Monday, June 29, 2020

Self-isolation Day 104.

Last night I went to bed at 10:45, fell asleep quickly, got up twice during the night, finally waking/getting up at 8am.

Today is another holiday – San Pedro y San Pablo (Feasts of Saint Peter and Paul).

Last night I played 4 games on Chess.com, sadly losing all 4. My rating is now 1326.

Teresa left just after 9am to take her mother out for a walk so they can both get some vitamin D.

I left at 9:30, walked up calle 30 (everything’s closed) to Avenida Poblado, across the street to Aymará, across the street to San Marcos church, up a couple back streets and through the “bat” park, south a couple blocks then down the hill to Avenida Las Vegas, north to the gas station, and back to the apt by 10am.

This morning my back was a little stiff and sore but at least not painful. On the way, in the gas station, I saw 2 policemen on a motorcycle for the first time in what seems like weeks. Where have they all gone? Fighting the virus? Laid off?

 

Teresa beat me in parcheesi 6 games to 2.

 

About 4:30 a strong wind kicked up. Being in a valley this is something rare. About 5pm it started raining but it didn’t last long either.

 

Vice President Pence on Sunday implored Americans to wear face masks, practice social distancing and stay away from senior citizens to protect them amid a new spike in coronavirus infections as the United States surpassed 2.5 million confirmed cases. (Wow, talk about late to the party. Btw, where does our impeached president stand on this issue?)

 

Appearing on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” longtime political columnist David Ignatius said that his own follow-up on the New York Times’ explosive report that Donald Trump’s administration was well aware that the Russians were offering a bounty for the death of U.S. military members revealed that Pentagon officials have been “pounding on the door” and trying to get Donald Trump to do something about it.

 

Former Trump FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb on Monday warned that COVID-19 infections in the United States are accelerating at an alarming rate that could see as much as half the population infected with the disease by the end of the year.

 

Houston Methodist CEO Dr. Marc Boom told CNBC on Monday that Texas’ spike in coronavirus cases is impacting a greater number of people under 50 than earlier in the pandemic. “We are definitely seeing this affect young people, and they’re getting quite ill,” he said on “Squawk Box.” About 60% of the Covid-19 patients at Houston Methodist’s hospitals are under the age of 50, Boom said. 

 

Florida is reporting an unprecedented number of Covid-19 cases, but Governor Ron DeSantis has pointed to the relatively low median age of the sick -- 36 -- to suggest that the outbreak isn’t having serious clinical consequences. But now, record numbers of Floridians 75 and older are testing positive for Covid-19, according the latest report from Sunday, which reflects data through Saturday.

In a phone interview, Dr. Dermot Phelan, cardiologist and Director of the Sports Cardiology Center at Atrium Health's Sanger Heart & Vascular Institute, explained how COVID-19 affects the heart and why athletes who have had mild symptoms will need cardiac testing before being approved to return to play.

 

 

More than a half-million people have now died from COVID-19 worldwide, and the death toll has doubled in just over seven weeks.

That grim milestone – marked Sunday by Johns Hopkins University – is particularly unsettling given warnings by health experts that the pandemic is still in its infancy. The U.S. with more than 125,000 deaths makes up approximately 25% of the total fatalities. 

 

 

Dr. Anthony Fauci says he would "settle" for a Covid-19 vaccine that's 70% to 75% effective, but that this incomplete protection, coupled with the fact that many Americans say they won't get a coronavirus vaccine, makes it "unlikely" that the US will achieve sufficient levels of immunity to quell the outbreak.

 

 

Tonight El Presidente said that Colombia will not be having a strict quarantine. (Personally, I think that means we’re F***Ked.)

 

A Trump replay from April 3^rd “It’s going away and it is going away.”

 

The US has 2,509,464 ð 2,562,925 ð 2,599,047 coronavirus cases with 125,344 ð 125,804 ð 126,105 deaths. (Total cases in the US are still increasing.)

