News roundup for Fri, May 21, 2021

1 Comment on News roundup for Fri, May 21, 2021
Can the police confiscate your gun without a warrant

The Supreme Court says law enforcement may not enter your home and confiscate your guns without a warrant.

The semiconductor shortage continues to “chip” away at the automotive industry. Forgive the pun. I couldn’t resist:

More concerningly, farm equipment manufacturers are also feeling the chip squeeze. Farmers are subsequently having trouble getting the equipment they need. This is yet another wake-up call for self-sufficiency.

In news that most already knew, Big Agriculture is completely non-sustainable and could cause ecological collapse.

The hackers that hit Colonial Pipeline racked up $90 million in bitcoin from the exploitation of some 47 victims.

The world has over 165.8 million COVID cases. The world has gained over 4.1 million cases in a week, which is lower than the weeks before. There have been over 3.4 million deaths in total. The US has over 33.8 million cases. Over 602,000 Americans have died. There have been 631 deaths in the last 24 hours in the US. The US gained over 28,000 new cases in the last day. India is leading the globe in daily deaths, with over 4,200 in the last day. India has also gained over 259,000 new cases in the last day. Brazil had over 2,500 deaths yesterday. Cases and deaths continue to decline in the US.

Taiwan was spectacular at fighting COVID at the outset but is now falling far behind in the vaccine race. Only 1% of its population is vaccinated:

Ohio’s ploy to increase its vaccination rate with lottery drawings has succeeded. The program helped to reverse a decline in vaccination rate. Vaccinated teenagers can also join a scholarship lottery.

2% of infected people carry 90% of the transmitting viral load. Most people are asymptomatic, many are non-infectious, but a few are proverbial Typhoid Marys.

50% of the people in Bahrain have been vaccinated, but the pandemic is taking off there anywhere. Of note, the bulk of the vaccines given there are Sinopharm:

It’s time to start traveling to and from the EU again (with a few restrictions):

The variant from India seems to be more infectious and to become transmissible earlier in the disease process than then wild type. It produces more generations of infection faster:

600,000 teens and pre-teens were vaccinated in one week! The vaccine roll-out in kids is moving along at a faster clip than anticipated. 3.5 million have been vaccinated in total.

Some good news for the day: the Pfizer vaccine can be stored in regular refrigerators for up to a month! This should help the entire world with vaccine storage and delivery. I hate to think how many doses were wasted before this was known:

The underfunding of public health agencies stymied the American response to the pandemic. It appears we haven’t learned our lesson:

Maybe we’re not doing too bad at this vaccine thing after all:

Stephanie Arnold | cosmicpixle

Stephanie Arnold is an advanced practice psychiatric nurse and a doctoral candidate in UA Tuscaloosa’s DNP program. Stephanie moonlights from time to time at UCLA teaching mental health nursing. She also likes making cold-process soap.

  • 1 Comment
    • Karl Winterling May 21, 2021

      Ugh, California has a budget surplus *and* extra funding for state and local governments. We can set up public health infrastructure like what South Korea has.

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