The Coronavirus

[Bob Butler 54]

CNN writes that Trump's post-Covid bubble is popping

The happy talk strategy is turning into a disaster.

[David Horn]

(06-26-2020, 06:17 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: CNN writes that Trump's post-Covid bubble is popping

The happy talk strategy is turning into a disaster.

Existential fear has that effect on people.

[pbrower2a]

Over one eighth of a million in America alone. That is nearly four times our usual highway death toll (which has tended to decrease due to better roads, stricter law enforcement, better medical treatment, and safer vehicles).

How big is that death toll?

Bigger than such college towns as

Ann Arbor, Michigan (University of Michigan)
Berkeley, California (University of California)
College Station, Texas (Texas A&M)
Provo, Utah (Brigham Young University)
Norman, Oklahoma (University of Oklahoma)
Columbia, Missouri (University of Missouri).

and the toll likely surpasses Athens, Georgia today (University of Georgia)

Already well more than South Bend, Indiana (Notre Dame -- which is surprisingly not a giant university despite its reputation) and Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Boulder, Colorado (University of Colorado)... and a city best known for Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. 

all respected colleges in their milieus, Aggie jokes notwithstanding.

Do you remember the movie Fargo?  Fine piece of black humor. The city is the biggest in North Dakota, and bigger than I thought it was. 124,682. Also in the group as biggest cities in their states that the COVID-19 plague has surpassed include Billings, Montana and Manchester, New Hampshire. Next biggest city in a state to be surpassed: Charleston, South Carolina. 


State capitals?
Hartford, Connecticut. 
Springfield, Illinois. (Abraham Lincoln, whose tomb is there, would not be proud of the job that Donald Trump is doing).
Lansing, Michigan.
Topeka, Kansas. 

Columbia, South Carolina -- next on the list to surpass.  

Also noteworthy? I'm trying to avoid suburbs that you would not know about unless you live in the area, as their populations can spike

Independence, Missouri, best known as the political base of a President who shares the first four letters of his surname with you-know-who. Yes, Harry Truman would be disgusted. 

It's bigger than Lafayette, Louisiana, the unofficial capital of Cajun Country in Louisiana.  I didn;t realize that that city was as large as it is.  

Peoria, Illinois? If you are old enough you remember the expression "It won't play in Peoria", referring to theatrical flops... need I say more?

About 20,000 more than the population of Green Bay, which is the smallest city to have one a major-league sports team (MLB, NFL, NBA, or NHL ) without being a suburb of a bigger city. (I'm not counting Inglewood , California;  the team isn't called the "Inglewood Lakers") -- but it has 100,000 + residents and is known for little else, aside from being a dump, as where the Los Angeles Lakers play their home games. COVID-19 of course surpassed Inglewood.

If you are wonder about such infamous dumps as Flint, Michigan and Gary, Indiana -- having crossed the 100,000 mark on the downside, they are no longer among America's most infamously-awful big cities. They are now among America's most infamous small cities.  

OK, I may get into some heat for calling some cities "dumps"... but for his incompetence and inattention, President Trump deserves far more heat for all the dead bodies associated with COVID-19.

It's all for perspective, folks. As Josef Stalin said, one death is a tragedy and a million is a statistic. 

Just imagine taking a Michigan map and finding that Ann Arbor or Lansing has disappeared. 

(I think I will cross-post this in "Obituaries". I think it fits there).

[Eric the Green]

Most new cases today:
Florida 8942
California 5619
Texas 5614
Arizona 3428
Georgia 1900
North Carolina 1695
Tennessee 1410
South Carolina 1313
Louisiana 1310
Ohio 1002

Where hospitalizations are increasing graph:
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/22/coronavi...texas.html

Texas has 3563 covid 19 patients in the hospital, 53% increase since last week. Hospitalizations are rising in 16 states.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/25/record-s...tates.html

Florida:
(where data is apparently being covered up, and/or hard to find)

The state’s positivity rate -- the rate of new cases compared to the number of tests given per day-- jumped above 10% Monday, a significant increase compared to the beginning of the month when it was as low as 4%, according to the DOH report.

