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24 hours later, 22 more cases.  That's adding almost one case per hour.  We'll run out of naive guinea pigs to expose by late February.  Good thing we have adequate, round-the-clock testing, available 10-4 on alternate Thursdays.  Wonder how long before we increase our baseline population to 20,000, so we don't look as bad as Berthoud?

This would be even more remarkable if we used the actual population of Estes Park in the wintertime to calculate cases per 10,000.  We all know half the population heads south for the winter, and you see the same ten people shopping in Safeway every morning, but whatever, we have a reputation to protect, and we have to have those tourists wandering up here and not expecting to get sick or anything. It is hard to fathom how Drake even has a population of 100, or Bellvue a population of more than 10, but it just shows you how many people live back in the hollers, or how Estes Park is adept at shunting some of its positives down canyon.

Why not snuff out a few more 800,000 lives until then?  Are mRNA vaccines killing people?  No, they never did.  But neither are they going to prove perpetually effective against new strains that emerge because misguided, brainwashed individuals refuse to get vaccinated against the strain(s) currently in circulation. How long do you want to deal with coronavirus?  How many more years do you want it to be the focus of every gathering?  Their way is millions and millions more dead in the U.S., no guarantee of emerging from the carnage any more protected, dragging on and on for decades and perhaps centuries.  The scientific, intelligent way is to get 85% of the population vaccinated all at once, and be forever done with SARS-CoV-2.

 Omicron is a wimpy strain that wouldn't hurt anyone, right Bent Dyk Turd Ferguson? 411 people now dead in Larimer County from SARS-CoV-2 infection, for your information.

This is it, folks.  A study out of Columbia (the university, not the country) concludes the Omicron strain is essentially vaccine-resistant, monoclonal antibody-resistant, and thus we are back to the beginning, except with a much more infectious strain.  Should we have developed vaccines against a more conserved region of SARS-CoV-2?  Of course.  But would they have been 95% effective as those developed against the wild-type strain at the time? Where we blew it was not in not preparing enough vaccine for the global population, or in not requiring everyone around the world get the jab simultaneously.  As a practical matter, there probably weren't ever going to be enough high-efficacy vaccines available for the entire 7.9 billion of us on the planet, or even those in the subset above 65 years of age.  As a political matter, none of these barriers even mattered, even locally, because enough uneducated folks were available right here in Estes Park and Larimer C...

On Tuesday, 14 December 2021, Larimer County passed 400 deaths, Colorado passed 10,000 deaths, and the United States passed 800,000 deaths from COVID-19. However you want to summarize two years of the world discovering and dealing with SARS-CoV-2, we as a society have handled it incredibly poorly.  The fact that Dan Denning and Bent Dick Turd Ferguson are still allowed to post COVID denials and unscientific garbage and nonsense on FB, while my responses are repeatedly censored, helps to explain why we as a nation will absolutely reach 3 million deaths before this is even close to being over, and morons like Dan and Bent Dick are finally silenced, with their ignorant, shameless, caviling mouths slammed full of dirt one way or t'other. Is it harmonic convergence?  Is it just desserts for ignoring facts set out right there in front of us?  Let's see, a huge tidal wave of Omicron is breaking over the U.S. as we speak, and how many readers are reviewing holiday travel plans al...

Tonight's town board meeting has yet to happen.  Start time is still eight hours away.  Yet our mayor has already filed a report on what happened in that town board meeting, as appeared this morning on the Estes Park News website. Here is the relevant paragraph from the report: What we can thus expect from tonight's performance (pre-recorded, apparently) is that our mayor is going to engage with the trustees and staff, and will be thinking while engaging about the trustees' and staff's shared enthusiasm for serving the people of Estes Park.  Let's hope nothing happens to prove this inaccurate, setting off a chain of reactions that include a butterfly crashing into a tree in Sao Paulo and the total unraveling of the fabric of the universe. If you still think the mayor is NOT mailing it in regarding much of her public performance as mayor, here is a screen grab of the front page of the EPNews website, with a day and date clock superimposed.  

Tomorrow will be catch-up, as today was for this past weekend. So the question is:  When Colorado starts losing 100 "souls" a day, as Tom Gonzales (not a doctor) likes to say, will Bent Dick have enough balls to continue pasting his cock and bull all over the Trail-Gazette FB page?

Sequencing is expensive and time-consuming.  So we are sequencing Omicron right now in Colorado, but soon we will just be relying on restriction enzymes or DNA affinity or whatever the latest up-to-datest is in automated ways to differentiate one PCR amplicon from another. Omicron is here.  In Colorado.  In droves.  Case counts will soon start climbing, because Omicron is so much more infectious than previous SARS-CoV-2 strains, and modifying behavior is so passe.  But don't worry, Bent Dick over at (Finger in the) Dyk will be distributing tinfoil hats to those who need extra protection. 