Per Medellin Guru, as of this afternoon Colombia has a total of 88,591 ð 91,769 ð 95,043 cases with 3,223 deaths.  Medellin has 1,756 ð 1,885 ð 1,958 cases, an increase of 73 from June 28^th to June 29^th. Colombia’s rolling 6-day average of new cases has take a slight decrease in new cases, Medellin included. Envigado has a total of 84 cases, an increase of 5 from June 27^th to June 29^th.

 

Joke of the day

According to the Knight-Rider News Service, the inscription on the metal bands used by the U.S. Department of the Interior to tag migratory birds has been changed.

The bands used to bear the address of the Washington Biological Survey, abbreviated, "Wash. Biol. Surv.".

Until the agency received the following letter from an Arkansas camper:

"Dear Sirs: While camping last week I shot one of your birds. I think it was a crow. I followed the cooking instructions on the leg tag and I want to tell you it was horrible."

Sunday, June 28, 2020

Self-isolation Day 103.

Last night I went to bed at 10:30, got up once during the night, again at 4:30, gave up falling back asleep and got up at 5am. After breakfast and working on my computer a bit, I went back to bed at 6:30 and slept until 8.

It’s obvious we got some rain during the night. Only 66 degrees at 8:15.

Teresa got up at 5:30 and must have left just after 6:30 to go walk with a friend. Apparently, her blood test showed her vitamin D is low so she wants to get more sun. (So far all the sun is behind clouds but that probably won’t inhibit the transmission of vitamin D.)

Glenn sent me an El Colombiano newspaper article that stated that 5 Envigado restaurants will be opening on a trial basis. One is Black Pepper, hopefully the La Buena Mesa location 5 minutes from my apt.

I left the apt at 9:30 and walked to Aymará where I found Glenn waiting for me. The benches were all wet, the sky was still dripping so we sat on concrete borders. We chatted about a lot of things, finally leaving about 11:30. We walked to the mall and he went on to buy some drinking glasses and I made an ATM withdrawal, bought some cereal and took a taxi back to the apt arriving just after noon.

Per Medellin Guru, 16 restaurants in the Aburra Valley will be opening on a pilot basis July 1^st for table service. One of these is Black Pepper Steakhouse on Calle La Buena Mesa in Envigado.

 

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar warned on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday that the "window is closing" for the U.S. to take action and get the coronavirus under control, calling the current state of the outbreak a "very, very serious situation."

 

Teresa beat me in parcheesi 8 games to 6.

A huge dust cloud has traveled thousands of miles from the Saharan Desert in northern Africa to the Gulf Coast.

 

Republican governors in Florida, Arizona and Texas followed Trump’s lead by quickly reopening their states while taking a lax approach to social distancing and mask-wearing. Now each of them is seeing skyrocketing coronavirus caseloads and rising hospitalizations, and Republican leaders are in retreat.

 

If I understood the evening news correctly, Bogota is returning to quarantining because they are running out of ICU beds.

A Trump replay from March 31^st: Coronavirus task force briefing: “I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead.”  Trump says he anticipates the epidemic will be the “the worst thing the country has probably ever seen.”

The US has 2,478,695  ð 2,509,464 ð 2,562,925 coronavirus cases with 124,966 ð 125,344 ð 125,804 deaths. (Total cases in the US are still increasing.)

Per Medellin Guru, as of this afternoon Colombia has a total of 84,442  ð 88,591  ð 91,769 cases with 3,106 deaths.  Medellin has 1,624 ð 1,756 ð 1,885 cases, an increase of 127 from June 27^th to June 28^th. Colombia’s rolling 6-day average of new cases is still increasing, Medellin included. Envigado has a total of 79 cases, an increase of 3 from June 26^th to June 27^th.

 

Joke of the day

A young virgin couple is finally wed.

Each one is nervous about the impending night, but neither is willing to admit it or ask each other about it.

Wondering what to do first, the young man calls his father.

"Pop, what do I do first?"

"Get naked and climb into bed," his father replies.

