This makes me crazy! I really want to believe that Iām an average person. And then I see how incredibly gullible 20% of the nation can be and Iām flummoxed. I try to think about how someone could get sucked into that kind of thinkingā¦I guess I donāt understand brainwashing.
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I agree. It is really hard to get oneās head around.
Might fall into the āif you are told a lie long enough, then you start to believe itā¦ā which is autocracy 101. Read Tim Snyderās work āOn Tyranny.ā - people can be swayed, and they have their own belief system wrapped around their ālike/trust/loveā towards a leader. The lie does not have to be believable if you believe that others are trying to āhoodwinkā youā¦ie āThe Liberal Agenda,ā āFake News,ā and spend a lot of time in a Grievance mode.
Yes, it is agreed that any part of āThe Big Lieā is just that. But again, if you like that leader you will believe him.
More susceptible population - religious groups (Evangelicals) as they have already put their hat in for certain religious events will come to pass etc.
It is beyond crazy making.
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Iāve read some of his articles but not the book, yet. Currently being depressed by Jane Mayerās āDark Moneyā. And, indeed, people will believe what they want to believeā¦but some of what they believe is unbelievable 
(sorry, I couldnāt resist).
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yeahā¦I have that sitting here too. It is dark.
and unbelievably true.
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After all the lies, the bravado, the gaslighting, it turns out Donald Trump and Melania got the vaccine before they left office and are now jumping on the bandwagon trying to give him credit for it. Incredible.
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Drugmaker Merck & Co. will help produce rival Johnson & Johnsonās newly approved coronavirus vaccine in an effort to expand supply more quickly, a Biden administration official confirmed Tuesday.
Virus Variant in Brazil Infected Many Who Had Already Recovered From Covid-19
The first detailed studies of the so-called P.1 variant show how it devastated a Brazilian city. Now scientists want to know what it will do elsewhere.
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Biden now says US will have enough vaccine for every adult by the end of May
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I just watched Dolly Parton sing āvaccineā to the tune of Jolene after getting her shot, to encourage others to get theirs. Awesome.
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Gorillas are the first non-humans to be vaccinated for COVID-19. They have received an animal-based vaccine. Gorillas, tigers, and some other animals have caught the disease.
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Democrats pulled their own trick last night; the GOP left, and when they did the Dems limited debate to only 3 hours to move the COVID relief bill forward swiftly.
Well done.
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An Idaho man who āthought the virus would disappearā after the election now has ālong COVIDā and says heāll need oxygen for the rest of his life
- A man who thought the coronavirus would disappear after the election realized he was wrong.
- Paul Russell told the Idaho Statesman he was a āconspiracy theoristā until he was hospitalized.
- He said he could no longer work and would need oxygen for the rest of his life.
A man who thought the coronavirus would disappear was hospitalized for more than two weeks with the virus and said he would now need medical oxygen for the rest of his life.
Paul Russell, 63, from Boise, Idaho, told the Idaho Statesmanās Audrey Dutton: āBefore I came down with the virus, I was one of those jackasses who thought the virus would disappear the day after the election. I was one of those conspiracy theorists.ā
But he was in the hospital with the coronavirus a week after the election on November 3, Dutton reported.
Russell, a long-haul trucker, said he had been returning to Boise when he started to feel unwell. He quarantined himself at home, in a travel trailer he owns with his wife.
His COVID-19 test came back positive. A few days later he felt so unwell that he asked his wife to bring him to the hospital, where he received intensive care.
A nurse at one point put him on the phone with his wife. Russell said she told him how much she loved him, ābecause she didnāt know if I was gonna make it through the night.ā
In total, he spent 16 days in St. Lukeās Boise Medical Center, he told the Statesman. He also enrolled in a clinical trial to test the effects of an immunosuppressive drug on the virus.
He was able to go home on Thanksgiving Day and have dinner with his family. āIt was the best Thanksgiving Iāve ever had,ā he said.
But Russell said he was still living with the effects of the virus. He said he couldnāt work anymore.
āIām gonna be on oxygen the rest of my life, according to my doctor,ā he said.
āLife is no good right now,ā Russell added. āExcept for one thing: Iām alive.ā
Some people who were infected with the coronavirus continue to experience symptoms for weeks and months afterward, experiencing whatās been called ālong COVID.ā Symptoms can include fatigue, dizziness, pain, and problems with memory.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says some people can experience āmore serious long-term complicationsā including inflammation of the heart muscle and depression and anxiety.
One study, published in January, of about 1,700 people who had been hospitalized with COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, found that 76% reported having at least one symptom six months after they first got sick.
