The Forgotten Victims of Covid-19

As we emerge from the pandemic, there is a natural tendency to want to put this whole thing behind us and try and forget just how terrifying it was at its height. But we should never forget.

Especially the scandals we are only now learning about.

On Friday evening I listened to a special edition of the California Report called:

* 'There Is Anger. He Should Be Alive.' -- An Investigation Into Deadly COVID-19 Outbreaks at Foster Farms (KQED)

Foster Farms is a private company, one of the biggest employers in California's vast Central Valley, which in turn is one of the most productive food-producing regions in the world, responsible for over half of this country's fruits, vegetables and nuts. 

And a whole lot of meat products as well.

Reporter Alexandra Hall overcame continuous attempts by Foster Farms to prevent her from learning the full extent of the Covid-19 outbreaks at its meat processing facilities, which killed at least 16 and sickened hundreds more.

At one point during her investigation, Hall was mistakenly copied on a company email instructing employees to continue to "ignore" her requests for information about the outbreaks.

The stakes are high for those who lost loved ones who contacted Covid at Foster Farms' plants. They may qualify for death benefits under the state's worker compensation system, but there's a one-year statute of limitations.

Many of the workers are from immigrant families with little knowledge of their rights under the law. For them the clock is ticking and time is running out...

You can read Alex's story here: <https://www.kqed.org/news/11892838/there-is-anger-he-should-be-alive-an-investigation-into-deadly-covid-19-outbreaks-at-foster-farms>

***

Later on Friday night, at a bowling alley in Pinole, I was transported back in time to my youth in Michigan.

There, employees in monogrammed shorts competed on their companies' bowling teams. There was a "men's night" and a "women's night." 

By the time I was a teenager there was the equivalent of what you might call a "double date night," though I'm not sure I was entirely clear on the concept at the time.

Apart from the awkwardness of the situation for a shy, skinny kid in glasses, somehow I'd acquired the misleading information that the best way to impress girls was to let them win at bowling.

As dubious as that proposition was, my lack of skill at this particular sport made such an outcome inevitable anyway.

My high school bowling team sometimes let me compete, but I'm pretty sure that in that pre-automatic-scoring era, that was only because of my math ability.

 I was the default scorekeeper.

THE HEADLINES:

* Facebook documents show how platform fueled rage ahead of Jan. 6 attack on Capitol -- Thousands of internal documents turned over to the SEC show what Facebook knew about the growth of the Stop the Steal movement on its platform in the weeks before a pro-Trump mob overran the Capitol — and the anger that many employees felt at their company’s failure to stop the Jan. 6 violence. (WP)

* Biden Crafts a Climate Plan B: Tax Credits, Regulation and State Action -- The new strategy could deeply cut greenhouse gases that are heating the planet but it will still face considerable political, logistical and legal hurdles. (NYT)

* How Russia Is Cashing In on Climate Change -- Global warming may pose grave dangers around the world, but as one tiny Russian town on the Arctic Ocean shows, it can also be a ticket to prosperity. (NYT)

* Covid put music festivals on hold. Climate change might offer bigger long-term problems. (WP)

* Fire-scarred California braces for more storms, flash floods (AP)

* Prince Charles says "dangerously narrow window" to accelerate climate action (Reuters)

* They Are a Tribe of ‘Salmon People.’ Can They Pull Off One More Big Win? -- The Lummi Nation has a long, proud history of contesting ecologically unfriendly projects. Will it succeed against yet another threat? (NYT)

* How wildfires impact wildlife, their habitat (AP)

*Rich countries saved themselves during the pandemic. Poorer countries are reeling. (WP)

* The Unlikely Outsiders Who Won the Race for a Covid-19 Vaccine (WSJ)

* Despite higher COVID risk, most pregnant Americans remain unvaccinated (NPR)

* F.D.A. Says Pfizer Vaccine’s Benefits Outweigh Key Risks in Children 5 to 11 (NYT)

* Disruptions to schooling fall hardest on vulnerable students (AP)

* FDA review appears to pave the way for Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children 5 to 11 (WP)

* Red Cross warns aid groups not enough to stave off Afghan humanitarian crisis (Reuters)

