‘The Arctic Ocean now increasingly is exposed’
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Jobless Claims Unexpectedly Jump to 744,000, Much Worse Than Expected
New weekly jobless claims rose to 744,000 for the week that ended April 3rd, the Department of Labor said Thursday.
Economists had forecast a decline to 680,000 from the previous week’s 719,000. This is the second consecutive week in which initial jobless claims moved up in contradiction to expectations.
Jobless claims can be volatile week to week so economists like to look at the four-week average. This rose by 2,500 to 723,750.
Continuing claims, which get reported with a week’s lag, fell to 3,734,000, a decrease of 16,000, in the week ended March 27.
Including new programs for gig workers and small business owners, the total number of continued weeks claimed for benefits in all programs for the week ending March 20—the most recent data available—was18,164,588, a decrease of just 50,862 from the previous week.
Claims hit a record 6.87 million for the week of March 27, more than ten times the previous record. Through spring and early summer, each subsequent week had seen claims decline. But in late July, the labor market appeared to stall and claims hovered around one million throughout August, a level so high it was never recorded before the pandemic struck. Claims moved down again in September and had made slow, if steady, progress until the election and the resurgence of Covid-19 infections when they rose again. In the last few weeks, however, claims have once again been moving steadily downward.
Many states eased or eliminated restrictions on businesses, including restaurants and bars, in March. Forty-three states are now mostly open. This has led to a surge of economic activity. As well, the American Rescue Act authorized $1.9 trillion of stimulus money, although only a small fraction of that has been spent so far.
But infections have recently been rising, which could be a drag on workers seeking employment and hiring.
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Biden announces 6 executive actions on guns — including ‘ghost gun’ regulation, model ‘red flag’ legislation
President Joe Biden on Thursday unveiled six executive actions intended to address what his administration calls the current "gun violence public health epidemic" facing America. Included among the actions were forthcoming regulations on so-called "ghost guns" — makeshift weapons which can be assembled at home or that lack a serial number — and model "red flag" laws.
The actions come nearly 80 days into Biden’s presidency, despite the president’s long-standing intent to initiate gun reform and pressure from gun control advocates to enact measures to restrict firearm access earlier. In his rollout of the actions, the administration cited a spate of recent mass shootings as an impetus.
"The recent high-profile mass shootings in Boulder — taking the lives of 10 individuals — and Atlanta — taking the lives of eight individuals, including six Asian American women — underscored the relentlessness of this epidemic," reads a news release issued by the White House.
What are the details?
The first action directs the Department of Justice to issue a rule to help stop the proliferation of "ghost guns" within 30 days.
"We are experiencing a growing problem: criminals are buying kits containing nearly all of the components and directions for finishing a firearm within as little as 30 minutes and using these firearms to commit crimes," the news release stated. "When these firearms turn up at crime scenes, they often cannot be traced by law enforcement due to the lack of a serial number."
Under the second action, the DOJ is commissioned to issue a rule "make clear when a device marketed as a stabilizing brace effectively turns a pistol into a short-barreled rifle subject to the requirements of the National Firearms Act."
In the third action, Biden directs the DOJ to publish model "red flag" legislation — which allows a family member, friend, or member of law enforcement to petition a court to temporarily bar a troubled or dangerous individual from accessing a gun. The administration suggested that the model legislation could act as a stand-in until Congress and state legislatures pass permanent red flag legislation of their own.
The fourth and fifth actions, respectively, outline investments in "community violence interventions" and direct the DOJ to publish an annual report on firearms trafficking.
Lastly, for the sixth action, Biden announced his intention to nominate David Chipman, a gun reform advocate, to serve as director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, a key agency in gun law enforcement.
What else?
With the rollout of new actions, it appears the Biden administration is trying to toe the line. The administration likely hopes the measures will temporarily satisfy Democratic lawmakers in Congress and progressive activists, who have been relentless in their calls for stricter gun laws.
But the new actions don’t go anywhere near as far as expected based on the promises Biden made during his presidential campaign.
