2:00PM Water Cooler 5/22/2024

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Bird Song of the Day

Peruvian Meadowlark, Guayaquil – Engunga Hills, Guayas, Ecuador. “Short grass and bushes doing flight display, and at dusk with 2 Lesser Nighthawks in flight at end.” Includes mosquito! And a bee. Grantchester Meadows feeling here…

* * *

In Case You Might Miss…

(1) Trump’s New York trial moves to charging instructions.

(2) Stefanik files ethics complaint against Merchan.

(3) Trisha Greenhalgh publishes enormous mask/respirator study, stomping anti-maskers.

(4) “Trust your immune system.”

* * *

Politics

“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles

* * *

2024

Less than a half a year to go!

RCP Poll Averages, May 10:

National results static, but most of the Swing States (more here) are incrementally, but steadily, moving Trump’s way. Pennsylvania leans more Trump this week than last. Of course, it goes without saying that these are all state polls, therefore bad, and most of the results are within the margin of error. Now, if either candidate starts breaking away in points, instead of tenths of a point…. NOTE I changed the notation: Up and down arrows for increases or decreases over last week, circles for no change. Red = Trump. Blue would be Biden if he were leading anywhere, but he isn’t.

* * *

Lambert here: The charging instructions session is too much for me to digest today. All I can do is give some highlights, and promise I’ll put my yellow waders on before closing arguments begin next Tuesday:

Trump (R) (Bragg/Merchan): On the Heisenbergian object offense (1): “Prosecutors and Trump’s Lawyers Will Jockey for an Edge With Jurors” [New York Times]. “Jury instructions are typically meant to translate legal treatises into something intelligible to the 12 laypeople who will decide the case. The instructions provide jurors with a road map to help them apply the law to the facts they have gleaned from the witnesses, documents and other evidence that has been presented to them…. The prosecutors’ proposed instructions, among other things, ask the judge to give the jury what legal experts said was unusual flexibility in determining whether Mr. Trump had a role in the creation of the false records at the center of the charges. Prosecutors argue that even if Mr. Trump did not create the records himself, the jury can find him responsible if the creation of the false records was ‘a reasonably foreseeable consequence of his conduct.’… To convict Mr. Trump of the felonies he is charged with, prosecutors must show that he falsified business records in order to commit or conceal another crime. The prosecution’s proposed instructions say that other crime is the violation of an election law statue that makes it illegal to conspire to promote or prevent a candidate’s election by ‘unlawful means.’ But what are those unlawful means? Prosecutors want the judge to instruct the jurors that they can choose any of three options: a federal election law violation; the falsification of other business records; or a tax crime. The jurors must unanimously agree that Mr. Trump conspired to promote his own election by unlawful means. But prosecutors are asking the judge to instruct jurors that they do not need to reach a unanimous conclusion about what the unlawful means were.”

Trump (R) (Bragg/Merchan): On the Heisenbergian object offense (2):

Post by @ecmclaughlin

View on Threads

Trump (R) (Bragg/Merchan): “Prosecution and defense debate jury instructions in Trump’s criminal trial” [ABC]. “Trump lawyer Emil Bove asked for a jury instruction that would get at, as he put it, ‘the fact that this entire trial was based on the word of an attorney who worked for President Trump, and he was entitled to draw some inferences from that’ about the legality of various things. However, the argument presented a problem: the defense said months ago that it wasn’t going to use what’s known as an advice-of-counsel defense — that a defendant’s conduct was guided by a lawyer’s OK. By deciding against it, the defense didn’t have to waive Trump’s attorney-client privilege or turn over various documents, Judge Juan M. Merchan noted. But, he complained, the defense has since tried to invoke the advice-of-counsel concept under different names, such as ‘presence of counsel’ or ‘involvement of counsel.’ ‘My answer hasn’t changed, and honestly, I find it disingenuous for you to make the argument at this point,” he told Bove, who started to rise to respond.”

