Palantir Is A Creepy Cannibalistic Eye Of Sauron

bloomberg  |  Palantir Technologies Inc. has long pursued some of the largest governments and companies in the world as customers. Now, in a dramatic shift in strategy, it’s chasing startups.

The controversial data integration and analytics company co-founded by billionaire Peter Thiel plans to announce Tuesday it will sell software on a monthly subscription model to smaller companies, starting first with a handful of startups connected to former Palantir employees.

The startup sales push is a break with tradition for the $40 billion company that made its name on large contacts with the U.S. Army, Merck KGaA and a handful of other high-profile organizations -- and is part of Palantir’s larger effort to diversify its sources of revenue away from a few big customers.

The new program, called Foundry for Builders, will start with five startups in fields including robotics, health and fintech. The group will experiment with software that Palantir says functions as an operating system for company data. Palantir chose startups connected to former employees, who are already familiar with how to operate the system, and use their feedback to refine the product for startups before rolling it out more broadly in coming months.

Palantir had 149 customers driving $341 million revenue for the first quarter, with the bulk of sales coming from government contracts. A flurry of deal-making during the pandemic, including agreements with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, pushed the company’s government business to more than 60% of revenue -- an imbalance that unsettled some investors.

Foundry for Builders aims to counteract that disparity by adding a larger number of potentially fast-growing companies to Palantir’s customer base. Developing closer relationships with early-stage companies appears to have been an increasing focus in recent months for Denver-based Palantir.

Besides expanding sales to startups, the company has also been investing in them. Palantir recently made a string of direct investments in companies going public through SPACs totaling more than $130 million. All of those companies also became customers, a practice that has raised some eyebrows.

Democrats Made Pie-In-The-Sky Promises And Completely Failed To Deliver...,

"The reason is that with the sheer volume of new cases that we are having and that we expect to continue with Omicron, one of the things we want to be careful of is that we don't have so many people out," Dr. Anthony Fauci explains why CDC changed Covid isolation guidelines. pic.twitter.com/g48XwcDdJh

— The Situation Room (@CNNSitRoom) December 27, 2021

americanthinker |  Biden ran on a promise: he was going to federalize the COVID response and end COVID in America.  He introduced vaccine mandates for federal employees and those doing business with the federal government and had OSHA do the same for every business with more than 100 employees.  Various states, cities, and businesses, especially when it came to health care, followed suit.  We were also told that if we even breathed the same air as a COVID person, we had to quarantine ourselves for ten days.  In the last two days, that promised federal response, COVID mandates, and quarantines have all fallen apart, thanks to the very contagious but seemingly relatively harmless omicron variant.

I'm not going to shut down the country.

I'm not going to shut down the economy.

I'm going to shut down the virus.

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 30, 2020

As omicron spreads, especially in New York City, one of the most vaccinated places in America, other Democrat-driven initiatives are falling.  The CDC has had to shorten by 50% its COVID isolation and quarantine period recommendations, reflecting (a) that omicron seems to be a cold and (b) that America can't shut down because of a cold.

And finally, and most ironically, as omicron cases increase, hospitals are facing staff shortages because their ludicrous, unscientific vaccine mandates saw them firing thousands of employees.  Last week, the CDC updated a document entitled "Strategies to Mitigate Healthcare Personnel Staffing Shortages."  It appears that more than thirteen states are struggling to deal with omicron cases because of staff shortages.  Interestingly, the Forbes article to which I linked talks about staff burnout and more patients as reasons for the shortage but makes no mention of mass firings.  Funny that.

The point is that Democrats made pie-in-the-sky promises and completely failed to make good on them.  More people died from COVID under Biden than under Trump, Biden's had to admit that Trump's state-based approach was the correct one, unreasonably long quarantines are becoming impossible to maintain, and all the things that Democrats and Democrat-driven businesses did to destroy the workforce are now becoming a serious problem.

 

Brandon Accepts The Fail Passes The Buck To Governors...,

NYPost  |  Vanity Fair reported Thursday that experts from Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the Rockefeller Foundation, the COVID Collaborative and other groups pitched a 10-page plan to White House officials on Oct. 22 that called for the production of 732 million tests per month for a “Testing Surge To Prevent [a] Holiday COVID surge.” The plan wanted “Every American Household to Receive Free Rapid Tests for the Holidays/New Year.” 

Three days after the meeting, White House officials told the experts that the administration would not adopt the plan. One official who participated in the meeting told the magazine, “We did not have capacity to manufacture over-the-counter tests at that scale.”

Biden ran for president last year pledging to bring competent management to the pandemic. But this year’s Delta variant surge caused his approval rating on COVID-19 to fall. Earlier this month, the number of US pandemic deaths under Biden exceeded the number of fatalities under former President Donald Trump within a nearly identical period of time — despite the mass distribution of vaccines.

Biden expressed regret last week about his seemingly sluggish response to the new Omicron variant, which has caused the highest-ever infection rates in areas including New York City and Washington, DC.

Biden said in an ABC News interview Wednesday that he should have thought more quickly of a plan to mass distribute 500 million at-home rapid tests, which was announced Dec. 21 but won’t begin to happen until January.

“The answer is, yeah, I wish I had thought about ordering a half a billion [tests] two months ago, before COVID hit here,” Biden told ABC’s David Muir as FEMA rushed to set up sites in New York City and other areas slammed by massive holiday testing demand.

In mid-January, a previously announced Biden rule will take effect requiring private insurance companies to reimburse policyholders for rapid tests that they buy themselves. Another 50 million rapid tests are in the process of being shipped by the federal government to local clinics for free distribution.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at a pre-Christmas press briefing last week that details of how to mass-distribute the 500 million free at-home rapid tests are still being developed — despite the rollout being previewed to reporters last Monday and formally announced on Tuesday. It’s not yet clear how many tests each household will be allowed to request, how quickly they will be mailed or when a website will be launched.

 

 

Are Cartels Taking Over Small Town America?

westernjournal  |  While most documentaries now are either about serial killers or social justice movements, the Daily Caller’s “Cartelville, USA” brings fresh investigative journalism to the table.

The film, clocking in at a brief but impactful 36 minutes, features reporter Jorge Ventura as he delves into a troubling trend in the high desert of Los Angeles County: illegal cannabis farms.

Ventura was the perfect person to produce and narrate the documentary, as he is one of the few journalists who have covered the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border on location.

