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COVID-19 in U.S. Passes 2 Million

There are now more than 2 million cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. More than 112,000 people have died - the highest number among all the countries in the world.

Coronavirus rates are rising in 21 states. I think this was entirely predictable given the early reopening of many states, and the refusal of so many people to continue to practice safe-distancing.

Unfortunately, Washington has moved on to other topics.

The coronavirus may not be done with the United States, but the nation’s capital seems to be done with the coronavirus. On Capitol Hill, lawmakers in both parties were examining police brutality. The Senate health committee was contending with getting children back to school. The White House, which halted its daily virus briefings more than a month ago, was wrestling with race relations.

As the pandemic’s grim numbers continue to climb, President Trump and lawmakers in both parties are exhibiting their usual short attention span, alarming public health experts who worry that a second wave of infections could deliver a punch more brutal than the first while the nation’s political leaders are looking the other way.

Shorter version: Congress is so afraid of the economic fallout from stay at home orders and loss of jobs, it's prepared to let the disease spread rather than undergo another shutdown.

Every day I see more and more people no longer wearing masks in public places.

Health officials are asking everyone who participated in the protests to get tested. I doubt most of them will. The numbers suggest that they aren't the ones in danger of dying.

I think the message, as set by Donald Trump, is clear: those over the age of 60 need to be prepared to be collateral damage in the nation's coronavirus response. The country will not shut down a second time to protect them.

A few weeks ago I heard Donald Trump say the country needed to reopen -- teachers under 70 should return to work. He mentioned other occupations and said those under 70 should return to work.

What about those over 60 and 70? They can stay home, in isolation, or assume the risk of dying from contracting covid-19. Freezing out the elderly is just a price society must be prepared to pay because it pales in comparison to the greater good of economic benefits for everyone else.

Pondering this today, I couldn't help but think of the novel Animal Farm. Or the campy movie from 1968, "Wild in the Streets", where teenage heart throb Max Frost (Christopher Jones) ran for President and won on a campaign platform of lowering the voting age to 14. Old people would be sent to a farm and fed LSD. Also in the movie: Shelley Winter and Hal Holbrooke, and a very young looking Richard Pryor. The movie is free on You Tube here, but really, this song is the best part.

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  • Display: Sort:
    It's tough (5.00 / 2) (#5)
    by CST on Thu Jun 11, 2020 at 10:48:37 AM EST
    My parents who are very high risk live in rural Vermont, where there is virtually no COVID. All of their kids and grandkids (who are much lower risk) live in the Boston area, one of the worst hot spots for COVID in the country.

    I can't tell you how many times I've had to suggest that they really shouldn't visit now ans maybe it's not the best time to go see them either.  They miss us and family zooms are not it.  I don't know how much longer they will be willing to stay away.

    A Cambridge University study, (5.00 / 1) (#6)
    by KeysDan on Thu Jun 11, 2020 at 11:54:31 AM EST
    published in the scientific journal, "Proceedings of Royal Academy A"  

    suggests that universal masking is likely to be an effective measure in mitigating Covid-19 spread and limiting a second wave.  The findings for masking are coupled with social distancing and some degree of lock down.

    In my opinion, masking alone, if that is the only sustainable public measure, save for lock downs to prevent very close contact for a period of time (e.g., theaters, sporting events) is a minimal, relatively simple, economical public health step to take.  

    I'm Not Responsible (5.00 / 3) (#17)
    by MO Blue on Thu Jun 11, 2020 at 04:48:29 PM EST
    Tulsa Rally Disclosure

    "By clicking register below, you are acknowledging that an inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19 exists in any public place where people are present," the statement reads.

    "By attending the Rally, you and any guests voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19 and agree not to hold Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.; BOK Center; ASM Global; or any of their affiliates, directors, officers, employees, agents, contractors, or volunteers liable for any illness or injury."

    The Hill

    Ivanka holds (5.00 / 1) (#18)
    by KeysDan on Thu Jun 11, 2020 at 05:22:34 PM EST
    a. Chinese trademark on coffins.  She  may have a booth at the Exhibit Hall, offering a special deal.  Free Koolaid.  Working on Urns, probably.