As a candidate, Biden pledged that on day one of his presidency he would reinstate a ban on assault weapons, launch a voluntary gun buyback program, and close a litany of supposed background check loopholes, among other actions.
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GOP Puts Biden Admin on Notice: Congress Not Bound By New Iran Deal
Republican foreign policy leaders in Congress officially informed the Biden administration late Wednesday that they will not be bound to any new agreement with Iran that promises relief from harsh economic sanctions, according to a copy of that communication exclusively obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The letter is a sign that any new Iran deal is likely to be plagued by the same weaknesses as the original 2015 accord, which the Obama administration never brought before Congress for approval. The decision to skirt Congress meant the deal was never ratified as a formal treaty and paved the way for the Trump administration to easily cancel it in 2018. GOP foreign policy leaders are now warning the Biden administration that any new deal will suffer a similar fate under the next Republican administration. The lawmakers are also sending a message to Tehran: Anything promised by the Biden administration can be taken back in the near future.
Following indirect talks with Iran this week in Vienna, the Biden administration announced on Wednesday that it is prepared to unilaterally unwind tough economic sanctions as part of a series of concessions meant to entice Iran into scaling back its nuclear work.
Republican leaders on the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services Committees say that any guarantees provided by the Biden administration, including sanctions relief, will be void unless they are brought before Congress for approval. "As members of Congress, a co-equal branch of the federal government, we do not consider ourselves bound by executive agreements which purport to make commitments on behalf of the Congress of the United States," Reps. Jim Banks (R., Ind.) and Joe Wilson (R., S.C.) told the administration in a letter addressed to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
The letter represents the opening salvo in the GOP’s mounting efforts to interfere with the Biden administration’s ongoing diplomacy with Iran, which is being conducted without input from Democrats and Republicans on the Hill.
Banks and Wilson further warn the administration that Republicans in Congress will immediately "oppose, and … work to reverse, any sanctions relief for Iran," potentially making any new agreement dead-on-arrival and unenforceable in the long-term. This effort could attract support from hawkish Democrats, many of whom have already warned the Biden administration against unraveling sanctions that have crippled the hardline regime’s economy and sparked widespread anti-government protests.
The State Department’s decision to offer sanctions relief before Iran commits to ceasing its nuclear weapons work contradicts earlier promises from senior administration officials, including Blinken, who repeatedly vowed before Congress that he would not unwind sanctions as a precondition for talks with Tehran. That policy has already been reversed in the wake of talks with Iran and European powers this week in Vienna.
The administration’s unilateral actions to unravel sanctions also contradict Blinken’s sworn testimony before Congress in January, in which he promised to restore Congress’s traditional role in sculpting foreign policy. When the Obama administration first inked the 2015 accord, it bypassed Congress due to fears that lawmakers would not sign off on a deal that awarded Iran with billions of dollars in cash and legitimized its nuclear enrichment program. The Biden administration appears to be traveling down a similar path, despite promises otherwise.
"I agree with Blinken’s comments last January, we must restore Congress’ role in foreign policy," Banks told the Free Beacon. "Any deal with Iran should be submitted to the Senate as a treaty for ratification, and Congress should have an up or down vote on the lifting of any sanctions."
In their letter, Banks and Wilson—both leaders on the Republican Study Committee, the largest caucus of conservative lawmakers in Congress—demand Blinken explain why he did not "seek congressional input prior to agreeing" to a new framework in Vienna. They also want concrete answers about how the Biden administration will involve Congress "in any future negotiations."
They also call out the Biden State Department for exhibiting "a troubling pattern of ignoring congressional oversight" during its first few months in office. This includes the refusal of senior U.S. officials, including U.S.-Iran envoy Robert Malley, to brief congressional Republicans about the administration’s early outreach to Iran. The State Department also has failed to comply with a congressional investigation into its backchannel efforts to secure $1 billion for Iran as part of a ransom payment tied to Tehran’s seizure of a South Korean ship earlier this year.
