COVID19 Update - Day 174

US Tests: 77,748,898*

US Cases: 5,999,459*

US Deaths: 175,602*

Worldwide Cases: 25,398,619*

Worldwide Deaths: 849,031*

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

Where does Florida Governor Ron DeSantis go to get his apology?  This is the question a well-known Trump sycophant asked back in May, and since then it has become a sick joke among those of us with even a tenuous grasp on reality.

And the reality is: DeSantis may have overseen the most disastrous response to the coronavirus in the entire U.S., and possibly the world:

In the roughly three months since Gov. Ron DeSantis greenlighted Phase Two of his plan to reopen Florida, the Sunshine State has seen a whopping 947.9 percent increase in the number of COVID-19 cases.

As of Friday morning, 615,806 cases had been identified across the state. On June 3 when the governor made the announcement that bars and pubs could reopen at 50 percent capacity inside and full capacity outside, the state was reporting 58,764 COVID-19 cases – a difference of 557,042.

Under Phase Two, bowling alleys, movie theaters, arcades and auditoriums also were allowed to reopen at 50 percent capacity. But a portion of that plan was short-lived, as DeSantis reversed his decision on bars and ordered them closed again on June 26 when the state was reporting 122,960 cases.

The number of deaths and people hospitalized also are quite different today than when DeSantis decided to reopen the state. On June 3, the state was reporting 2,566 deaths and 10,525 people hospitalized. On Friday, those numbers had jumped to 11,099 deaths and 38,029 people being treated in area hospitals.

According to Johns Hopkins, there are currently only 14 COUNTRIES on the planet with more coronavirus deaths than Florida.

This is just one example (among thousands) of Republicans spouting nonsense, either because they don't know the truth, or don't care about it. 

COVID19 Update - Day 173

US Tests: 77,063,268*

US Cases: 5,967,833*

US Deaths: 175,243*

Worldwide Cases: 25,132,320*

Worldwide Deaths: 845,054*

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

There are no good options.  The New York Times has a story out today detailing the situation surrounding the start of the school year, and the fact that there are really no good options:

The state’s poorest districts were the first to turn to all-remote instruction once given the option — in spite of the estimated 230,000 children across New Jersey who state officials have said lack either computers or internet access.

Last Monday, Newark’s schools, which educate more Black, Latino and low-income children than any other district in New Jersey, announced that classes would start the same way they ended in June: fully online. Most of New Jersey’s other large cities — including Jersey City, Elizabeth, Paterson and Camden — had already said they were planning an all-virtual start to the school year.

In some affluent suburban districts that still plan to reopen, tension is running high and plans are changing quickly.

Last week in Summit, teachers who were worried about the safety of a plan to reopen to all students, five days a week, held two sit-ins on the same day.

But by the second protest, they had to remake their signs: The district had suddenly announced that it was switching to a hybrid model of alternating days in school for middle and high school students. Under the current plan, elementary students will attend school every day.

“We’re still mystified how they’re going to bring 20 students into an elementary school classroom and keep them six feet apart,” said Wendy Donat, who teaches history at Summit High School and is vice president of the district’s teachers union.

This isn't a problem for me personally.  I have a son in college (classes started on August 19, and it seems they haven't shut down yet), and a daughter entering her senior year of high school.  So they're both fairly well able to take charge of their own educations.  But I have a lot of friends with younger children who are pulling their hair out, trying to figure out home-schooling, or hybrid schedules where their kids have to be at school for only part of the day.

There is no doubt this would be a problem even if Trump had reacted to the pandemic responsibly, but his 'kill em all' attitude has certainly made things worse.

COVID19 Update - Day 172

US Tests: 76,325,567*

US Cases: 5,928,381*

US Deaths: 174,768*

Worldwide Cases: 24,896,303*

Worldwide Deaths: 840,407*

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

The 2020 RNC will go down in history as the climax of the #TrumpDeathCult.  Endorsing not a political agenda, but a brazenly corrupt man, engaging in a brazenly unlawful political convention, while recklessly endangering the lives of everyone present:

Thursday’s mask-flouting crowd that largely ignored social distancing guidelines has been estimated at 1,500 — a gathering far larger than health officials have recommended to curb the spread of the coronavirus. 

CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta reported that a senior White House official had swatted away concerns to him earlier in the evening about the lack of social distancing at the President’s acceptance speech, saying, “everybody is going to catch this thing eventually.”

The White House official’s remark comes as the President and his associates spent the week painting an alternate reality of COVID-19 as either a bygone concern or a very much receding threat.

Hundreds of Trump’s supporters cheered as he created the false illusion that his Democratic opponent Joe Biden posed a greater risk to American life than the coronavirus, which continues to kills Americans by the thousands a wrenching seven months after its first reported cases in the United States.

An overwhelming majority of guests were not administered rapid coronavirus tests, Trump campaign and convention officials told the Washington Post, citing the complexity of logistics to test such a large crowd despite their close proximity to the President and White House staff.

If not for the fact that some of these people will pass the virus on to others who are behaving responsibly, I would be inclined to say that this is simply natural selection at work. 

COVID19 Update - Day 171

US Tests: 75,564,749*

US Cases: 5,884,053*

US Deaths: 173,754*

Worldwide Cases: 24,649,431*

Worldwide Deaths: 835,793*

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

I'm running on fumes tonight, so I'm just going to point you to Josh Kovensky's article about how --- astoundingly --- Trump is hoping to use his epic failure in responding to the pandemic to his benefit:

It is no small irony that Trump is trying to turn the pandemic to his political benefit, having epically downplayed the virus and spectacularly bungled the initial and the ongoing responses. Despite, or maybe because of, the death of more than 180,000 Americans, Trump still seems determined to turn the pandemic to his political advantage.

But there is a consistency to the Trump response both initially and now: it is focused on his political needs, not the exigencies of public health, science, or the sick and dying.

The steps Trump has taken fit a pattern in which through bluster and misconduct, the President and his allies are turning tools meant to fight the disease into a way of fighting the PR problem of the disease, ensuring that there appear to be fewer cases than there are while raising fears about a vaccine being delivered before it’s ready.

COVID19 Update - Day 170

US Tests: 74,792,493*

US Cases: 5,837,507*

US Deaths: 172,731*

Worldwide Cases: 24,356,619*

Worldwide Deaths: 829,861*

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

Really, Trump and the Republicans don't care if you're unemployed, about to be evicted, and don't know where your next meal is coming from.  And don't let anyone tell you this is the Democrats' fault.  The Senate is in recess, and as for the White House, well:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said Thursday that during a call with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, she offered to drop the price tag on the top-line spending for COVID-19 relief legislation to $2.2 trillion, well down from the original $3.4 trillion.

Meadows, Pelosi said, rejected the offer.

The 25-minute phone call was the first significant contact the two have had since negotiations fell apart earlier this month.

