Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

The willow is too close to the house.

American History and Black History can not be separated.

It looks like winning debates is a black job!

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / COVID-19 Coronavirus Update: Saturday/Sunday, June 27-28

COVID-19 Coronavirus Update: Saturday/Sunday, June 27-28

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… Even as Trump attempts to move on, the protective bubble around him has grown thicker. Aides say the steps are necessary to allow the President — by all definitions an essential worker — to continue leading the country amid the pandemic.

But people familiar with the matter say the precautions also stem from Trump’s own insistence that he not contract the disease and his heightened awareness of how a sick President would affect both the country’s view of him and his ability to command a response to the pandemic.

After Trump told aides at the beginning of the outbreak he must avoid getting sick at all costs, efforts to prevent him from contracting the virus have progressively become more intensive and wide-ranging. Early steps such as keeping more hand sanitizer nearby eventually evolved into an intensive safety apparatus, including the testing regimen requiring dozens of staffers.

So far the efforts appear to have been effective, at least at preventing the President from contracting the virus. But events of the past week have also underscored the primacy of Trump himself to the safety measures, with the safety of staffers who compose his massive footprint coming second…

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Reader Interactions

52Comments

  1. 1.

    mrmoshpotato

    “Measures to protect Trump from coronavirus scale up even as he seeks to move on” – CNNPolitics

    They’re protecting the traitorous orange bitch from a hoax? Interesting.

    Well, keep him healthy for the coming American Nuremberg trials. We didn’t get a chance to charge and try the first bastard.

  2. 2.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Going by Floridas numbers they are apparently succeeding in convincing that being white means you are immune to the Virus.

  3. 3.

    Amir Khalid

    While I await today’s update on Malaysia’s numbers (due around 5:30pm Malaysian time) let me amend an observation I made yesterday. (Addition bolded.)

    There’s no magic secret to managing the pandemic properly. What Vietnam and Malaysia and New Zealand, among others, have managed to do is all down to competent, professional health authorities, coordinated planning and action across multiple agencies and levels of jurisdiction, and to the public’s social discipline in continuing to observe the proper precautions.

  4. 4.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I’ve read about Sweden, of course, but that map just brings it home at a visceral level.

    Holy shit, that’s ugly.

  5. 5.

    Shalimar

    Heard that all hospitals in the Florida Panhandle are nearing capacity now, and tourist season is still in full swing with only a small percentage of people even bothering with masks.  It’s going to get much worse in Matt Gaetz country in the next 2-3 weeks

    Edit: Testing has also effectively disappeared within the last week in Okaloosa and Walton counties.  Only places I could find still testing are the major hospitals.  The mobile sites that were available have been shut down.

  6. 6.

    Anne Laurie

    @SiubhanDuinne:  I’ve read about Sweden, of course, but that map just brings it home at a visceral level.

    Holy shit, that’s ugly.

    You think that’s ugly, just imagine what the other Scandinavian countries are saying about it.

    (Actually, I’m mostly inferring from context in the English-language sources I can find.  But they’re very firm about opening up borders to each other, only Not Sweden, because Swedes just don’t have the discipline to follow best practices, unlike more civilized nations, with populations that can understand how science works… )

  7. 7.

    SectionH

    @Amir Khalid: Yes, we know. Rub it in why don’tcha?

    I will just add that in the cases of both California and New York, it wasn’t actually possible to seal the borders.

    It still isn’t here, where we’re getting Zonies coming to party, because it’s “hot” in Phoenix, and overflow actual COVID patients from Imperial Co. and, sorry, I’m feeling kinda tribal right now

    edited to be clear – I live in San Diego. In Hlllcrest. I stay the fuck at home, wear a mask when I go out, wash my hands.

    My zip code started with a bad bang – worst in the county*. Srsly. But um, because ppl here aren’t stupid, that got shut down. We’re rapidly sinking to the lower end of where ppl are getting sick.
    *Yes, there was an actual fucking idiot who admitted to going to “3 bars

    This passes for kinda OK here.

  8. 8.

    Amir Khalid

    Today’s numbers just came in. 18 new cases: 14 from local infection, all non-Malaysians; four cases from imported infections. Cumulative total 8,634 cases.

    10 more patients recovered and were discharged, total 8,318 recovered or 96.3% of the cumulative total. 195 active cases remain in hospital for isolation/treatment: two are in ICU, no one is on a ventilator.

    Malaysia marks its 14th straight day without a Covid-19 fatality, its longest such streak since the outbreak began. Total stands at 121 deaths. Infection fatality rate is 1.40%, case fatality rate is 1.43%.

  11. 11.

    Amir Khalid

    Trump and the Republican governors who toady to him haven’t just acted recklessly. They have acted maliciously — there’s no other way to describe things like seizing PPE, fudging the numbers, screwing with the testing, and undermining or stymieing public health measures intended to save lives.

