March 1, 2020: The Coronavirus is Spreading Around the Globe

 

March 1, 2020: It’s a quiet day in America. Trump’s staying put at the White House for a change, probably out of fear of the coronavirus. He isn’t even tweeting much. 

Could he be dead? 

Or is the world’s most powerful germaphobe simply hiding out…and letting Mike Pence put his life at risk?

 

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South Korea has 3,736 cases, the U.S. only 71 confirmed.

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The coronavirus continues to spread, disrupting the flow of travel around the globe, cutting trade networks, rattling the world economy. The outbreak is no fault of Trump’s. But it’s a growing problem and one he seems ill-prepared by temperament or inclination to address. Today, Rhode Island authorities announce they have a suspected case of COVID-19, first in the state. Researchers in the State of Washington believe the virus may have been circulating, unsuspected, for weeks. An estimated 150 to 1,500 people are likely infected or were infected and didn’t realize it. The United States currently has 71 confirmed cases. Qatar and Luxembourg announce their first patients. Two people in Azerbaijan are quarantined and the border with Iran is shut. There are dozens of cases in the United Kingdom. Both the Netherlands and Lebanon confirm three new infections, bringing their totals to seven each. By the time I finish typing this post, the number in Lebanon rises to ten. France, with more than 100 confirmed cases, is on high alert. In Paris, the Louvre is closed. Iran reports 978 cases and 53 deaths, a mortality rate of 7%. Italy reports 1,128 cases, up from 888 two days ago. Turkey has halted passenger flights to and from Italy, Iran, Iraq, and South Korea. According to the BBC, Italy’s economy has “taken a body blow.” Tourism is a casualty. Restaurants and public places are deserted. South Korea reports 3,736 cases. Saudi Arabia has warned citizens not to travel to Lebanon. Kuwait, with 45 confirmed cases, and Russia, with only two, have advised citizens not to travel at all. 

Nobody in their right mind wants to visit North Korea, of course. But Kim Jong-un, ever the dictatorial nut, threatens “serious consequences” if the COVID-19 virus spreads to his land. 

Death by anti-aircraft gun, maybe? 

So far, there have been 87,138 confirmed cases around the globe, with 2,980 deaths, a mortality rate of about 3.4%.

May 3, 2020: Donald J. Trump - Maestro of Misinformation

 

5/3/20: The Trump administration continues to write a “glorious record,” as the nation reopens for business. 

Sunday afternoon, a check of the John Hopkins University website indicates the U.S. has 1,154,621 confirmed cases of COVID-19. 

Th death toll stands at 67,451.

 

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Maestro of Misinformation.

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Sadly, your favorite blogger has fallen behind in his posts. That means we’re catching up today. Last week, Trump, the Maestro of Misinformation, was busy bragging that under his guiding hand the United States was killing it when it came to testing. He claimed that people in every other country dreamed of having a bold orange leader like him. He insisted the U.S. had done more tests for the virus than all other countries combined. 

If we went to Worldometers, we found that the Maestro was off a tad. The U.S. had done more tests than any other nation. 

We’d done 7.2 million. Spain had done 1.9 million, Italy 2.2 million, and the United Kingdom 1.2 million tests. If we added in France, 1.1 million, Germany, 2.6 million – okay, that’s already more than we’ve done – and then tossed in Russia, 4.1 million – and we started totaling numbers for the rest of the world in our head and got 17.5 million more… 

Okay, the Maestro is full of poo.

 

* 

WE DO KNOW that many states are opening back up. We hope, whether we like Trump or don’t, that the country recovers with speed. 

We also know that as of this morning, the Trump toadies were out in force, insisting that when the story of this time is written, historians will credit this president for a great success. “When history looks back on this,” Jared Kushner claimed, “they’ll say, man, the federal government acted really quickly and creatively, they threw a lot at the problem and saved a lot of lives.” 

(Wait, didn’t these very same guys spend weeks telling us, “Don’t worry, this virus is just the flu?”)

 

Here, it might be worth offering this chart, to show what happened when South Korea and the U.S. discovered the same day, they had their first case of the virus. The South started immediate testing. 

Trump kept denying there was reason for concern.

 

Total cases. 

                                    South Korea                           United States 

January 20                            1                                        1

March 2                         3,276                                    104     

March 5                         6,284                                    225

March 7                         7,000+                                              401

March 17                       8,320                                   4,661

 

By March 21, South Korea had already done 300,000 tests for the coronavirus. The U.S., with six times the population, had done 170,000. The cost of delay was soon evident. 

March 29                       9,661                                 137,294

April 6                          10,331                                337,971

April 24                        10,708                                887,622

May 3                           10,793                              1,186,073    

 

South Korea had contained the spread, at a cost of only 250 lives. 

 

POSTSCRIPT: Speaking of South Korea, troops recently traded fire with enemy forces across the border in North Korea. 

Kim Jong-un, who some reports said was dead, has resurfaced. Three years and four months into Trump’s first term in office (hopefully, his only one) the North Korean dictator still has all the nuclear weapons he had when our president told us he was no longer a nuclear threat.

One easy way to tell: This was never the flu.

 

September 2, 2020: Make America Felonious Again

 

9/2/20: The stock market is on a roll – which Mr. Trump will be happy to report. We’re racking up COVID-19 cases, too, which he’d prefer not to mention. 

According to the CDC, we’re still averaging 42,000 plus new cases per day, in the last week. 

There are countries that are doing much better. Germany had 1,218 cases on September 1. Adjusted for population, that would be about a tenth of what the U.S. is trying to cope with daily. 

Italy had 975, equivalent to one seventh of the caseload we see. 

South Korea had 267, a terrible day by Korean standards. Our caseload is roughly 28 times worse.

 

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APPARENTLY, the American people still aren’t too happy with the President of the United States. 

With 63 days left until the election, the polls – for Don and the Republicans, more generally – look grim.

 

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IF POLL NUMBERS look bleak, Tin Pot Don has a plan to sweep to victory in November. At a campaign stop in North Carolina, he explains that the Democrats are plotting to steal the election. To make sure they don’t get away with their plot, he tells his MAGA crew to be sure to get their mail-in ballots, fill them out, and send them in in a timely fashion. Then, if “they” don’t tabulate those votes – Trump doesn’t say exactly who the “they” are – the MAGA crew should protect their “precious right to vote” by going to the polls in person and voting twice. 

What could possibly go wrong with this brilliant plan? 

For instance, suppose you mailed in your ballot with little time to spare. On Election Day it’s still sitting in a pile to be counted. Clerks will catch up in a few days. But you haul your dumb MAGA ass down to the polls. It appears your mail-in vote has not been counted. Duh. You vote again. 

And when “they” do tabulate the mail-in ballots later? Well, voting twice happens to be a felony in North Carolina.

 

 x’s  2.

MAKE AMERICA FELONIOUS AGAIN.

 

 

FUN FACT – RUSSIANS: We know Trump may get a boost again, in 2020, with a little help from Russians. U.S. intelligence agencies warned against interference designed to harm the Biden campaign in a report ready in July.

 

FUN FACT – MORE RUSSIANS: Trump’s political pals, in charge of overseeing U.S. intelligence, blocked release of that report until the free press pried the truth out of their mouths two months later.