Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

In my day, never was longer.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / COVID-19 Coronavirus Update: Saturday/Sunday, July 4-5

COVID-19 Coronavirus Update: Saturday/Sunday, July 4-5

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89Comments

  1. 1.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Wow, AL, so you ever sleep?! Greatly appreciate your daily aggregation, though! I find it to be one of the most useful and convenient sources on the pandemic in the US and world (especially Europe, Africa and Latin America).

  2. 2.

    OzarkHillbilly

    WHO reports record daily increase in global coronavirus cases, up more than 212,000

    25% of which are in the US.
    WE’RE #1!!!! WE’RE #1!!!! WE’RE #1!!!!

  7. 7.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Governors in several states with rising COVID-19 cases are sticking to their appeals for “personal responsibility” to combat the coronavirus instead of issuing statewide mandates on mask-wearing or social gatherings.

    Remember all those Republican sermons about “personal responsibility”? Yeah, Republican voters never thought that BS applied to them

  8. 8.

    Mary G

    Pretty scary. I was going to a friend’s today – just four of us, but I cancelled since I’ve lived all my life with the kind of long term multiple system damage people seem to be suffering in the worst cases, and it’s no damn fun. She’s been going to weekday mass again and shopping, so it just didn’t feel safe.

    Three family friends of my housemates – all Latino men in their 40s and 50s – have died.

    Tomorrow is my four-month anniversary of constantly staying home except the one trip to the vet, when I stayed in the car. It’s getting old af.

  9. 9.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysia’s daily numbers. Five new cases; two cases from local infection, both Malaysians, detected in pre-surgery screening. Three cases from imported infection, two Malaysians returning from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates respectively, and a permanent resident returning from Pakistan. Cumulative total 8,663 cases.

    Four more patients recovered and were discharged; total 8,465 recovered or 97.71% of the cumulative total. 77 active and contagious cases remain in hospital for isolation, of whom two are in ICU and both receiving respiratory aid.

    No new deaths. It has been exactly three weeks since Malaysia reported its most recent Covid-19 fatality. Total deaths still at 121. Infection and case fatality rates are both at around 1.4%.

  12. 12.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Yesterday, Beijing reported 2 new domestic confirmed cases, and no new suspect or asymptomatic cases.Both confirmed cases are workers at the Xinfadi wholesale produce exchange, having been under self- and centralized quarantine since 6/12 and 6/14, respectively. One case tested positive on RT-PCR on 7/2, and positive again on 7/4. The other case tested negative on RT-PCR on 6/28, but was positive for IgM & IgG antibodies on 7/2. Both of these cases had incubation periods of ~ 3 weeks, and probably did not show any obvious outward symptoms, or they would have been tested sooner. It seems the standard quarantine period for people with direction connections to Xinfadi is 3 weeks and not 2.

    Beijing Municipal Health Commission reported that, from 6/11 until 7/2, Beijing has collected swab samples from 10.41M individuals, and tested just over 10.06M individuals (nearly half of Beijing’s population). Some people have been tested multiple times. Positive rate is 3.67 / 100K.

    Currently, there are 26 sub-district/neighborhoods in a Beijing still designated as Medium Risk, 2 as High Risk. 19 formerly Medium Risk sub-districts have been lowered to Low Risk.

  13. 13.

    OzarkHillbilly

    My wife is always saying what a Neanderthal I am.

    DNA Linked to Covid-19 Was Inherited From Neanderthals Study Finds
    The stretch of 6 genes seems to increase the risk of severe illness from the Corona virus.

    Figures.

  18. 18.

