Sunday, July 26, 2020

Quarantine Day 131.

Last night I went to bed at 10:30, got up twice during the night, finally waking/getting up at 8am.

Last night I played 4 games on Chess.com, winning 3 and losing 1. My rating is now 1288.

To get at least minimal exercise, I walked down to the garage and took the stairs back up to the 4^th floor. I noticed a sign in the elevator that indicated our pico y cedula day for this next week is Wednesday.

At noon its only 75 degrees; it has been a cool year thus far.

Teresa beat me in parchessi today 6 games to 5.

At 8pm the rain started.

 

There is now even less doubt that what appeared to be one of the Trump administration’s most brazen recent acts of political retaliation was just what it seemed.

The New York Times reported the government admitted in court papers filed Thursday that Homeland Security officials had made false statements about their February decision to cut off New Yorkers from the trusted traveler program, which allows prescreened Americans expedited passage through border checks when reentering the United States from abroad.

 

Approval of President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic has hit a new low, with just 32 percent of Americans saying they support his strategy, according to a poll released Sunday.

Notably, the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found support for the president’s handling of the pandemic has dipped among Republicans, with 68 percent now approving of his handling of it.

 

A private warning about rising coronavirus cases made to leaders in 11 cities by White House official Dr. Deborah Birx on Wednesday is the latest sign that the Trump administration must end the secrecy surrounding its response to the pandemic, an investigative journalism group said Wednesday. 

In an exclusive report about Birx's Wednesday phone call to city officials, the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) revealed that Baltimore, Cleveland, Columbus, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Miami, Minneapolis, Nashville, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis have all been identified this week as cities where immediate, "aggressive" action is needed to mitigate their coronavirus outbreaks. 

 

Fourteen members of the same family in Texas have tested positive for coronavirus following a small gathering in June, the family says. One of them has died.

After months spent social distancing due to the pandemic, the Green family got together in Dallas on June 13 after state coronavirus restrictions were lifted, according to a post on GoFundMe.

Not long after the backyard barbecue, Tony Green fell ill; he began feeling “weird” and couldn’t sleep, he told WFAA.

Over the course of several days, he and 13 family members became sick with COVID-19, including Green’s mother, father and partner, he told the outlet.

“I thought that everything was going to be fine,” Tony Green told KDFW. “We’re not even really going out. We’re just spending time together. Hanging out at the house. Grill, you know.”

Green and his father-in-law, Rafael Ceja, were both admitted to the hospital on the same day, the family said. Ceja’s mother was also hospitalized and placed in the room next to Ceja, unbeknownst to them both.

 

There is nothing that Donald Trump likes better than to childishly insult his critics and political opponents. With regard to Joe Biden, that has included numerous references to mental stability and fitness for office. Unfortunately for Trump, the American people have thoroughly rejected his claims and, even worse, believe that Trump is the one with the cognitive dysfunction. And in a head to head comparison, more voters say that Trump is unfit to serve.

If Trump really wants to make this an issue for debate, then he has to deal with more than a few verbal mishaps of his own. For instance, Trump said that...

• Africa is a country
• Belgium is a city
• He "met with the president of the Virgin Islands."
• Revolutionary war troops took control of airports
• Kansas City, Missouri is in the state of Kansas
• He "watched the firemen on 7/11."
• Injecting bleach will cure the coronavirus
• He is building a border wall between Colorado and Mexico

 

Australia reported only a handful of new coronavirus cases in early June, while Hong Kong went three weeks without a single locally transmitted infection that month. Japan had already lifted a state of emergency in May after the number of new cases dropped to a few dozen nationwide.

All three reported new high-water marks in daily infection numbers in the past week, showing how difficult it can be to keep the virus at bay, even in places lauded for taking early and decisive action.

The number of infections in all three places are still small in comparison to the world’s hardest hit countries, but the fresh waves demonstrate the tricky balancing act authorities face as they attempt to reopen their economies.

 

More than 9,300 new coronavirus cases were reported in Florida, accompanied by an additional 78 new deaths, surpassing New York’s coronavirus tally.

 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., took a page out of President Trump’s playbook on Sunday when she bestowed a derogatory nickname on the commander in chief. “This president, I have a new name for him, Mr. Make Matters Worse.”

 

Former Rep. David Jolly (R-FL) explained to President Donald Trump that his conspiracies about vote-by-mail are going to hurt him.

Trump took to Twitter to claim the election is rigged using vote-by-mail, a process Republicans have worked hard to get their voters to use over the past several decades.

 

Per Medellin Guru, international flights are scheduled to return to Colombia starting September 1^st.

