COVID19 Update - Day 71

US Tests: 12,647,791
US Cases: 1,542,309
US Deaths: 87,472
Worldwide Cases: 4,992,487
Worldwide Deaths: 327,642

I owe you a lot of content today, so let's get started.  Today, a number of scientists at the CDC confirmed that Trump screwed up the U.S. response to the virus because he was concerned about the political fallout:

In interviews with CNN, CDC officials say their agency's efforts to mount a coordinated response to the Covid-19 pandemic have been hamstrung by a White House whose decisions are driven by politics rather than science.

The result has worsened the effects of the crisis, sources inside the CDC say, relegating the 73-year-old agency that has traditionally led the nation's response to infectious disease to a supporting role.

Rising tensions between CDC leadership and the White House over the perception that the agency has been sidelined has been a developing story in the media for weeks. But now, mid- and higher-ranking staff members within the agency -- six of whom spoke with CNN for this story -- are starting to voice their discontent. Those six spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

"We've been muzzled," said a current CDC official. "What's tough is that if we would have acted earlier on what we knew and recommended, we would have saved lives and money."

And as we all know by now, a small but substantial subset of people chose to ignore the guidance of CDC and other experts.  And it's all but certain that they were encouraged to continue risky behaviors by Trump's refusal to put expert, scientific guidance front and center.

Small groups like this church in Texas, for example:

Holy Ghost Catholic Church in Houston reopened its doors on May 2, as the Lone Star State began loosening its stay-at-home orders.

But on May 14, the parish canceled all services after Father Donnell Kirchner died. Five members of the congregation tested positive for COVID-19, church officials said Monday.

"If you have attended Masses in person at Holy Ghost Church since the reopening on May 2nd, you are strongly encouraged to monitor your health for any symptoms and be tested for COVID-19, as a precautionary measure," the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston said in a statement to Fox News.

And just to complete their horribleness, Republican leaders continue to be more concerned about covering up the facts of their incompetence than they are in actually responding to the pandemic.  Stories like this show that there's no reason to trust data about the pandemic coming out of red states:

One day before a top Florida Department of Health data manager lost her role maintaining the state’s COVID-19 data, she objected to the removal of records showing people had symptoms or positive tests before the cases were announced, according to internal emails obtained by the Tampa Bay Times.

On Tuesday, a spokeswoman for Gov. Ron DeSantis said she had been fired.

Closer to home, the health care provider I work for is seeing a spike in new COVID19 cases.  I received this in an email yesterday:

Today is an all-time high for patients hospitalized. We are seeing an increase after holding steady for a week.

They also report a 50% increase in COVID19 cases at one of their hospitals in a week.

I'm greatly concerned about Minnesota relaxing their stay at home policy.  And Minnesota is considered to be one of the states doing things right.

We are nowhere close to the end of this thing.