The biggest problem many have is explaining what exactly we could've done to avoid the Omnicron surge.
I'm not sure there is anything.
We HAVE decreased deaths with vaccines; and hospitalizations AS A RATIO OF INFECTIONS is down.
But ultimately, hospitals are still swamped.
This is the heat map.
NOBODY is doing well. The highest vaccinated states, RI/VT/ME are actually the states that got hit hardest first. CT/MA/NY/NJ are next and are peaking. The worst states, ID/WY/AL/MS are being hit or are about to.
Short of a complete shutdown, not sure how you would have stopped this hospitalization spike. This is doubly true when you consider the bad timing, coinciding with the holidays.
The simple reality is this was our first true pure seasonal spread of COVID. We weren't going to avoid it; were only going to mitigate the severity with vaccines. The spread was unstoppable, and until we really learn to live with that, we aren't going to be able to fully adapt.
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These are among the highest vaccinated states in America.
Transmission is not being slowed ANYWHERE.
Hospitalizations and deaths are muted because of vaccines though. That is a great thing. But even hospitalizations are high, just because of the huge number of people.
And there is almost no evidence that places with vax or mask mandates are controlling transmission either...no matter what SCOTUS says.
Simply put:
1. VACCINES SAVE LIVES. 2. We have utterly failed in controlling transmission. 3. This wave is different than the others.
This disparity is GROWING as more inner city (read: MINORITY) districts go virtual in this phase of the pandemic than suburban districts.
This is not because of money, or greed, or whatever...this is because of POOR CHOICES.
It will, on average, take FIVE SCHOOL YEARS for minority students to make up this deficit, and that is assuming they have the educational opportunities to even attempt to catch up...which is unlikely.
Maybe I am naïve, or stupid, or both, but to me the problems if 1/6 are pretty easily fixed. The combination of bad laws and police incompetence made that day possible, and both are fixable, no?
Reforming the Electoral College Count act would remove Congress from the equation. This was never supposed to be in their power any way; this was always a power that was supposed to reside in the states.
"One option is to make it clear that the VP can’t override will of voters in states as she or he counts the votes. Yuval Levin : “It should be pretty clear that it needs to be clarified, that a vice president shouldn’t have to be in the position of saying no to the president.”"
Ludicrous. Of course not. The comparison is absurd on its face.
Was 1/6 a terrorist action?
Um...no matter what @TuckerCarlson stupidly says, by any definition, it was a terror act.
Lot of things we ignore were; BLM riots, the baseball shooting, etc.
If you use violence to get political change, especially against civilians, its by any definition terrorism.
Were most of the people there to cause terror for political purposes? Nah. I bet maybe 5% of them were at most.
Were the most violent idiots basically terrorists? YES.
I know, these are inconvenient truths. Its inconvenient for liberals to accept that rioters from BLM riots in the summer of 2020 were terrorists too. But they clearly were.
The more we allow idiots to use violence for political motives, the worse off we will be.
Ultimately Democrats' problem on COVID is they have no exit ramp.
The Warp Speed vaccines were supposed to be the gift for Biden...and although they have succeeded in saving lives, they have not ended the pandemic.
Right now, what exactly do they see as the end of this?
'Zero COVID' was quite literally the Biden position for most of the year. Now that this has become a scientific impossibility, they don't seem to have a plan B.
None of this is surprising. COVID, like so many other endemic viruses, isn't going away any time soon.
The 'Red State' response more and more seems reasonable; protect the vulnerable, vaccinate as much as possible, improve access to therapeutics, and then...get back to living life.
Honestly want to know what the plan for the Chicago Schools Teachers Union is. What is their endgame?
We know no matter what, we can't stop Omnicron spread. We know that no amount of money will magically stop its spread. We have all teachers vaccinated, and most students. So?
Zero COVID is an impossibility.
So, how many COVID cases are CPS teachers willing to accept to open? Noting that they have all been vaccinated already?
If they can't answer that question, they are not being serious about this question.
Lets say we handed the CPS $10 billion today to solve this problem. What exactly would they do, and how would their infection rates improve?
I bet you not a single teacher could answer these questions.