Author Archives: Dana Pico

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A couple of updates

We have previously reported on the arrests of three men for the murder of Mykel Waide in Lexington. However, it seems that the Commonwealth’s Attorney was unable to present sufficient evidence to get the grand jury to indict any of the three men accused of the killing:

    Lexington men no longer face murder charges in death of former Tates Creek student

    by Jeremy Chisenhall | Monday, December 27, 2021 | 3:50 PM EST

    Three Lexington men are no longer facing murder charges in the death of a college student after a grand jury declined to indict two of them and prosecutors dropped the charge for the third.

    Antwone Davenport, Tayte Patton and Antonio Turner had all been charged with Mykel Waide’s death. Waide, who was 18 when he was shot and killed in August 2020, was set to start school at the University of Louisville the same week he died. He was also a former basketball player at Tates Creek High School.

    “A grand jury dismissal is without prejudice, meaning if new and or additional evidence is found the charges may be resubmitted to the grand jury for indictment,” Commonwealth’s Attorney Lou Anna Red Corn said. “Our office considers this to be an open case and those responsible for killing Mykel Waide will be held accountable.”

There’s more at the original.

We have also reported on the University of Pennsylvania’s Women’s Swimming and Diving Team’s Will Thomas, a male who believes he’s female, and has been allowed to compete on the women’s team after having taken testosterone suppressants for a year. It seems that the real women on the women’s team considered a boycott:

    Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas’ teammates considered boycotting final meet in protest

    By Yaron Steinbuch | Wednesday, December 29, 2021 | 1:49 PM EST | Updated: 3:42 PM EST

    UPenn Women’s Swim Team, via Instagram. It isn’t difficult to pick out the one man male in a women’s bikini top. Click to enlarge.

    A group of UPenn swimmers were so upset by transgender athlete Lia Thomas’ advantages that they mulled boycotting their final home meet — but decided not to for fear they’d be banned from the Ivy League championship, according to a report.

    Thomas, 22, who has smashed several records at the University of Pennsylvania this season, has sparked outrage for being eligible under NCAA rules to swim in women’s collegiate events after taking one year of testosterone suppressants.

    A source close to the team of 41 women who considered the boycott told the Daily Mail that “they’ve been ignored by both Penn and the NCAA.”

    The source told the outlet that “there is a feeling among some of the girls that they should make some sort of statement, seize the opportunity while they have a spotlight on them to make their feelings about the issue known.”

However, in the end, they athletes decided against the boycott, because they viewed it as likely to end their ability to participate in the Ivy League championships in February.

    Another source told the Daily Mail that Thomas will likely blow away the upcoming competition.

    “It’ll be like the last couple meets. Lia will finish and nobody will give a s—. Then when the first biological female finishes, there will be a huge eruption of applause,” the source said.

Of course, the women on the team all have to worry about their futures, and whether they’ll be blacklisted for being “transphobic.” They could get kicked off the team, or even kicked out of school, because even in an Ivy League school, where everybody is supposed to be oh-so-smart, they can’t tell the difference between males and females . . . or if they can, they aren’t allowed to tell the truth about it.

But while the real women on the team have to keep quiet, it seems as though the spectators have made their views known, with their silence as Mr Thomas wins his races. The common people, it seems, have some common sense.

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The tale of the Democrats’ failure in Philadelphia has been written in blood

As both of my regular readers know, I check the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page every weekday morning, to get the latest homicide numbers in the City of Brotherly Love. I was somewhat surprised that, after reporting 547 homicides through 11:59 PM on Thursday, December 23rd, the police reported ‘only’ 549 through Sunday, December 26th, and the same number as of Monday, December 27th.

Techish, 2640 Germantown Avenue, photo via Google Maps. Click to enlarge.

But this morning? The police report six more dead, for a total of 555, through Tuesday, December 28th. Philadelphia Inquirer nighttime breaking news reporter Robert Moran had two stories late yesterday, Unidentified man fatally shot inside North Philly phone store, in which a masked man entered the Techish phone sales and repair shop at 2640 Germantown Avenue, and fired sixteen shots, killing an unidentified man, without any prior known provocation, and Two men killed outside Club Risque among nine shot in Philadelphia overnight, in which two men were gunned down outside the Wissinoming strip club at 5921 Tacony Street, a less than attractive area across from Interstate 95, early Tuesday morning.