  13. 13.

    Amir Khalid

    At the top of The Guardian‘s liveblog:

    Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen is believed to have gatecrashed a US gun rally in disguise and pranked attendees into joining him in a sing-a-long about injecting scientists and politicians with the “Wuhan flu”.

    Footage circulating on social media shows a bearded man in dungarees and a cowboy hat taking the stage at the March for our Rights rally in Olympia, Washington, on Sunday.

  14. 14.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Amir Khalid:

    The Swedes in general did all the right things that were recommended, social distancing and such but the Swedish government didn’t lead and mandate a lot of these things and the result was noticeably worse infection rates than their neighbours. Saying that the Swedish infection and fatality rates are not terrible, they’re just not as good as their neighbours. They’re actually better than the UK’s historical numbers and we have a lot of mandated shut-downs here with only some relaxation of those being allowed now the infection rates, hospitalisations and deaths have come way down from the peaks of a few weeks ago.

     

    In the UK there’s some regional divergence in terms of reported cases and deaths — Saturday was the second day with no reported deaths and only 17 new cases in Scotland. England reported a hundred deaths and over 800 new cases on the same day. England is opening up faster than Scotland but the governments of both countries are under pressure to get schools, pubs and restaurants, tourism  etc. open again despite the guarantee this will cause big upticks in infections and deaths.

  15. 15.

    rikyrah

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Written this several times after I realized that the right wing was clinging to Sweden as some great example.

     

    Take the five countries closest to Sweden

    Add up their COVID-19 deaths.

     

    TRIPLE THAT

    And, that is Sweden’s COVID-19 death toll-ALONE ??

  20. 20.

    satby

    @Amir Khalid: yes, it’s malicious and I think borders on genocidal, because I truly believe they were fine with the virus ravaging older people and minority communities based on the belief that it would reduce those populations and enable them to cut social safety net programs.

  21. 21.

    trnc

    BREAKING: #60Minutes investigation reveals Trump knowingly allowed flawed #COVID19 antibody tests to circulate, leading to inaccurate data about virus spread, creating data to support re-openings, and potentially causing thousands more preventable deaths.

    Don’t forget that in March, DT accused the Obama FDA of overregulating tests:

    President Donald Trump Wednesday sought to lay blame on the Obama administration for slowing down new diagnostic testing but there’s no evidence to support that claim.

    https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/04/politics/donald-trump-obama-testing-lamar-alexander/index.html

    …

  22. 22.

    Matt McIrvin

    I don’t believe those falling numbers in Massachusetts are going to hold. There was a tick up in cases yesterday that might be the new wave starting to hit here (though they were actually from the past several days, and all you can really see in the state’s numbers is a deceleration in the drop).

  25. 25.

    Matt McIrvin

    @satby: It looked for a while like they could carry the 2020 election on the strength of COVID mostly killing Democratic voters.

  27. 27.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Yesterday, Beijing reported 14 new domestic confirmed, 1 new suspect and 3 new asymptomatic cases. 12 of the 14 confirmed cases have completed epidemiological investigation, 10 cases have summaries published. As was the case with 6/26, all of the published cases were vendors or workers at Xinfadi wholesale produce exchange, have been under a combination of self- and centralized quarantine since 6/13 or 6/16. I am starting to believe the Beijing authorities have gotten ahead of the outbreak.

    To date , nearly 85% of the cases in Beijing are concentrated in Fengtai (where the Xinfadi exchange is located) and Daxing (where many vendors and workers at Xinfadi live) Districts. Another 10% are concentrated in Haitian and Xicheng Districts, small clusters around produce markets and restaurants seeded by Xinfadi. Neighboring Hebei Province has not reported any case (confirmed, suspect or asymptomatic) for a couple of days, and exported cases have not seeded any clusters elsewhere in China.

    Meanwhile, mass testing continues in the capital. Select demographics (workers in markets and restaurants, medical personnel, delivery staff, service staff, etc.) will be screened a second time in the coming days. I suspect the goal of the mass screening in Beijing, as was in Wuhan, is not simply identification or surveillance, but also to instill confidence in the population to venture out again after the outbreak is eradicated and restrictions lifted. As was in Wuhan, Beijing is doing sample batching (5:1) for mass screening. It is doable when the prevalence is very low. Beijing has tested nearly 3M people to find 300+ cases.

  28. 28.

