Friday, July 17, 2020

Self-isolation Day 122.

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

Last night I played 5 games on Chess.com, winning 3, losing 1, with 1 draw. My new rating is 1281. I was winning the last game when I lost on time. Sigh!

Teresa called the doorman and learned we aren’t allowed to even walk around the complex for exercise. But later I did see a few people walking outside on the sidewalk, apparently for exercise.

Teresa told me Laura is getting married on Sunday. I asked her if she’s getting married in church. She said “no”. I said where is she getting married and Teresa said in a government office. I told her no government office is going to be open on Sunday. She then said “Saturday”. I told her most government offices are closed on Saturday also and she then said she just didn’t know. Why didn’t she tell me that in the beginning?

I beat Teresa today in parcheesi 7 games to 6.

Teresa has a doctor’s appointment at 7am tomorrow. Today she confirmed it with her doctor so I guess she just has to take a taxi directly from here to there and back again.

I ordered 4 bottles of COQ10 on sale from Swanson Vitamins, enough to take 1 capsule a day for a year.

I texted Glenn with a great idea. We should both get a bicycle and a Rappi bag and just hand out in the park waiting for orders to come in.

 

An unpublished document prepared for the White House coronavirus task force and obtained by the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit newsroom, recommends that 18 states in the coronavirus "red zone" for cases should roll back reopening measures amid surging cases.

The "red zone" is defined in the 359-page report as "those core-based statistical areas (CBSAs) and counties that during the last week reported both new cases above 100 per 100,000 population, and a diagnostic test positivity result above 10%."

 

More than 100 doctors, medical professionals, and emergency room physicians in the Houston area have signed their names to a letter condemning Republican Rep. Daniel Crenshaw for spreading misinformation during the Covid-19 pandemic, which has been ravaging the Texas city hard in recent weeks.

The doctors didn’t mince their words.

“The COVID-19 pandemic should not be a partisan issue — that’s why even Governor Abbott is finally stalling the reopening process and implementing the mask mandates that he unwisely blocked just two short months ago,” the medical workers, who are primarily women, wrote in the letter, which is first being reported on by The Intercept. “Dan Crenshaw, on the other hand, has spewed lies for the past four months — minimizing the threat we face and spreading dangerous disinformation for self-indulgent headlines.”

 

Florida now has the worst ongoing coronavirus outbreak in the country.

Since the beginning of July, Covid-19 cases in the state have gone up nearly 60 percent, with hospitalizations and deaths rapidly rising as well. Florida now has 20 percent more daily new Covid-19 cases than Arizona, 70 percent more than Texas, and more than double California. Florida drew headlines on Sunday for surpassing the record for the highest number of new cases reported in one day, previously held by New York (though that was driven largely by Florida having much more testing than New York did at the peak of its outbreak).

The percentage of positive tests is now nearly 19 percent, which is almost four times the recommended maximum of 5 percent. The high rate — an indicator of how widespread infection is, as well as whether an area is conducting enough testing — suggests Florida still doesn’t have enough testing to match its Covid-19 outbreak. As bad as things are in Florida, the state is likely undercounting the number of cases.

 

The U.S. again set a daily record of new COVID-19 cases Thursday, reporting more than 77,000.

 

For weeks this summer, it was a seeming paradox of the coronavirus pandemic: cases in the United States were rising but deaths were falling.

To the Trump administration, this was evidence that its strategy for combating covid-19 was working. To medical experts, it was only a matter of time before the trajectory changed.

And now it has. Nationwide, deaths have begun to rise again. In some of the worst-hit states, especially across the South and the West, new death records are being set daily. As a virus-scarred summer wears on, public health specialists say the numbers are almost certain to continue to climb.

 

At least 23 students and faculty have tested positive at Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Charleston, South Carolina where Customs and Border Protection personnel were training, according to the National Treasury Employees Union.

On Friday, the union, which represents thousands of CBP employees, officially requested that the agency immediately send home any employees currently in training, as well as test employees for Covid-19 prior to the departure.

"The FLETC Charleston facility is no longer safe for trainees under the current circumstances," said union National President Tony Reardon in a statement to CNN, adding that the union learned of the "alarming outbreak" earlier this week.

 

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg revealed Friday that she’s undergoing chemotherapy to treat a recurrence of cancer.

 

The mayor of Portland, Ore., demanded Friday that President Donald Trump remove militarized federal agents he deployed to the city after some detained people on streets far from federal property they were sent to protect.

"Keep your troops in your own buildings, or have them leave our city," Mayor Ted Wheeler said at a news conference.

Democratic Gov. Kate Brown said Trump is looking for a confrontation in the hopes of winning political points elsewhere. It also serves as a distraction from the coronavirus pandemic, which is causing spiking numbers of infections in Oregon and the nation.

Brown's spokesman, Charles Boyle, said Friday that arresting people without probable cause is "extraordinarily concerning and a violation of their civil liberties and constitutional rights."

 

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has begun receiving intelligence briefings, he said Friday as he warned about Russian interference in the 2020 election.

“We know from before and I guarantee you I know now because now I get briefings again -- the Russians are still engaged in trying to delegitimize our electoral process. Fact,” the former vice president said during a fundraiser organized by lawyers that included general counsels from roughly 100 companies.

“China and others are engaged as well in activities designed for us to lose confidence in the outcome” of the November election, he added.

 

The White House has blocked Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield from testifying before Congress next week on how to safely reopen schools amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, multiple outlets have reported. 

 

Can we all agree that this experiment of having a dumb TV host and shady real estate developer with no government knowledge, 5 kids from 3 marriages, 6 bankruptcies, 46 charges of sexual assault with 3,000+ lawsuits as president is not going well?

The US has 3,503,533 ð 3,572,085 ð 3,649,718 coronavirus cases with 137,146 ð 138,087 ð 138,994 deaths.

Per Medellin Guru, as of this afternoon Colombia has a total of 165,169 ð 173,206 ð 182,140 cases with 6,288 deaths.  Medellin has 5,599  ð 6,067  ð 7,124 cases, an increase of 605 from July 15^th to July 17^th.  Envigado has a total of 334 cases, an increase of 35 from July 15^th to July 17^th. (I’ve noticed some of the numbers – especially increases – don’t jive, I’m just reporting them as I receive them.)

On the evening news we saw that Medellin is under a red alert because ICU bed occupation is at 70%.

 

Joke of the day

It's been a long, long day, and John the truck driver really wanted to just get home. Living in Washington D.C, he knew traffic would be bad this time of evening, but to his horror, a traffic jam reared ahead of him larger than anything he could have anticipated. 

Bewildered, since he hadn't heard anything yet on the news, he stuck his head out and just kept seeing cars slowing down and then driving off. 

Nothing was moving.

Suddenly, a man knocks on the window. The driver rolls down the window and asks, "What's going on?"

"Terrorists have kidnapped the entire US Congress!"

"Oh my gosh!" exclaimed John.

"And they're asking for a $100 million dollar ransom."

"Jeez Louise!" moaned John.

"Otherwise, they are going to douse them all in gasoline and set them on fire!"

"Lord have mercy!" cried John.

"We are going from car to car, collecting donations."

"How much is everyone giving, on average?" asked John.

"About a gallon."