 

The US has 4,040,230 ð 4,122,121 ð 4,189,625 4,221,959 coronavirus cases with 145,300+ ð 146,200+ ð 146,500+ deaths.

Per Medellin Guru, as of this afternoon Colombia has a total of 233,541 ð 240,795  ð 248,976 cases with 8,525 deaths.  Medellin has 12,168 12,933 ð 13,514 cases, an increase of 605 from July 25^th to 26^th. Envigado has a total of 714 cases, an increase of 45 from July 25^th to 26^th.

 

Joke of the day

So, in retrospect, in 2015 not a single person got the answer right to “Where do you see yourself 5 years from now?”

Saturday, July 25, 2020

Quarantine Day 130.

Last night I went to bed at 11:15, got up twice during the night, again at 6:30, finally waking/getting up at 8am.

Last night I played 4 games on Chess.com, winning 2, losing 1, and drawing 1. I was winning the 3^rd game easily, but I lost on time and in the last game I blundered my queen. My rating is now 1270.

One of my readers sent me this comment about my difficulty opening plastic bags at the grocery store.

“Go to the produce section with several bags off the roll. If the produce sections there wet down the veggies so they will rot soon after you get them home, then you are in luck. Use the water there on the packaged bags that get they spray to wet your fingers. Open several bags at a time and since they are free use more than you think you might need.”

I was in the produce section and looked but couldn’t find anything wet. Later I found a worker wearing rubber gloves who opened several bags for me.

 

The rain started here about 11:45, which probably explains why it was only 72 degrees.

Teresa beat me in parcheesi today 5 games to 3.

 

A bible conference in Colorado that threatened to sue the state over a cease-and-desist order calling for the event to be shutdown has been linked to 34 new cases of COVID-19.

The Summer Family Bible Conference, held by Andrew Wommack Ministries and Charis Bible College from June 29 to July 3, has had 15 employees and staff members test positive, along with another 15 conference attendees and four others, according to The Pikes Peak Courier.

"The event brought in 1,000 people, according to Andrew Wommack Ministries, in a building that could hold 5,000. Public health orders, however, limited events to 175 people.”

 

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute formally asked the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee to stop using the 40th president’s name and image to raise money.

The request came in response to a fundraising appeal sent from the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, a joint effort of the Trump campaign and the RNC, offering two commemorative coins, one engraved with Reagan’s image and the other with that of President Trump to anyone who donates $45 or more for Trump’s reelection. The email was “signed” by Trump.

 

The United States recorded more than 1,000 deaths from COVID-19 for the fourth straight day on Friday but a top White House advisor on the pandemic said she saw signs that the worst could be past in hard-hit southern and western states.

 

In France, health officials said Friday that a recent rise in new coronavirus cases in the country has “erased” much of the headway made since the country crept out from their lockdown, The Telegraph reported.

1,130 new daily cases were reported Friday, a far cry from the mere 81 counted this time last month, and France is working to have their residents work from home as a mitigation effort.

Spain is also concerned about a potential second wave as new, localized clusters appear to spring up just a month after their lockdown ended, with cities like Barcelona experiencing spikes as its larger region, Catalonia, announced it would shutter nightclubs for two weeks to try and get a grasp of the spread.

Germany’s “second coronavirus wave is already here,” Michael Kretschmer, Saxony’s Minister President, was quoted as saying in the Rheinische Post Saturday per a Deutsche Welle translation. 

 

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Saturday that Republicans were set to roll out the next COVID-19 aid package Monday and assured there was backing from the White House after he and President Donald Trump's top aide met to salvage the $1 trillion proposal that had floundered just days before.

Mnuchin told reporters at the Capitol that extending an expiring unemployment benefit — but reducing it substantially — was a top priority for Trump. The secretary called the $600 weekly aid “ridiculous” and a disincentive for people to go back to work. He also promised a fresh round of $1,200 stimulus checks would be coming in August.

As Florida became a global epicenter of the coronavirus, Gov. Ron DeSantis held one meeting this month with his top public health official, Scott Rivkees, according to the governor's schedule. His health department has sidelined scientists, halting briefings last month with disease specialists and telling the experts there was not sufficient personnel from the state to continue participating.

 

In the absence of medical grade personal protective equipment (PPE), many of us have turned to homemade cloth masks to help stop the spread of coronavirus. But increasingly, research has shown that not all masks are created equal, and some are downright ineffective.  A new video case study produced by Australian researchers shows that in order for a homemade cloth mask to stop viral transmission, it needs to have at least two layers of fabric. In effect, if your mask has just one layer of fabric, you can safely bet that it simply doesn't work.