Trump (R) (Bragg/Merchan: Stefanik files ethics complaint against Merchan (nice timing):

🚨🚨🚨 I just filed an official judicial complaint with the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct against Acting Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan for his clear violation of the Rules of Judicial Conduct for the New York State Unified Court System due to his family… pic.twitter.com/6JjIv7XpTP

— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) May 21, 2024

Here is section 100.3(E)(1)(d)(iii):

IANAL, but given that Merchan’s daughter is a Democrat consultant, I’d say Stefanik has a prima facie case.

* * *

Trump (R): “Trump’s trials may help, not hurt, his shot at the White House” [The Hill]. “New polling by our firm, Schoen Cooperman Research, indicates that thus far, the ongoing trials have had virtually no impact on the former president’s standing with voters nationally. Even if Trump were forced to spend the majority of his time between now and election day off the campaign trail and in courtrooms, only 22 percent of registered voters say they would be less likely to vote for the former president, while one-quarter of voters actually said they would be more likely to vote for Trump should he be forced to spend much of his time in court. Notably, a 53 percent majority is unmoved by the Trump trials, underscoring that keeping Trump in court and off the trail likely will not be the decisive factor some had presumed. In that same vein, Schoen Cooperman Research’s poll underscores the very real chance that the indictments against Trump actually benefit the former president by allowing him to reprise a role that he thrives in — playing a political martyr. Indeed, there is considerable uncertainty as to whether or not the indictments facing Trump are legitimate or are politically motivated. A 47 percent plurality of voters say the indictments are legally sound, yet a sizable 40 percent say they are political persecution. A similar 48 percent say that Trump did something wrong and he should be prosecuted, while 39 percent say that either Trump did something wrong but should not be prosecuted (13 percent) or that Trump did nothing wrong (26 percent). However, one-half (50 percent) of voters agree that “The indictments against Donald Trump are a form of election interference, being carried out by liberal prosecutors, the Biden administration, and the Justice Department.” • Schoen’s career trajectoy is… interesting.

Trump (R): “No, Biden Did Not Order the FBI to Assassinate Trump at Mar-a-Lago” [Rolling Stone (Furzy Mouse)]. “Documents unsealed Tuesday revealed that more classified material was found at the former president’s Palm Beach estate after the FBI’s August 2022 raid. Republicans, however, have zeroed in on standard language in FBI search warrants authorizing the use of deadly force in appropriate circumstances, claiming Biden and the DOJ wanted Trump dead — even though he wasn’t even present on the property that day. ‘WOW! I just came out of the Biden Witch Hunt Trial in Manhattan, the ‘Icebox,’ and was shown Reports that Crooked Joe Biden’s DOJ, in their Illegal and UnConstitutional Raid of Mar-a-Lago, AUTHORIZED THE FBI TO USE DEADLY (LETHAL) FORCE,’ Trump wrote Tuesday of the FBI’s boilerplate authorization to use deadly force. “NOW WE KNOW, FOR SURE, THAT JOE BIDEN IS A SERIOUS THREAT TO DEMOCRACY. HE IS MENTALLY UNFIT TO HOLD OFFICE — 25TH AMENDMENT!” In a campaign fundraising email, Trump further claimed that he ‘nearly escaped death’ and that Biden was ‘locked & loaded ready to take me out!'” • In fact, the FBI warrants did authorize deadly force — it’s boilerplate language. That said, the liberal Democrats currently orchestrating a dogpile on this are unlikely to have had family members whacked by cops, or doors busted down by SWAT teams deployed to the wrong address, or stopped and then assaulted for putative tail-light violations, or experienced asset seizure when carrying cash. Those delectations are reserved for (fractions of) the working class, to whom Trump is trying to appeal. So turn the record* over and play the other side. NOTE * A vinyl recording medium, for those who came in late.