* Afghanistan hurtling towards collapse, Sweden and Pakistan say (Reuters)

* Illegal Border Crossings, Driven by Pandemic and Natural Disasters, Soar to Record High (NYT)

* Ahead of Jan. 6, Willard hotel in downtown D.C. was a Trump team ‘command center’ for effort to deny Biden the presidency (WP)

* Supreme Court Again Refuses to Block Texas Abortion Law (NYT)

* Decoding the hidden language and signs of ‘Squid Game’ for non-Koreans (WP)

* The Sheikh, the Businessman and a Hacking Mystery on 3 Continents (NYT)

* Israel moves to ban six Palestinian rights groups it accuses of terrorism, prompting international outrage (WP)

* FDA Relaxes Definition Of Smoothie (The Onion)

Hello From a Rainy Planet

Something in the way our brains are wired, or perhaps something in the way *my* brain is wired, sublimates long-term concerns like climate change beneath more hopeful short-term pleasures like rain.

So as we get hit in Northern California by the first substantial rains we have seen in a long, long time, a tiny hope starts to form in my consciousness that maybe we will escape the harsh consequences of what we humans have done to the planet.

This, as our bone-dry conditions yield to an atmospheric river in the sky.

It's irrational, I know, but plenty of those around me feel the same way during this unexpected respite from the drought.

Then again, "pleasure" may be a misleading word when it comes to rain. What gives me pleasure is to be inside, warm and safe while the water slams into the outside of the house or car or whatever enclosure is protecting me from the storm.

As a kid, I felt this way inside my tent in Michigan when the rain poured against the canvas. Staying vigilant against rubbing the inside of the tent's surface because that would cause leaks, I'd fall to sleep inside a sleeping bag on an insulated mattress, feeling well-sheltered.

***

It can be less than pleasureful to venture out on these rainy nights. When I did so recently to the first public event I've attended in years, afterward I wound up unable to effectively shield myself from the driving rain while waiting for a Lyft to appear.

It was definitely on me that I wasn't dressed properly, since when all of my possessions were discarded, that included raincoats, hats, boots and multiple umbrellas.

I was in my old neighborhood, where I lived for 17 years, but post-Covid and in the dark it seemed strangely empty and devoid of life.

As I shivered in the shadow of a large building, one other soul ventured into view. She seemed  suitablydressed for the weather but for one oddity -- she carried a large umbrella upside down, as if she were collecting the precious commodity falling from the sky.

She moved slowly, in and out of the shadows, visible to me streetlight-to-streetlight but otherwise obscured.

The umbrella continued to dangle from her arm upside-down. She appeared to be in no hurry.

We were not utterly alone out there -- cars passed noisily by from time to time, headed north, south, east or west, splashing through the four-way stop at the nearby intersection.

But they came and went one at a time, and eventually it dawned on me that none of them were bothering to stop; they just continued through the intersection as though the large red stop signs were invisible in the night.

The lady with the upside-down umbrella eventually angled across the intersection herself and I began to get concerned for her safety, given the incautious drivers afoot, but fortunately no cars came while she crossed.

Halfway through her jaywalk, she spotted me standing next to the building and looked me straight in the eyes. She didn't look alarmed, or angry or curious or any way at all. She just looked passively as if I were just another piece of the environment, fixed and forgettable.

After she vanished, heading north, I shivered. Just then my ride showed up and the driver unlocked the door as I eased in and he said cheerily. "Hello David."

I said "Hello Ramon," and we rode the rest of the way out of the big city, over the bridge and into the hills in utter silence.

Halfway through the ride I noticed a feature on his dashboard I'd never noticed previously although I hire these cars several time each week.

It was a banner that played across a small monitor like they do on TV and it read, in red type, "Hello David...Hello David...Hello David." When I got to my destination and exited the car, I looked back. It was still telling me hello.