Ventura uses his own experience growing up in Palmdale, California, to explain that many families move to the desert to get out of the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles. Now, they’re starting to flee what used to be their sanctuary.

Using testimonies from local residents and law enforcement, the documentary reveals how cartels are buying up poor-quality houses with vast amounts of land in order to start pot farms without proper state licensing.

Property prices in the area have skyrocketed, ruining the region’s reputation for being more affordable. The high desert is now overrun by criminal enterprises wasting precious resources, including water, with no regard for the communities around them.

These cartels staff their operations with migrants smuggled across the southern border, many of whom are working as indentured servants.

Ventura does a fantastic job drawing distinctions between the people running the farms and the ones laboring on them.

He tells a far more nuanced story about the average person coming across the border than the hyper-partisan narrative coming from both sides of the aisle.

 

 

Grisly Meso-American Syncretinism Coming Soon To A Hamlet Near You!

NYPost |  Santa Muerte has a fondness for tequila, cigarettes, candy — and human blood.

The saint is a favorite of Mexican and Central American drug traffickers who are known to leave the severed heads of their enemies at improvised shrines, featuring wax effigies and votive candles emblazoned with the skeletal image of the one also known as Holy Death.

Dressed in a flowing white robe and often wielding both a scythe and a globe, Santa Muerte — a cross between the Grim Reaper and the Virgin of Guadeloupe, Mexico’s patron saint — is just one of a rapidly growing religious movement of “narco saints,” worshiped by drug traffickers who pray to them for protection, riches and the silence necessary to mask their underworld dealings.

“The narcos and the gangs all believe in the power of prayer,” said Robert Almonte, a Texas-based security consultant and former deputy chief of the El Paso Police Department who specialized in narcotics. “They believe that the saints will protect them no matter what they do — and that’s dangerous because it emboldens the traffickers who truly believe they can get away with murder and still go to heaven.”

The movement is growing, with estimates of up to 12 million devotees in Mexico and, now, parts of the US. American law enforcement officials struggling under the recent wave of illegal migrant crossings are increasingly documenting altars to the macabre saint — and another, Jesus Malverde — in stash houses in US border communities where Mexican drug cartel members often hold migrants for ransom, Almonte said.

Not that these saints are canonized. The Catholic Church has condemned Santa Muerte worship as “blasphemous and Satanic.” When Pope Francis visited Mexico for the first time in 2016, he condemned the cult, which is one of the fastest growing new “religious” movements in the world, according to the Catholic Herald.

“I am particularly concerned about those many persons who, seduced by the empty power of the world, praise illusions and embrace their macabre symbols to commercialize death in exchange for money,” the Pope said, referring to Santa Muerte. “I urge you not to underestimate the moral and antisocial challenge which the drug trade represents for Mexican society as a whole, as well as for the Church.”

 

Kidney Stone Ron Brownstein Sez The LGB Community Is About "Insurrection"

CNN is PISSED that a parent would say "Let's Go Brandon" to Biden directly. Analyst says it's ungracious. It's juvenile. It's reprehensible...and (this is CNN)...it's about "insurrection." pic.twitter.com/vRRIZagEvb

— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) December 26, 2021

dailycaller |  A CNN panelist claimed that a father of four, who tagged a phone call with President Joe Biden with the phrase “Let’s Go, Brandon,” was not only being impolite but also harboring feelings “about insurrection.”

Ron Brownstein, a senior editor at The Atlantic, joined a CNN panel to discuss a phone call between Biden, First Lady Jill Biden, and an Oregon father Jared Schmeck who ended his live-streamed phone call with a less vulgar substitute for “f*** Joe Biden.”

The CNN host dubbed the interaction between Schmeck and the Bidens “disrespectful,” “juvenile” and “reprehensible.” He also asked Brownstein for his opinion on the matter.

“I don’t think it’s fundamentally about incivility. I think it’s fundamentally about insurrection,” Brownstein said.

“The whole ‘Let’s Go, Brandon’ motif is the reflection of the view [that] two-thirds of the Republican base — driven by Trump’s false claims and the Big Lie that Biden is an illegitimate President,” he continued. “And, it reflects the findings in multiple polls by the American Enterprise Institute, Vanderbilt University, and others, that a majority of Republican voters now say the American way of life is disappearing so fast that … we may have to use force to save it.”

Schmeck told The Oregonian that he is now being “attacked” for his “joke” on the phone call. Schmeck claims he is not a “Trumper,” though he is frustrated with Biden’s political preferences and policy choices such as federal vaccine mandates, inflation, and supply chain problems.

“At the end of the day, I have nothing against Mr. Biden, but I am frustrated because I think he can be doing a better job,” Schmeck said. “I mean no disrespect to him.”

 

In The Absence Of Power Change Must Be Effected By Force

off-guardian  |  Whereas power stands on its own, without the need to move against anything at all, force always moves against something. Force is fragmented and therefore has to be fed energy constantly. Force consumes whereas power creates. While force requires sustained input, power acts without effort.

Newton’s third law teaches us that force always creates counterforce and therefore it is limited by definition. While force must struggle against opposition, power stands still. Power effects change through its own field of influence, without the need to expend energy.

Force is associated with friction and conflict. This point is perhaps best explained by Dr. David Hawkins himself:

“Force always creates counterforce; its effect is to polarize rather than unify. Polarization always implies conflict; its cost, therefore, is always high. Because force incites polarization, it inevitably produces a win/lose dichotomy; and because somebody always loses, enemies are created. Constantly faced with enemies, force requires constant defense. Defensiveness is invariably costly, whether in the marketplace, politics, or international affairs.”

Hawkins, R, D., 1995. Power vs Force. Hay House, Inc. 2012 reprint.

Thinking about the concept of power and force within the context of the current global crisis leads us toward some profound conclusions. For one, agendas that center around inequality, control, profit and material gain are always driven by force.

Force is a tool used by those who lack power. When your motives go against the good of humanity, when your intentions fail to support life itself, your only option is to use force. Force includes all manner of fear-mongering, manipulation, coercion and violence. Force may work up to a point but as we discovered, it requires a constant input of energy and therefore, results are obtained at a cost. Propaganda campaigns require vast amounts of money, coordination and tireless censorship. Vaccine mandates require bribes, threats, and the covering up of adverse events.

This energy input is immense and, most importantly, unsustainable.