* * *

Trump (R): “Meet Trump’s ‘Human Printer'” [The Bulwark]. “Whenever Donald Trump brandishes a stack of papers or reads a printout of a social media post, he’s relying on the work of Natalie Harp. Harp, 32, occupies a unique role in the history of presidential campaigns: aide who travels with a portable printer (plus paper and rechargeable batteries in a large bag) whose job is to feed Trump a steady stream of information on 8.5×11″ pieces of paper. That way, the 77-year-old doesn’t have to strain his eyes on a smartphone to read all the news that’s fit to print in MAGAville. Harp’s nickname on the campaign—’the human printer’—underplays her importance. That’s because in Trump’s orbit [or any powerful person’s], proximity to the principal is power. And with her portable printer at the ready, Harp is constantly around Trump—whether she’s sitting close to the defense table in the Manhattan courthouse on weekdays or riding the links with Trump on Sundays in Florida. Perhaps more than anyone else, Harp gatekeeps much of what Trump sees on social media and reads in the news. ‘If you want the President to see something, the best route is Natalie,’ says a knowledgeable source who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the internal workings of Trump’s inner team and who has passed information to the candidate via Harp. ‘Don’t underestimate her importance.’ It’s been an interesting journey for Harp. She comes from a conservative Christian family in California and graduated from Liberty University in 2015.” • Once we had “body men.” Now we have “human printers”!

* * *

Biden (D): “Liberals sound the alarm: Biden is losing” [Washington Examiner]. “President Joe Biden is trailing, and liberal pundits are increasingly saying he has mainly himself to blame… [I]t is a trend in elite Democratic and liberal opinion that should worry the Biden camp. If this is what people are willing to contemplate with Trump ahead by 1.1 points nationally in the RealClearPolitics polling average, what happens if the Democrats lose ground? Or if Trump gets a mistrial, or even an acquittal bounce, should he not be convicted in the New York hush money trial? The Biden campaign would like Democrats to be patient. Trump’s polling lead isn’t that big. The polls arguably understated Democratic support in the midterm elections and some special elections. Team Biden believes it has the better ground game. The decision to debate suggests Bidenworld has some sense that the incumbent is losing, but outside allies see a five-alarm fire.” • Events, dear boy, events. Biden’s election prospects would also seem to depend greatly on actions by Putin, Zelensky, Netanyahu, and Xi, none of whom are under Biden’s control.

* * *

NH: “Shock Poll: Trump Tied With Biden in Blue New Hampshire” [NH Journal]. “Democrats have all but owned the Granite State’s four Electoral College votes, winning seven of the past eight presidential contests – including Joe Biden’s eight-point victory over President Donald Trump in 2020. But the latest NHJournal/Praecones Analytica poll finds Biden tied with Trump in New Hampshire, putting him at risk of becoming the first Democrat to lose the state since Al Gore in 2000.”

* * *

“Scoop: Senate Democrats plot reproductive-rights blitz” [Axios]. “Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is planning to zero in on reproductive rights next month — potentially forcing Republicans to take tough votes on issues such as contraception and in vitro fertilization…. The move is meant to tap into the potency of abortion rights as a voter-turnout generator for Democrats five months from Election Day. It’s timed to roughly coincide with the two-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, on June 24…. November ballot measures seeking to guarantee abortion rights are either locked in or under consideration in several states — including Arizona*, Montana, Nevada* and Florida — that also are home to Senate races that could be pivotal in determining control of the chamber next year.” • NOTE * Swing states.

“Biden Is Counting on Abortion to Help Him Win. That’s Risky” [MSN]. “It may feel like Dobbs has increased public support for abortion, but three major polls don’t register much change in opinion. Gallup has run the same abortion poll around once a year for decades—in which a majority of respondents, since 1989, said they thought Roe should not be overturned. As for support for legal abortion, in May 2023, Gallup found that 34 percent of respondents said abortion should be legal in any circumstances. In May 2022, it was 35 percent; in 2021, 32 percent. Pew has found similar numbers over the years, with an increase of just a few points in support for abortion being legal in most cases since Dobbs and a slight decrease in those who want abortion to be legal in all cases. Overall, Dobbs appears not to have significantly changed people’s views on whether abortion should be legal. A few findings in the 2024 Pew poll further complicate the image of abortion as a broadly popular get-out-the-vote issue. About six in 10 respondents (58 percent) said it would be easy for someone to get an abortion in the area where they live, and only 31 percent of respondents said it should be easier. (It’s not immediately clear how those groups overlap.) Among Democrats specifically, only 48 percent wanted obtaining an abortion to be easier. This suggests that while a majority of people in the United States think that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, about just as many think it’s easy to get one, and some people don’t think it needs to be any easier—including many Democrats.”