While Florida hospital executives say they have plenty of hospital and ICU bed capacity to support the growing number of infections, hospitals in Central Florida have reported more hospitalizations in recent weeks.

Florida reported an additional 196 patients with COVID-19 in hospitals around the state Tuesday, bringing the number of people hospitalized in Florida because of the virus since March to 13,316.
https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/...new-cases/


https://tallahasseereports.com/2020/06/2...us-battle/

From https://www.sun-sentinel.com/coronavirus...story.html
As new COVID-19 cases in the state hit record highs daily, hospitalizations climb and intensive care beds fill, leaders are becoming increasingly anxious about whether the infection will overtax the local hospital system. But Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration isn’t showing Floridians all they know about how the virus is playing out in its hospitals.

South Florida hospitalizations for COVID-19 are now eclipsing the peaks reached in mid-April. Miami-Dade on Wednesday had 981 people hospitalized with the virus, surpassing an April 17 peak of 787. Broward County had 391 COVID patients in hospitals, nearing its peak of 413 on April 7. Palm Beach County, with 394 people hospitalized with the virus, has far exceeded a peak of 245 cases on April 20.

[Eric the Green]

Most new cases and deaths today in The World:
USA 47,341 663
Brazil 46,907 1055 (massively under-tested)
India 18,276 381
Russia 6800 176
South Africa 6215 48
Mexico 6104 736
Chile 4296 165
Saudi Arabia 3938 46
Bangladesh 3868 40
Colombia 3843 157
Peru 3762 178
Argentina 2886 34
Pakistan 2775 59
Iran 2628 109
Iraq 2054 122
Egypt 1625 87
France 1588 26
Turkey 1396 19
UK 1380 184
Indonesia 1240 63
Oman 1132 9
Ukraine 1109 19
Bolivia 1016 37
Philippines 1003 12
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

[Eric the Green]

(06-26-2020, 06:17 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: CNN writes that Trump's post-Covid bubble is popping

The happy talk strategy is turning into a disaster.

(CNN)America's single worst day of new coronavirus cases obliterated President Donald Trump's fantasyland vision of a post-Covid America -- even as he sowed new diversions in an effort to hide the reality of his leadership void in a deepening national crisis.

More than 37,000 new cases of Covid-19 were reported on Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The numbers superseded the previous darkest day of the pandemic, on April 24. The new data suggests that the sacrifices made by tens of millions of Americans who stayed at home, that cost many of them their jobs, might have been in vain. It also suggest that the aggressive state re-openings championed by Trump, who wants a quick economic reboot to boost his reelection hopes, exacerbated a situation that now seems close to tipping out of control across a swathe of southern states.

A total of 30 states are now reporting a rise in new daily cases of the novel coronavirus while others keep setting new records in each 24-hour period. And while the President lives in a bubble of his own obsessive political feuds and the embrace of conservative media that rarely dwells on the virus, the reality of a pandemic that may still be in its early (stages) is beginning to squeeze in on his world.

In a sign that the White House needs to get control of the worsening situation, Vice President Mike Pence will chair the first public briefing of the White House coronavirus task force on Friday in two months. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, told CNN's Jim Acosta on Friday that the task force is "seriously considering" pool testing for Covid-19 in an effort to better isolate hot spots.

But senior government public health officials have largely faded from the scene in recent weeks as Trump has tried to send a message that the US has "prevailed" over the virus and is reopening.

On Thursday alone, Texas -- the poster child for Trump's reopening strategy -- paused its transition to restoring normal life, alarmed by rising hospital admissions and a surge in new infections. Apple closed stores across Texas, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina to protect customers and workers from virus spikes. Dozens of Secret Service agents are now self-isolating after several of their colleagues were found to have the virus after traveling to the President's rally in Oklahoma over the weekend. https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/25/politics/...index.html

Multiple Trump campaign staffers have taken the same step, after eight of their co-workers tested positive in the latest sign that Trump's plans for a full resumption of campaign rallies are not only reckless but may prove logistically impossible.

