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!!!”