onfocus

If you didn’t see the Capitol Police officers testify about the mob violence they fought on 1/6, this Twitter thread has clips that will give you a sense of their powerful stories.

See also: Officer Michael Fanone on CNN.

See also: Dan Rather says Enough.

"Certainly the severe consequences will fall mostly on the unvaccinated. But the dysfunction affects all Americans."

This update from Zeynep Tufekci mirrors my frustration with the CDC, FDA, and OSHA. These agencies seem to be acting slowly while cases rise quickly in the US.

"At the beginning of the pandemic, the CDC said that a close contact was somebody that you’re indoors with unmasked for 15 minutes or more. The equivalent of that with the Delta variant is not 15 minutes, it’s one second."

Grimacing emoji.

Can I (a vaccinated parent) transmit the virus to my (unvaccinated) kids?

Yes. During pre-Delta, vaccines reduced transmission by a lot (85-90%), but they’re not perfect (100%). So, yes you can give the virus to your kids, although it’s much less probable than an unvaccinated person. We do not know how Delta changes the game. Delta is stickier with a higher viral load, so Delta has the potential to transmit from vaccinated to unvaccinated higher than before. But we just don’t know yet.

An epidemiologist looks at the Delta variant's impact on kids who can't get vaccinated yet.

"Pinpoint the Tension: This is where we start finding those weird links. Look for the elements that don't fit together, that seem opposed. Find two contrasting elements and isolate them."

I enjoyed this description of a creative brainstorming technique that involves connecting previously unconnected dots.

"By late spring, well shortages and delayed recovery were being reported again, even though locals have water efficiency so ingrained in them that they easily meet 40% conservation mandates, he said."

Alarming story about how Mendocino, CA is faring in the California drought.

"They thought it was a hoax. They thought it was political. They thought because they had a certain blood type or a certain skin color they wouldn’t get as sick. They thought it was ‘just the flu’. But they were wrong. And they wish they could go back."

A doctor in Alabama talks about treating covid now that we have vaccines.

"The “both sides” model of journalism is being exploited by bad actors intent on spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories. “If the weight of the evidence allows you to make a judgment, but instead you go with ‘he said, she said,’ you're behaving recklessly even as you tell yourself you're doing the cautious thing,” as press critic Jay Rosen notes."

Hedging must feel like the safe path for journalists—especially since they wouldn't want to anger Big Dowsing. This is a good example of how baked-in both-sides thinking is. See also.

"But it’s interesting: the appeal of these checkpoint videos is precisely the fact that they are NOT designed. This subculture has repurposed a plot of unloved YouTube real estate and totally turned it around, charged it up with emotional energy, all without changing a single line of JavaScript or CSS. So, maybe the deep lesson of the checkpoint isn’t “make it like this!” but “don’t MAKE it at all”."

Great look at a type of comment that the systems aren’t designed for but people want to make.