Fire Away…

Biden knew how cheaply he could distribute free rapid tests 17+ months ago, he simply chose to let his corporate donors price gauge us instead. pic.twitter.com/5uBiiDXZBF

— Holding Biden Accountable (@WaitingOnBiden) December 26, 2021

3 Billion people will get #COVID19 #OmicronVariant: Univ of Washington researchers projection

That's 40% of the world's population over a few months. The modelling predicts 35M infections/day globally mid January!

Impact on #healthcare?! #CES2022 #CES #COVID #health #Omicron pic.twitter.com/RCZAMVLVWz

— Jim Harris #CES2022 (@JimHarris) December 27, 2021

As Omicron Surges, Sanders Says Congress Must Ensure Mass Distribution of N95 Masks

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday demanded that Congress act urgently to ensure the widespread distribution of N95 masks to U.S. households as the highly contagious Omicron variant continues to rip through the country, overwhelming already-strained hospitals nationwide.

“As we face the rapidly spreading Omicron variant, we should remember that not all face masks are created equal,” Sanders (I-Vt.), chair of the Senate Budget Committee, wrote on Twitter. “Congress must demand the mass production and distribution of N-95 masks, the most effective way to stop the spread of the Covid virus.”

“Ideally, a set of masks would be mailed to each U.S. household every month.”
Sanders’ call comes as experts are vocally emphasizing the importance of high-quality masks in stemming the transmission of Omicron, which was first detected in southern Africa last month and has since become the dominant variant in the U.S. and other countries.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that Omicron now accounts for nearly 75% of new Covid-19 cases in the U.S., which has recorded the most coronavirus deaths in the world. Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, warned Sunday that Omicron cases “likely will go much higher” in the coming days.

“Even though we’re pleased by the evidence from multiple countries that it looks like there is a lesser degree of severity, we’ve got to be careful that we don’t get complacent about that,” Fauci said in an appearance on ABC. “It might still lead to a lot of hospitalization in the United States.”

With Omicron infections spiking, public health experts have stressed that medical-grade N95 masks are easily preferable to cloth masks, which—according to University of Oxford professor Trish Greenhalgh—are often mere “fashion accessories” that don’t provide adequate protection.

Linsey Marr, a virus researcher at Virginia Tech, similarly argued in an interview with NPR last week that “cloth masks are not going to cut it with Omicron.”

“I have a lot of confidence in the vaccines, if you’re boosted, in protecting against severe outcomes, and I have a lot of confidence in an N95 and similar types of respirators,” Marr said. “And I think that with those two things, you can still go about a lot of your normal activities.”

Last week, after initially mocking the idea, the Biden administration announced a plan to distribute 500 million rapid at-home coronavirus tests to U.S. households that request them. But the federal government has yet to pursue a similar strategy with masks despite months of pleas from healthcare workers, experts, and lawmakers.

“Ideally, a set of masks would be mailed to each U.S. household every month—the costs of doing so pale in comparison to the pandemic’s toll on lives and the economy,” physicians Abraar Karan and Ranu Dhillon and patient advocate Devabhaktuni Srikrishna wrote in a January op-ed for STAT.

“The use of such masks would, in combination with other risk-reduction strategies, create safer workspaces for essential workers,” the trio argued.

In July of 2020, Sanders introduced legislation that would have required the federal government to manufacture and deliver high-quality masks to every person in the country. The bill garnered dozens of co-sponsors in the House and Senate—as well as the endorsements of a number of advocacy organizations—but has not advanced in either chamber.

While the U.S. is no longer facing the kinds of severe N95 shortages that hampered the nation’s early response to the pandemic, quality face-coverings can still be difficult to find due to the proliferation of counterfeits on Amazon and other e-commerce sites. Nonprofit groups such as Project N95 have attempted to help people navigate the morass of fakes and locate genuinely high-quality masks.

In recent days, public health experts have criticized the CDC for explicitly recommending against N95 masks for the general public in its formal guidance, which argues that such masks “should be prioritized for healthcare personnel.”

Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and visiting professor of health policy and management at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health, told CNN last week that it has “been many months since supply of N95s [has been] an issue.”

“If we’re going to go as far as to say that masks are required—when we don’t come from a mask-wearing culture and people don’t like wearing masks—at least recommend that they wear the most effective mask,” said Wen.

Every patient I’ve seen with Covid that’s had a 3rd ‘booster’ dose has had mild symptoms.