As force creates friction, it must constantly be fed with more and more energy. But as the force becomes stronger, so does the friction. Force, due its polarizing nature, increases entropy. As entropy rises, the available energy decreases, until, eventually, momentum ceases and the entire thing grinds to a halt.

While the source of power is self-evident, indestructible and inarguable, force is subject to ‘proof’ and requires constant justification. While true power emanates from consciousness itself, force is driven by the ego.

Those who use force to impose their will on humanity always succumb to power. As history has shown, all totalitarian regimes eventually come crashing down – not on account of some divine intervention, but because each of us is born with inalienable rights that are intrinsic to human creation.

Therefore, it is only a matter of time before the transhumanist force implodes. However, the time it takes for that to happen is dependent on our ability to reduce disorder and increase power. A lower entropy consciousness means more energy available to do work which results in more power, freedom, happiness and love. As our power collectively grows, we create an immovable wall able to repel any and all negative influences and nefarious threats.

On the other hand, the ego-mind is constantly asking unanswerable questions and worrying about unlikely futures. As our minds become cluttered with fear-laden media, our power decreases and we find ourselves at the mercy of “authorities”.

Brandon Stays Confused And Slipping...,

BREAKING: Joe Biden was taking calls from the NORAD Santa tracking program and a dad ended the call with "Merry Christmas, and Let's Go Brandon."

Biden replied with: "Let's Go Brandon, I agree" pic.twitter.com/Hc0pLWGRx1

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) December 24, 2021

summit |  A CNN correspondent noted how Joe Biden appeared “confused” throughout an entire interview as he repeatedly mistook COVID home tests for anti-viral pills.

The comment was made in reference to Biden’s 20 minute interview with ABC’s David Muir, during which the president attempted to defend his response to the pandemic and complaints that people in New York were waiting in line for five hours to receive a COVID test.

Biden repeatedly referred to the 500 million at-home tests that had been ordered as “pills,” confusing them with a new Pfizer drug, which was federally approved on the same day.

“Repeatedly throughout this interview – President Biden seems confused and was confusing the half a billion tests that they’ve ordered with a half a billion pills,” said Jeff Zeleny, CNN’s chief national affairs correspondent.

Many people have questioned whether Biden is in any fit mental state to run for president again in 2024, never mind remain in office until 2028, at which point he will be 86-years-old.

Last month we highlighted the comments of Congressman Ronny Jackson, who was the former White House physician under President Obama and President Trump, regarding Biden’s cognitive state.

“Over 50% of this country does not believe he’s cognitively fit to be our Commander in Chief and our head of state,” said Jackson, adding, “If anyone needs a cognitive test, it’s this president.”

 

Aspirational Ethical Praxis: Everything Else Is Merely Conversation...,

vanessa beeley · Misrepresenting Humanity on a grand scale

off-guardian  |  Vanessa Beeley sits down with researcher, economic reform activist, free speech advocate & soul singer Ian Jenkins, to discuss the worst of the impact of Covid-19 lockdown on the most vulnerable of society.

Governments do not care about these marginalised communities and the measures imposed upon them do nothing to alleviate their suffering, rather it is compounded by draconian, nonsensical restrictions. What can we do as human beings to preserve what it means to be human in the face of a tsunami of tyranny.

Enough of the tyranny of experts in narrow fields, with no concept of the broader and quite disastrous consequences of their inability to think outside their range of knowledge. Scientific qualifications bestow absolutely no added ability to behave ethically or to form policy.”
Ian Jenkins

I care far more how humanity lives than how long. Progress, for me, means increasing goodness and happiness of individual lives. For the species, as for each man, mere longevity seems to me a contemptible ideal.”
C S Lewis, from ‘Is Progress Possible?‘

And Yes, Of Course They Aren’t A Monolith.

twitter  |  Just had an illuminating convo with my hubby where he (an essential blue collar worker who never stopped going to his job) floated the idea that all these moving goalposts in the face of what’s now an endemic virus is about professional classes not wanting to return to the office

That implicates a lot of you so maybe take a beat before replying that it’s about saving lives. I’m married to a Black Cuban immigrant who works with 100% people of color. Neither of his Black female colleagues is vaxxed, one of them didn’t even know there was a third shot… 

 

And there’s a ton of mistrust among the Black folks he works around in the vaccines. Like, him telling her people are getting a 3rd shot just makes her feel vindicated - how are these things so good that you have to keep injecting yourself??! I share all this to say that Twitter 

 

By and large acts like these people don’t exist. Whether it’s the “karen and chad” anti-vaxxer memes that totally ignore the vast vaccine hesitancy among Black folks specifically but also a fair share of Latinos, or the elitist calls for new lockdowns that don’t take into account the ppl who can’t work from home, who would be again sacrificed so the professional classes can keep getting their groceries, takeout, supplies, weed, etc - a lot of people on here are incredibly out of touch. And don’t think service workers don’t recognize it. 

 

The pandemic has exacerbated our class divide where white-collar workers are completely divorced from the experiences of blue-collar workers who can’t do their jobs from home but must continue for society to keep functioning. Yes, there are larger structural forces at play - our lack of a safety

net, lack of universal paid leave and healthcare, etc. But that has never been the country we live in and it’s preposterous for people to argue that our whole society should shut down with zero services. They don’t want that. They’re not even considering the vast implications. 

 

It’s fucking Twitter socialism at its most absurd. 

Anyway this thread went a little wonky cuz I’m talking about two different things: vax hesitancy and lockdowns. But they both relate to the racialized class divide and how it’s so rarely acknowledged on here & in pub health msg 

 

So maybe we need a little less listening to Fauci and Walensky and a little more getting the hell out of our homes and start asking our maintenance people, baristas, bus drivers, grocery store workers what they think and how they feel. 

Where Merit And Integrity Fail - Violence And Treachery Will Prevail

 “They had one weapon left and both knew it: treachery.” –Frank Herbert, Dune

NationalReview |  Dr. Aaron Kheriaty has been fired from the University of California Irvine, where he has worked as a professor at UCI School of Medicine and director of the Medical Ethics Program at UCI Health for almost 15 years. Back in the spring of 2020, he could have been a poster boy for the medical professionals we were cheering on every night. That was then. It seems that he has not only been dismissed because he is unvaccinated, but because he has dared to make the medical argument that natural immunity puts people in a similar — or better — place than a vaccine against Covid-19. I’m not a doctor, and I’d like to think doctors are free to raise questions based on their scientific judgment.