***

THE HEADLINES:

* Who Gets to Escape the Taliban -- The chaotic American withdrawal forced individual soldiers, aid workers, and journalists to decide which Afghans would be saved. (New Yorker) 

* Taliban tells Kabul’s female city government employees not to come to work (WP) 

* Two months after the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, one of the country’s once-prominent female leaders — a former parliament member, candidate for president and a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize — is visiting the United Nations, not as a representative of her government but as a woman in exile. (AP)

* Opinion: Afghanistan needs aid, but that won’t fix our broken nation. Uplifting girls will. (WP)

* Melbourne residents flocked to the city's pubs, restaurants and hair salons in the early hours of Friday after the world's most locked-down city emerged from its latest spate of restrictions designed to combat the spread of COVID-19. (Reuters)

* CDC signs off on Moderna and Johnson & Johnson boosters (WP)

* The Pfizer /BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine showed 90.7% efficacy against the coronavirus in a clinical trial of children 5 to 11 years old,the U.S. drugmaker said. (Reuters)

* Climate Change Poses a Widening Threat to National Security -- Intelligence and defense agencies issued reports warning that the warming planet will increase strife between countries and spur migration. (NYT)

 * White House, intelligence agencies, Pentagon issue reports warning climate change threatens global security(WP) 

* In a climate report released this week, researchers with the medical journal The Lancet warned that the warming climate “will affect every U.S. region” and there is “no safe global temperature rise from a health perspective.” The report noted “decades of racially biased policies” place Black, Latinx, Asian and Native people, as well as low-income communities, at disproportionately high risk amid the climate crisis. [HuffPost]

* Extreme atmospheric rivers to bombard drought-stricken California with beneficial precipitation (WP) 

* A series of strong storms is expected in the West over the next several days. (NPR)

* Rain in California won’t be enough to ease severe drought (AP)

* Tech giant Apple will require its unvaccinated employees to take daily coronavirus tests to enter the office.  (SFC)

* Where civilization emerged between two rivers, climate change poisons land and empties villages (WP)

* After months of investigation into a family found dead in Mariposa County along a steep hiking trail, medical officials say the couple and their 1-year-old daughter died of high body temperatures and possible dehydration. (SFC)

* We’re headed for a global energy crisis. What we need is a transition strategy. (Fareed Zakaria/WP)

* Counterintelligence Head Narrows Focus to Five Technologies Critical to U.S. Dominance (WSJ)

* Actor Alec Baldwin fired a “prop firearm” on the set of a movie he’s filming in New Mexico, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza. A spokesperson for the film said the incident involved “the misfire of a prop gun with blanks.” The sheriff promised an active investigation. [HuffPost]

* ‘It’s Terror’: In Haiti, Gangs Gain Power as Security Vacuum Grows (NYT)

 * House votes to hold Bannon in contempt for refusing to comply with Jan. 6 subpoena

 (WP)

* President Joe Biden said that major planks of his administration’s agenda — including a proposal for tuition-free community college, a hike in corporate tax rates, and free dental coverage for senior citizens — lack the support of all 50 Democratic senators and can’t pass Congress. “Look, in the United States Senate, when you have 50 Democrats, every one is president,” Biden said. [HuffPost]

* Energizing Conservative Voters, One School Board Election at a Time -- Republicans hope that concerns about critical race theory can help them in the midterm elections. The issue has torn apart one Wisconsin suburb. (NYT)

* 

Debut of Huey Newton bust spotlights an influential figure (AP)

* For teens, navigating the mental health pitfalls of Instagram is part of everyday life (WP)

* VIDEO: Object Streaks Across Midwestern Skies -- During pre-dawn hours on Wednesday, the object — possibly a Russian military satellite — flew over Ohio, Michigan and Indiana, leaving a fiery trail and breaking apart into smaller pieces during its descent. (Storyful)

* As Chinese Women Seek to Crack Male Professions, Schools Stand in the Way -- In China, some academic programs accept only men or cap the number of female applicants, who often must test higher than their male counterparts. (NYT)

* Facebook Oversight Board issues stern critique of the company’s collaboration in first transparency reports (WP)

* A Groundbreaking Tardigrade Fossil Discovery Offers Clues to Our Past --Researchers have discovered the third-ever tardigrade fossil on record. Understanding the tiny creature’s developmental history is critical for unpacking important evolutionary milestones that have shaped thousands of species across the planet. (WSJ)

* An endangered Sumatran orangutan at the New Orleans zoo is expecting twins (NPR)

* FBI Declassifies J. Edgar Hoover’s Extensive File On The Munster Family (The Onion)

Conclusions on Covid and Corvey

We may be reaching the stage where we can draw a few tentative conclusions about the major news stories of this year, and some of those conclusions are comforting.