“Originally, House and Senate Democrats made clear we would be willing to cut a trillion dollars if the White House would add a trillion for a bill,” she said. “In order to meet in the middle, we have now said we would be willing to go to $2.2 trillion to meet the needs of the American people.”

“Democrats are willing to resume negotiations once Republicans start to take this process seriously,” she added.

The article further goes on to suggest that there may not be any substantive stimulus/relief until September 30, the date at which Congress needs to have some kind of budget in place for the fiscal year.

That's still more than a month away. 

COVID19 Update - Day 169

US Tests: 74,050,153*

US Cases: 5,793,243*

US Deaths: 171,602*

Worldwide Cases: 24,088,692*

Worldwide Deaths: 824,368*

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

Apparently 170,000+ deaths aren't enough for Trump.  Today the CDC abruptly changed its guidance on coronavirus testing:

After weeks of encouraging people to get tested if they may have been exposed to COVID-19, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention abruptly changed course this week and is now telling the public testing might not be necessary.

The change in guidance, while voluntary, could dramatically decrease the number of tests conducted in the U.S. at a time when public health officials have said they are seriously concerned about young people without symptoms transmitting the virus.

Medical professionals and public health experts swiftly pushed back, calling the move baffling and dangerous because it would reduce the country's visibility on the virus ahead of flu season.

"The people in the trenches are horrified by this," a person who works with the White House coronavirus task force told ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl. "It gives the impression that asymptomatic people cannot transmit the disease, which is not true. Community spread is driven by asymptomatic people."

Of course the White House denies that the CDC was pressured in any way, but at this stage of the Trump presidency, the White House has negative credibility, if that's possible.  Trump plainly stated over a month ago that he wanted to slow down testing, and this new directive does just that.

Also, there's this fascinating tidbit:

"I worked on them. Dr. Fauci worked on them. Dr. Birx worked on them. Dr. Hahn worked on them. Dr. Atlas provided input. So, it's kind of hard to know how much was written by one person at this time, but it was a CDC product with lots of editing. Lots of input probably over about a month period of time," Giroir said.

At one point, Giroir noted "we all signed off on it, the docs" before political leaders saw it.

Fauci, though, said he did not personally sign off on the new guidance. The revisions were approved during a task force meeting on Aug. 20 -- the same day Fauci was under general anesthesia for surgery to remove a polyp from his vocal cords.

Sure these guidelines are certain to result in more coronavirus cases, as more asymptomatic people unknowingly spread the disease.  And sure, that means there will be more deaths.  And sure, these new regulations were hustled through at a time when it was guaranteed that the one person who has been resolute in upholding fact-based policy was unavailable to object to them.

But!  It WILL make the number of REPORTED coronavirus cases go down --- for a few weeks, anyway --- and that's what really matters! 

COVID19 Update - Day 168

US Tests: 73,016,779*

US Cases: 5,749,803*

US Deaths: 170,353*

Worldwide Cases: 23,820,104*

Worldwide Deaths: 818,137*

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

Trump is a dangerous fascist, and he has completely failed to respond to the pandemic.  One silver lining, however, is that he hasn't (yet) used the pandemic as an excuse to crack down on public protest (instead, he has demonized the protesters and violated their rights).  Some authoritarian regimes have been a bit more subtle:

Though the coronavirus has posed an enormous challenge for world leaders, it has also presented an opportunity—for those who wish to consolidate power, pandemic containment rules offer a convenient tool to stifle inconvenient dissent. Here in Hong Kong, for example, the city’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, postponed legislative elections scheduled for September by an entire year, sapping momentum from a prodemocracy camp that looked poised to make sizable gains. (Lam has said that the move was not at all political and based solely on public-health concerns, but given the wide-ranging crackdown in the city over the past year, few have bought that justification.) Lam’s decision has also deepened a rift among serving prodemocracy lawmakers, and risks fragmenting a group that put aside long-held differences in opposition to Lam last year.

Hong Kong is hardly the only place where the pandemic has proved to be useful political cover. In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used the public-health crisis to shut down the country’s Parliament and judiciary—which enabled the prime minister to not only postpone his own corruption trial, but also authorize the security service to track citizens’ movements using cellphone data without legislative oversight. In Bolivia, a forthcoming general election has been twice delayed because of the pandemic—an excuse that opposition parties allege has allowed the country’s interim president to extend her rule. Poland did manage to hold presidential elections last month, but the ruling Law and Justice Party leveraged the crisis to its advantage by banning public events, making campaigning all but impossible. (The Law and Justice–backed incumbent, Andrzej Duda, who was free to organize public meetings and press conferences, remained largely unaffected.)

In Thailand, where protests against the government have grown in recent weeks to the largest in years and have expanded to criticize the largely untouchable monarchy, rights groups have warned that regulations enacted as a pandemic response serve ulterior motives. Measures “ostensibly aimed at protecting the Thai people from a public-health threat” are being misused to “harass and obstruct peaceful protesters,” Matthew Bugher, the Asia-program head at the British human-rights organization Article 19, wrote in June. Elsewhere, Algeria’s government utilized the crisis to halt a year-long protest movement against the country’s ruling elites. Similar bans on public demonstrations were imposed in Chile, Lebanon, and the Philippines, where President Rodrigo Duterte authorized the police and military to shoot dead anyone found to be violating the country’s coronavirus restrictions. “Do not intimidate the government. Do not challenge the government,” Duterte warned in April. “You will lose.”

I guess Trump just isn't as creative as other thuggish leaders. 

COVID19 Update - Day 167

US Tests: 72,382,318*

US Cases: 5,713,124*

US Deaths: 169,206*

Worldwide Cases: 23,571,084*

Worldwide Deaths: 811,748*

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

The good news is, two vaccines are currently going through phase three trials.  The bad news is that Trump, in his usual clueless fashion, is doing what he can to screw things up:

President Trump has said that he wants a vaccine approved before the election, and tweeted Sunday that “the deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics. Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd.” He tagged his FDA commissioner, Stephen Hahn, in the tweet.

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows later told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that the tweet was Trump’s way of making the FDA “feel the heat.”

Separately, on Sunday the FDA issued an emergency use authorization for convalescent plasma to treat COVID-19, though some experts said more data was needed. And the FT reported that the Trump administration was mulling whether to skirt U.S. regulatory standards to issue an emergency approval for a potential vaccine before still-ongoing trials are complete.

The situation comes days after top FDA vaccine official Dr. Peter Marks said that he would resign if the FDA were pressured into approving a vaccine that was ineffective or unsafe.

Rushing to release a vaccine before clinical trials concluded could “undermine confidence” not only in COVID-19 vaccines, but “our entire vaccine supply,” Dr. Peter Hotez, professor of Tropical Medicine at Baylor, said on CNN Monday.