The lawmakers further accuse the administration of already violating the 2015 Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA), which required the president to submit any agreements with Iran to Congress for a vote before any sanctions are removed. The law is widely interpreted as including any new guarantees provided by the United States as part of negotiations to rejoin the original accord.
Banks and Wilson demand Blinken provide assurances the administration will comply with INARA and seek congressional approval before it formally reenters into the nuclear deal, according to the letter.
"Blinken testified under oath that he wanted to restore the role of Congress in foreign policy, yet the administration has refused to commit to adhering to the bipartisan INARA law, and has refused to submit the failed Iran nuclear deal to the Senate as a treaty for ratification," Wilson told the Free Beacon. "Congress must have a role … [and the GOP] will continue to push back against the administration’s attempts to bypass Congress."
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U.N. Applauds Biden Admin for $250 Million Aid Gift to Palestinians
The Biden administration was applauded Thursday by the U.N. agency for so-called Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, after it offered $250 million in funding while sidestepping a 2018 law that prevents U.S. taxpayer dollars from supporting the Palestinian Authority.
“UNRWA could not be more pleased that once again we will partner with the United States to provide critical assistance to some of the most vulnerable refugees across the Middle East,” the agency’s commissioner general, Philippe Lazzarini, said in a statement seen by AFP.
“The U.S. contribution comes at a critical moment, as we continue to adjust to the challenges the Covid-19 pandemic presents.”
As Breitbart News reported, the State Department’s announcement of the funding flow confirmed weeks of speculation about a “quiet” effort to restart finance for the Palestinians — even as the American public struggles during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic:
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. plans included $75m in economic and development assistance in the West Bank and Gaza, $10m for peacebuilding programs through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAid), and $150m in humanitarian assistance for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
The direct Palestinian aid – with no concessions asked for or offered in return – is in direct contrast to the position taken by former U.S. President Donald Trump.
In 2018 he signed the Taylor Force Act into law, which prevents the U.S. from providing economic support and other funding to the Palestinian Authority while it continues to offer stipends for the families of deceased terrorists, or to pay terrorists in Israeli prisons — a policy referred to by critics as “pay-for-slay.”
The Palestinian leadership, having refused to end the payments, as a consequence lost U.S. funding.
Trump also cut funding to the UNRWA because of concerns that it has supported terror. The Taylor Force Act allows for a limited set of humanitarian exemptions, such as funding for vaccination programs.
The Biden decision to earmark millions in Palestinian support drew particular anger from Israel, which argues the agency serves to perpetuate the idea of a Palestinian refugee problem in a way that undermines the Jewish state.
Palestinians never concealed their contempt for Trump or his support of Israel.
“We believe that this U.N. agency for so-called ‘refugees’ should not exist in its current format,” said the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Gilad Erdan.
“I have expressed my disappointment and objection to the decision to renew UNRWA’s funding without first ensuring that certain reforms, including stopping the incitement and removing anti-Semitic content from its educational curriculum, are carried out,” Erdan said.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric welcomed the restored U.S. assistance, and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said it “sends the right signal” amid growing needs due to the coronavirus pandemic.
AFP contributed to this report
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Feds Likely to Force Companies To Report Pay By Race and Gender
Federal authorities are expected to instate a never-implemented Obama-era rule mandating that companies provide the government with employee pay data broken down by race and gender, the latest in a series of actions the Biden administration has taken to use companies to push “equity.”
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which works to enforce federal civil rights laws against workplace discrimination, is likely to start requiring companies with more than 100 employees to include pay equity data in their Employer Information Reports. The idea behind collecting the data was that the EEOC would use it to identify and target companies that had a pay gap discrimination.
The EEOC says that the workforce data is shared with other federal agencies, and “although the data is confidential, aggregated data is available to the public.”
The rule was announced in October 2016 by the Barack Obama White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), but the Donald Trump administration scrapped the requirements the next year before it went into effect, citing privacy concerns as well as doubts about how useful the information actually is and the burden it could place on companies.
