 50 years. Some of you know he has a picture on his desk — at least when I’m there, he has it on it. (Laughter.) Eight and a half by eleven, with a picture of — where I wrote, “Bibi…” — when we were both young men, he was at the embassy here and I was a senator. I said, “Bibi, I love you, but I don’t agree with a damn thing you have to say.” (Laughter.) That remains to be the case. (Laughter.)

He’s a good friend, but I think he has to change and — with this government. This government in Israel is making it very difficult for him to move.

You know, Ben-Gvir is not what you would call someone who — this is the most conservative government in Israel’s history — the most conservative. I’ve known every, every, every single head of state in Israel since Golda Meir. And I’ve known them because I’ve spent time with them many times.

But:

So, those of you who have family back in Israel, you saw what happened when Bibi tried to change the Supreme Court. Thousands of IDF soldiers said, “We’re out. We’re not going to participate. We’re not going to support the military.”

That wasn’t any outside influence. That came from within Israel.

So, folks, there’s a lot to do — a whole lot to do.

First and foremost, do everything in our power to hold Hamas accountable — every single thing in our power. They’re animals. They’re animals. They exceeded anything that any other terrorist group has done of late that I — in memory.

But, secondly, we have to work toward bringing Israel together in a way that provides for the beginning of option — an option of a two-state solution, because absent that — (applause) — (inaudible).

It’s probably more than you wanted to hear, but — (laughter).

That Biden focuses on domestic politics both here and in Israel is interesting. But to me, this boils down to one word: Intractable.

2024

Less than a year to go!

* * *

“Trump immunity in E. Jean Carroll case denied by appeals panel, setting up Supreme Court battle” [The Hill]. “A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled against Trump, finding that presidential immunity could be waived as a defense and that Trump had in fact waived it.” Whoops. More: “The panel went on to reject the former president’s various arguments for why he should be able to assert the defense now. ‘[R]ecognizing presidential immunity as waivable reinforces, not undermines, the separation of powers and the President’s decision making authority by affording the President an opportunity to litigate if he so chooses. Accordingly, we hold that presidential immunity is waivable,’ Judge José Cabranes wrote in the 35-page decision.” • The 2nd circuit ruling on immunity has a domino effect on Smith’s case, and so–

“Trump’s lawyers tell an appeals court that federal prosecutors are trying to rush his election case” [ABC]. “Lawyers for Donald Trump told a federal appeals court on Wednesday that it should not speed up its consideration of whether the former president is immune from prosecution, accusing federal prosecutors of trying to rush his 2020 election subversion case through before next year’s presidential election…. The issue is of paramount significance to both sides given the potential for a protracted appeal to delay a trial beyond its currently scheduled start date of March 4…. At issue is an appeal by the Trump team, filed last week, of a trial judge’s rejection of arguments that he was protected from prosecution for actions he took as president. Smith sought to short-circuit that process by asking the Supreme Court on Monday to take up the issue during its current term, a request he acknowledged was ‘extraordinary’ but one he said he was essential to keep the case moving forward. Smith’s team simultaneously asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to expedite its consideration of Trump’s appeal, writing: ‘The public has a strong interest in this case proceeding to trial in a timely manner. The trial cannot proceed, however, before resolution of the defendant’s interlocutory appeal.’ The Trump team made clear its opposition to that request, saying the case presents ‘novel, complex, and sensitive questions of profound importance.'” • The text of Trump’s appeal–

“PRESIDENT TRUMP’S OPPOSITION TO MOTION FOR EXPEDITED APPELLATE REVIEW” [IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT]. From the Introduction:

IANAL, and I don’t love Trump, but this doesn’t seem wrong to me: “Whether a President of the United States may be criminally prosecuted for his official acts as President goes to the core of our system of separated powers and will stand among the most consequential questions ever decided by this Court.” Anyhow, this paragraph ought to bring down the temple:

Yes, Bush, Obama, and Nixon were all crooks. Impeachment would have been the answer for all three, given that in our system of party governance, the prosecutoral apparatus is “captured,” by definition (absent “norms”). Political parties are, of course, part of our unwritten Constitution. No textual warrant for them at all.