Kheriaty is not the only doctor I know who has found himself in situations where it is understood that you are to go along and not raise questions when it comes to Covid-19 protocols. I know that’s happened in other places in medicine — the scandal of women’s health is how they use the contraceptive pill for a whole host of problems, cover up symptoms, treat fertility as itself a problem, and sometimes leave women infertile when they actually want to have a child later on down the line. So it happens. And it’s not good.

An added injustice would be to not shed light on what’s happening. At one point this fall, when Dr. Kheriaty was still on forced leave, I tried to post a video commentary to YouTube about his situation and it was rejected as vaccine misinformation — to simply talk about what was happening. I myself do not know anything about Covid-19 except my own experiences and what doctors tell me, because I am not a doctor. It’s amazing how many of us think we are. And it’s terrifying when doctors suppress scientific debate.

More here. You don’t have to have a strong position on vaccines to be disturbed by what’s happened to Dr. Aaron Kheriaty.

According To WHO "No Country Can Boost Its Way Out Of The Pandemic"

VoA  |  The World Health Organization’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned on Wednesday that blanket COVID-19 vaccine booster programs will not bring a definite end to the global pandemic, but prolong it, as poorer countries struggle to vaccinate their populations because of unequal access to immunizations.

While U.S. health officials urge citizens over the age of 16 to receive their booster shots in response to the spread of the omicron variant of the coronavirus, many countries have still not administered initial doses of the COVID vaccine to the majority of citizens.

Wealthy nations largely regard booster shot programs as the answer to the rapid spread of the coronavirus’s latest variant, but, during a media briefing on Wednesday, Tedros stated that doing so would achieve the opposite effect.

“Blanket booster programs are likely to prolong the pandemic, rather than ending it, by diverting supply to countries that already have high levels of vaccination coverage, giving the virus more opportunity to spread and mutate,” he said.

According to the Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center, there are now more than 276 million coronavirus infections worldwide and 5.3 million deaths. The United States leads with more than 51 million confirmed cases and 810,000 deaths.

Tedros stressed that vaccine inequality will allow the pandemic to continue. Countries with low access to initial doses of the vaccine will become breeding grounds for mutant variants of the virus.

For instance, health experts warned that the omicron strain was linked to vaccine inequality, according to NBC News. This strain of the infection is thought to have emerged from a South African HIV patient, where only 26% of the population are fully vaccinated.

Low inoculation rates in countries such as South Africa present ideal circumstances for the infection to spread and significantly mutate. People with compromised immune systems are more vulnerable to the virus, as it can live in these hosts for a long time.

If inequalities in vaccine access continue, mutant strains may continue to emerge.

Tedros pointed to the situation among WHO member states, only half of which have vaccinated 40% of their populations by the end of this year, due to “distortions in global supply.”

The director-general stated that enough vaccines were administered across the world and that had they been distributed equitably, a targeted vaccination rate of 40% could have been achieved in every country by September.

“No country can boost its way out of the pandemic,” Tedros said.

Covid Patients Aren't Filling Up The ICU's - OLD PEOPLE ARE!!!

 Denmark sitrep 20th:

– on Dec 15th Omikron was 44%, assuming well beyond 50% by now.

– since Nov 22nd 76%/91% of delta/omikron-infections were vaccinated. For Omikron that means the vaccinated are over-represented vs. the population vax rate.

– hospitalized right now because of omikron 35
– hospitalized right now bcause of omikron in ICU less than 5

I find Table 4 more concerning. Not only does it confirm that VE wanes, it suggests a rebound effect whereby the (doubly) vaccinated become *more* susceptible.

Were the animal models for these vaccines ever tested for susceptibility to reinfection?

That is to ask, did the pharma companies know they were creating an extortionate vaccine dependency?

dagbladet |  But it is not the corona patients who now overwhelm the emergency department and the medical departments at OUS. These are our old ones. The aging wave is washing in, and the preparedness there seems far more awkward than the preparations for the corona wave we are now preparing for.

There is one incident that has made more of an impression than anything else during my four - relatively short - years as a nurse at Gastromedisin at Ullevål. That was when an extremely frail 102-year-old man was going home after being treated for the flu. He had assured that his daughter was so good at helping, so it was decided that he did not need a nursing home place, but could manage with home nursing. This is what is called free choice and user participation.

When the daughter learned that her father was going home, she became desperate. She was eighty years old, she said, and so ill that she herself should soon be in a nursing home. When the patient taxi finally arrived - they are often a few hours late - we had to carry the worn-out old man out in the taxi. And then they left in the icy February darkness. The parchment-skinny half-asleep one hundred and two-year-old, with her crying eighty-year-old daughter. Printed for the home, as it is so nicely called.

This happened in the winter of 2018, in the middle of the flu season. Then there was real chaos with us - far worse than now - with many sick employees and yellow droplet infection equipment down the entire corridor. In the thirteen weeks the flu ravaged, there were 7,600 hospitalizations, with a peak of 700 patients simultaneously and a mortality rate of 1,400. There are more than a hundred deaths a week.

Far more than the seven corona deaths per day that recently made headlines. The reality behind the last number is not very dramatic. These were old people, and it is uncertain whether they died with or from the corona. It is also worth noting that 350 to 400 people die in nursing homes in Norway every week. Of old age. We must all die once.

Last year, it was known that mortality was due to infection control measures. The closure meant that nursing home patients were not transferred to hospitals and the elderly dared not visit us to any great extent. Now they are overwhelming the hospitals. Because it is not the covid-19 infected who top the hospitalization statistics in the last two weeks. They make up only one percent of all inpatients, while the majority of inpatients with respiratory diseases are frail old with pneumonia and RS virus.

 

 

 

Omicron Out'chere Freeballing No Matter What You Call Yourself Doing

The data from figure 4 shows that fully-vaccinated sera with the Moderna vaccine saw a 33-fold drop in neutralization against Omicron, Pfizer a 44-fold drop, and AstraZeneca a 36-fold drop. Notably, recently released data shows that sera from people who received the third dose lost almost ninety percent of its potency against Omicron after two weeks. After three months, most third-dose sera failed to neutralize at all. This data confirms the epidemiological observations that most fully doubly-vaccinated and triply-vaccinated individuals, including those with prior infection, are susceptible to infection by Omicron within weeks of the last boost.

