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?”