* * *

“Axelrod says WSJ poll ‘very, very dark’ for Biden campaign” [The Hill]. “Axelrod said he was most alarmed by the numbers regarding voters’ perception of Biden’s and Trump’s policies when president. About 23 percent of voters said Biden’s policies have helped them, while 49 percent said the same of Trump’s policies. About 53 percent said Biden’s policies hurt them personally, and 37 percent said the same for Trump.” • Given that the Democrats undid the CARES Act as rapidly as they could, that’s not unreasonable. But Axelrove, I assume, is running interference for The Wizard of Kalorama™. Which horse is Obama backing, as he keeps trying to trip Biden up?

“Biden-Harris Campaign Hires Brian Fallon, Prominent Dem Critic” [RealClearPolitics]. “Brian Fallon, executive director of the progressive group Demand Justice, will soon join the Biden-Harris campaign as communications director for the vice president…. It was Fallon and Demand Justice who called on Biden to expand the number of seats on the Supreme Court to counter the conservative majority. And later, they mounted a pressure campaign to convince liberal Justice Stephen Breyer to retire so that the president could name a younger, more progressive replacement. The White House explicitly disapproved of both measures…. Fallon also publicly supported defunding the police, something that the White House insists they adamantly oppose.” • If Harris thinks she can “pivot left,” she’s out of her mind.

* * *

“Hunter Biden will not sit for deposition by GOP, says father not ‘financially’ involved in his business” [FOX]. “Hunter Biden offer to testify publicly is a de facto rejection of the GOP demand that he appear Wednesday for the closed-door deposition he was subpoenaed for. That deposition was scheduled to take place Wednesday at 9:30 a.m…. ‘No evidence to support that my father was financially involved in my business because it did not happen,’ Hunter Biden said.” • “Financially” is doing a lot of work, there.

“By Modern Standards, Biden Should Be Impeached | Opinion” [Mark R. Weaver, Newsweek]. Ohio AG (R). “Based on modern legislative interpretations of impeachable conduct, the U.S. House of Representatives has enough evidence to impeach President Joe Biden. ‘Show me the treason, high crime, or misdemeanor’ some will shout. Here’s my reply: Go get elected to the House, where you and your colleagues alone decide what evidence meets that standard…. Richard Nixon was never charged with a crime or impeached but he was identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in the crimes of others. Despite his provable lies to the contrary, Joe Biden was involved with his son Hunter’s foreign influence business. Whether that makes him a co-conspirator in Hunter’s crimes is a ripe area for congressional scrutiny. The most active architect of the Constitution, James Madison, described the type of behaviors that could trigger impeachment as ‘incapacity, negligence or perfidy.’ Impeachment served as a safeguard, Madison said, against betrayal of ‘his trust to foreign powers.’ Ukraine and China leap to mind. With these facts in hand, maintaining the partisan claim of “no evidence” is like denying the daylight at dawn. Yes, things were only dimly seen for a while, but the sunlit scrutiny of hearings will almost certainly cast an undeniable beam on this conclusion: It’s time to impeach Joe Biden.”

* * *

IL: “Illinois NAACP president faces calls to quit over conference call where she branded migrants ‘rapist savages’ who are taking resources from black and homeless people” [Daily Mail]. “‘These immigrants who come over here, they’ve been raping people, they’ve been breaking into homes, they’re like savages as well,’ [Teresa Haley] said. ‘They don’t speak the language and they look at us like we’re crazy.’… Illinois Governor JB Pritzker called remarks ‘reprehensible’ and ‘extraordinarily inappropriate.’ ‘I would hope that she would apologize for the remarks,’ he added. ‘I also think that people should recognize that immigrants in this country are all around us. Virtually all of us came here from somewhere else. So remarks like that are commentary on our entire society.'”

Republican Funhouse

“Calls grow for Congress to subpoena Jeffrey Epstein’s flight logs despite Democrat ‘stonewalling'” [FOX]. “Calls are growing for Congress to subpoena convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s flight logs in order to identify possible perpetrators who may have partaken in his sex trafficking ring. In a Monday letter to the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., said there were still many unanswered questions surrounding Epstein’s operation, including the identities of “America’s most powerful and well-known people” who may have been involved.” • I’m all for it, but I can’t figure out what Burchett’s letter is in aid of.