Across the country, as California struggles through an awful time, Disneyland put back its plans to reopen, a symbolic illustration of the plight of an entire state -- and indeed a nation that has seen leisure and frivolity disappear amid the worst domestic crisis since the Second World War.

There are more signs that the rocket-like economic recovery that Trump has been projecting is not materializing either. Top White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Thursday that unemployment could dip below 10% by the end of the year, meaning that it would be still at an elevated level when Trump faces reelection in November. And US retail giant Macy's announced it would cut around 3,900 jobs as part of a restructuring effort amid an economic crisis that Trump's early denial about the pandemic and mismanagement of it when it arrived in the US may have exacerbated.


Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN

Updated 9:35 PM ET, Fri June 26, 2020

[pbrower2a]

CO(VID-19 is good for only one thing: grim humor.

[Bob Butler 54]

The two grim humorous cartoons seem to unify the two grand scale conflicts of the day.  One is the selfishness of putting one's right to not wear a mask, to ignore social distancing, as greater than one's concern for other's lives.  The other is tribal thinking, the idea of puffing up one's status by putting down other groups.

I don't see the virus a political force, but it does highlight those themes.

[Bob Butler 54]

A minor squabble about numbers.  The happy talk people have been saying only about 3% or 4% of counties are hot spots.  An AP fact check agreed that only a few counties are involved, but they are so populated that 20% of Americans reside in those few counties. 

Details...

[Eric the Green]

New coronavirus cases in USA June 29: 44734

Coronavirus new cases in US states June 29:

California 6896
Texas 6135
Florida 5266
Arizona 3079
Georgia 2207
Tennessee 2125
Alabama 1734
North Carolina 1537
South Carolina 1324

[Bob Butler 54]

The AP has Fauci saying the US is going in the wrong direction.  

No kidding?  For this we need a health expert?

Other news.  Dog bites man.

[David Horn]

(06-30-2020, 01:47 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: The AP has Fauci saying the US is going in the wrong direction.  

No kidding?  For this we need a health expert?

Other news.  Dog bites man.

For reasons too obscure to fathom, many Americans need to be mentored on this subject, and they've picked Fauci for the job.  He knows it's stupid.  I doubt he's doing this without more than a few eyerolls. 

[Bob Butler 54]

The AP has a lot of Republicans breaking with Trump's politicizing of masks.  With much of the South showing viral increases, they are supporting people depoliticizing masks and wearing them to save lives.

About time?  A first step in moving towards the scientific approach of pushing things that increase isolation?  With several former happy talk governors closing down again, is the recent surge in the south having it's effect?

[Bob Butler 54]

Rachel did a segment reviewing the virus status especially in the south, and ended with a brief summary. "If you are waiting to break glass in case of emergency, we are there."

[David Horn]

(06-30-2020, 07:26 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: The AP has a lot of Republicans breaking with Trump's politicizing of masks.  With much of the South showing viral increases, they are supporting people depoliticizing masks and wearing them to save lives.

About time?  A first step in moving towards the scientific approach of pushing things that increase isolation?  With several former happy talk governors closing down again, is the recent surge in the south having it's effect?

This is now in the cognitive dissonance phase, where facts tend to reinforce, not overcome, strongly held faulty views.  I was in the grocery store yesterday, and fully 50% of the patrons were maskless.  One guy, about my age, was wearing a TRUMP 2020 hat and a No Masks! tee shirt.  I avoided him like the plague.  There have actually been confrontations between the sane and the insane, and it's getting more not less common.

It's hard to know how this finally settles out.  Lifelong Republicans in the sane community are the ones most pressed to respond, and they are now getting the same treatment those of us on the left have gotten for decades.  They're stunned.

[Eric the Green]

In Silicon Valley where I live, everyone wears a mask.

