Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

He really is that stupid.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

We still have time to mess this up!

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

The revolution will be supervised.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 Coronavirus / COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Monday/Tuesday, Oct. 5-6

COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Monday/Tuesday, Oct. 5-6

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… Martin Kulldorff, a professor at Harvard; Sunetra Gupta, a professor at Oxford; and Jay Bhattacharya, a professor at Stanford, all of whom are epidemiologists studying infectious diseases, were invited to the meeting by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Scott Atlas, an adviser to Trump on whom other experts have cast doubt for his statements about COVID-19, including his endorsement of herd immunity.

In the meeting, the three doctors told Azar that allowing the virus to spread uncontrolled among young, healthy people while protecting older adults and those at higher risk for serious illness would build up enough population immunity to stop it from spreading widely while avoiding lockdowns and other mitigation measures that have had a damaging impact on the economy…

The idea of allowing the virus to spread uncontrollably is gaining traction in the White House, where Atlas is advising President Trump, who is battling his own case of COVID-19.

Atlas told The Hill in an email that he attended the meeting and supports the declaration the group put out endorsing herd immunity…

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Reader Interactions

30Comments

  2. 2.

    bjacques

    Great, now all those guys who slept through chemistry class are gonna buy up all the whippets in the country. How am I gonna survive the next 4 weeks now?

  3. 3.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysian Minister of Defence Ismail Sabri Yaakob cancelled his scheduled media conference re Covid-19 related security matters today upon learning that the Minister of Religious Affairs, who attended a special ministers meeting that he chaired this morning, has tested positive. Ismail Sabri will be self-isolating at home and getting tested.

    Meanwhile, Director General of Health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah is holding his scheduled media briefing today from home, instead of at the Health Ministry HQ in Putrajaya.

    In other news, travel from Sabah to the rest of Malaysia — Sarawak, Labuan island, and the Peninsula — is restricted for two weeks effective midnight tonight.

  4. 4.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Yesterday, China reported 0 new domestic confirmed cases and 0 new domestic asymptomatic cases, 12 new imported confirmed cases and 31 imported asymptomatic cases:

    • Guangzhou in Guangdong Province – 4 confirmed cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from the UK, the UAE, the Philippines and Tanzania; 9 asymptomatic cases, 2 Chinese nationals returning from the UAE, and 1 Chinese national each returning from Peru, Tanzania, South Sudan, Zambia, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, and India and Indonesia
    • Foshan in Guangdong Province – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese National returning from Argentina; 4 asymptomatic cases, 2 Chinese nationals returning from Argentina, and 1 each returning from Norway and the Philippines
    • Chengdu in Sichuan Province – 3 confirmed cases, all Chinese nationals returning from Iraq (via Qatar); 14 asymptomatic cases, 12 Chinese nationals returning from Iraq (via Qatar) and 2 from Nepal
    • Shanghai Municipality – 2 confirmed cases, a Chinese student returning from the US, and a Filipino crew member off a cargo ship
    • Tianjin Municipality – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese National returning from the Spain; 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from Congo (Brazzaville)
    • Xi’an in Shaanxi Province – 1 confirmed case (previously asymptomatic), a Chinese national returning from Uzbekistan
    • Xiamen in Fujian Province – 2 asymptomatic case, 1 Chinese national each returning from Nigeria and Kazakhstan
    • Zhengzhou in Henan Province – 1 asymptomatic case, no information released

    Today, the city reported 8 new cases, 5 from local infection, source of infection not yet identified for 3 of the local cases.

  5. 5.

    Brachiator

    French social distance rules are more relaxed than in other countries.

    Restaurants will remain open under strict conditions. They include a minimum one-meter (three-foot) distance between each table, groups limited to six people instead of 10 previously, and a request to register customers’ names and phone numbers to help alert those who may have been exposed to someone with the coronavirus .

    I hope someone is looking into whether 6 or 3 feet is the magic number.

  6. 6.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    BANG

    LIKELY VOTERS
    Choice for President

    Biden 57%
    Trump 41%

    – New CNN poll conducted by SSRS
    — Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) October 6, 2020

    Poll was conducted from October 1st through the 4th.  Which means 3 of the 4 polling days were after Dump’s covid condition was announced.  I note that cuz there was speculation covid could create a sympathy bounce, in fact, the opposite has occurred.  And before someone rightfully wonders if this is an outlier, on Sunday, the Wall Street Journal poll showed a 14 point lead.

  7. 7.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Damn – Morning Joe laying wood to the doctors who sell out to Twitler’s wishes on messaging.

  8. 8.

