COVID19 Update - Day 228

US Tests: 122,104,227*

US Cases: 8,531,899*

US Deaths: 216,646*

Worldwide Cases: 42,532,198*

Worldwide Deaths: 1,148,943*

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

Yes, the spread is getting worse.  As always, we would do well to listen to the experts.  The never-controversial Anthony Fauci has raised the stakes, stating for the first time that there should be a national mask mandate:

“There’s going to be a difficulty enforcing it, but if everyone agrees that this is something that’s important and they mandate it and everybody pulls together and says, you know, we’re going to mandate it but let’s just do it, I think that would be a great idea to have everybody do it uniformly,” the public health expert said.

The comments come after Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden at a campaign event in Delaware on Friday said that he would implement a national mask mandate.

“As president I will mandate mask wearing in all federal buildings and all interstate transportation because masks save lives – period,” Biden said. “Wearing masks is not a political statement, it is a scientific imperative.” 

In July, the White House opposed legislation to mandate masks for workers and passengers on airlines and public transit, suggesting such a rule would be “overly restrictive.” It added at the time that “such decisions should be left to states, local governments, transportation systems, and public health leaders.”

President Trump has a long record of mocking masks, even recently promoting a misleading anti-mask talking point during a televised NBC town hall event, that falsely claims most people who wear face coverings end up contracting coronavirus.

It appears that Fauci's motivation for making this statement was the all-time record number of new cases in the U.S. yesterday (83,010) --- which was followed up by the SECOND-most new cases today (82,668). 

On a personal note --- The two of you who read this site regularly may recall that my son's college roommate tested positive for the #TrumpVirus on Wednesday.  He lives in an off-campus apartment with two of his friends.  The friend who tested positive has since moved into a quarantine space on-campus, and his other roommate received a negative test result Thursday.  My son was tested Thursday(?) --- at any rate, he was expecting a result today, but didn't receive one.

Since it appears that he and his remaining roommate will need to quarantine for some time no matter what, his mom and I drove up there and left a bunch of supplies with them.  (Note: We did not go in the apartment.  We remained outside, we spoke to him for less than 10 minutes, we maintained social distance, and we were all wearing masks).

We made sure he understands that even if his test result is negative, he needs to test again in 5 days before he can consider himself out of the woods.  FWIW, he seemed to be in fine health --- but it's always possible he's an asymptomatic carrier.

Fun times.