So, the young man does as he is advised. The girl is mortified and calls her mama.

"Get naked and join him," is the advice from mama, so she complies.

After laying there for a few moments, the young man excuses himself and calls his dad again.

"Now what do I do?" he asks.

His father replies, "Look at her naked body. Then, take the hardest part of your body and put it where she urinates!" is the dad's advice.

A few moments later, the girl again calls her mama. "What do I do now?" she asks.

"Well, what is he doing?" mama asks.

"He's in the bathroom, dunking his head in the toilet!"

Saturday, June 27, 2020

Self-isolation Day 102.

Last night I went to bed at 10:30, took awhile to fall asleep, got up twice during the night finally waking/getting up at 7:15.

Last night I played 5 games of chess on Chess.com, winning 3 and losing 2. My new rating is 1358.

Teresa wanted to order some packages of arepas. She asked me how many – 4 or 6? I asked her what happened to 5 so she ordered 5.

I tried watching the series Salvation (7.0) on Netflix but gave up after 8 episodes of season 1. It was just too slow. I tried watching the series Travelers (8.1) on Netflix but gave up after a couple episodes.

 

Wilson came over to deliver some arepas de chocolo and I showed him how our bedroom window isn’t aligned. It wasn’t easy but he finally forced it into the correct track.

 

Trump said on Wednesday that Biden “is going to be president because some people don’t love me.” For once, he’s probably right.

 

Tyson Foods announced Friday that 371 employees at its chicken plant in Noel, Missouri had tested positive for COVID-19.

 

The number of new confirmed cases of the coronavirus illness COVID-19 set another fresh record in the U.S. on Friday, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University, sending state officials scrambling to revisit reopening plans.

The U.S. recorded more than 45,000 new infections and at least six states recorded their highest one-day totals, a New York Times tracker shows, namely Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Oregon, South Carolina and Utah. A full 30 states are showing increasing case numbers over a 14-day period, according to the Times tracker.

Florida has continued its morbid streak of breaking coronavirus records — reporting 9,585 new cases of COVID-19 Saturday, the state’s Department of Health confirmed. Saturday’s tally surpassed Friday’s record-breaking 8,942 cases and brings the Sunshine State’s total of confirmed cases to 132,525, according to the Miami Herald.

 

Trump, during a Fox News "town hall" with Sean Hannity on Thursday night, tore into Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit and Oakland. "[You] look at Honduras, Guatemala, all of these different places, we have cities that are worse -- in some cases far worse," Trump said. "Take a look at Detroit, take a look at what’s happening in Oakland, take a look at what’s happening in Baltimore. ... These cities, it’s like living in hell. Chicago is an example. It is worse than Afghanistan,” Trump told Hannity.

Mayor Libby Schaaf, a Democrat who has led Oakland since 2015, took to Twitter to respond to Trump's harsh criticism. "Hell is another four years of this racist in the White House," Schaaf tweeted, encouraging people to vote.

Contrast Trump’s comment with Trump Hotels description of Chicago “With nationally acclaimed restaurants on every corner, world-class shopping along Magnificent Mile, award-winning shows, renowned history and cultural museums, and even sandy beaches, Chicago has something to offer everyone.”

 

Sean Hannity on May 20: "Florida got it right, Texas got it right (about reopening) ... the mob and the media, by the way, you owe Governor DeSantis a huge apology". (Uh, no, it’s pretty obvious now to everyone they didn’t get it right.)

 

The co-founder of a Maryland group that protested the state's 

stay-at-home order and has pressured Republican Gov. Larry 

Hogan to ease restrictions amid the ongoing coronavirus 

pandemic says he has tested positive for Covid-19.

A COVID-19 outbreak that started at Harper’s New Pub in East Lansing, Michigan has now spread across the state according to health officials. Ingham County Health Officer Linda S. Vail told CNN that at least 85 people have contracted the virus stemming back from the bar’s re-opening the week of June 12-20.

