onfocus

"For weeks Oregon health officials have warned that COVID-19 cases, fueled by the highly transmissible delta variant, would fill hospitals by September if infection rates didn't slow significantly. Now, a little more than halfway through the month of August, 94% of the state’s hospital beds for adults and 93% of ICU beds are full."

"The burden of this pandemic now rests on the shoulders of the unvaccinated. On those who are eligible to get vaccinated, but choose not to, a decision they defend by declaring, “vaccination is a deeply personal choice.” But perhaps never in history has anyone’s personal choice impacted the world as a whole as it does right now. When hundreds and thousands of people continue to die, when the most vulnerable members of society, our children, cannot be vaccinated — the luxury of choice ceases to exist."

"Although, statistically, counties and states with higher vaccination rates have lower case counts and hospitalization rates, they have still become areas with high levels of community spread."

"I think the problem we have is people — whether it’s the CDC or the people that are doing the briefings — their big concern is, they just want to get vaccinations up. And they don’t want to punch any holes in the story about vaccines. But we can handle the truth. And that’s what we should be getting."

"What we don’t know – but need to know to make any meaningful policy decisions around vaccinated people and the pandemic moving forward – is how common breakthrough cases are, how common long Covid is in these breakthrough cases, and how breakthrough long Covid compares with long Covid in unvaccinated infected individuals, in terms of severity, duration and pathophysiology."

"Out of 469 positive cases identified, nearly three-quarters of cases were in fully vaccinated people. Delta was determined to be the culprit in these cases, not older strains or some new variant. And — most surprisingly — the amount of virus measured in a subset of people who tested positive was nearly identical among vaccinated and unvaccinated people."

“Oregon is facing a spike in COVID-19 hospitalizations––consisting overwhelmingly of unvaccinated individuals––that is quickly exceeding the darkest days of our winter surge,” Brown said in a written statement Wednesday. “When our hospitals are full, there will be no room for additional patients needing care––whether for COVID-19, a heart attack or stroke, a car collision, or a variety of other emergency situations. If our hospitals run out of staffed beds, all Oregonians will be at risk.”

"Kids remain, as they have been throughout the pandemic, at much lower risk of getting seriously sick with the coronavirus, especially compared with unvaccinated adults. But the recent rash of illnesses among the nation’s youngest is a sobering reminder of the COVID-19 adage that lower risk is not no risk. With so many children unable to access vaccines and their health contingent on those around them, parents and guardians must now navigate the reality that Delta represents a more serious danger to everyone—which means it’s a more serious danger to kids as well."

"A number of universities and hospitals, the Defense Department and at least one major city, San Francisco, are expected to mandate inoculation once a vaccine is fully approved. Final approval could also help mute misinformation about the safety of vaccines and clarify legal issues about mandates."

"I asked about the possibility—floated by many critics of the account—that by sharing extremist rhetoric to a broad audience with little other information, PatriotTakes is effectively re-platforming people who have been removed from the public square for a reason. The account’s owner was uninterested in discussing it."

"CAPTCHA images are never joyful vistas of human activity, full of Whitmanesque vigor. No, they’re blurry, anonymous landscapes that possess a positively Soviet anomie."

"The Fox pipeline is pretty simple. Fox News stokes a constant sense of outrage among its base of viewers, largely by highlighting narratives of white resentment and threats to Christianity. This in turn forces Republican politicians to follow suit. It’s a positive feedback loop that has no obvious braking system, and it’s already radicalized the conservative base so much that most Republicans literally believe that elections are being stolen and democracy is all but dead if they don’t take extreme action."