First, on Covid-19, while the virus keeps mutating, as viruses are wont to do, increasingly we can take comfort that those mutations do not appear to cause more suffering and death among unvaccinated people than the original version did.

In addition, they appear to have little measurable impact on vaccinated people.

Furthermore, the vaccines, including boosters, work just fine alone or in combination to extend immunity, minimize illness, guard against mutations and allow for a return to normal life for most people.

There always are exceptions, of course, but one major problem with mass media is all too often the exceptions become headlines, which generate fear and controversy where neither is justified.

So-called "breakthrough cases" can and do occur. This does not change the overall situation. Bad reactions to the shots do occur, this is always the case. This too does not change the overall situation.

There are precious people among us -- the immunocompromised, the very aged and the frail -- who remain uniquely vulnerable and we should always keep them in mind. This probably also inclines infants.

While on the subject of the very young, the regulatory agencies are gradually working through their processes to reach the point of approving and recommending vaccines for children.

This is another positive development. What it should not mean, IMHO, is that the kind of mandates requiring school kids to be vaccinated in order to attend public school are justified.

On the contrary, at present this is a terrible idea, the type that merges in a society when it is flirting with extremism and over-reaction.

Anyone who believes otherwise needs to review the studies of which children have been left behind intellectually during the pandemic. They will quickly realize that it is not the wealthy, privileged children, but the poorest, minority, marginalized members of society who always get left behind.

You can conclude that this is just how the world works, that inevitably the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, or you can decide tolerating the status quo is intolerable, that those who do so are indeed part of the problem.

For all of the rest of us, the greater issue that confronted us long before Covid-19 was even a gleam in the devil's blood-shot eye is isolation, mistrust, fear, and withdrawal from one another.

***

Similar conclusions can be drawn about the annual trends in climate change, Afghanistan, the Biden administration, the global economy, and more -- and I may wade into those topics in the coming days.

More vexing is the controversy over whether Corvey the bunny is better off inside in the bathtub during the rainy season or outside in the chicken coop.

Since I try to avoid taking firm positions on such matters, all I can say is that wherever Corvey may spend his time, he sure seems to like cilantro.

And so do I.

***

THE HEADLINES:

* Analysis: Putin and Xi look set to disengage as world leaders meet on climate (WP)

* How Chemical Companies Avoid Paying for Pollution -- DuPont factories pumped dangerous substances into the environment. The company and its offspring have gone to great lengths to dodge responsibility. (NYT)

* California Department of Fish and Wildlife officials are completing an unprecedented effort to save more than 1 million Chinook salmon, a campaign that also may help preserve a way of life for a Native American tribe. (Reuters)

* The Environmental Protection Agency has identified 13,000 sites in California where people may be exposed to toxic “forever chemicals” that are associated with cancer and other health problems. (The Guardian)

* Worsening climate change requires that the United States do much more to track, ease and manage flows of refugees fleeing natural disasters, the Biden administration said Thursday in what it billed as the federal government's first deep look at the problem. (AP)

* A hike through ice caves under Austria’s melting glaciers shows ‘decays’ from climate change (WP)

* Health problems tied to climate change are all getting worse, according to two reports published Wednesday. The annual reports commissioned by the medical journal Lancet tracked 44 global health indicators connected to climate change, including heat deaths, infectious diseases and hunger. (AP)

* Fossil Fuel Drilling Plans Undermine Climate Pledges, U.N. Report Warns -- Countries are planning to produce more than twice as much oil, gas and coal through 2030 as would be needed if governments want to limit global warming to Paris Agreement goals. (NYT) 

* Climate change makes drought recovery tougher in U.S. West (AP)

* Some scientists fear the Amazon — which exerts power over the carbon cycle like no other terrestrial ecosystem — is nearing a point of no return. (Reuters)

* Inaction on climate change imperils millions of lives, doctors say (WP)

* Turning whiskey into fuel: Scotland's green plan (Reuters)

* For Afghan Hazaras, where to pray can be life and death choice (Reuters)

