Slog PM: Parts of Europe enter another blockade, COVID cases in King County and Redmond will exchange gift cards for a hotel reservation – Slog

Slog PM: Parts of Europe enter another blockade, COVID cases in King County and Redmond will exchange gift cards for a hotel reservation – Slog

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We are not going to be presumptuous, folks!

Let’s not be presumptuous, guys!

Germany will enter the blockade again. The same is true for France and Poland. An “exponential” increase in COVID cases has led German Chancellor Angela Merkel to start restricting activities. A large increase in cases among young people and the spread of variants conspired to create “some very challenging weeks ahead of us,” German Health Minister Jens Spahn told the BBC. Representatives of those European countries, which stopped administering the AstraZeneca vaccine this week (ultimately unfounded) fear it would increase blood clotting, also said they did not have enough vaccine to slow the spread.

After a plateau, King County has seen a 13% increase in cases in the past two weeks: At his weekly press conference on Friday, the Chief of Public Health in Seattle and King County, Dr. Jeff Duchin, welcomed the vaccine-related optimism, but emphasized that we cannot allow it to “blind” us to reality. that “the risk is not over”.

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The good news: The county has not seen any new outbreaks in long-term care institutions in the past two weeks (although the county has seen 17 outbreaks in general recently), and nearly 80% of the county’s population over 65 has been vaccinated, although disparities racial groups still remain. The county also finally has enough eyes on the new variants – the CDC recommends that we verify 5% of all positive cases for variants and, as of this week, we are verifying 6%.

The bad news: Now that the county is looking for more, they are finding more variants. King County now has 93 cases of the most virulent and deadly British variant, six cases of the South African variant and two cases of the Brazilian variant. Duchin said the UK variant is likely to become dominant this month. Although we will see fewer deaths as these variants take over, Duchin warned that COVID-19 “is not a benign disease for young adults”. New research from the University of Washington shows that even 1/3 of people who get the virus develop long-term symptoms. “Increasing activities with increasing variants is a dangerous combination,” added Duchin, pointing to the increase in the case and expressing concern that people may be “abandoning the necessary levels of precaution” due to their optimism about the vaccine.

So please, everyone: Continue to wear your mask, keep your distance and limit travel. Again, just because corporate lobbyists have successfully lobbied the government to relax restrictions, does not mean that we are not in a pandemic. In other words: just because you can do something, it doesn’t mean you should do something. We are close to a time when the risks will be much less, so wait for that.

The CDC reduces the pattern of social distance in schools: Now, teachers only need to place these torturous tables a meter away from each other, instead of two meters away, according to the Associated Press. The move could simplify the COVID Tetris game that school districts have to play to get kids back to school safely – just in time for summer!

I want to catch this joke in the jungle:

THE LA Times talked to the families of the victims of the racist Atlanta massacre: “Gutting” is right.

No crude joke? Aren’t there good people on both sides? No, just a president and a vice president using their pulpit to condemn hate and comfort a community in mourning for the dead. According New York Times, President Biden and VP Kamala Harris recognized and denounced racism, xenophobia and sexism in America. Biden offered comfort to the bereaved families. “The day will come when their memory will bring a smile to their lips before bringing a tear to their eyes, as credible as it is now. It will take a while, but I promise it will come. And when that happens, it will be the day when you know you’re going to make it, “he said.

While it’s good that Biden is speaking out against hatred, it would be very good if he put his anti-xenophobic and anti-racist rhetoric to work for all the children we are arresting on the southern border. Media columnist at Washington Post I spoke with a group of journalists who cover the recent increase in people migrating north to escape the consequences of natural disasters and COVID-19, and it seems that Biden is worse than Trump in transparency. “The Biden government has adopted an unwritten set of restrictions on media access to information” on how to deal with the crisis, denying all requests from reporters to photograph or visit the overcrowded facilities, writes Erik Wemple. I hate to say that, but the fucking Sean Hannity is right about this one: “They are now telling Border Patrol agents, no hitchhikes, any media requests send them to Washington. This is not transparent. What competent government – what are they trying to hide? “