“If you try to release the vaccine head of that time, say with only a few thousand [people tested], you could start seeing safety problems after you’re starting to immunize large numbers of individuals,” Dr. Hotez said. “Things could go wrong quickly if we try to rush this.”

President 'I don't take responsibility', whose principal contributions to combating coronavirus have all been counterproductive, is now jeopardizing a process which might actually help so that he can take responsibility for the work of others before the election.

The man is cancer.  And the Republican party has formally announced that their only purpose for the next 4 years is to do whatever he wants. 

COVID19 Update - Day 166

US Tests: 71,693,547*

US Cases: 5,677,847*

US Deaths: 168,858*

Worldwide Cases: 23,349,139*

Worldwide Deaths: 807,383*

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

Trump made a self-proclaimed "historic announcement" today about a new tool to fight the coronavirus.  Specifically, he announced that the FDA (likely under pressure from Trump) has issued emergency use authorization to treat coronavirus patients with convalescent blood plasma.

Despite Trump's typical hyperbole, along with his assurances that the treatment is safe and effective, there's actually little reason to believe that any of it is true.  Moreover, this therapy has already been used on more than 70,000 patients, and is available to anyone that wants it.  And it's likely that Trump himself knew there was little to be excited about in the announcement, as he left the press conference after taking only three questions --- instead of congratulating himself at length, in his usual style.

(It's also worth pointing out Trump's bizarre accusation that his own agency was trying to block the use of convalescent plasma until after the election, in an effort to sabotage his campaign).

Nevertheless, although there's still no proof of the treatment's efficacy, there's at least a CHANCE that it could help:

The idea is that people who have been sickened with COVID-19 and then recovered will have antibodies in their blood that helped them fight off the infection. By giving that convalescent plasma to sick patients, those antibodies should in theory help a patient currently sick with COVID-19 recover. It's an approach to treating pandemic diseases that has been around for a century or more.

Blood serum from recovered COVID-19 patients is also being studied as a means of preventing the disease.

It's still unclear whether plasma treatments are effective for people with COVID-19. A recent non-peer-reviewed study posted online reported on more than 30,000 patients receiving convalescent plasma; it showed that the more antibodies there were in a particular batch of convalescent plasma, the more effective the plasma was in preventing death.

But the study was lacking a control group, that is, a group receiving a sham injection, so it's difficult to make firm conclusions about the results. Other studies have failed to show a definitive benefit.

So --- far from it being in any way historic, the use of convalescent plasma is more correctly categorized as a "promising maybe".

In that regard, this announcement is truly light years ahead of other major announcements Trump has made during the pandemic, like his relentless flogging of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment, and even --- unbelieveably --- injecting disinfectant into the lungs. 

The Republican Party Found Their Man

Yesterday, August 22, a recording was released of Donald Trump's sister, former federal judge Maryanne Trump, saying this:

“All he wants to do is appeal to his base,” Barry said in a conversation secretly recorded by her niece, Mary L. Trump. “He has no principles. None. None. And his base, I mean my God, if you were a religious person, you want to help people. Not do this.”

Barry, 83, was aghast at how her 74-year-old brother operated as president. “His goddamned tweet and lying, oh my God,” she said. “I’m talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy shit.”

Today the Republican Party, in advance of its 2020 nominating convention, released a platform of sorts.  But it's not a platform in the traditional sense, in that it contains no policy proposals.  Basically, the GOP 'platform' for the next 4 years, verbatim, is:

RESOLVED, That the Republican Party has and will continue to enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda

That's it.  Full stop.  Put another way, the GOP is giving Trump a blank check: whatever he wants, he gets.

For a man whose sister firmly believes "has no principles. None."

The Republican party is an empty vessel, promising America nothing more than to cater to the every whim of an empty, corrupt, racist sexual predator.

Do you really want to vote for that? 

Save the Post Office!

Yesterday, I joined with some like-minded citizens and exercised my right to freedom of speech.  Specifically, a group of more than 100 protesters gathered at our local USPS distribution facility.

And it got the attention of the local media!  Here, for example, we see Alex Lehnert of the Twin Cities FOX affiliate, capturing some video of Tom Edwards, former President of the St. Paul chapter of the American Postal Workers Union (you can tell she's a TV news reporter, since she's the one attending a protest in a cocktail dress and heels):

Although the general consensus seems to be that the local FOX9 affiliate is a decent news organization, in stark contrast to the larger FOX network, it wasn't so in this case.  FOX recorded at least 5 minutes of video with Mr. Edwards, during which time he made several good points about what Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is doing to destroy the Post Office.  He told them that 7 sorting machines have been removed from this facility alone.  He also pointed out that 30-35 blue mail dropboxes appeared out of nowhere in the facility's south lot.

(This is as close as I could get without trespassing)

And he explained that DeJoy's malfeasance will not only affect the November election, but also people who rely on the USPS for medicine and medical supplies, and small businesses.

None of this important context came through in the FOX news story.

Our local CBS affiliate was also at the rally, and did a somewhat better job with context in their interview with Edwards (also at one point, you can briefly see over Edwards' right shoulder a devilishly handsome protester in a blue t-shirt holding a sign that reads 'We 💖 USPS').  But they too focused exclusively on the political dimension, and not the ways in which DeJoy's malfeasance is affecting and will continue to affect practically everyone.

I mean --- it's not that hard to call out, people.

COVID19 Update - Day 165

US Tests: 71,082,165*

US Cases: 5,639,613*

US Deaths: 168,286*

Worldwide Cases: 23,130,345*

Worldwide Deaths: 803,397*

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

The country is falling apart, and Washington is doing nothing about it.  Well, I should qualify that.  Democrats passed a $3 trillion coronavirus relief bill on May 15.  The Republican-controlled Senate adjourned on August 13 without passing anything.

And then there's Donald Trump:

Just two weeks after President Trump approved executive actions aimed at bypassing stalled stimulus negotiations with Congress, only one state has said it is paying new jobless benefits, few evictions have been paused, and leading employers have made clear that workers will not benefit from the president’s new payroll tax deferral.

After talks with congressional Democrats faltered, the president on Aug. 8 signed four executive actions aimed at staving off further economic turmoil. They included a $300-per-week benefit for jobless Americans, after the previous enhanced benefits expired in late July. Trump also directed a deferral of payroll taxes, as well as a halt to evictions and a suspension of student loan payments.

But Trump’s directives have so far produced limited economic relief for Americans hurt by the coronavirus pandemic, despite promises by top White House aides that help would come within weeks. By Friday, only Arizona had started sending the extra $300 to its residents.

It continues to elude me exactly what members of the #TrumpDeathCult think that Trump and the Republicans are doing to make America great.

Or even livable. 

