Thursday, May 28, 2020

Self-isolation Day 72.


Last night I went to bed at 10:45, got up once about 4am (it was raining hard), finally waking at 7am and getting up at 7:30.


We’ve already had a few sprinkles this morning.



NBC: “In at least a dozen states, health departments have inflated testing numbers or deflated death tallies by changing criteria for who counts as a coronavirus victim and what counts as a coronavirus test, according to reporting from POLITICO, other news outlets and the states' own admissions. Some states have shifted the metrics for a “safe” reopening; Arizona sought to clamp down on bad news at one point by simply shuttering its pandemic modeling. About a third of the states aren’t even reporting hospital admission data — a big red flag for the resurgence of the virus.”



In one cruise-ship coronavirus outbreak, more than 80% of people who tested positive for COVID-19 did not show any symptoms of the disease, according to a new paper published in the journal Thorax. The research shows just how prevalent asymptomatic transmission of COVID-19 may be - a reality that both suggests official case counts are drastic underestimates, and emphasizes the importance of practicing social distancing even if you feel healthy.

Coronavirus will surge again when summer ends; infectious disease experts are almost certain of that. But they don't know how severe that resurgence will be.

The World Health Organization offered one bleak hypothesis for what the next few months of coronavirus could look like. While we're still living through the first wave of the pandemic, and cases are still rising, infections could jump up suddenly and significantly "at any time."

"We may get a second peak in this way," said Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO's Health Emergencies Programme on Monday.

A second peak wouldn't unfold as neatly or gradually as a wave. A new peak would mean a sudden spike in cases, which could overburden health care systems again and possibly cause a greater number of deaths. The second peak could be worse than the first.

Trump continues to claim broad powers he doesn't have. Threatening to shut down Twitter for flagging false content. Claiming he can “override" governors who dare to keep churches closed to congregants. Asserting the “absolute authority” to force states to reopen, even when local leaders say it's too soon.

A shift to mail voting is increasing the chances that Americans will not know the winner of November’s presidential race on election night, a scenario that is fueling worries about whether President Donald Trump will use the delay to sow doubts about the results.

State election officials in some key battleground states have recently warned that it may take days to count what they expect will be a surge of ballots sent by mail out of concern for safety amid the pandemic. In an election as close as 2016's, a delayed tally in key states could keep news organizations from calling a winner.

“It may be several days before we know the outcome of the election,” Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s Democratic secretary of state, said in an interview. “We have to prepare for that now and accept that reality.”

The United States is approaching 100,000 confirmed COVID-19 deaths, which is by far the most of any nation and more than one-quarter of all confirmed global deaths from the disease. As steep as the U.S. death toll is, it is likely underreported, and the actual COVID-19 death toll is estimated to be much higher.

To assess the impact the pandemic has had so far on mortality nationwide, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report on the number of excess deaths nationwide and in each state. The report compares the observed numbers of deaths each week this year to the numbers of expected deaths for that week based on historical trends. Nationwide, 88,400 more Americans than expected died from March 1, 2020, through May 9 -- about 12,100 more than the COVID-19 reported death toll during that period.

The medical community has several plausible explanations for this discrepancy, including under testing, the failure to attribute some home deaths to COVID-19, and misdiagnosis of COVID-19 as other respiratory diseases such as pneumonia and the flu. It is also likely that in the hardest-hit states more Americans than expected are dying from other causes. The additional stresses on the population, the medical system, and the economy caused by the pandemic are likely also contributing to higher than expected deaths from non-COVID-19 causes. 

Trump expected to sign executive order that could threaten punishment against Facebook, Google and Twitter over allegations of political bias.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey reaffirmed the company's commitment to fact check information related to elections despite a fierce reaction from the Trump administration over a pair of Donald Trump's tweets that were flagged as misleading on the platform. 

Zuckerberg told Fox News anchor Dana Perino that Facebook and other social media companies should avoid policing content on their platforms. His remarks came shortly after Trump threatened to take “big action” against Twitter after the platform added fact checks to two of his recent tweets.



President Donald Trump on Wednesday evening promoted a video from the Cowboys for Trump Twitter account which began with the line, “I’ve come to the conclusion that the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.”

In recent weeks, Democrats have been highly critical of President Donald Trump's decision to fire several inspectors general from their positions — asserting that Trump, true to form, is showing his contempt for checks and balances. Many Republicans on Capitol Hill, meanwhile, have remained silent and are obviously fearful of saying or doing anything that might offend the president. But one Republican who is speaking out about the IGs is Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley.

The 86-year-old Iowa Republican, CBS News' Kathryn Watson reports, is demanding the Trump White House offer additional explanation for the president's decision to fire the inspectors general — who worked for federal government agencies ranging from the Department of Health and Human Services to the State Department to the Department of Transportation.

According to a mortality analysis by Johns Hopkins University's Coronavirus Resource Center, about 6% of the nearly 1.7 million people who have tested positive for the coronavirus in the U.S. have succumbed to the disease.



Federal Election Commission commissioner Ellen Weintraub posted an extensive fact-checking thread to Twitter late Wednesday debunking claims by President Trump and some Republicans that mail-in voting can lead to fraud.



We got a little rain in the afternoon.



Teresa beat me in parcheesi today 4 games to 3.



I shared with Teresa my plan for tomorrow: breakfast, 30 minutes of the Today show, then out for a 30-minute walk. She explained to me that I can only do that starting Monday (June 1^st).



Americans have filed more than 40 million jobless claims in past 10 weeks, as another 2.1 million filed for benefits last week.



A postcard mailer that went out to nearly all adult American citizens simply to highlight impeached President Donald Trump’s role in the stimulus check program cost the government (actually, we the people) $28 million.



As president Trump downplayed the coronavirus in early 2020, some of his administration’s own CDC experts were sounding the alarm with details that proved prescient. Dr. Nancy Messonnier publicly warned in February (2/25/20 CDC Media Telebriefing) of a coming “significant disruption” to daily life, including the prospect of “schools or daycare” closing, more “teleworking” and “missed work and loss of income.” The CDC expert noted that while the warning may sound “severe” the key was that the government and citizens “start thinking” about immediate preparation. In this special report, MSNBC’s Ari Melber documents how Messonier – and other experts in and outside of government – were ignored, sidelined and even faced alleged retaliation by the Trump Administration for getting it right. This is an excerpt from a longer special report about the cornonavirus response.

http://www.msnbc.com/the-beat-with-ari/watch/see-the-chilling-virus-warnings-trump-ignored-before-pandemic-outbreak-83998277774



Another Trump replay from February 26^th: “This is like a flu.  This is like a flu.  It’s a little like the regular flu that we have flu shots for.  And we’ll essentially have a flu shot for this in a fairly quick manner…Fifteen, within a couple of days, is going to be down to zero.”

The US has 1,685,821 ð 1,707,329 ð 1,726,613 coronavirus cases with 98,826  ð 100,418 ð 101,502 deaths.

Per Medellin Guru, as of this afternoon Colombia has a total of 23,003 ð 24,104 ð 25,366 cases with 822 deaths.  Medellin has 447 ð 487 ð 508 cases, an increase of 21 from May 27^th to 28^th. Looking at the 6-day averages Colombia’s curve is still accelerating.



Joke of the day

Yelp is a fun game where you try to guess whether a restaurant is bad or a reviewer is crazy.