Forbes  | In a few short weeks, the COVID-19 virus variant Omicron has spread around the world. The incidence of new infections is rising rapidly, even in well-vaccinated populations and those previously infected by earlier variants of SARS-CoV-2. The epidemiologic evidence strongly points to a variant that is resistant to most if not all extant vaccines, and possibly many monoclonal antibodies treatments. Here we explore these concerns. This is the third in our series that outlines what we know about Omicron. We summarize the finding of recent experiments by Cameroni et al. in a bioRxiv preprint from December 14th.

Omicron ACE2 Binding

The first question asked was how tightly the Omicron Spike (S) protein binds to the ACE2 receptor. The data is summarized in Figure 1. Cameroni et al. show that Omicron’s affinity for the ACE2 receptor is 2.5 times as great as that of the S protein from the original Wuhan isolate. Omicron binds to the receptor as well as the Beta variant, but not as well as Alpha, which binds ACE2 almost six times more tightly. The N501Y mutation in Omicron is universally observed to increase affinity roughly 6-fold, yet other mutations in key sites like K417N, Q493R, and G496S were shown by deep mutational scanning to decrease affinity. Increased affinity for the receptor may account, in part, for increased transmissibility, but that is clearly not the whole story as Omicron is much more transmissible than any previously isolates, including Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta.

Many seem surprised at the ability of SARS-CoV-2 to mutate to increase resistance against convalescent sera, most vaccines, and most monoclonal antibodies. However, the surprise was unwarranted for those who realized that coronaviruses have evolved over many millions of years to reinfect hosts over time. Those previously infected with earlier strains of the virus, contrary to our assumptions earlier in the pandemic, are able to be reinfected with Omicron and strains to come.

We previously predicted that SARS-CoV-2 would persist, continue to vary, and evade our natural and adaptive immune responses. We have also learned that SARS-CoV-2 has the potential to become far more lethal than it is today. We reiterate that the sister of this virus, SARS-CoV, and its cousin, MERS-CoV, ranged between 10% and 30% lethality. This is presumably due to slight variations in the structural, nonstructural, and accessory proteins. We must be ever alert now and for many years in the future of the possibility of such changes and their consequences.

 

Omicron Now The Majority Of New Cases

thehill |  The omicron variant now makes up a majority of COVID-19 cases in the United States, at 73.2 percent, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in updated figures released on Monday.

The statistics are for the week ending Dec. 18 and show the rapid spread of the variant in the U.S. That spike is a significant increase from just 12.6 percent of cases one week earlier.

The omicron variant is highly transmissible, and officials are bracing for a large wave of infections in the coming weeks. However, people who are vaccinated, and especially those with booster shots, are well protected against severe disease from the variant, experts say, meaning the greatest risk is for the unvaccinated.

Brandon's Verbatim Covid Foolishness And Phukkery...,

• One mention of Ventilation.
• One mention that further variants will emerge.
• Multiple claims that “We are prepared”.
• Multiple claims that the Unvaxxed are the only ones at risk and that they risk others.
• Several mentions of masking.
• Several boasts that “Access To” testing is available to all Americans.
• The Q&A at the end is worth paying attention to. Brandon's mind (?) wandered off-script when he was unable to use the teleprompter.
  

Whitehouse  |  The longer the virus is around, the more likely variants form that may be deadlier than the ones that have come before.THE PRESIDENT:  Good afternoon.  I promised when I got elected that I’d always give it to you straight from the shoulder — the good, the bad, the truth.

So, as we head into Christmas weekend, I want to answer your questions about the rising number of COVID cases — COVID-19 cases.

And I want to start by acknowledging how tired, worried, and frustrated I know you are.  I know how you’re feeling.

For many of you, this will be the first or even the second Christmas where you look — across the table will be an empty kitchen chair there.

Tens of millions have gotten sick, and we’ve all experienced an upheaval in our lives.

But while COVID has been a tough adversary, we’ve shown that we’re tougher — tougher because we have the power of science and vaccines that prevent illness and save lives, and tougher because of our resolve.

So, that — let me answer some questions that lay out the steps the Vice President and I are taking to prepare for the rising number of cases experts tell us we could expect in the weeks ahead.

First, how concerned should you be about Omicron, which is now the dominant variant in this country and it happened so quickly?

The answer is straightforward: If you are not fully vaccinated, you have good reason to be concerned.  You’re at a high risk of getting sick.  And if you get sick, you’re likely to spread it to others, including friends and family.  And the unvaccinated have a significantly higher risk of ending up in a hospital or even dying. 

Almost everyone who has died from COVID-19 in the past many months has been unvaccinated.  Unvaccinated.

But if you’re among the majority of Americans who are fully vaccinated, and especially if you’ve gotten the booster shot — that third shot — you’re much — you have much, much less reason to worry.  You have a high degree of protection against severe illness. 

And because Omicron spreads so easily, we’ll see some fully vaccinated people get COVID, potentially in large numbers.  There will be positive cases in every office, even here in the White House, among the unv- — among the vaccinated — among the vaccinated — from Omicron.

But these cases are highly unlikely to lead to serious illness.

Vaccinated people who get COVID may get ill, but they’re protected from severe illness and death.  That’s why you should still remain vigilant.

According to our doctors, even if you’re fully vaccinated, you should wear a mask when indoors in public settings.

Wearing a mask provides extra protection for you and those around you.  And I know some Americans are wondering if you can safely celebrate the holidays with your family and friends. 

The answer is yes, you can, if you and those you celebrate with are vaccinated, particularly if you’ve gotten your booster shot.

If you are vaccinated and follow the precautions that we all know well, you should feel comfortable celebrating Christmas and the holidays as you planned it.

You know, you’ve done the right thing.  You could enjoy the holiday season.

Realizing He Is Sincerely Hated - Brandon Dials Back The Jab Fascism

WaPo  | President Biden on Tuesday outlined plans to expand coronavirus testing sites across the country, distribute a half-billion free at-home tests and deploy more federal health resources to aid strained hospitals, as the omicron variant drives a fresh wave of infections.

At the White House, Biden acknowledged that Americans are “tired, worried and frustrated” with covid-19, which he described as a “tough adversary.” But he stressed in remarks at the White House that “we’ve shown that we’re tougher; tougher because we have the power of science and vaccines that prevent illness and save lives.”