COVID19 Update - Day 164

US Tests: 70,336,781*

US Cases: 5,593,318*

US Deaths: 167,262*

Worldwide Cases: 22,847,562*

Worldwide Deaths: 797,007*

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

Is Your State Ready for the Pandemic Election?  That's the question the folks at Talking Points Memo have asked --- and answered --- for Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin.

They will add more states in the upcoming weeks.

COVID19 Update - Day 163

US Tests: 69,580,676*

US Cases: 5,546,172*

US Deaths: 166,128*

Worldwide Cases: 22,526,192*

Worldwide Deaths: 790,262*

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

This doesn't get as much attention as it should.  But today the Economic Policy Institute put out a report discussing how a global catastrophe like #COVID19 disproportionately affects people of color, because it exacerbates existing inequalities.  This report focuses on Latinx people, but similar stories can be told about Black and indigenous people as well:

The specific channels through which the virus has affected these communities varies. For example, Black workers have faced greater health insecurity due to higher prevalence of preexisting health conditions and overrepresentation in front-line occupations, while Latinx workers’ overrepresentation in jobs within some of the hardest-hit industries resulted in greater job loss at the start of the economic crisis, particularly among Latinas. Further, recent outbreaks have been concentrated in the Sun Belt states—particularly Arizona, California, Texas, and Florida—where a larger share of the U.S. Latinx population lives.

On average, Latinx workers have suffered greater economic distress than their white counterparts since COVID-19 began spreading. These outcomes have been driven by the fact that Latinx workers already had lower pre-pandemic wages, income, and wealth, as well as less access to health care and other important job-related benefits. This lower pre-pandemic level of economic security was in turn driven by a host of factors—including a bigoted immigration regime that has aimed to keep Latinx immigrant workers disempowered in the workplace.1 As the pandemic has spread, another symptom of this labor market disempowerment—inadequate workplace safety—has loomed particularly large.

This report centers the economic, health, and social conditions faced by Latinx workers during the pandemic and raises considerations for rebuilding a more just and equitable economy.

 

COVID19 Update - Day 162

US Tests: 68,944,867*

US Cases: 5,502,927*

US Deaths: 165,011*

Worldwide Cases: 22,262,946*

Worldwide Deaths: 784,107*

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

Merely incompetent, not corrupt.  That is how to categorize today's example of Trump administration malfeasance:

As he sought answers, Wasserman encountered an HHS program to surge rapid, point-of-care COVID-19 testing machines to nearly every nursing home in the country. Long awaited by nursing homes, the program relies on a technology called antigen testing that, in its current form, trades accuracy for a 15-minute return on results.  

But the HHS program to distribute the machines has been met with mass confusion stemming from a lack of direction over what to do with the machines and how, or whether, to record and report the results. As a result, some nursing homes have been failing to report the results of tests to state health departments. The tests’ accuracy has also been reduced by operator error, clouding the true spread of COVID-19.

“I have to say, I’m not impressed that they basically sent us machines without clear direction on how to use them, and without clear direction to state and county health departments,” Wasserman said. 

Wasserman is not alone in his concern. 

“HHS needs to own that — they’ve got to send out [the testing machines] with explicit responsibilities for reporting results to public health authorities and technical assistance so it actually happens,” said Dr. Jeffrey Engel, a senior advisor on COVID-19 and executive at the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists. 

“We’ve been asking for federal guidance all along, these nursing homes have very limited capacity, and to expect them to ramp up and do this — something that they’ve never done before — is not realistic and could be potentially harmful,” Engel told TPM.

As always --- heck of a job, Trumpie! 

COVID19 Update - Day 161

US Tests: 68,263,933*

US Cases: 5,457,824*

US Deaths: 163,595*

Worldwide Cases: 22,046,135*

Worldwide Deaths: 778,557*

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

As the father of a college sophomore attending school on a campus where in-person instruction starts tomorrow, this is horrifying (if not unexpected):

Iowa State University said Tuesday that 175 students living in residence halls and campus apartments have tested positive for Covid-19.

The school conducted move-in testing over two weeks and found 175 students, or 2.2% of those tested, were positive for the virus. The rest tested negative, the school said in a statement.

The director of the student health center, Erin Baldwin, said the goal of move-in testing was to identify positive cases and intervene to mitigate the spread of the infection.

"Students who tested positive are required to isolate for 10 days. About half of the students are isolating in isolation rooms provided by the department of residence," the statement said. "Quarantine rooms are also available for students notified through contact tracing that they were exposed to a positive case."

This article from CNN lists similar issues at 9 different universities, and it doesn't even mention the disaster at UNC.

We're about to see just how much havoc Republican governance can wreak on America. 

COVID19 Update - Day 160

US Tests: 67,621,119*

US Cases: 5,417,366*

US Deaths: 162,400*

Worldwide Cases: 21,809,170*

Worldwide Deaths: 772,479*

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

Are you ready for some good news?  Over the past 6 months, there have been various news stories indicating that perhaps the human immune system doesn't respond normally to COVID19, and that contracting the disease (and recovering from it) might not confer immunity.

Today, the New York Times reports that there's reason to believe recovering from the virus DOES make you immune after all:

Scientists who have been monitoring immune responses to the virus are now starting to see encouraging signs of strong, lasting immunity, even in people who developed only mild symptoms of Covid-19, a flurry of new studies suggests. Disease-fighting antibodies, as well as immune cells called B cells and T cells that are capable of recognizing the virus, appear to persist months after infections have resolved — an encouraging echo of the body’s enduring response to other viruses.

“Things are really working as they’re supposed to,” said Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona and an author on one of the new studies, which has not yet been peer-reviewed.

Although researchers cannot forecast how long these immune responses will last, many experts consider the data a welcome indication that the body’s most studious cells are doing their job — and will have a good chance of fending off the coronavirus, faster and more fervently than before, if exposed to it again.

Obviously, this also bodes well for the effectiveness of a vaccine, once developed. 

COVID19 Update - Day 159

US Tests: 66,969,790*

US Cases: 5,379,370*

US Deaths: 161,992*

Worldwide Cases: 21,593,607*

Worldwide Deaths: 773,685*

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

It seems to me that this is exactly the sort of the thing the Defense Production Act was designed for:

Dr. Asma Rashid, who runs a members-only medical concierge service in the Hamptons, has received some of the most sought-after party invitations this summer.

“We’ve gone to these private, private, private events, where they have me sign a ‘nothing you see in this house can be leaked’ document,” she said. “This is still a party town.”

Dr. Rashid is there to administer rapid or real-time tests for coronavirus. She performs the procedure — either a finger prick or a nose swab — in the car, and then lets guests into the house only if their tests come back negative. The entire procedure takes less than 30 minutes. Consider it a pandemic pregame.

Suffolk County still lacks rapid testing infrastructure, and the private service is expensive: up to $500 per test, and not all insurance companies will cover the cost. Most doctors don’t even have kits to do the tests; patients willing to pay can wait up to a week for an appointment at the offices that have them in New York City.

