COVID19 Update - Day 45

US Tests: 4,883,802
US Cases: 890,816
US Deaths: 45,786
Worldwide Cases: 2,789,315
Worldwide Deaths: 195,920

It's hard to keep an accurate tally these days.  Pretty much from the start, I've been getting my data for the United States from The COVID Tracking Project, and that's what I'll continue to use.  As of 4:54 PM CDT on Friday, April 24, it says there have been 45,786 #COVID19 deaths in the U.S.  But a lot of other media outlets are reporting the number is above 50,000.

Whatever the actual count, it's higher than it needs to be.  And Trump's daily stupidity carnival, including most recently his suggestion of using disinfectant to cure those infected with coronavirus does absolutely nothing to help.

How is Trump this actively stupid?  Today, he's claiming that he was being sarcastic when he suggested using disinfectant or 'very powerful light' to destroy coronavirus cells within an infected individual.  It's bad enough that he clearly thought this was a practical idea; what's worse is the way the idea likely entered his head:

The leader of the most prominent group in the US peddling potentially lethal industrial bleach as a “miracle cure” for coronavirus wrote to Donald Trump at the White House this week.

In his letter, Mark Grenon told Trump that chlorine dioxide – a powerful bleach used in industrial processes such as textile manufacturing that can have fatal side-effects when drunk – is “a wonderful detox that can kill 99% of the pathogens in the body”. He added that it “can rid the body of Covid-19”.

A few days after Grenon dispatched his letter, Trump went on national TV at his daily coronavirus briefing at the White House on Thursday and promoted the idea that disinfectant could be used as a treatment for the virus. To the astonishment of medical experts, the US president said that disinfectant “knocks it out in a minute. One minute!”

He went on to say: “Is there a way we can do something, by an injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that.”

For God's sake, he's the president of the United States!  There are well-trained, experienced experts whose job it is to brief him daily with good, reliable information grounded in science, so that he can be as informed as possible.  And yet he chooses to ignore them and instead pay attention to some random guy who sent him a letter.

It would be funny if it weren't dangerous.  And make no mistake --- it IS dangerous:

President Trump’s absurd suggestion that injections of disinfectants could help cure the coronavirus wasn’t, as he later suggested, a harmless stroke of sarcasm. More than 100 people in Maryland have earnestly called the state’s emergency management hotline asking about the use of household cleaners to treat COVID-19, according to Gov. Larry Hogan’s communications director.

That's 100 people who were stupid enough to think Trump might be suggesting something reasonable, but fortunately smart enough to check with an actual authority before drinking bleach.  I guarantee at least one person didn't bother to get a second opinion --- and so that death is on Trump's head, too, along with the majority of the 45,000+ in the U.S. so far.

Today is a sad day for me, because before the shutdown, it was going to be a happy day.  Today is the day I had planned to take my daughter to my alma mater (Grinnell College), for a prospective student visit and interview.  But of course, that was cancelled long ago, because the campus has shut down, because coronavirus.

On the other hand, today isn't all bad, because today the hand-sewn masks I ordered finally arrived!