Wednesday,  Apr 29th, 2020

A pug in Chapel Hill, North Carolina becomes the first dog in the United States to test positive for COVID-19. Three of the humans it lives with have also tested positive for the disease. (WRAL-TV) 

Trump orders meat plants remain open, despite COVID-19 outbreaks President Trump on Tuesday night used the Defense Production Act to order meat processing facilities stay open amid the coronavirus pandemic. Several have shut down in recent weeks due to employee illness, with some plants reporting that hundreds of workers have been infected with COVID-19. Trump’s executive order classifies meat plants as “critical infrastructure,” and says the closures “threaten the continued functioning of the national meat and poultry supply chain” during the pandemic. Trump signed the order after John Tyson, chairman of the board of Tyson Foods, placed a newspaper ad over the weekend stating that “the food supply chain is breaking.” The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union says at least 20 meat plant employees have died of the coronavirus. Source: The New York Times

COVID-19 has now killed more Americans than the Vietnam War A grim milestone was reached on Tuesday evening, as the number of coronavirus deaths in the United States surpassed the number of Americans who were killed in the Vietnam War. A tally kept by Johns Hopkins University shows the U.S. COVID-19 death toll is now at 58,365, with more than one million confirmed cases. The first known U.S. death from COVID-19 occurred on Feb. 6 in San Jose, California. Over the course of nearly two decades, 58,220 Americans died while fighting in the Vietnam War. The deadliest year for the United States in Vietnam was 1968, when 16,899 troops were killed. The most deaths that year occurred on Jan. 31, with 246 Americans killed during the Tet Offensive. Source: NPR

U.S. passes 1 million confirmed coronavirus cases There have now been more than one million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States, the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported Tuesday. Worldwide, there have been more than three million confirmed cases of coronavirus. More than 58,300 deaths from COVID-19 have been reported in the United States, and more than 213,000 deaths have been reported globally. A model from the University of Washington that’s been used by the White House estimated there will be more than 74,000 deaths from COVID-19 in the United States by the beginning of August, up from the projection of 67,000 last week. The Wall Street Journal notes the U.S. reached one million confirmed cases less than three weeks after reaching 500,000 cases. Source: CBS News

Oscars changes rule requiring films be released in theaters The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has adjusted its rule requiring that films receive at least a limited theatrical release in Los Angeles in order to qualify for the Oscars. After a meeting of the board of governors, the Academy said on Tuesday that for the 2021 Oscars, movies that “had a previously planned theatrical release but are initially made available” on streaming or on demand can now qualify for the awards as long as they meet other eligibility requirements and are made available on the Academy’s streaming site within 60 days of release. The Academy said this is a “temporary exception” that will no longer apply beginning “on a date to be determined” after movie theaters reopen.  Source:  The Hollywood Reporter

 

Tuesday,  Apr 28th, 2020

Offshore drilling contractor Diamond Offshore Drilling files for bankruptcy due to the oil price collapse, following the reduction in oil demand during the global coronavirus pandemic. (The Wall Street Journal)

Delta Air Lines announces it is suspending flights to several small-hub airports after losing $534 million in the first quarter of this year due to aviation restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic. (MLive.com)

A prison riot at the Lurigancho jail over demands for better sanitary measures and COVID-19 medical care in San Juan de Lurigancho, Peru, leaves nine inmates dead, according to the National Penitentiary Institute. (Reuters)

 

 

Day 42 of a lockdown that started March 17th in Boston.

Globally the number of confirmed cases of the virus will pass the three-million mark today. There are a steady 80,000 new cases a day. This is down from a peak of about 85,000 new cases per day last week. This is most likely due to the lockdowns in western countries and the disease moving into parts of the world where testing resources are unavailable or too expensive like Africa, India, and South America.

There have been 208,000 recorded deaths from COVID-19. The virus is killing people at a rate of 5,500 people per day. This is down from a peak a weak ago at about 7,000 per day.

In the United States there are about 25,000 new cases every day for a cumulative total of 970,000. Deaths have been fluctuating for two weeks around 2,000 per day. 56,000 people have died in the United States from COVID-19.

Overall in the United States 3 people out of 1000 have been confirmed infected with less than 2% of the population tested so far.

Massachusetts continues to have the fourth highest infection rate for a state in the country. 7.7 people out of 1000 are infected. 4 out of 10,000 have died.

In New York City 18.3 people out of 1000 has been confirmed infected and 2 out of 1000 has died from the virus. Yet there have been ostensibly random antibody tests that suggest up to 20% of the population of the city has been infected. There is some caution and skepticism about the methodology and accuracy of that testing, however, it is consistent with limited random antibody testing done in other parts of the country.

If it is accurate, it suggests that 90 percent of cases are never tested and show few if any symptoms or never seek medical care.

This leads to further speculation that the death rate for the virus is much lower than originally thought but still greater than a regular seasonal flu.

