Jennifer Rubin, honorary Assistant Press Secretary to the Biden Administration, recently decided that we shouldn’t be focused on the case numbers for COVID-19 anymore and, instead, we need to focus on hospitalizations and deaths. This was reflected in Joe Biden’s admission of defeat again the virus, where he said there is no longer a “federal solution” to the pandemic.

Several folks in the media are slowly making this shift as they have realized that the omicron variant does not appear to discriminate between vaccinated and unvaccinated when it comes to infecting someone. The severity of the cases seems largely dependent on vaccination status, but in all likelihood, we’re going to see omicron become the dominant strain in the U.S. fairly quickly (if it isn’t already).

While the case rate is going up pretty dramatically in a lot of areas around the country, the hospitalization and death rates are not moving up at the same rate, which reinforces the idea that this surge is led by a strain that is not as severe as prior strains. //

case numbers are high in Florida, so while high case numbers aren’t a bad thing for Joe Biden, they apparently are for Republican governors.

Because science, I suppose.

All of the people who are going after Republican governors like DeSantis are doing so largely because they are still caught in the grip of fear over the virus, despite the evidence that the worst of it has passed. We’re at the point now where the virus is probably going to be around forever (like the flu), will have yearly vaccines available to fight it (like the flu), and isn’t a death sentence (like the flu).

Florida’s surgeon general has accused the Biden administration of “actively preventing” the distribution of monoclonal antibody treatments for COVID-19, causing an “immediate and life-threatening shortage of treatment options.”

In a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra on Tuesday, Dr. Joseph Ladapo alleged that HHS had reduced the number of antibodies allocated to the Sunshine State earlier this year “without any advanced notice.” //

​Another monoclonal antibody, GlaxoSmithKline’s Sotrovimab, appears to be more effective against Omicron and continues to be distributed by the federal government. ​But according to Ladapo, none has been allocated from the federal government to Florida, forcing the DeSantis administration to purchase a supply on its own.

Scott Gottlieb, MD
@ScottGottliebMD
Setting aside the question of how the initial estimate was so inaccurate, if CDC’s new estimate of #Omicron prevalence is precise then it suggests that a good portion of the current hospitalizations we’re seeing from Covid may still be driven by Delta infections.
David Lim
@davidalim
CDC's estimate for the prevalence of Omicron last week dropped significantly from 73.2% w/ a 95% prediction interval of 34-94.9% down to 22.5% w/ a 95% prediction interval of 15.4-31.5%.

12/25 estimate is 58.6% with a 95% prediction interval of 41.5-74%. https://twitter.com/ozair_naqvi/status/1473464231190315008
10:17 AM · Dec 28, 2021

Despite what we might think of them as public figures, they were spouses, fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts, grandparents, and they should be mourned. It does not diminish any other argument to bring gravity to the grief experienced and wish those experiencing that grief comfort.

But just as grief is complicated, so are these particular lives. For their sake and the sake of their causes, along with changing the world “for good,” they managed to unleash significant evil. Archbishop Tutu, Reid, and Sarah Weddington changed the trajectory of life and politics for this nation, and the world, so viewing their legacy through a more critical lens should be standard operating procedure.

Instead, what you see are the fulsome, glowing tributes on their accomplishments and how they changed the world for the better. What you rarely see is the post mortem on how those same accomplishments helped to further evil attitudes, evil intentions, divisiveness, and a culture of death.

Then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid eroded a once august body of governance with his decision to nuke the filibuster regarding judicial appointments. The Left is now paying for this — in spades. Then-Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warned them they would. When McConnell became Majority Leader after 2010, he used it to his advantage, most infamously blocking the nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.

Reid also helped tank Senator Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential aspirations with unfounded lies about Romney not paying his taxes for 10 years. In a CNN interview, Reid was unapologetic about his comments which Republicans compared to McCarthyism:

“They can call it whatever they want. Romney didn’t win did he?” Reid said.

Archbishop Tutu championed Anti-Semitism in his cause to destroy the cultural racism of apartheid. Even after apartheid was overthrown in South Africa, Archbishop Tutu had nothing good to say about Israel or the Jewish people.

British writer Melanie Phillips observed:

There was, however, another side to Tutu — a shocking side. And just as one should respect the dead and pay tribute to their achievements, it is also incumbent upon us to tell the truth about that person if that truth is important enough, however distasteful this may be. And it undoubtedly is that important.

It’s not merely that Tutu demonised Israel with libellous falsehoods. Worse still, he explicitly and repeatedly demonised the Jewish people. His occasional claims that he identified with the Jews and his acknowledgement that they had been allies in the great fight against South African apartheid generally morphed into his grotesque and incomprehensible accusation that the Jews of Israel had done to the Palestinian Arabs what the apartheid regime had done to the black population of South Africa. //

Alpha Kitty @AlphaKitty
Sarah Weddington, American Lawyer of the Roe v. Wade Case, Dies at 76 | She argued the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that legalized abortion in her first appearance before the high court at age 26 https://texastribune.org/2021/12/26/sarah-weddington-texas-roe-v-wade/
#womenshistory #womenrights #law
Image
11:58 AM · Dec 29, 2021 //

Thanks to Weddington and her work, the nation has experienced the almost 50-year stain that Roe and its subsequent culture of death have ingrained into the fabric of our country. From euthanasia to elder abuse and murder; youth murders, young people perpetrating mass shootings; to suicides and child trafficking: once you open the door to devaluing life at its most fecund point, that devaluation flows downstream. Pregnancy is a burden? Well, so is a special needs newborn, a troubled child, sick parents, and on it goes.

We are at the bottom of that slope and have been wallowing in the mud for quite some time. Everyone is filthy and smelly as a result of the decision 49 years ago to make life… expendable.

We will see how SCOTUS might rule on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, and see if the whirlwind that Sarah Weddington unleashed with her ambition and her righteous cause will die along with her.

Abby Johnson @AbbyJohnson
Sarah Weddington has died. I have many, many feelings about this. I knew Sarah. For many years, I held her in high esteem. Spent time with her. Respected her. Later, I came to see her as someone who was a master manipulator. I can only pray that she sought The Lord before death.
1:12 PM · Dec 27, 2021