Thursday, July 2, 2020

Self-isolation Day 107.

Last night I went to bed at 10:30, fell asleep quickly, got up 3 times during the night, finally waking/getting up at 7:30.

It rained most of the night.

Last night I played 4 games on Chess.com, winning 1 and losing 3. My rating has now fallen to 1269.

Teresa left at 8:15 for Nueva eps to make an appointment, then she’s going to walk with friends and then meet me at Viva Envigado.

About the new refrigerator. Lot’s of extra space, and the water dispenser provides cold water but not as cold as I like. The cubed ice and crushed ice work but if you just put a glass under it it doesn’t catch all the ice so you have to use a small bucket to catch it.

Just before 9am I noticed we no longer have running water. By 9:30 the water was back on but it wasn’t as forceful as usual.

Teresa called me at noon and we agreed to meet in Exito at 12:30.

I got there first so I withdrew some cash from the ATM.

Teresa arrived by 12:40 and we went into the mall. She was looking for a baseball cap for walking but found instead a pair of leggings at ProChampion.

I texted Juan Carlos and cancelled my chess lesson for this afternoon.

After, it was 1:15 so we stopped at Parsimmon (sp?) where we each got a small yogurt to go. We were going to walk back to the apt but there were rain drops so we took a taxi instead. It was soon pouring but it was all over an hour later.

 

President Trump said Thursday that the coronavirus pandemic is “under control” while Sun Belt states report daily records in new case counts and the United States nears 2.7 million cases.

“We’ve implemented an aggressive strategy to vanquish and kill the virus and protect Americans at the highest risk, while allowing those at lower risk to return safely to work,” Trump said. “That’s what’s happening.”

“In many cases,” he added, “we’ve done an incredible job.”

 

Joe Biden reminded the American people on Thursday that the coronavirus pandemic is far from over and said the month’s positive jobs report doesn’t compensate for the scale of the health crisis.

“There is no victory to be celebrated,” the Democratic presidential nominee said on a livestream from his Delaware home.

President Donald Trump trumpeted the job figures on Thursday, saying the 5 million new jobs showed the economy is “roaring back.” But with the unemployment rate still at 11.1% and coronavirus cases spiking in several states, economists expressed concern about a stalling recovery.

The Democratic nominee, while acknowledging he was happy for the people who are back at work, sought to tamp down Trump’s enthusiasm, saying the country is still in a “deep, deep hole.”

“We’re still down nearly 15 million jobs, and the pandemic is getting worse, not better,” Biden said.

 

I was having lunch (soup) when it felt like one of my back molars had moved up. I thought it was the bottom molar. Later Teresa gave me a few almonds and while chewing them I felt a tooth break. It turned out to be the upper one. I texted Dr. Rendon immediately and he gave me an emergency appointment for tomorrow at 12:30. That should cost me at least a million pesos.

I beat Teresa today in parcheesi 4 games to 3.

 

President Donald Trump on Thursday delivered a self-congratulatory press conference in which he celebrated the unemployment rate falling to 11 percent, despite the fact that a resurgence in COVID-19 infections across the United States has forced many states to once again shut down bars and other businesses.

Even though the economy added more than 4 million net jobs in June, the latest jobs report was dampened by a rise in people reporting they were now permanently unemployed instead of temporarily furloughed.

Additionally, the rapid increase in new novel coronavirus cases in big states such as Florida, Texas, and California is putting a halt to the economy’s momentum, and the U.S. will still have to add millions more jobs to make up for the 20 million jobs lost in April alone.

And all told, the current unemployment rate stands at just over 11 percent, which is nothing to boast about four months before the 2020 presidential election.

 

Some young people in Alabama are throwing Covid-19 parties, a disturbing competition where people who have coronavirus attend and the first person to get infected receives a payout, local officials said.

 

Donald Trump has “essentially gone awol from the job of leadership that he should be providing a country in trouble” during the coronavirus pandemic, a former defence secretary and CIA director said on Wednesday.

Leon Panetta, who served in various capacities under nine US presidents, became the latest prominent public figure to accuse Trump of effectively surrendering to the virus and abandoning Americans to their fate, using the military jargon awol, meaning absent without leave.

