from https://theramswire.usatoday.com/2020/08/01/nfl-rams-top-101-players-ramsey-hill/

Touchdown Wire’s Doug Farrar and Mark Schofield released their own list of the best players in the NFL, going to the top 101 instead. And once again, three Rams made the rankings. However, there was one surprising difference: Troy Hill made the top 101, but Jalen Ramsey did not. Here’s where each Rams player finished in Touchdown Wire’s rankings

CB Troy Hill: No. 97

Slot WR Cooper Kupp: No. 93

DT Aaron Donald: No. 4

There’s no denying Hill was solid last season, better than Ramsey, even. However, it seems short-sighted to put him ahead of Ramsey on this list – and questionable to leave Ramsey out of the top 101 altogether. He wasn’t even among the players who just missed the cut, as Tyler Higbee was.

from Facebook

Mike Silverman

Friday night update from the ER in Arlington, VA

150,000 deaths in the US from COVID. 1000 deaths a day. We are normalizing huge amounts of our citizens dying. Maybe we are doing this because it’s not hitting close enough to home for us. A Baltimore ICU doctor died of COVID this past week after a prolonged hospitalization. Middle aged. Putting himself on the front lines to care for patients. I have a good friend who worked with him for years. And a doc associated with VHC died recently of COVID as well. Just two of almost 1000 healthcare workers to die of COVID. It’s close to home for me.

I get texted/messaged about every other day from a friend with a question about a COVID exposure. Given our ages, it’s usually their kid was at a bar with someone who tested positive the next day. Sometimes, they were with a friend out to lunch who tested positive a few days after the lunch and people want to know what to do. Recently, 17 anesthesia residents at the Univ of Florida were at a party together and came down with COVID. There are many other examples of large numbers of people who became sick after large group gatherings. I talked about what to do after these exposures recently (quarantine/test) but keep in mind, these are generally preventable exposures with social distancing and mask wearing. The sacrifices we make now will bring this pandemic to an end much quicker so we can get back to normal.

Let’s talk about COVID at VHC for a minute. There’s some good news and a couple of things we’re closely following. We continue to be in a steady state. The percent positive rate for our COVID cases across the board remains low and has been in the same range for about a month. The number of hospitalized patients with confirmed COVID has been in the same range for a while, though numbers continue to increase across the DMV. In the ED, we’ve been tracking the numbers of patients who require our COVID isolation procedure. The total number of patients being admitted from this group has also remained steady for over a month. However, we’ve seen an uptick in the numbers of patients who require a COVID evaluation, seeing about 20% more patients who are considered to possibly have COVID than the previous several weeks, with a higher total number of them being discharged last week compared to previous weeks. We are far from any kind of surge but all of these data points are closely monitored and will help us prepare if and when another surge occurs.

At my recent department meeting, we had the director of the ICU join us. She talked about the improvements in treatment that had led to a decline in mortality and the indications for the different medical therapies she can offer patients. Some important national mortality numbers to keep in mind—about 50% of intubated (ventilator) patients die, 30% of ICU patients die, and 10-15% of hospitalized patients die. While many patients have risk factors, age 50 or older increases your risk, as does a BMI>30. That is not nearly as obese as you think. 5’6” 186 pounds or 6’ at 221 pounds.

In what I can only call irony, it appears that at least 3 people may have contracted COVID or transmitted COVID while they were taking the MCAT (like the SAT for med school) recently. One test taker, had symptoms of COVID and still took the exam. Exams are administered at testing centers and in a post-exam survey, some test takers said there was limited screening and/or the ability to social distance during the test. Exams were cancelled in different areas and like other standardized testing that has limited offerings, like the Bar for lawyers, intelligent, motivated people who have prepared for months will not let anything stop them from taking this test. Everyone needs to take precautions regardless of how important your life is.

Finally, hydroxychloroquine made the news again this week. I had really planned on going into the prospective, randomized peer reviewed studies today but there was a great post yesterday that included all the references, so I shared that instead. You don’t need to watch the video from the doctor who endorses aliens and sex demons. With that said, there was a recent New England Journal publication earlier this month—prospective, randomized, trial for patients with mild to moderate COVID, where patients received standard treatment compared to hydroxychloroquine with and without azithromycin. At 15 days, there was no difference in the groups though adverse affects (EKG changes and bump in liver enzymes) were higher in the 2 arms that got hydroxychloroquine. The good news, is that we do have medications that are actually making a difference. I’m optimistic there will be more, but we’re in a better place than we were 6 months ago, even without hydroxychloroquine and mortality rates really have improved since the beginning.