 

The deadly pandemic is surging in the United States. Efforts to stop the spread have largely failed, with more Americans than ever becoming infected every day. In the face of the growing calamity, POTUS announced via Twitter he has taken decisive action -- to protect statues.

 

Teresa beat me today in parcheesi 5 games to 4.

 

A Trump replay from March 31^st: “It is going to go away, hopefully at the end of the month, if not, hopefully it will be soon after that. It is going away.”

The US has 2,426,751 ð 2,478,695  ð 2,509,464 coronavirus cases with 122,456 ð 124,966 ð 125,344 deaths. (Total cases in the US had flattened for some time but now are increasing again.)

Per Medellin Guru, as of this afternoon Colombia has a total of 77,113 ð 80,599 ð 84,442 88,591 cases with 2,939 deaths.  Medellin has 1,504 ð 1,624 ð 1,756 cases, an increase of 132 from June 26^th to June 27^th. Colombia’s rolling 6-day average of new cases is still accelerating, Medellin included. Envigado has a total of 79 cases, an increase of 3 from June 26^th to June 27^th.

Friday, June 26, 2020

Self-isolation Day 101.

Last night I went to bed at 10:30, fell asleep quickly, was awakened by Teresa’s light snoring at 4:45 so I took the opportunity to make a trip to the bathroom, finally waking/getting up at 6:45.

Last night I played 5 games on Chess.com, winning 3 and losing 2, with a new rating of 1347.

Supposedly someone will come to the apt next Tuesday to hook up the water line for the refrigerator.

Teresa just talked to someone and now it will be next Wednesday.

 

COVID-19. On May 1, Texas became one of the first states to begin easing restrictions and reopening its economy. Now, the second-most populous state in the country is seeing a "massive outbreak" in coronavirus cases, with over 50,000 active infections. In Houston, at least one hospital has already run out of ICU beds. And now, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) is putting the state's phased reopening on the backburner.

 

Yesterday, a government watchdog said the IRS sent $1.4 billion worth of checks to people who filed taxes in 2018 and 2019 but later passed away. And that while the IRS has access to official death records, the Treasury Department – which distributed the checks – doesn't. Treasury officials said this happened because they were working to get the money out "as rapidly as possible."

 

Last night, the Trump admin asked the Supreme Court to overturn the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In 2017, Congress ended the financial penalty for not buying insurance, known as the individual mandate. Now Trump admin officials are saying the rest of the ACA "must fall" with the mandate. If the justices agree, the move could affect the health care coverage of an estimated 23 million Americans. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) criticized the admin's move for coming in the "middle of the coronavirus crisis." SCOTUS has previously ruled on two challenges to the act, leaving most of the law in place.

 

Yesterday, Fox News’ Sean Hannity asked Trump: “If you hear in 131 days from now, at some point in the night or early morning: ‘We can now project Donald J. Trump has been re-elected the 45th president of the United States’—let’s talk. What’s at stake in this election as you compare and contrast, and what is one of your top priority items for a second term?”

Out of all the problems that America faces which would the president choose? Medical care? Defeating the coronavirus? Saving Social Security? Improving infrastructure?

“Well, one of the things that will be really great, you know, the word experience is still good,” Trump said while turning to the audience. “I always say talent is more important than experience. I’ve always said that. But the word experience is a very important word. It’s an, a very important meaning. I never did this before. I never slept over in Washington. I was in Washington, I think, 17 times. All of a sudden, I’m president of the United States. You know the story. I’m riding down Pennsylvania Avenue with our first lady and I say, ‘This is great,'” Trump said. “But I didn’t know very many people in Washington, it wasn’t my thing. I was from Manhattan, from New York. Now, I know everybody, and I have great people in the administration.”

 

JPMorgan analyzed data from 30 million Chase cardholders and Johns Hopkins University’s case tracker and found that higher restaurant spending in a state predicted a rise in new infections there three weeks later. In-person restaurant spending was “particularly predictive.” Conversely, higher spending at supermarkets predicted a slower spread of the virus.