    Parent
    Is that true re the coffin trademark? (none / 0) (#21)
    by oculus on Thu Jun 11, 2020 at 06:43:07 PM EST
    Slight segue:  who financed the gold coffin and four. memorial services for George Floyd?  I haven't seen any information re the expenses.

    Parent
    Floyd Mayweather. (none / 0) (#22)
    by oculus on Thu Jun 11, 2020 at 06:44:26 PM EST
    Is it true? (none / 0) (#28)
    by KeysDan on Thu Jun 11, 2020 at 08:50:39 PM EST
    Yes.

    Parent
    Don't almost (none / 0) (#19)
    by Ga6thDem on Thu Jun 11, 2020 at 06:15:56 PM EST
    all cults usually end in death?

    Parent
    Are the attendeesdisce4ning enough (none / 0) (#20)
    by oculus on Thu Jun 11, 2020 at 06:40:12 PM EST
    To read this and think, oh, maybe not a hoax after all.

    Parent
    Simple answer (5.00 / 1) (#25)
    by MO Blue on Thu Jun 11, 2020 at 07:39:51 PM EST
    No

    Parent
    100,000 more by Sept (none / 0) (#1)
    by CaptHowdy on Wed Jun 10, 2020 at 10:19:40 PM EST
    My fear (5.00 / 1) (#2)
    by KeysDan on Wed Jun 10, 2020 at 10:58:42 PM EST
    is that 100,000 is a low ball.

    Parent
    VOX (none / 0) (#4)
    by CaptHowdy on Thu Jun 11, 2020 at 07:14:49 AM EST
    I am shocked (none / 0) (#10)
    by Ga6thDem on Thu Jun 11, 2020 at 12:26:08 PM EST
    GA is not on that list. I was in NC last week and was less worried about COVID than I have been here in GA.

    Parent
    That because by most indications, ... (none / 0) (#27)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Thu Jun 11, 2020 at 07:54:49 PM EST
    ... Georgia has been inconsistent in its statistical reporting. Still, it appears that your state is also facing a spike. Gosh, who could've ever seen that coming, eh?

    Stay safe.

    Parent

    Everything Trump Does Is Wrong (none / 0) (#3)
    by john horse on Thu Jun 11, 2020 at 06:16:12 AM EST
    We're #1!  That is #1 in number of deaths from Covid thanks to Donald Trump.  That is the reason that the US has more COVID deaths by far than any other country.

    We are #1 in deaths because Trump looks at this pandemic not as a health issue but as an economic issue, and more importantly, as a public relations issue that might affect his reelection.  As a result, every action that he has taken has made a bad situation worse.  If your analysis of the problem is wrong then you will design and develop a plan that will be fail.

    By the way, great song selection Jeralyn.  However, as someone over the age of 60, I'm not quite ready yet to give up my life on the altar of Trump's reelection.  

    Trumps is a Watchman fan (none / 0) (#7)
    by CaptHowdy on Thu Jun 11, 2020 at 12:01:19 PM EST
    He is having his first big rally on the anniversary of the destruction of Black Wall Street that opened the series and was famously made a household name by it.

    Nice.  Let's make sure the lines are clearly drawn.  Good idea.

    'Almost blasphemous': Trump plans rally in Tulsa, site of a race massacre, on Juneteenth



    Will Trump speak (5.00 / 1) (#8)
    by KeysDan on Thu Jun 11, 2020 at 12:12:17 PM EST
     negatively about his predecessor, Jefferson Davis? The Lincoln Project, a Republican group, is claiming that Trump is the second president of the Confederacy.

    Parent
    I wonder if he is so delusional (none / 0) (#11)
    by CaptHowdy on Thu Jun 11, 2020 at 12:26:57 PM EST
    He might think this is a good thing.   You know, try a little pandering to the coloreds.  Part of me doesn't want to think he is fully aware of what he is doing.  And he is doing it because he is a small bitter petulant evil cornered rat and he is determined to do as much damage as possible on the way down.

