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Economy

2:00PM Water Cooler 5/30/2024 | naked capitalism

MONews
MONews
25 Min Read

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Bird Song of the Day

Eastern Phoebe, South Valley Road, Putney, Vermont. A chorus!

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In Case You Might Miss…

(1) Judge Merchan instructs the jury and deliberations begin.

(2) H5N1 breakout scenario.

(3) Decolonize the gut! .

(4) “They were careless people… is a tree.

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Politics

“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles

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2024

Less than a half a year to go!

RCP Poll Averages, May 24:

Not a good week for Team Trump, with most of the Swing States (more here) Brownian-motioning themselves toward Biden. Not, however, Michigan, to which Trump paid a visit, nor crucial Pennsylvania. Of course, it goes without saying that these are all state polls, therefore bad, and most of the results are within the margin of error. Now, if either candidate starts breaking away in points, instead of tenths of a point…. NOTE I changed the notation: Up and down arrows for increases or decreases over last week, circles for no change. Red = Trump. Blue would be Biden if he were leading anywhere, but he isn’t.

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Patient readers, Merchan’s instructions have been published, and I have thoughts. However, I’m going to wait until I finish everything else to post them, because for all I know the jury will return a verdict.

Trump (R) (Bragg/Merchan): “Trump hush money trial live updates: Jurors resume deliberations” [Associated Press]. AP’s live blog: “The jury in Donald Trump’s hush money trial has resumed deliberations after asking to rehear potentially crucial testimony about the alleged hush money scheme at the heart of the case. The 12-person jury met for about 4 1/2 hours of deliberations on Wednesday without reaching a verdict.” And: “On Wednesday the jury had asked Judge Merchan to reread his instructions to them. Merchan subsequently asked the jurors to clarify whether they wanted all of the instructions or only part of them. The judge said Thursday that he received another jury note, explaining that the jurors want to specifically hear the description of how they are to consider the evidence and what inferences can be drawn from the facts. They also want to hear the description of the law for the charge at issue in the case. Merchan estimates that’s about 30 pages of instructions that he’ll have to reread.” • Make of that what you will!

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Syndemics

“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison

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Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).

Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!

Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (dashboard); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).

Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).

Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).

Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).

Stay safe out there!

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Airborne Transmission

“Stamford Public Schools Awarded $6.7M For HVAC Upgrades” [Stamford Patch]. “The projects are being completed during the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years. The funds represent the second round of funding awarded through the HVAC Indoor Air Quality Grants Program for Public Schools, a state program that is administered by the Department of Administrative Services (DAS). In 2023, SPS received $3 million in reimbursements for previously completed HVAC upgrades.” • Good, but three and four years in….

Maskstravaganza

So, masks are most useful indoors, but can only become social norms when worn outdoors?

Could be….

Rapid fit testing would help:

Testing and Tracking

It’s almost as if CDC is trying to pollute the data:

Transmission: H5N1

An all-too-plausible scenario:

This does assume airborne transmission of the mutated bird flu, but that’s not at all unreasonable.

Sequelae: H5N1

“The neuropathogenesis of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5Nx viruses in mammalian species including humans” [Cell]. “In mammals, the development of HPAI H5Nx virus-associated neurological disease can occur without any evidence of respiratory disease. For example, virus replication within the olfactory mucosa can result in neuroinvasion and spread throughout the CNS, without virus replication in other parts of the upper or lower respiratory tract. This comes with diagnostic challenges, as respiratory samples can test negative, despite efficient virus replication in the CNS. Therefore, it is important to increase awareness among veterinarians, health care workers, and neurologists to be vigilant about HPAI H5Nx viruses causing neurological disease, without the presence of overt respiratory disease.” • Oy. Worst case scenario: Wastewater testing uses Influenza A as a proxy for H5N1 because — and I know this will surprise you — CDC cannot test for H5N1 specifically. Influenza A is up, but it should not be:

What if the Influenza A numbers are really a signal for H5N1. Now, we have tested for symptoms H5N1 in the respiratory tract, using nasal swabs on dairy farm workers, and results are low. But what if H5N1 has been spreading silently in the central nervous system, for which nobody is testing? (No superspreading possible this way, fortunately, but what an unhappy outcome.) Any bird flu mavens who can shoot this idea down, please do so.