In the span of 24 hours this week, the president accused his predecessor of treason, accused Democrats of rigging the election, called his former national security adviser "a lowlife who should be in jail," said we'd have fewer COVID cases if we had fewer tests, posted a racist video, and misspelled "history" and "shame." 

 

George Nader, who was a key witness in the Russia investigation and informally advised President Donald Trump's team on foreign policy, was sentenced on Friday to 10 years in prison by a federal judge in Virginia, stemming from his convictions on child sex charges.

 

Vice President Mike Pence hosted the first White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing in nearly two months on Friday. The Vice President urged Americans to “pray,” four times during his remarks, while not even mentioning the life-saving importance of wearing masks even once.

 

When asked why Trump is holding rallies during the pandemic Pence said, “Well, the freedom of speech, the right to peaceably assembly enshrined in the Constitution of the United States, and we have an election coming up this fall, and President Trump and I believe that taking proper steps as we created screening at repeat events and giving people the very best council that we have. We still want to give people the freedom to participate in the political process, and we respect that.”

“If we don’t extinguish the outbreak, sooner or later, even ones that are doing well are going to be vulnerable to the spread,” Dr. Fauci warns. “So we need to take that into account because we are all in it together. And the only way we’re going to end it is by ending it together.”

 

Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.) discusses the importance of wearing masks and social distancing and the role national leadership plays in enforcing that on citizens.

 

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) on Friday openly pleaded with White House officials to stage an intervention with President Donald Trump and make clear to him that he is going to lose badly unless he changes course.

Writing on Twitter, Grassley urged White House officials to make Trump read a Wall Street Journal editorial that warned the president is on track to face a “historic repudiation” at the ballot box.

 

A U.S. District Court judge in Washington has ordered that Roger Stone, a longtime friend and adviser to President Donald Trump, must report to prison by July 14.

 

The virus that ravaged Northeastern U.S. cities is surging through Southern and Western states. It’s different this time.

Younger people are getting sick with Covid-19. States that had brief coronavirus lockdowns are struggling to encourage social distancing and mask-wearing. Many people appear to have embraced their usual summer rituals. Health officials are sounding alarms about a surge in cases racing not through nursing homes, but bars and house parties. Hospitals are filling with medically-vulnerable elderly—but also 20-somethings and patients in their 30s and 40s.

At 6:30 Teresa called her friend Gloria and ordered 3 slices of pizza for us to share.

We got a call at 7:15 and Teresa told me I had a package at the porteria. I had forgotten about that. On my way down I ran into Doyle, the gringo from upstairs. We had a short conversation and he informed me that he was from Texas and he feels much safer here.

I picked up my “package” and the pizza arrived at the same time.

After finishing the pizza I checked my package and it was 2 pieces of junk mail, my Reader’s Digest and a little plastic envelope with what looks like a little fabric bracelet inside. It’s nothing that I ordered so I sent an email to Nobraskja at Envios Market.

 

A Trump replay from March 31^st: “I haven’t heard about testing in weeks. We’ve tested more now than any nation in the world. We’ve got these great tests, and we’ll come out with another one tomorrow, that’s almost instantaneous testing. But I haven’t heard about testing being a problem.”

The US has 2,387,335  ð 2,426,751 ð 2,478,695 coronavirus cases with 121,833  ð 122,456 ð 124,966 deaths. (Total cases in the US had flattened for some time but now are increasing again.)

Per Medellin Guru, as of this afternoon Colombia has a total of 77,113 ð 80,599 ð 84,442 cases with 2,811 deaths.  Medellin has 1,409  ð 1,504 ð 1,624 cases, an increase of 120 from June 25^th to June 26^th. Colombia’s rolling 6-day average of new cases is actually increasing more than previously, Medellin included. Envigado has a total of 76 cases, an increase of 4 from June 25^th to June 26^th.

 

Joke of the day

Three handsome male dogs are walking down the street when they see a beautiful, enticing, female Poodle.