Democrats en Déshabillé

Patient readers, it seems that people are actually reading the back-dated post! But I have not updated it, and there are many updates. So I will have to do that. –lambert

I have moved my standing remarks on the Democrat Party (“the Democrat Party is a rotting corpse that can’t bury itself”) to a separate, back-dated post, to which I will periodically add material, summarizing the addition here in a “live” Water Cooler. (Hopefully, some Bourdieu.) It turns out that defining the Democrat Party is, in fact, a hard problem. I do think the paragraph that follows is on point all the way back to 2016, if not before:

The Democrat Party is the political expression of the class power of PMC, their base (lucidly explained by Thomas Frank in Listen, Liberal!). It follows that the Democrat Party is as “unreformable” as the PMC is unreformable; if the Democrat Party did not exist, the PMC would have to invent it. If the Democrat Party fails to govern, that’s because the PMC lacks the capability to govern. (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” of course.) Second, all the working parts of the Party reinforce each other. Leave aside characterizing the relationships between elements of the Party (ka-ching, but not entirely) those elements comprise a network — a Flex Net? An iron octagon? — of funders, vendors, apparatchiks, electeds, NGOs, and miscellaneous mercenaries, with assets in the press and the intelligence community.

Note, of course, that the class power of the PMC both expresses and is limited by other classes; oligarchs and American gentry (see ‘industrial model’ of Ferguson, Jorgensen, and Jie) and the working class spring to mind. Suck up, kick down.

* * *

Realignment and Legitimacy

“Claudine Gay Is Why I Never Checked the ‘Black’ Box” [The Free Press]. “[I]t was not until I applied to college in the early 1990s that I encountered people like Claudine Gay and truly saw behind the curtain of identity politics. That was when, with grades and SATs that were borderline acceptable for top-tier colleges, my high school counselor—along with most university officials—urged me to boost my chances of admission by checking the ‘black’ box on applications. And when they saw my reluctance, they routinely dismissed my misgivings with the same line: ‘Oh, it’s nothing, just check the box and you’ll get the upper hand.’ They weren’t wrong: I was once offered a $25,000 Martin Luther King scholarship, a lot of money in 1993. Checking the black box was tempting, to say the least. But it was a sham. At that time, the percentage of all blacks on college campuses who were from lower economic backgrounds had fallen to the single digits. These students had been replaced by middle- to upper-class blacks, Africans, Caribbeans, and multiracials like me. By checking the black box, I was being asked to mask the actual problems and inequities that undermine the efforts of lower-class blacks—all so university administrations could claim the pretense of racial redemption through higher enrollment numbers.” • It wouldn’t be that hard for universities to make income, a proxy for class, the driver for DEI….

#COVID19

“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison

Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).

Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!

Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (dashboard); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).

Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).

Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).

Hat tips to helpful readers: anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Utah, Bob White (3).

Stay safe out there!

* * *

Maskstravaganza

“Ear loop respirators/masks do not provide protection as tight fitting RPE” [Health and Safety Executive]. UK. “New HSE research has revealed that respirators/masks which rely on ear loops (including those provided with clips, ‘snuggers’ or other means of tightening the fit of the mask) to hold the respirator/mask in place, do not protect people adequately when used as tight fitting respiratory protective equipment (RPE)…. Following publication of the previous Safety Alert ‘Use of Face Masks designated KN95‘, in June 2020, the NHS took early action to exclude ear loop respirators/masks from their supply chain due to concerns over their protection. As a result, respirators with a head harness will have been supplied and fit test completed with this style of respirator.” • I think readers know this, but just in case…

Testing and Tracking

An unsettling possibility re: wastewater:

The formula may have changed.

The data may be skewed.

Possibly heavily skewed.

TBD.

— Barry Hunt – #DavosSafe (@BarryHunt008) December 13, 2023

Back in the day, before the public health establishment crippled collecting actual case data, we could crosscheck wastewater data against it (and vice versa). No longer.

I can think of plenty of individuals at Stanford who are full of it, so:

Looks to me like you may have a cryptic WW-variant shedder on your hands. We've seen single individuals shed more virus than entire sewersheds at the peak of their worst Covid wave. Make sure you preserve some samples for @SolidEvidence to have a look at. https://t.co/5PFzom5wap

— Ryan Hisner (@LongDesertTrain) December 11, 2023

Transmission

“Janesville School District holding virtual classes Wednesday & Thursday due to students and staff out sick” [KWWL]. “The Janesville School District will be moving classes virtually on Wednesday and Thursday due to 127 students and 13 staff members currently out sick…. “Our staff will be cleaning and disinfecting the district over the next few days.” • [bangs head on desk].