    Obdurodon

    A couple of months ago, when it was just starting to become apparent that Sweden’s experiment had failed, I was admonished on another site for saying that the definition of “hubris” should have a picture of Anders Tegnell. I still believe that. The Swedish people are not all that different than the Norwegian or Finnish people. They *behaved* differently because they received different messaging from their leaders, much like a certain segment of the US population. The result has been a tragic illustration of how dangerous a certain kind of toxic contrarianism can be. I’ve seen many people who are desperate to be right where others are wrong, because that’s where all the glory is. The danger is minimal when the person is my father-in-law latching onto conspiracy theories, or a coworker building inferior software. When it’s a national public-health leader putting millions of lives at risk, it’s another matter. That’s not a job for gamblers.

  29. 29.

    terben

    From the Australian Dept of Health:

    ‘As at 3pm on 28 June 2020, a total of 7,686 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Australia, including 104 deaths and  6,993 have been reported as recovered from COVID-19.

    • Over the past week, there has been an average of 33 new cases reported each day. Of the newly reported cases, the majority have been from Victoria.
    • Of cases with a reported place of acquisition, 61% have recent international travel history, including over 1,300 cases associated with cruise ships.
    • To date, over 2,379,000 tests have been conducted nationally. Of those tests conducted 0.3% have been positive.’

    53 new cases today,8 false positives removed for a net increase of 45. 49 of the cases are in Victoria. Only 11 cases are hospitalized, with 1 in ICU on a ventilator.

  30. 30.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Amir Khalid: Trump and the modern GOP have broken Hanlon’s Razor. Their malice and stupidity (not to mention their pusillanimity) know no bounds.

  31. 31.

    Geminid

    The success in the Covid-19 fight of countries like Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam compared to the U.S. is striking. There is an obvious difference in leadership at the national level, but there may be more to the story. The first three countries are not “wealthy” in terms of $40,000 vehicles and $20,000 kitchens. But they have good well-distributed public health systems. Does the contrast between us reflect an opportunity cost of our for-profit health care system?

  32. 32.

    Brachiator

    I’ll drink to that…

    On June 20, the day after bars were allowed to reopen in L.A. County, about 500,000 people decided to go out for a drink, according to the Department of Public Health.

    This actually is not as bad as it might be.

    Compare that to the days or yore, before the COVID-19 pandemic (remember that?), when about 700,000 people went out to nightlife spots such as bars, breweries, wineries, and lounges every weekend

    Still, this may be contributing to the surge in virus cases attributed to community spread.

    But it also underscores how human beings are social animals and it is difficult for people to give up being around other people.

  33. 33.

    Geminid

    @YY_Sima Qian: “pusillanimity” is a great word. It had gone out of style but I see it used more now because it so accurately describes the behavior of so many politicians. “Churlish” is another under utilized word, and is very applicable to a certain office holder.

  34. 34.

    Lacuna Synechdoche

    Laurie Garret via Anne Laurie @ Top:

    World distribution of the #COVID19 #pandemic is clearly skewed to the USA, Brazil, Russia and India. Each of these countries’ governments have failed to wrestle with the virus, while most of Europe, China, SE Asia, Canada & the Asia Pacific govts have found working strategies.

    Sounds like we should start referring to the quartet of largest Second World countries as BRIUS instead of BRIC.

    Or maybe RUSBI, given how Putin dominates Benedict Donald.

  35. 35.

    Lacuna Synechdoche

    Laurie Garret via Anne Laurie @ Top:

    “[B]efore his rally in #Tulsa, #Trump’s campaign directed removal of thousands of “Do not sit here, please!” stickers from seats in the arena that were intended to estab social distance between rallygoers

    To be fair, removing those stickers probably didn’t have the intended effect, since most of those seats were empty anyway.

    (*rimshot*)

  36. 36.

    Jinchi

    “before his rally in #Tulsa, #Trump’s campaign directed removal of thousands of “Do not sit here, please!” stickers from seats in the arena that were intended to estab social distance between rallygoers

    As usual, Trump undercut himself. If they had kept people separated, the stadium would have looked nearly full instead of embarrassingly empty.

  37. 37.

    Jinchi

    @Amir Khalid: Trump and the Republican governors who toady to him haven’t just acted recklessly.

    Agreed, this isn’t simple incompetence. Even a bungling effort would get things right, occasionally. Trump has explicitly undermined efforts to get control of the pandemic and Republicans like deSantis, Kemp, Rand Paul and others have aided and abetted him every step of the way. There is no Republican solution to coronavirus, because Republicans are not trying to stop it.

  38. 38.

    low-tech cyclist

    BREAKING: #60Minutes investigation reveals Trump knowingly allowed flawed #COVID19 antibody tests to circulate, leading to inaccurate data about virus spread, creating data to support re-openings, and potentially causing thousands more preventable deaths.

    But God forbid that the Dems should call for him to resign.

  40. 40.