This article has a lot of seemingly good news:
Cuomo Announces Phased Plan to Reopen New York; Deaths Drop

 

Sunday, Apr 26th, 2020

SNL back again with virtual episode NBC’s Saturday Night Live returned for its second virtual, produced-from-home episode during the coronavirus pandemic Saturday evening. Academy Award winning actor Brad Pitt kicked things off, appearing as Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, during the episode’s cold open. Pitt’s exasperated Fauci warned people not to consume disinfectants in light of recent comments by President Trump, and admitted he was likely getting fired because Trump said he wasn’t. Eventually, Pitt broke the fourth wall, removed his wig, and thanked Fauci for his leadership during the pandemic. Source: Saturday Night Live

Global coronavirus deaths surpass 200,000 The global death toll from the COVID-19 coronavirus surpassed 200,000 on Saturday, with the total number of infections now beyond 2.9 million. In the United States, there are now more than 900,000 cases and 50,000 deaths. Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, said Saturday night that she expects the rate of those hospitalized and dying from the disease in the United States will fall “dramatically” by the end of May, though she also said that won’t necessarily mean the number of cases will simultaneously dwindle, since increased testing could pick up many asymptomatic or mild cases. Source:  The Washington Post

 

White House considering replacing Azar White House officials are discussing a plan to replace Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, though they’re reluctant to complete any major shakeups within the Trump administration during the coronavirus pandemic, Politico and The Wall Street Journal report. Still, criticism of Azar’s role has reportedly mounted in recent weeks, especially after Director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority Rick Bright was moved to a National Institutes of Health position, a transfer which Bright described as a form of retaliation. President Trump had reportedly expressed frustration with Azar even before the pandemic and ultimately replaced him as the coronavirus task force leader with Vice President Mike Pence. Source: Politico

Trump says coronavirus briefings ‘not worth the time and effort’ President Trump tweeted Saturday evening that holding White House press briefings to address the coronavirus pandemic were no longer “worth the time and effort” because the media asks “nothing but hostile questions” and then “refuses to report the truth.” The tweet comes after Friday’s briefing, which was the shortest since Trump began holding them in March. There was no briefing Saturday, and Sunday’s White House schedule did not list any public events for the president. The decision to scale back the briefings is likely related to backlash to Trump’s comments on Thursday, when he pondered whether doctors should look into injecting harmful disinfectants into COVID-19 patients. Source:  The Guardian

King Salman issues an order to partially lift the curfew in all regions of the country except for Mecca where a 24-hour curfew continues as the authorities report 16,299 infections and 136 deaths nationwide. (Al Jazeera)

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-04-24/wuhan-china-coronavirus-fentanyl-global-drug-trade

 

 

Saturday,  Apr 25th, 2020

Video animated coronavirus

WHO says there’s ‘no evidence’ people can’t get second coronavirus infection The World Health Organization on Saturday warned countries against issuing so-called coronavirus “immunity passports” to recovered patients because there’s “no evidence” they are protected from a second infection. As things stand, the United Nations agency believes such actions could increase the risks of the virus’ spread. The WHO, however, will continue to monitor antibody responses to get a better sense of whether people can develop immunity and, if so, for how long. Several countries have tinkered with the idea of creating some form of immunity certificate that would allow recovered patients and those with antibody to return to work during the pandemic. Chile was the first country to officially announce it planned to do so.  Source: Reuters, Bloomberg

Some countries begin easing coronavirus lockdowns  India announced Friday the relaxation of some aspects of its strict coronavirus pandemic lockdown measures. Some neighborhood stores are allowed to re-open, but only those situated outside of hotspots. Greece, which has received praise for its early actions in combating the pandemic, as well as for its citizens’ adherence to guidelines, is reportedly preparing to gradually reverse its lockdown measures beginning on May 4 when small shops, hairdressers, barbers, and beauticians will be allowed to go back to work. Greece’s actions largely prevented a major outbreak — the country has 2,490 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 130 confirmed deaths. In the United States, Georgia, Oklahoma, and Alaska have also eased some restrictions, though they all include limitations.Source: The Guardian

U.S. hits 50,000 confirmed COVID-19 deaths, outpacing expert predictions  The United States crossed a grim threshold on Friday, officially recording its 50,000th death attributed to COVID-19. The U.S. now accounts for almost a third of the confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide, and more than a quarter of the deaths. Many experts believe the toll of the disease in the U.S. is being underreported, due to insufficient testing and excess mortalities. America’s confirmed coronavirus deaths have now outpaced predictions by experts, who estimated last week that 47,000 would be dead by May 1, a number the country instead hit on Wednesday, April 22. “Just a few days from now,” writes The New Yorker, “more Americans will have died from COVID-19 than the entire toll from the Vietnam War.” The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., contains 58,320 names. Source: The New Yorker

Trump claims disinfectant comments were sarcastic after doctor condemnation  President Trump on Friday claimed he was being sarcastic when he suggested health officials look into treating COVID-19 with measures like injecting disinfectants or hitting lungs with a “tremendous” amount of ultraviolet or “very powerful light.” His comments were widely criticized, and health experts slammed his suggestion, which came during one of Trump’s widely-viewed coronavirus briefings, as “irresponsible” and “dangerous,” seeing as disinfectants can be poisonous or deadly if ingested or injected, which Lysol warned. Trump said he brought it up “sarcastically to reporters” to “see what would happen.” The speculation about disinfectants was not interpreted as a joke by many viewers: The state of Maryland confirmed it had “received several calls regarding questions about disinfectant use” as it pertains to curing COVID-19.  Source: The New York Times

