The New Epicenter

CNN:

With more than 2,000 patients hospitalized and hundreds in Intensive Care Units, "Miami is now the epicenter of the pandemic," one infectious disease expert said, comparing the South Florida metropolitan area to the city where the pandemic originated.

"What we were seeing in Wuhan -- six months ago, five months ago -- now we are there," Lilian Abbo, with the Jackson Health System said during a news conference hosted Monday by the Miami-Dade County mayor.

The Chinese city of Wuhan, the original epicenter of the coronavirus crisis, went into a 76-day lockdown in late January after a deadly outbreak infected and killed thousands.

Florida has more Covid-19 than most countries in the world.

The first known cases of the virus were detected in the city in December and by mid-April officials reported more than 50,000 infections. Miami-Dade County has recorded more than 64,000 infections so far, according to state data.

In the past 13 days, Miami-Dade County has seen staggering increases in the number of Covid-19 patients being hospitalized (68%), in the number of ICU beds being used (69%) and in the use of ventilators (109%), the Miami-Dade County Government reported.

Forty-eight Florida hospitals, including eight in Miami-Dade, have reached their ICU capacity, according to the Agency for Health Care Administration.

"We need your help as media communicators to help the community understand that we're just not repeating the same thing over and over just to give you trouble, we really need your help," Abbo said, directing those comments to reporters.

Yo, Guv - we've got video, numb nuts. There's always video.

Gov. DeSantis also says Rebekah Jones is under "active criminal charges" for cyber stalking and cyber sexual harassment.

"I have a zero-tolerance policy for sexual harassment," Gov. DeSantis says. https://t.co/jTzJmKk8X0 pic.twitter.com/ZL0Vy0NS9o

— WFLA NEWS (@WFLA) May 20, 2020

Today's Beau

Justin King - Beau Of The Fifth Column

On having a constitutional duty to embrace BLM; to wear your mask; to look out for your neighbors; to expand civil rights, and to extend them to everybody.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Today's COVIDiots

Windemere Florida

Gizmodo:

The protesters said many things during the rally that simply aren’t true, including a claim that the disease has a “99.6% recovery rate.” The mortality rate for the disease may indeed be below 1% at the moment, but the word “recovery” is misleading. Some people who contract covid-19 suffer for months and the long term effects of the virus, especially in children, are still unknown. There’s also evidence that some people are experiencing significant cognitive impairment from the coronavirus, including vivid hallucinations in some cases.

“This is a virus that is very well contained, this is a virus that the CDC is removing epidemic status from,” one of the unnamed protesters told Global News. Neither of those things are true, of course. The disease is running rampant through the U.S. with no end in sight and is far from “contained.”

“Everyone is responsible for their own health care decisions,” one of the protesters said, another idiotic talking point that is simply false on its face.

The logic of “personal responsibility” doesn’t work during a viral pandemic. There’s no such thing as a choice that only impacts you when there’s a virus that spreads easily from person to person, especially as many people have no choice but to return to work as the virus spreads uncontrollably.

Today's Tweet

Data is beautiful, even when illustrating an ugly truth.

This chart is amazing. You have to watch it until the end. Wait for it... pic.twitter.com/zIOoWANMXK

— Steven Dennis (@StevenTDennis) July 12, 2020

COVID-19 Update

Good News = growth rate for deaths continues to be under 1.01.

Bad News = California Florida and Texas reported over 18,000 new cases, which is a whopping 18% of the GLOBAL FUCKING TOTAL.

Top 20 States

NYT:

Here’s what you need to know:

• California, Florida and Texas, home to nearly 100 million, are getting swamped by the virus.
• To demand that schools reopen, Betsy DeVos abandons a long advocacy of local control.
• Britain is expected to mandate face coverings in shops and supermarkets.
• Delta lost $5.7 billion in the second quarter, driven by a 93 percent decline in the number of passengers.
• France celebrates health care workers and grants them $9 billion in pay raises.
• ‘I can’t keep doing this’: Small businesses are shuttering as owners face a second round of lockdowns.

(Ed Note):

There's one more bullet point in the NYT piece but I left it off because I just don't think "Does your nanny need an antibody test or an advanced degree?" is something uppermost on our minds right now.

Fake lord a-mighty, Times - what the actual fuck? 

Today's Pix

click

👇🏻

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.

Walk A Mile

Ever wonder what dyslexia looks like?

Try this website

Here's a screen cap:

The "animation" of the website is very illustrative.

My particular version isn't quite that. For me, sometimes words trade places. Or they disappear. Or they repeat. It's just always pretty fucking weird.

Very interesting that somebody can come up with something that seems so simple to illustrate something so complicated.

Today's Tweet

This is not a government - this is a robbery.

Trump’s campaign manager is a felon.
His deputy campaign manager is a felon.
His national security advisor is a felon.
His foreign policy advisor is a felon.
His personal lawyer is a felon.
His long time advisor is a felon.

It’s not a campaign, it’s a criminal enterprise. pic.twitter.com/3U2VZNcaiL

— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) July 12, 2020

Free To Think

You know that's what they're thinking - it's what we're all thinking.