Infection

“COVID study: 40% of children still infectious after symptom resolution” [Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy]. “A study today of viral shedding dynamics in 101 children who had COVID-19 during the Omicron surge in Toronto shows that 40% were still infectious on the day after their symptoms resolved… The median time to symptom resolution was 6 days, and 12% of participants still had symptoms at day 10. Overall, the median time to non-infectious virus load was 5 days after symptom onset, with 75% of participants meeting the non-infectious threshold by 7 days, and 90% by 10 days. …. ‘These findings support the consideration for infection prevention and control interventions for up to 10 days post symptom onset to reduce residual transmission risk around vulnerable or immunocompromised populations,’ the authors said.” • Delta Airlines said five days, so five days it is. And I’m so old I can remember when children didn’t get Covid at all!

Science Is Popping

Beautiful videos:

2) … because the simplification quickly reaches its limits.
Failing to be able to address simply, the major changes in the ACE2-TMPRSS2 since Omicron, I have decided to come back FIRST, with two wonderful videos on the function of ACE2 and TMPRSS, pic.twitter.com/g9lfD4cGI0

— Emmanuel (@ejustin46) December 11, 2023

Beautiful and terrifying.

“Something Awful”

Lambert here: I’m getting the feeling that the “Something Awful” might be a sawtooth pattern — variant after variant — that averages out to a permanently high plateau. Lots of exceptionally nasty sequelae, most likely deriving from immune dysregulation (says this layperson). To which we might add brain damage, including personality changes therefrom.

* * *

“Neurologic Effects of SARS-CoV-2 Transmitted among Dogs” [Emerging Infectious Diseases]. From the Abstract: ” In this study, we used a canine transmission model to examine histopathologic changes in the brains of dogs infected with SARS-CoV-2. We observed substantial brain pathology in SARS-CoV-2–infected dogs, particularly involving blood–brain barrier damage resembling small vessel disease, including changes in tight junction proteins, reduced laminin levels, and decreased pericyte coverage. Furthermore, we detected phosphorylated tau, a marker of neurodegenerative disease, indicating a potential link between SARS-CoV-2–associated small vessel disease and neurodegeneration. Our findings of degenerative changes in the dog brain during SARS-CoV-2 infection emphasize the potential for transmission to other hosts and induction of similar signs and symptoms. The dynamic brain changes in dogs highlight that even asymptomatic individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2 may develop neuropathologic changes in the brain.” • Ulp.

“This is bigger than COVID: Why are so many Americans dying early?” [Pierre Kory and Mary Beth Pfeiffer, The Hill]. “[T]he most pressing question for insurers, epidemiologists and health agency officials. Why is the traditionally healthiest sector of our society — young, employed, insured workers — dying at such rates? Public health officials aggressively oversaw the pandemic response, for better or worse. Why aren’t they looking into this?” • The question begging is buried in “oversaw the pandemic response.” Why do we assume that’s the only thing we should look into, and not the sequelae of Covid itself?

Elite Maleficence

Christmas cheer (1):

The only thing we want you to spread this holiday season is love and cheer. Prevent the spread of #flu, #COVID, and #RSV by getting vaccinated.

Visit https://t.co/2akIUZ14Rd to find a vaccine near you. pic.twitter.com/GUllDqrZ7x

— CDC (@CDCgov) December 10, 2023

An outright lie from CDC; Covid vaccines do not prevent transmission (they are not sterlizing, at least the existing ones). CDC is so desperate to cram the flu, RSV, and Covid into the seasonal respiratory virus box — I assume because of bureaucratic imperatives from infection control departments, and perhaps pharma as well — that they’ll literally say anything, even if, in the case of Covid, their advice costs lives.

Christmas cheer (2):

NYS DoH just sent a reminder that healthcare workers are required to wear a mask if they haven't gotten their flu shot.

It makes zero sense they are ignoring COVID and not requiring masks for everyone. COVID levels are high, and you can still spread it if you are vaccinated. pic.twitter.com/r5DQz7Vwjd

— Dr. Lucky Tran (@luckytran) December 12, 2023

A second case of the same brainworm. Vaccines do not prevent transmission, so masking should be universal.