There shouldn't be two tiers of testing: Rapid tests with the results in under 30 minutes for the ultra-wealthy; and tests that take 3 weeks to get results for everyone else.  Of course I don't know, but I'm fairly confident this is the first pandemic where rich folks could pay a premium to get their test results faster.

If we had a real government with a real leader, EVERYONE would get their test results quickly, so that we could contain the virus and reopen bars, restaurants, schools and sports safely.  But if we did that, there would be no way for profiteers to make obscene profits off the pandemic, and of course the Trump administration would never allow that. 

In personal news --- despite my original intention not to get my hair cut until the pandemic was over, its been about 6 months and my hair was driving me nuts.  So I finally cut it --- myself.

I'm pleased with the result, and it appears a certain other party is as well, which makes me doubly pleased.

COVID19 Update - Day 158

US Tests: 66,192,221*

US Cases: 5,336,362*

US Deaths: 161,373*

Worldwide Cases: 21,377,367*

Worldwide Deaths: 769,652*

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

Another day, another story demonstrating that reopening college campuses is a really bad idea:

Another coronavirus cluster has been identified at the University of North Carolina.

This time, the cluster, defined as five or more cases in close proximity, was discovered at the Sigma Nu fraternity, the university said in a statement on Saturday.

The news comes just one day after the university identified clusters at the Ehringhaus Community and Granville Towers. Ehringhaus is a residence hall and Granville Towers is a private apartment complex that serves as a housing option for some UNC Chapel Hill students, according to the school's website.

"The individuals in this cluster have been identified and are isolating and receiving medical monitoring," the statement said. All residents in the living spaces have been provided with information and next steps, the university added.

While a number of campuses have planned to continue offering remote education exclusively, many still appear to be engaged in magical thinking.

I wonder how many more times stories like these will be repeated? 

An Open Letter to the USPS Board of Governors

Sent today to the USPS Board of Governors, who have the power to remove Louis DeJoy from his position as Postmaster General.  You are encouraged to contact them yourself:

• mduncan@inezdepositbank.com
• roman@rmiv.com
• barger.jm@gmail.com
• lee.moak@moakgroup.com
• ron.bloom@brookfield.com
• DirectorAccessMailbox@cigna.com

Like millions of others (I would imagine), I'm writing to you about the disaster who is our current Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy.

By now, of course, you know that DeJoy is doing the bidding of Trump and the Republican party in attempting to destroy the Post Office for the purpose of minimizing mail-in voting.  Trump has publicly admitted as much.  And it's difficult to see how the physical removal of both sorting machines and mail drop boxes can be seen as anything other than sabotage.

I'm sure you also realize that these corrupt actions will have dire consequences for some people.  Medications and medical supplies will arrive too late for people who need them.  Social Security checks and other payments will be delayed at a time when the number of unemployed persons in America has ballooned due to the coronavirus, and people desperately need this money to pay rent and buy food.  Small businesses which depend on the USPS will be forced to close.

Although you may not yet have realized it, DeJoy will almost certainly be found criminally guilty of impeding mail deliveries, as multiple state attorneys general are weighing action against him.

What should be foremost in your minds right now is this: If law enforcement decides that DeJoy is guilty of a criminal act, how long do you suppose you can wait before law enforcement also decides that you're guilty of criminal negligence for not removing him?

You have the opportunity to demonstrate that you are honorable men.  Please do so and remove DeJoy before he does further damage.

COVID19 Update - Day 157

US Tests: 65,452,700*

US Cases: 5,279,863*

US Deaths: 160,155*

Worldwide Cases: 21,070,842*

Worldwide Deaths: 763,070*

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

It's Friday.  So maybe we should end the week with some positive news?

As urgency mounts for a Covid-19 coronavirus vaccine, a key question for scientists is whether this pandemic will be the watershed moment for two new technologies that have never before seen widespread use in humans. If proven effective, these approaches could dramatically speed up the development of other new vaccines and drastically lower costs, heralding a new era in the fight against infectious disease.

The main technologies gaining traction are vaccines that use an adenovirus vector and mRNA. Rather than construct a new vaccine from scratch, the idea behind these technologies is to use a standard set of parts, like a repurposed virus or a nanoparticle, to carry genetic material into a cell. That material — DNA or RNA — can then code for specific proteins from a virus.

Once one of these delivery platforms are proven safe, it’s just a matter of tweaking DNA and RNA strands. That’s much faster than conventional vaccines, which involve culturing large quantities of viruses that are then weakened, inactivated, or separated into tiny fragments and purified — processes that require years of cumbersome trial-and-error and safety testing.

Early days still.  But if one wants to be optimistic, it's possible that the race to find a #COVID19 vaccine will help to develop techniques to obtain vaccines much more quickly for future diseases.

Possibly. 

COVID19 Update - Day 156

US Tests: 64,612,034*

US Cases: 5,224,214*

US Deaths: 158,939*

Worldwide Cases: 20,755,406*

Worldwide Deaths: 752,225*

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

Republicans had already given up on fighting the virus.  Now they've given up on saving the economy, or avoiding mass homelessness:

The Senate is officially adjourned through Labor Day despite not coming to an agreement on its next coronavirus stimulus package.

Congress and the White House have spent the past few weeks debating what to include in the package, but have been unable to come to an agreement. One of the biggest sticking points: Jobless benefits. Democrats want a continuation of the enhanced unemployment payment of $600 per week, while Republicans say that amount is too high. Democrats are also pushing for more than $900 billion for state and municipal aid, and $60 billion in food assistance, far higher than what Republicans have proposed.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said the two sides would not strike a deal until Republicans added $1 trillion in aid to their bill. 

That means a deal could be weeks away. Meanwhile, around 28 million Americans remain unemployed and many of the relief provisions from the first stimulus package have dried up. President Donald Trump has issued four executive orders to address some of the issues, but experts remain unconvinced that they will be efficient in helping vulnerable households.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said that if some kind of deal is reached while the Senate is on recess, members will return to Washington, D.C. for a vote.

Apparently Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has decided to let President 'Art of the Deal' --- who has a terrible track record as a deal-maker --- hammer out the details of any stimulus package.

If it weren't so horrifyingly tragic, the last sentence would be funny: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said that if some kind of deal is reached while the Senate is on recess, members will return to Washington, D.C. for a vote."

Don't expect Mitch to do anything to save America, folks.  He'll vote on a deal, sure.  But his plan is to sit at home in Kentucky and sip bourbon until a deal magically appears.