This can put additional pressure on healthcare systems already overwhelmed by treating people with COVID-19.
https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/coronavirus/article249663363.html
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Trump Puts Out Sad Statement on Presidential Letterhead Pleading for Credit for COVID Vaccine
Former President Donald Trump issued a statement Wednesday on presidential letterhead that read less like an official missive and more like one of his old tweets: āStatement by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America: I hope that everyone remembers when theyāre getting the COVID-19 (often referred to as the China Virus) Vaccine, that if I wasnāt president, you wouldnāt be getting that beautiful āshotā for 5 years, at best, and probably wouldnāt be getting it at all. I hope everyone remembers!ā Trump was banned from Twitter on Jan. 8 in the wake of the riot at the U.S. Capitol.
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On Covid Relief, Democrats Deserve a Victory Lap
A giant aid package is what the country badly needed and what voters wanted.
The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.
President Biden made it clear that he wanted to move fast and go big to deliver emergency aid to a nation reeling from the coronavirus pandemic. On Friday, he will realize this goal with the signing of the American Rescue Plan, a sweeping, $1.9 trillion aid package aimed at rescuing the nation from its pandemic slump.
This is an early and impressive political win for Mr. Biden: He pushed for a $1.9 trillion deal, and he got an approximately $1.9 trillion deal that largely follows the contours he proposed. Better still, the bill passed and will be signed before the expiration of the current enhanced unemployment aid on Sunday.
Far more important, this is a big win for the American public ā especially those of modest economic means. The legislation has the potential to cut poverty by a third and reduce child poverty by more than half, according to an analysis by Columbia Universityās Center on Poverty and Social Policy. Black and Hispanic Americans are expected to see the largest benefit. It is being characterized by fans and critics as among the most expansive and progressive legislative achievements in decades.
The package is ambitious. Directly tackling the pressing public health challenges, it provides billions for coronavirus tracing, testing and vaccination efforts.
It also includes another round of cash relief: People earning up to $75,000 a year will receive $1,400, plus an additional $1,400 for every dependent they claim on their taxes. Enhanced unemployment benefits of $300 will extend through Labor Day. The earned-income tax credit will be expanded. There is money for child care facilities, schools, transit systems and restaurants. There is rental and mortgage assistance, debt relief for minority farmers and funding for small-business loans.
One of the planās most notable measures is an expansion of the child tax credit. Parents up to a certain income level will receive $3,600 for each child younger than 6 and $3,000 for those ages 6 to 17. The credit is structured so that even those who donāt pay income taxes can receive the benefit as a cash refund. The program is set to expire after one year, but supporters hope it will prove popular enough that it can be made permanent, effectively establishing a guaranteed base income for parents.
The new law also provides for a two-year expansion of subsidies for purchasing health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, which fulfills another of Mr. Bidenās key campaign promises. The list goes on and on.
Not everyone is a fan of the plan. Not a single Republican in either chamber voted for it despite its broad public support. Republicans have denounced it as too expensive and too unfocused. They also complain that Democrats shut them out of the legislative process ā that, for all of his big talk about bipartisanship, Mr. Biden barreled ahead with only the support of his own congressional team.
The legislating was messy, as these things tend to be, with clashes both within and between the parties. Moderate Democrats demanded concessions from progressives, and Republicans sought to make the entire process as protracted and painful as possible.
Senator Ron Johnson, the Wisconsin Republican, demanded that the 628-page bill be read aloud on the floor. Senate Republicans en masse turned the consideration of amendments into a marathon exercise in political theater that went straight through Friday night and into midday Saturday. As the bill made its final pass through the House on Wednesday morning, Republicans there indulged in even more foot-dragging. So much for cross-party comity.
The Biden administration is betting that most Americans care less ā if at all ā about process than about product.
Itās not a perfect bill. There will be bloat and inefficiencies. But the presidentās unshakable position ā backed by recent history ā was that it was better to go too big than too small. No one on his team wanted to repeat the mistakes of the 2009 economic stimulus, now widely seen as having been too meager.
Mr. Biden learned another lesson from 2009: It is not enough to give Americans a win. You need to trumpet that win from the rooftops. So he is embarking on a combination victory tour and marketing blitz, aimed at driving home how the recovery plan will improve individualsā lives ā and the nation as a whole. He has scheduled a prime-time address, the first of his presidency, for Thursday evening. Soon, he will be hitting the road to sell the plan, as will the first lady and the vice president, among others. Friendly super PACs are planning related PR campaigns, and Mr. Biden has urged congressional Democrats to ācontinue to speak up and speak outā about it.