“Some aspects of the revised collection of information lack practical utility, are unnecessarily burdensome, and do not adequately address privacy and confidentiality issues,” the Trump White House’s OMB said.
That move prompted a lawsuit from the National Women’s Law Center and the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, both of whom sued both the EEOC and the OMB in November 2017.
In March 2019, Judge Tanya Chutkan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, an Obama appointee, sided with the advocacy groups, issuing an opinion saying that OMB lacked “good cause” in its “arbitrary and capricious” move to suspend the new reporting requirements since the decision “totally lacked the reasoned explanation” required under federal law.
The judge directed the EEOC to collect two years of pay data broken down by race and gender. The agency collected the pay equity data for 2017 and 2018 before closing out the survey early last year.
Now, attorneys representing both employees and employers expect the pay equity data collection requirements to go back into effect, although it remains unclear when that would happen. The EEOC’s five-member commission still has a 3-2 Republican majority. If Biden wanted to reinstate the data collection mandate immediately, he would likely have to fire a Trump-appointed member of the commission in order to create a Democratic majority before July 1 of next year, when Republican commissioner Janet Dhillon’s term is up.
Just a week after Biden was inaugurated, former EEOC Commissioner and Acting Chair Victoria Lipnic, nominated to two terms by Obama, predicted that the agency will sharpen its focus on pay equity data collection.
“You can definitely expect a renewed emphasis on collecting pay data in conjunction with the [Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs],” Lipnic said during a National Employment Law Institute (NELI) webinar.
Companies with more than 100 employees are already required to report the numbers of their employees by job category, race, sex, and ethnicity, but they are not required to submit compensation data.
In 2019, law firm Fisher Phillips warned employers to conduct an audit of their pay practices in order to root out any race or gender pay gaps that could “catch the eye of the federal government if you are forced to turn over this information.”
“You may have time to determine whether any disparities that may exist can be justified by legitimate and non-discriminatory explanations, or whether you will need to take corrective action to address troublesome pay gaps,” the law firm wrote in a post on its website.
The push for pay equity data reporting comes on the heels of other actions the Biden administration has taken to reverse Trump administration efforts at the EEOC.
Sharon Gustafson, appointed by Trump as EEOC general counsel, made waves last month when she penned a letter refusing the Biden administration’s request that she resign. She was immediately fired, prompting questions about the legality of her termination as well as a spirited condemnation of the president’s decision from one of Gustafson’s EEOC colleagues.
Less than two weeks after Gustafson’s abrupt firing, the EEOC sent out an agency-wide email that included a quote from notoriously anti-Semitic author Alice Walker.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration is moving to crack down on companies it perceives as falling short in equity.
Under the Biden administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has sharpened its focus on the “Environmental, Social, and Governance” (ESG) actions of publicly-traded companies, nebulous categories that one industry official said could lead to “politicizing the role of the corporation.”
The SEC is weighing expanding ESG disclosure requirements and forcing companies to publicly release data on the climate risks their investments pose as well as their workforce and board diversity.
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200 Companies Oppose Voter ID Laws–Many Require IDs for Use of Service
Two hundred corporations issued a joint statement opposing election integrity legislation similar to Georgia’s recently passed voter ID law, while many require identification to use their services.
The signed letter includes PayPal, Major League Baseball (MLB), United Airlines, Microsoft, Uber, and Cisco, who called on “elected leaders in every state capitol and in Congress to work across the aisle and ensure that every eligible American has the freedom to easily cast their ballot and participate fully in our democracy.”
“There are hundreds of bills threatening to make voting more difficult in dozens of states nationwide,” the statement added, referencing Georgia’s passed integrity law that limits the number and location of drop boxes, reforms voter ID requirements, and modernizes the state’s voter rolls.