“This is a major crisis,” Panetta told Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN, noting that top infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci has warned that America may hit 100,000 new cases a day, twice the current rate.

“But the president, rather than bringing together some kind of national strategy to confront this crisis, simply resorts to tweeting about vandalism and other things to kind of divert attention from the crisis that’s there.”

He added: “We have a president that is not willing to stand up and do what is necessary in order to lead this country during time of major crisis. I have never experienced a president who has avoided that responsibility.”

 

Russian meteorologists have confirmed a Siberian town smashed its all-time record high during a June heat wave, possibly the hottest temperature on record so far north in the Arctic, continuing an off-the-charts warm year in what is typically one of coldest places on Earth.

On June 20, the high temperature in Verkhoyansk, a town in northeast Russia about 260 miles south of the Arctic coast and about 6 miles north of the Arctic Circle, topped out at 38 degrees Celsius, or 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

This extreme temperature was confirmed by the Russian Federal Service for Hydrometeorological and Environmental Monitoring after a request from the World Meteorological Organization, topping the city's previous record set on July 25, 1988. Temperature records in Verkhoyansk date to 1885.

 

 Florida shattered records on Thursday when it reported over 10,000 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase in the state since the pandemic started, according to a Reuters tally.

Outbreaks in Texas, California, Florida and Arizona have helped the United States break records and send cases rising at rates not seen since April.

In June, Florida infections rose by 168% or over 95,000 new cases. The percent of tests coming back positive has skyrocketed to 15% from 4% at the end of May.

Florida, with 21 million residents, has reported more new daily coronavirus cases than any European country had at the height of their outbreaks.

 

Georgia has confirmed nearly 3,500 new cases of the novel coronavirus to its official figures, the largest single-day increase since the pandemic began, authorities said Thursday.

The Georgia Department of Public Health has confirmed nearly 88,000 total cases of the virus. At least 2,849 people in Georgia have died.

 

A Trump replay from April 7^th, Trump: “It will go away.”

The US has 2,643,449 ð 2,697,796 ð 2,748,775 coronavirus cases with 126,701  ð 128,061  ð 128,655 deaths. (Total cases in the US are still increasing.)

Per Medellin Guru, as of this afternoon Colombia has a total of 97,846 ð102,009  ð 106,110 cases with 3,641 deaths.  Medellin has 1,958 ð 2,083 ð 2,198 cases, an increase of 115 from June 30^th to July 1^st. Colombia’s rolling 6-day average of new cases is still rising, Medellin included. Envigado has a total of 97 cases, an increase of 7 from June 30^th to July 1^st.

 

Joke of the day

80,000 blondes meet in a football stadium for a "Blondes Are Not Stupid" Convention.

The leader says, "We are all here today to prove to the world that blondes are not stupid. Can I have a volunteer?"

A blonde gingerly works her way through the crowd and steps up to the stage.

The leader asks her, "What is 15 plus 15?"

After 15 or 20 seconds she says, "Eighteen!"

Obviously, everyone is a little disappointed. Then 80,000 blondes start cheering, "Give her another chance! Give her another chance!"

The leader says, "Well, since we've gone to the trouble of getting 80,000 of you in one place and we have the world-wide press and global broadcast media here, gee, uh, I guess we can give her another chance."

So he asks, "What is 5 plus 5?"

After nearly 30 seconds she eventually says, "Ninety?"

The leader is quite perplexed, looks down and just lets out a dejected sigh - everyone is disheartened - the blonde starts crying and the 80,000 girls begin to yell and wave their hands shouting, "GIVE HER ANOTHER CHANCE! GIVE HER ANOTHER CHANCE!"

The leader, unsure whether or not he is doing more harm than good, eventually says, "Ok! Ok! Just one more chance -- What is 2 plus 2?"

The girl closes her eyes, and after a whole minute eventually says, "Four?"

Throughout the stadium, pandemonium breaks out as all 80,000 girls jump to their feet, wave their arms, stomp their feet and scream... "Give her another chance! Give her another chance!"