Club Risque, photo via Google Maps. Click to enlarge.

As usual, I had to dig for those stories; none were on the front page of the Inquirer’s website, because, as I have said many times before, black lives don’t matter to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Well, perhaps some of the six newly recorded dead had been shot the previous day, and simply didn’t expire in time to be included in the Monday stats:

    Seven are wounded, including a 14-year-old boy, in separate Philly shootings

    The shootings happened around the same time in Olney and Kensington, and later in South and North Philadelphia.

    by Robert Moran | Updated: Monday, December 27, 2021

    Seven people were injured, including a 14-year-old boy, in separate shootings Monday night in Philadelphia, police said.

    Shortly before 7:15 p.m., the teen was outside on the 200 block of Widener Street in Olney when he was shot in the face and back. He was taken by police to Einstein Medical Center, where he was listed in stable condition.

    Police reported no arrests in that case.

    Around the same time, three people were shot on the 200 block of East Cambria Street in Kensington, police said.

Among the most seriously wounded:

    2300 block of South Bouvier Street, via Google Maps. Click to enlarge.

    Just before 8:40 p.m., police responded to a reported double shooting inside a residence on the 2300 block of South Bouvier Street.

    A 52-year-old woman shot twice in the head was taken by police to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where she was listed in critical condition. A 54-year-old man also had a gunshot wound to the head. He was taken to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and was reported in critical condition.

At least according to Google Maps, South Bouvier Street doesn’t look too bad! More modern row houses, at least from the front, than is frequently seen in the city, though the street is one of Philly’s narrowest.

So, how many people have been murdered in Philadelphia? I noted, on Monday, January 4, 2021, that the police had reported 502 murders for the previous year. It wasn’t my imagination; that was the number showing on the then-current crime statistics page. I guess that I should have taken a screen shot of it, because somehow, three people managed to recover from death, and the number was quickly reduced to 499.

I won’t make that mistake this year!

I have my suspicions, of course. It could have been that three people reported murdered didn’t expire until after 11:59 PM EST on New Year’s Eve, and were thus counted as having been killed this year. Or, were I a conspiracy theorist, it could have been that 502 people were murdered in 2020, but three were pushed off until 2021, so that Mayor Jim Kenney, a Democrat, District Attorney Larry Krasner, a stooge of George Soros, and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, wouldn’t have that ignominious gold medal on their records, leaving 1990’s 500 as still the record number of homicides, but, if that’s the case, it didn’t work, because the city hit the 500 mark just before Thanksgiving!

There are only three days left in 2021, but with the current 2021 homicide rate of 1.5331 per day, 560 is a distinct possibility; the actual projection is 559.5994. Looking at the homicide rate since the end of the Labor Day weekend, 192 people killed in 113 days, or 1.6991 per day, the city would see 560.0973 murders.

But even if the city finishes with ‘just’ 555 killings, and we take the 2021 guesstimated population of 1,607,667 — the 2020 census showed 1,603,797 people living in Philadelphia — that works out to a murder rate of 34.52 per 100,000 population, higher than New York, higher than Los Angeles, and higher than Chicago.

Philadelphia has been governed by Democrats since before I was born, since January of 1952, when George VI was still King of England, and Harry Truman President of the United States. And one thing has become blatantly clear: the policies of the Democrats have not worked in the City of Brotherly Love!

The tale of their failure has been written blood.

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Wir müssen Ihre Dokumente sehen!

Despite the fact that the COVID-19 vaccines appear to have little, if any, effect in reducing the transmissibility of the virus, especially the Omicron variant, the tinhorn dictators want to separate people from each other, want to impose restrictions on a segment of the population who haven’t Obeyed Orders. From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

    A new vaccine mandate is poised to impact Philadelphia’s restaurants next week

    How restaurant owners can prepare for new vaccine mandate rules in the new year.

    by Gene Marks | Tuesday, December 28, 2021 | 12:24 PM EST

    Starting Jan. 3 indoor eateries in Philadelphia will be required to see proof from patrons of vaccination against COVID-19.