    Steeplejack

    I’m watching video clips of the #RoseGardenMassacre on Morning Joe, and it strikes me to wonder whether the White House won’t do contact tracing of the event because they suspect (or know) that Amy Coney Barrett or her family was the source.

  12. 12.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysia’s daily Covid-19 numbers. 691 new cases — yet another daily record, beating yesterday’s 432 new cases. The cumulative reported total is 13,504 cases.

    688 new cases are from local infection, including 27 non-Malaysians. 35 cases are people with a recent history of travel to Sabah. Of the rest, Kedah has the most new cases, 397; three are from the Bah Sintok cluster at the main campus of Universiti Utara Malaysia, the remaining 394 (including three non-Malaysians), making up the majority of the country’s new cases,  are from the Tembok cluster at Alor Setar Prison. 219 cases are in Sabah, comprising 120 symptomatic persons including three non-Malaysians, 36 persons in community screenings, 30 from the Bangau-Bangau cluster including 20 non-Malaysians, 19 from the new Ramai-Ramai cluster, five close contacts of other cases, five healthcare workers and two new-hire screenings.

    21 cases are in Selangor, comprising 11 from the Jalan Meru cluster, nine close contacts of other cases including one non-Malaysian, and one from the Embun cluster. Seven cases are in Perak, all from the new Batu cluster. Three cases are in Johore, from Selangor’s Jalan Meru cluster. Three cases are in KL, comprising one from the Jalan Meru cluster, one person screened pre-surgery, and one close contact of another case.Two cases are in Sarawak, comprising one person screened at a domestic port of entry and one close contact of another case. Two cases are in Penang state, one with severe acute respiratory illness and one person screened post mortem.

    Three are imported cases, comprising one Malaysian returning from India, and two non- Malaysians arriving from Egypt and the Philippines.

    87 more patients recovered and were discharged today, for a total of 10,427 patients recovered — 77.22% of the cumulative reported total. 2,936 active and contagious cases are currently in hospital; 32 are in ICU, eight of them are on respirators.

    Four new Covid-19 deaths were reported today. One in Penang, already mentioned; three in Sabah, comprising two 60-year-old men and a one-year-old girl.

    The total is now up to 141 deaths, 1.04% of the cumulative reported total, 1.33% of resolved cases.

    Other news: DG of Health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah gave his media briefing from home today because he is currently isolating there. And PM Muhyiddin Yassin announced in his media briefing today that the restriction on travel from Sabah to the rest of Malaysia, announced just a few hours earlier by the Defence Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob, is now postponed by two days and will take effect midnight on Thursday.

  13. 13.

    Steeplejack

    @satby:

    True. It’s telling that Trump’s doctor wouldn’t say yesterday when Trump last got a negative test result. It was probably earlier than the public timeline would indicate.

  19. 19.

    Steeplejack

    The presumption now must be that the president was not getting tested. They aren’t hiding a mid-week positive test. They are hiding no tests. Burden is on them. We start from zero. We don’t need to be their fools.

    — Juliette Kayyem (@juliettekayyem) October 5, 2020

  20. 20.

    Geminid

    There is a lot of good coverage in The Times of Israel and The Jerusalem Post of Israel’s Covid-19 surge in general, and the problem of the Ultra-Orthodox in particular. Comprising a little over 12% of the population, the ultra-orthodox account for 40% of all Covid-19 infections in Israel. Israel hit 8000 new cases in a day last week; yesterday’s total was 5400. By contrast, my state of Virginia, with a comparable ~8.5 million population, has held steady at about 1000 new cases a day, although that is starting to creep up with colleges opening, and partial opening of public K-12 schools.

  21. 21.

    hueyplong

    At this point I consider “undecideds” people who are undecided about whether to vote at all and just throw them out.

    If you want to be conservative or just can’t shake 2016, you can give half the undecideds to Trump and say the other half won’t vote.

    Either way, wannabe Hitler is back in the bunker and pretty soon even FoxNews is going to concede that Steiner might not be coming.

    Last night’s video looked more like Sunset Blvd than Triumph of the Will.

  22. 22.

    trnc

    “It’s not nearly as lethal as the experts told us it would be,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-Louisiana, just said on Fox News when asked about President’s Trump’s COVID-19 infection.

    Which experts, Senator, and what did they say?

    I assume the fox shill didn’t point out the DT said there would be 15 cases. Also, we’re not done.

  24. 24.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @trnc:  Indeed, it’s takes someone infected a month typically to get over the virus and it’s been only four days since Trump was showing symptoms.

  26. 26.

    Sloane Ranger

    Yesterday’s numbers from the UK.