The three male dogs fall all over themselves in an effort to be the one to reach her first but end up arriving in front of her at the same time.

The males are speechless before her beauty, slobbering on themselves and hoping for just a glance from her in return.

Aware of her charms and her obvious effect on the three suitors, she decides to be kind and tells them, “The first one who can use the words “liver” and “cheese” together in an imaginative, intelligent sentence can go out with me.”

The sturdy, muscular black Lab speaks up quickly and says, “I love liver and cheese.”

“Oh, how childish,” said the Poodle, “That shows no imagination or intelligence whatsoever.”

She turned to the tall, shiny Golden Retriever and said: “How well can you do?”

“Ummm...I HATE liver and cheese,” blurts the Golden Retriever.

“My, my,” said the Poodle, “I guess it’s hopeless. That’s just as dumb as the Lab’s sentence.”

She then turns to the last of the three dogs and says, “How about you, little guy?”

The last of the three, tiny in stature but big in fame and finesse, is the Chihuahua.

He gives her a smile, a sly wink, turns to the Golden Retriever and the Lab and says, “Liver alone, cheese mine."

Thursday, June 25, 2020

Self-isolation Day 100.

Last night I went to bed at 10:45, fell asleep quickly, got up once at 3:30, woke up again at 6am, cat napped until finally waking/getting up at 7am.

Last night I played 6 games on Chess.com, winning 4, losing 1, and drawing 1, finishing with a new rating of 1338. The game I lost I was winning and he didn’t make a move for something like 4 minutes so I don’t know how they figure I lost that game.

The Saharian dust storm is supposed to reach Colombia today.

The US confirmed 45,000 new Coronavirus in the last 24 hours. A new record. Nice job! (I say sarcastically.)

 

I finished season 3, episode 13, of Colony (7.4). Unfortunately, USA network didn’t renew the TV series after the 2016-2018 seasons. It ended just as the alien war was starting which really pissed off most reviewers. I read the reviews in IMDB before I started the series so I knew it was going to end abruptly without completion.

 

"We had a ventilator problem that was caused by the fact that we weren't left ventilators by a previous administration," Donald Trump said in April, referring to his Democratic predecessor. Soon after, the president argued, "When we took over, we didn't have ventilators. Nobody knew what a ventilator was."

The Washington Post discovered “There were nearly 17,000 ventilators available for use that had been left behind by the Obama administration. Trump instinctively wants to blame Obama, but no matter how you do the numbers, 16,660 is far more than zero.”

 

During his Tulsa rally last weekend, President Trump confessed that he sees coronavirus testing as a political threat and wants to diminish America’s caseload by doing a worse job of measuring it. “Testing is a double edged sword,” Trump told the sparse Oklahoma crowd. “Here’s the bad part. When you do testing…. you will find more cases. So I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please.’”

After a gaslighty news cycle in which top deputies insisted that Trump was being facetious, Trump clarified, “I don’t kid,” and even expanded his thinking on Twitter: “Cases up only because of our big number testing.”

Despite — or perhaps because of — these shameful numbers, the administration is following through on Trump’s orders to slow down testing. The Department of Health and Human Services has announced it will pull funding from more than a dozen drive-through testing sites across five states, including Texas, at the end of the month.

The move has left top Democrats incensed: “The pandemic is clearly getting worse in states nationwide,” Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, the ranking Democrat on the health committee, said in a blast to reporters, “and instead of trying harder to stop it, President Trump is apparently trying harder to hide it.”

 

U.S. officials estimate that 20 million Americans have been infected with the coronavirus since it first arrived in the United States, meaning that the vast majority of the population remains susceptible.

Thursday’s estimate is roughly 10 times as many infections as the 2.3 million cases that have been confirmed. Officials have long known that millions of people were infected without knowing it and that many cases are being missed because of gaps in testing.

 

On January 22, President Donald Trump did an interview with CNBC from Davos, Switzerland, where he was asked, for the first time, about the coronavirus in America.

"We have it totally under control," Trump said. "It's one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It's going to be just fine."

