I run this item, in part to comment on a particularly ill-informed post by Hinderaker, of last night, suggesting that the OSHA rule is beyond the authority of the Executive Branch. And as I showed last night (at one of my other properties) — that is the purest form of… poppy-cock.

For a half century, without so much as a squawk from the GOP/Right, Hinderaker has said nothing about Rubella vaccines being required to work in meatpacking plants in his Dakota home state, or his adopted state of Minnesota. [These are measures enacted by the Nixon administration.] Why? Because… science. [He doesn’t REALLY want to eat a rubella burger on Friday night.]

He followed that, with more lunacy this morning, claiming the vaccines “don’t work“. Uh-huh (but — of course… he cited no biological evidence / science). For a year he has complained that co-morbidity factors make the actual COVID death toll figures in the US completely unreliable. I disagree, but he cannot now be heard to argue that since we are seeing a lot of co-morbidity deaths in Minnesota for example… that that occurrence is, in any manner proof of “non-working” vaccines. [“My kingdom, for a rational scientific statement, on the biology of the pandemic, from ANYONE at PowerLine“! Seriously… John!?] So it is now that we will tout some REAL science:

In addition to the below, the drug regulator for the EU, the EMEA, has said overnight that it will work to approve the COVID oral pill in the “shortest possible time“, taking a cue from (and not wishing to be upstaged by!) the British / post-BREXIT-ed announcement, of last week (we covered, that — here).

And so, a cascading series of events is underway — in Condor’s experienced estimation — HHS and BARDA do not want to run short, when/if both the EU and the Brits seek large scale deliveries of the pill, since essentially all of Europe will now be eligible to stock the pill, in the national health registries (pharmacies). So Uncle Sam is getting another big order in, ahead of the pack.

And yes, all of this is very good news for Kenilworth. Here’s the bit:

. . .[T]he United States government will exercise two of its options to purchase a total of 1.4 million additional courses of molnupiravir, an investigational oral antiviral medicine, if the medicine is granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) or approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), for approximately $1 billion. With these exercised options, the U.S. government has now committed to purchase a total of approximately 3.1 million courses of molnupiravir, for approximately $2.2 billion, between authorization and early 2022.

The U.S. government also has the ability to purchase more than 2 million additional courses through further options that remain in the contract. Merck is developing molnupiravir in collaboration with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics. . . .

Onward, grinning — much afoot for the coming holidays, here. . . truly a magical time of year, and in magical places, to boot. . . be excellent to one another.

नमस्ते