    We continue to find new cases that slipped down behind the filing cabinet but there are fewer of them. There were a total of 12,594 new cases nationwide, which is just under half the previous days total. Broken down by home nation, the cases are distributed as follows,

    England – 10,685 (down by half)

    Northern Ireland – 616 (up by @150)

    Scotland – 697 (down by @50)

    Wales – 596 (up by @150).

    An investigation has been launched into the computer glitch that, allegedly, led to positive cases being undercounted for about a week.

    Deaths – Better news here, only 19 deaths when we have been averaging in the low 40’s recently. All the deaths were in England.

    Testing – 250,348 tests were processed out of a capacity of 302,150.

    Hospitalisations – No up to date data available from most of the home nations but the numbers of those admitted and on ventilators are still increasing but slowly.

    According to the media, the Government is facing a backbench rebellion this evening over two issues, they want children exempted from the “Rule of 6”, the limit for the number of people from separate households who can meet together and they want the 10pm curfew for pubs lifted (possibly suffering from alcohol withdrawal now public pressure has forced House of Commons bars to stop serving booze after 10pm).. Apparently they don’t expect to win, just set down a marker that they are unhappy.

    In completely unrelated news, Boris Johnson announced at the virtual Tory Party Conference that he wants to make Britain the “Saudi Arabia of wind.” The jokes, they write themselves.

  27. 27.

    Jay

    @trnc:

    it varies.

    At work, on transit, in stores, I give the properly masked, 6 feet minimum,

    the half masked nose idiots, 12 feet,

    The unmasked 27 feet, ( and on Transit, I take their photo, location and forward it to the Transit Cops.

  29. 29.

    Unique uid

    @YY_Sima Qian: Thanks for your regular updates on this topic.  I find it very interesting a country so much larger than US is doing so well, and run across almost no coverage here.  Could you go into more details sometime on the real experience there?

  30. 30.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Unique uid: Thanks for the kind words. I have been posting comments in A.L.’s daily COVID-19 coverage (mostly in the international posts, back when there were separate posts for international and domestic news) since late Jan. I wrote in some detail the lock down in Wuhan, as I experienced it, as well as the Chinese response to COVID-19 (the initial obfuscation and delay, and the later vigorous and rigorous response), as I understood them. I know it is not easy to search through them.

    Suffice to say the lock down and cordon sanitaire at Wuhan was and still is the toughest the world has seen to date, we were restricted to out apartments for over two months, one person per household going outside (and even then still in the residential compound) every 3 or 4 days for 15 mins to pick up the grocery prepared by property management and neighborhood committees. Late Jan. and early Feb. was a particularly dark time for Wuhan and Hubei Province, presaging what would take place in Lombardia in Italy, Greater Madrid in Spain, and NYC in the US (although in hindsight not as bad, due to the vigorous and rigorous response from Jan. 23 onward). Actual deaths and case counts in Wuhan and Hubei Province are probably 2 – 3X of the official figure (which was adjusted upward in May), though the main factor was likely lack of test kits for confirmation during the early days, rather than subterfuge (like everywhere else during the 1st wave). Much of the rest of China saw restrictions similar to lock downs in Italy and Spain in Apr., which lasted until mid-Feb. to mid-Mar. In terms of the COVID-19 epidemic, China ex-Hubei suffered relatively little, with total domestic cases numbering in the dozens or hundreds for each province, not exceeding 2000 for the highest. The cordon sanitaire around Hubei Province was established just in time, travelers from Hubei were quickly identified and quarantined, and the public health institutions in these provinces were never in danger of being greatly stressed, let alone overwhelmed. Indeed, most of them did better than Taiwan, Vietnam or New Zealand.

    Re-opening everywhere in China had been quite cautious and deliberate, from mid-Feb. to late Apr. Now, things have returned to a new normal that is not too far off from the pre-COVID norm, at least domestically. There is clearly a “V”-shaped economic recovery There has been several outbreaks scattered across China over the past 6 months, each time relatively quickly snuffed out with targeted lock downs, very vigorous and rapid contract tracing, thorough isolation of confirmed/asymptomatic/suspect cases and their close contacts (as well as their close contacts), and 100% mass screening of residents at community/district/municipal levels (repeated, as necessary).

    There has not been consistent, persistent and in-depth coverage of COVID-19 in China since pandemic exploded in Europe and North America, what cover there have been has been too myopically focused on the familiar narratives – can the data and claims from China be trusted, are the responses inhumane, etc. It is also not helped by the unfriendly reporting environment, for US MSMs in particular. There are gems here and there. For excellent (IMO) deep dives into the Chinese experience with COVID-19 at the personal and street level, with good commentary on policy as well (though not comprehensive looks), search for Peter Hessler’s long form journalism at the New Yorker.

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