HUNDREDS OF STAFFERS AT TWO SAN FRANCISCO HOSPITALS TEST POSITIVE FOR COVID-19: But underneath The Hill’s shock headline, note this:

Padilla told The Hill that none of those who tested positive at San Francisco General required hospitalization. Most of the infections caused mild to moderate symptoms, according to the Times.

Asymptomatic cases were also detected through contact tracing. The infections were predominately spread through community exposure, according to Padilla.

The Hill reached out to the UCSF Medical Center for comment.

The hospital’s chief medical officer, Lukejohn Day, told the Times that the cases would be far worse if staff members were not vaccinated.

“We’re concerned right now that we’re on the rise of a surge here in San Francisco and the Bay Area,” Day said. “But what we’re seeing is very much what the data from the vaccines showed us: You can still get COVID, potentially. But if you do get it, it’s not severe at all.”

Earlier: At Some California Hospitals, Nearly Half of Workers Remain Unvaccinated.

CHIP SHORTAGE FALLOUT: Toledo South to Temporarily Halt Gladiator Production.

LIGHTEN UP, FRANCIS: Siri accused of anti-China bias after inaccurate Olympic medal tally.

WELL, THEY’RE NOT WRONG:

RED-PILLED ONCE MORE: Bill Maher Rains Fire Down on Cancel Culture ‘Purges’ and the ‘Bummer’ Olympic Games.

FASTER, PLEASE: Five Things Red-State Governors Should Do Right Now if They Want to Secede From Covistan Permanently.

CRISIS BY DESIGN: Audio from migrant shelter reveals allegations of sex misconduct by staff with minors.

OH, THAT LIBERAL FASCISM: ‘Mao was just a bit of a hipster’: how liberals fell in love with a genocidal dictator.

XI’S GOTTA HAVE IT! Exclusive: New York Times quashed COVID origins inquiry.

Reports on gain-of-function research into coronaviruses were already in the public domain in early 2020. So were reports of lab leaks, in the US and abroad. Instead of doing what journalists are supposed to do — ask questions — the Times led the charge in stigmatizing debate about COVID-19’s origins as a ‘fringe theory’. Alexandra Stevenson, the Times’s Hong Kong reporter, called it ‘the kind of conspiracy once reserved for tinfoil hatters’.

Not any more. So, did the Times distance itself form the lab-leak story because its management hated Donald Trump? Or was its notion of the national interest influenced by its business interests in China?

Just think of the media as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, and it all makes sense.

Evergreen:

I HOPE THAT WILL END THE CURSE: Mexican Archaeologists Forced to Bury an Unusual Discovery Made in Old Aztec Capital.

JIM TREACHER: Democrats Don’t Need Masks Because They’re Better Than You. “The virus knows. It knows what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, and it only punishes people who don’t read The Atlantic or listen to NPR. If you can recite a MyPillow ad from memory, you need to wear a mask when you’re told to wear a mask. But if you can pick Lin-Manuel Miranda out of a lineup, you don’t have anything to worry about. That’s how COVID-19 works. That’s just the settled science.”

QED: Obama Planning Massive Birthday Celebration Amid Delta Variant Concerns. “Obama turns 60 on Aug. 4 and the guest list for the event – to be hosted on his property in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts – reportedly numbers some 475 guests and around 200 or more staff, according to Axios. The event is to be held outdoors and guests are asked to be vaccinated. There will also be someone ensuring COVID-19 protocols are followed, Axios added. Famous people who scored an invite to the big event reportedly include film director Steven Spielberg, and the rock band Pearl Jam will reportedly be playing. It’s not immediately clear whether the Obamas will require guests to wear masks during the party.”

Apparently Democrats don’t need vaccines, either: At some California hospitals, nearly half of workers remain unvaccinated.

UPDATE:

Know your place, peasant — rules are for the little people.

RICHARD FERNANDEZ: Coronavirus Lockdowns and the Hunt for Red October. “Politicians seem to believe that the more widespread and restrictive a lockdown is the more effective it is. The more noise and bangs the better. But in reality, what huge lockdowns unambiguously proclaim is how little actionable information they really have. . . . Without guidance from a constantly refreshed data stream, these gigantic exercises may achieve little but demonstrate earnestness. Bigger and more draconian is possibly a sign of failure. On the contrary, when the pandemic restrictions grow progressively less widespread and more precise, that’s when you know we’re winning.”

THE BIGGEST ‘SUPER-SPREADER’ EVENT: Biden’s Weak Border.

SAY IT: Dare I Say That January 6 Was Not an Insurrection?

The D.C. Capitol Police proved to be incompetent — something we knew already — and failed to set up sufficient barriers. Consequently, a bunch of angry people in the front lines charged the police barricades and got through, and the throng mindlessly followed them. That is what throngs do. They do it at movies, at restaurants, at soccer games, and at heavy metal concerts.