    YY_Sima Qian

    For those who might find it interesting: a Japanese documentary who is currently living in Nanjing in Jiangsu Province (and married to a local) has produced two short documentaries on COVID-19 in China. One (12+ min long) concerns the social distancing/containment measures in Nanjing in late Mar., when the city had not had a confirmed case for weeks, no active cases (only ever had 96 confirmed cases total). It really illustrates the extend of the preventive measures taken across China (after the outbreaks had been suppressed and eradicated) at that time. Measures have been relaxed in the months since then.

    https://youtu.be/YfsdJGj3-jM

    The other documentary (just over an hour) profiles 10 people from various walks of life in Wuhan, and discuss their experiences during and after the epidemic. It was hot in early Jun., just after the mass screening in the city. I found it quite moving and very authentic.

    https://youtu.be/N4ABOJ1y5iM

  19. 19.

    Amir Khalid

    The “wartime President” is now preaching surrender. How abject. How sad.

  21. 21.

    terben

    From the Australian Dept of Health:

    ‘As at 3pm on 5 July 2020, a total of 8,449 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Australia, including 104 deaths and 7,399 have been reported as recovered from COVID-19.

    • Over the past week, there has been an average of 82 new cases reported each day. Of the newly reported cases, the majority have been from Victoria.
    • Of cases with a reported place of acquisition, 58% have recent international travel history, including over 1,300 cases associated with cruise ships.
    • To date, over 2,713,000 tests have been conducted nationally. Of those tests conducted 0.3% have been positive.
    • On 03 July, 189 historic cases reported in crew members on board a ship were classified as Australian cases and included in NSW totals.’

    94 new cases today, 7 reclassified, a net increase of 87. In two states there were 20 cases in quarantine, leaving 74 cases in Victoria.

  22. 22.

    Betty Cracker

    The Tampa Bay area is running out of ICU beds. All of this was avoidable, but now we’ll just have to see who lives and who dies during an uncontrolled spread.

  23. 23.

    Gvg

    @Betty Cracker: I have registered to vote by mail, and I need to stock up on staples again, because I think another shutdown is coming with supply chain disruptions possible.

    The University sent us back to work about 3 weeks ago. The office is still closed to outside entry but they do plan reopening soon. I thought they were nuts, but they do have to obey the board of regents and the parties with a few friends and roommates. Went to one resteraunt but it rained so everyone came inside…I am rolling my eyes here.  College kids have roommates, so the virus is going to spread. They actually don’t have good judgement and aren’t really mentally tough enough to resist social pressure about getting together. Sigh….

  24. 24.

    WereBear

    @Mary G: Just talked to a friend. Her husband’s mother is elderly/poor health. She was telling him on the phone she’d gotten a home appointment with her hairdresser, and he expressed alarm.

    “Maybe you’re right, I don’t know if she’s out of quarantine yet…”

    If the virus looked like Godzilla we wouldn’t have these problems.

  26. 26.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    South Africa reported its biggest single-day jump in #COVID19 cases, as hospitals across the country brace for an onslaught of patients.

    I had some twatwaffle from South Africa gas on about how awful the US was, even though the SA numbers are straight up.  From what I’ve been told it sounded like a total mirror of the US on the virus; it’s all another countries fault, with the SA they blame the US, for reasons, since the Virus came to SA from Italy,  and because it mostly effects poor people, who cares?

  27. 27.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Amir Khalid: All the time being cheered by his supporters wearing T shirts showing Trump’s face photo shopped onto a picture of Rambo.

  28. 28.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @OzarkHillbilly: Remember all those Republican sermons about “personal responsibility”? Yeah, Republican voters never thought that BS applied to them

    Ah, now, you are missing the dog whistle here; the wear a mask and take person responsibility message is for the minorities.

  29. 29.

    PsiFighter37

    So much for decline and fall – this is utter collapse. This is what years of braying about exceptionalism and individualism gets us.

  33. 33.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @satby:

    I took one of those 23 and Me tests and came back at the high end of the normal amount of Neanderthal genetic material. I thought it was kind of cool. Until now.

    Today is the 2 year anniversary of our move from Iowa to Illinois. We did it to be closer to our son, whom we haven’t seen since Christmas.

  34. 34.