Like the State of Georgia’s voter ID requirement, PayPal, MLB, United Airlines, and Uber also require identification to use their services. PayPal, for example, requires an ID to confirm their customers’ identity, and United Airlines demands an ID to book a flight. Uber also conducts an ID check before individuals may participate in their ride-sharing platform, while the MLB asks for ID at will call ticket windows.
The letter from the 200 companies comes after MLB decided to remove their All-Star Game from Atlanta, Georgia, over their voter ID law after President Joe Biden said he would “support” such a move. “I think today’s professional athletes are acting incredibly responsibly. I would strongly support them doing that,” he said.
Critics, such as Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), have called MLB’s relocation efforts “woke.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki addressed MLB’s decision Monday by conveying, “private sector entities are going to make decisions. And that’s their role to do so.”
She also said Biden would continue to spend his time making it “easier and not harder to vote.” The Biden administration has not spoken to the requirement of showing identification to obtain food stamps, welfare, Medicaid/Social Security, unemployment benefits, marriage certificates, hotel accommodations, casino chips, and prescription drugs.
via Breitbart News
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60 Minutes Pushes Garbage Lies Again – Even Democrat Mayor Says Its Hit Piece on Florida Governor DeSantis Was “Intentionally False”
60 Minutes is a bad liberal joke. This weekend 60 Minutes presented another garbage attack, this time against Florida Governor DeSantis. It was so bad that even the Democrat Mayor of Palm Beach County was obliged to take issue with it.
Here is 60 Minutes hit piece from yesterday where they criticized Republican Governor DeSantis for his rollout in Palm Beach:
Unfortunately, the 60 Minutes piece is garbage. After seeing it aired, Palm Beach Mayor Dave Kerner, a Democrat refuted the piece:
Palm Beach County (Democratic) Mayor Dave Kerner: “I watched the 60 Minutes segment on Palm Beach County last night and feel compelled to issue this statement. The report was not just based on bad information — it was intentionally false.” https://t.co/pscThUQ4r5 pic.twitter.com/28LC23x7UC
— Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) April 5, 2021
Here is Governor DeSantis’s interaction with the 60 Minutes reporter, much of what was taken out of the 60 Minutes piece:
60 Minutes has a long way to go before the average American will trust their garbage reporting.
The post 60 Minutes Pushes Garbage Lies Again – Even Democrat Mayor Says Its Hit Piece on Florida Governor DeSantis Was “Intentionally False” appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
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Is Outside Air COVID-Safe? Are Masks Needed Outdoors?
Is Outside Air COVID-Safe? Are Masks Needed Outdoors?
When I visit parks in Seattle and the region, bike along the Burke Gilman Trail, cross-country ski at WA snowparks, or go hiking in the Cascades, I note that many people are wearing masks outdoors to avoid COVID-19. A lot of people.
Some folks are clearly afraid and fearful of COVID exposure outdoors. For example, I often see individuals making a point to avoid unmasked bikers or joggers on the Burke-Gilman trail…moving 5-10 feet off the trail and sometimes turning away. Occasionally it gets tense, as when one local scientist (not me) was angrily called a "Republican" when he was walking in a park without a mask.
The fear of outdoor spread even hit the management of Seattle Parks last year, when several parks and their parking lots were closed because of COVID fears.
Photo by Nate Loper Through a Creative Commons License
It is time to bring science to this issue and to relieve the worries of many who wish to enjoy outdoor recreation.
In this blog, I will tell you about measurements of carbon dioxide (CO2) I took around Seattle this weekend, measurements that suggest little threat of COVID transmission outdoors. I will also review some of the latest scientific literature, which again does not indicate a significant threat of COVID transmission in the outside air.
The message of this information is obvious: wearing masks outdoors does not appear to be necessary.
My Field Experiment Around Seattle
In my experiment, I used a sensitive CO2 sensor that makes use of proven measurement technology (see below). Human breathing puts out a lot of CO2, roughly 4 percent by volume or roughly 40,000 parts per million (ppm). The background level of CO2 in the free atmosphere is currently approximately 415 ppm…. a concentration much, much less than coming out of our mouths.