 

President Donald Trump on Saturday said his administration is “closely monitoring” a pair of major storms in Texas and Hawaii as the first hurricane of the 2020 Atlantic season made landfall along the pandemic-stricken Texas coast.

 

The US has 4,040,230 ð 4,122,121 ð 4,189,625 coronavirus cases with 144,000+ ð 145,300+  ð 146,200+ deaths.

Per Medellin Guru, as of this afternoon Colombia has a total of 226,373 ð 233,541 ð 240,795 cases with 8,269 deaths.  Medellin has 10,872 ð 11,344  ð 12,168 12,933 cases, an increase of 765 from July 24^th to 25^th. Envigado has a total of 666 cases, an increase of 37 from July 24^th to 25^th.

 

Joke of the day

A judge had 3 young men in court and he said to them “We’ve had a lot of trouble with young people taking drugs and I should send all of you to prison but I’m going to give you a chance to convince other young people that they shouldn’t take drugs.”  And he gave each of them a postcard with one small circle on one end and a big circle on the other.  “Using that as a symbol I want you to convince young people that they shouldn’t take drugs.”

Six months later they were all back in court.

The judge asked the first young man “how many have you convinced?” and he replied “Eight”.

The judge said “that’s very good.  How did you do it?”

The young man said “I told them if they take drugs the heart will be the size of the small circle and if they don’t take drugs your heart will be big and strong and the size of the larger circle.”

The judge said “That’s very good.”

The judge asked the second young man “how many have you convinced?” and the young man said “Seventeen”.

The judge said “that’s very good, how did you do it?”

The young man said “I told them if they take drugs they will have just a few friends the size of the small circle but if they don’t take drugs the circle of your friends will be like the large circle.”

The judge said “that’s very good.”

The judge said to the third young man “how many have you convinced?” and the young man said “8,964”.

The judge said “that’s remarkable, how did you do it?”

The third man said “I told the young men that if you take drugs the police will catch you, you’ll go to prison and when you arrive your asshole will be the size of the small circle…”

Friday, July 24, 2020

Self-isolation Day 129.

Last night I went to bed at 10:30, fell asleep quickly, got up twice during the night, finally waking/getting up at 8am.

Last night I played 4 games on Chess.com, losing all 4. Sigh! My new rating is 1265. The only excuse I can think of is that I had the black pieces for 3 of the 4 games. I was winning the 2^nd game but lost on time and in the 3^rd game I could have forced a draw by repetition.

About noon we started having a light drizzle.

I had a 2-hour chess lesson starting at 2:30. Sometime during that 2 hours it started raining.

Correction, we may be quarantined only Fri-Sun and open Monday. I’m sure I’ll learn more by then.

I forgot to mention that I mastered the ice maker on the new refrigerator. I just needed to hold the glass higher and further back under the dispenser.

Laura recommended a Netflix movie for us – Dark Desire. It’s an 18-episode Mexican soap opera IMDB rated 6.5. I was bored after the first sex scene but Teresa seemed to like it. We’ll see if she asks to see more of it.

 

Nursing home employees across the country have been dismayed by what they’ve found when they’ve opened boxes of protective medical gear sent by the federal government, part of a $134 million effort to provide facilities a 14-day supply of equipment considered critical for shielding their vulnerable residents from the coronavirus.

The shipments have included loose gloves of unknown provenance stuffed into unmarked Ziploc bags, surgical masks crafted from underwear fabric and plastic isolation gowns without openings for hands that require users to punch their fists through the closed sleeves. Adhesive tape must be used to secure them.

 

A new study of COVID-19, based on data from a symptom tracker app, determined that there are six distinct "types" of the disease involving different clusters of symptoms. The discovery could potentially open new possibilities for how doctors can better treat individual patients and predict what level of hospital care they would need.

 

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for more than three decades, has grappled with several public health crises, including the AIDS epidemic and now, COVID-19. In an interview with CNN's David Axelrod, Fauci said the magnitude of criticism he is receiving now is different than in the past, and that he and his family have been seriously threatened. 

 

Seyi Fasoranti, a chemist who moved to Oregon from the East Coast six months ago, has watched the Black Lives Matter protests in Portland with fascination. A sea of white faces in one of the whitest major American cities has cried out for racial justice every night for nearly two months.

 

Illinois’ Jonathan Davila spent 44 days in Elmhurst Hospital after contracting COVID-19 in March. When he was discharged on May 5, his wife and their three children greeted him outside.

“We love you, Dad!” shouted his 5-year-old son, Mason.