The president said Americans have an obligation to get vaccinated, calling it a “patriotic duty,” and pointed to former president Donald Trump’s comment that he got his vaccine booster shot.

Biden stressed that while the number of covid cases have soared to levels not seen since 2020, the outlook was far different with vaccines and other treatment.

“This is not March of 2020. Two hundred million people are fully vaccinated. We’re prepared. We know more,” he said.

Speaking directly to parents, Biden said, “We don’t have to shut down schools because of covid-19. We can keep our K-12 schools open. That’s exactly what we should be doing.”

The Biden administration will start delivering a half-billion free rapid tests to homes next month, according to the statement, and health officials will set up a website where Americans can order them. New federal testing sites will also be established across the country, starting with one in New York City this week.

The Biden administration has emphasized increased testing as one of the pillars of its pandemic response, but it has been criticized for failing to provide at-home tests at low cost. Americans are paying $25 for a pack of two tests, if they can find any at a pharmacy.

Health officials say they fear that the emergence of the quickly spreading omicron variant could overwhelm health-care facilities nationwide. The variant accounted for 73 percent of new coronavirus cases in the United States between Dec. 12 and 18, according to modeled projections from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Beta Male Karen Calls For Corporate-Enforced Booster Mandates

WaPo  | To many Americans, entering 2022 feels too much like entering 2021. We are coming to grips with what is sure to be an onslaught of cases from omicron and a holiday season marred with outbreaks, full hospitals and canceled plans.

But 2022 is a far cry from 2021, as we now have something we didn’t have then: an arsenal to fight back. To fully engage that arsenal, private actors should require people who use their services to receive a booster shot.

Three doses of an mRNA coronavirus vaccine (either the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech shots) are proving highly effective at keeping the vast majority of people healthy and out of the hospital. The third shot increases the antibody response by approximately 20-fold or more, enough to beat back even the many troubling mutations of the omicron variant. Yet to date, less than 30 percent of Americans have received that third shot.

Businesses, sports leagues, colleges, hospitals and schools should require anyone who risks exposing others to have that third shot. Protocols such as this that keep up with the latest evolving science should be routine and without much controversy at this point in the pandemic.

Already we can see how easily and rapidly omicron spreads. Quick, informal gatherings can turn into major superspreader events. And about a quarter of the public isn’t yet eligible for a booster because they are not old enough to receive them, meaning they must rely on others for protection. Same goes for the millions of people who have compromised immune systems that make the vaccines far less effective. Vaccine requirements aren’t in place solely to help prevent vaccinated people from getting sick; they also help others avoid infection.

Even with the vast majority of cases not requiring hospitalizations, the sheer number of hospitalizations resulting from omicron — on top of many hospitals that are full because of the delta variant — could simply be too much for health-care systems to handle. Standards of care will diminish; cases will be triaged; doctors and nurses will go without sleep, space and protective equipment and will run thin; and people with other dire needs will put off care. Omicron is deadly. No matter if it ends up less deadly than delta, at the level of spread we will see, the only question is whom it will kill, not if.

If you are in a position to decide whether to create a vaccination requirement, you do not need to wait for definitive data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A decade from now, you won’t look back on the temporary disruption the same way you would if there was a superspreader event that was in your control to stop.

 

What's Brandon Gonna Mumble, Fumble, And Take No Questions On Later Today?

off-guardian |  As Arnold Schwarzenegger succinctly put it, the message is, “screw your freedom.” 

The message is, shut up and toe the fucking line.

The message is, show me your fucking papers. Use the fucking pronouns. Eat the fucking bugs. Get the fucking “vaccinations.” Do not fucking ask us “how many.” The answer is, “as many as we fucking tell you.”

The message is, there will be no more unauthorized presidents, no more leaving the European Union, no more “populist” rebellions against the global hegemony of global-capitalism and its soul-crushing, valueless “woke” ideology. GloboCap is done playing grab-ass. They announced that back in March of 2020.

They informed us in unmistakable terms that our lives were about to change, forever. They branded and advertised this change as “the New Normal,” in case we were … you know, cognitively challenged. They did not hide it. They wanted us to understand exactly what was coming, a global-capitalist version of totalitarianism, in which we will all be happy little fascist “consumers” showing each other our “compliance certificates” in order to be allowed to live our lives.

I don’t need to review the entire year in detail. You remember the highlights…the roll-out of the “safe and effective” miracle “vaccines” that don’t keep you from catching or spreading the virus, and which have killed and injured thousands of people, but which you now have to get every three or four months to be allowed to work or go to a restaurant; the roll-out of the global social-segregation/digital compliance-certificate system that makes absolutely no medical sense, but which the “vaccines” were designed to force us into; The Criminalization of Dissent; The Manufacturing of “Reality”; The Propaganda War; The Covidian Cult; the launch of The Great New Normal Purge; the whole Pathologized Totalitarianism package.

THE Science Caught Conspiring Politically Against His Critics

aier |   “Francis,” Fauci wrote, “I am pasting in below a piece from Wired that debunks [the GBD].” There, science reporter Matt Reynolds told us there was no “scientific divide” over herd immunity, but that’s not the funny part. The funny part came when Reynolds declared quite confidently that we no longer had anything to worry about, as lockdowns were – as of October 2020 – a thing of the past.

“The problem [with the GBD] is that we aren’t in lockdown,” Reynolds explained. “[I]t’s hard to find people who are advocating for a return to the lockdown we saw in March. When the Great Barrington Declaration authors declare their opposition to lockdowns, they are quite literally arguing with the past.” 

This Fauci-endorsed passage may be one of the worst takes of the entire pandemic. Less than a month later, lockdowns came roaring back with a vengeance.

Fauci wrote to Collins again the next day, this time referencing a breathless op-ed by Gregg Gonsalves, a public health professor at Yale, in The Nation. And here we arrive at yet another funny part. Gonsalves’ article was not exactly a critique of the Great Barrington Declaration. Instead, Gonsalves went after Martin Kulldorff, who in an interview with the leftist magazine Jacobin quite reasonably pointed out that the lockdowns hurt the poor more than most talking heads were willing to admit. Gonsalves’s grievance was that by interviewing Kulldorff, Jacobin had broken the lockdown “solidarity” of other far-left websites including the Nation and the Boston Review.

