COVID-19 Update

We continue to level off a little. 

There's still a question as to the probability that the actual number of COVID-19 deaths is higher than we think - could be as much as 30% higher, because they can't account for "excess deaths".

The number of kids who've died in the last 4 or 5 months is troublesome as well. There's a bad uptick in the number of cases of "Pediatric Inflammatory Disorders" that isn't being well-explained.

as of 9AM EDT

As things "get better" (and as President Stoopid and his Rube Squad keep pushing the hyper-macho patriot bullshit), we're heading for a time that promises more unnecessary heartache and sorrow.

NYT:

Two of the federal government’s top health officials painted a grim picture of the months ahead on Tuesday, warning a Senate panel that the coronavirus pandemic was far from contained, just a day after President Trump declared that “we have met the moment and we have prevailed.”

The officials — Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, and Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — predicted dire consequences if the nation reopened its economy too soon, noting that the United States still lacked critical testing capacity and the ability to trace the contacts of those infected.

“If we do not respond in an adequate way when the fall comes, given that it is without a doubt that there will be infections that will be in the community, then we run the risk of having a resurgence,” said Dr. Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who is at the forefront of efforts to find a coronavirus vaccine.

If states reopen their economies too soon, he warned, “there is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control,” which could result not only in “some suffering and death that could be avoided, but could even set you back on the road to trying to get economic recovery.”
I think we all know a coupla things:

• 45* cares about nothing but his own short term benefit
• People believe what they want to believe, and 45* tells them what they want to hear

We also know that 45* has always ended up making things worse for himself, and he's always had to skate up to his next opportunity to fail in spectacular fashion, in order to escape whatever spectacular failure he's created at present.

Unless Republicans come to their senses and learn to cut their losses, we'll just keep stumbling towards a fully dystopian Daddy State.

Today's Idle Speculation

Over the weekend, 45* went even nuttier than usual, firing off more than a hundred tweets on Sunday alone. None of which, reportedly, had anything to do with Mothers' Day or his kids or anybody else's kids and moms.

It was all the usual shit - only amped up to about 16.

Generally, we get this nonsense when he's trying to distract us from something, so holy fuck whatever's coming should be a real lulu.

Bill Barr announced that his DOJ guys will make a motion in court to drop the charges against Mike Flynn.

Yesterday, 45* lost his shit in the middle of his "briefing", and fled the scene.

And we're hearing all over the place that because WH staffers are testing positive; that they're being quarantined; and that masks are being required for them everywhere but in their own offices when they're alone.

Right now, Tony Fauci is testifying (via video conferencing) before the Senate Intel Committee, and is saying what we all know - that COVID-19 is a monster and Cult45 fucked up the response - and continues to fuck it up.

The Speculation Part:

• He's pissed - he really needed the thing not to be so bad. He wished it not to be, and he's pissed because basically he ordered his people not to get sick and they did anyway. I think he believes that if they'd been stronger, they wouldn't be making him look bad like this.
• SCOTUS is hearing two cases involving his tax returns today, and I think somebody on his team has told him he's gonna lose.

Like I said: idle speculation.

But ya heard it here first, knuckleheads.

Today's Tweet

BTW - we have to get ready for the deep fake. There's no way the rat-fuckers will be able to resist it.

Now THIS video has been doctored... @RealDonaldTrump #JimmyKimmelLiveFromHisHouse #StayHome @DrFakenstein pic.twitter.com/ue10HBjmj9

— Jimmy Kimmel (@jimmykimmel) May 12, 2020

COVID-19 Update

The growth rates are down pretty dramatically (1.01) across the board.

Hoping this good news is real news, and not the result of governments playing a little fast-n-loose with the reporting. 🤞🏻

If we assume the numbers are reasonably accurate, and it means we can expect this monster to ease up a little, it fits with some of the projections that came out of CDC and WHO earlier - ie: expect a big drop-off as the good weather kicks in.

Unfortunately (as they also projected), that could mean we can expect people to lower their guard and create the conditions necessary for the contagion to make a big comeback this fall.

And it's particularly likely to come back on us in a big way as President Stoopid continues to urge people to get back to work.

I see it all over my FB and Twitter feeds - people are saying things that make me aware that they're buying the bullshit about how we just have to be brave - that we can beat the monster by going out there and taking our chances - that we win if we're bold - that achieving "herd immunity" is a simple matter of everybody getting sick so the virus has nowhere else to go.

This is the "reasoning" of a death cult.

The only encouraging part is that most people aren't going along with it so far.

Businesses have opened up - with great fanfare in many cases - but their traffic is off by upwards of 90%. Because, as dumb as we are sometimes, we're not going to patronize a restaurant (eg) if we think it's not clean and safe.