    Feathers

    I follow an old classmate who is crazy into the Marvel movies. Her feed has been all about their filming schedule ramping back up again. They are making the Disney Plus TV shows in Atlanta. Apparently Tom Hiddleston, the director, and anyone else without a house to go to in the US have been parked in Atlanta hotels through all of this, waiting for filming to start again. I can’t even imagine how furious Disney and Marvel and Faige(sp?) must be about spending the tens of millions to wait this all out, only to have things get disastrously worse just as they were ready to go back to work.

    I know this absolutely pales in comparison to what ordinary people are going through, but pissing off corporate America this thoroughly is not good for the current regime. Makes you realize why Trump’s reaction to the pandemic was to suggest tax cuts. Tax cuts are Republicans groveling before their masters when they’ve fucked shit up.

  36. 36.

    JMG

    We got takeout from the town’s most popular restaurant and saloon Friday night. In the pre-covid days, we ate at the bar each Friday. It is open for outdoor and indoor dining (at limited capacity). There was a line of people waiting for outdoor tables, but there were also actually people eating inside, seniors like me, too. Couldn’t believe it. I can’t bring myself to eat at a restaurant outdoors yet. Will note town has suffered very limited sickness from the virus and only one death, despite having a number of assisted living facilities. Being stuck on a sand spit in the North Atlantic is natural social distancing, but summer’s here, and I am not optimistic the town’s stellar record will continue.

  37. 37.

    satby

    @JMG: it’s wild to me how many seniors I see who refuse to wear masks, distance, etc. Also how many people I know with dangerous co-morbidities like diabetes also refuse to wear masks, and stroll down the aisle of our crowded market on a Saturday eating food served by unmasked vendors. I now fully expect this country will have over a million dead. A lot of people aren’t even trying to avoid exposure.

  38. 38.

    trnc

    When U.S. residents flying from mainland China arrived in the early days of the COVID-19, the system meant to flag and monitor them for symptoms lost track of at least 1,600 people.

    Weird. They can’t all have been hispanic kids.

    Trump’s `strong wall’ to block COVID-19 from China had holes

    I’m sensing a pattern here about DT and walls.

  39. 39.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Amir Khalid: Shut up libtard.  George W Bush is a wartime president.  Why do you hate the troops?

    Oops, wrong Republican failure.  My mistake.

  40. 40.

    mrmoshpotato

    The White House message this afternoon is that coronavirus is a malicious attack by a foreign power costing more American lives than forty 9/11s, and also it’s just a thing you gotta live with!

    There aren’t enough eye rolls and facepalms.  And I’ll just silently scream like I’ve been doing since Nov 9, 2016.

  41. 41.

    trnc

    @Feathers: Yup. It seems obvious that tax cuts won’t benefit a company more than lost revenue from a pandemic raging due to the incompetent response, but I don’t know if those companies are trying to put pressure on the WH to stop fucking around.

  42. 42.

    sdhays

    @JMG: My family won’t be eating in a restaurant, indoor or outdoor, until COVID-19 is 100% done. I think it’s madness. And none of us are in high risk groups. My 16 month old son, who won’t wear a mask (or his shoes if left alone) hasn’t been in a public building since March and won’t be entering one until the family has had a vaccine (or, of course, the virus magically disappears like the President keeps assuring us).

    Josh Marshall has a Twitter thread making the point John was making yesterday: it’s insane to seriously expect to open schools without a dramatically lower virus spread in the community. I feel like the discussion yesterday got sidetracked on that point – there are prerequisites to opening things, and we can’t just dump those prerequisites in the trash when they prove too hard, which has been our response nationally since the beginning. It’s fine for schools to work on figuring out how to open safely, but they still depend on the response of the community at large.

  44. 44.

    debbie

    @satby:

    I now fully expect this country will have over a million dead.

    Looking at the daily increases, we’ll probably be there by August 1. ?

  45. 45.

    debbie

    @sdhays:

    If they don’t at least go through the motions of reopening schools, school officials will be bullied out of office, just like many state medical directors have been.

