Climate Change Chronicles: More than just a relief bill

Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) are on the way out:

The coolant phase-down would be one of the most significant federal policies ever taken to cut greenhouse gas emissions, according to an analysis by the Rhodium Group, a research and consulting firm.

By 2035, the law would help avoid the equivalent of 949 million tons of carbon dioxide, the group estimated, which is similar in scope to the extra expected emissions from Mr. Trump’s climate policy rollbacks on vehicle pollution and methane from oil and gas operations.

Read that bottom part again. One of the biggest and most important steps we could take, but it merely offsets some of the damage Trump did to our efforts to deal with climate change. Here's a short history of the EPA's efforts to control this chemical:

Wake County Schools have growing Coronavirus issues

Extending the Xmas break until January 15 may not be enough:

The district has reported 432 cases since Oct. 26, when the first students began returning for in-person instruction. Since Oct. 29, Wake has reported 244 cases among staff and 183 among students.

Friday is the last day of classes before Wake County students go on winter break. Difficulty finding substitute teachers and the fear of a post-Christmas COVID-19 spike caused the Wake school board to vote Tuesday to suspend in-person instruction for all schools from Jan. 4-15.

Just to be clear, "finding substitute teachers" is not the problem you should be concerned with, it's the needing so many that should keep you up at night. And the hundreds (thousands?) of other staff members who are going to work either terrified or greatly concerned about their exposure. And this is starting to sound arrogant:

Students don't need to be "fixed," they are not broken

Advice from a teacher, via Diane Ravitch:

Resist the pressure from whatever ‘powers that be’ who are in a hurry to “fix” kids and make up for the “lost” time. The time was not lost, it was invested in surviving an historic period of time in their lives—in our lives. The children do not need to be fixed. They are not broken. They need to be heard. They need be given as many tools as we can provide to nurture resilience and help them adjust to a post pandemic world.

I'm not an educator, but I know several people reading this are, and we'd love to hear from you. Of course students have "gotten behind" during the quarantine lockdown, and of course online learning falls short of in-person school attendance. But a lot of kids were already behind before Coronavirus came to town, especially in reading comprehension, which is a major gateway to other learning, even STEM. But while this pandemic has surely exacerbated problems that already existed, "catching them up" may also exacerbate those problems, making that climb even harder. Here's more to consider:

Vapor flow analysis demonstrates Coronavirus spread

Will you take the COVID 19 Vaccine when your turn comes up?

The real Deep State: NIH employee was anti-mask author

Now we know what websites Dandy has been reading:

It would have been a dangerous assertion in the middle of a deadly pandemic no matter where it came from: that wearing masks has “little to no medical value” and could do more “harm” than wearing no mask at all.

But it was especially remarkable given the source. Published on the right-wing website RedState, it turned out to have been written under a pseudonym by William B. Crews, a public affairs officer at the National Institutes of Health, promoting the same type of discredited information about dealing with the virus that his employer was working aggressively to beat back.

I no longer find it ironic these guys do exactly the opposite of what we pay them to do. After 3 1/2 years of Kakistocracy, that's what you get. I do find it hard to believe his coworkers and supervisors did not realize what an idiot he actually was. Here are some examples:

Coronavirus goes to college in NC, and thrives

Some 3,000 students have been infected, and that's a low estimate:

At least 3,000 college students in North Carolina have tested positive for the coronavirus since campuses reopened last month for in-person classes, with an overwhelming number of cases coming from just three campuses, an Associated Press analysis shows.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has seen 895 students test positive for the virus since classes began Aug. 10, while North Carolina State University has reported 788 cases among students over the same time period. East Carolina University, which started classes Aug. 10, has had 756 students test positive since Aug. 9.

Even with this damning evidence of the risk, Republicans are still (continually) harping about opening the schools, and attacking Roy Cooper for his careful approach. Pay close attention to this spike in positives from testing:

Notes from the Kakistocracy: Miracle cure or deadly toxin?

My Pillow exec is pushing Oleandrin to Trump as a cure:

Mike Lindell, the chief executive of My Pillow and a big donor to President Trump, told Axios that the president was enthusiastic about the drug, called oleandrin, when he heard about it at a White House meeting last month.

“This thing works — it’s the miracle of all time,” Mr. Lindell, who has a financial stake in the company that makes the compound and sits on its board, said in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Tuesday. When CBS asked Mr. Trump about oleandrin for Covid-19, Mr. Trump said, “We’ll look at it.”

Forget about "snake oil," this stuff is more dangerous than most snake venom. I'll let Dr. Cassandra Quave explain it:

Coronavirus vaccine may be only 50% effective

Masks and social distancing will be with us for a while:

Scientists are hoping for a coronavirus vaccine that is at least 75% effective, but 50% or 60% effective would be acceptable, too, Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during a Q&A with the Brown University School of Public Health. “The chances of it being 98% effective is not great, which means you must never abandon the public health approach.”

Dr. Stephen Hahn, the FDA’s commissioner, said last month that the vaccine or vaccines that end up getting authorized will prove to be more than 50% effective, but it’s possible the U.S. could end up with a vaccine that, on average, reduces a person’s risk of a Covid-19 infection by just 50%. “We really felt strongly that that had to be the floor,” Hahn said on July 30, adding that it’s “been batted around among medical groups.”

I know it's depressing as hell to see this on a Monday, but the sooner we get this through our heads the better. That 50% is about the same as influenza vaccines:

UNC officials pay lip service to health department concerns

Plunging ahead with in-person instruction during a pandemic:

In the memo, Stewart expressed concern over signs returning students have already contributed to spikes and clusters of infections. She recommended an all-online fall semester or, at a minimum, holding the first five weeks of the semester online-only. She also recommended the school restrict on-campus housing to those who would otherwise have nowhere to live, in order to slow community spread of the disease.

The chancellor described the Orange County Health Department’s recommendations as “another piece of information we have received.” But after consulting with UNC health experts and the UNC System — which will make the final decision on closures — the university decided not to follow the health department recommendations.

When (not if) the outbreaks occur, faculty and students will have to scramble (again) to adapt to online instruction, and the UNC Hospital itself will likely be buried in older Orange County residents unnecessarily infected. And if it is, they need to treat those people for free. I know it's a teaching hospital that also relies (at least partly) on tuition monies, but health issues should be paramount. And these comments will not age well:

BlueNC

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