I'm not going back to my favorite pub for Fridays-Out-With-My-Boys until I'm relatively sure the bartender and the kitchen staff and the patrons aren't plaque-ridden.

Today's Little Meltdown

45* gets some good pushback, and he just can't handle it.

And what flashes through my little brain?

Today's GIF

Mr Esher breaks the universe.

Making The Rounds

Two Americans died of Ebola, and "conservatives" lost their shit, insisting Obama had botched it and should resign.

Four Americans died at Benghazi, and "conservatives" lost their shit, launching multiple investigations over 3 ½ years, holding 33 congressional hearings, and requiring Hillary to testify for 11 hours on one occasion.

45* may bring the COVID-19 thing in under 200,000 dead Americans, and the Republicans cheer.

200,000

DEAD

AMERICANS

That's how a cult operates.

COVID-19 Update

The good news is that the numbers fell off pretty significantly.

The lowest numbers for both New Cases and Daily Deaths in 2 months or more.

The bad news - as always: Can we trust those numbers?

Under the best circumstances (ie: when we have governments that aren't leaning hard towards the Daddy State), we have to take all good news with large grains of salt. But when we live in USAmerica Inc, and we know every day is another long episode of Gaslight Theater, and we have to look long and hard.

But what the fuck, let's just hope things are starting to turn around and COVID-19 really is going to disappear like magic - like a miracle or something.

This is what WaPo teased on their front page today:

Joe Biden

Greg Sargent

Jonathan Kravis

EJ Dionne

Jennifer Rubin

Normalizing

We do this a lot. We "get used to it".

WaPo, Margaret Sullivan:

Comparing the number of deaths from covid-19 to those caused by car crashes never made any sense. But the gimmick caught on anyway.

“We don’t shut down our economy because tens of thousands of people die on the highways,” said Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.). “It’s a risk we accept so we can move about.” President Trump also took up the bogus argument while deploying his trademark exaggeration, insisting that car-related deaths are “far greater than any numbers we’re talking about.”

In fact, cars kill about 40,000 people a year. Virus-related deaths hit 70,000 in only two months and are growing fast — and yet this comparison still doesn’t even take into account its disproportionate toll on health-care workers, nor the thousands of survivors who will suffer poor health for years, nor, oh yeah, the fact that car accidents aren’t contagious.

• 100,000 gun casualties every year, with 15,000 - 30,000 dead
• 400,000 tobacco-related dead every year
• 25,000 - 45,000 dead every year due to clinical errors
• 100,000 deaths in the US due to air pollution (7 million worldwide)

Unfortunately, when you put things in that context, it all starts to sound "reasonable".

But stop a minute, and understand what Ms Sullivan is telling us - that if we allow it, we become inured to the suffering of others, and by extension, to our own suffering as well.

We start to accept it all as "the cost of doing business".

I always go back to the apocryphal story of Eisenhower, contemplating the invasion of France in Operation Overlord (paraphrasing):

"We can make these decisions over dinner - we can decide to conquer and destroy most anything we please. But unless we stop to consider the cost in terms of the blood, and the suffering, and the lives of our fellow soldiers, we risk losing our humanity." 

- and (Sullivan, quoting Catherine Lutz and Anne Lutz Fernandez) -

“The problem with normalizing deaths,” they wrote in a recent essay for the Watson Institute of International & Public Affairs at Brown University, where Lutz is an anthropology professor, is that “it allows more deaths. It makes it easier for the horrors of virus deaths to fall off the broadcast news chyron, to divert resources away from public health and for future politicians to treat the next pandemic even more glibly.”

Cult45 is demanding sacrifice from us that they're not willing to make themselves, which is bad enough, but they're also demanding we take the next step and actively contribute to sacrificing each other in order to keep them in power.

Now What?

cnet:

A previously unseen asteroid the size of a truck flew about 4,350 miles (7,000 kilometers) over the Pacific Ocean on Monday, making it one of the closest passes by our planet on record.

Astronomers had no notice of asteroid 2020 JJ's existence, as it was discovered using the Mt. Lemmon Survey in Arizona right around the time it reached its closest point to us.

NASA keeps an online database of close approaches by asteroids and other "near-Earth objects" going back to 1900, and 2020 JJ comes in as the sixth closest approach ever recorded. It should be noted that the top 10 close approaches have all come since 2004. This isn't because asteroids started attacking us in the 21st century. Rather, it says something about how astronomers and their technology are becoming better at spotting ever-smaller and closer asteroids.

I think I'm glad not to have known about it until after the fact.

Pandemic, then Murder Hornets, and then an asteroid - like we needed something to pass the time while we wait for the tornadoes, the hurricanes and the wildfires?