  46. 46.

    Miss Bianca

    @Feathers: Gee, WHOCOULDANODE that the same guy who cheated his way into the governorship of GA would prove to have no interest at all in actually using the power of the governorship to, you know, protect the state’s citizens?

  47. 47.

    laura

    @Amir Khalid: You too Amir Khalid and the several reports from Australia and Nonni’s Italy check ins and YY_SimaQian- who’s early reports gave so many jackals time to come to grips with the seriousness and plan ahead for changes to reduce risks. I very much appreciate your daily information and I wish we had the reassuring leadership of Noor Hisham Abdullah – thank you.

  48. 48.

    Bishop Bag

    Welp… Inyo County in the Eastern Sierra held steady at 19 cases for 5 weeks and then June 1st hit and the Forest Service, BLM (Bureau of Land Management…Old School BLM), Inyo and Mono Counties all opened up the campgrounds and Fishing Season opened. Moving my daughter back from Chico State last week before the Fourth of July 395 was packed with Campers, RV’s Trailers, 5th Wheels and boat trailers. Everybody from Southern California is coming up to Bishop for the sole purpose of killing me with this Virus! There had to be at least 100 people crowded around the Jolly Cone in Bridgeport and about 80 people crowded around the Mono Cone in Lee Vining when I passed through and no one wearing masks! July 2nd the county reports 31 cases now and I know that the numbers are going to explode within 2 weeks. A friends husband works for Mammoth Mountain and he said all the Condos, Motel rooms and campgrounds in Mammoth are full. So many idiots just won’t stay home! I know they are trying to kill me!

    https://www.inyocounty.us/covid-19/local-updates

  49. 49.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @trnc: When my mother flew back from China to the US in early Feb., she was given a cursory temperature check and basic questioning at JFK. She left her contact information, and self-quarantined for 14 days when she got home. However, no one from any level of government ever followed up with her.

  50. 50.

    sdhays

    @debbie: Of course. The schools aren’t to blame here. But there needs to be a frank discussion about how you can have schools open if everyone wears masks and we just don’t have bars (at least indoors), for example, until next year. A lot of people won’t like that, but there’s not a path to opening schools safely that doesn’t include serious changes in behavior from society at large. And the discussion with schools is like it always is – like it’s something separate from the rest of society and they can go about their opening plans without anyone else having to do anything.

    We just expect school districts to figure it out, and that’s not going to work. It’s going to require more than that.

  51. 51.

    J R in WV

    @mrmoshpotato:

    The White House message this afternoon is that coronavirus is a malicious attack by a foreign power costing more American lives than forty 9/11s…

    If we have been attacked by the Covid-19 somehow, as appears to be the case, shouldn’t the first thing be civil defense, like protecting ourselves from the attack by wearing masks?

    Wouldn’t that be step one in an attack? Civil Defense? Shouldn’t the Department of Defense be sending a dozen masks a week to everyone in the nation? Like the dictator in Turkey is doing???

    Assault rifles work in some cases of attack, as a civil defense mechanism, but those black guns don’t appear to help against a virus at all~!!!~ But masks and respirators and such obviously do work~!!~

  52. 52.

    cain

    @Betty Cracker:

    Our president says we gotta live with it.

    The great America, has no will to fight a virus that everyone else who doesn’t have a despot in charge seems to be doing well in. Trump just wants to forget about it and move on to other things.

    Meanwhile, we seem to be having multiple issues. I’m surprised that his cult can handle all this stuff without breaking down at all.

    Apparently white fragility is as resistant as the covid.

  53. 53.

    Joe Falco

    @sdhays:

    Considering how much this nation places so many burdens on teachers (and families) to provide their own classroom supplies, I bet you there’ll be fundraisers to provide masks, hand sanitizer, you name it. All because there is no political consensus on making sure public education is well-funded. People have been grinded down to quiet compliance in this system.

  54. 54.