    Parent
    Isn't this the speech (5.00 / 1) (#13)
    by CST on Thu Jun 11, 2020 at 01:29:23 PM EST
    Miller is organizing?

    Because whether or not Trump gets it, Miller definitely does.

    Parent

    Ax-Handle Saturday? (none / 0) (#14)
    by CaptHowdy on Thu Jun 11, 2020 at 02:30:15 PM EST
    President Trump will accept the Republican presidential nomination on August 27 in Jacksonville, Florida, the 60th anniversary of "Ax Handle Saturday," the Washington Post reports.

    That's when a mob of 200 white people in the city -- organized by the Ku Klux Klan and joined by some of the city's police officers -- chased and beat peaceful civil rights protesters (with ax handles and baseball bats) who were trying to integrate downtown lunch counters.

    A permit had already been approved for civil rights activists for the 60th anniversary commemoration of those events.



    Parent
    Speaking of Jefferson Davis, ... (none / 0) (#26)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Thu Jun 11, 2020 at 07:40:41 PM EST
    ... his statue along Richmond, VA's Monument Ave. was pulled down by protesters last night. The police stood by and watched.

    100 miles east in Portsmouth, VA exasperated protesters took matters into their own hands yesterday after the City Council deferred action on the removal of Confederate monuments, and did the deed themselves while a marching band played.

    Sen. Ted Cruz calls such protesters "the American Taliban." I think of them as the vanguard for a new urban renewal across the South. November can't come soon enough, as far as I'm concerned.

    And over in Belgium, the legacy of the notorious King Leopold II is presently facing a reckoning as well as thousands of demonstrators want his public memory erased from the country's streets and public squares.

    Leopold, of course, is the man whose greed and avarice in the then-Congo Free State -- which the king considered his own personal property -- sparked a genocide which killed an estimated 10 million Congolese and reduced that colony's indigenous population by half between 1880 and 1905.

    And because Belgian butchery in central Africa was widely recognized back then as a horror show even by the low western standards of the Age of Imperialism, Leopold was also in many respects responsible for the birth of the modern human rights movement.

    If anyone's ever interested in learning more about this forgotten criminal tragedy in an area of the world that's been mostly ignored by us, I highly recommend Adam Hochschild's critically acclaimed 1998 book "King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa."

    Aloha.

    Parent

    Let (none / 0) (#29)
    by CaptHowdy on Thu Jun 11, 2020 at 10:47:45 PM EST
    Channeling Reagan (5.00 / 2) (#9)
    by Peter G on Thu Jun 11, 2020 at 12:25:22 PM EST
    and his fabled 1980 appearance in Philadelphia, Mississippi, perhaps?

    Parent
    My bad (none / 0) (#12)
    by CaptHowdy on Thu Jun 11, 2020 at 12:57:01 PM EST
    NOT the anniversary but the location of the Tulsa Race Massacre.

    It's the ANNIVERSARY of the reading of the Emancipation Proclamation

    So it's a twofer

    Parent

    What the heck is going on (none / 0) (#15)
    by Peter G on Thu Jun 11, 2020 at 03:56:24 PM EST
    in Seattle? And what is the way out?

    Seattle Times (none / 0) (#16)
    by CaptHowdy on Thu Jun 11, 2020 at 04:15:33 PM EST
    Seattle according to my sister... (none / 0) (#23)
    by fishcamp on Thu Jun 11, 2020 at 07:02:35 PM EST
    The new autonomous country in downtown Seattle is called Chaz and the main leader is named Raz.  They set up a cop free food co-op, but the homeless came in and took all the food so now they're asking for donations.  They're demanding money from 600 businesses in Chaz and collecting money from some entrants.  They've released demands to the mayor some of which are all blacks be released from prison, all blacks have all old cases looked at, all blacks get new trials with black judges, jury, and lawyers.  Free housing, free college, and it goes on and on.  Not sure where she gets her info.  

    Parent
    The allesgations that CHAZ was demanding (none / 0) (#24)
    by oculus on Thu Jun 11, 2020 at 07:21:03 PM EST
    protection from local businesses has been refuted.

    Parent