This Day In COVID-- The Good, The Bad And The Republican

Poster by Chip Proser

Three conservative senators, Roger Wicker (R-MS), Frackenlooper (D-CO) and Angus King (I-ME) all announced they tested positive for COVID despite being fulled vaccinated. Meanwhile, the White House announced that in the past 24 hours, more than a million doses of vaccine had been administered, around 562,000 being first jabs. (Maybe people are finally paying attention to Dolly.)

Crazy little Republican Sara Walsh represents Missouri's 50th House District south of Columbia. It's a safe red district made up of parts of Boone, Cooper and Moniteau counties. Trump lost the Columbia part of Boone County but Walsh's share of the county went red as did the three other counties and, like most Trump counties, many people have chosen to commit suicide-by-COVID and refuse to be vaccinated. I guess it's a good way to thin the herd of morons. Only 53% of Missouri adults are fully vaccinated.

• Boone Co.- 41.3% Trump-- 50% vaccinated (mostly in Columbia)

• Cole Co.- 64.8% Trump-- 42% vaccinated

• Cooper Co.- 70.7% Trump-- 33% fully vaccinated

• Moniteau Co.- 79.1% Trump-- 27% fully vaccinated

I'm sure you've noticed that the bigger the vote for Trump, the lower the vaccination rates. You think that's a coincidence... in every state? The correlation is absolutely stunning, almost like it's a cause and effect situation. I wish there was some way to give all these people IQ tests, although... to you really even have to?

Two of the morons who refused to be vaccinated were Rep. Sara and her husband, Steve Walsh, who worked as Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler's press secretary. They-- Sara and Steve-- both became infected and the 63 year old husband, after a struggle on a ventilator, died last night/early this morning.

Sara, announced on Twitter that Steve had been "welcomed to Heaven’s glory into the arms of Jesus Christ his Lord and Savior." She is currently the Republican Majority Caucus Chair and is running for the MO-04 open congressional seat, Hartzler having decided to end her political career by running for the Missouri Senate nomination instead of for reelection. The most recent poll, shows Hartzler running third with 14%, behind Gretitens (34%) and Schmidt (25%).

COVID-ally Mike Parson was in the middle of the gubernatorial Ham Breakfast at the Missouri State Fair when he found out that Steve Walsh was in the arms of Jesus. He asked for a moment of silence in memory of Steve, before people then shuffled off to enjoy the Puppies of Penzance. Unmasked, of course.

Today, Missouri reported 3,421 more cases, bringing the state total to 730,985-- 119,103 per million residents. Texas is having much worse days and is catching up with Florida for the #1 worst pandemic place in the country-- another gubernatorial-mandated diseased hell. Yesterday, as everyday, Texas reported the second most new cases after Florida, 18,434 (to Florida's 23,335)-- bringing the total to 3,400,004 (+ 188 new one day deaths, the most in the country). The hard core Trump counties are like another planet in terms of the pandemic. Statewide, Texas adults are 57% vaccinated, but that's in the big cities like Dallas, Austin, Houston, San Antonio and El Paso. When you get to the place where Trump did best, vaccination rates are uniformly below the state and national averages, some of the worst rates anywhere, pointing to some of the stupidest people on the planet-- a combination of Trump voters and COVID-embracers. In 2020, 16 counties gave over 90% of their votes to Trump. Today these 16 counties are all COVID hotbeds., threatening the well-being of normal people across the Lone Star State.

• Roberts Co.- 96.2% Trump (23% of adults fully vaccinated)

• Borden Co.- 95.4% Trump (24% of adults fully vaccinated)

• King Co.- 95.0% Trump (14% of adults fully vaccinated)

• Glasscock Co.- 93.6% Trump (32% of adults fully vaccinated)

• Armstrong Co.- 93.1% Trump (30% of adults fully vaccinated)

• Motley Co.- 92.6% Trump (21% of adults fully vaccinated)

• Wheeler Co.- 92.4% Trump (30% of adults fully vaccinated)

• Sterling Co.- 91.4% Trump (26% of adults fully vaccinated)

• Shackelford Co.- 91.1% Trump (28% of adults fully vaccinated)

• Oldham Co.- 90.9% Trump (26% of adults fully vaccinated)

• Loving Co.- 90.9% Trump (17% of adults fully vaccinated)

• Jack Co.- 90.4% Trump (28% of adults fully vaccinated)

• Hansford Co.- 90.3% Trump (33% of adults fully vaccinated)

• Throckmorton Co.- 90.2% Trump (34% of adults fully vaccinated)

• Archer Co.- 90.0% Trump (38% of adults fully vaccinated)

• Hartley Co.- 90.0% Trump (38% of adults fully vaccinated)

This morning, Hill reporters Justine Coleman and Maggie Miller wrote that inadequately-vaccinated Texas is facing a tipping point in the fight against the pandemic. "The dynamics, they wrote, "have put everyone on edge and have created heated political battles between Abbott and the Democratic leaders of several urban centers."

