CitizenVectron

Early days, but potentially promising news:

Expanded sick leave set to become a pandemic legacy, even as federal, provincial programs flop WWW.THEGLOBEANDMAIL.COM Growing momentum for paid sick leave ignores underperformance of programs launched during the pandemic Basically there is a movement in Canada to legally guarantee sick leave for all people. Most people have it through their work, but because it's not regulated, not all do. Also, lol at the article saying the pandemic-era temporary sick leave programs were "flops." Most of them required action after you took leave to be reimbursed by the government. If you know you have to do a bunch of paperwork to get paid after, you are far less likely to take it (especially it you make less to begin with). But if you know ahead of time that you can take a day off with pay, you are more likely to use it.

Honestly one "good" thing (despite the cost) to come out of this pandemic is the giant amounts of investment into anti-viral research, both preventative and treatment-wise.

Based on nothing but my own gut, I am going to predict that this variant will dominate infection worldwide within 3-4 weeks, and will prove to reduce the efficacy of the vaccines down to something like 10-20% for stopping infection. The vaccines will still hold up in terms of preventing severe disease for most people (since T-cell response is quite different than antibody response, and relies less on the shape of spike protein). Regardless, hospitals will once again start to become overloaded as more and more unvaccinated people enter them as the virus spreads among both vaccinated and unvaccinated. Most governments will be afraid to introduce lockdowns, etc, until it's too late. New vaccines for this variant (and Delta) will be released mid-to-late-2022 and will prove quite effective. We will enter 2023 roughly where we are right now, except that the far-right will have taken advantage of this in the US as well as Europe.

Also, good article on breakthrough cases in Ontario (which has a large enough pop of ~14.6 million to be good for looking at data): Only nine Ontarians under the age of 60 have ended up in the ICU with a breakthrough case of COVID-19, newly released data shows WWW.CP24.COM There have been more than 17,000 so-called breakthrough cases of COVID-19 involving fully vaccinated Ontarians over the last year but the number of those people under 60 who eventually ended up in an intensive care unit is only nine. Also: The vaccines are working very well, and as long as we continue with boosters (and barring any doomsday mutation) this is going to become (unfortunately) an old-person disease. Unfortunately that will mean lots of selfish younger people will then treat it as a non-concern (in terms of preventing spread).

Also, as has been said, even this new variant is unlikely to render our vaccines useless: What becomes more likely as time goes on is that new variants are able to escape the initial immune response (which really is the ability of our body to prevent infection from getting a foothold in the first place), but that our bodies will still be able to fight off severe illness. The result of this would be that the disease becomes endemic and that everyone will catch it at some point (like the cold/flu, but 10x more likely since this is more contagious), but that severe outcome is still massively reduced due to vaccines. Except for people 70+ and those with extreme vulnerabilities, who are still dying in large numbers even while vaccinated (doesn't matter how much your immune system recognizes the virus when the immune system itself barely exists). There are different ways that could play out in society. The best way would be a general acceptance of mask-wearing, massive improvements to internal ventilation systems (especially in schools, which are typically older and in worse shape than commercial buildings), and the adoption of (and encouragement of) paid sick leave/care leave (as well as remote work). The worst way would be the right-wing's approach of "well even if it exists, we're all going to die anyway," which will result in the gutting of the medical system in a few ways: Less people want to work in it/people who already work in it leave Right-wing uses the excuse of collapse to promote more privatization Some countries might be able to go the better route, but certainly not most, or all.

Also, this is (yet again) further proof that we need to effectively nationalize the vaccines and mass-produce them at cost everywhere around the world for free (well, at cost, by governments). We could have the entire western world on our 6th doses and feeling secure, but if a single mutation in Malaysia can evade the vaccines completely (unlikely, I know) then it's all wrecked. Just give everyone around the world the vaccine for free, and fuck the private companies. This is a global issue.

Subscribe to read | Financial Times WWW.FT.COM News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication

I am obviously concerned about the illness itself (as everyone should be), but I am more concerned about the far-right and how this ongoing pandemic will only continue to galvanize them. We could be looking at another worldwide right-wing sweep in the coming years as a reaction to the pandemic. I think most people in the world are quite willing to keep getting boosters for this, etc, but I think more and more are going to not agree to mask mandates, gathering restrictions, etc. To be clear, I am quite willing to do these things, but I worry others will not, and we will see a consensus build to just "live with it," which will result in a massive collapse of many countries' healthcare systems (with resulting political chaos). And the people responsible (right-wing) will take advantage of that even thought they caused it.