Elite Maleficence

“World Health Organization overturns dogma on airborne diseases, but the CDC may not act on it” [Daily Montanan]. “The WHO concluded that airborne transmission occurs as sick people exhale pathogens that remain suspended in the air, contained in tiny particles of saliva and mucus that are inhaled by others. While it may seem obvious, and some researchers have pushed for this acknowledgment for more than a decade, an alternative dogma persisted — which kept health authorities from saying that COVID-19 was airborne for many months into the pandemic. Specifically, they relied on a traditional notion that respiratory viruses spread mainly through droplets spewed out of an infected person’s nose or mouth. These droplets infect others by landing directly in their mouth, nose, or eyes — or they get carried into these orifices on droplet-contaminated fingers. Although these routes of transmission still happen, particularly among young children, experts have concluded that many respiratory infections spread as people simply breathe in virus-laden air…. Peg Seminario, an occupational health and safety specialist in Bethesda, Maryland, welcomed the shift after years of resistance from health authorities. ‘The dogma that droplets are a major mode of transmission is the ‘flat Earth’ position now,’ she said. ‘Hurray! We are finally recognizing that the world is round.’ The change puts fresh emphasis on the need to improve ventilation indoors and stockpile quality face masks before the next airborne disease explodes. …. Traditional beliefs on droplet transmission help explain why the WHO and the CDC focused so acutely on hand-washing and surface-cleaning at the beginning of the pandemic. Such advice overwhelmed recommendations for N95 masks that filter out most virus-laden particles suspended in the air…. However, a committee advising the CDC [HICPAC] appears poised to brush aside the updated science when it comes to its pending guidance on health care facilities…. The CDC’s advisory committee is comprised primarily of infection control researchers at large hospital systems, while the WHO consulted a diverse group of scientists looking at many different types of studies… [Julian Tang, a clinical virologist at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, who advised the WHO on the report] expects resistance to the WHO report. ‘,’ he said. ‘It takes a long time to change people’s way of thinking.’” • And four years isn’t long enough, apparently. We’ll have to pry baggy blues out of HICPAC‘s cold, dead hands….

* * *

Lambert here: Patient readers, I’m going to have to rethink this beautifully formatted table. Biobot data is gone, CDC variant data functions, ER visits are dead, CDC stopped mandatory hospital data collection, New York Times death data has stopped. (Note that the two metrics the hospital-centric CDC cared about, hospitalization and deaths, have both gone dark). Ideally I would replace hospitalization and death data, but I’m not sure how. I might also expand the wastewater section to include (yech) Verily data, H5N1 if I can get it. Suggestions and sources welcome. UPDATE I replaced the Times death data with CDC data. Amusingly, the URL doesn’t include parameters to construct the tables; one must reconstruct then manually each time. Caltrops abound.

TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts

LEGEND

1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.

2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”

NOTES

[1] (Biobot) Dead.

[2] (Biobot) Dead.

[3] (CDC Variants) FWIW, given that the model completely missed KP.2.

[4] (ER) This is the best I can do for now. At least data for the entire pandemic is presented.

[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Still going up, though fortunately no sign of geometric increase. he New York city area has form; in 2020, as the home of two international airports (JFK and EWR) it was an important entry point for the virus into the country (and from thence up the Hudson River valley, as the rich sought to escape, and around the country through air travel)

[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). This is the best I can do for now. Note the assumption that Covid is seasonal is built into the presentation. At least data for the entire pandemic is presented.

[7] (Walgreens) Going up.

[8] (Cleveland) Going up.

[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Up and down.

[10] (Travelers: Variants) KP.2 enters the chat, as does B.1.1.529 (with backward revision).

[11] Deaths low, but positivity up.

[12] Deaths low, ED not up.

Stats Watch

Employment Situation: “United States Initial Jobless Claims” [Trading Economics]. “The number of people claiming unemployment benefits in the US rose by 3,000 to 219,000 on the week ending May 25th, marginally above market expectations of 218,000. The initial claim count remained below the elevated levels of May, but was firmly above the average from February to April to consolidate the softer momentum in the US labor market.”