One other recent New England Journal publication worth mentioning was on the phase 1 trials of a vaccine. There’s still a long way to go but development of a vaccine continues to look promising.

The attached image shows how quickly and broadly COVID spread after a family gathering in North Carolina where 14 family members ultimately tested positive and spread COVID to 41 people in 9 different families and 8 different workplaces over 16 days. This was published by the local county public health director.

Science matters. Wear a mask. Practice social distancing.

Oldie but goodie.

.

This ad is getting accolades for its editing.

It’s also a message about unity and diversity.

It’s still an ad. What qualifies it as a kinda good & interestin thing?

I dunno, just thought I would post it.

…

Republicans attack Fauci and defend Trump at coronavirus hearing

https://news.yahoo.com/republicans-attack-fauci-and-defend-trump-at-coronavirus-hearing-173957811.html

WASHINGTON — Republicans used a House hearing on the coronavirus pandemic to praise President Trump and sometimes criticize Dr. Anthony Fauci, a leading member of the White House coronavirus task force who has sometimes earned the ire of conservatives.

The hearing took place Friday before a coronavirus subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee. Democrats had provocatively titled it “The Urgent Need for a National Plan to Contain the Coronavirus.”

In his opening statement, subcommittee Chairman James Clyburn, D-S.C., a leader of the Democratic caucus in the House of Representatives, referred to a Vanity Fair report published the day before that outlined how the Trump administration decided not to implement a national response early in the course of the pandemic because the viral outbreak appeared to be confined mostly to Democratic states.

“Instead, the president has downplayed the severity of the crisis, claiming the virus will disappear, sidelining government experts who disagree and seeking to legitimize discredited remedies,” Clyburn charged.

“The result of these decisions is that the virus has continued to rage out of control and our nation’s economic misery has continued,” Clyburn went on, arguing that the administration’s decision to cede responsibility for pandemic response to the states, while also urging those states to reopen, has only worsened the human, economic and societal costs of the pandemic.

Republicans argued that a coherent federal plan did exist, and launched counterattacks directed at Fauci, Democratic governors and China, where the virus originated in late 2019.

At one point, Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., a leading Republican in the House and a Trump ally, brandished hundreds of sheets of paper to demonstrate how many plans already did exist. Scalise praised the stack as representing “President Trump’s effective plan to keep Americans safe” from a pandemic that has killed more than 152,000 people in this country.

The problem, critics have said, is that the administration has never committed itself fully to one of those plans. Instead, led by Trump himself, it has vacillated almost daily between calls for greater safety measures and celebrations of early-reopening states like Texas and Florida. Recent outbreaks in those states have led the administration to reconsider its rush to reopen, but not enough to order the kinds of lockdowns that shut down much of the economy in the spring.

The dramatic high point of the hearing came during a heated exchange between Fauci, who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, and Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, one of the president’s most devoted supporters in Congress.

Jordan seemed to argue that the antiracism protests that shook the nation throughout much of June could have led to the spread of the coronavirus. Research suggests that the protests did not lead to any outbreaks, perhaps because the protesters were outside and were mostly wearing masks.

Jordan, however, was determined to make his point, peppering Fauci with questions about the need to limit all large gatherings.

“Crowding together, particularly when you’re not wearing a mask, contributes to the spread of the virus,” Fauci said.

“Should we limit the protesting?” the famously pugnacious Jordan demanded.

Fauci seemed confused by the question, since freedom of peaceful assembly is widely understood to be guaranteed by the First Amendment.

“I don’t think that’s relevant to —” Fauci began to say.

Trump himself was watching the hearing from the White House and, as he is sometimes wont to do, weighed in on the proceedings via Twitter.

“Somebody please tell Congressman Clyburn, who doesn’t have a clue, that the chart he put up indicating more CASES for the U.S. than Europe, is because we do MUCH MORE testing than any other country in the World. If we had no testing, or bad testing, we would show very few CASES,” one message said.

A follow-up message from the president attacked the “Lamestream Media and their partner, the Do Nothing Radical Left Democrats.”

After clips of Jordan’s exchange with Fauci began being spread across social media, Trump fired off another tweet addressing it specifically.

“Great job by Jim Jordan, and also some very good statements by Tony Fauci,” the president wrote. “Big progress being made!”

The highly politicized atmosphere left little room for a substantive discussion of how to combat the coronavirus, which has recently devastated states across the Sun Belt and now appears to be moving to the Midwest. Trump himself has vacillated between solemnity and dismissiveness in his own approach to the pandemic. That has left him with low approval ratings ahead of November’s presidential election.