    The rule doesn’t fully take effect immediately. Through Jan. 17, restaurants can choose to accept a negative COVID-19 test within 24 hours of entry instead of proof of vaccination. But after that date, only proof of vaccination will be acceptable.

I am, as I have stated previously, both fully vaccinated and have taken the booster shot, though the booster was not recorded when I took the photo of my vaccination record for this site. It is on my card now.

But I absolutely refuse to carry this vaccination record with me! I got vaccinated for my own protection, something wise since my wife is a hospital nurse who sometimes takes care of COVID patients, but I will not comply with the petty little bureaucrats who say, “Wir müssen Ihre Dokumente sehen!” “Ve need to see your papers!” The business which makes such a demand of me will not only not see my papers, but will never, ever, get a single penny from me.

Maybe that’s easy for me, here in the Bluegrass State, where we aren’t seeing such stupidity. I have already noted that while Kroger KR: (%) has masking requirements to enter its stores, most people ignore the signs, or at least the requirements, and shop without putting on a face diaper.

We’re now being told that cloth face masks are ineffective anyway, so the face mask requirements, which Kentuckians have naturally seen as ineffective anyway, are ridiculous.

    The rule also applies to employees. A restaurant’s staff as well as young patrons ages 5 to 11 will be required to have one dose of COVID-19 vaccine by Jan. 3 and to complete the series by Feb. 3. Exemptions apply to children under age 5, people with medical reasons and those with religious objections.

    Just about every establishment that serves food and/or drink will be affected by this rule, from cafes, bars and sports venues to movies theaters, bowling alleys, and food halls.Obviously, these new rules will add another strain on local restaurants that are already grappling with existing mandates, rising prices, and shortages of supplies and labor.And while these rules extend only to indoor dining, concerns have been raised that they will go into effect before new legislation can make permanent the outdoor dining structures that have sprung up during the pandemic.

So, Philadelphians are going to have to carry their supposedly private medical records with them if they want to eat indoors at a restaurant — and who wants to eat outdoors, in Philadelphia, in January and February — even though the Omicron variant, which is fast becoming, if it has not already become, the dominant variant in the United States, seems to slide past the vaccines with virtually no reduction in transmissibility.

Mayor Jim Kenney (D-Philadelphia) and Health Commissioner Cheryl Bettigole cannot be unaware of those statistics, and those facts, but they certainly do love them some authoritarian power, and are choosing to exercise it, as much as they can, without any reason to do so. If the vaccines do not reduce transmission, then there is no reason whatsoever to put in place vaccine mandates. If the vaccines do not reduce transmissibility, but only help to reduce the severity of symptoms for those who contract the virus, then the only people put at greater risk of serious illness are those who choose not to get vaccinated. At that point, it’s their risk, and their risk alone. If masks do not reduce the transmissibility, then there is no reason to require masks; there is no greater danger to the public from those who don’t wear masks than from those who do.

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Neither the vaccines nor masks have any effect on reducing Omicron transmission, so Joe Biden wants state governors to Do Something

The lovely Alyssa Milano, whose most notable work was as Phoebe Halliwell in Charmed, isn’t exactly a go to source for scientific information, but her tweet on Boxing Day, reproduced as an image file to the right — you can click on the image, and it will take you to her original tweet — is instructive.

“90% of the people I know have covid,” she said, and “100% are triple vaxxed & thankfully they have mild symptoms.” While one can’t really attribute her statistics to more than an impression — did she really count up the people she knows, which, presumably, number in the thousands, and take the statistics from them on whether or not they have the WuFlu? — impressions do stem from reality. On Monday, December 27th, according to a screen chyron on the NFL Network, 106 players were put on the league’s Reserve/COVID list.

