The Mitch and Joe Show

If you never again go where I tell you, just go here. It's the latest (dead trees over coffee this morning) set of maps from the NYT. (They take up a full page on paper!) And blew me away. In case you don't get the title of this missive, well just compare Kentucky and West Virginia to any Northeast state.

It's worth noting that these death numbers are nearly wholly Covid-δ; the second Delta wave.

But, there's some conundrums in the maps. A declining death rate up the Red State spine (west TX to Canada) seems suspicious; not in concert with everything else we know about Covid in those counties. Now, these are rate values and the counties on the spine are, mostly, shitkicker counties, mostly empty. And, on yet another hand, is this report, also in today's paper, that meat plant folks are getting more nervous; not much support from managements, again.

For negligence leading to the deaths at the Greeley plant [in 2020], the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration later fined JBS $15,615.