* * *

Case Data

NOT UPDATED From BioBot wastewater data, December 11:

Lambert here: At last Biden’s beaten every one of Trump’s previous spikes, so a round of applause for The Big Guy. The slight plateauing in the national numbers doesn’t make sense to me because I can’t see an organic reason for it (unless the spread from Thanksgiving is somehow being damped out, which seems implausible). I’m guessing backward revision will make the plateau go away. Only 14 superspreading days until Christmas!

Regional data:

Hard to see why the regional split (and it sure would be nice to have more granular data). Weather forcing Northerners indoors? Seems facile. There’s snow in the Rockies (green color, West), for example.

Variants

NOT UPDATED From CDC, December 9:

Lambert here: JN.1, shown on the NowCast for the first time, coming up fast on the outside, while BA.2.86 fades.

From CDC, November25:

Lambert here: I sure hope the volunteers doing Pangolin, on which this chart depends, don’t all move on the green fields and pastures new (or have their access to facilities cut by administrators of ill intent).

CDC: “As of May 11, genomic surveillance data will be reported biweekly, based on the availability of positive test specimens.” “Biweeekly: 1. occurring every two weeks. 2. occurring twice a week; semiweekly.” Looks like CDC has chosen sense #1. In essence, they’re telling us variants are nothing to worry about. Time will tell.

Covid Emergency Room Visits

NOT UPDATED From CDC NCIRD Surveillance, December 2:

Lambert here: Slight increases in some age groups, conforming to wastewater data. Only a week’s lag, so this may be our best current nationwide, current indicator.

NOTE “Charts and data provided by CDC, updates Wednesday by 8am. For the past year, using a rolling 52-week period.” So not the entire pandemic, FFS (the implicit message here being that Covid is “just like the flu,” which is why the seasonal “rolling 52-week period” is appropriate for both_{MR SUBLIMINAL I hate these people so much}. Notice also that this chart shows, at least for its time period, that Covid is not seasonal, even though CDC is trying to get us to believe that it is, presumably so they can piggyback on the existing institutional apparatus for injections. And of course, we’re not even getting into the quality of the wastewater sites that we have as a proxy for Covid infection overall.

Hospitalization

Bellwether New York City, data as of December 13:

Steadily up. New York state as a whole looks more like a spike. (I hate this metric because the lag makes it deceptive, although the hospital-centric public health establishment loves it, hospitalization and deaths being the only metrics that matter [snort]).

NOT UPDATED Here’s a different CDC visualization on hospitalization, nationwide, not by state, but with a date, at least. December 2:

Up, up, up!

Lambert here: “Maps, charts, and data provided by CDC, updates weekly for the previous MMWR week (Sunday-Saturday) on Thursdays (Deaths, Emergency Department Visits, Test Positivity) and weekly the following Mondays (Hospitalizations) by 8 pm ET†”. So where the heck is the update, CDC?

Positivity

NOT UPDATED From Walgreens, December 11:

0.5%. Up. (It would be interesting to survey this population generally; these are people who, despite a tsunami of official propaganda and enormous peer pressure, went and got tested anyhow.)

NOT UPDATED From Cleveland Clinic, December 2:

Lambert here: Increase (with backward revision; guess they thought it was over). I know this is just Ohio, but the Cleveland Clinic is good*, and we’re starved for data, so…. NOTE * Even if hospital infection control is trying to kill patients by eliminating universal masking with N95s.

NOT UPDATED From CDC, traveler’s data, November 20:

Turning upward.

Down, albeit in the rear view mirror. And here are the variants for travelers, November 20:

BA.2.86 zipping right along. If this data were delivered in anything like a timely fashion, it would be a pretty good predictor.

Deaths

NOT UPDATED Here is the New York Times, based on CDC data, December 2:

That the absolute numbers of deaths are down, but the percentage of deaths is up, is interesting.

Stats Watch

There are no official statistics of interest today.