By October 10, the lines were well drawn, and Fauci thrust himself into the middle of the media hootenanny that was clearly emerging. Collins emailed again to boast about calling the three scientists “fringe” in the Washington Post, although he told Fauci that their ongoing campaign to take down the GBD “will not be appreciated in the W[hite] H[ouse}.” The White House, Fauci retorted, was “too busy with other things to worry about” the GBD. There was an election to deal with, after all.

As the bedfellows became more strange, Gregg Gonsalves wrote directly to Collins, thanking him for his undiplomatic approach. For his part, Gonsalves became ever more hostile and profane, in his remarks on the GBD. “This f*****g Great Barrington Declaration is like a bad rash that won’t go away,” Gonsalves tweeted, shortly before reaching out to Collins. A day earlier, the Yale professor also began promoting unhinged conspiracy theories about the GBD and AIER that traced to the blog of a former 9/11 Truther movement activist. 

Some of the emails between Collins and Fauci sent in response to AIER’s FOIA request have been redacted, but surrounding context makes it pretty clear that they were looking for a way to impugn the GBD further if it came up at the White House Covid Task Force meeting on October 16. That morning, Fauci emailed Deborah Birx, the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator. He pressed the need for her to oppose the GBD, and set the stage for an attack on Scott Atlas, who was the most friendly champion of the GBD on the Task Force.

Fauci, it turns out, had to miss the October 16 task force meeting, though he likely breathed a sigh of relief when Collins emailed him two days later. “Atlas did not take part in the [task force] meeting on Friday,” Collins wrote, “and the Great Barrington Declaration did not come up.” Another partially-redacted email hints that Fauci celebrated this outcome. Atlas’s opposition to the lockdown faction on the task force “is driving Deb [Birx] crazy,” he continued.

Fauci and Collins were not done, though, in their campaign to “take down” the GBD scientists.

Our story picks up again in earnest on November 2, when Fauci’s chief of staff Greg Folkers replied to an email that was not made public in pursuance to AIER’s FOIA request. It seems pretty clear, though, that Fauci asked Folkers for a list of sources that would allow him to argue effectively against the GBD. The email’s subject line references a previous correspondence from Fauci “as discussed,” noting that Folkers had “highlighted the three i found most useful” (sic).

Multiple sources, and particularly Scott Atlas’s recently-published account of his time on the task force, have noted that Fauci often relies on aides to curate lists of sources in advance of his many media appearances. He seldom reads the scientific literature on Covid-19 himself, and instead arrives at meetings with staff-prepared talking points. It appears that Folker’s email was an answer to one such request for talking points to attack the GBD scientists.

New York Legislators In A New Zealand State Of Mind...,

trendingpolitics |  In a brazen attempt to punish those who choose to resist the edicts coming from the state legislature and governor’s office, a proposed bill by the New York state legislature would allow the government to forcibly detain anyone without trial if they’re deemed a public health threat.

The bill, A.416, is among a trove of new draconian Covid restrictions and vaccine mandate bills set to be voted on during the next legislative session starting on January 5th.

According to the bill’s text, A.416 would “allow the governor or the appropriate health official to order the removal and detention of any person afflicted with a communicable disease in the event that there is a state of health emergency declared by the governor in relation to such disease.”

NY’ers: Pay ATTENTION! This is the plan Democrats have for the entire country. pic.twitter.com/hbgeGeG8x4

— Sunnyday (@Sunnyda04530056) December 13, 2021

“[A]ny person or group removed or detained by order of the governor or his or her delegate shall be detained for as long as the department may direct,” subdivision 3 of the bill further states.

As if this draconian legislation wasn’t enough, New Yorkers on Twitter are also highlighting several more bills up for a vote next session that is would empower the government to forcibly make state residents comply, using mental and physical duress as they deem fit.

Exposing What Elites Wish To Conceal Is An Unpardonable Offense...,

BAR  |  As you know, the U.S. incarcerates its share of political prisoners , with many having been affiliated with the Black Liberation Army and targeted by COINTELPRO . Why won’t the mainstream media cover the trials, appeals, demands, and resistance efforts of these political prisoners? Since they have been deemed “enemies of the state,” are they, as a result, enemies of the U.S. corporate media as well?

I’m not sure if most Americans have heard of COINTELPRO, but it was a very frightening, elaborate effort by the United States government to suppress, fracture and destroy Black liberation groups, anti-racist, anti-imperialist, Marxist, and feminist movements in the U.S.

This includes groups like the Black Panther Party (BPP) and Black Liberation Army (BLA). The FBI used covert means to attack these groups e.g. create infighting, sew discord among its members, attack them in the media, label them as terrorists, and give them lengthy jail sentences of decades behind bars. Divide and conquer, like they do overseas.

Just a few days ago on December 4th, was the anniversary of Fred Hampton’s assassination in 1969. The FBI infiltrated his security detail and spied on him, before one night he was drugged and then murdered in his bed by government agents – all for the crime of combatting poverty, racism and uniting people under one banner irrespective of race and class.

Hampton is just one example, but others come to mind, such as Mutulu Shakur from the BLA, which you mentioned. The government either killed these activists and revolutionaries or gave them sentences such as 60 years imprisonment— essentially a life sentence— in order to decapitate these movements. There was a concerted effort to take out people in positions of leadership and incapacitate Black liberation groups.

The United States and its European allies love pretending they are civilized, “true democracies,” and that everyone else is barbaric. But if any of these things happened in another country, you’d hear the U.S. media howling about “repression by a brutal dictatorship”— but when the Americans or Europeans do it, it’s fine, apparently. This is why they portray activists and revolutionaries as violent, disturbers of the peace who must be penalized. That’s their excuse for repressing change in America.

These are political prisoners in the true sense of the word: imprisoned because their ideas and actions challenge the power structures of the United States. And once they are deemed enemies of the state, who is going to stand up for them? Certainly not the media. The media is an arm of the same corporations that control the government. The media is not interested in standing up for true revolutionaries. They would rather herald someone like the Facebook whistleblower for helping liberals advocate more censorship through Big Tech.

It’s not fashionable in America to be a real revolutionary, to really challenge racism and capitalism. The most “solidarity” you’ll see from the media and corporations is changing their logos to black and white, or adopting some marketing gimmicks— things that don’t require them to actually support anti-racism movements, but just give the appearance that they do.

The fact that the state invested so much energy and resources into destroying these groups shows you how effective they are, and how afraid they make the power structures of the white, capitalist, Western elites that rule America.

