Tuesday, April 21, 2020

Self-isolation Day 35.


Last night I went to bed at 10:45, got up several times during the night, finally waking at 6am and getting up at 6:45.


Yesterday Trump adjusted downward his target for the number of deaths from the coronavirus. “Now we’re going towards 50, I’m hearing, or 60,000 people.  One is too many. I always say it: One is too many. But we’re going toward 50 or 60,000 people. That’s at the lower as you know, the lower number was supposed to be 100,000 people. We could end up at 50 to 60.”


On the morning news it appears Bogota is now allowing individual sports outside from 5am to 8am.  I’m guessing that’s mainly for early morning walkers and joggers.


About 7:45 we started getting a little light rain but it soon stopped.


Queen Elizabeth turned 94 today.


I found more details on President Duque’s speech last night:

Total Quarantine extended until May 11. Also, no bars, restaurants, discotheques, sporting events until May 31, with additional curfews and regulations, depending on the Department. No inter city flights or buses until until "crisis is over."  No international flights until "Crisis is over".

At yesterday’s White House briefing Trump said about testing, “We are moving very rapidly.  And we'll be doubling our number of daily tests if the governors bring their states fully online to the capability that they have. We have tremendous capability out there already existing. We have testing coming in two weeks that will blow the industry away.”

On March 6^th Trump, while touring the CDC in Atlanta said, “Anybody right now, and yesterday, right now that needs a test gets a test. They’re there. They have the test. The tests are beautiful. Anybody who needs a test gets a test.”

Maybe what he really meant is if you want a test you’ll have to wait until May.



Yesterday, US oil prices turned negative for the first time ever. In other words, demand was so low that traders were actually paying to have oil taken off their hands.



Per this morning’s Today show the total US coronavirus cases stands at 784,591 with 42,414 deaths.



Trump: “In light of the attack from the invisible enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our great American citizens, I will be signing an executive order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States.”



A prison in Marion, Ohio is now the largest source of coronavirus infections in the US with 1,937 people infected – almost ¾ of the prison population.



J.B. Pritzker, governor of Illinois, reports that models predict the coronavirus won’t peak until mid-May.  Over the past 24 hours Illinois has experienced 1,551 new cases and 119 additional deaths.



Some points from Garry Kasparov’s CNN op-ed today:

“Republicans are coming out against voting by mail in the 2020 presidential election because they see voter turnout as a threat. This is a battle that has gone on in state legislatures and courts for years, usually via baseless allegations of fraud. But an autocratic mentality would instead look at the direct method of shutting down or sabotaging the US Postal Service. Why not? An autocrat's only calculation is how it would impact his election chances, not who gets harmed in the process.

Trump claims that he always knew about the pandemic when in fact he spent weeks saying no one could have seen it coming. Well, which is it? Did Trump know and do almost nothing, or was he oblivious despite the experts' many warnings?

It also appears Trump is using crucial medical supplies and federal small business aid for political purposes. He is inciting a culture war that sounds almost like a civil war with unhinged tweets about "liberating" states under lockdown -- only ones with Democratic governors, of course.”



A bipartisan Senate report released Tuesday confirms the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusions that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election to sow chaos. Senators warned that it could happen again this presidential election year.



Per Salon, States have been forced to resort to smuggling shipments of personal protective equipment (PPE) after federal officials seized supplies ordered by hospitals without informing officials.

The seizures had already come under scrutiny from two other House committees after The New York Times reported that Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner had "surprised" FEMA officials by redirecting supplies. Kushner himself said during a White House coronavirus briefing that he had supplies delivered to New York after Trump got a call "from his friends" about the conditions in the city's hospitals.



The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Tuesday that a second wave of the novel coronavirus will be far more dire because it is likely to coincide with the start of flu season.



U.S. congressional leaders and the White House agreed on Tuesday on nearly $500 billion more in coronavirus relief for the U.S. economy, bringing to nearly $3 trillion the amount allocated to deal with the coronavirus crisis.

Pretty weird how there’s always a trillion dollars just lying around whenever corporations need to be bailed out but there’s never any money when children need healthcare or a simple school lunch.



I received an email from Envios Market that there is a package for me.  They will have a delivery man deliver it tomorrow.  I’m 99% sure it’s the Parcheesi game I ordered.



Per the evening news the number of coronavirus cases:

Colombia: 1,184 to 1,406 to 1,485 to 1,579 to 1,780 to 2,054 to 2,223 to 2,473 to 2,852 to 2,979 to 3,105 to 3,995 to 4,149.

Antioquia: 146 to 150 to 172 to 183 to 209 to 234 to 239 to 246 to 272 to 289 to 30x to 363 to 366.

Bogota (with the most cases): 587 to 695 to 725 to 779 to 861 to 992 to 1,029 to 1,121 to 1,205 to 1,242 to 1,291 to 1,682 to 1,752.

Deaths: A total of 46 to 50 to 55 to 69 to 80 to 112 to 127 to 131 to 189 to 196. 


Here is the breakdown by age.

Minors under 20: 45 to 57 to 69 to 75 to 77 to 85 to 97 to 115 to 128 to 153 to 178 to 190 to 202 to 314 to 333.

20-40 years of age: 399 to 477 to 550 to 610 to 643 to 673 to 750 to 854 to 905 to 1,009 to 1,146 to 1,187 to 1,240 to 1,620 to 1,696.

40-60 years of age: 304 to 355 to 428 to 473 to 507 to 541 to 617 to 709 to 766 to 836 to 968 to 1,013 to 1,046 to 1,296 to 1,345.

Older than 60: 158 to 176 to 220 to 248 to 258 to 280 to 316 to 376 to 424 to 475 to 560 to 589 to 617 to 747 to 775.


Per the Johns Hopkins website, 2,561,000+ cases worldwide with 823,000+ in the US.



And finally, a coronavirus joke:



The spread of coronavirus is based on two factors:

1.   How dense the population is.

2.   How dense the population is.