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For all the latest news all the time, check out our 24/7 website the Walking Duck.
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Far be it for me to not lede with the lede:
Here’s more feel good news from President Biden’s home state:
And let me give you more important food news, even if bittersweet:
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Now here is some potentially perfectly potent positive pandemic (a/k/a PPPPP®) news:
New evidence that the Omicron variant may cause significantly less serious disease than earlier strains emerged, as new Covid-19 infections hit records in some parts of the U.S. on Wednesday.
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland concluded that the risk of hospitalization with Omicron was two-thirds lower than with earlier variants. Separately, South African researchers said they estimate the risk of hospitalization at around 70% to 80% lower.
The findings, published in papers that haven’t been peer reviewed, are promising signs that immunity from prior infection or vaccination offers substantial protection against severe illness. (Wall Street Journal)
More PPPPP® news: The Washington Post rounds up all the hopeful signs on COVID super vaccine developments.
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Ok, for the less PPPPP® news, let’s look at the Gang of 500 and CW senses of the competence of Team Biden and the president himself when it comes to the pandemic.
What does a man called Gregg Gonsalves think?
He is “an associate professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health and associate professor (adjunct) at Yale Law School. He is a 2018 MacArthur Fellow.”
He writes on the Washington Post op-ed page:
[I]t pains me to admit it: President Biden is failing on covid-19.
Though he wanted to project competence, what we saw Tuesday was a White House playing catch-up and doing damage control after weeks of criticism, but still unable to fully commit to a national mobilization to put this pandemic behind us.
Ok, related quiz time.
Who wrote this?
Biden is being the president he campaigned to be. He is following that script to a T. But conditions on the ground have changed. What the American people want from their leader has changed. And Biden is going to have to change with them. He has to be the president America needs in December 2021, not the one it needed in December 2020.
Even with the real policy disappointments of the last few months, particularly around voting rights, Biden’s first year in office is far from a failure. But an alternate reality is growing in the minds of voters, and Biden himself is doing too little to squash it.
He needs to change the narrative, and the first step is to be more publicly present. Agreeing to an interview Wednesday with ABC’s David Muir was a start, but just one appearance won’t correct a season of shirking.
Was it
A. George F. Will
B. Charles M. Blow
C. Karl C. Rove
D. Mark E. Halperin
The correct answer is here.
Speaking of that David Muir interview the president did, you can read the network’s summary here.
An excerpt:
“Muir pressed Biden on why tests were not available before the Christmas rush, with the omicron variant now detected in all 50 states.
“‘Three days before Christmas, if you look out across the country, you see it everywhere, these long lines, people waiting for hours outside in the cold, just to get tested, to be reassured before they spend time with their family,’ Muir said. ‘If you go to the pharmacy, we hear this over and over again, empty shelves, no test kits. Is that a failure?’
“‘I don’t think it’s a failure,’ Biden replied. ‘I think it’s — you could argue that we should have known a year ago, six months ago, two months ago, a month ago. … I wish I had thought about ordering’ 500 million at-home tests ‘two months ago,’ he told Muir.”
Here’s what Politico whipped up in reaction:
Meanwhile, the New York Times has an essential read roundup of all the reasons to wonder and worry about the White House scheme to mail at-home tests to anxious Americans.
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Other not great stuff to share or hear:
The Boston Globe, with caveats and concern:
Nearly two months ago, federal regulators approved COVID-19 vaccines for children under 12 — one of the last demographics to receive the go-ahead for the new mRNA shots in the continuing pandemic.
Still, cases of the contagious virus in juveniles make up the lion’s share of new daily cases reported around New England, including in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
In the Bay State, the latest data available shows 1,651 cases were reported among 5 to 9-year-olds — more than any other age demographic. The second highest was among children ages 10 to 14, with 1,491 cases reported over the two-week period between Nov. 28 and Dec. 11.
In Rhode Island, the most daily cases reported on Dec. 11 — the latest day with data available — were for the 5 to 18 age group, which saw a total rate of 843 cases per 100,000 people.
On what is expected to be perhaps the busiest travel day of the year, Forbes:
The omicron variant of the coronavirus raises the risk of infection on board a passenger plane by two or even three-fold, according to the airline industry’s biggest trade body, a finding that may foreshadow an exponential increase in cases as millions of travelers take to the skies to be with their families during the holiday season.
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The New York Times takes another whack at the “Vice President Harris as Veep” storyline, with three notable elements:
1. The piece ledes with a meme-ish notion that, as much as the president likes his #2, he might be leaving her out of some stuff.
2. In the midst of her media blitz, the Veep declined to talk to the Times.
3. Who did talk to the Paper of Record on the record in full-throated support of the Veep?
Karen Bass, Pete Buttigieg, and Hillary Clinton, the last of whom, the article reveals, is an unofficial adviser to the Veep on how to control her public image in the face of negative media coverage that in many instances is the product of unfairness and the repetition of false narratives (and in some cases is the direct result of the conduct of the principal).
I have read the Clinton sections of the Times piece three times -- and so far I have detected no nod to the irony.
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Finally, this is either great holiday news or not:
Unlike the Delaware sushi-pizza combo, with Putin, you never know what to expect.
Please excuse the typos; I’m sleepy.