* * *

Tech: Poisoning ChatGPT’s inputs for fun and profit:

Impressively devious (and impressively stupid corporate IT, taken in by con artists).

The Bezzle: So how’s the “sharing economy” going?

Not the first horror story I’ve seen recently, either…

* * *

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 48 Neutral (previous close: 47 Neutral) [CNN]. One week ago: 52 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated May 30 at 1:46:04 PM ET.

Health

“The use of probiotics and prebiotics in decolonizing pathogenic bacteria from the gut; a systematic review and meta-analysis of clinical outcomes” (PDF) [Gut Microbes]. “Repeated exposure to antibiotics and changes in the diet and environment shift the gut microbial diversity and composition, making the host susceptible to pathogenic infection. The emergence and ongoing spread of AMR pathogens is a challenging public health issue. Recent evidence showed that probiotics and prebiotics may play a role in decolonizing drug-resistant pathogens by enhancing the colonization resistance in the gut. This review aims to analyze available evidence from human-controlled trials to determine the effect size of probiotic interventions in decolonizing AMR pathogenic bacteria from the gut…. Moderate certainty of evidence suggests that probiotics and prebiotics may decolonize pathogens through modulation of gut diversity. However, more clinical outcomes are required on particular strains to confirm the decolonization of the pathogens.” • “Decolonize the gut!” is a slogan I can get behind….

“A long-term ketogenic diet accumulates aged cells in normal tissues, a UT Health San Antonio-led study shows” (press release) [UT Health]. ” A strict “keto-friendly” diet popular for weight loss and diabetes, depending on both the diet and individual, might not be all that friendly. A new study led by researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio) found that a continuous long-term ketogenic diet may induce senescence, or aged, cells in normal tissues, with effects on heart and kidney function in particular. However, an intermittent ketogenic diet, with a planned keto vacation or break, did not exhibit any pro-inflammatory effects due to aged cells, according to the research. The findings have significant clinical implications suggesting that the beneficial effect of a ketogenic diet might be enhanced by planned breaks.” • Any keto fans in the readership?

Zeitgeist Watch

“Shocking survey: Nearly half of Gen Z live a ‘double life’ online” [Study Finds]. “A survey of 2,000 Americans, split evenly by generation, found that 46% of Gen Z respondents feel their personality online vastly differs from how they present themselves in the real world. However, they’re not the only ones hiding a different side of themselves behind a screen. In fact, 27% of respondents across all generations share this feeling, with 38% of millennials, 18% of Gen Xers, and 8% of baby boomers claiming to live ‘double life’ online. The poll also asked Americans if they’re keeping their online persona a secret from any family members — and one in five said yes. Specifically, 31% of Gen Z respondents admitted their online world is a secret from family, while 27% of millennials said the same.” • I’m surprised it’s so low.

Guillotine Watch

A portrait of the lower strata of the ruling class (“multi-millionaires not the morbidly rich billionaires”):

(More at the complete thread). If these really are the 5% that set the social norms, and who the 95% follow, that explains a lot.

Class Warfare

“Marxism, Prefigurative Communism, and the Problem of Workers’ Control” [The Anarchist Library]. “At the same time. the new left was close to traditional anarchism in its glorification of spontaneity and subjectivity, in its celebration of everyday life, and in its hostility to “politics” and all forms of organization. It brought out the limitations of spontaneism in even more exaggerated form. The French May provides a good example: mobilized by the millions, students and workers were unable to translate their uprising into a force possessing leadership, structure, and direction, and popular energy dissipated quickly. The French Communist Party played an important role, but the new left nonetheless had its own logic, this wax the fate of the new left everywhere: in its fear of centralism, in its retreat into extreme subjectivism, and in its uncompromising abstentionism, it gave little strategic expression to its vision of liberation. It effectively attacked the ideological underpinnings of bourgeois society, but the means it employed — mass direct action politics on the one hand, small isolated groups on the other — were politically primitive.” • From 1977, but seems familiar, somehow….

News of the Wired

Wise man:


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