Four days later, Davila was back at Elmhurst Hospital, where he stayed for another month. He was then transferred to Northwestern Medicine’s Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital in Wheaton where he has spent the last six weeks learning to walk and brush his teeth and write again. When he arrived at Marianjoy he couldn’t roll over on his own.

Davila is 30. His reaction to COVID-19 is a cautionary tale about how severely and unexpectedly the coronavirus can ravage a body, even the body of a young and otherwise healthy person.

 

Covid-19 can be a prolonged illness, even among young adults without underlying chronic medical conditions, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Friday. Thirty-five percent of those surveyed by the agency said they still weren't back to their usual good health even two to three weeks after testing positive for the disease.

 

Almost 40 countries have reported record single-day increases in coronavirus infections over the past week, around double the number that did so the previous week, according to a Reuters tally showing a pick-up in the pandemic in every region of the world. 

The rate of cases has been increasing not only in countries like the United States, Brazil and India, which have dominated global headlines with large outbreaks, but in Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, Bolivia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Bulgaria, Belgium, Uzbekistan and Israel, among others.  

 

Jimmy Tosh, who runs a multi-million dollar hog and grain farm in Tennessee, is a lifelong Republican. He is pro-gun, supports lower taxes and agrees with most of Republican President Donald Trump's agenda.

He is also spending his money to help defeat Trump in November's election.

"I agree with 80% of the things he does; I just cannot stand a liar," Tosh, 70, said of Trump.

Tosh is one of a growing number of wealthy conservative Americans who say Trump is a threat to democracy and the long-term health of the Republican Party. They are actively supporting his Democratic opponent in the Nov. 3 vote, former Vice President Joe Biden.

 

The US has 3,980,107  ð 4,040,230 ð 4,122,121 coronavirus cases with 143,100+  ð 144,000+ ð 145,300+ deaths.

Per Medellin Guru, as of this afternoon Colombia has a total of 218,428 ð 226,373 ð 233,541 cases with 7,975 deaths.  Medellin has 10,872 ð 11,344  ð 12,168 cases, an increase of 817 from July 23^rd to 24^th. Envigado has a total of 629 cases, an increase of 47 from July 23^rd to 24^th.

 

Joke of the day

Guy gets a call from his doctor: “John, your tests came back and I have bad news.  You have cancer and Alzheimers.”

John says, “Well, at least I don’t have cancer.”

Thursday, July 23, 2020

Self-isolation Day 128.

Last night I went to bed at 10:30, fell asleep quickly, got up twice during the night, finally waking/getting up at 7am.

Last night I played 4 games on Chess.com, winning 2 and drawing 2. Three of the games were against the same opponent. The last 2 games I was about to checkmate him when I ran out of time. My new rating is 1295.

I got a late start on breakfast so my new plan was to watch the first 20 minutes of the Today show then go for my walk. But now its 8:45 and it just started raining. If it stops by 9:30 I’ll go for my walk, if not then take my shower and get ready for the day.

The rain hadn’t stopped so I cancelled my walk for today. I hope the rain stops sometime today so I can make a trip to the mall. If not, I’ll just run next door and pick up a few things.

Teresa just talked to the veterinarians that are renting the finca. It appears they have a blue eyed 8-month Siberian Husky up for adoption. (Actually, the Spanish words I heard sounded like Siberian or Serbian but I definitely heard wolf.) I’ve been considering for some time of getting something like a white Samoyed but I don’t know a breeder and it would probably be costly and this dog would be free. The biggest challenge for me would be taking it out for a walk first thing in the morning with my back pain. We’ll see what happens!

Now Teresa can’t get in touch with them so she thinks we missed the boat.

It finally stopped raining at 12:30.

I left the apt at 1:30 and walked to the mall. Again, my usual ATM limited me to a 100mil withdrawal. I picked up 3 bags of milk and 2 packages of oatmeal and took a taxi back to the apt.

I beat Teresa in parchesi today 7 games to 4.

We left the apt at 5pm and walked down to Mercado Madrid where Teresa loaded a shopping cart with mainly fruits and vegetables. One problem, how do you open those plastic bags you get off the roll without licking your fingers? Almost impossible. We returned to the apt a little over an hour later.

Our new long weekend strict quarantine begins at midnight tonight and continues until midnight Monday night. So we are open only 3 days a week – Tuesday thru Thursday and only then based on your cedula number, currently Thursday for us.

 

At 10:30, just as we were going to bed, it started raining. It was still raining when I got up during the night.

 

The nation got another dose of bad economic news Thursday as the number of laid-off workers seeking jobless benefits rose last week for the first time since late March, intensifying concerns the resurgent coronavirus is stalling or even reversing the economic recovery.