“We are concerned about escalating numbers. Our cases yesterday were higher than our seven-day moving average, our hospitalizations higher than our seven-day moving average, ICUs higher than our seven-day moving average, so we are still real concerned about the numbers we are seeing,” Austin Mayor Steve Adler (D) told The Hill on Wednesday.

“We do know that the best way, and really the only way, out of this long-term is for people to get vaccinated, so we are doing everything we can to get more and more people vaccinated.”

Austin is one of a handful of Texas cities that has fought back against Abbott’s executive order against mask mandates. The Texas Supreme Court earlier this week issued a temporary order banning mask mandates issued in cities, including Dallas and San Antonio.

Following the ruling, Abbott defended the decision to ban mask mandates, tweeting that “the ban doesn’t prohibit using masks. Anyone who wants to wear a mask can do so, including in schools.”

But at the same time, Texas is enduring a massive increase in COVID-19 cases. It's counting an average of 15,500 new cases per day, with hospitals and intensive care units nearing or at capacity in many areas.

...Out of any state, Texas ranks second for both the most adults with confirmed COVID-19 in hospitals and intensive care units, trailing behind Florida, according to data from the Department of Health and Human Services.

The Lone Star State narrowly has the most hospitalized children with confirmed COVID-19 diagnoses, counting 196 children currently, compared to Florida’s 190 pediatric hospitalizations.

Democrat Mike Collier, who is running for lieutenant governor, called the COVID-19 situation in Texas a “nightmare” and blamed the current administration, saying Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) did not motivate residents to get the vaccine.

“For political reasons only, they let this virus run wild,” Collier told The Hill. “And the scientists told us that there would be variants, and that's exactly what happened. And I lay this at their feet.”

...The state’s lower vaccination rate plays a “huge role” in the current COVID-19 wave, said Angela Clendenin, an instructional assistant professor at Texas A&M University's School of Public Health.

She noted the state has reached a point where not enough residents are getting the jab, giving the virus a chance to mutate and develop more transmissible variants like the delta strain.

“It's just like this great, big open space for the virus to continue to infect people and even to mutate further,” she said. “The low vaccination rate, the lack of mask mandates, all that is doing is creating an opportunity for a more severe wave to happen in the future.”

David Dowdy, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said Texas is not an “outlier” as much of the country struggles with delta but that COVID-19 has become more “widespread” in the state recently.

The back-to-school season could give “another jumpstart to the virus,” he said. He recommended that officials focus on finding where transmission is happening, such as in schools, and take action to prevent that spread.

“It's just important that we recognize that measures that are put in place right now don't have to be in place forever,” Dowdy said. “But as cases are going up, it's important for us to react before things get even further out of hand.”

Some school districts have already hit roadblocks this year, with Iraan-Sheffield Independent School District in West Texas announcing a two-week shutdown starting Tuesday and Leander Independent School District reaching beyond 100 cases in its first week of school.

Arizona Republicans, not to be outdone by Florida or Texas, are offering incentives to discourage mask-wearing! The Arizona Republic reported that "Gov. Doug Ducey is creating two grant programs that would provide funds to families and school districts that reject mask mandates. Those measures come amid growing pushback against a state law that prohibits mask mandates in Arizona schools. In a series of news releases Tuesday, the Governor’s Office announced extra money for families affected by mask mandates, as well as a grant program only school districts that “follow all state laws” would be eligible for... At least 14 Arizona school districts have implemented COVID-19 mask mandates since schools opened this year. Ducey has said those mandates are illegal, but a Maricopa County Superior Court judge ruled Monday that districts currently could require masks because the law does not take effect until Sept. 29. Earlier this month, a group of Republican lawmakers asked Ducey to take tough action against school districts requiring face coverings in defiance of that law, including by withholding federal funding from school districts with mask mandates, authorizing temporary school vouchers for all students in those districts and initiating legal action against the districts."

Arizona reported 2,402 new cases yesterday, bringing the state's total to 972,925-- 133,667 cases per million, 10th worst in the country. Although 57% of Arizona adults are fully vaccinated, again, Trumpish hellhole counties are not vaccinated enough. The reddest and most backward county in the state, Mohave, gave Trump the highest percentage of votes-- 74.9%-- and has the lowest vaccination rate-- 32%. Contrast that with Santa Cruz County, which gave Trump his lowest percentage-- 31.6%-- and has the highest rate of vaccination in the state-- 81%. The congressman who represents Santa Cruz County is Rail Grijalva, the most progressive Arizona member. The congressman who represents Mohave County, by contrast, is fascist sociopath and insurrectionist Paul Gosar, Arizona's most far right member, a certifiably insane person.