Last night someone on MSNB observed that we’re suddenly hearing more from Dr. Anthony Fauci these days. Trump is too busy throwing his temper tantrum over the election to care what the task force is doing, I take it. Mike Pence is still the nominal head of the task force, but he appears to be more focused on the runoff elections in Georgia than in public health.
Dr. Fauci said today that we haven’t hit the Thanksgiving peak yet. And it’s bad enough already.
At least 2,857 new coronavirus deaths and 216,548 new cases were reported in the United States on Dec. 3. Over the past week, there has been an average of 180,327 cases per day, an increase of 8 percent from the average two weeks earlier. …
…As of Friday afternoon, more than 14,331,200 people in the United States have been infected with the coronavirus and at least 277,600 have died, according to a New York Times database.
Case numbers are spiking across most of the United States, leading to dire warnings about full hospitals, exhausted health care workers and expanding lockdowns.
The safe assumption is that cases, hospitalizations, and deaths will all reach new highs before Christmas. The virus is simply everywhere. While the spring wave slammed into the Northeast and the summer surge swept over the South, the latest surge, while concentrated in the Midwest, is truly national. Almost every state has seen an increase in cases since September, and nearly 40 states saw COVID-19 hospitalizations reach record highs in the past three weeks. Right when Americans should have separated themselves from new exposures, millions of them shuffled and reshuffled themselves into new combinations of people. This epidemiological experiment seems destined to produce more deaths, more grieving, more illness, and more exhausted health-care workers, who were already on a “catastrophic path” before 9 million people filed through TSA checkpoints in the past week.
Robinson Meyer and Alexis C. Madrigal, The Atlantic:
The pandemic nightmare scenario—the buckling of hospital and health-care systems nationwide—has arrived. Several lines of evidence are now sending us the same message: Hospitals are becoming overwhelmed, causing them to restrict whom they admit and leading more Americans to needlessly die.
It’s not just covid patients; it’s anyone with a serious medical condition now who can’t get the treatments that usually would be available. Try real hard not to have a heart attack anytime soon.
This is what we were warned about last spring when they talked about bending the curve. The idea was not to keep the virus from spreading as much as it was to slow down the spread so that everyone didn’t get sick at once. But that’s out the window now. Meyer and Madrigal also write that hospitals have had to revise their standards of which covid patients are admitted, so that they take only the most acutely ill. A patient who might have been admitted a few weeks ago is now sent home.
I’m living in a state with a Republican governor who refuses to impose mask mandates. I’m back to sheltering in place. I can’t say I ever stopped sheltering in place, actually. All because of nitwits who refuse to take precautions because freedom.
Speaking of Republican governors, see Iowa Is What Happens When Government Does Nothing by Elaine Godfrey at The Atlantic. And then go see Charles Pierce’s commentary on Godfrey’s article, We’ve Been Headed Here Since Ronald Reagan Made His First Joke About ‘The Government’.
The piece, which is written just as well as it is reported, illustrates a complete abandonment of the public health by the state government of Iowa. It arraigns Republican Governor Kim Reynolds, whom it reports, “followed President Trump’s lead.” (Among other delights, Reynolds actively opposed efforts by some of the state’s mayors to take precautions, undermining local mask mandates as soon as they were imposed.) This, of course, left hospital workers hung out to dry. …
… This is beyond neglect. It is negligent homicide by ideology. Everybody in Iowa saw what was coming. The meat-packing plants have been hot zones for months. And everybody can see worse coming in the next several months.
So there we are. It didn’t have to be this bad, but it is this bad. Everybody be careful. We’re in for a rough few months.
"Everybody be careful. We’re in for a rough few months."
I did the conclusion from Maha's post in bold, italics and underlined because I'm tired. I'm tired of being cooped up. I miss recreation with/around other people. From what I read, my frustration isn't unique. So I have to be disciplined.
There's a few different vaccines with over 90% efficiency. Next year for me. At least a couple of months away by my estimate. So I gotta stay uninfected for ten to fifteen weeks. I don't want the award for being the last person to die of Covid.
The world will survive this – be among the survivors.
