Quarantine Day #166.
Last night I went to bed at 10:30, took a little while
to fall asleep, got up twice during the night, woke up at 5:45am and got up at
6:45.
Last night I played 4 games
on Chess.com, winning 3 and losing 1. I had the white pieces in the 1st
game and it was a really back and forth game that I played poorly and eventually
lost. In the 2nd game I had the black pieces and he played an
unorthodox opening that I managed to transpose into the Classical Dutch. I eventually
checkmated him on the 43rd move. In the 3rd game I had
the black pieces and played the Sicilian Defense. He blundered his queen and I checkmated
him on the the 43rd move. In the 4th game I had the white
pieces, played the London System, got a strong attack and he resigned on the 28th
move. My new rating is 1240.
Teresa left at 9am for
the beauty salon and after that she has a 1:10 appointment with my
opthamologist in Poblado. (She has felt some itching in her left eye.)
I watched the first 20
minutes of the Today show then left the apt. I stopped by Eduardo
Madrid bakery and they are open but not for table service. The same at Parva;
maybe tomorrow they will have it. I walked downtown to the bookstore and this
time the tape was down so I went in and exchanged paperbacks for 2mil. I walked
to Todo Drogas where I picked up my monthly medicine and supplements for
$34. I stopped at the nature store and bought a bottle of L-Arginina.
I walked to Viva
Envigado where I took an elevator up to the 3rd floor. A few of the
fast food restaurants were open – perhaps the others will be open a little
later. They had tables and chairs out but fewer tables than usual and each had
only 2 chairs with a cardboard cutout of a person sitting in one of the chairs.
If they don’t want anyone to sit there then why not just remove the other
chair? I had a 15-minute wait to enter Bancolombia where I paid some of my monthly
bills. I went down to Todo Fresa and, like old times, I had a café con
leche at one of the back tables. This time the middle table is closed off and I
waited until my coffee arrived to remove my N95 facemask. (Every place I entered
I had to take hand sanitizer and wipe my feet on one of those special mats and
they took my temperature (36.3ºC=97.3ºF) entering the mall and Exito.) I returned
to the apt by 12:30.
I left again about 1:30
and walked to the new restaurant – Brooklyn Saloon & Restaurant –
something like that but it was closed. I knew Na Pizza was closed Mondays.
I walked to Go Wings and found a sign that they are only open for deliveries.
I walked to Aymara and sat down on a bench and ordered 6 BBQ wings, fries, Cole
Slaw & Coke using my Rappi app. I returned to the apt and Teresa was already
back.
I wore my step counter
today and I did 12,273 steps. My calves feel very tight so I think I should
pare back my workouts a little.
Donald Trump already has access to
some of the nation's preeminent voices on epidemiology, who are eager to
provide the president with expert advice shaped by the latest and most accurate
evidence.
But it was two weeks ago today when we learned Trump
had something else in mind: Dr. Scott Atlas, a Fox News
regular and a leading voice at a conservative think tank, had joined the
White House team. There was no great mystery behind the decision:
Atlas has pushed to re-open schools, downplayed the need for broader coronavirus
testing, and criticized lockdowns intended to stop the pandemic's spread.
The neuroradiologist has "no expertise in public
health or infectious disease mitigation," he hasn't
practiced medicine in nearly a decade, and he's demonstrated a
habit of echoing
unscientific claims, but Atlas nevertheless had something more
important: the capacity to tell the president what he wants to hear.
And now that
Atlas is on Team Trump, what's he saying? The Washington Post reported today:
One of
President Trump's top medical advisers is urging the White House to embrace a
controversial "herd immunity" strategy to combat the pandemic, which
would entail allowing the coronavirus to spread through most of the population
to quickly build resistance to the virus, while taking steps to protect those
in nursing homes and other vulnerable populations, according to five people
familiar with the discussions. The administration has already begun to
implement some policies along these lines, according to current and former
officials as well as experts, particularly with regard to testing.
As the White House repeatedly downplayed
the state of the pandemic throughout the summer and pushed for states to
rapidly reopen, its own coronavirus task force was quietly sending reports to
states that directly contradicted the public remarks offered by President
Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, showed documents that were unveiled
Monday by a congressional panel.
The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus
Crisis released eight reports, ranging from June 23 to August 9, from the White
House Coronavirus Task Force that were provided to states.
The reports, which were not previously
available to the public but some of which were previously published by Public Integrity,
show that while Trump and Pence publicly urged reopenings and tried to quell
fears by saying the resurgence of the virus was "overblown" and that
it is "going to disappear," top health officials within the
administration warned "red zone" states about increased spread and
advised specific mitigation efforts that often went ignored.
An answer about
coronavirus vaccine safety and efficacy might be available as soon as November,
Dr. Anthony Fauci said in a new interview. He made it clear that vaccines
should not be approved for emergency use until they’re proven to be safe and
effective. The comments follow several recent updates in the world of COVID-19
vaccine candidates. Russia approved a drug for public use without
revealing any scientific data, and China has started using three vaccines under emergency programs.
Separately, rumors said President Trump may pressure the FDA into giving emergency
approval to at least one COVID-19 vaccine before the election.
Herman Cain continues to
speak from beyond the grave through his Twitter account, with a now-deleted
tweet claiming that coronavirus is “not as deadly” as “mainstream media” made
it out to be, despite Cain dying from COVID-19 weeks after attending a rally
for President Trump—and raising questions about Twitter policies for deceased
account holders.
