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The well-tolerated drug niclosamide, used for treating tape worm parasites, has shown good promise at inhibiting the COVID-19 virus replication within a host cell. A tapeworm drug against SARS-CoV-2? (Science Daily, June 21, 2021) Of course, this is just testing with cultured cells. It is undergoing a trial on COVID-19-infected people at Charité in Germany.

I do think that Trump prioritized his own election chances, and many of those on the right worked toward that goal. Declining economies frequently lead to a change of leadership on election day. He saw that the economy was going to take a significant hit from a lockdown, so he tended to encourage behaviors that would minimize that outcome. That included downplaying the medical threat, trying to sell questionable treatments, and discouraging the mass adoption of mask wearing and social distancing. This was never going to work, of course; the faster the pandemic spread, the greater the risk of a collapse of the health system. You can see what happened in Brazil and India.

The Texas power grid is isolated from the remainder of the USA. They had a major issue back in February due to a severe freeze. It wasn't actually all that funny; 151 people died from the cold. 2021 Texas power crisis

I suspect a significant factor in the US is the influence of the internet. This can be used to amplify the voice of small, anonymous groups and to create echo chambers that become self-reinforcing. Prior to the internet, when a typical person espoused a crackpot conspiracy theory, their buddies could be on hand to keep them well-grounded. That is often no longer the case, since people will head to the internet to anonymously spout rubbish. It doesn't help that foreign adversaries can help promote this behavior, to an unknown extent. We're more likely to be targeted by these malicious agents due to our foreign relations. I'm not sure yet what we can do about this. Another factor has been the isolation brought on by lockdowns, social distancing, and mask wearing. While necessary because of the lack of a vaccine, these measures are harmful to the human psyche. We need social contact. If a person is close to the edge psychologically (including the 1% who display psychopathic personality traits ), this can completely knock them over into self-delusion and potential violence. Some of this may have been reflected in the rabid, illogical anti-masking posts I frequently see. Maybe. I'm hoping this effect will gradually fade as we open back up again. I completely understand the desire to rid ourselves of these quarantine measures, but I also agreed with their temporary necessity to prevent mass deaths.

Fun fact: January 6th is National Bean Day. It is closely followed by National Pass Gas Day on January 7th.

Smart Talented Unique Person in Demand

Note that I'm not saying it's bad; I had the moderna vaccine myself. It's just that some people are very risk adverse and prefer older technological solutions until the new-fangled toys have proved themselves.

I look at it that Juneteenth is Thanksgiving day for slavery descendants. The symbolism is more important than the accuracy. Then again, we're all descended from slaves and kings, so maybe it should be celebrated everywhere?

Thanks. Yes it's funny what will trigger some people. I just thought it was an interesting curiosity.

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Some people choose astra-zeneca specifically because it uses existing well-tested vaccine technology and isn't an experimental mRNA vaccine. I don't think they'll be happy about it.

For a second there I thought he was going to admit he'd lost his mind. But no, he's still in denial.

They don't call him the Great Divider for nothing. His disagreeableness and falsehoods had a very strong polarizing effect. It's a similar effect to what you see with the Climate Change discussion, where the politicizing of the science has made it very difficult to stay neutral and unbiased.

I'm sure all the Federal slave wage earners will be happy to have another day off.

I think it has more to do with scale. Mask wearing and social distancing effects the global spread, whereas protecting line cooks presumably only impacts a few. The goal is to reduce the viral replication rate in the whole population, which in turn will (hopefully) help lower the risk for line cooks.