    NotMax

    @satby

    Well, those same folks most likely voted for Pence as governor there, so they’re consistent in showcasing their cranial dimness.

    :)

  55. 55.

    cain

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    @trnc: When my mother flew back from China to the US in early Feb., she was given a cursory temperature check and basic questioning at JFK. She left her contact information, and self-quarantined for 14 days when she got home. However, no one from any level of government ever followed up with her.

    What’s the point of border security if you don’t actually practice border security? It’s still like that from what I understand.. Indians are still traveling here (why?!) and they don’t get questeioned, no temperature checks or anything and they are allowed to just enter the general population.

  56. 56.

    cain

    @Joe Falco:

    We really need to figure out how to fund schools.. not that it is going to happen with DeVos in charge. That asshole needs to creep back to her house and stay there and her shadow should never grace a govt building again.

  57. 57.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Frankensteinbeck: Heh. You’re both missing the dog whistle. ‘Personal Responsibility has always meant ‘blacks are lazy.’

    Oh damn, that’s Trump’s thinking isn’t  it?”those damn *****’s should just clean up their act and stop whining”

    Now there is a question; is it racism makes people stupid or is it stupid people are racists?

  58. 58.

    Another Scott

    @cain:

    DANA BASH: You criticized Obama for 'failed leadership' when 2 people in the US died from Ebola. Nearly 130,000 are dead from coronavirus. So is Trump showing failed leadership?@SenJoniErnst: "No. I think that the president is stepping forward." pic.twitter.com/2KDUPpjL2Y

    — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 5, 2020

    Why do they even bother having these RWNJs on their programs? They know they’re going to get answers like these.

    Grr…

    They might as well go the full Colbert: “Donald Trump – Great President or Greatest President??”

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  59. 59.

    sdhays

    @J R in WV: I really can’t forgive the people who should have known better in the CDC who lied to us in February and March about the efficacy of masking in a misguided attempt to avoid PPE hoarding. It didn’t stop the hoarding and it continues to undermine support for masking today.

  61. 61.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Mexico reverses some openings as coronavirus cases continue to soar w/ 6,740 newly confirmed ones

    Here is the true utter failure of Trump, even by his own screwed up standards; the Virus is also out of control in Mexico, because the president of Mexico is also a Virus denying idiot,  it’s quite reasonable so say a lot of the Virus spike in the American SW is because of people crossing the border, even after all of Trump’s racists stick children in cages nonsense.  The Virus hands Trump the perfect excuse to shut the border, and Trump fumbles it.

  62. 62.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Another Scott: Some of these answers ARE useful, though. Particularly with conservatives up for re-election.

    Nice to have a reminder for the public that Ernst doesn’t care about the deaths of citizens enough to issue even a mild criticism of Trump. It’s a horrible, weak look for her.

    But yes, inviting conservative pundits on is a useless idea.

  63. 63.

    Kay

    @cain:

    They’ll fund schools. They know they have to. Senate Republicans are already on board with 75 billion (if Lamar Alexander is the lead, and I think he is). Democrats, of course, want more but 75 billion is not nothing and that’s the low end. That’s Covid funding, which is separate from the larger package which is the big battle- the federal covid subsidies to states to make up for lost revenue.

    Is many ways DeVos has made herself and her agency irrelevant. They’re wholly ideological- she focuses on things like “cancel culture” and “values” in schools. Schools are in crisis. No one cares about this shit. She’s not part of any of the real negotiations that are taking place, the big money.

  64. 64.

    Brachiator

    @sdhays:

    I really can’t forgive the people who should have known better in the CDC who lied to us in February and March about the efficacy of masking in a misguided attempt to avoid PPE hoarding.

    The CDC was never allowed to do its job. You should be angry at Trump for not being better prepared, for not having a national strategy, for disbanding its pandemic team, for putting idiots in charge of pandemic response.

    And if there had been PPE hoarding, hospitals would have been screwed. Would this have been acceptable to you?

  66. 66.