By Steve
Benen at MSNBC: Elements of Donald Trump's political posture on health care
have changed in ways that were difficult to predict as recently as a few years
ago. In fact, the president didn't use the word "Obamacare" at any
point in his interminably long Republican convention speech last week -- and neither did any
GOP elected official during the entire four-day affair.
As dramatic a departure as this is, there's an
obvious explanation for the rhetorical shift: despite a hysterical crusade
that's lasted much of the decade, the Affordable Care Act is both effective and
increasingly supported by public. Late last week, the Kaiser Family Foundation
published a report on the latest polling and concluded,
"Opposition to Obamacare Becomes Political Liability for GOP Incumbents."
But to see this and assume that the president and
Republican Party have quietly moved on from the issue would be wildly
overstating matters. Trump and the GOP are, of course, still trying to destroy
the Affordable Care Act in its entirety at the U.S. Supreme Court, with a case
that will be heard the week after Election Day.
And then
there's the president himself, who's facing an awkward deadline of his own
making today.
Circling back to our earlier coverage,
it was on July 17 when Trump sat down with Fox News' Chris Wallace, and the
host asked about the president's ongoing efforts to tear down the ACA. The
president replied that
he still intends to "replace" the landmark health care law.
The host reminded Trump, "But you've been in
office three and a half years, you don't have a plan." It was at this
point that the president responded with an
unexpected vow: Trump said he'd "sign" a "full and
complete" health care plan "within two weeks."
As we've discussed,
two weeks went by, and the "full and complete" health care plan was
nowhere to be found. On July 31, pressed for some kind of explanation, the
president told
reporters, "We're going to be doing a very inclusive health
care plan. I'll be signing it sometime very soon. It might be Sunday [Aug. 2],
but it's going to be very soon." (He added earlier
in the day that the upcoming White House health care plan will be "very
big.")
Two days
later, the Republican went golfing. He did not unveil or sign a health care
plan. On Aug. 3, Trump presented a new
timeline.
"I do
want to say that we're going to be introducing a tremendous healthcare plan
sometime prior -- hopefully, prior to the end of the month. It's just about
completed now."
I predicted at
the time that Trump would neither unveil nor sign an "impressive"
health care plan by the end of the month -- and the end of the month is today.
To be sure,
there are still 14 hours left before the end of the month, and perhaps the
president will surprise me, but I have a hunch my prediction will hold up.
Trump has spent more than
four years assuring Americans that he and his team, any day
now, will unveil an amazing health care plan that will offer more coverage at a
lower cost. It's a promise that always goes
unmet.
There's no great mystery as to why: the president,
his team, and his party have absolutely no idea how to govern in the area of
health care policy. (See chapter
three of my book.) GOP officials have been promising a superior
alternative to the Affordable Care Act since the summer of 2009 -- well over a
decade ago -- and they've failed spectacularly because they don't know how to
craft such a blueprint. It would require some form of federal investments and
regulation of the marketplace, both of which the party rejects for ideological
reasons.
Hating
"Obamacare" is not a health care plan. Once Republican policymakers
come to grips with this simple detail, they can either give up trying to take
health security from tens of millions of Americans or they can roll up their
sleeves and try to govern on the issue.
Either way, those waiting to see what Trump unveils
are waiting for a mirage that will always remain on the horizon.
The
US has 5,973,992 ð 6,006,177 ð 6,041,885 coronavirus cases
with 182,700+ ð 182,900+ ð 183,400 deaths.
Per
Medellin Guru, as of this afternoon Colombia has a total of 599,914 ð 607,938 ð 615,168 cases with 19,663 deaths. Medellin has 45,794 ð 46,361 ð 47,284 cases, an increase of 923 from August 29th
to 30th. Envigado has a total of 2,436 cases, an increase of 23 from
August 30th to 31st.
Joke of
the day
A woman came
home early from work one day and found her husband in bed with a young and
attractive woman.
The woman
yelled at her husband in anger: “You slimy disrespectful pig! How dare you do this
to me!? I’m the mother of your children, and I’ve been faithful to you all
these years! I want a divorce now!”
The husband
answered: “Wait a second my love, let me at least explain what happened.”
“All right, let’s hear what you
have to say for yourself,” answered
the wife waiting to see just how her husband would try to talk his way out of
this one, “but these are your last words.”
Her husband
started recalling: “today when I left work and got in my car to head home and
this woman asked me for a ride.”
“I noticed that she was very
skinny and wearing worn out clothes covered in muck and mud. She told me she hadn’t
eaten in three days.”
“She looked
worse for wear so I took pity on her and let her into the car.”
“In my mercy
for her, instead of taking her straight to where she needed to go, I brought
her home first and warmed her up a plate of goulash,the same plate I made for
you last night which you didn’t eat claiming you’d ‘get fat’.”
“She
devoured it in seconds.”
“Since she
needed to get clean, I offered to let her use our shower.”
“While she
showered, I noticed that her clothes were very dirty and worn, so I threw them
out. She needed new clothes so I brought her the old jeans you no longer wear
because they’re ‘too tight’.”
“I also gave
her some underwear I bought you that you didn’t wear because ‘I don’t have good
taste in clothes’.”
“I found the shirt my mom bought
you for Christmas that you didn’t wear to ‘piss her off’. And I gave her the high heels you
only wore once because ‘someone at work had the same pair’.”
The husband
took a deep breath and continued…
“She was so
grateful for my understanding and help. When I walked her to the door she
turned around with tears in her eyes and asked…”
“You’re such a great person! Is
there anything else your wife doesn’t use?”
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