Big legislative wins are rare. Democrats have earned a victory lap for doing just what voters sent them to Washington to do.
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Native American tribes are pulling off many of the most successful coronavirus vaccination campaigns in the U.S., bucking stereotypes about tribal governments.
The big picture: Despite severe technological barriers, some tribes are vaccinating their members so efficiently, and at such high rates, that theyāve been able to branch out and offer coronavirus vaccines to people outside of their tribes.
Why it matters: Native Americans are one of the most at-risk groups for contracting and dying from the coronavirus. But tribal nations have rallied to get members vaccinated and helped nearby communities while major cities have struggled with rollouts.
Details: Tribes, which are sovereign nations that can set their own eligibility criteria, immediately got doses and launched vigorous campaigns on vaccines.
- The White Earth Nation in Minnesota was so successful in early vaccinations that it immediately began vaccinating non-tribal members, Minnesota Public Radio reports.
- The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe in Colorado last week said after it has vaccinated 1,900 of its tribal members and staff it will offer 2,000 doses to the general public.
- Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico, the tribe of Interior Secretary nominee Deb Haaland, also started offering doses to nearby residents after tribal members received theirs. Several tribes in Oklahoma have, too.
- An AP analysis of federal data showed Native Americans were getting vaccinated at a rate higher than all but five states by Februaryās end.
What theyāre saying: " White Earth has done a phenomenal job, vaccinating nearly 90% of elders in Mahnomen County, extending eligibility to Native and non-Native adults in the community ā¦ I am proud to be a White Earth member," Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan tweeted after getting her vaccine.
- āThis shows when we state and federal governments trust tribal governments to take care of their communities, they go above and beyond for their members and neighbors,ā Flanagan, who lost her brother to the coronavirus, told Axios.
Between the lines: The early success is even more impressive when taking into account the dismal state of internet access on tribal lands.
- A 2019 FCC report shows that 36% of housing units on tribal land have no access to broadband ā compared to 8% on non-tribal land.
- In 2019, the American Indian Policy Institute found that 18% of tribal reservation residents have no internet access at home, wireless or land-based.
Three Indigenous principles have helped provide the impetus to get vaccinated, according to activist Allie Young, a citizen of the Navajo Nation:
- Recognize how Native Americansā actions will impact the next seven generations.
- Act in honor of ancestors who fought to ensure their survival and elders who carry on their traditions and cultures.
- Hold on to ancestral knowledge in the ongoing fight to protect Mother Earth.
The bottom line: The vaccination campaign worked largely through word of mouth and tribal outreach.
- But chronic underfunding, mismanagement at the federally run Indian Health Service and poor technological infrastructure still mean that Native Americans often canāt access telemedicine and other important services.
"We knew how to reach our population, despite these obstacles, because weāve been having to overcome these obstacles for some time already," said Abigail Echo-Hawk, Seattle Indian Health Boardās chief research officer and member of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma. āThat doesnāt mean you let it continue.ā
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4.6 Million vaccines todayā¦ 
.
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House delays opening while 1 in 4 members not vaccinated, many refuse to get their shot
About 75 percent of House Representatives members have been vaccinated against COVID-19.
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Mississippiās Governor Rejects Medicaid Expansion for Working-Class Constituents
The state is passing on roughly $600 million in federal funding to prevent residents from getting Medicaid.
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Conservative opinion weiter makes some interesting pointsā¦weād like to forget this Covid thing.
NYTimes: Pandemics Kill Compassion, Too
Pandemics Kill Compassion, Too
Some disasters, like hurricanes and earthquakes, can bring people together, but if history is any judge, pandemics generally drive them apart. These are crises in which social distancing is a virtue. Dread overwhelms the normal bonds of human affection.
In āThe Decameron,ā Giovanni Boccaccio writes about what happened during the plague that hit Florence in 1348: āTedious were it to recount how citizen avoided citizen, how among neighbors was scarce found any that shewed fellow-feeling for another, how kinfolk held aloof, and never met ā¦ nay, what is more, and scarcely to be believed, fathers and mothers were found to abandon their own children, untended, unvisited, to their fate.ā
In his book on the 1665 London epidemic, āA Journal of the Plague Year,ā Daniel Defoe reports, āThis was a time when every oneās private safety lay so near them they had no room to pity the distresses of others. ā¦ The danger of immediate death to ourselves, took away all bonds of love, all concern for one another.ā
Fear drives people in these moments, but so does shame, caused by the brutal things that have to be done to slow the spread of the disease. In all pandemics people are forced to make the decisions that doctors in Italy are now forced to make ā withholding care from some of those who are suffering and leaving them to their fate.
