Today makes 10 weeks I’ve been doing the isolate/work from home/lockdown thing. My tolerance for other people is at an all-time low. And I mean, it wasn’t high to start with, folks. By the time I get back out into the world in anything like a normal way, you’ll catch me stomping down the street screaming at anyone within 20 feet of me to piss off.
🐈 Heads up: You should be keeping your kitties indoors. A new study shows that, at least under lab conditions, kitties can spread COVID-19 among themselves. Note: “Lab conditions” are not home conditions. Transmission between kitties may not be as easy out in the world as they are in a lab cage. Also, still nothing showing transmission between dogs or between other animals, or that animals can pass it back to humans.
🇺🇸 Because I guess we have to talk about this now: Obamagate is not a real thing. It’s some bullshit Trump made up because he’d rather talk about literally anything other than the 90,000+ Americans who have died of COVID-19 directly due to his utter failure as a leader and a human.
🇺🇸 Also, Doctor Anthony Fauci is not a partisan hack. You’re hearing that he is because, again, Trump is a stunning failure and he’s smearing Fauci to make himself look better.
🦠 Bill Gates was funding a COVID-19 home testing initiative in Seattle. The initiative had approval through the state, but was suddenly ordered to discontinue testing by the FDA, because the FDA decided the initiative needed federal approval. I’m pointing this story out because it highlights the US’s fractured response to COVID-19. This kind of thing is exactly why the federal government is supposed to take control of situations like this and lead from the top.
🧪 Here’s some good news: Americans mostly trust scientific leaders over Trump when it comes to COVID-19 news.
🇬🇧 UK doctors are trying to get a study funded that’ll look at possible protective properties of nicotine against COVID-19. I’m dubious, but it’ll be interesting if they find anything.
🦠 Back in mid-April, news that a study out of California showed that COVID-19 wasn’t as deadly as we thought made big headlines. Almost immediately a lot of folks in the scientific community were casting doubt on the study because it hadn’t been peer reviewed and seemed dubious at best for a lot of reasons. Well, a whistleblower says that the study was at least partially funded by Jet Blue founder David Neeleman, a dude who definitely has skin in the game because he wants people back on planes as soon as possible.
🍊 Trump claimed today that he’s been taking hydroxychloroquine for a week and a half. This would be the same drug that he’s been pimping like mad, and also that studies have shown don’t help with COVID-19 and might actually cause more health problems. I wonder if he’s also injecting disinfectants? But anyway, you can feel free to ignore that claim because I’ll bet you real money he’s lying because he’s mad he pimped the drug and it didn’t work out.
💩 Here’s a thing you should keep an eye out for: It’s going around in anti-vaxxer and other various MAGA cultist and conspiracy theory circles that, in order to get out of wearing a mask into public places, you can just claim that you have a disorder or disability that prevents you from wearing a mask, and then claim that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) or HIPPA regulations make it illegal for people to question you about it. That is not how the ADA or HIPPA works, FYI. (Here’s a video of a well-known flat-Earther and conspiracy theorist chick trying this stunt and failing.)
🍊 Trump has announced that he’s firing the State Department inspector general. This is the same inspector general who’s investigating Sec. of State Mike Pompeo. This is blatant banana republic-style corruption.
All right, that’s enough for today. You might want to skim through today’s WTF Just Happened Today to catch up on the weekend’s customary tire fire, or you can go watch this pupper playing with his new kitty.
Notes & Thoughts 