Wednesday, May 20, 2020

Self-isolation Day 64.


Last night I went to bed at 10:30, fell asleep quickly, got up once during the night, took quite a while to fall back asleep, woke up at 6:45 and got up at 7:30.



Ed Jones from Johns Hopkins speaking on contact tracing in Newsweek, “What I find very frustrating right now is that there’s a lot of appetite, particularly in Congress and at the federal level, to open things up and provide as much money as possible to help people who’ve lost their jobs and small businesses, which is absolutely important. But so far, we’re not willing to allocate a fraction of the amount of money that is being dedicated to economic issues to actual public health and managing this pandemic, without which we are going to be in big trouble.”

Yesterday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell testified (virtually) in front of the Senate Banking Committee to give an update on the economic response. Here's how things went:

• For Mnuchin: He said there could be "permanent damage" to our country if the shutdown continues for months. And he defended the Trump admin's plans to reopen the economy against accusations that this put workers' lives at risk, saying the admin provided "enormous amounts" of protective equipment.
• For Powell: He seemed to reiterate a call for Congress to pass more aid, implying that states and businesses still need a financial assist. And said that economic recovery depends on how well the virus is controlled and whether people feel safe to go back to work.

I watched the first hour of the Today show.


I left the apt at 10:15 and walked to the mall. At the entrance they checked my cedula, took my temperature, had me use hand sanitizer then let me enter. I went up to the 2^nd floor to Dollar City where I bought a package of muffin cups and a roll of baker’s parchment paper. (I know we have some that Joan gave us but Teresa doesn’t know where she put it.)


In Exito I picked up milk, eggs, vanilla extract, and a jar of pasta sauce and took a taxi back to the apt. I was back by 11am.


On the afternoon news I learned that Brazil is now up to 1,000 deaths a day.


Teresa returned at 1pm with menus of the day from Asados Rogelio. She informed me that Parva was open but I’m pretty sure just for take out and deliveries.


I took a nap from 2-3pm.


I finally beat Teresa 3 out of 5 games of parcheesi.



COVID-19 Quarantine Update (from US embassy):  President Duque has extended isolation measures in Colombia to May 31, with the Health Emergency extended to August 31.

President Duque has called for a gradual resumption of activity during the months of June, July, and August:   
 

·        Beginning June 1: 

·        Retail, hairdressers, housekeeping, libraries, museums and non-COVID-related medical services will begin reopening, and 

·        Children age five and under will be permitted outside with restrictions. 

·        Through June 30: 

·        People over the age of 70 will remain under quarantine restrictions, but with some flexibility to be announced by the Ministry of Health,

·        Borders will remain closed,  

·        Intercity transport will remain prohibited, and 

·        All domestic flights will remain suspended. 

·        Through July 31:

·        Schools will remain virtual only; beginning in August they will start to partially reopen, combining physical attendance in schools with some work time at home, and 

·        Encouragement of telework, closure of bars, discos, and casinos, prohibition of public events, and the status of public parks, pools, gyms, and spas remain unchanged. 

·        Through August 31: 

·        Per the Minister of Transport, international flights remain suspended, and 

·        The Health Emergency allows the Government of Colombia, in coordination with medical and institutional leaders, to make decisions to protect citizens from COVID-19 as the situation evolves. 

Former Vice President Joe Biden leads President Donald Trump by 11 points in a new national poll of registered voters focused on November's presidential election. The survey from Quinnipiac University shows Biden with 50% to Trump's 39%, up from the 49% to 41% lead Biden held in an April 8 poll by the same university. The survey noted that more than two months into the coronavirus crisis in the U.S., Trump's job approval rating is ticking lower. In an average of national polls from RealClearPolitics, Biden leads Trump by 5.6 points. 

The economy has gone from President Donald Trump's greatest political asset to perhaps his biggest weakness.

Unemployment is spiking at an unprecedented rate. Consumer spending is vanishing. And GDP is collapsing. History shows that dreadful economic trends like these spell doom for sitting presidents seeking reelection.

On Tuesday, both the pro- and anti-choice world were rocked by a revelation that undermines literal decades of religious right nonsense. Norma McCorvey, the "Jane Roe" of the Supreme Court case that legalized abortion nationwide in 1973, claimed before her 2017 death that her famous "conversion" to anti-abortion activism was a con job.

