Can someone explain to me why it’s racist to wonder if a virus escaped from a Chinese lab, but it’s not racist to insist that it infected humans because of Chinese wet markets? If anything, isn’t the latter more racist?

Also, isn’t the relevant question: *what happened*? Or no? pic.twitter.com/vSqqJnehf7

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 26, 2021

The truth doesn’t matter.

If it makes a liberal cry, it’s racist. If a MAGA person believes it, it’s racist. If Trump said it, it’s racist. If it happened more than 20 years go, it’s racist. Etc. It just doesn’t matter to most people what actually happened or what the truth is — they just want to be on the “right” team. This is just as true, by the way, of conservatives and Republicans as it is of liberals. Probably even more so.

But because I am a liberal, it bothers me more when people I tend to want to associate with engage in this jackassery.

I can’t believe it’s necessary to say this, but if the leak of a pathogen from a research lab killed >10 million people and cost over $10,000 billion, it’s important to know that so we can take steps to make sure it never happens again.

— Robert Wiblin (@robertwiblin) May 27, 2021

The reason this assertion makes the liberal side angry because they spent nearly a year portraying anyone who said, “Maybe we should look at a lab leak” as completely and insufferably insane. This hasn’t been totally forgotten, unlike the “not shaking hands is racism” at the very start of the pandemic. And since it has not been just cast into the outer darkness of ideas it’s a very sore point since it’s looking more and more likely that SARS-Cov-2 was in fact a lab accident.

Also, these very same people were portraying labs leaks as something that basically never happen when anyone even remotely close to the bio research field knows they occur quite frequently.

Thus, this cowardly eschewal of looking at the issue plainly emerges from a combination of people who don’t want to be seen to be hideously and hilariously wrong, even though that’s exactly what they are, and not wanting to experience the geopolitical implications if COV2 was in fact a lab leak (which it probably was).

Immunity to the Coronavirus May Persist for Years, Scientists Find.

This is what I expected, and predicted, based on how other similar viruses work. Those who were claiming differently…well, can you read? I can. I’m not an epidemiologist but I can read quite well. What I do is not hard, exactly, so why can’t many other people do it?

It’s been clear for a long time that SARS2 is not like the CVs that cause common colds, and has a far lower mutation rate. That’s why I said vaccine-based immunity would last at least 2-3 years in those with normal immune systems.

But I’m glad that it appears it might be longer. I’ll take that kind of good news any damn day.

Also, are there any literacy classes ya’ll can enroll in? Please do sign up.

Article in @washingtonpost by myself, @TracyBethHoeg, @KrugAlli and @drlucymcbride on returning children’s lives to normal now with clear metrics on how children can return to school unmasked in fall based on high adult vax rate + ~3 hospitalizations/100K https://t.co/OC6fmFeG1N

— Monica Gandhi MD, MPH (@MonicaGandhi9) May 26, 2021

The risks are very very low. Many people want to eliminate all risk. This is impossible and that fact is true with or without Covid.

Meanwhile, we’ve utterly destroyed the mental health of millions of children and some people want to…just keep doing that nearly eternally. Great idea.

Ohio sees 40% boost in COVID-19 shots after Vax-a-Million lottery announced.

People are not rational. Let’s use that for good for once and do this everywhere.

Also, fuck anti-vaxxers.

So You’re Vaccinated! How Can You Let People Know?

Well, here’s one way:

Was looking for a brand of T-shirt that I wanted to buy more of, and instead I got this:

Thank you, Amazon, that was definitely what I was looking for. Perfect. Yes, I removed it from my browsing history as I do not need more suggestions along those lines, thank you.

I remember reading a physical therapist who had worked on American football guys & gymnasts. Said the toughest athletes were teenage female gymnasts. Would perform on a wound that a football player would be taken out on a stretcher for. https://t.co/B1zuMopWQC

— Ian Welsh (@iwelsh) May 26, 2021

Damn. I’d have 38 broken bones and would be forced to spend a year in recovery if I fell like that. She just gets up and keeps going.

We dined in at a restaurant for the first time in 14 months this evening and it was pretty great. Peruvian place with some seriously good lomo saltado. They were out of several items (as are many places) and prices were 25%+ above last year. Definite inflation occurring (the real definition, not the fake econ definition).

But it was good to be out and not confined to a stupid mask that makes my brain effectively smaller than a beetle’s.

Highly recommend doing it when you can.