Who knew?  Despite Bent Dick Turd Ferguson over at Hyk (which is thinking of changing its name to Fyk) claiming that NO ONE would ever die of Omicron, people started dying anyway. It's not like the U.S. didn't have 800,000 examples and counting to prove SARS-CoV-2 infection caused more than a troublesome head cold, but Bent Dick Turd Ferguson is very difficult to convince.  This Omicron strain was just a wimp, and SARS-CoV-2 infection, regardless of genetic sequence or mutations causing a change in genetic sequence, won't actually kill anyone, according to Turd.  (800,000 and counting prior examples in the U.S. to the contrary.) But I'm sure now that Great Britain has reported the first death from the Omicron strain, only ONE person will ever, ever die of Omicron infection, right Bent Dick?  The exception that proves the rule.  Right, Bent Dick?  Or do you want to revise your statement that NO ONE will every die from Omicron infection.  I'll wait.

And the hits just keep on coming.  I've commented on Peter Tork on this blog before.  Now Michael Nesmith is yukking it up above.  His 1981 "Elephant Parts" is definitely worth a few minutes of your time if you've never encountered it before.  And then there's the whole thing about "Rio" leading to a little something called MTV.  Nesmith was the only true original musician in the fabricated for TV "Monkees" band, and convinced Screen Gems execs to bring on Peter Tork, also a musician.  He eventually tired of the manufactured bubblegum, left it, but had returned to touring with the Monkees as of late (with a bit of a hiccup in 1997). In any event, The Monkees made a few decent records (they actually recorded 17), and returned to the Billboard charts in the 80s.  That was then, this is now Only Mickey Dolenz remains.  On a side note, deaths of well-known celebrities always occur in threes.  Demaryius Thomas, Michael Nesmith, the scythe will dro...

  The Broncos (meaning John Elway) likely traded him because they didn't want him breaking Rod Smith's records.  Had we had a different GM, this would not have happened.  Funny the way life makes your and then breaks you.  Thomas retired from professional football earlier this year.

Today it was only 49 deaths.  It would be interesting, when this is all over, to do a tally of how many of these deaths are from not bothering to get vaccinated, versus how many deaths were a result of getting vaccinated but not getting a booster, versus how many deaths were a result of getting the full initial regimen plus a booster.  It would be interesting, but it will never be done, because of privacy violations, and people's unquenchable desire to keep living in fairyland their entire adult lives.

Huge ongoing active outbreak on Pole Hill at Ravencrest (this is their second large outbreak during the pandemic - Did they learn nothing from the first one?) It will be interesting to see if this is the Omicron strain.  Wouldn't that just bust everyone's buttons locally?  I'm sure town staff and VEP will be so proud of being among the first in the state to have a major Omicron outbreak right on their back porch.

There isn't enough room in the title section for the actual title of this entry, which is: Recently defeated school board candidates, along with currently disenchanted school board members who lost their positions and Trail-Gazette publisher Mike "Stir Things Up For Increased Clicks" Romero, plotting a coup. Current remaining angry board members Eric Adams and Jason Kushner (who expected to be president and vice-president, respectively, following Danielle "I'll never concede" Wolf's re-election), with help from term-limited Laura Case, Danielle "I'll never concede" Wolf, and Margaret "Still Boulder County ballots left to count" Mauerman, are planning to overthrow the results of the recent November EPSD R-3 board of education election, and take back their positions (including positions they never held, if the certified results are accepted), with force if necessary. Recognizing that all they have worked for will be swept away when ...

The number of people in Colorado dead from COVID-19 since March 2020 is going to reach 10,000 by the end of this week, although the reported numbers won't catch up to this fact until the middle of next week. 10,000 divided by 5,759,000 is the same as 10 divided by 5,759 or around 1 in 576.  Most people in Colorado do not personally know, or can personally name, 576 members of their community, or even 576 Colorado acquaintances.  Their Christmas card list does not include 576 Colorado addresses.  Most do not have 576 Colorado friends on FB. This is why folks like Bent Dick Turd Ferguson of Hyk on Elkhorn Ave can say the things on FB they do, take the outlandish dumps on FB they do.  Because you as an audience member don't know 576 people, and probably can't name or well up immediate emotions for 10,000 darts thrown at 5,759,000 balloons.  While there are some of you in Estes Park who know the immediate anguish of a family member or close friend dying of COVID-19,...

  In the test tube, and for a jittery public, Pfizer officials say two doses plus the booster is the best protection against Omicron strain infection.  Of course, the fact that we are still holding weddings like it was 1999 is no great testament to our intelligence as a society.  Perhaps the best protection from Omicron is to stop having gigantic weddings, with people in attendance who HAVE JUST RETURNED FROM TRAVELING ABROAD.

  Click here if you believe in COVID

Wow.  Over 100 Colorado deaths reported in one day.  Guess we really are catching up since Thanksgiving. Since Omicron is currently a boutique strain, found thus far in a few Colorado residents and their wastewater, it is unlikely to be contributing significantly to any death count.  Indeed, all the "medical experts" on Facebook have made it known that, while COVID isn't real, omicron really isn't real.  It doesn't even have the ability to infect a piece of tissue paper, it is so weak and useless, except when thrust into news updates by the government to strike fear into everyone's hearts.  The stock market is cowering.  The holiday party schedule and travel schedule has been impacted not a whit.  Who is changing their behavior after entire rooms full of people, all vaccinated, turn up infected?  Not us, for sure.  We based our decisions on Facebook and hopeful guesswork, not on prior example and outcomes of similar social experiments perform...