But defending Trump at Friday’s hearing proved a difficult and potentially politically perilous task, as evidenced by Jordan’s attack on Fauci regarding the Black Lives Matter protests. Jordan’s ultimate point was that while the protests were widely allowed and encouraged by many in government, some states had limited religious gatherings. Churches have been the sites of coronavirus hot spots in some places.

“There’s been no violence that I can see at church,” Jordan said. “I haven’t seen people during a church service go out and harm police officers or burn buildings.” He contrasted peaceful worship with the sometimes violent protests in Portland, Ore., which Trump controversially used federal officers to contain.

“No limit to protests, but, boy, you can’t go to church on Sunday,” Jordan said sarcastically, a staple of his congressional comportment.

Fauci, however, would not take the bait. “I don’t know how many times I can answer that,” he replied, the smile on his face wearing thin. “I’m not going to opine on limiting anything.”

“You’ve opined on a lot of things, Dr. Fauci,” Jordan shot back.

Having served five presidents prior to Trump, Fauci did not appear rattled by the attack. “I’m telling you what it is, the danger. And you can make your own conclusion about that. You should stay away from crowds no matter where the crowds are.”

There were more substantive moments during the hearing, as when Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, admitted to Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., that he had not been consulted on the Trump administration’s widely criticized decision to have hospitals send data directly to the federal Department of Health and Human Services, bypassing the CDC.

He also endorsed opening schools for in-person instruction in the fall, something that many of the largest districts around the country have been reluctant to do.

But the hearing often devolved into partisan theatrics. At one point, Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., noted that “young men playing football in high school” was likely as dangerous as reopening schools. It is not clear how he came to that conclusion, as it is not known what reopening schools will do to the course of the pandemic.

Near the end of the hearing, Scalise once more held up the manifold plans that he said constituted the sum of Trump’s impressive response to the crisis.

“There’s thousands more pages online,” he said.

Great discussion here with executive producer Seth Shapiro @seth_shap on filming his NFL Network piece with @wyche89 on LA Rams facility and how it's adhering to COVID-19 protocols. pic.twitter.com/gmlquXsjAm

— Bryan Fenley (@BryanFenley) August 1, 2020

Isabel Wilkerson’s ‘Caste’ Is an ‘Instant American Classic’ About Our Abiding Sin

link https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/31/books/review-caste-isabel-wilkerson-origins-of-our-discontents.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

A critic shouldn’t often deal in superlatives. He or she is here to explicate, to expand context and to make fine distinctions. But sometimes a reviewer will shout as if into a mountaintop megaphone. I recently came upon William Kennedy’s review of “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” which he called “the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race.” Kennedy wasn’t far off.

I had these thoughts while reading Isabel Wilkerson’s new book, “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.” It’s an extraordinary document, one that strikes me as an instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far. It made the back of my neck prickle from its first pages, and that feeling never went away.

I told more than one person, as I moved through my days this past week, that I was reading one of the most powerful nonfiction books I’d ever encountered.

Wilkerson’s book is about how brutal misperceptions about race have disfigured the American experiment. This is a topic that major historians and novelists have examined from many angles, with care, anger, deep feeling and sometimes simmering wit.

Wilkerson’s book is a work of synthesis. She borrows from all that has come before, and her book stands on many shoulders. “Caste” lands so firmly because the historian, the sociologist and the reporter are not at war with the essayist and the critic inside her. This book has the reverberating and patriotic slap of the best American prose writing.

This is a complicated book that does a simple thing. Wilkerson, who won a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting while at The New York Times and whose previous book, “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration,” won the National Book Critics Circle Award, avoids words like “white” and “race” and “racism” in favor of terms like “dominant caste,” “favored caste,” “upper caste” and “lower caste.”

Some will quibble with her conflation of race and caste. (Social class is a separate matter, which Wilkerson addresses only rarely.) She does not argue that the words are synonyms. She argues that they “can and do coexist in the same culture and serve to reinforce each other. Race, in the United States, is the visible agent of the unseen force of caste. Caste is the bones, race the skin.” The reader does not have to follow her all the way on this point to find her book a fascinating thought experiment. She persuasively pushes the two notions together while addressing the internal wounds that, in America, have failed to clot.

A caste system, she writes, is “an artificial construction, a fixed and embedded ranking of human value that sets the presumed supremacy of one group against the presumed inferiority of other groups on the basis of ancestry and often immutable traits, traits that would be neutral in the abstract but are ascribed life-and-death meaning.”

“As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance,” Wilkerson writes. She observes that caste “is about respect, authority and assumptions of competence — who is accorded these and who is not.”