What's novel about it? Edit: Ah. So it's of concern, but it sounds like there isn't evidence yet that the vaccines are ineffective against it. Here's a thought, though: let's say the virus does mutate to the point where vaccines are ineffective (but it's about the same severity, between 1% and 2% fatal). What happens? Obviously new mRNA vaccines will be rushed out, and many will take them...but will anyone tolerate new restrictions, even if it's starting from scratch?

Generally speaking when someone says "cancelled" nowadays (when they are in a position of power/fame) it really just means that people aren't fawning over them as much, and this displeases them.

Twenty-seven migrants perish trying to cross Channel to Britain WWW.REUTERS.COM British and French officials traded blame on Wednesday after 27 migrants died when their dinghy deflated as they made a perilous crossing of the English Channel.

Why do idiots always target ice cream companies? And they are a fantastic Canadian company: When their ice cream plant burned down, they continued to pay their entire staff for a year while they rebuilt They built an entire separate facility for peanut/allergen-free products Paid $2 million to keep a local school open near their plant which many employees use for their children Volunteered their ice cream freezers to store vaccines for the government Donated millions to local hospitals during the pandemic But they are evil because they are demanding workers be vaccinated. Fuck off.

Dr. Shahab is our province's top doctor. This was planned for yesterday...and only one person showed up. I think the organizer was hoping for a Jan 6th-style insurrection. However, hundreds did gather in front of the school board offices.

Dave Chappelle Is Back to Making Transphobic Jokes at Madison Square Garden Event WWW.THEDAILYBEAST.COM The comedian made a series of transphobic jokes at Madison Square Garden on Monday, a month after he faced backlash for his anti-trans jokes in Netflix special “The Closer.” But he's just misunderstood! Also, fuck Jon Stewart:

AOC is a gift to them because it gives them an outspoken leftist who isn't white. While they can get their base to strongly dislike/hate Sanders or Clinton or Warren, they can't get them to viscerally hate them the same way they can a person of colour.

Lol, love it

On the topic of unions: there was a thread recently on the personal finance Canada subreddit where a person was complaining that their employer wasn't raising wages to match inflation, and they were upset. They said they didn't think that government should regulate wages, but was there some other way that workers could convince management/ownership to increase wages? It was a long thread, but effectively the person came up with the idea of unions, even though they started out hating them. It was amusing to see.

He's a moron and the Times is comprised of morons, so it's a good fit.

I opened that thinking it was going to be Jacksonville or something...but it was in Italy, which of all places in the world should know how bad COVID-19 is.

I bet at least two to three posters here are Russian plants.

What's horrible is that after I posted the fundraiser, the charity announced they had been broken into this weekend and had a bunch of cash and computer equipment stolen. So hopefully this will help them.

Because I can't share this info with many people in my life (just my wife and close friends)—I've been doing daily COVID-19 updates on my province's main subreddits, organizing the government stats into an easier-to-read format since the government hasn't done a good job. Here is an image of how my posts started out a year ago, and how they look today (well, I smashed the six pages together, normally they are separate and much larger): I don't share that I'm the one doing it because A) I don't need any recognition, and B) as much as I get offers for a drink, dinner, or gifts to thank me for doing the work, I also get threats and harassment from anti-vaxxers, saying my charts are "hate filled" and designed to segregate the world. However, as today was the one-year mark of my posts, I decided to do something. I made a thread in each of the subreddits and asked everyone who had offered to buy me a drink to do something better with the money—give it to charity. I set up a fundraiser for a great local charity that provides help for the homeless (which is a real issue in my city at the moment, especially during winter), and posted the link: OkayArbiter's Fundraiser for Carmichael Outreach - CanadaHelps WWW.CANADAHELPS.ORG A fundraiser to help the homeless and those in poverty, on behalf of the daily reddit COVID-19 updates - OkayArbiter I am floored by the response. I set a goal of $2,000, thinking it would take two weeks to reach it, and right now, only a few hours after posting, the total already sits at $2,533. I am so happy that I've been able to do something positive with the "fame" that I've accrued, beyond doing a small thing with the daily charts.