That was 156 days ago. In the interim, 2.4 million Americans have tested positive for coronavirus and more than 121,000 have died. And just Wednesday, the three most populous states in the country -- California, Florida and Texas -- reported record numbers of daily coronavirus cases.

As recently as a week ago, in an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity, Trump said this of the virus: "I don't even like to talk about that, because it's fading away. It's going to fade away."

 

Remember when the World Health Organization (WHO) said that asymptomatic coronavirus patients can’t spread the virus, only to retract the statement almost immediately? Sadly, some people may not have received the full, correct message. The novel coronavirus is so devious that not all people start showing signs upon infection. The body still has to deal with the disease, and a variety of studies have shown that the lungs of asymptomatic patients had damage similar to pneumonia as well as a lower count of white blood cells (lymphocytes). But the person could feel fine and continue to behave as if they were not infected. Only a PCR test would confirm the COVID-19 diagnosis, and if you don’t have any symptoms, you’re less likely to get one.

 

From Colombia’s US embassy today “COVID-19 Quarantine Update and Extension:  According to the Colombian Ministry of Health, as of June 24 there are 77,113 cases of COVID-19 in Colombia. On June 23, President Duque announced the extension of isolation measures in the country to July 15 but stated that the gradual reopening of the economy will continue contingent upon on department and mayoral guidelines.”

 

Positive coronavirus cases in the U.S. hit a single-day record high today amid the reopening of state businesses and the relaxing of social mitigation protocols. Cases were markedly higher in Texas, California and Florida, leading to the overall gain.

On Thursday, the U.S. reported 39,818 new cases of the virus, the largest single-day increase since the pandemic began. In total, the U.S. has reported 2,504,588 positive cases of the coronavirus making it the second hardest-hit nation in the world.

 

 

 

This afternoon I had a 2-hour chess lesson with Juan Carlos that went 2 ½ hours. He told me my tactics have improved.

 

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court late on Thursday to overturn the Affordable Care Act, telling the court that “the entire ACA must fall.” The administration’s argument comes as hundreds of thousands of Americans have turned to the government program for health care as they’ve lost jobs during the coronavirus pandemic.

 

A Trump replay from March 30^th: “It will go away. You know it is going away. And it will go away and we are going to have a great victory.”

The US has 2,352,968  ð 2,387,335  ð 2,426,751 coronavirus cases with 121,100 ð 121,833  ð 122,456 deaths.

Per Medellin Guru, as of this afternoon Colombia has a total of 73,572  ð 77,113 ð 80,599 cases with 2,654 deaths.  Medellin has 1,332 ð 1,409  ð 1,504 cases, an increase of 94 from June 24^th to June 25^th. Colombia’s rolling 6-day average of new cases is still on the increase, Medellin included. Envigado has a total of 72 cases, an increase of 4 from June 24^th to June 25^th.

 

Joke of the day

Three virgin sisters were all getting married within a short time period.
Mum was a bit worried about how their sex life would get started and made
them all promise to send a postcard from the honeymoon with a few words on their first impressions of marital sex.

The first girl sent a card from Hawaii two days after the wedding. The card
said nothing but: "Nescafe". Puzzled at first, Mum went to her kitchen and
got out the Nescafe jar. It said: "Great from beginning to end". Mum
blushed but was pleased for her daughter.

The second girl sent the card from the Maldives a week after the wedding,
and the card read: "Rothmans". Mum now knew to go straight to her husband's cigarettes to read from the pack: "Super strong King Size". She was again slightly embarrassed but still happy for her daughter.
 
The third girl departed for her honeymoon in New Zealand. Mum waited for a week, nothing. Another week went by and still nothing. A month passed; still nothing. A card finally arrived from Auckland on which was written with shaky hand, "Air New Zealand ".
 
Mum took out her latest travel magazine, flipped through the pages fearing
the worst, and finally found the ad for Air NZ. 'Ten times a day, seven days a week, in all directions.'