China talking to the USA in Alaska: After Chinese and American diplomats exchanged some “theatrical” complaints at the Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage, Alaska, the two sides “started to work” on some serious international issues, reports Al Jazeera. The United States wants China to release two Canadian China accused of spying from prison after Canada stole the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies at our request. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also plans to bring up the business of forcing one million Uighurs to enter “labor” camps, as well as the country’s anti-democratic attitude “repression of Hong Kong” as well as “movements in Taiwan and hacking attempts “.

If only Senator Mona Das’s Karen / Ken bill had passed earlier, so that newspaper in Tacoma may have a decent case to launch against that Pierce County sheriff who used the power of his office to summon half of the county officials to protect him against a black, “homeless”, “vagabond” , who “threatened to kill him.” All of these descriptors, the Seattle Times tell us, it turned out to be projections of his own officer mind and good evidence of the police’s general disposition towards the homeless. (The policeman said he did not know that the journalist was black when he called the police.) In the audio of the call, the sheriff expresses a feeling of victimization and racist paranoia described by the son of the Tacoma policeman who was driving his vehicle through a crowd of people in a drag race. Das’s bill passed the Senate and will have a hearing in the House on Tuesday.

Amazon closes wage theft lawsuit for $ 8.2 million: Two drivers said Amazon forced them to “work without lunch or rest” while delivering packages to a company with which the company has trillion dollar contracts. Amazon told the Seattle Times, who covered the story, they do not tolerate labor violations. (They just pay, I think.) Either way, the contractor’s drivers will receive $ 5.5 million from the class action.

A little news inserted in this segment of the Blake decision in Seattle Times: The Spokane County Public Prosecutor’s Office (SCPAO) filed a motion with the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision to overturn the statewide simple drug law. In the motion, SCPAO Larry Haskell argued with a certain condescension that “it was not clear whether all the members of this Court considered the consequences to be very different” from the decision because the Court was not informed “about the retroactive effect of the majority decision”, as if the majority he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing when he dissolved the law that the criminal justice system has racially enforced for decades. Anyway, the Times said King County prosecutor Dan Clark “acknowledged that such motions are often denied,” so the decision is likely to continue. But let’s see!

Food industry calls for rejection of dangerous action: These greedy mercenaries filed an appeal after a federal judge ruled yesterday that Seattle could, in fact, tell major supermarket chains to give their frontline workers temporary increases of $ 4 an hour, according to KING 5.

Seattle city council districts need to be redesigned: And SCC Insight did some math, found out which districts need to increase or decrease, and proposed a new map. If the redistricting committee draws lines that resemble his, then, after a brief look at the 2019 constituency’s results, and not enough of an understanding yet of how the pandemic and protests have reshaped the political trends of the current districts, I think the political dynamics would remain more or less the same in all districts, except for District 6 to become yet another NIMBY stronghold. Not that you need permission, but feel free to criticize me for this quick review in the comments.

Another manifestation of our necro-economic model: The city of Redmond is taking advantage of lodging taxes to fund $ 100 gift cards for people staying in participating hotels in the city for more than two days, reports KING 5. Gift cards work in “restaurants, bakeries, gyms gym and other local city attractions participating. ” It is difficult to see this effort to boost tourism as anything other than the call for capitalized counts, but what are you going to do – pay people to stay at home? Hah, what is this, New Zealand?

Speaking of freebies: This Sunday, Lady Jaye, in West Seattle, is giving “100 German Bratwursts ‘Street-Style’ to the first 100 people who arrive after 11 am. It will basically be a Bratwurst in a bun divided with mustard and curry ketchup”. according to the West Seattle Blog. It’s an early lunch, but who can say no to a nice brat? Sit down, vegetarians. I know you are right, but no ethical consumption under capitalism etc. etc. etc.

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