“Trump says he will ‘never advocate’ for contraception restrictions after earlier saying he’s ‘looking at’ them” [Politico]. “Donald Trump insisted in a social media post Tuesday that he has ‘never, and will never advocate imposing restrictions on birth control or other contraceptives,’ after an interview released hours earlier included Trump saying he’s ‘looking at’ restrictions on contraception. The post came after Trump said in an interview with a local TV station in Pittsburgh that he plans to share a policy on contraception ‘very shortly,’ without providing details. ‘We’re looking at that, and I’m going to have a policy on that very shortly and I think it’s something that you’ll find interesting,’ Trump told KDKA political analyst Jon Delano when asked if he supported any restrictions on a person’s right to contraception.” • Well done Susie Wiles.

“Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoes a bill that would protect access to contraception” [USA Today]. “Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed a series of bills passed by the Democratic-controlled General Assembly Friday, including one that was aimed at protecting contraception access…. The bill that Youngkin vetoed stated that a person ‘shall have the right to obtain contraceptives and to engage in contraception’ and that no commonwealth or locality should implement any rule that ‘prohibits or restricts the sale, provision, or use of any contraceptives,’ among other requirements…. Youngkin argued in a veto statement that the bill ‘creates an overly broad cause of action against political subdivisions and parents, as well as medical professionals’ and ‘undermines the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning their children’s upbringing and care.'”

Republican Funhouse

“Mike Johnson loses trio of key policy aides” [Punchbowl News]. “Three leading members of Speaker Mike Johnson’s policy team are leaving his office by the end of May, robbing the House’s top Republican of a critical core of experienced aides. Brittan Specht, Jason Yaworske and Preston Hill — all of whom also worked for former Speaker Kevin McCarthy — are heading to Michael Best Strategies, a lobbying firm with offices in D.C. and around the country. The departure, which is striking in size and in experience, strips Johnson of a significant amount of expertise in his domestic policy shop. Specht was McCarthy’s policy director and was key in crafting the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which raised the debt limit and set budget levels for two years. Yaworske is a well-respected adviser to the speaker on the appropriations and budget matters. As the House Appropriations Committee begins marking up the FY2025 spending bills, Yaworske’s expertise on government spending is in demand. And Hill, a longtime figure in GOP leadership, was in charge of overseeing House Republican policy in burgeoning policy areas such as cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence as well as Education and the Workforce and Financial Services. Another common thread here is that all three have been at the table during high-stakes negotiations — something that is a rarity at the top levels of the Republican leadership.” • If you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog.

Syndemics

“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison

* * *

Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).

Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!

Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (dashboard); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).

Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).

Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).

Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).

Stay safe out there!

* * *

Maskstravaganza

“Masks and respirators for prevention of respiratory infections: a state of the science review” [Trisha Greenhalgh, C. Raina MacIntyre et al’, Clinical Microbiology Review]. Important. Magisterial. Quoting the Abstract in its entirety:

This narrative review and meta-analysis summarizes a broad evidence base on the benefits—and also the practicalities, disbenefits, harms and personal, sociocultural and environmental impacts—of masks and masking. Our synthesis of evidence from over 100 published reviews and selected primary studies, including re-analyzing contested meta-analyses of key clinical trials, produced seven key findings. First, there is strong and consistent evidence for airborne transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) and other respiratory pathogens. Second, masks are, if correctly and consistently worn, effective in reducing transmission of respiratory diseases and show a dose-response effect. Third, respirators are significantly more effective than medical or cloth masks. Fourth, mask mandates are, overall, effective in reducing community transmission of respiratory pathogens. Fifth, masks are important sociocultural symbols; non-adherence to masking is sometimes linked to political and ideological beliefs and to widely circulated mis- or disinformation. Sixth, while there is much evidence that masks are not generally harmful to the general population, masking may be relatively contraindicated in individuals with certain medical conditions, who may require exemption. Furthermore, certain groups (notably D/deaf people) are disadvantaged when others are masked. Finally, there are risks to the environment from single-use masks and respirators. We propose an agenda for future research, including improved characterization of the situations in which masking should be recommended or mandated; attention to comfort and acceptability; generalized and disability-focused communication support in settings where masks are worn; and development and testing of novel materials and designs for improved filtration, breathability, and environmental impact.