Wilkerson’s usages neatly lift the mind out of old ruts. They enable her to make unsettling comparisons between India’s treatment of its untouchables, or Dalits, Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews and America’s treatment of African-Americans. Each country “relied on stigmatizing those deemed inferior to justify the dehumanization necessary to keep the lowest-ranked people at the bottom and to rationalize the protocols of enforcement.”

Wilkerson does not shy from the brutality that has gone hand in hand with this kind of dehumanization. As if pulling from a deep reservoir, she always has a prime example at hand. It takes resolve and a strong stomach to stare at the particulars, rather than the generalities, of lives under slavery and Jim Crow and recent American experience. To feel the heat of the furnace of individual experience. It’s the kind of resolve Americans will require more of.

“Caste” gets off to an uncertain start. Its first pages summon, in dystopian-novel fashion, the results of the 2016 election alongside anthrax trapped in the permafrost being released into the atmosphere because of global warming. Wilkerson is making a point about old poisons returning to haunt us. But by pulling in global warming (a subject she never returns to in any real fashion) so early in her book, you wonder if “Caste” will be a mere grab bag of nightmare impressions.

It isn’t.

Her consideration of the 2016 election, and American politics in general, is sobering. To anyone who imagined that the election of Barack Obama was a sign that America had begun to enter a post-racial era, she reminds us that the majority of whites did not vote for him.

She poses the question so many intellectuals and pundits on the left have posed, with increasing befuddlement: Why do the white working classes in America vote against their economic interests?

She runs further with the notion of white resentment than many commentators have been willing to, and the juices of her argument follow the course of her knife. What these pundits had not considered, Wilkerson writes, “was that the people voting this way were, in fact, voting their interests. Maintaining the caste system as it had always been was in their interest. And some were willing to accept short-term discomfort, forgo health insurance, risk contamination of the water and air, and even die to protect their long-term interest in the hierarchy as they had known it.”

In her novel “Americanah,” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie suggested that “maybe it’s time to just scrap the word ‘racist.’ Find something new. Like Racial Disorder Syndrome. And we could have different categories for sufferers of this syndrome: mild, medium and acute.”

Wilkerson has written a closely-argued book that largely avoids the word “racism,” yet stares it down with more humanity and rigor than nearly all but a few books in our literature.

“Caste” deepens our tragic sense of American history. It reads like watching the slow passing of a long and demented cortege. In its suggestion that we need something akin to South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, her book points the way toward an alleviation of alienation. It’s a book that seeks to shatter a paralysis of will. It’s a book that changes the weather inside a reader.

While reading “Caste,” I thought often of a pair of sentences from Colson Whitehead’s novel “The Underground Railroad.” “The Declaration [of Independence] is like a map,” he wrote. “You trust that it’s right, but you only know by going out and testing it for yourself.”

Scott Miller@ScottMillerBbl
#MLB internal investigation found the #Marlins were very lapse in following protocols during Atlanta trip last weekend, players going out, players in hotel bar, etc. Lots of MLB people very unhappy with Miami

Jeff Passan@JeffPassan
BREAKING: MLB commissioner Rob Manfred told MLBPA executive director Tony Clark on Friday that if the sport doesn’t do a better job of managing the coronavirus, it could shut down for the season, sources tell ESPN.

Ted Nguyen@FB_FilmAnalysis
I hope that NFL players see this and learn from this but the reality is there are some people just don’t believe the virus is enough of a threat to make major changes in their lives and not much will change their minds.

Henry Ellard, a master of separating from the defenders. Always willing to lay out to make the catch! What a play here! pic.twitter.com/RNyTpQz2Hi

— RAMS ON FILM (@RamsOnFilm) July 31, 2020

wv wrote:

I think thats clear and convincing evidence that Fisher caused
OLine injuries.

w
v

Well I wouldn’t say he CAUSED them.

Now if you were to say, he is the person with most responsibility in that situation whose actions and inactions had an impact on OL health and readiness, the result many times of those actions and inactions being OL injuries, then fine.

The Rams are one of only eight teams with no players on the reserve/COVID-19 list yet https://t.co/fEMUUYqq9L

— Cameron DaSilva (@camdasilva) July 31, 2020

wv wrote:

I’m curious. I forget what the Super Bowl year would look like. Were there any injuries at all that year?

w
v

That was Whit Saffold Sullivan Blythe Hav

Starting at the midpoint, Sullivan declined a little and along with that the right side got exposed a bit.

But aside from that, the unit had no injury replacements all year. All 5 starters played all 19 games.