28 December 2021 (Desdemona Despair) – Bill Gates tweeted, “Just when it seemed like life would return to normal, we could be entering the worst part of the pandemic.” In a seven-tweet thread, he went on to say that the Omicron variant “is spreading faster than any virus in history” and it “will be the […]
7 August 2021 (Desdemona Despair) – The SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) virus is widely understood to be the most recent virus to have jumped the species barrier to humans[1]. In this post, I propose the idea that COVID-19 is the first virus to jump the platform barrier also, from natural biology to human technology. COVID-19 exists now […]
4 August 2021 (Desdemona Despair) – Republican election strategy became clearer today, as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis blamed exponential increases in Covid infection rates on immigrants at the Southern border, deflecting blame from the unvaccinated populations in Florida and other Republican-controlled states. This ridiculous idea is easily tested by examining the spatial distribution of case […]
By Natalie Colarossi 1 August 2021 (Newsweek) – Florida on Sunday broke a previous record for the most COVID-19 hospitalizations in the U.S., just one day after the state registered its highest single-day COVID-19 case number. Florida now has 10,207 people hospitalized with confirmed coronavirus cases, a number that surpasses a previous record the state […]
27 July 2021 (Desdemona Despair) – Florida broke its COVID-19 daily-case record on Monday, exceeding the previous peak in January 2021. Hospitalizations hit the highest number since February 2021. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has downplayed the outbreak and told healthcare professionals that he opposes any mask mandate for students. Florida saw more than 18,200 new […]
By Max Greenwood 20 July 2021 ORLANDO, Florida (The Hill) – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Monday downplayed the recent spike in coronavirus cases in his state and criticized public health officials who continue to push unvaccinated Americans to get Covid-19 shots. “It’s a seasonal virus and this is the seasonal pattern it follows […]
By Jeff Goodell 1 July 2021 (Rolling Stone) – Before it fell, Champlain Towers South, the 12-story Florida condo building that collapsed last week in the middle of the night, burying residents in a pile of concrete and chaos, was just another nondescript high-rise on the beach. It had been thrown up quickly during the […]
By Danielle Ivory, Lauren Leatherby, and Robert Gebeloff 17 April 2021 (The New York Times) – About 31 percent of adults in the United States have now been fully vaccinated. Scientists have estimated that 70 to 90 percent of the total population must acquire resistance to the virus to reach herd immunity. But in hundreds […]
By Raja Razek and Alaa Elassar 4 April 2021 (CNN) – Response teams in Manatee County Florida are trying to prevent a “real catastrophic flood situation” in the Piney Point reservoir area, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Sunday after taking an aerial tour the area. The governor assured the public that the water being discharged to […]
27 February 2021 (AFP) – The U.S. city of Miami is to invest billions of dollars to tackle its vulnerability to rising sea levels, a reality that already affects the daily lives of residents used to constant flooding. Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine-Cava said Friday she will protect communities hardest hit by rising sea levels, […]