    J R in WV

    @low-tech cyclist:

     June 28, 2020 at 11:40 am
    BREAKING: #60Minutes investigation reveals Trump knowingly allowed flawed #COVID19 antibody tests to circulate, leading to inaccurate data about virus spread, creating data to support re-openings, and potentially causing thousands more preventable deaths.

    But God forbid that the Dems should call for him to resign.

    @chopper:

    June 28, 2020 at 12:30 pm

    @low-tech cyclist:

    yeah, you’re totes right, no democrats have called for trump to resign at all.

    You are both wrong, completely wrong. A few Democratic leaders haven’t yet called for Trump to resign, but others have, loudly. The fast that the MSM right-wing-nuts are not interested in putting that up front on their web pages and TV shows doesn’t make it not so.

    And this is why both of you guys are in my Pie List, I always regret toggling your posts out of the lovely Pie and Pastry images now available. Not only no information to educate people with, plain old wrong, incorrect garbage in, garbage out nonsense !!!

  41. 41.

    chopper

    @J R in WV:

    i was being sarcastic. LTC is always blaming pelosi for every goddamn thing trump and the GOP does and uses this made-up shit to support it.

  42. 42.

    low-tech cyclist

    @chopper: I’d be curious to know what ‘made up shit’ I’ve made up.

    No, I’m not blaming Pelosi et al. for what Trump does.  Trump and his henchmen deserve every bit of the blame for that.  I’m blaming Pelosi et al. for not doing what they can to push back against it.

    They used to say that all that’s needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.  I think it’s worth a full-court press to make an issue of the 100,000 Americans who are living right now, but will die of the coronavirus between now and January 20, rather than writing them off.  Feel free to argue to the contrary.

  43. 43.

    J R in WV

    @chopper:

    i was being sarcastic. LTC is always blaming pelosi for every goddamn thing trump and the GOP does and uses this made-up shit to support it.

    I apologize, then. After I copied your remark, I wondered, but kept on doing what I was doing. My bad! And you were pied because LTC is pied, not because you were pied.

  44. 44.

    low-tech cyclist

    @J R in WV:A few Democratic leaders haven’t yet called for Trump to resign, but others have, loudly.

    OK, there’s Inslee.  Among Dem elected officials, who else has called for Trump to resign on account of the coronavirus?

    There are ~300 Dem Representatives, Senators, governors right now.  Besides Inslee, can you name 10 of those 300 who have called for Trump to resign on account of all the coronavirus deaths?

    I’d expect to hear about them somewhere.  Here at Balloon Juice, or at TPM, or Mother Jones, or Eschaton, or somewhere.  I guess all these sites are hiding the truth from me about how the Dems are pushing back against Trump.

  45. 45.

    low-tech cyclist

    Do they still use the term ‘homer’ to refer to sports announcers who put a positive gloss on everything the home team does, no matter whether they’ve done great or totally fucked up?

    The Balloon Juice commentariat is quite the bunch of ‘homers’ for the Democratic Party leadership.  It’s one thing to root for your team.  It’s another thing to refuse to admit that it needs a 1B who can hit, or a CF who isn’t nearly immobile, or a LHP who can get through five innings without getting rocked.

    I don’t know whether it’s an overreaction to the (genuine) harm the BernieBros did to the party in 2016, or what.  But it’s really kind of embarrassing at this point.

  48. 48.

    chopper

    @J R in WV:

    no worries, sarcasm doesn’t always convey. and i’ll be damned if i’m going to start with the slashes or whatever people use.

  49. 49.

    chopper

    @low-tech cyclist:

    dude every democratic senator and the vast majority of reps voted to kick trump out of office before corona. you think they changed their fucking minds after the guy fucked up and a hundred thousand are dead?

    speaking of homer, you’re like him with flanders.
    LTC: Ah, I’m telling you, this is all the democrats’ fault. I’m not the type
    to have a grudge for no reason–
    [the camera cuts to a radio studio, where Roy Firestone is sat
    with Sandy Koufax.]
    Roy: [he is on the radio] Sir, can I just break in for a moment?
    LTC: [impatient] Yes, Roy.
    Roy: Do you have a question for Sandy Koufax?
    LTC: Yes. Mr. Koufax, don’t you think pelosi is a big jerk?
    [Roy hangs up, leaving LTC the dreaded dial tone.]
    LTC: Yellow? Yellow?
    [redials radio number]
    LTC: Yeah, LTC again. I think we got cut off.
    [dial tone]
    LTC: Yellow?
    [redials number]

  50. 50.

    WaterGirl

    @A Woman From Anywhere (formerly Mohagan):  The first comment with a new nym or new email address has to be manually approved.

    All comments posted before manual approval of the first comment also have to be manually approved.

    Once the first comment(s) have been manually approved, your comments will go through automatically.

    I just approved both of your comments, so your next one should go through.

Comments are closed.