America claims to stand for justice, equality; it claims to fight for the underdog and prides itself in being a nation born out of revolution – but this is what happens to real revolutionaries in the United States: they are jailed or murdered by the state.

Kamala Harris May Be The Least Talented Lawyer And Politician OF ALL TIME!!!!

LATimes |  Vice President Kamala Harris said Friday that the administration failed to anticipate the variants that have prolonged and worsened the COVID-19 pandemic and that she underestimated the role misinformation would play in prolonging the disease that has killed 800,000 Americans.

“We didn’t see Delta coming. I think most scientists did not — upon whose advice and direction we have relied — didn’t see Delta coming,” she said. “We didn’t see Omicron coming. And that’s the nature of what this, this awful virus has been, which as it turns out, has mutations and variants.”

Harris made the comments during a wide-ranging interview with The Times in her ceremonial office, touching on immigration, women’s health, the criticism she has received for her management style and her role as a history-making leader. But the vice president returned repeatedly to the chief challenge of the Biden administration: battling a pandemic that — thanks to a new fast-spreading variant, Omicron — has led many Americans to put travel plans on hold, cancel holiday parties and stock up again on masks.

“I get it. I get it. I totally get it,” she said. “I mean, you know, one of the concerns that I have is the undiagnosed and untreated trauma at various degrees that everyone has experienced.”

I've been thinking a lot about why the latest surge has hit me so hard and I think it's because I have been fooling myself -- to some extent -- for the last 18 months 🧵

— Chris Cillizza (@ChrisCillizza) December 17, 2021

President Biden celebrated “independence” from the virus in an upbeat July 4 speech, saying, “While the virus hasn’t been vanquished, we know this: It no longer controls our lives. It no longer paralyzes our nation. And it’s within our power to make sure it never does again.”

At the time, some public health experts warned that his optimism was premature, given that the Delta variant was already a significant threat.

Harris denied that the administration declared victory prematurely, or ever.

“We have not been victorious over it,” she said. “I don’t think that in any regard anyone can claim victory when, you know, there are 800,000 people who are dead because of this virus.”

Many Americans, particularly conservatives, resisted Biden’s call to get vaccinated against COVID-19, a measure public health officials say is critical to avoid hospitalization and death from the disease. Harris cited as a singular regret her failure to appreciate the power of misinformation in dissuading people to trust the vaccine.

“I would take that more seriously,” she said of the misinformation. “The biggest threat still to the American people is the threat to the unvaccinated. And most people who believe in the efficacy of the vaccine and the seriousness of the virus have been vaccinated. That troubles me deeply.”

 

 

Why Is The CDC Overcounting And Exagerating Vaccination Numbers?

axios |  The U.S. government has overcounted the number of Americans who are at least partly vaccinated against the coronavirus, Bloomberg reports.

Why it matters: Millions more people than initially thought are unprotected as coronavirus infections, hospitalizations and deaths are rising across the country.

The big picture: Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was revised last weekend for the number of people 65 and older who have received at least one shot, according to Bloomberg.

• The CDC lowered the percentage vaccinated from 99.9%, where it had been for weeks, to 95%, without changing the raw shot totals.
• The agency has not returned Axios' request for comment.

What it means: The change in data indicates that the U.S. has counted too many shots as first doses when they are instead second doses or booster shots.

By the numbers: CDC data indicated that 240 million people — or about 72.5% of the population — had at least one shot and that 203 million — 61.3% — were fully vaccinated.

• But state and local officials reported that it was improbable for there to be such a huge disparity in vaccination numbers, Bloomberg reports.

The state of play: Three states — Illinois, Pennsylvania and West Virginia — found enough over-counting of first shots to indicate millions of unvaccinated people had mistakenly been counted as having received a dose.

• Pennsylvania had one of the biggest gaps identified, according to Bloomberg, where the CDC's estimates of first doses for people 65 and older exceeded state estimates by about 850,000.
• Illinois had more than 500,000 completely unvaccinated people ages 12 and up than initially thought. But the audit also found 730,000 people who were fully vaccinated and hadn’t been counted.

What they're saying: James Garrow, a spokesperson for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, which has worked with the state to blend data sets for a more accurate view of vaccination trends, said "we don’t have any faith in the numbers on the CDC website, and we never refer to them."

Kyrie Irving Hands The NBA Its Karen-Ass - Stephen A's Cooning Will Be Priceless...,

WSJ  |   “Kyrie has made a personal choice, and we respect his individual right to choose,” Nets general manager Sean Marks said in October. “Currently the choice restricts his ability to be a full-time member of the team, and we will not permit any member of our team to participate with part-time availability.” 

The Nets changed their mind about Irving’s availability with Covid ripping through their locker room in a spike that coincides with a sharp increase in cases across the league and the Omicron variant’s arrival in New York. Brooklyn executives cited a roster that has been depleted by the coronavirus to explain the unexpected backtracking by a team sitting in first place in the Eastern Conference even without Irving. As coach Steve Nash expressed misgivings about pushing the workload of Durant, who nearly leads the league in minutes after rupturing his Achilles’ tendon in 2019, the Nets softened their position. 

“We believe that the addition of Kyrie will not only make us a better team, but allow us to more optimally balance the physical demand on the entire roster,” Marks said. “We look forward to Kyrie’s return to the lineup.” 

They are likely to be waiting even longer now. The Nets have 53 games left in the regular season. Irving is currently eligible to play in 24 of them outside of New York and Canada, but that number will shrink to 21 after the new year. 

The whiplash of Irving’s availability wasn’t the only Covid-related turn of events for the Nets on Saturday. They had managed to win two straight games while extremely shorthanded this week—they fielded eight players in one win, the minimum required by the league—in large part because Durant was sublime. Then he, too, was sidelined. Durant has said that he is vaccinated and was one of the first public figures to share that he had Covid in March 2020. 

Irving, who has declined to comment on his vaccination status, remained mostly silent during his absence with the exception of cryptic messages on social media, including an Instagram video this week that showed him lacing up his sneakers. He was also spotted at high-school and college games in New Jersey and Los Angeles while his NBA team was playing in Brooklyn. 

The league’s Covid rules were significantly more onerous for the tiny minority of unvaccinated players even before the NBA issued a stricter round of guidance this week in response to the uptick of cases: There are nearly 60 players out now, including more than a dozen on the Nets and Knicks alone.