* * *

Shipping: “How Does the Panama Canal Slowdown Affect Shipping Contracts?” [Maritime Executive]. “The Panama Canal significantly reduces the time and distance for vessels to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It normally operates all year round, 24 hours a day, and statistics show that about 13,000 to 14,000 vessels cross the Canal annually. However, the region has recently been suffering from its worst drought for over 70 years. As a result, and for the first time ever, the Panama Canal Authority has had to limit the number of vessels crossing the Canal. The usual average is about 36 vessels per day. This was reduced to roughly 32 in June 2023 and, as of November 2023, the number is down to only 25. It is expected that this number will be further reduced to 18 slots a day from February 2024. As well as this, the Authority has also had to reduce the draft limit from 50ft to 44ft. This imposes a limit on the size of a ship which can pass through the canal, and as a result, the amount of cargo that passes through. With the situation worsening, vessels are having to wait much longer than normal before they can pass through the Canal. The delays caused have impacted the wider global supply chain and already increased costs as a result. The delays are pushing shipping rates upwards in other regions, with fewer vessels being available for longer routes.”

Big Pharma: “Pfizer shares sink after it resets 2024 COVID expectations” [Reuters]. “Pfizer on Wednesday forecast 2024 sales that could be as much as $5 billion below Wall Street expectations, a move top executives said provided a more reliable view of its COVID-19 business than it had this year, driving shares down to a 10-year low…. Revenue from Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine and treatment, which peaked at $57 billion in 2022, are now expected to be $8 billion in 2024, a further drop from the $13 billion analysts’ forecast and Pfizer’s own lowered view of $12.5 billion for this year…. COVID vaccination in the U.S. have dropped sharply with just about 17% of the eligible population getting the most recent updated boosters due in part to declining concern about the virus, as well as vaccine fatigue… Citi analyst Andrew Baum said Pfizer’s management is acting with increasing urgency to address its weak stock performance. However, the absence of promising high-potential pipeline assets makes it difficult for the company with several Pfizer products expected to go off patent in the next few years.” • Whatever “vaccine fatigue” is; it gets tiring tracking the pseudo-concepts. Not a word about liabilities, though.

Tech: “X outage breaks all outgoing links, again” [The Verge]. “All outgoing links from X are currently broken. A problem with the URL redirect that captures activity before sending users on their way is currently leading people to a simple error page saying, ‘This page is down. I scream. You scream. We all scream… for us to fix this page. We’ll stop making jokes and get things up and running soon.’ If this sounds familiar, it’s because something similar happened in March.”

* * *

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 66 Greed (previous close: 67 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 63 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Dec 13 at 1:54:48 PM ET. Amidst all the chaos and madness, the Greed number remembers quite stable. Volatility is good for speculation, I suppose.

Zeitgeist Watch

“Why dictionary.com’s word of the year is ‘hallucinate'” [CBS]. “There was a 45% increase in dictionary lookups for ‘hallucinate’ when compared to last year, according to the site. There was a similar increase in searches for the noun form ‘hallucination.’ Overall, there was a 62% year-over-year spike in dictionary lookups for AI-related words. Our choice of hallucinate as the 2023 Word of the Year represents our confident projection that AI will prove to be one of the most consequential developments of our lifetime,” Barrett and Nick Norlen, dictionary.com’s senior editor, said in a post. “Data and lexicographical considerations aside, hallucinate seems fitting for a time in history in which new technologies can feel like the stuff of dreams or fiction—especially when they produce fictions of their own.'” • Not just “new technologies”…

News of the Wired

“‘Biocomputer’ combines lab-grown brain tissue with electronic hardware” [Nature]. “Researchers have built a hybrid biocomputer — combining a laboratory-grown human brain tissue with conventional electronic circuits — that can complete tasks such as voice recognition…. The researchers call the system Brainoware. It uses brain organoids — bundles of tissue-mimicking human cells that are used in research to model organs. Organoids are made from stem cells capable of specialising into different types of cells. In this case, they were morphed into neurons, akin to those found in our brains. The research aims to build ‘a bridge between AI and organoids’, says study co-author Feng Guo, a bioengineer at the University of Indiana Bloomington. Some AI systems rely on a web of interconnected nodes, known as a neural network, in a way similar to how the brain functions. ‘We wanted to ask the question of whether we can leverage the biological neural network within the brain organoid for computing,’ he says.” • Oh good. “Brain Function As A Service.” I smell business model!

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Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From IM:

IM writes: “Some fall shots from the rim of the continent…a big leaf maple making its annual contribution to carbon recycling. By Englishman River Falls, on Vancouver Island. Note: no leaf blowers.”

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