COVID19 Update - Day 155

US Tests: 63,656,217*
US Cases: 5,169,130*

US Deaths: 157,729*

Worldwide Cases: 20,461,772*

Worldwide Deaths: 745,780*

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

Why are there so many asymptomatic coronavirus carriers?  We don't really know, but today there is a summary of possible theories in the Washington Post.  My favorite is the last one:

Before the pandemic, Gandhi, the University of California researcher, specialized in HIV. But like other infectious-disease experts these days, she has spent many of her waking hours thinking about the coronavirus. And in scrutinizing the data on outbreaks one day, she noticed what might be a pattern: People were wearing masks in the settings with the highest percentage of asymptomatic cases.

The numbers on two cruise ships were especially striking. In the Diamond Princess, where masks weren’t used and the virus was likely to have roamed free, 47 percent of those tested were asymptomatic. But in the Antarctic-bound Argentine cruise ship, where an outbreak hit in mid-March and surgical masks were given to all passengers and N95 masks to the crew, 81 percent were asymptomatic.

Similarly high rates of asymptomatic infection were documented at a pediatric dialysis unit in Indiana, a seafood plant in Oregon and a hair salon in Missouri, all of which used masks. Gandhi was also intrigued by countries such as Singapore, Vietnam and the Czech Republic that had population-level masking.

On a separate note, for all the talk about the way that Trump and his minions are intentionally destroying the Post Office in an effort to limit mail-in voting, it is undeniable that millions of people will still need to vote in person this fall.  And so the Brennan Center for Justice has published guidelines for how to best insure everyone's safety for in-person voting.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of threats both to America, and to our personal safety, to navigate right now. 

COVID19 Update - Day 154

US Tests: 63,193,405*

US Cases: 5,113,401*

US Deaths: 156,244*

Worldwide Cases: 20,207,011*

Worldwide Deaths: 739,898*

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

That's all I got tonight, folks.

COVID19 Update - Day 153

US Tests: 62,455,492*

US Cases: 5,057,838*

US Deaths: 154,919*

Worldwide Cases: 19,971,615*

Worldwide Deaths: 732,889*

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

Today seems like a good day to remind everyone that, back in February, the U.S. Army project 150,000 U.S. deaths from #COVID19 as an absolute worst-case scenario.  A "black swan" event that, while possible, was still very unlikely.  From an article published on April 2:

This week, as coronavirus deaths in the U.S. spiraled up to surpass those killed on 9/11, the White House is conceding that an optimistic assessment of the coming death toll will leave between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans dead. But if the White House had heeded an Army warning nearly two months ago, it might have prompted earlier action to prevent an outbreak that threatens to kill more Americans than two to four Vietnam Wars.

An unclassified briefing document on the novel coronavirus prepared on Feb. 3 by U.S. Army-North projected that “between 80,000 and 150,000 could die.” It framed the projection as a “Black Swan” analysis, meaning an outlier event of extreme consequence but often understood as an unlikely one. 

In other words, the Army’s projections on Feb. 3 for the worst-case scenario in the coronavirus outbreak are, as of this week, the absolute best-case scenario—if not a miraculous one.

Put another way, the Army figured that even Trump couldn't screw things up this badly.  Although, to be fair to the Army, they probably didn't anticipate that Trump would encourage everyone to take hydroxychloriquine and inject bleach into their lungs, spend months demanding that we reopen the economy and avoid wearing masks, and then give up and go back to golfing 3 times a week. 

In personal news, I'm growing frustrated with my bank.  This doesn't seem like it's related to the virus, and maybe it isn't.  But most of my bank's branch offices have been closed for some time now, due to the virus.  Generally speaking, I agree that this is a good thing, but there are some times when one just absolutely, positively needs to meet with a banker in person.  And I've had one hell of a time making that happen.

Since the branch offices are closed, there's no point in calling them.  Which means I need to call the central 800 number, and do battle with their automated voice menu.  Fortunately, it doesn't take very long to reach an actual human.  Unfortunately, it seems that reaching an actual human does me no good.

I originally succeeded in scheduling an appointment to meet with a banker at my local branch at 3:00 on Friday.  When the time came, I pulled into the parking lot at my branch, and there was indeed a US Bank employee there --- only to tell people that the bank was closed and that all scheduled appointments had been cancelled.

So I returned home, did battle with the automated voice menu again, and scheduled another appointment at a different branch for 4:00 today.  Around noon, I received an email telling me the appointment had been cancelled, but with no explanation.

A third round with the central number was even less fruitful than usual.  The young man I spoke to was useless, telling me that he couldn't help me schedule an appointment.  So I figured out how to schedule appointments online, and now I have TWO different appointments scheduled for tomorrow and Wednesday at two different locations.  We'll see how that goes.

My concern is that the bank has actually shut down most (all?) of its branches, and these appointments I'm scheduling are actually phone appointments rather than in-person ones.  And so the reason for the repeated cancellation is that when someone realizes I'm expecting an in-person meeting, they cancel it.

I hope I can get this resolved soon.

COVID19 Update - Day 152

US Tests: 61,514,652*

US Cases: 5,014,404*

US Deaths: 154,494*

Worldwide Cases: 19,780,612*

Worldwide Deaths: 729,692*

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

I got nuthin' tonight, other than to observe that the number of cases in the U.S. has crossed the 5 million mark, with no end in sight.

Given the reckless decision to open schools and universities, not to mention large gatherings of entitled infants, that number will almost certainly double to 10 million by election day.

COVID19 Update - Day 151

US Tests: 60,806,994*

US Cases: 4,963,213*

US Deaths: 153,878*

Worldwide Cases: 19,499,341*

Worldwide Deaths: 723,881*

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

This is an important op-ed written by two people from my hometown who know what they're talking about.  I encourage everyone to read it in full.

To successfully drive down our case rate to less than one per 100,000 people per day, we should mandate sheltering in place for everyone but the truly essential workers. By that, we mean people must stay at home and leave only for essential reasons: food shopping and visits to doctors and pharmacies while wearing masks and washing hands frequently. According to the Economic Policy Institute, 39 percent of workers in the United States are in essential categories. The problem with the March-to-May lockdown was that it was not uniformly stringent across the country. For example, Minnesota deemed 78 percent of its workers essential. To be effective, the lockdown has to be as comprehensive and strict as possible.

If we aren’t willing to take this action, millions more cases with many more deaths are likely before a vaccine might be available. In addition, the economic recovery will be much slower, with far more business failures and high unemployment for the next year or two. The path of the virus will determine the path of the economy. There won’t be a robust economic recovery until we get control of the virus.

If we do this aggressively, the testing and tracing capacity we’ve built will support reopening the economy as other countries have done, allow children to go back to school and citizens to vote in person in November. All of this will lead to a stronger, faster economic recovery, moving people from unemployment to work.

For reasons I can't quite put my finger on, I doubt that we will get the requisite level of cooperation to implement this recommendation. 

