Favorites May 15th 2022

Kyoto, May 2018

Matthew Walsh @matthewwalsh91

I wrote about the bizarre move to douse #Shanghai in clouds of disinfectant as part of its “grand assault” on #Covid-19. Why spend so much energy on a virus that rarely spreads via surfaces? The answers are more about politics than public health. -- @AFP

sg.news.yahoo.comIn a haze of disinfectant, China struggles with invisible enemyLeaving a fine mist of disinfectant in their wake, China’s hazmat-clad health workers are cleaning homes, roads, parcels and even people -- but more than two years into the pandemic, experts say it is a futile measure against Covid-19.

Unfortunately the article only contains speculation, it's not like officials are going to respond to the question "why are you doing this thing we know is ineffective". Anyway, the best guess seems to be that it "conjures up the image of a heroic battle against an invisible enemy"

Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇦 @Noahpinion

BASED

SpaceX @SpaceX

Starlink is now available in 32 countries around the world. People ordering from areas marked “available” will have their Starlink shipped immediately → https://t.co/slZbTmHdml https://t.co/CecM1pkf5D

I guess this makes me slightly less worried that Musk is afraid of angering China, given that they're counting Taiwan as a separate country. Also here's a link to the definition of 'based'

Justin @JustinLawGuy

You gonna take their land again?

No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen @NoLieWithBTC

NEW: Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt (R) just warned sovereign Native American tribal lands to not make abortion accessible in their territory if Roe is overturned: “Oklahomans will not think very well of that if tribes try to set up abortion clinics.”

I just learned that about 47 percent of Oklahoma is tribal land.

Arpit Gupta @arpitrage

- Omicron shows accelerated evolution - Latest strain BA.2.12.1 not only has progressively higher transmission, but minimal cross-immunity to BA.1. Many will get reinfected - BA.1 targeted vaccines will likely be less effective too - Need nasal vaccine to limit transmission https://t.co/0L1vRS5aBq

Eric Topol @EricTopol

I wrote about the Covid capitulation https://t.co/N5zk6WsPWB

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

When mRNA vaccines first arrived it happened so rapidly that we got excited about the ability to pivot rapidly to new variant-optimized vaccines if necessary. Now we have new, highly transmissible variants that significantly reduce existing vaccine efficacy and … crickets.

Nasal vaccines reduce spread of the virus, we should be developing these faster!