Friday, October 2, 2020

 

Last night I went to bed at 11pm, got up once at 5am, finally waking/getting up at 7:30.

I played 4 games on Chess.com last night, winning 1 and losing 3. My rating is now 1457.

 

Well, the big news this morning is that the president and the first lady tested positive for Covid-19. (Remember President Trump mocked Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden for wearing a face mask at the first presidential debate on Sept. 29.)

Teresa wants to buy something for her upcoming birthday so we’re going to El Tesoro for a little shopping. We left the apt at 10:30 and took a taxi to El Tesoro. I had a café mocha in Starbucks while she shopped in Zara. We agreed to meet at noon. She checked out another shop then we had lunch at J&C Delicias where I had chicken Cesar salad again. She window shopped some more. At one point I saw a cute little dog sitting on a young lady’s table. She said it was a long haired chihuaha. Very cute. (Later Teresa told me the girl got it for free from a veterinarian in LlanoGrande.) Teresa bought a pair of shoes in H&M. In Carulla I waited in line to print some medical papers for her while she picked up a few things.

We quickly caught a taxi outside. As the taxi pulled out of the covered parking area the first raindrops hit the windshield. It was soon a downpour and the driver kept the defroster on and kept wiping the windshield with a rag. At one point we had about 30 seconds of hail. As we were coming down out of the mountains I saw a couple places where the rain was so heavy that water was shooting a foot high out of the storm drains. We arrived at the apt complex about 50% later than usual. As the portero opened the gate for the taxi I saw a sign that said that taxis are not allowed to enter. It was nice to get out in the garage without getting drenched. We were back by 3:40pm.

 

President Donald Trump's Twitter announcement about his positive coronavirus test has become his most liked and retweeted tweet ever.

Early Friday morning, Trump tweeted, "Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!"

The tweet quickly surpassed more than 1 million likes and had over 750,000 retweets, despite being sent out at around 1 a.m.

Could this be the “October surprise” we’ve been waiting for?

 

First it was Hope Hicks. Then Donald and Melania Trump. Then Senator Mike Lee from Utah. Now it’s Notre Dame University president Father John Jenkins.

These are all prominent Republicans and members of Trump’s inner circle who attended SCOTUS pick Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination on Saturday who now have tested positive for COVID-19. Given that the virus can incubate for up to two weeks before showing up in testing, it’s possible that any number of them could have been sick at the event, even those who have so far tested negative. The virus even could have spread there, turning Barrett’s nomination into the possible site of a coronavirus cluster — with massive implications.

 

The White House says President Donald Trump will spend a “few days” at a military hospital on the advice of his physicians after contracting COVID-19.

 

The editor of a Chinese state-run media outlet on Friday mocked President Trump and first lady Melania Trump following their positive coronavirus tests, writing that they "paid the price for (Trump's) gamble to play down the COVID-19."

Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin tweeted that news of the first couple contracting the virus shows the "severity" of the pandemic in the United States.

"It will impose a negative impact on the image of Trump and the US, and may also negatively affect his reelection," the editor concluded.

 

Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, has tested positive for coronavirus.

 

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, tested negative for coronavirus on Friday morning, following President Donald Trump's disclosure that he had tested positive just days after the first debate.

 

Two more Tennessee Titans players tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday, a source told ESPN's Adam Schefter.

 

Appearing on CNN early Friday morning, hours after Donald Trump announced to the world that he has tested positive for the novel COVID-19 virus, former Trump White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci hammered the president for taking the coronavirus lightly, saying he is now paying the consequences for his words and actions.

Speaking with hosts John Berman and Erica Hill, Scaramucci expressed his best wishes to the president and first lady Melania Trump as they both deal with the infection, before calling out the president and labeling him “incompetent.”

 

Contrary to president Donald Trump’s repeated declarations, the coronavirus pandemic was not — and still isn’t — totally under control. That lie is central to “Totally Under Control,” the latest documentary from Alex Gibney. Neon, which will distribute the documentary this fall, released a trailer for the upcoming film on Friday morning.

“Totally Under Control” was filmed in secret over five months earlier in the year and focuses on the Trump administration’s ongoing failures to adequately respond to the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected over 7 million Americans, 200,000 of which have died from the virus. The documentary includes a variety of interviews with scientists, medical professionals, and government officials to discern how and why the country’s leadership failed to deal with the pandemic.

 

Somewhat buried under the massive coronavirus news, though, was another bit of bad news for Trump’s campaign. The economy added 661,000 jobs in September, fewer than were expected. More worrisome was that the number of people who lost their jobs permanently increased by 345,000. Trump and his campaign have liked celebrating the drop in the number of unemployed people since the pandemic began several months ago, but many of those job losses were only temporary. Over the past seven months, the number of people who have lost their jobs for good has increased each month.

There are now 2.5 million more people who have lost their jobs permanently than there were in February. The number of people who lost their jobs permanently was higher in September than at any point since May 2013. The seven-month increase in permanent job losses was the highest increase since May 2009, the height of the recession.

 

A US federal judge expressed frustration with the Commerce Department's push to end the 2020 Census on Oct. 5 instead of the previously ordered Oct. 31, saying that the Trump administration's violations of her court order "must stop."

"Defendants' dissemination of erroneous information; lurching from one hasty, unexplained plan to the next; and unlawful sacrifices of completeness and accuracy of the 2020 Census are upending the status quo, violating the Injunction Order, and undermining the credibility of the Census Bureau and the 2020 Census," US District Judge Lucy Koh said Thursday.

 

The US has 7,259,474 ð 7,307,822 ð 7,362,174 coronavirus cases with 206,700+ ð 207,600+ ð 208,500+ deaths.

Per Medellin Guru, as of this afternoon Colombia has a total of 829,679 ð 835,339 ð 841,531 cases with 26,397 deaths.  Medellin has 66,587 ð 67,106 ð 67,762 cases, an increase of 687 from October 1^st to 2^nd. Envigado has a total of 3,963 cases, an increase of 36 from October 1^st to 2^nd.

 

Joke of the day

Walking through a supermarket, a young woman noticed an old lady following her around.

She ignored her for a while, but when she got to the checkout line, she got in front of her.

“Pardon me,” she said. “I’m sorry if I’ve been staring, but you look just like my daughter who died recently.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” the young woman replied. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Well, as I’m leaving, could you just say ‘Goodbye, mother!?’ It would make me feel so much better.” She gave her a sweet smile.

“Of course I can,” the young woman promised, touched.

As she gathered her bags and left, she called out “Goodbye, mother!” just as she had requested, feeling good about her smile.

Stepping up to the counter, she saw that her total was about $100 higher than it should be. “That amount is wrong,” she said. “I only have a few items!”

“Oh, your mother said that you'd pay for her.” explained the clerk.