COVID19 Update - Day 127

US Tests: 42,521,027*

US Cases: 3,478,419*

US Deaths: 129,595*

Worldwide Cases: 13,512,693*

Worldwide Deaths: 583,359*

* Numbers are a lower bound.  True numbers are being suppressed by the Trump administration

No one should be surprised by today's news.  If anything, we should be surprised that it didn't happen sooner:

The Trump administration has ordered hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send all Covid-19 patient information to a central database in Washington beginning on Wednesday. The move has alarmed health experts who fear the data will be politicized or withheld from the public.

. . .

Officials say the change will streamline data gathering and assist the White House coronavirus task force in allocating scarce supplies like personal protective gear and remdesivir, the first drug shown to be effective against the virus. But the Health and Human Services database that will receive new information is not open to the public, which could affect the work of scores of researchers, modelers and health officials who rely on C.D.C. data to make projections and crucial decisions.

“Historically, C.D.C. has been the place where public health data has been sent, and this raises questions about not just access for researchers but access for reporters, access for the public to try to better understand what is happening with the outbreak," said Jen Kates, the director of global health and H.I.V. policy with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

“How will the data be protected?” she asked. “Will there be transparency, will there be access, and what is the role of the C.D.C. in understanding the data?”

Anyone who thinks HHS won't politicize the data to minimize the severity of the pandemic hasn't been paying attention to the way Trump has politicized the Justice Department.

And this is why I must now put asterisks by the statistics I provide, because whatever numbers are published are guaranteed to be undercounts.

It is, however, consistent with Republican handling of the pandemic.  Their only concern is to cover up their malfeasance; rather than to do the work to actually resolve the crisis.  And this is one of the reasons why the modern Republican party is a death cult.

For another example, look to Georgia:

Gov. Brian Kemp on Wednesday extended Georgia’s coronavirus restrictions while explicitly banning cities and counties from adopting rules requiring masks or other face coverings, a measure that could bolster the state’s case in a possible legal battle.

Kemp’s executive order — which was set to expire Wednesday evening — still encourages, rather than requires, Georgians to wear masks in public. The governor has called such a requirement “a bridge too far,” and his office has said local mandates are unenforceable.

The governor’s coronavirus orders have for months banned local governments from taking more restrictive or lenient steps than the state. But the new set of rules he signed on Wednesday specified for the first time that cities and counties can’t require the use of masks or other face coverings.

That could improve the state’s standing in a courtroom fight against a string of cities that have defied Kemp’s emergency order by requiring masks. Savannah led that charge earlier this month, and since then other cities including Atlanta, Athens and Augusta have followed suit.

Is Kemp worried about saving the lives of Georgians?  To minimize the spread of the virus?  No, he's interested in winning a court battle (and secondarily, I'm guessing, sucking up to Jim Jones Trump). 

And Kemp should really know better.  All he needs to do is look one state to the south for an all-too-graphic example of how bad things can get under leadership like his:

Florida, where the Republican convention is scheduled to be held next month, passed a dismal benchmark Wednesday with more than 300,000 cases of COVID-19 reported since the start of the pandemic.

More than 77,000 cases were logged just in the last seven days, bringing the total number in the state to 301,629, according to the Florida Department of Health.

There were also 112 more deaths, putting the state on track to hit 5,000 COVID-19 fatalities, the NBC News numbers showed.

Tuesday was the second deadliest day of the pandemic in Florida, with 133 fatalities — the most since July 1 when 145 were recorded, the new figures show.

Finding a bed for all those sick people became increasingly harder with the Agency for Health Care Administration reporting that 54 hospitals in the state now have zero available beds in their intensive care units and another 40 hospitals have less than 10 percent bed availability in their ICUs.

Sadly, this is just the tip of the iceberg.  And iceberg that Trump and his lackeys are doing their best to hide.