Be proud of Presidunce tRump. Two weeks ago I counted him out but he has stepped up his game so he has a real shot at having more Americans die of Covid-19 before January 20, 2021 than the total number (405,399) military who dies of all causes during WWII./s
If I was Biden, I'd be telling everyone something along these lines:
"Over forty years ago, presidential candidate Ronald Reagan often told crowds a joke where he said that 'the scariest word you can hear in the English language, are, 'I'm here from the government, and I'm here to help.'
Well, since he said those words, both president Bush's cut taxes for the rich, and left one major repression and a near depression for president's Clinton and Obama to clean and fix up! And they did it! And they did it by using our government for something besides just giving major tax cuts for themselves and their very, very rich friends, like Republicans always do!
Well NOW, Donald tRUMP has left ALL of us Americans the absolute worst mess in our history. In our history! And to fix what he and his corrupt cronies have broken or stolen, or both, it's gonna take ALL of us Americans! How? Because 'We the people' ARE OUR GOVERNMENT!
So, I'm here to tell you, that among the very best things words can hear in the English language, are, 'We're here from the government, and we're here to help.'
We're here to help ourselves. So let's get to helping! You'll be helping yourself! So who wants to help?!?"
That's what I'd say.
To thunderous applause, probably. 😉
Were it not for COVID, Trump would be getting his 2nd term, and America would be over. Things are still hanging by a thread politically, but at least the Orange One will be banished, probably to OAN or some other broadcasting outpost of Wingnut Central.
Here's hoping Biden will be the Harry Truman we need. Video of Joe Biden giving Jay Leno a ride in his 67 Corvette
Another Truman is the last thing we need. Truman had more in common with Trump than just the first four letters of his surname. He was a typical peasant: ignorant, overconfident, and corrupt. He abrogated the 1787 Constitution by circumventing Congress to send troops to Korea, leaving the Constitution a shattered, ineffectual laughingstock, along with all of the institutions that it defines. Damage of that kind cannot be repaired; the wreckage can only be swept away and replacede with something completely new.
Truman oversaw the Marshall Plan and took part in the formation of the United Nations and NATO. He supported unions and desegregated the military. He pushed through a big public housing bill and welcomed refugees displaced by World War II. He was nothing like Trump. Was he perfect? No. But let's keep some perspective here.
Yes we failed to avoid the pandemic and the worst is yet to come. A stitch in time saves nine and we denied we had anything to mend and still do. Now we have a hole so big all the kings horses and all the kings men can't sew fast enough. I have a neighbor that is a self appointed epidemiologist who is on an anti-mask rant. Oh yes, as Maha stated, it is about freedom, and as my neighbor avows "those masks don't do any good anyway". My neighbor refuses to reveal where she learned her epidemiologist skills, but home schooling seems her most likely alma mater. Oh dear, do we have an epidemic of mental problems on our hands too, and she seems to be also too far gone for just a little mending.
Michelle Goldberg references Charlie Sykes in her opinion piece in the NYT today, and both are excellent reads. We have over the years allowed the development of a culture of denial, and this culture fuels the epidemic. From the Sykes piece:
The United States is not the undisputed leader (except for the dispute of the denial culture) in COVID-19 cases per unit population and deaths per unit population for no reason. The virus has found a highly fertile breeding ground in this culture, not quite like the cultures biologists employ to grow bacteria, but in so many ways so, so similar. The COVID feeds on mental pathology of the denial culture and we have truly opened Pandora's Box, they contend. They seem to have the big picture view of our problems, and it is not a pretty view.
Opinion | The MAGA Revolution Devours Its Own – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
The Leopards Eating People's Faces Party – Morning Shots (thebulwark.com)
*The comments on the Goldman piece are quite excellent also IMO.
Speaking of excellent comments, here's one I saw that I'm still laughing over.
"Yippee, daddy is giving us pardons for Christmas"
It's pretty simple.
Americans travelled a lot at Thanksgiving. This spreads virus.
Covid takes a couple weeks to get to the point of hospitalizations.
And a couple more for deaths.
so the month after Thanksgiving is going to be super deadly, and would be even if we weren't starting off at worst on earth status. And since the month after Thanksgiving contains two big holidays where family and friends often gather, it's likely covidiots will make January great for the virus again too.