COVID19 Update - Day 150

US Tests: 60,146,707*
US Cases: 4,909,375*

US Deaths: 152,791*

Worldwide Cases: 19,282,972*

Worldwide Deaths: 718,851*

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

Coronavirus deaths are ringing in at more than 1,000 per day.  Unemployment is running at over 10%.  People are getting evicted, and more financial financial assistance is desperately needed.

At the moment, it's not happening, because Trump and the GOP are demanding a spending limit $2 trillion below the amount specified in the HEROES bill House Democrats passed on May 15.  Even after Democrats offered to meet the GOP halfway --- offering to reduce spending by $1 trillion --- Republicans remained intransigent.  Apparently the GOP strategy now is for Trump to rule by executive order:

Democrats insisted they were still open to negotiations and said they had already tried to make concessions, but White House officials suggested that — absent a dramatically new approach from the Democrats — they were done trying to craft a deal and wanted to move ahead with the executive orders.

“The president would like us to make a deal, but unfortunately we did not make any progress today,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Friday after he and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows met for the fifth day in a row with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) at the Capitol.

“At this point we are going to recommend to the president that over the weekend we move forward with some executive actions,” Mnuchin said.

Among other things, White House officials are looking at moving funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency into a program that could pay jobless benefits, people briefed on the discussions said.

Democrats said Friday that they had offered to reduce the price tag of their $3.4 trillion bill by $1 trillion, but that administration officials rejected the offer. Republicans dismissed the Democrats’ offer as budget gimmickry because they achieved the price reduction largely by shortening the time frame of proposed benefits, not by reducing specific demands. The Democrats’ demand for nearly $1 trillion in state and local aid remained a major sticking point. Trump has mischaracterized the Democrats’ demand, repeatedly, however, as many states run by Republican governors are also seeking assistance.

So to recap: Democrats passed a bill THREE MONTHS AGO which includes a moratorium on evictions, extended unemployment benefits, $10,000 in student debt cancellation, an increase in SNAP benefits, a reopening of enrollment into Obamacare and the state exchanges, provisions to protect our elections, $25 billion in funding for the Post Office, and $1 trillion in aid for state and local governments.

Republicans, in the meantime, have passed nothing, but have talked about legislation with provisions that include a liability shield for businesses, so that workers and customers can't sue them, and deferring payroll taxes --- a measure which would provide limited relief to working Americans, and no relief at all to the unemployed.

Republicans really have no interest in solving problems for Americans, and thus there's no reason to allow them to hold public office.

COVID19 Update - Day 149

US Tests: 59,391,103*

US Cases: 4,847,920*

US Deaths: 151,458*

Worldwide Cases: 19,007,938*

Worldwide Deaths: 713,406*

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

Among the many things that are broken about our society, things which exacerbate the pandemic, there's the carceral state.  I honestly don't know much about it, and far less than I should.  But it doesn't take a deep understanding of the issues to know that what the Supreme Court did yesterday is just tragically wrong:

Yesterday, the Supreme Court stayed a District Court order requiring Orange County Jail to take preventative measures to prevent further outbreaks, in perhaps the cruelest use of its shadow docket yet

. . .

There is no legal principle justifying this stay. The only “principle” animating it is the belief of the Republican appointees to the Court that prisoners are subhuman and extraordinary measures need to be taken to expose as many of them to a deadly virus as possible. That’s it. And yet there will always be a legal academic with an angle claiming that elite Republican lawyers are somehow different than Donald Trump and his followers. They aren’t.

Democrats aren't perfect.  Far from it.  But it's just blindingly obvious that no Republican should ever hold a seat in government ever again. 

COVID19 Update - Day 148

US Tests: 58,646,378*

US Cases: 4,793,336*

US Deaths: 150,205*

Worldwide Cases: 18,727,530*

Worldwide Deaths: 706,041*

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

Could we please make a rule that, from now on, we will keep terrible people out of government?  Not just in the United States, but everywhere?

Confident it had beaten the coronavirus and desperate to reboot a devastated economy, the Israeli government invited the entire student body back in late May.

Within days, infections were reported at a Jerusalem high school, which quickly mushroomed into the largest outbreak in a single school in Israel, possibly the world.

The virus rippled out to the students’ homes and then to other schools and neighborhoods, ultimately infecting hundreds of students, teachers and relatives.

Other outbreaks forced hundreds of schools to close. Across the country, tens of thousands of students and teachers were quarantined.

Israel’s advice for other countries?

“They definitely should not do what we have done,” said Eli Waxman, a professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science and chairman of the team advising Israel’s National Security Council on the pandemic. “It was a major failure.”

How much more evidence do we need that reopening public schools is going to be a disaster?  At least a little bit more, apparently.

Meanwhile, as the outbreaks occur, they are followed by the inevitable coverups, inevitably led by terrible people:

CSU football players and university athletic department staff say coaches have told players not to report COVID-19 symptoms, threatened players with reduced playing time if they quarantine and claim CSU is altering contact tracing reports to keep players practicing.

And they say those actions by the athletic administration is putting their health at risk in return for monetary gain the school would receive if fall sports are played.

Football players said they would like to play this season but don’t believe there should be a season given the spike in positive cases on the team in the past two weeks and the threat of more once Colorado State's full student body comes to campus later this month.

"I believe there is a cover-up going on at CSU,'' said a current football player who wished to remain anonymous for fear of retribution. "But they could only cover it up so long and now that we have so many cases across athletics, they can’t cover it up anymore. It’s not about the health and safety of the players but about just trying to make money off the players.''

Said an athletic department staff member: "There are some red flags in the athletic department but the common denominator with this administration is to protect the coaches before the student-athletes and that makes them feel more like cattle than student-athletes."

That is my wish.  That terrible people are not allowed to have positions of responsibility, where they can then allow terrible things to happen and then try to cover them up.

Is that too much to ask? 

COVID19 Update - Day 147

US Tests: 57,986,789*

US Cases: 4,741,569*

US Deaths: 148,804*

Worldwide Cases: 18,466,594*

Worldwide Deaths: 699,134*

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

We are nowhere close to the end of this pandemic, but we would be wise to start preparing for the next one, as it seems likely there will be others over the coming years and decades.  A good place to start would be to read today's article in The Atlantic, dissecting the structural reasons behind America's breathtaking failure:

Since the pandemic began, I have spoken with more than 100 experts in a variety of fields. I’ve learned that almost everything that went wrong with America’s response to the pandemic was predictable and preventable. A sluggish response by a government denuded of expertise allowed the coronavirus to gain a foothold. Chronic underfunding of public health neutered the nation’s ability to prevent the pathogen’s spread. A bloated, inefficient health-care system left hospitals ill-prepared for the ensuing wave of sickness. Racist policies that have endured since the days of colonization and slavery left Indigenous and Black Americans especially vulnerable to COVID‑19. The decades-long process of shredding the nation’s social safety net forced millions of essential workers in low-paying jobs to risk their life for their livelihood. The same social-media platforms that sowed partisanship and misinformation during the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Africa and the 2016 U.S. election became vectors for conspiracy theories during the 2020 pandemic.