    Kay

    @cain:

    DeVos does things like make a big announcement that she wants 10% of whatever Congress passes for private schools. She’s just not a central figure in any of this. She was a political operative in Michigan for decades and she still functions as one- she cuts INTO public school funding after Congress allocates it. She doesn’t drive it or direct it or really influence the size of the bulk of it- the big pile.

  67. 67.

    Kay

    @trollhattan:

    They’re all so full of shit. I was thinking about Chris Christie and whoever the Maine wingnut was with Ebola. They went nuts. Remember they were ready to deny potentially exposed Americans re-entry? Zero US fatalities at that point.

  68. 68.

    Brachiator

    @JMG:

    I can’t bring myself to eat at a restaurant outdoors yet. Will note town has suffered very limited sickness from the virus and only one death, despite having a number of assisted living facilities.

    I wonder what other things this community has done the right way to keep the infection down? Overall a good sign. I think I might be okay with eating outside.

    Also, I wonder. Instead of having people wait in line for tables, the restaurant could get their contact info and send them a text message, allowing some lead time.

  69. 69.

    Kristine

    An organization to which I belong I has decided to go ahead with its annual meeting in Florida in the fall. Contracts were signed with the hotel a while ago, and the org will get hammered with penalties if they don’t hold said meeting. Avoiding those penalties requires force majeure be enacted, and since there are no travel restrictions or other business limitations in Florida at this time, that’s not possible. In return, the hotel is waiving most fees and penalties related to low attendance.

    If the situation changes in a way that allows organization to cancel without major penalties, they will likely do so. But boy, you can’t tell me that one major reason DeSantis isn’t mandating restrictions is to strong-arm businesses to fulfill existing travel contracts.

    And no, I’m not going. I really enjoy that conference, and look forward to attending when possible, but damn.

  70. 70.

    Kay

    Thomas P. Bossert
    @TomBossert
    ·1h
    We are in trouble.

    Trump’s former homeland security director. We are in trouble.
    I just wish some of these people had had the courage or character to admit he was unfit and get him out of there. I suppose there’s no point in thinking about that. They failed. Have to go on either way.

  71. 71.

    Brachiator

    @Kay:

    She’s just not a central figure in any of this.

    I agree with you that DeVos is out of the loop on this.

    Also, I am not entirely sure about this, but I think that Congress does not have a lot of time to get things done before they go on recess again. If they intend on doing anything for schools, they have to do it in time before school terms begin?

    Also, I don’t know how many parents send their kids to private school, and whether these schools will get any money as well.

  73. 73.

    Kay

    @Brachiator:

    I think there will be a schools package before the larger bail out of the states. They have been debating just the schools piece in Congress for weeks. The education committees in Congress don’t get much media coverage.

  74. 74.

    Another Scott

    @Brachiator:

    TheHill (from 6/30):

    […]

    The prospects for another coronavirus package have been in limbo for weeks after Republicans hit “pause,” saying they wanted to assess how the nearly $3 trillion already appropriated by Congress was being spent and weigh potential changes.

    The House passed a nearly $3 trillion package in mid-May but that bill has been declared “dead on arrival” in the GOP-controlled Senate.

    Instead, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has pointed to the work period after the July 4 recess as when the chamber would potentially act on the next bill. The Senate is set to return to Washington, D.C. on July 20 and leave by August 7, a schedule McConnell indicated on Tuesday he does not anticipate changing.

    “So, I think the time to focus on this, as I said three months ago and as others have said today, is that period in July, which also I think dovetails nicely with the perfect time to take an assessment of the economy and the progress we’re making on the healthcare front,” McConnell told reporters.

    McConnell added that he anticipates Republicans will focus on three areas, primarily, in the next bill, which the GOP leader has predicted will be narrower than the House-passed legislation.

    “What I can tell you, without fear of contradiction, is the focus will be kids, jobs, and healthcare. What I can tell you, without fear of contradiction, is any bill that passes the Senate will have liability protections in it,” he said.