And an extra $600 in weekly unemployment benefits, provided by the federal government on top of whatever assistance states provide, is set to expire July 31, though this is the last week recipients will get the extra funds. It is the last major source of economic help from the $2 trillion relief package that Congress approved in March. A small business lending program and one-time $1,200 payment have largely run their course.

With the count of U.S. infections passing 4 million and the aid ending, nearly 30 million unemployed people could struggle to pay rent, utilities, or other bills and economists worry that overall consumer spending will drop, adding another economic blow.

 

Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top infectious disease expert and member of the White House coronavirus task force, has said the COVID-19-causing coronavirus as almost the "worst nightmare" of health experts.

Speaking via video link at the TB Alliance Fighting Pandemics: 2020 and Beyond webinar, host Betsy McKay of The Wall Street Journal asked Fauci to compare the pandemic to a baseball game and asked what the score is.

Fauci replied: "We are certainly not at the end of the game, I'm not even sure we're halfway through."

 

The pace of new coronavirus cases slowed over the past week, but things are still getting worse in most of the country.

The big picture: After weeks of explosive growth, the number of new infections in the U.S. is still climbing — but not quite as fast as it has been.

By the numbers: The number of new coronavirus cases in the U.S. shot up by over 20% per week for the past month.

• This week, it rose by a comparatively modest 7%.
• That doesn't mean we're getting better. The U.S. may be leveling off, but it’s leveling off at a very high rate of infection. The country is averaging roughly 66,000 new cases per day.

 

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough mocked President Donald Trump for again boasting that he passed a cognitive test.

The president told Fox News medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel that he got “extra credit” on the test, which screens for early signs of Alzheimer’s disease, by correctly listing five words in a row.

“This is obviously not the top news story of the day,” Scarborough said, laughing. “We’ll get to the top news story. But my mom has dementia, she would take this kind of test. It certainly has its importances, but Donald Trump goes back and brags about how he can say five words in a row, and he talks about how tough the final questions on this test are, [that] it starts easy but then it gets tough after you have to say what an elephant is.”

 

President Donald Trump announced Thursday he is canceling the Jacksonville portion of the Republican National Convention that had been planned next month because of the coronavirus pandemic.

 

Top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said Thursday that life could return to normal by sometime next year with sufficient coronavirus vaccine production.

 

The U.S. Senate on Thursday passed its version of the National Defense Authorization Act, a $740 billion bill setting policy for the Pentagon that President Donald Trump has threatened to veto over a provision removing Confederate names from military bases.

The vote was 86-14, one of the few times the Republican-led Senate has broken from the president and could pave the way for a fight later this year with the White House.

 

A 9-year-old girl from Putnam County is the youngest person to have died in Florida from coronavirus complications, according to the state department of health.

 

President Donald Trump has long complained about players taking a knee before professional sporting events to protest police brutality.

But as Major League Baseball returned on Thursday night, every single player took a knee.

 

People who have had mild to moderate COVID-19 can come out of isolation after 10 days and don't need to be retested before going back to work, new CDC guidelines say.

 

At least 4,038,748 coronavirus cases and 144,304 deaths have been recorded in the United States, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. As the numbers climb, more than 150 prominent US medical experts, scientists, teachers, nurses and others have signed a letter to political leaders urging them to shut down the country and start over to contain the surging coronavirus pandemic.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates also sounded the alarm Thursday during a CNN coronavirus town hall.

"Infection rates in the US are deeply troubling because the summer, when it's warmer, when people are outdoors more, actually it's easier to reduce the infection than it's going to be out in the fall," said Gates, who is helping fund the development of coronavirus vaccine efforts through his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. "So we're in a very tough situation."

 

The US has 3,905,319 ð 3,980,107  ð 4,040,230 coronavirus cases with 141,800+ ð 143,100+  ð 144,000+ deaths.

Per Medellin Guru, as of this afternoon Colombia has a total of 211,038 ð 218,428 ð 226,373 cases with 7,688 deaths.  Medellin has 10,022  ð 10,872 ð 11,344 cases, an increase of 462 from July 22^nd to 23^rd. Envigado has a total of 581 cases, an increase of 42 from July 22^nd to 23^rd.

 

Joke of the day

A Wisconsin trucker who had been out on the road for three straight weeks stopped at a brothel outside Las Vegas.
He walked straight up to the Madam, plopped down $500 and said, "I want your fattest woman, a bologna sandwich, and a six pack of beer.”

The Madam was astonished. She said, "OK, sir, but do you know that for that kind of money you could have two of my finest ladies, plus a three-course meal and a fine bottle of wine???”

The trucker replied, "Listen, sweetie. I ain't horny....I'm homesick!!!”