☕️ Coffee & Covid ☙ Friday, September 3, 2021 ☙ Encouraging Signs 🦠

Good morning C&Cers, and Happy Friday! Today, we review good news about Florida’s declining hospitalizations, breakthrough cases, football games, Canadian booster shot orders, Joe Rogan’s amazing ...

Good morning C&Cers, and Happy Friday! Today, we review good news about Florida’s declining hospitalizations, breakthrough cases, football games, Canadian booster shot orders, Joe Rogan’s amazing Covid recovery, and more.

🗞 *THE C&C ARMY POST* 🗞

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🔥 Yesterday, the new C&C website got almost 50,000 unique visits. In one day. Nice! We had a terrific plug from General Mike Flynn who linked Sunday’s post to his vast audience.

🗞*COVID NEWS AND COMMENTARY*

🔥 As we predicted, the summer Covid wave is now clearly ebbing in Florida. Yesterday, Shands hospital reported falling Covid hospitalizations. According to local reports, Covid patients have now fallen from 217 to 197, and ICUs from 60 to 55. Shands CEO Ed Jimenez said that falling below 200 patients is an “encouraging sign,” and that he’s “optimistic” the in-patient numbers are decreasing.

WCJB also reported that Mr. Jimenez said that the idea you can’t get Covid-19 if you’re vaccinated is not true. “The scientists have never told us that if you get the vaccine, you can’t get the virus,” he said. Never?

Now, I honestly don’t mean to quibble with Mr. Jimenez. But there may be a few things that he is unaware of, or has forgotten. I get it, things are busy and there’s a lot going on these days, especially if you’re trying to run a major hospital franchise and everything. But starting last December, it was widely reported by a myriad of experts and media pundits that the mRNA vaccines were “95% effective” at preventing infections. Breakthroughs were supposed to be “very rare.” As recently as late May, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said that “our data from the CDC today suggests that vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don’t get sick, and that it’s not just in the clinical trials, but it’s also in real-world data.”

And on May 3, 2021, Dr. Fauci explained how vaccines reduce CASES — not hospitalizations and deaths: “So every day that goes by that you get an additional 3 million people vaccinated, you’re going to start seeing getting closer and closer to start seeing a significant diminution in the number of cases. For example, for several, several weeks, we had a seven-day average of about 60,000 infections per day. It is gone down now over 20 percent or more, down to somewhere in the 50,000 per day. And as we get more and more people vaccinated, it’s going to go down to 40 and then 30 and then 20.” So.

These are just a few examples. There are LOTS more. So, I don’t think it is perfectly accurate to say that “the scientists have never told us that if you get the vaccine, you can’t get the virus.” It might be more accurate to say that the scientists ALWAYS told us that if you get the vaccine, you probably won’t get the virus. Fixed it for you!

Finally, WCJB reported that Mr. Jimenez also predicted that the first Gator football game — scheduled for this weekend — will NOT be a “cataclysmic scenario for Covid-19 spread.” Well, thank goodness. Last year at this time, people around here were FREAKING OUT about the start of the football season. Some folks were really losing their minds about it. They were speculating that our emergency services folks would be devastated by contact with fans.

UF officials expect a full stadium packed with 90,000 fans this weekend. So.

It’s also interesting that hospitalizations started falling right after the state’s monoclonal antibody treatment centers got into full swing.

🇨🇦 Canada, population 33 million, reportedly just ordered another 300 million more doses of Covid vaccines. That’s eight jabs per Canadian adult over a three-year period. Looks like they’re expecting to do a lot of boosting, about every three months!

🔥 According to a tweet from the CDC yesterday, 83.3% of Americans now have Covid-19 antibodies, based on samples from blood donations. And that is without counting folks with T and B-cell antibodies. That’s extremely good news.

🔥 Three US senators — Angus King of Maine, Roger Wicker of Mississippi and John Hickenlooper of Colorado — announced separately this month that they had developed symptoms of Covid-19 and tested positive. Oh! And all three had been fully vaccinated.

🔥 Former Masters champion Patrick Reed was just in the hospital for six days, fighting for his life as he battled with a life-threatening case of Covid-19. Fortunately, he finally seems to be recovering slowly. Oh, and he was fully vaccinated.

🔥 As far as I can tell, fully vaccinated Jesse Jackson remains in the rehab facility where he was transferred six days ago after getting out of the ICU. He’s recovering from his Covid-19 infection, which apparently requires “intense” inpatient rehabilitation, although details are sparse. Sounds like he had a pretty bad case, and we’re praying for the Reverend’s ultimate recovery from this devastating disease. Oh, and he was fully vaccinated. Triple-jabbed, actually.

💉 Late last week, Governor Jim Justice of West Virginia held a press conference to announce that breakthrough cases in his state were exploding. He said: “West Virginia is seeing a 26% increase in positive cases in people that are fully vaccinated, and a 21% increase in breakthrough cases requiring hospitalization in people that are fully vaccinated. We have also seen a 25% increase in DEATHS in people that are fully vaccinated over the last eight weeks.”

Maybe the lag in these breakthrough cases has something to do with the fact that people who develop Covid infections prior to 14 days past their second shot are labeled, “unvaccinated.” Just spitballing here.

Anyway, Governor Justice said he hopes to give West Virginians more jabs of the safe and effective vaccines soon, in the form of booster shots. So don’t worry.

🔥 The biggest podcast host in the country, the uber-popular Joe Rogan, came down with a serious case of Covid Sunday, featuring fatigue, fevers, sweats and other symptoms. In a video posted yesterday, Rogan said he immediately “threw the kitchen sink at it,” and started taking ivermectin, monoclonal antibodies, vitamins, a Z-pac, and other therapeutic treatments. He said he quickly began improving and felt completely back to normal by Wednesday.

In a story about Rogan’s experience, CNN reported that the podcast host had “embarked on a fringe treatment regime,” describing ivermectin as a drug that “has become popular among fringe and anti-vaccine communities, and which US health officials have strongly advised against.” In its report, NBC — right in the headline — called ivermectin “widely-discredited.”

In fact, NBC suggested that the drug was not even fit for human consumption, reporting that “Ivermectin, which is not an anti-viral drug, is generally used to treat or prevent parasites in animals such as horses.” Generally.

Again, I don’t mean to quibble with CNN and NBC or anything, but here’s a link to the 2015 Nobel Prize awarded to the creators of ivermectin for its use in HUMANS — not horses, CNN and NBC — but people: [The 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine - Press release - NobelPrize.org](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2015/press-release/). So, not GENERALLY a “fringe” treatment.

It’s okay, though. NBC’s reporters probably just didn’t have any access to Google. They’re probably using vintage typewriters there. I understand there have been a lot of budget cutbacks at the networks since the election. So, don’t be too hard on them. But NBC, this is how misinformation starts. Just saying. You might want to get your reporters a refurbished iPad or something.

Oh, and Rogan is NOT vaccinated.

🔥 Beginning September 16, Florida officials say the state will start issuing $5,000 fines to businesses, schools and government agencies that require people to show proof of a Covid-19 vaccination. This would, naturally, also include employers seeking evidence of vaccination from their employees.

Have a terrific Friday, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow morning for more delicious Coffee & Covid.

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