This chart is from Sharp Football Analysis, and you can click on it to see the full sized version, but the upshot is that, in just two weeks, the number of players on COVID restrictions has shot up from fewer than 50 to 275, all in a league in which 94.6% of the players, and almost 100% of other league personnel, are fully vaccinated. As we previously noted, 97% of NBA players are fully vaccinated, but the NBA is seeing serious player losses to COVID restrictions.

Also see: The Washington Post: With omicron, many vaccinated Americans will at some point test positive. Here’s what to do.

The evidence is becoming more and more clear every day: vaccination does not prevent either the infection or transmission of the virus, at least not the Omicron variant, and the readily available cloth or paper masks do virtually nothing to prevent transmission, either. Even the claims that the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines do help prevent infections are based not on real world studies, but laboratory tests:

Most evidence so far is based on laboratory experiments, which do not capture the full range of the body’s immune response, and not from tracking the effect on real-world populations.

And now, as William Teach noted, President Biden has thrown in the towel, saying that there is no federal government solution to COVID-19.

Joe Biden Off to the Beach After Admitting ‘No Federal Solution’ on Coronavirus

by Charlie Spiering | Monday, December 27, 2021

President Joe Biden left Monday for his beach vacation in Delaware after admitting in a video call with U.S. governors that there was no federal solution to the coronavirus pandemic.

“Thank you very much. Look, there is no federal solution,” Biden said as he began speaking to the governors. “This gets solved at a state level.”

The president appeared with his coronavirus team on the artificial White House video conferencing set. He indicated that only governors could end the pandemic by leading the charge.

“It ultimately gets down to where the rubber meets the road,” Biden said, referring to state government. “My message to the governors is simple. If you need something, say something.”

He said the omicron variant of the virus is a “source of concern” but urged Americans not to panic.

The president acknowledged the long lines for people trying to get coronavirus tests before the Christmas holiday. “Seeing how tough it was for some folks to get a test this weekend shows that we have more work to do,” he said.

He claimed that if he had known there would be a shortage he would have acted.

“It’s not enough. It’s clearly not enough,” Biden said. “If we had known, we would have gone harder, quicker if we could have.”

Also see: The Washington Post: Healthy, boosted people unlikely to develop severe omicron infections, but jury’s out on older, at-risk populations

There’s more at the original.

So, what does this mean? It means that drunk-with-power Democrats like Governor Katy Hochul of New York, and many big-city mayors, will try to force vaccine mandates, even though vaccination does not seem to prevent the spread of the virus, and indoor mask mandates, which also do not seem to lessen the spread, because they want to be seen as Doing Something, and because too many of the sheeple have acquiesced to authoritarian dictates, because they have allowed fear to dominate their lives. But it appears that we are going to be living with some variant of the China Virus for a long time. The greater danger is not to our health, but to our freedom and liberty. When people tolerate tyranny, for our own good, don’t you know, all they get is more tyranny.

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Mochi

We have to keep Mochi inside on Mondays, until the garbage man has come and gone, because he’s deathly afraid of dogs, and Mochi barks at strangers. She’s never bitten anyone, and once you make friends with her, something which can be done in a single encounter, she’s a very loving dog.

Our yard is fenced, $3,100 worth of fence . . . and Mochi soon figured out that she can jump high enough to scramble over the corner of the gate. She runs across the road, into the Daniel Boone National Forest, to chase only the Lord knows what, she runs down to the river and the pond, to get muddy and wet, and our 8 acres are not nearly enough; her ‘territory’ is about 20 acres.

She’s a horrible dog: she wants to chase cars, and steal food off your plate. She’s the ultimate guard dog, because nothing can approach the house without her letting us know about it. But she also wants to cuddle, and we love her.

Robert Stacy McCain wrote about his dog here.

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Chicago thinks it’s the nation’s murder capital. Philadelphia laughs and says, “Hold my beer!” The good people of those two fine cities are getting exactly that for which they voted.

A police officer places makers on evidence on the 3900 block of Poplar Street 18-year-old Nasir Marks was fatally shot on Tuesday, May 25, 2021. Steven M Falk, Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Photographer. Click to enlarge.