McCorvey told filmmaker Nick Sweeney during the taping of his new FX documentary, "AKA Jane Roe," "I took their money, and they took me out in front of the cameras and told me what to say."

Donald Trump congratulated Tiffany Trump for graduating Georgetown Law School this week.  He also said “Just what I need is a lawyer in the family.” Today other members of the Trump family were named in a lawsuit for alleged charity fraud.



A sweeping study published this week showed that most elderly patients with covid-19 do not survive after being placed on a ventilator. The results were consistent with what health experts saw in Europe and China, but it still surprised the study's senior author. “We had no idea how horrific this would be,” he said. “Definitely not just the flu.” Advanced age is the greatest risk for a severe outcome from the coronavirus.



Will Johnson put $125 into my Paypal account for my work in trying to find his girlfriend Margarita.

Joe Scarborough in the Washington Post, “I believe in American exceptionalism. That’s what makes this crisis so hard to accept.

The most damning element of Trump’s deadly response may well be his stubborn refusal to marshal the resources of the U.S. government, in the face of a once-in-a-century challenge, to create a Manhattan Project for our time. Instead, the befuddled former reality-TV host chooses to spend his time spinning wild conspiracy theories and continuing his sad obsession with former president Barack Obama.

The U.S. death toll is now rising toward 100,000 lost souls, but the only thing exceptional about this American president’s management of this crisis has been his gross negligence that has allowed so many people to die in a country that remains home to the best and brightest innovators the world has ever known.”

To mitigate the risk of spread that comes with in-person voting, Michigan and Nevada plan to use absentee and mail-in ballots in coming elections. President Trump on Wednesday threatened to withhold funding from those states because of their plans.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) told Trump directly that he would be committing a federal crime by withholding funds to interfere with the right to vote.

Mr. President, it is a federal crime to withhold money from states with the purpose of interfering with people’s right to vote. So, you may want to talk with your lawyer Bill Barr about that and that would be my advice for the president. But, you know … it clearly he has done this because, one, he is always in the business of attempting to intimidate and using his tweets as the method by which he does that. But it’s clear he’s worried about whether he’s going win this election.

So it is an attempt to suppress the vote, which is an attempt to have these states not send these applications for vote by mail so that people will not get those applications to vote by mail and then not vote by mail. And, again, this is another example of Donald Trump being complicit with an attempt or even purposely attempting to suppress the vote in an election.

Medellin Mayor Daniel Quintero announced today that shopping centers in Medellin gradually will reopen starting June 1.



The CDC finally released its full, 60-page guidance on how to safely reopen.

On Tuesday, President Trump, who has maintained friendly ties with Bolsonaro, a fellow populist, said he was considering banning travel from Brazil.

“Brazil is having some trouble, no question about it,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “I don’t want people coming in here and infecting our people.” He’s considering it? WTF! You mean infected people are still entering the US? Why hasn’t he closed the borders? Or is it only the Chinese he wants to keep out?

And a Trump replay from February 4^th: In his State of the Union address, Trump pledged to “take all necessary steps” to protect Americans from the coronavirus. (Yeah, like that’s gone so well. See the following…)

The US has 1,512,153 ð 1,535,011 ð 1,547,311 coronavirus cases with 90,139 ð 91,837 ð 92,617 deaths.

Per Medellin Guru, as of this afternoon Colombia has a total of 16,295 ð 16,935  ð 17,687 cases with 630 deaths.  Medellin has 350 ð 356 ð 369 cases, an increase of 13 from May 18^th to 19^th. Looking at the 6-day averages provided by Medellin Guru it looks like Colombia’s curve is flattening.



Joke of the day

A man bought a lie detector robot. Every time the robot detects a lie, it slaps the liar. He decided to test it at dinner on his son, who he suspected of often lying to him.

DAD: Son where were you today during school hours?

SON: At school (robot slaps son) ouch! Okay I went to the movies!

DAD: Which one?

SON: Harry Potter (robot slaps son again). Ow! Okay, jeez - I was watching an adult movie, okay?

DAD: What?? When I was your age I didn’t even know those existed! (robot slaps Dad)

MOM: Hahaha! He is your son after all! 

The Robot slaps the mother.