I must hustle along so that there’s some on the 2024 elections, so in a bit I will circle back here and include Greenhalgh’s entertainly brutal stomping of droplet dogmatists and, as a double bonus, Infection Prevention and Control (IPC/IC infesting HICPAC, among other places).

And now the thread (here is the ThreadReader version):

On [genuflects] RCTs:

We searched extensively for high-quality evidence in all fields. We did NOT assume that all RCT evidence was “gold standard”, nor that all non-RCT evidence was “low-quality”. Indeed, we questioned whether the RCT deserves its hallowed status in this field. 6/ pic.twitter.com/ozZuRoh3FW

— Trisha Greenhalgh (@trishgreenhalgh) May 22, 2024

On the one decent RCT, which HICPAC suppressed:

We searched extensively for high-quality evidence in all fields. We did NOT assume that all RCT evidence was “gold standard”, nor that all non-RCT evidence was “low-quality”. Indeed, we questioned whether the RCT deserves its hallowed status in this field. 6/ pic.twitter.com/ozZuRoh3FW

— Trisha Greenhalgh (@trishgreenhalgh) May 22, 2024

On [genuflects] IC/IPC (Infection Control/Infection Prevention and Control):

We searched extensively for high-quality evidence in all fields. We did NOT assume that all RCT evidence was “gold standard”, nor that all non-RCT evidence was “low-quality”. Indeed, we questioned whether the RCT deserves its hallowed status in this field. 6/ pic.twitter.com/ozZuRoh3FW

— Trisha Greenhalgh (@trishgreenhalgh) May 22, 2024

On the stupidest of the many stupid anti-masker talking points:

We searched extensively for high-quality evidence in all fields. We did NOT assume that all RCT evidence was “gold standard”, nor that all non-RCT evidence was “low-quality”. Indeed, we questioned whether the RCT deserves its hallowed status in this field. 6/ pic.twitter.com/ozZuRoh3FW

— Trisha Greenhalgh (@trishgreenhalgh) May 22, 2024

All of which explains why this Brownnose Institute weasel instantly slithered out of his scrimy burrow to defend the discredited anti-mask Cochrane study:

The first version of this meta analysis of physical interventions to stop virus spread came out in 2006. It has been updated ever since. The conclusion: they don't work. Everyone knew this in 2020. https://t.co/9dkxquBo6Y

— Jeffrey A Tucker (@jeffreyatucker) May 20, 2024

Note that the Cochrane study was funded, at one remove, by Brownstone Institute dark money, as I show here, and Brownstone also snuck one of their creatures, Carl Heneghan, into the study as an unlisted author but without credit, violating Cochrane’s putatively rigorous standards.

Denial and Cope

(1) “Trust your immune system”:

Haha.
Trusting your immune system.

What an absolutely ****ing stupid thing to say. https://t.co/XiqDjOYTaZ

— tern (@1goodtern) May 19, 2024

(2) “Trust your immune system”:

"Hey babe, I don't want to – they're uncomfortable. Don't you trust your immune system?" -Marc Veldhoen

/s

— Existential Bread (@exist_bread) May 21, 2024

(3) “Trust your immune system”:

My immune system attacked my thyroid (hashimoto’s disease). I don’t trust it and will enhance at every opportunity.

— Hurricane henri bréboeuf 🇨🇦🐧 (@HenriBreboeuf) May 22, 2024

(4) “Trust your immune system”:

I have SLE and Hashimoto's. My immune system almost killed me with a rare and aggressive form of lymphoma. Recently, I was a little too aggressive with the dental floss, cutting my gum. My immune system decided sepsis was the appropriate remedy. Trust my immune system? Ha!

