By Lila Seidman 4 January 2022 (Los Angeles Times) – One of Parsia Jahanbani’s biggest fears was realized when a man calling healthcare workers “murderers” attacked him and other staff members outside a mobile vaccine clinic in Tustin last week, he said. [For context, see Desdemona’s post, Covid and the war on medical expertise. –Des] […]
By George Monbiot 4 January 2022 (The Guardian) – No wonder journalists have slated it. They’ve produced a hundred excuses not to watch the climate breakdown satire, Don’t Look Up: it’s “blunt”, it’s “shrill”, it’s “smug”. But they will not name the real problem: it’s about them. The movie is, in my view, a powerful […]
By Graham Readfearn 4 January 2022 (The Guardian) – Waters off Sydney are undergoing an extreme marine heatwave with temperatures likely at their highest levels on record for January. Satellite data is showing the ocean surface off the coast of Sydney at 3C above normal, with swimmers and surfers reporting conditions that feel more like […]
By Margaret Menge 1 January 2022 (The Center Square) – The head of Indianapolis-based insurance company OneAmerica said the death rate is up a stunning 40% from pre-pandemic levels among working-age people. “We are seeing, right now, the highest death rates we have seen in the history of this business – not just at OneAmerica,” […]
By Alexandra Villarreal 3 January 2022 (The Guardian) – Covid-19 cases in Florida have risen by 948% in just two weeks, as the highly transmissible Omicron variant drives a huge wave of infections and hospitalizations across the US. Even as Dr Anthony Fauci – Joe Biden’s top medical adviser – cautioned the public to look at hospitalizations and […]
By Eithne Dodd 1 January 2022 (Buzz) – The Netflix film Don’t Look Up has divided opinion between critics and audiences. One of the most popular pieces of content on Netflix’s platform since it debuted, Rotten Tomatoes, a site that gives a cumulative critical score show’s just a 55 per cent approval from critics. So while many […]
By Divina M. Suson and Erwin M. Mascariñas 2 January 2022 SURIGAO CITY, Surigao del Norte, Philippines (Philippine Daily Inquirer) – When asked about their fishing boats during a disaster damage assessment just days after Typhoon Odette (international name: Rai) struck on 16 December 2021, many fishermen in the city’s coastal villages replied, “zero visibility.” […]
By Evan Bush 2 January 2022 (NBC News) – Humans have infected wild deer with Covid-19 in a handful of U.S. states and there’s evidence the virus has been spreading between deer, according to recent studies, which outline findings that could complicate the path out of the pandemic. Scientists swabbed the nostrils of white-tailed deer […]
By Alicia Victoria Lozano 2 January 2022 (NBC News) – With at-home Covid-19 tests in high demand and their efficacy in question, health departments from California to Massachusetts are turning to sewage samples to get a better idea of how much the coronavirus is spreading through communities and what might be in store for health care […]
1 January 2022 (Desdemona Despair) – The year started with a fascist insurrection in the U.S. and ended with record COVID-19 case rates. In between, the forces of sedition and antiscience merged to form a monstrous alliance of violence, delusion, and ignorance amplified by social media and automation. The internet – once conceived as the […]