According to the Chicago Tribune, as of Sunday, December 19th, there had been 783 murders in the Windy City thus far in 2021, 34 more than on the same day last year. As of the same day, 540 homicides had occurred in Philadelphia. The 19th being the 353rd day of the year, that works out to 2.2181 homicides per day in Chicago, and ‘only’ 1.5297 per day in the City of Brotherly Love.

But, according to the 2020 census, there were 2,746,388 people living in Chicago, and 1,603,797 in Philly. Using the homicide rates, that works out to a projected 558 killings in Philly and 810 in Chicago. Murder rates are calculated based on 100,000 population, meaning that Chicago is headed for a homicide rate of 29.4933 per 100,000, while Philadelphia is looking at 34.7924. Philadelphia is far deadlier than Chicago!

We noted that Philadelphia tied its 1990 homicide record of 500 the day before Thanksgiving, and at that point, the city was actually seeing slightly fewer killings per day than it was on December 19th. And guess what: with 547 homicides as of the end of Thursday, December 23rd, the rate has crept up slightly again, to 1.5322 per day, making the projected number of killings 559!

I will admit to a sort of grim fascination with the numbers, but murder in Philadelphia has really changed things. One murder, it has been said, is a tragedy, but 547 is just a statistic, and to the leadership of the city, and the editors of The Philadelphia Inquirer, that’s all it is, a statistic, a number that they can attribute of “gun violence,” but never examine the real problem: bad people!

In Ironic Justice: Two Anti-Police Lawmakers Get Carjacked, Robert Stacy McCain noted that two Democratic politicians, one in Chicago and one in Philly, who supported the “reform” of policing — meaning: getting even softer on crime — were carjacked within 24 hours of each other.

Illinois state Sen. Kimberly Lightford (D-Maywood) was targeted in suburban Chicago on Tuesday night, while Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.) was carjacked Wednesday afternoon after an event in South Philadelphia.

Well, it seems that, given that Representative Scanlon is a sitting congresswoman, the feds are getting involved:

“The investigation into this incident is in its very initial stages, and we are continuing to investigate and evaluate charging decisions,” said U.S. Attorney Williams. “Armed carjacking is a serious federal crime. There have been a rash of violent crimes like this recently, and while there were national security implications to this particular incident, we are always working collaboratively with our local partners to evaluate if cases should be taken federally. Working together means more resources, more tools, more intelligence. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If you pick up a gun and use it to commit a crime, together, we will come after you. And we are very good at what we do.”

In point of fact, however, if armed carjacking is a “serious federal crime,” when was the last time the feds got involved in such a case? Just two weeks ago, Philadelphia police said the city has seen an 80% increase in carjackings this year, and what had United States Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams done in response? Nothing, until a Democratic congresswoman got carjacked in — sweet irony! — FDR Park.

Seriously, go look through the press release archive at the U.S. Attorney’s web site and tell me if you find a case where they previously prosecuted a carjacking. I went back as far as April and didn’t find one, so if the Biden DOJ was making it a priority to “come after” carjackers before this week, they weren’t very successful at it. But then again, success really hasn’t been a hallmark of the Biden administration, has it?

Mr McCain was employing sarcasm, but there’s a not-so-veiled slam at Philadelphia’s District Attorney, Larry Krasner, a George Soros-financed stooge whose main goal is getting the bad guys released, not jailed. At some point, you’d think Philadelphians would get tired of all of the crime and violence in their city’s streets, but not tired enough: Mr Krasner was re-elected last month!

The good people of those two cities are getting exactly that for which they voted.

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Seen at Wawa

My thanks to William Teach of The Pirate’s Cove, who cross-posted here on the days I was away!

Driving back to Kentucky from the Keystone State on December 23rd, I stopped at the WaWa store on Pennsylvania Route 61, just north of Interstate 78, and saw something I’d never seen, in person, before: the WaWa had six — I think it was six; I didn’t actually count, and should have taken a quick picture, but didn’t — Tesla TSLA: (%) charging stations. This was at 3:45 PM EST.