Thus, CO2 can act as a tracer of the air coming out of our respiratory systems, something mosquitoes know all about since they use the plume of CO2 we exhale to find us. By measuring CO2 levels, it is possible to determine the relative concentration of air coming from humans and the degree of dilution by the surrounding air.
There have been a number of peer-reviewed scientific papers that have shown that CO2 concentrations are a potent tool for evaluating the potential for disease spread by viruses and other agents, with higher concentrations of CO2 associated with more transmission of disease (some examples of relevant scientific papers found here and here).
Most of these papers use CO2 to measure the potential for transmission in indoor spaces, so why not take it one step further and evaluate potential disease transmission in the outside environment? That is what I did around Seattle on Saturday, a very nice day (high around 63F) with lots of people in the parks and outdoor locations.
My CO2 unit reported about 400-405 ppm away from roads and people, and this value represents the background level of carbon dioxide.
The Burke-Gilman Trail
My first stop was the crowded Burke Gilman trail, with folks walking, running, and whizzing by continuously. There was no increase in CO2 concentrations compared to the background at any time (around 400). Clearly, the diffusion/dispersion/dilution of CO2 by outside environmental air was very large. And the same would be true of any COVID virus breathed out by anyone on the trail.
Magnuson Park
I then traveled to Magnuson Park, one of the most popular parks in Seattle. First, I walked about a half-mile, back and forth, on a crowded path. No increase in CO2 values above background (still around 400 ppm).
Then I decided to really push things and walked around crowded picnic shelters, some with as many as 15-20 peoples without masks. (I suspect they thought I was being a bit odd as I circled around the groups, but this was for science!) I could find no enhancement of CO2 above the background levels….natural movement of air diffused their CO2 emissions completely. I did find a weak signal downstream of a raging barbecue fire…but even that was muted (about a 10 ppm increase 40 feet downwind).
So the bottom line so far: natural ventilation and mixing in the outside air was effective in diffusing the CO2 emitted by people in an outside park environment, even when there was a high density of people. And if CO2 enhancement by all the people was undetectable, the same would be true of COVID-19 virus emission by any infected individuals. Parks appear to be entirely safe locations and masks are not necessary.
University Village Shopping Center: Outside and Inside
Next, I went to the University Village shopping center. There is a nice little urban park adjacent to the Apple Store. It was packed with people enjoying the nice weather. If there was going to be a place where human CO2 would be evident, this would be it, particularly with nearby structures lessening the wind flow.
I walked all around the park, even close to groups of people. Only background levels of CO2 were observed. No hint of people’s CO2. Atmospheric mixing was still large, and thus there was little threat of catching COVID-19 from the general environment. And I found similar results near lines of individuals waiting to enter some U. Village stores.
Supermarkets and Indoor Restaurants
As a little side test, I then went into a busy local supermarket. The CO2 concentration zoomed up to 830 ppm. A warning, perhaps, about food stores.
Then I went into a restaurant, one that was well ventilated (I could feel the breeze) and with reasonable spacing between tables. The CO2 level was a very modest 520. Turns out the restaurant had a CO2 meter, which read 530. Good confirmation of my calibration and a positive note about the restaurant providing a safe environment for its patrons.
A Visit to A Gym
Then I stopped in a local gym, a major one located in northeast Seattle. Lots of ventilation and the CO2 level was a very modest 465. A safe place for one’s workout and less than the value in my home (which is about 530). People are required to wear masks in the gym, but quite honestly they probably aren’t needed.
Reality Check
I shared my results with some local air quality experts and a well-known epidemiologist. They thought my results were reasonable and not surprising. They acknowledged that COVID transmission is far less problematic outdoors.
One suggested that the risk outside was not zero: imagine if you had a conversation with a highly infectious individual for an extended time at close proximity (within a foot or two), with little wind and the person was upstream of you. Perhaps. But you can imagine how unlikely this situation would be. And easily avoided.
