Thursday, September 17, 2020

 

Last night I went to bed at 10:30, got up once at 2:30, again at 5:15, rested until finally getting up at 7am.

Last night I played 4 games on Chess.com, winning 3 of 4. My rating is now 1453. Now I have to get it up to 1500.

I left the apt at 8am and arrived at the mall at 8:15 and found Jose waiting for me outside Habia Una Vez. Jose confirmed what my eyes hinted at – they weren’t open yet. Jose remembered we sometimes had breakfast at McDonald’s so we went up to the 3^rd floor. Their sign said they open at 9am which I remembered as soon as I saw it. After a trip to the restroom we headed back downstairs. The waitress was finishing cleaning off the tables as we arrived. We each had the breakfast special but we both forgot to ask for the special that included orange juice.

About 9am we headed upstairs to the food court where we had our choice of tables. I had the white pieces for the first game and we played to a 49-move draw. After, I showed him how he could have increased his advantage.

For lunch he had a sandwich from Q’Bano and I had the BBQ chicken nuggets from Frisby.

I had the black pieces in the 2^nd game and we played to a 32-move draw. I had the advantage but I couldn’t figure out how to continue.

He left and I went to the banking area where I confirmed there is an Av Villas bank. (I forget if I mentioned the real estate agency wants me to make the future apt payments at Av Villas instead of Bancolombia.)

I went downstairs where I had a café con leche at Todo Fresa while catching up on the news of the day on my cellphone.

Outside the mall I purchased a small bottle of hand sanitizer at a kiosk set up for that purpose. My idea is to keep it in my fanny pack for cleaning my hands after putting on/taking off my face mask while out.

I was back at the apt by 5pm.

I did a computer analysis on both games and the computer said black had an advantage in both.

Per Medellin Guru, bars and restaurants can now serve liquor.

The U.S. Embassy is pleased to confirm that flights between the United States and Colombia will resume on Saturday, September 19, operated by Spirit Airlines (between Cartagena and Fort Lauderdale) and Colombia-based Viva Air (between Medellin, Cartagena, and Miami). Regular international commercial service from major airports in Bogota, Medellin, Cartagena, and Cali will reopen on Monday, September 21. Colombia’s land and sea borders remain closed until at least October 1, although rare exceptions to this rule are possible. The U.S. Embassy will no longer organize humanitarian flights out of Colombia.

 

Orlando businessman Eric Holm remembers President Donald Trump signaling to business owners at a roundtable March 9 that the coronavirus epidemic meant tough times ahead.

“We sat next to him for 40 minutes,” said Holm, whose company, Metro Corral Partners, owns dozens of Golden Corral franchises in Florida and Atlanta. “He said it was going to be bad. But nobody knew it was the worst kind of bad.”

Nobody except maybe Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, who revealed in his book, Rage, that Trump told him in early February that the pandemic indeed would be the worst kind of bad. Rather than being straight and honest with the American public, the book documents — on the record — how Trump's decision to "downplay" the virus resulted in a “monumental, catastrophic leadership failure,” according to Woodward.

 

The US, as well as the rest of the world, is keenly awaiting the arrival of a successful coronavirus vaccine, as it’s generally assumed that this is what will finally bring about the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, the CEO of the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer has just made a depressing prediction.

Adar Poonawalla, CEO of Serum Institute of India, thinks it will take 4-5 years to vaccinate the global population against COVID-19.

 

Less than two weeks after a travel bump over Labor Day Weekend, the United States is seeing an uptick in Covid-19 cases this past week, according to the Covid-19 tracker from the Harvard Global Health Institute and Brown School of Public Health.

 

Olivia Troye left Pence’s team in August, but before that worked as Homeland Security, counterterrorism and coronavirus adviser for him for two years. She said that by mid-February the White House knew COVID-19 would become a pandemic.

In an ad by Republican Voters against Trump, Troye said Trump remarked in a coronavirus task force meeting: “Maybe this COVID thing is a good thing. I don’t like shaking hands with people. I don’t have to shake hands with these disgusting people.”

“I have been a Republican my entire life,” she said. “I am voting for Joe Biden because I truly believe we are at a time of constitutional crisis. At this point it’s country over party.”

“The truth is he doesn't actually care about anyone else but himself,” she said, adding that Trump was most concerned about tanking the economy in an election year.

 

In a scramble to restore fading public trust in the coronavirus vaccine pipeline, two leading pharmaceutical companies released their trial plans for the first time on Thursday.

Those details — first published by Moderna, then by Pfizer — provide some clarity about a process that many scientists and Democrats fear is being rushed by the Trump administration ahead of the November election.

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump challenged CDC Director Robert Redfield’s estimate that a vaccine rollout could happen by summer 2021, calling that timeline a “mistake.” Trump said a shot could be available as early as October.

The documents from Moderna and Pfizer reveal that that projection is far too optimistic. They suggest that the trials may need to run through at least the end of the year to determine whether their vaccines are safe and effective.

 

FBI Director Chris Wray on Thursday told Congress the bureau has seen "very active efforts by the Russians to influence our election in 2020," primarily to "denigrate Vice President Biden and what the Russians see as kind of an anti-Russian establishment."

 

The US has 6,612,789 ð 6,643,409 ð 6,696,260 coronavirus cases with 195,500+ ð 196,400+ ð 197,400+ deaths.

Per Medellin Guru, as of this afternoon Colombia has a total of 728,590 ð 736,377 ð 743,945 cases with 23,665 deaths.  Medellin has 56,896 ð 58,224 58,849 cases, an increase of 625 from September 16^th to 17^th. Envigado has a total of 3,190 cases, an increase of 19 from September 16^th to 17^th.

 

Joke of the day

There was an old fellow from Hyde

Who ate rotten apples and died.

  The apples fermented,

  Inside the lamented,

And made cider inside his inside.