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So thereās thisā¦and never easy to read, but it could be true.
The number of people hospitalized with a confirmed case of COVID-19 in the United States has been plummeting since early January. Until about three weeks ago, hospitalizations in Michigan were following the same pattern: More people with COVID-19 were leaving the hospital than were being admitted. But in the past few weeks, data from the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services have shown that hospitalizations have risen by 45 percent from the stateās recent low on February 25. According to federal data, among U.S. metropolitan areas with more than 1 million people, the Detroit area now ranks fourth in hospital admissionsāand first in a metric that combines increases in test positivity and cases.
Throughout the fall and winter, we saw a clear patternācases would rise, then hospitalizations about a week later, and finally, two weeks after that, deaths would follow. Nursing homes and other long-term-care facilities reported particularly heavy death tolls. If Michigan were to continue that pattern, we would expect hospitalizations to keep rising, and then more deaths.
But as a spring surge takes hold in Michigan, two new factorsāvariants of concern and rising vaccination levelsāmean that we donāt yet know how this new rise in cases and hospitalizations will play out.
The vaccination of people 65 and older and of nursing-home residents should blunt the death toll of a rise in cases. But according to state data, Michigan has administered first doses to 61 percent of its residents aged 65ā74, and 62 percent of residents 75 and older. Detroitās figures are much lower: The city has given first doses to only 43 percent of those aged 65ā74 and 39 percent of people 75 and older. For comparison, the CDC reports that 66 percent of the U.S. population aged 65 and up has received at least one dose of vaccine. The numbers are even worse for Black people in Michigan: Statewide, just 28 percent of Black residents 65 and older are known to have received at least one dose of vaccine. Overall, Michigan has administered first doses to only about a quarter of its total population, and that number falls to 15 percent in Detroit.
The reality of vaccinations in nursing homes remains difficult to understand. The CDC reports that about 182,000 people in nursing homes and other long-term-care facilities have been vaccinated in Michigan through the Federal Pharmacy Partnershipāā, but doesnāt separate resident and staff doses at the state level, making it impossible to derive a percentage of facility residents who have been immunized. According to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, COVID-19 cases and deaths in the stateās long-term-care facilities have declined substantially through February and March, and we can hope that this decline holds even as cases and outbreaks emerge around these facilities.
As Michiganās numbers go back up, the obvious next question is to what degree variants of concern are playing a role in this localized surge. Genomic surveillance remains limited in the United States, but from the numbers we do have, it seems as though the variant known as B.1.1.7, first identified in the U.K., is quite widespread in Michigan. In fact, according to the CDCās tracking, the state of Michigan has the second-most confirmed cases of B.1.1.7 after Florida, despite having less than half the number of residents.
Although Michiganās numbers indisputably show a resurgence of COVID-19, there are troubling signs in other parts of the country. Federal data show that per-capita hospitalizations in the New York area have remained among the highest in the nation. Unlike many other areas of the country, where hospitalizations have fallen close to pre-surge levels, in New York and New Jersey hospitalizations have plateaued for weeks, according to federal data. We are not yet seeing huge upticks, but itās not a good sign that as many people are being admitted to hospitals as are leaving them.
In months past, we might have been able to make educated guesses about what might happen next as the situation worsens in Detroit: We would expect to see cases and hospitalizations increase statewide and also rise elsewhere in the region, as when the Dakotas and Wisconsin acted as sentinels for the deadly third surge of cases over the winter. We would also have seen deaths soar several weeks after cases rose, especially within nursing homes. But Michiganās surge arrives in a national landscape altered by new viral variants and more than 100 million immune systems strengthened by vaccination. We anticipate that state and federal vaccination efforts will increase in and around Detroitāand across the countryāfast enough to prevent a regional or national reversal of our hard-won progress. What the numbers incontrovertibly show, however, is that weāre not going to see COVID-19 immediately disappear. As public-health experts have suggested for months, there will be continuing outbreaks this springālikely as a result of B.1.1.7 becoming the dominant virus. Now the question is how bad theyāll get and how far theyāll spread.
Alexis C. Madrigal, Dave Luo, Peter Walker, Erin Kissane, Jessica Malaty Rivera, and Conor Kelly contributed to this article.
The COVID Tracking Project is a volunteer organization launched from The Atlantic and dedicated to collecting and publishing the data required to understand the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States.
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