— Eva Hamilton she/her (@TOknitter) May 22, 2024

I don’t understand the mentality behind this oft-repeated piece of folk wisdom at all. I trust my eyes, but I wear glasses. I trust my feet, but I wear shoes. “Experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions,” as Madison put it. But not all agree–

(5) “Trust your immune system”:

#donotcomplytoanotherlie #freespeech with a #sticker. #donotcomply. #Godisgood and he gave us an immune system that can combat anything. #wethepeople need to take care of ourselves #holistically. We can’t trust our medical system. https://t.co/Pw4p8av4Hg

— TruthforWethePeople (@TammyQue_1111) May 22, 2024

(6) “Trust your immune system”…. A-a-a-a-n-d this Brownnose Institute weasel crawls out of his hole again:

Having studied and written about all of this for four years, and looking even at the prevailing pandemic plans for the future, it’s my considered opinion that the whole protocol was designed for one purpose. The intention from the beginning was to preserve the immunological…

— Jeffrey A Tucker (@jeffreyatucker) May 21, 2024

Read that carefully. It’s the subtlest justification for mass murder I’ve ever seen.

Transmission: Monkeypox

“CDC issues stark warning on rapid spread of deadlier Mpox strain” [FOX32]. “he Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a stark warning to Americans this week regarding the rapid spread of a deadlier form of Mpox currently sweeping through the Democratic Republic of the Congo. While the outbreak has yet to reach the shores of the United States, the CDC has intensified surveillance measures as a precautionary measure. In response to the escalating situation, the CDC and health officials advised individuals at high risk to get vaccinated and take necessary precautions. This recommendation is particularly pertinent for those with weakened immune systems.” • And what would those “precautions” be? Anything non-pharmaceutical?

Prevention

“Could Putting Neosporin in Your Nose Fend Off COVID?” [Scientific American]. We linked to this PNAS study back in April. “”This is a research study—it’s not a clinical study, and it’s certainly not intended for people to go out there and start using Neosporin every day,’ says Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University and a co-author of the new research. ‘It’s just an initial pilot study.’ Iwasaki hadn’t heard about the interest in nasal Neosporin early in the pandemic, but she is working to find new uses for widely available products, and the popular ointment fits that bill. Intriguingly, one of the three antibiotics it contains is neomycin, which is an aminoglycoside compound—a group of chemicals that she and other researchers had, in 2018, determined increased resistance to a range of viruses in mice. When an aminoglycoside encounters a bacterium and acts as an antibiotic, the compound interferes with the microbe’s ability to make proteins. But that’s not how Neosporin might fight off viruses. Instead neomycin appears to rev up the innate immune system in this case. That system recognizes foreign substances in general, in contrast to the adaptive immune system, which recognizes and attacks specific foreign materials it has encountered before. Specifically, neomycin appears to trigger the expression of what scientists call interferon-stimulated genes: a set of hundreds of genes—perhaps even one tenth of a human’s genes—that appear to play a role in the innate immune system. During an infection, the body produces a compound called interferon that binds to these genes and dials up the innate immune system. Neomycin appears to accomplish the same result, although the scientists aren’t sure exactly how. ‘It’s basically tricking the host into thinking there’s a viral infection and inducing these protective genes,’ Iwasaki says. In the new research, she and her colleagues tested neomycin in a handful of different experiments. In one, they treated mice nasally with concentrated neomycin, then gave them the virus that causes COVID (also via a nasal route). Treated mice lost less weight and were less likely to die from the infection. In a separate experiment, the researchers gave already infected mice neomycin, and the effect was similar. The findings suggest that neomycin both protected the mice from infection and helped them fight it off.” • Seems like this is low cost, low risk, very high gain?

* * *

Lambert here: Patient readers, I’m going to have to rethink this beautifully formatted table. Biobot data is gone, CDC variant data functions, ER visits are dead, CDC stopped mandatory hospital data collection, New York Times death data has stopped. (Note that the two metrics the hospital-centric CDC cared about, hospitalization and deaths, have both gone dark). Ideally I would replace hospitalization and death data, but I’m not sure how. I might also expand the wastewater section to include (yech) Verily data, H5N1 if I can get it. Suggestions and sources welcome. UPDATE I replaced the Times death data with CDC data. Amusingly, the URL doesn’t include parameters to construct the tables; one must reconstruct then manually each time. Caltrops abound.

TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts

–>

Cases
❌ National[1] Biobot May 13:	❌ Regional[2] Biobot May 13:
Variants[3] CDC May 11	Emergency Room Visits[4] ❌ CDC March 23
Hospitalization
★ New York[5] New York State, data May 20:	❌ National [6] CDC May 11:
Positivity
National[7] Walgreens May 20:	Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic May 18:
Travelers Data
Positivity[9] CDC April 29:	Variants[10] CDC April 29:
Deaths[11]
Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity CDC May 11:	Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits CDC May 11:

LEGEND

1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.

2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”

NOTES

[1] (Biobot) Dead.

[2] (Biobot) Dead.

[3] (CDC Variants) FWIW, given that the model completely missed KP.2.

[4] (ER) CDC seems to have killed this off, since the link is broken, I think in favor of this thing. I will try to confirm. UPDATE Yes, leave it to CDC to kill a page, and then announce it was archived a day later. And heaven forfend CDC should explain where to go to get equivalent data, if any. I liked the ER data, because it seemed really hard to game.

[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Slightly, but distinctly up. The New York city area has form; in 2020, as the home of two international airports (JFK and EWR) it was an important entry point for the virus into the country (and from thence up the Hudson River valley, as the rich sought to escape, and around the country through air travel). So my natural inclination is to see how wastewater at JFK and EWR is doing. CDC, before it decided to butcher wastewater visualization, provided data down to the sewage treatment plant level, so I could check the Brooklyn plant for JFK (and also the Brooklyn plant for LGA). Well, that’s no longer possible, but the Verily [vomits quietly] wastewater site — Biobot being kaput — provides data on EWR. Here it is:

So, New York City Hospitalization up, Covid from air travel up. Make of that what you will. Covid is also up in Singapore and France, you will recall.

[6] (Hospitalization: CDC) Still down. “Maps, charts, and data provided by CDC, updates weekly for the previous MMWR week (Sunday-Saturday) on Thursdays (Deaths, Emergency Department Visits, Test Positivity) and weekly the following Mondays (Hospitalizations) by 8 pm ET†”.

[7] (Walgreens) Slight uptick.

[8] (Cleveland) Leveling out.

[9] (Travelers: Posivitity) Up and down.

[10] (Travelers: Variants) KP.2 enters the chat, as does B.1.1.529 (with backward revision).

[11] CDC’s data and visualization, still being updated.

Stats Watch

Housing: “United States Existing Home Sales” [Trading Economics]. “Existing home sales in the US declined 1.9% month-over-month to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 4.14 million units in April 2024, the lowest in three months, compared to an upwardly revised 4.22 million in March and forecasts of 4.21 million. “Home sales changed little overall, but the upper-end market is experiencing a sizable gain due to more supply coming onto the market,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. Sales declined in the four major US regions.”

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Tech: “OpenAI No Longer Takes Safety Seriously” [Lawfare] “For top-tier AI researchers who, like Sustskever and Leike, are seriously concerned about AI risk, OpenAI is arguably the best place in the world to work. It is the leading lab pursuing AGI. It currently has the best AI systems—crucial objects of study for safety work. It has top-notch talent and immense resources. For an engineer hoping to help solve the alignment problem and ensure that advanced AI benefits, rather than harms, humans, a job at OpenAI is hard to beat. It is also arguably the place to be for someone who hopes to be well-positioned to sound the alarm if and when a truly dangerous AI system arrives. Thus, if Leike, Kokotajlo, and O’Keefe are being honest when they say that AI risk is deadly serious, then their departures should themselves constitute alarm bells. By leaving OpenAI, they are foregoing perhaps the best opportunity to make substantive progress on the problem that, by their lights, is the most important. The only reason for them to leave would be if it were clear that OpenAI really had abandoned its commitment to supporting safety work.” • Note the source, and note the images here. So, hmm.

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Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 61 Greed (previous close: 62 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 61 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated May 22 at 1:21:43 PM ET.

The Gallery

Speaking of waves:

Gustave Courbet, The Wave pic.twitter.com/KKWxC2rUpf

— Impressions (@impression_ists) May 20, 2024

Given Courbet’s “complex” political views, perhaps there’s a subtext here.

News of the Wired

I am not feeling wired today (or all too wired, I’m not sure).

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Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From GS:

GS writes: “Fern Trees, Flecker Gardens, Cairns QLD Australia.” Looks like a dinosair’s crudité!

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