The U.S. has little excuse for its inattention. In recent decades, epidemics of SARS, MERS, Ebola, H1N1 flu, Zika, and monkeypox showed the havoc that new and reemergent pathogens could wreak. Health experts, business leaders, and even middle schoolers ran simulated exercises to game out the spread of new diseases. In 2018, I wrote an article for The Atlantic arguing that the U.S. was not ready for a pandemic, and sounded warnings about the fragility of the nation’s health-care system and the slow process of creating a vaccine. But the COVID‑19 debacle has also touched—and implicated—nearly every other facet of American society: its shortsighted leadership, its disregard for expertise, its racial inequities, its social-media culture, and its fealty to a dangerous strain of individualism.

And while it is certainly true that America's failures have roots that extend back long before the presidency of Donald Trump, he has proven --- as he does for anything that matters for America --- that he is a uniquely horrible choice of president in this time of crisis:

No one should be shocked that a liar who has made almost 20,000 false or misleading claims during his presidency would lie about whether the U.S. had the pandemic under control; that a racist who gave birth to birtherism would do little to stop a virus that was disproportionately killing Black people; that a xenophobe who presided over the creation of new immigrant-detention centers would order meatpacking plants with a substantial immigrant workforce to remain open; that a cruel man devoid of empathy would fail to calm fearful citizens; that a narcissist who cannot stand to be upstaged would refuse to tap the deep well of experts at his disposal; that a scion of nepotism would hand control of a shadow coronavirus task force to his unqualified son-in-law; that an armchair polymath would claim to have a “natural ability” at medicine and display it by wondering out loud about the curative potential of injecting disinfectant; that an egotist incapable of admitting failure would try to distract from his greatest one by blaming China, defunding the WHO, and promoting miracle drugs; or that a president who has been shielded by his party from any shred of accountability would say, when asked about the lack of testing, “I don’t take any responsibility at all.” 

COVID19 Update - Day 146

US Tests: 57,298,045*

US Cases: 4,690,062*

US Deaths: 147,628*

Worldwide Cases: 18,187,396*

Worldwide Deaths: 691,352*

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

For more than two weeks now, I have posted these entries with the caveat that 'Numbers are a lower bound.  True numbers are being suppressed by the Trump administration'.  The reason, as I explained back on July 15, the Trump administration unexpectedly seized control of COVID19 tracking data.  And now that we've had some time for investigations to occur, we have more insight into the damage that decision caused:

“Nothing happens in 72 hours in the federal government,” he said, calling the abrupt change to TeleTracking “a faceplant.” 

Missouri took down its hospitalization data for twelve days because it couldn’t be sure the numbers coming from the state’s hospitals — which were reporting to a new system with minimal background training — were accurate. 

And that’s the tension at the heart of this latest Trump administration action. While the switch to TeleTracking was purportedly meant to sharpen the national picture of a global pandemic — with necessary information about things like hospital space, drug use and ventilator supply — it did the opposite. As a result of the chaos, the federal government effectively “cut off” local officials’ situational awareness, Dillon said.

I would say this is just another example of the Trump administration's incompetence.  But I think in this case, the switch to TeleTracking worked exactly as intended: It sowed chaos and confusion. 

COVID19 Update - Day 145

US Tests: 56,569,072*

US Cases: 4,640,581*

US Deaths: 147,110*

Worldwide Cases: 17,965,567*

Worldwide Deaths: 687,072*

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

The country is being devastated by the coronavirus.  Up to 40 million Americans have lost their jobs.  The economy just suffered its worst-ever quarterly drop in GDP.  There are long lines at food shelves.  Nearly 150,000 people are dead, and that total could double (I believe it's guaranteed to double).  Trump, of course, doesn't give a shit and is out golfing, but the Democratic-led House and the Republican-led Senate have each passed their own bills to address the crisis.  The differences in the bills are revealing.  At a high level, these are the bullet points:

• Democrats want to extend $600 weekly jobless payments, while Republicans want to slash them.
• Republicans want liability shields for businesses, while Democrats are pressing for protections for workers.
• Democrats would allocate $1 trillion for state and local governments. Republicans left them out entirely.
• Both proposals would provide for another round of direct payments to American families.
• The Republican proposal would condition some school funding on reopening, while Democrats would not.

Read the whole thing, consider your priorities, and then vote accordingly.

COVID19 Update - Day 144

US Tests: 55,847,627*

US Cases: 4,592,044*

US Deaths: 146,595*

Worldwide Cases: 17,791,377*

Worldwide Deaths: 683,988*

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

So.  This was completely predictable:

One of the first school districts in the country to reopen its doors during the coronavirus pandemic did not even make it a day before being forced to grapple with the issue facing every system actively trying to get students into classrooms: What happens when someone comes to school infected?

Just hours into the first day of classes on Thursday, a call from the county health department notified Greenfield Central Junior High School in Indiana that a student who had walked the halls and sat in various classrooms had tested positive for the coronavirus.

Administrators began an emergency protocol, isolating the student and ordering everyone who had come into close contact with the person, including other students, to quarantine for 14 days. It is unclear whether the student infected anyone else.

“We knew it was a when, not if,” said Harold E. Olin, superintendent of the Greenfield-Central Community School Corporation, but were “very shocked it was on Day 1.”

I don't work in education, but I have some vague understanding the for certain students, especially very young students (elementary school), extended separation from classmates can cause issues with social development and other problems.  Those problems are real, and should be addressed separately from the question of reopening the schools (or not).

However, with that caveat, it is absolutely insane --- and a spectacular institutional failure --- that Trump and many governors have been pushing so hard for schools to return to business as usual in the fall.

Just. Don't. Do. It.

And on a separate note --- what the hell kind of school reopens in JULY, anyway?!? 

COVID19 Update - Day 143

US Tests: 55,372,983*

US Cases: 4,535,607*

US Deaths: 145,447*

Worldwide Cases: 17,533,034*

Worldwide Deaths: 679,439*

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

This update is going up at least 12 hours late.  And the reason is that last night, I attended only my third in-person social event since the pandemic started.  Some friends and I got together in a back yard to watch a movie projected onto a bedsheet.  And it was nice to get out of the house, but I was also acutely aware of the fact that the situation was not normal.

We observed social distancing, which made conversation difficult.  But we were still close enough together to make me nervous.  And of course, the conversation was mainly about the virus, schools reopening (or not), mask regulations, etc.

In short, it was an awkward facsimile of life before the virus, and I chafed against the awkwardness.  I feel like I've done a pretty good job of rolling with the punches so far, but last night was the first night it started to get to me.

And still, there's no end in sight.