They burst into the Capitol because that’s where the throng flowed. For 99 percent of those inside, it was pure curiosity. It was like the people who almost tore down the White House when celebrants thronged to fete the newly elected Andrew Jackson.

Remember the guy sitting on Nancy Pelosi’s chair? Do you think he came like John Brown in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, to seize military weapons and incite a national insurrection? Of course not. Be real. The guy was having the time of his life.

The people in Washington calling it an insurrection are doing so to justify their own attempt to illegally seize power.

FASTER, PLEASE: Scientists explore the latent regenerative potential of the inner ear.

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Government Promises To Wrap Up War On COVID As Quickly And Efficiently As The War On Terror.

PUBLIC NOT BUYING PELOSI’S KANGAROO COURT: New survey taken the day after last week’s first hearing of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s hand-picked “investigators” of the January 6 Capitol riot is full of bad news for the rump panel, according to Issues & Insights.

Asked “how likely is it that the Jan. 6 commission will make a genuine effort to uncover the truth,” only 22 percent of those interviewed said they believe it is “very likely” to do so. Almost as many, 18 percent, said “not likely at all.”

“But what is surprising is how little faith independents have in the commission. Only 36% of them think it’s likely it will make a genuine effort to uncover the truth, while 42% say it isn’t likely to do so. Among Republicans, 24% say it’s likely and 61% unlikely,” the I&I crew observes.

DEVIL’S DICTIONARY FOR THE  LEFT: They keep redefining everything, so it’s helpful occasionally to have a guide like this from Capital Research Center’s Jon Rodeback.

BIDEN’S RETURN TO LAWFULNESS: Biden Administration Defies Federal Ruling, Processes DACA Applications.

SHOCKING NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE: Study: Texting, emailing have helped mood in older adults during pandemic.

CAM EDWARDS: Boston Globe Readers Discover The Racist History Of Gun Control. “I was shocked to see a column headlined ‘The Very Racist History of Gun Control’ on the paper’s website this weekend. I’m sure the piece by longtime columnist Jeff Jacoby has caused some heartburn in the newsroom, not only because the op-ed is chock full of inconvenient truths for fans of gun control, but because it directly takes aim at the claims of historian Carol Anderson, whose new book ‘The Second’ is based on the premise that the right to keep and bear arms itself is rooted in racism.”

GREEN POLICIES ARE CLASS WARFARE: How marginalized communities in the South are paying the price for ‘green energy’ in Europe.

DAMNING REPUBLICAN REPORT INTO WUHAN LAB CLAIMS COVID LEAKED OUT IN SEPTEMBER 2019 SHORTLY AFTER IT TRIED TO IMPROVE AIR SAFETY AND WASTE TREATMENT SYSTEMS. “It says that months before the Covid-19 outbreak a Wuhan Institute facility sent out a request for bids for ventilation and waste management system renovations. The facilities were less than two years old, raising questions, the report says about how effective they were. The report also says traffic at local hospitals surged before the accepted start of the outbreak. It is part of a larger report due in September, in which Republicans on the committee seek prove [sic] the coronavirus escaped from a Chinese lab.”

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Reminder: Did the New York Times stifle lab leak debate? Were commercial relationships with China a factor?

In the opening months of the pandemic, the lab leak hypothesis was actively discredited by the media and scientific establishment, with anyone associated with it smeared as “racist”. The question we have to ask now is how, and why, did this happen?

To a great extent, I believe the answer lies with the world’s most powerful news outlet, the New York Times. At the start of the pandemic, the Times set the news and policy agenda on the lab leak hypothesis, discrediting it and anyone who explored it. The Times did so while taking money from Chinese state-owned propaganda outlets, such as China Daily, and while pursuing long-term investments in China that may have made the paper susceptible to the CCP’s strong-arm propaganda tactics in the first months of the pandemic.

As someone who has spent years researching the history of the Times, I was struck by the paper’s markedly pro-China bent at the start of the pandemic. It opposed Trump’s travel ban to and from China as “isolationist”. It all but ignored the unparalleled success of China’s arch-enemy, Taiwan, in containing the virus. It downplayed China’s economic war against Australia, whose prime minister early on questioned the CCP story on the pandemic’s origins. And it celebrated China’s success in battling Covid-19, taking the CCP’s absurd mortality numbers at face value, reporting in August 2020 that 4,634 Chinese people died from the virus and, six months later, that there were 4,636 total deaths. That in a country of 1.4 billion people only two people died of Covid-19 in the half a year defies logic and common sense. Still, the Times legitimised the CCP numbers by printing them as hard fact.

(Emphasis added). To be fair, the Times has a near-century-long history of lying on behalf of communist dictatorships.

TOO MUCH KNEELING, NOT ENOUGH WINNING: Megan Rapinoe in Tears After Canada Loss in Likely Last Olympics: ‘It’s Tough.’