By mild I mean mostly sore throat. Lots of sore throat. Also some fatigue, maybe some muscle pain.

No difficulty breathing. No shortness of breath.

All a little uncomfortable, but fine.

— Craig Spencer MD MPH (@Craig_A_Spencer) December 27, 2021

Most patients I’ve seen that had one dose of J&J and had Covid were worse overall. Felt horrible. Fever for a few days (or more).

Weak, tired. Some shortness of breath and cough.

But not one needing hospitalization. Not one needing oxygen.

Not great. But not life-threatening.

— Craig Spencer MD MPH (@Craig_A_Spencer) December 27, 2021

The point is you’re gonna hear about a LOT of people getting Covid in the coming days and weeks.

Those that have been vaccinated and got a booster dose will mostly fare well with minimal symptoms.

Those getting two doses might have a few more symptoms, but should still do well.

— Craig Spencer MD MPH (@Craig_A_Spencer) December 27, 2021

The unvaccinated. Those who haven’t gotten a single dose of vaccine.

They’re the most likely to need oxygen. They’re the most likely to have complications. They’re the most likely to get admitted. And the most likely to stay in the hospital for days or longer with severe Covid.

— Craig Spencer MD MPH (@Craig_A_Spencer) December 27, 2021

So no matter your political affiliation, or thoughts on masks, or where you live in this country, as an ER doctor you’d trust with your life if you rolled into my emergency room at 3am, I promise you that you’d rather face the oncoming Omicron wave vaccinated.

Please be safe. ❤️

— Craig Spencer MD MPH (@Craig_A_Spencer) December 27, 2021

Desmond Tutu Opposed Capitalism, Israeli Apartheid and US/UK Imperialism, Too

This may sound either arrogant or forgetful, but I could not possibly remember the number of times I was in the same room or at the same protest as Desmond Tutu. And the main reason I know he was there is because I was there listening to him speak, often from a distance of not more than two meters or so. I say this not to associate myself with the great man — though I’ll forgive you for thinking I’m a terrible, narcissistic name-dropper — but just to be sure we all know this all really happened, because I saw and heard it.

It seems very important to mention, because of the way this man is already being remembered by the world’s pundits and politicians. As anyone could have predicted, Tutu is being remembered as the great opponent of apartheid in his native South Africa, who was one of the most recognized and most eloquent leaders of the anti-apartheid struggle there, for most of his adult life.

Being a leader in the movement to end apartheid in South Africa was probably the greatest achievement of the man’s life work, and it should come as a surprise to no one that this is the focus of his many obituaries, along with the Nobel he was awarded in 1984. After Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination, he was remembered by the establishment in much the same way, as a leader of the movement against apartheid in the US. The fact that he had become one of the most well-known and well-loved voices of the antiwar movement in the United States and around the world at the time of his death has largely been written out of the history books, a very inconvenient truth.

But as with Martin Luther King, many of the same political leaders commemorating Tutu today would have been unlikely to mention him a day earlier, lest Tutu take the opportunity to speak his mind. This is certainly why he was not invited to commemorate his friend and comrade, Nelson Mandela, at Mandela’s funeral eight years ago.

Like King and so many others, we can be sure that all the praises of Desmond Tutu as the great moral compass of the world will be made safely, after he’s dead. Before then would have been much too dangerous, and he was best ignored until then — at which point his passing can be used as an easy way for liberals and conservatives alike to talk about how they also opposed South African apartheid, eventually.

Looking back at Desmond Tutu’s life, searching for various references to protests I recall him speaking at, there’s a headline from the Washington Post on February 16th, 2003 — “thousands protest a war in Iraq,” in New York City the day before. There were at least half a million people at the rally, on one of the coldest winter days anyone could remember. What I recall most vividly is being behind the stage, which was even colder than most anywhere else at the protest, because it was also in the shade. Huddling amid the frozen metal scaffolding were a variety of leftwing luminaries, including Desmond Tutu, Danny Glover, and Susan Serandon, who were getting all the attention from the media, allowing me to hang out with Pete and Toshi Seeger, since no one else wanted to talk to them, or me.

The following year there was a rally in Copley Square in Boston, Massachusetts against Israeli apartheid. It was very windy, and there were hundreds of people filling the area in front of the big church there on Boylston Street. I don’t remember who else spoke, but Tutu was the main speaker, and he spoke at length, after I sang “They’re Building A Wall” and other songs related to the anti-apartheid struggle in Palestine, as it was an event in solidarity with Palestinians. Being such a well-known leader in the struggle against South African apartheid, when he would compare Israeli apartheid to the South African version, this was just the kind of support the movement to boycott Israel needed, and Tutu did his best to provide it, over and over again.