    (Emphasis added.)

    Moscow Mitch is trying to jam the House, again. He wants to come up with a bill with “tort reform”-ish things, a few pennies for schools (to try to get Democrats on board), payroll tax cuts (to strangle SS and Medicare), etc., etc. He doesn’t want to take up the bill that the House has already passed.

    Grrr…

    Here’s hoping that Schumer and the rest of Team D plays their hand as best they can.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  75. 75.

    dnfree

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: yes, we moved last fall from rural northwest Illinois to be closer to our kids, whom we also haven’t seen in months. At least they’re closer if one or both of us get Covid-19 bb

  76. 76.

    Kay

    @Another Scott:

    Democrats have a lot of leverage on schools. The truth is if they don’t open schools tens of millions of children are not just “not going to be in school”. They’re going to be home alone. We don’t even have childcare capacity to replace every public school in the country, even if parents could pay for it – and most of them can’t quadruple their child care costs.

    They could give a child care subsidy. It wouldn’t matter. The capacity to serve that many children in child care doesn’t exist, unless you’re going to put them into group settings, which has exactly the same risks as a school.

    We have about 55 million school children in this country. About half that number are too young to be unsupervised. You can put a child care provider in each home (if you could find that many and massively ramp up capacity)  but any other solution involves grouping them, which takes you right back to a school situation.

  77. 77.

    Gvg

    @Kay: it won’t do the good it could. DeVos stalls and is indecisive. The Cares act money took forever th get to the Colleges. It just didn’t come. The guidance on how it could legally be spent and what the reporting rules were also took forever…well a lot of it still isn’t clear. De Vos delayed because she still thinks in the petty culture war on minorities that she is used to enacting from before. She has to find something she can change to help her side even though the delay also hurts her side. In the cares act guidance her department slowly came out with students had to be title IV eligible which meant no money for dreamers and students had to have done the FAFSA. This was not in the actual act, she just IMO made it up. It’s being challenged legally, but that takes time and colleges knew their students were in crisis NOW so they follow her rules and try to fund the others out of our own funds.

    she is so out of her depth it’s not funny and to me it looks like she needs to pee in everything so we know she was there like an insignificant insecure ass. She seriously has impeded the department from just doing its job. They could work better with no boss than having her.

    i don’t expect the schools to get any money. Sure it’s obvious it needs to happen for everyone else’s election chances. It still won’t. The republicans have selected for obstructionists for more than a decade now. They don’t have enough that remember how to do things.

  79. 79.

    Just Chuck

    @Gvg: The GOP remembers how to do things quite well, the better to scuttle any attempts at it.  We need to stop framing this as GOP incompetence and start referring to it as the deliberate premeditated sabotage it is.  They organize unmasked rallies.  They strike down public health laws in court.  They fucking steal entire shipments of PPE.  They want this death and chaos.

  80. 80.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @The Pale Scot: If it’s “racism makes people dumb” then it’s something that can be fixed.  With Trump it sure feels like he goes to racism because it’s an easy explanation that doesn’t require him to think.

  81. 81.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Another Scott: Moscow Mitch is trying to jam the House, again. He wants to come up with a bill with “tort reform”-ish things, a few pennies for schools (to try to get Democrats on board), payroll tax cuts (to strangle SS and Medicare), etc., etc. He doesn’t want to take up the bill that the House has already passed.

    So what is exactly his power position here, by late July the virus and the economy will be worse and surrender monkey is not a popular position with the American public.

  82. 82.

    Another Scott

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: He obviously doesn’t feel any pressure to do anything – otherwise he would have been working on a bill in May.  I assume that he thinks the Senate can pass some sort of bill with some sweateners to get the GOP and their enablers on board, but not pass the kinds of big, sensible, policies that the House did to actually address the major issues caused by COVID-19 and Donnie’s disastrous response.