Also see: William Teach: Climate Cult: Forget The Electric Vehicles You Can’t Afford. People Need To Drive Less

What I didn’t see were any Tesla’s actually being charged there. Oh, one of the charging stations was occupied, but by a mid-1990s, gasoline-engine beater car, using the charging area as a parking space.

Meanwhile, the store’s twelve or so gasoline pump queues, two pumps per queue, were fully occupied, with additional cars lined up to get fuel, and a fuel tanker was unloading gasoline or diesel into the underground storage tanks, because those vehicles are thirsty! I really should have taken pictures, on my phone, or as Sheriff Buford T Justice told his son, “Put the evidence in the car!”

I did pick up two boxes of WaWa coffee in Kuerig-cups for my wife and older daughter for Christmas.

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As evidence mounts that the vaccines do not stop the spread of the virus, some people want to double down on #VaccineMandates

It seems that employers have been struggling with the vaccine mandates, but there’s an underlying, unwritten message in this. From The New York Times, not exactly an evil reich-wing source:

    Whiplash on U.S. Vaccine Mandate Leaves Employers ‘Totally Confused’

    Companies are struggling to figure out what to do as legal battles and rising Covid cases complicate their plans. Even up in the air: What does “fully vaccinated” mean?

    By Lauren Hirsch, Emma Goldberg and Charlie Savage | Monday, December 20, 2021 | 6:50 AM EST

    The marching orders from the Biden administration in November had seemed clear — large employers were to get their workers fully vaccinated by early next year, or make sure the workers were tested weekly. But a little over a month later, the Labor Department’s vaccine rule has been swept into confusion and uncertainty by legal battles, shifting deadlines and rising Covid case counts that throw the very definition of fully vaccinated into question.

    The spread of the highly transmissible Omicron variant has seemingly bolstered the government’s argument, at the heart of its legal battle over the rule, that the virus remains a grave threat to workers. But the recent surge in cases has raised the issue of whether the government will take its requirements further — even as the original rule remains contentious — and ask employers to mandate booster shots, too. The country’s testing capacity has also been strained, adding to concerns that companies will be unable to meet the rule’s testing requirements.

    “My clients are totally confused as, quite frankly, am I,” Erin McLaughlin, a labor and employment lawyer at Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney, said on Saturday. “My sense is that there are a lot of employers scrambling to try and put their mandate programs in place.”

    No company has been spared the whirlwind of changes in the last week, set off by the spike in Covid cases that have, in some instances, cut into their work forces. Then on Friday, an appeals court lifted the legal block on the vaccine rule, though appeals to the ruling were immediately filed, leaving the rule’s legal status up in the air. On Saturday, hours after the appeals court ruling, the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration urged employers to start working to get in compliance. But OSHA also gave employers some leeway, pushing back full enforcement of the rule until February, recognizing that for all its best intentions the rollout of the rule has been muddled.

There’s a lot more at the original, but the unwritten part is simple, and obvious: most employers don’t want to impose a mandate on their workers, not because they don’t believe in the effectiveness of the vaccines — most probably do — but because they don’t want to discipline or terminate workers who refuse. Businesses are already having problems finding workers, and losing some of those they have can seriously hurt production, and the bottom line.

The truth is simple: the vaccines have been freely available to everyone for about ten months now, and virtually every medium has been telling us about the availability. Politicians and business leaders and community activists and your neighborhood Karens have all been imploring people to get vaccinated. The number of Americans who haven’t heard the messages has to be vanishingly small. Those who want to get vaccinated have already done so; those who haven’t gotten vaccinated are almost universally those who do not want to get vaccinated.

The resistance is only getting stronger: as the government pushes harder to try to force the reluctant to get vaccinated, those who do not want to take the vaccines are pushing back harder as well. As William Teach noted, Governor Kathy Hochul (D-NY) is now pushing legislation which would mandate a booster shot as well as the initial two-shot vaccine to be considered ‘fully vaccinated.’

    New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) announced during a press conference on Thursday that she is planning to introduce legislation that includes a booster shot within the definition of being “fully vaccinated.”

