COVID-19 Update

We've still got ridiculously high numbers of New Cases (over 58,000 yesterday), but the increase in New Deaths is lowering (under 400). 

And the part about "just a few deaths" always raises the specter that GOP ass-kissers aren't reporting the numbers accurately, even as we continue to hear stories of refrigerator trucks for the dead because morgues are filling up.

Florida continues to be the main problem child, with New Cases up at 1.06 Growth Rate.

Arizona, Southern California and Texas aren't far behind.

Meanwhile, President Stoopid wore a mask one time in public and there was good number of Press Poodles who jumped in with, "My oh my, but ain't that man all presidential and shit".

WaPo:

Test results for the novel coronavirus are taking so long to come back that experts say the results across the United States are often proving useless in the campaign to control the deadly disease.

Some testing sites are struggling to provide results in five to seven days. Others are taking even longer. Outbreaks across the Sun Belt have strained labs beyond capacity. That rising demand, in turn, has caused shortages of swabs, chemical reagents and equipment as far away as New York.

The long testing turnaround times are making it impossible for the United States to replicate the central strategy used by other countries to effectively contain the virus — test, trace and isolate. Like catching any killer, speed is of the essence when it comes to the coronavirus.

“Instead of going from one step to the next, it’s like you’re already stumbling right out of the gate,” said Crystal R. Watson, a public health expert at Johns Hopkins University. “It makes contact tracing almost useless. By the time a person is getting results, they already have symptoms, their contacts may already have symptoms and have gone on to infect others.”

So without any real strategy at the national level; with no coordination of efforts; no "best practices guidelines" - we just lurch along with something like *60 different standards; 60 different ways of trying to deal with this shit.

(* - 50 states, plus territories, plus Native Nations)

My original contention here stands. We're being subjected to the latest application of Radical Libertarian Shock Doctrine. We're being deliberately made to suffer so we'll eventually cry "Uncle!" and deliver Daddy State powers to the Executive Branch.

Feel free to call me crazy.