This map is going to be filled in by next week, but it is good for those people scrapbooking COVID-19 and explains why the U.S. is incapable of defeating a little dungball of garbage genetic material.  We are too spoiled, too selfish to cover our mouths, and spend way too much time in the air attempting to fill our empty lives with distant, shiny memories. Go ahead and add Utah and Missouri to a list that up until a few minutes ago included only California, Minnesota, New York, Hawaii, Colorado, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New Jersey.  Update:  Now add Georgia and Louisiana.  Saturday update:  Now add the states of Washington, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.  Monday:  Now add Mississippi.  Tuesday:  A dash of Texas.  A splash of Florida.  And a soupçon of Illinois.  Wednesday:  A-A-A-Arizona where the O comes sweeping' down the drain.  Thursday:  A little bit of Michigan in my life.  And...

And preferably not in their home, or else the entire household will become Omicron vectors. For those who flunked Geography 101, Nigeria is nowhere close to South Africa.

  The reason states are not finding more omicron is because they have yet to sequence positives.  Estes Park has omicron, it just lacks the ability to sequence PCR-positive amplicons. Just so you know, in case you still aren't wearing a mask.

This is a baffling case, and if you think I was worried about the data coming out of South Africa last night, color me double worried tonight.  The individual was unvaccinated, but had already been infected with COVID (supposedly) in the past.  So now we have someone whose "natural immunity" (to quote Dan Denning, which I never do without a major disclaimer waiting in the wings) should have been protective.  Indeed, if you had the choice of confronting a new variant like Omicron with a backdrop of a recent COVID-19 infection, or a booster with the standard iteration of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, I would take the infection every time, because the vaccines were not engineered to handle the greatly mutated spike protein of the Omicron strain. Well even pre-infection with the strain du jour proved of no help.  This individual had no travel history, which means Hawaii (look at their low case numbers and low death numbers, the envy of every state save Vermont) is someh...

 Is it in Colorado, you ask?  Well, let's check the latest teletype

You are welcome, Estes Park.  The Trial-Galumph has abdicated its responsibility to update you on local outbreaks.

  Those folks too lazy or stupid to get vaccinated against COVID-19 shouldn't have the same freedoms as those responsible citizens who do take advantage of the 100% subsidized and 99.999999% safe vaccines on the market.  Simple as that.  Gas, grass, or park your tired whining fat donkey cheeks at the curb - No one rides for free.

 A new nonprofit (Estes Park's 483rd) has formed in town, going by the moniker "Citizens Against The Stupid Current Rulers At The School!" or CATSCRATS! for short, whose mission statement includes disruption and disavowal of the very existence of any newly elected board of education members at EPSD R-3, along with those previously elected board members who refuse to immediately resign in protest, and just as immediately join this new advocacy group.  Are you listening, Merrick "Spineless" Madams and Jimson "Weed" Tonikushy? CATSCRATS! is headed by Dawn "Lubricrank" Casio, the former vice-assistant of air modeling at Eileen Ford, who will spend most of her homeless time camped on the capital steps in Denver, with a team that consists of Margaret "Cappy" Loose Cannon-Montana, chief of filing protests with various state and local agencies, and Danielle "I'm Brilliant But Troubled" Spectrum, who promises to issue a stateme...

COVID cases in South Africa doubled in one DAY.  The omicron variant was circulating in South Africa as early as TWO MONTHS AGO.  South Africa is at the forefront of testing and sequencing, so this data is quite reliable.  Talk about shutting the barn door after the horse is already out - The horse was out two months ago, mating with three devil horses and starting fires across the four corners of the globe on a rampage that will only end with development of a freak-booster tailored to this freak-mutant.  And the morons in Dumfuk Arkansas and all their inbred offspring, the Denning brood, scattered across the backwaters of the U.S. will harden their hearts like Pharaoh, and harden the fecal impactions of their followers, until they kill all of us by licking every ketchup bottle at Safeway. Transcript:  South Africa's new cases of COVID-19 nearly doubled in a day, authorities reported Wednesday, signaling a dramatic surge in the country where scientists detected ...

Everyone is familiar with reflexes.  Those innate, uncontrollable, immediate and boringly predictable responses to stimuli.  Tap just below someone's knee with a reflex hammer, await the unfailing kick.  Give a female fly a distracting gift of silk, watch as she invariably allows the presenting male fly to mate with her.   Move a beetle two inches away from its debris nest, watch it return to its debris nest.  Do it 100 times, 1000 times.  Same response.  Maddeningly invariable.  It's science. So when you tip over the hobbyhorse that is estestruth.org, you can predict, in advance, the response.   It won't be particularly swift or legible, and will likely be filled with bad words and misinformation, but it will surely be entertaining for as long as you can tolerate it, similar to watching a bear chew at its leg caught in a trap. Estestruth.org was a parody response to Estes Truth on FB.  The "winner" of that battle was Estes Truth on FB, ...

 California Not Dreamin'