    While the Democratic governor noted that the legislation needed to be more fleshed out and required more data to be collected, she signaled the change would happen eventually, saying that “at some point, we have to determine that fully vaccinated means boosted as well,” CNY Central reported.

    Hochul’s remarks come as the country begins to see an uptick of COVID-19 cases again and as health officials grapple with the spread of the omicron variant, which President Biden’s chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci warned on Thursday would likely be the dominant strain in “a few weeks.”

Also from The New York Times:

    A growing body of preliminary research suggests the Covid vaccines used in most of the world offer almost no defense against becoming infected by the highly contagious Omicron variant.

    All vaccines still seem to provide a significant degree of protection against serious illness from Omicron, which is the most crucial goal. But only the Pfizer and Moderna shots, when reinforced by a booster, appear to have initial success at stopping infections, and these vaccines are unavailable in most of the world.

    The other shots — including those from AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and vaccines manufactured in China and Russia — do little to nothing to stop the spread of Omicron, early research shows. And because most countries have built their inoculation programs around these vaccines, the gap could have a profound impact on the course of the pandemic.

    A global surge of infections in a world where billions of people remain unvaccinated not only threatens the health of vulnerable individuals but also increases the opportunity for the emergence of yet more variants. The disparity in the ability of countries to weather the pandemic will almost certainly deepen. And the news about limited vaccine efficacy against Omicron infection could depress demand for vaccination throughout the developing world, where many people are already hesitant or preoccupied with other health problems.

But here’s the money line:

    Most evidence so far is based on laboratory experiments, which do not capture the full range of the body’s immune response, and not from tracking the effect on real-world populations. The results are striking, however.

So, there seems to be little or no effectiveness against transmission by any vaccines other than Pfizer and Moderna, and only if reinforced by the booster, and their effectiveness is based only on laboratory studies, not real-world data. Employers wanting to see more of their workforce vaccinated are having to deal with reality: reluctance on the part of some employees, a tight labor market, and data which show that getting vaccinated provides less protection from spreading the virus than we were originally told.

This is the conundrum: if the vaccines lessen the effects on those who contract the virus, but don’t seem to offer much protection from spreading the virus, the ‘logic’ for mandating vaccination vanishes. If getting vaccinated does not mean you can’t contract and spread the virus to others, choosing not to get vaccinated is a decision which only affects the person choosing not to get vaccinated!

I’ve said it before: I am vaccinated, and I took the booster shot as well. I think that’s the wiser choice, and I am perfectly willing to say that to anyone who asks. But it is none of my business, nor should it be the government’s business, nor the employer’s business, as to what other people choose to do.

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36

A man’s life, reduced to four paragraphs. From the Lexington Herald-Leader:

    Coroner releases name of man, 21, who died after shooting in Lexington

    by Karla Ward | Saturday, December 18, 2021 | 12:44 PM EST | Updated: 1:48 PM EST

    A 21-year-old man died after being shot in a neighborhood near downtown Lexington late Friday.

    Lexington police said they were called to the shooting on the 800 block of Oak Hill Drive, off Loudon Avenue, at 10:56 p.m. When they arrived, police found the man inside a residence, Lexington police said in a news release Saturday.

    The Fayette County coroner’s office said the man, Devon Sandusky, was pronounced dead at the scene at 11:25 p.m.

    They said the investigation is ongoing. No suspect information was released.

There was a fifth paragraph, but one which simply told readers where to report information to the police. A sixth paragraph noted that this was the city’s 36th homicide of the year, a new record. The previous record was 34, set in 2020. At the current pace, Lexington is projected to see one or two more killings before 2021 is over.

To me, this was sadly reminiscent of the stories I see in The Philadelphia Inquirer, where a murder victim’s life is reduced to a few short paragraphs, often without even the victim’s name being published. But, unlike the Inquirer, the Herald-Leader will print more about the murder as more information is released. With ‘only’ 36 homicides on which to report, the newspaper’s staff can put a little bit more time into reporting on it; the Inquirer’s staff are overwhelmed, with 535 homicides through Thursday, December 16th, and the City of Brotherly Love on pace to record another 23 killings, for a total of 558.