• Remember how, months ago, smartphone contact tracing apps were touted as having a big role in what was already then, a la the War on Drugs, War on Poverty, etc., being touted as the War on Coronavirus?
Don't hear about them much now, do you? Why not?
Per Time, they have have largely been a #fail, and it explains why.
First, per a graph from the story, they've obviously NOT been a(s much a) fail elsewhere. Ireland has 37 percent adoption, vs. Virginia as the top US state with just over 10 percent. So, why a fail in Merika?
First, blame The Donald.
Second, blame tech companies themselves for the degree to which modern smartphones CAN track people, and paranoia even beyond that. (Note that Ireland's 37 percent, as the top country on the chart, and Germany's 27 percent, means this one isn't just an American issue.)
Third, blame states for not touting the apps more, with or without Trump and a non-response at the federal level.
• The Observer talks about how the virus has hastened the exposure of crumbling holes in the superstructure of Texas health care and, just as much if not more, in the superstructure of what is allegedly public health in Texas.
• Rice University students have gone low-tech with results. A student community court tries students accused of violating mask and social distance rules.
• The Cut offers a story of a person seeing their grandfather die, and calling out Dan Patrick and his "duty to die," who actually is nothing compared to the editor of First Things, who this spring dove DEEP into the empty pool of Religious Right wingnuttery, Catholic division, claiming that the degree some people were going to save lives was "demonic." No, really. I hadn't realized until reading this JUST how much Conservative Cafeteria Catholics had sold their souls.
• Skeptical Raptor says pump the brakes on Pfizer's potential vaccine. Beyond the "peer review by PR," he of course says lets get some real Peer Review. And, that -100F (-75C) storage requirement? Rural areas in the US likely out. Tropical areas around the world likely out.
• That's as Moderna says: "Our PR staff says that our vaccine is just as good as Pfizer's PR staff says its vaccine is." The MSM is idiots about more than politics.
• For the second time in a month, I've called out NYT science writer Carl Zimmer for printing PR. And, again, suggested he needs to read Skeptical Raptor, Orac and the like before writing. It's a sad thing that it's happened twice now, not just once.
• ProPublica says pump the brakes on rapid antigen tests, held out as the hope for all sorts of things, such as the NBA having fans at games in its new season. Currently, they're riddled with false positives and can be misleading if not used carefully and correctly.
• Costco has eliminated medical exemption claims loopholes. You wanna shop there? Wear a damn mask. Per my boycotts and semi-boycotts, all retailers that offer pickup or delivery service should do this.
• Chiropractors were HUGE antivaxxers when the polio vaccine came out. Why? IMO, a mix of true belief in the pseudomedicine claims for chiropractic and, per we journos, follow the money.
• Silver lining news, sadly temporary? The city of San Antonio has temporarily let kayakers and canoers use the Riverwalk area of the San Antonio River.
• Gov. Noem continues to death-wish the people of South Dakota even as she and her press secretary flunky claim she's presented the "full scope of the science" to residents. Nope. She lies about masks even as deaths soar.
• Mink coronavirus is a thing, but contra Counterpunch (not linking!) seemingly less of a thing than the mag claims.
• The US is now past 250,000 deaths. Will we hit 300,000 before the end of the year? Quite possibly. Zeynef Tufecki is the latest to sound the holidays alarm.