Most new cases yesterday by state:

Texas 7959
California 7906
Florida 6093
Arizona 2228
Georgia 1874
South Carolina 1755
North Carolina 1663
Tennessee 1212
Louisiana 1042
Alabama 879

Top 10 new cases in California by county:

LA 2757 (most populous county in the USA)
Riverside 835 (The "Inland Empire" east of LA)
San Bernardino 753 (The "Inland Empire" east of LA + Death Valley)
Orange 630 (Anaheim, Santa Ana, south of LA)
San Joaquin 565 (Stockton, etc., the "Big Valley")
San Diego 317
Tulare 284 (San Joaquin valley)
Sacramento 219
Alameda 202 (Oakland)
Fresno 197 (San Joaquin valley)

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-01-2020, 08:13 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(06-30-2020, 07:26 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: The AP has a lot of Republicans breaking with Trump's politicizing of masks.  With much of the South showing viral increases, they are supporting people depoliticizing masks and wearing them to save lives.

About time?  A first step in moving towards the scientific approach of pushing things that increase isolation?  With several former happy talk governors closing down again, is the recent surge in the south having it's effect?

This is now in the cognitive dissonance phase, where facts tend to reinforce, not overcome, strongly held faulty views.  I was in the grocery store yesterday, and fully 50% of the patrons were maskless.  One guy, about my age, was wearing a TRUMP 2020 hat and a No Masks! tee shirt.  I avoided him like the plague.  There have actually been confrontations between the sane and the insane, and it's getting more not less common.

It's hard to know how this finally settles out.  Lifelong Republicans in the sane community are the ones most pressed to respond, and they are now getting the same treatment those of us on the left have gotten for decades.  They're stunned.

A big part of the Republican Unraveling mindset has been low taxes by small government by ignoring potential problems. This was possible as the problems have been so slow. If global warning or failing bridges was a problem, you could let them grow as they would not bite one in the rear for a while. The idea of solving a problem while it was less than critical was missing from their perspective.

I saw rather early that COVUS 19 was very different in its incubation rate. If you tried to ignore the problem instead of attacking it, it would kill. It was deadly in the short term. The sane people, as you call them, are beginning to acknowledge this, though it is not in their primary way of looking at the world. They have a culture of calling hoax or fake news whenever confronted with a problem, but that doesn’t work in this case. The currently less sane people will be forced with ever greater clarity to acknowledge this.

Once you admit that ignoring one problem doesn’t work, the principle may extend to other problems. That we will have to see.

[Bob Butler 54]

The AP has picked up a name for what the conservatives who skirt responsiblity for skirting isolation do.  "Knucklehead behavior."

Is this an example of or an exception to honest nonpartisan objective reporting?

[Ragnarök_62]

(07-01-2020, 01:21 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: In Silicon Valley where I live, everyone wears a mask.

Most new cases yesterday by state:

Texas 7959
California 7906
Florida 6093
Arizona 2228
Georgia 1874
South Carolina 1755
North Carolina 1663
Tennessee 1212
Louisiana 1042
Alabama 879

<snip>

Is anyone surprised by this?

It's part of this "it can't happen here" denial. I'm sure a lot of folks thought that New York got clobbered is because (it's got a high population, a blue state, it has a coast line, "weird" people live there, etc. )

It won't be long until Oklahoma becomes like Texas.
https://ktul.com/news/local/oklahoma-cor...tive-cases

Ya know?  Experience teaches a dear school, but fools learn in no other.   Here's looking at you, Gov. "Shitt".  It you watch the video, he only talks about the economy. Typical Rebug, all "individual responsibility"  and no thought about uh, what about folks who can't afford masks? How about folks gaslit by Repug messaging?   SQ 802 passed so he has to at least pay for medicaid expansion.  Gov. Shitt,  , dude, look at the tax breaks,  there's lots waste, fraud, and abuse there, a veritable gold mine of funding for lots of stuff right there.

[pbrower2a]

Dammit, there need be legal consequences for going without a mask -- tickets and fines. Maybe points as if for moving violations is one drove to where one is ticketed. Stay at home unless you have a mask to wear when you get there must mean that.