Slow News Day

Cuomo resigns, Senate passes infrastructure bill, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issues horrifying new report while the western U.S. continues to burn and half the country is under a heat advisory, hospitals in Texas and Florida overflow while the states' governors actively prevent anybody from doing anything about it . . .  It's all too much, so that we don't even notice the plot by far right extremists and their God Emperor to terminate the U.S. democracy.

So for right now, I'm going to focus on one problem. Unfortunately the best discussion of this I can find is in the NYT, which is paywalled, but if you still have a free article left it's here. I think the author is being appropriately cautious: epidemiologists still aren't sure how the delta variant of Covid-19 is behaving with vaccinated people and children, but here's what I think is likely given the ways in which data is likely to be missing.

First important point. The vaccines are very effective at preventing people who are exposed to delta from being hospitalized or dying. Not 100%, but these events are rare. However, they probably -- I'll say very probably, almost definitely -- aren't as good at preventing people from getting sick, and maybe pretty damn miserable, as they were against earlier strains. They also aren't as good at preventing people from becoming infectious. Again, they help. Vaccination reduces community transition and will spare most people from significant illness. But you can still transmit the virus to others.

Second important point: Delta is much more transmissible, and (although the scientists seem reticent to say this) likely to cause more serious disease.and it is almost certainly more dangerous to children. Part of the mythology of Covid has been that children aren't really vulnerable so why are we making them learn remotely and wear masks when they go back to school in person? That never actually made any sense because even if they didn't get sick, children could be a vector of transmission and give the virus to their teachers and school staff, family members and community. But now more and more of them are getting sick, including very sick and in the hospital and on ventilators and also sometimes dead.

Third important point: If you have a mutant that's more transmissible, it's going to take over and crowd out the less transmissible versions that might confer immunity on some people who don't infect others, or don't infect as many others. That's what happened already with delta. If it acquires another mutation that makes it even more transmissible, we will be even more screwed. The way to prevent that is for everybody to get vaccinated, which will mean less viral replication and less opportunity for mutation.

There is plenty of vaccine in the U.S. for everybody, and it's free. The reason we are in this horrific situation is because the Republican party is an anti-science death cult. They are making us sick and killing us because the party, as a whole, is pathological. The nation cannot survive if these malignant clowns cling to any substantial power.

Update: From Digby, at least they're preferentially killing themselves. And I do not mourn.

Update 2: Learn the facts before you write an ignorant comment. (Source) addendum: There is a difference between people who haven't yet been fully vaccinated because it is difficult for them to do so -- they can't take time off from work, there is no place convenient for them to get it, they haven't had the Internet connections to sign up for an appointment, they have child care and elder care responsibilities, etc. -- and people who outright refuse. The poll shown below, which is scientifically accurate, represents people who are ideologically opposed to getting the vaccine. This correlates very strongly with being a white, conservative Republican. That is the truth.