    Moscow Mitch doesn’t care.  90+% of Americans wanted gun laws changed – he did nothing.  As Adam has pointed out, he’s good at obstruction and not much else.  His signature legislation – Donnie’s tax cuts – has been a disaster.

    What can be done?  Dunno, except to keep reminding voters that he and the GOP have their knees on the neck of the American people and the US government response.

    Grrr…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  83. 83.

    Kay

    @Gvg:

    A lot of people think the school money won’t happen. I think it will happen because it’s either that or pay people to stay home with their kids- and it wouldn’t be temporary. Employers would have to replace those people because the work they do actually needs to get done.

    The domino effect of pulling public schools out of the picture is huge. There’s nothing to replace them. We don’t have an alternative private sector child care system with that kind of capacity. Even if you took all the lower level service workers with younger children out of the economy and sent them home with a government subsidy for the duration, that WORK still needs to get done. Now you have to replace all those people in those jobs.

  85. 85.

    J R in WV

    @sdhays:

    I really can’t forgive the people who should have known better in the CDC who lied to us in February and March about the efficacy of masking in a misguided attempt to avoid PPE hoarding. It didn’t stop the hoarding and it continues to undermine support for masking today..

    This is so true!!    I paid no attention to fuckwits telling me facial coverings wouldn’t help prevent infection – some lies are easy to see!!!

    We had both an industrial respirator I originally got to use when applying herbicides to invasive plants on the farm, AND when sanding woodworking projects and a bunch of paper masks I think I bought way back when i was still mowing the grass at the little old farm house we first lived in a long time ago.

    I started using the 3M industrial respirator every 2-3 weeks for grocery shopping. I also first thing bought all the DF kibble I could pack into the Mazda SUV, which was nearly 350 pounds. I still have 2 or 3 big sacks of DF out in the shop, in case of supply chain problems in the DF production industry.

    Now Drug Emporium is selling envelopes with 10 or 12 disposable masks for $10 or so. I use those for short trips to places with low density of jerks not wearing masks.

    The industrial respirator is UNCOMFORTABLE for sure, by the end of a two hour shopping expedition through Kroger’s my nose feels like it wants to pop right off. But is it worse than how I will feel if I bring Plague Death home to my wife? Is it worse than I will feel in the hospital?

    NO, it is much less bad than bringing Trump Plague home !!!

  86. 86.

    trnc

    @cain: What’s the point of border security if you don’t actually practice border security? It’s still like that from what I understand.. Indians are still traveling here (why?!) and they don’t get questeioned, no temperature checks or anything and they are allowed to just enter the general population.

    Security theater for the rubes. It’s no different from the crappy Mexican border wall claims.

  87. 87.

    CraigM

    @satby:   The paper on bioRxiv has a summary of the prevalence of the relevant genes in population groups.  This chunk of DNA apparently gives a person 1.7 times the probability of severe complications if they get covid, compared to someone without it.   https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2020/07/03/2020.07.03.186296/F3.large.jpg?width=800&height=600&carousel=1

    Not sure if the above link will work, but a quick summary is about 8% prevalence in Europeans, 2% in East Asians, and much higher among South Asians (Bangladeshis have about 63% prevalence).  Africa has a very, very low prevalence of Neandertal genes (outside of European Colonial descendants).  That might partially explain the fact that Africa hasn’t been the complete covid catastrophe that many were predicting.

    And if this theory turns out to be correct, it certainly makes claims of “white racial superiority” look ridiculous!

  88. 88.

    Brachiator

    @CraigM:

    That might partially explain the fact that Africa hasn’t been the complete covid catastrophe that many were predicting

    This stuff doesn’t look very plausible, and it seems connected to the contemporary fascination with trying to tie Neanderthal genes to everything.

    Also, Africa is a huge continent with a tremendous amount of genetic diversity among the populations there.

  89. 89.

    Just Chuck

    @Brachiator: To say nothing of making Africans out to be “more Neanderthal” than other homo sapiens.  Weren’t the Neanderthals discovered in caves in modern-day France?

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