The epidemiologist, although generally agreeing about the safety of outdoor air, suggested the potential for a very short (transient) exposure to the long-distance breath of a COVID-infected person.
He noted the example of smelling cigar or pot smoke at a distance–might one get exposed to COVID the same way? I suspect this is highly unlikely. First, large virus-containing droplets tend to fall out close to the infected (that is why there is a six-foot "rule" for separation). And smaller particles tend to get diluted with distance. But just as important is that current best science suggests that extended or prolonged exposure to a COVID-infected individual is necessary, with the Centers for Disease Control indicating 30 minutes or longer (see here). That is simply not going to happen outside if you and the source are moving around.
This never made any sense and prevent people from enjoying a healthful environment
Finally, what does the current scientific literature indicate about outdoor transmission? The scientific literature is very thin on this topic, but here are some examples:
-
Qian et al., 2020: Examined 1245 confirmed cases in 120 cities in China and identified only a single outbreak in an outdoor environment, which involved two cases.
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Nishiura et al., 2020: Transmission of COVID-19 in a closed environment was 18.7 times greater compared to an open-air environment (95% confidence interval). (they could not exclude the possibility that the few "outdoor" transmission might have occurred by undocumented indoor transmission)
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Bulfone et al., 2021: A review of all the literature on outdoor transmission. They found only five studies, two of which are above. They noted the poor quality and inconsistent approaches of most of the studies so far.
Quite honestly, one can only be disappointed in the quality of the "studies" on outdoor transmission, which is surprising at this point in time. Importantly, there is no compelling published research that demonstrates significant outdoor transmission.
The Key Message
My observations of CO2 concentrations suggest that the diffusion, dilution, and dispersion of human exhalations are very large outdoors, making the threat of outdoor COVID-19 transmission very, very low. This is consistent with the (limited) scientific literature on the topic.
Outside air is very safe, and it gets even safer during the summer since ultraviolet radiation rapidly kills airborne virus. The logical conclusion from these results is that wearing a mask outdoors is probably unnecessary. Closing outdoor parks makes no sense at all.
If any of you see some weaknesses in the above logic, let me know. That is how science works.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 04/05/2021 – 19:00
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Trump rips into the New York Times over report that his campaign duped supporters into unintended donations
Former President Donald Trump lashed out at the New York Times over a report that his presidential campaign had duped supporters out of millions of dollars in unwitting automatic transactions.
The report was published Saturday and included interviews with several Trump supporters who said that they had authorized a donation to the campaign but later saw their bank accounts depleted from multiple automatic transactions that they did not expect.
On Monday, the former president excoriated the report and denied the claims against his campaign.
"In yet another highly partisan story, the failing New York Times wrote a completely misleading, one-sided attack piece this weekend that tried to disparage our record-setting grassroots fundraising operation during the 2020 campaign," read the Trump statement.
The report said that donors on the webpage encountered pre-checked boxes that would allow the campaigns to make multiple recurring requests for donations.
"Our support in 2020 was so big — never before seen (received more votes than any sitting President in history, by far), that it has become a major threat to the Democratic Party, which explains why the New York Times immediately rushed to defend their Radical Left Allies," Trump continued.
"In fact, many people were so enthusiastic that they gave over and over, and in certain cases, where they would give too much, we would promptly refund their contributions. Our overall dispute rate was less than 1% of total online donations, a very low number. This is done by Dems also," Trump said.
The Times reported that the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee had issued more than 530,000 refunds to online donors in the last 2 1/2 months of 2020. They reported that Democratic campaigns had only made 37,000 refunds in that same period. Overall, the GOP entities refunded $64.3 million, while Democratic entities refunded $5.6 million in that time period.
"Our fundraising efforts, working together with the Republican party, were all done legally," Trump continued, "and all with the goal of ensuring that my Administration could continue to Make America Great Again."
Here’s more about the NYT report:
Goldmacher Breaks Down How Trump Campaign Steered Supporters Into Unwitting Donationswww.youtube.com
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