There were three overlapping social movements in the early 2000’s that I was involved with as a musician, all of which Tutu was deeply involved with. I apologize for speaking of these movements in the past tense, but none of them are anywhere near as big or active as they were in the early 2000’s. I’m talking about the global justice movement and the movement to cancel debt in the Global South, the movement against Israeli apartheid, and the movement against the US/UK invasion of Iraq.

At the time I wondered how it was that Desmond Tutu was showing up at so many of the same protests, conferences, and other events I was attending, promoting, or singing at. There was a lot going on, and at the time I didn’t know Tutu was actually living in the United States much of the time in the early 2000’s, as a visiting professor in both Georgia and Massachusetts. There were a lot of other South African radicals at so many of the rallies, especially around the global justice movement, such as representatives of the South African trade unions. The South African poet, the late Dennis Brutus, was everywhere back then as well.

Journalism, they say, is the first draft of history. The journalists, when given the job to cover Desmond Tutu, generally did so when it had something to do with South African apartheid, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which he chaired, etc. The journalists aren’t present elsewhere. Their bosses didn’t send them to cover the protests Tutu was speaking at in Boston or New York, for the most part.

Lots of other drafts of history are then rewritten, for the text books, and for the obituaries, when once again Desmond Tutu’s centrality to the struggle against South African apartheid will be highlighted, with most everything else papered over or ignored entirely. Others will recall Tutu’s service to the global social movements that arose in the decades after apartheid, to which he gave the full weight of his moral standing — whether these movements were covered by the corporate press or not, whether most of us knew these movements existed or not.

Yes, for those of us who were involved with the social movements that were active when Tutu was a spry young man of 70 or so, we will remember him as a fierce critic of capitalism, of Israeli apartheid, and of US and British wars of aggression. And we know why he is being praised now by media outlets and politicians who have had no time or space for him since 1998 or so.

Desmond Tutu failed to remain in his historical place. Had he played his cards differently in the post-South African apartheid period, he could have been a very rich and even more venerated man, winning lots more awards and schmoozing with the world’s power brokers. Instead, before his official retirement from public life at the age of 79, he spent his seventies campaigning around the world as part of social movements for equality, dignity, and peace, and being a thorn in the side of so many of the rich and powerful people praising him today.

Dead people can’t speak out in their own defense, which makes them much less dangerous than when they were alive (especially if they died of natural causes). So it’s up to those of us who are still here to speak, and to remember. Long live Desmond Tutu. Long live Desmond Tutu’s vision of a world free of oppression — a world in which so many of the politicians praising him today would be in front of a truth and reconciliation commission tomorrow, if Tutu were calling the shots. Amandla awethu. Our time will come.

More than 7,000 flights delayed, canceled Sunday amid omicron surge

More than 7,300 flights were canceled or delayed in the U.S. on Sunday due to spikes of COVID-19 cases as many people sought to travel home from their Christmas holiday destinations, USA Today reports.

Approximately 5,900 flights were delayed as the omicron variant has led to a surge in coronavirus cases nationwide. About 1,400 flights were canceled altogether, according to the news outlet, which gathered its data from the flight-tracking website FlightAware.

The news of the mass delays and cancellations comes after around 4,000 flights had been delayed or canceled on Christmas on Saturday as airlines cite extreme staff shortages from COVID-19 infections.

American Airlines told The Hill on Christmas that that “a number of COVID-related sick calls led us to make the difficult decision to precancel some flights scheduled for today,” despite its operation “running smoothly.”

On Sunday, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, said that he would support domestic air travel vaccine mandates.

The inventors of insulin sold their patents for $1 in 1923 – almost 100 years ago. It is a crime against humanity that insulin is made by corporations that care only about maximizing profits, not saving lives. Insulin should cost $0.

— Warren Gunnels (@GunnelsWarren) December 27, 2021

Co-written by #Bernie2020 top staffer, @davidsirota! #DontLookUp https://t.co/lknkpzhSQX

— RoseAnn DeMoro (@RoseAnnDeMoro) December 27, 2021

I started watching the movie this afternoon, but I find the screen play very dull. Only got 1/3 of the way through. Given that it was written by progressives, maybe I’m not the audience though. I’ll pick it back up later.