* Female Judges in Afghanistan, Now Jobless and in Hiding -- They fear that they or their loved ones could be tracked down and killed because of their work delivering justice to women. “We have lost everything — our jobs, our homes, the way we lived.” (NYT)

* Afghanistan needs aid, but that won’t fix our broken nation. Uplifting girls will. (Opinion by Shabana Basij-Rasikh/WP)

* Pfizer-BioNTech Booster 95.6% Effective in Trial, Companies Say --The study was carried out while the highly contagious Delta variant was prevalent, the companies said, suggesting the booster helps protect against the contagious strain. (WSJ)

* F.D.A. Authorizes Moderna and Johnson & Johnson Booster Shots -- The agency will also allow vaccine recipients to pick which vaccine they want as a booster, endorsing a mix-and-match approach. (NYT)

* Can new variants of the coronavirus keep emerging? 

Yes, as long as the virus that caused the pandemic keeps infecting people. But that doesn’t mean new variants will keep emerging as regularly, or that they’ll be more dangerous. (AP)

* Forty officers in the San Francisco Police Department have been put on leave for not having their Covid-19 shots. (NBC Bay Area)

* The U.S. on Thursday donated its 200 millionth COVID-19 shot to help vaccinate the rest of the world, the White House announced. The Biden administration aims to lead a global vaccination campaign even as it rolls out boosters for domestic use, which critics say diverts doses from those who are in greater need around the world. (AP)

*  For central bankers wrestling with the question of whether inflationary pressures are transitory, industry chiefs around the world have a clear message: prices are only going higher. (Reuters)

* Biden abruptly accelerates his involvement in agenda talks -- From universal pre-K to dental benefits to college aid, President Biden is laying down specifics as tight deadlines converge and time grows short. (WP)

* Long before Havana Syndrome, the U.S. reported microwaves beamed at an embassy (NPR)

* Democrats' grand plans for an ambitious legislative package came to a crashing halt this week after President Joe Biden made it clear to lawmakers they would need to accept significant cuts to many of their priorities. Now the party must deal among themselves, as they just couldn't get the whole bill past conservative Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin. [HuffPost]

* Xi Jinping Hasn’t Left China in 21 Months, Keeping Diplomacy Virtual (WSJ)

* Senate Republicans filibustered voting rights legislation meant to override new voting restrictions in Republican-run states that affirm former President Donald Trump's lies about election fraud. "Senate Republicans blocking debate today is an implicit endorsement of the horrid new voter suppression and election subversion laws pushed in Republican states across the country,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the floor after the vote. [HuffPost]

* Netflix’s ‘Squid Game’ Has Parents Asking: Should You Let Your Kids Watch? (WSJ)

* In the first nine months of 2021, Latino startups from Brazil's online lender Nubank to Colombian delivery firm Rappi raised $14.8 billion in new money, a jump of 174% since last year, data by CBInsights showed. The Latino boom has caught the eye of some of the biggest names in private equity. Now Wall Street's banks are looking to tap into the gold rush by taking more Latino "unicorns" public in the United States. (Reuters)

* HuffPost exclusively obtained hundreds of requests for armored vehicles that local police agencies wrote to the Defense Department in 2017 and 2018. And increasingly, police and sheriffs' departments are citing extreme weather to justify why they should receive an armored vehicle. Find out more in our investigation. [HuffPost]

* Researchers pinpoint when the Vikings came to Canada. It was exactly 1,000 years ago (NPR)

* In a First, Surgeons Attached a Pig Kidney to a Human, and It Worked -- A kidney grown in a genetically altered pig functions normally, scientists reported. The procedure may open the door to a renewable source of desperately needed organs. (NYT) 

* Fanbo Zeng, the next Chinese NBA star may be training in an elite practice gym in Walnut Creek. (SFC)

* A bestselling female author was revealed to be three men. The episode tells a deeper story. (WP) * A storm expected to arrive in the Central Valley by Sunday or Monday could bring up to two inches of rain to Fresno. It may be the strongest storm to hit the area in two years. (GV Wire) * Biden Scales Down $2 Trillion Climate Plan To Single Reusable Grocery Bag (The Onion)