Saturday, April 11, 2020

Self-isolation Day 25.


Last night I went to bed at 10:45, fell asleep quickly, got up twice during the night, woke up at 6:30 and got up at 7:15.


One of my readers got his shorts in a twist due to a typo I made last night when I wrote 100,000 deaths instead of 10,000.  My brother contacted me first thing in the morning to point out my error.  Yes, I know zeros (especially as place makers) can be important.  Mea culpa.  I changed it right away.


Btw, the US coronavirus death toll eclipsed any other country with 18,860.  Not something I’m proud of, just trying to report the facts.


Per the U.S. News & World Report, Colombia is perceived to be the most corrupt country in the world.


A remote Amazonian tribe records their first coronavirus case.


Per CNN, “Trump administration shuttered pandemic monitoring program, then scrambled to extend it.”


On Saturday’s edition of MSNBC’s “AM Joy,” Joy Reid asked Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, “Congressman, can you please respond to the reporting that we’re now getting that the Trump administration had warnings about this potential for not just an outbreak but this outbreak, going all the way back at least to November?”


“Yeah, I mean, not only was it in the news by that point, it had started to be in the news, but you know, I’m on the Intelligence Committee so it’s hard to speak about those classified briefings. But I will say that, based on everything that I’ve seen, they should have known exactly what was going on, should have prepared better for it and should have established the infrastructure early on to deal with it. The president didn’t do any of that and here we are now.”


Teresa watched some of the Easter services broadcast live from Rome, Italy.  Interestingly, the Pope seemed to pray like I have at times with my head down against my chest.  Teresa herself brought up the fact that it looked like he was sleeping but she considered it was cute.  Well, he is 84-years-old.


The United States has more confirmed covid-19 deaths than any other nation, with nearly 19,000 fatal cases, including more than 2,000 reported on Friday alone. The country also accounts for nearly 30 percent of the world's known infections: about 500,000 out of more than 1.7 million, although all these figures are probably too low due to a general scarcity of coronavirus testing and suspect reports from such countries as China.


President Trump issued a major disaster declaration for Wyoming on Saturday, meaning that there is now such a declaration within all 50 states due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


Confirmed cases of the coronavirus reached at least 519,453 as of Saturday afternoon. At least 20,071 people have died in the U.S. due to the disease, a death toll surpassing the one in hard-hit Italy -- and a figure that has doubled, from 10,000 to more than 20,000, in just five days. Worldwide, confirmed cases have surpassed 1.75 million, and more than 100,000 people have died.


Trump threatened to veto the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security, or Cares, Act if the legislation contained any money to directly bail out the postal agency, according to a senior Trump Administration official and a congressional official.


Per Wall Street Journal: Governors across the country are fuming as Trump sent each state 15 rapid coronavirus test machines, but only 100 test cartridges.


For some good news, Revisions to the pandemic model developed by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington suggested that the country would ultimately need fewer beds, fewer ICU beds, fewer ventilators and doctors and nurses and PPE — in short, fewer hospital resources of all kinds than was expected. More strikingly, it revised its most recent estimates for the ultimate coronavirus death toll downward from 93,531 to 60,415.


We watched the 7pm news tonight like always but for some reason they didn’t have the coronavirus statistics.  Maybe they take the weekends off?


Joke of the day

If I got a dollar for every time I think about you I’d probably start thinking about you.