CBO predicts nearly 40 percent GDP drop this quarter  The Congressional Budget Office on Friday predicted the U.S. GDP will contract 39.6 percent year over year during the second fiscal quarter of the year, which runs from April through June. The nonpartisan group forecasts an 11.8 percent drop from Q1 of 2020. The CBO ascribes the massive contraction to the coronavirus pandemic and “the social distancing measures put in place to contain it.” It predicts economic activity will restart in Q3, leading to a 5.4 percent growth year over year in that quarter, or a 23.5 percent jump from Q2. The CBO says the unemployment rate will only continue to grow, hitting an estimated 16 percent in Q3, and efforts to mitigate the economic woes are expected to lead to a federal deficit of $3.7 trillion by the end of 2020. Source: Congressional Budget Office

The separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) announces the establishment of a self-ruled administration in southern Yemen, which the internationally-recognized government describes as “catastrophic”. STC forces are deployed in the city of Aden as emergency rule is declared. (Reuters)

The Lost Apple Project, a non-profit conservationist society based in the Pacific Northwest, announces the rediscovery of ten cultivars of apples previously thought to be extinct. The decad almost doubles the total amount of species the society has rescued, bringing the total to 23. (CNN)

 

Friday,  Apr 24th, 2020

Trump signs $484 billion coronavirus relief bill  President Trump on Friday signed a $484 billion coronavirus relief bill after it was passed by both chambers of Congress this week. The relief package includes more than $300 billion to replenish the Paycheck Protection Program, which provides forgivable loans to small businesses and recently ran out of money. It also includes $75 billion for hospitals and $25 billion for coronavirus testing but does not include money for states and local governments. Lawmakers will turn to the next phase of coronavirus relief after the passage of this interim bill, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said he wants the full Senate to return to Washington. Source: Axios

The Saudi-led coalition announces the extension of a unilateral ceasefire by one month to fight the pandemic. The Houthis did not accept the coalition’s previous ceasefire that expired Thursday. Reportedly, the Houthis “want a lifting of air and sea blockades imposed by the coalition to the regions they control before agreeing to a ceasefire”. (Reuters)

 

 

Thursday, Apr 23rd, 2020

 

Over the last week, 4.4 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits. Since mid-March, 26.4 million have filed, which is more than 15 percent of the workforce. (BBC)

Facebook removes “pseudoscience” and “conspiracy theory” as options for targeted ads, as criticism mounts against social media for their role in spreading misinformation about the coronavirus. (Reuters)

50 crew members on the cruise ship Costa Atlantica test positive for COVID-19 after it docks in Nagasaki, Japan. (Reuters)

 

Wednesday,  Apr 22th, 2020

The Department of Health and Social Care reports 4,451 new confirmed cases and 759 more deaths from COVID-19, bringing the United Kingdom’s death toll to 18,100 and 133,495 total cases. (ITV)

The Indian Council of Medical Research advises states to pause rapid tests for two days, following reports of invalid results. (CNN)

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps deploys the country’s first military satellite, using a new satellite carrier called “Ghased” (“Messenger”). (Deutsche Welle)

 

The Good

The following is part of an article by one of my favorite writers. Jim Howard Kunstler has been writing social criticism. he’s not always correct in his predictions but I have found him to be reliable in his observations over the years.

Warning: it is pessimistic. Do read read further if you are already having a bad day. I provide the link to the full article at the end.

“Probably the biggest argument is over the seriousness of the disease itself. The statistical through-put of the moment appears to underwhelm the models the USA and Europe constructed at the onset of the plague. At least, that is, far fewer people have died, and of those, mostly the very old and those burdened with chronic illnesses ­– but also quite a few doctors and nurses in the prime of life. The statistical model is queered by many other uncertainties: is this really the peak? Does the plague come raging back if people go back to circulating freely? Can you catch it again? Will it return in waves next fall and spring? We have those models and pockets full of suppositions, theories, terrors.

Here’s what I think about the disease just now (subject to further evidence): it’s not just another flu. It operates differently, it’s more lethal, it affects many organs and can damage them permanently, and it spreads rapidly. That seems to have been the consensus of public health officials the world round who promoted the lockdown policy ­– and it’s hard to believe that they all got snookered into that. I have no idea (or opinion) whether Covid-19 was engineered, either as a bio-weapon or a good-faith science project gone awry… or whether some hapless gourmet got it at the Wild Animal Cafe.

The plague didn’t cause the economic crash. But the lockdown response certainly accelerated, amplified, and ramified it. The crash happened because we built up a hyper-complex, over-scaled, just-in-time economic system with all its ecological redundancy edited out for the sake of efficiency, making it hyper-fragile. The system’s basic power module (fossil fuel) was failing on a cost-basis and we tried to compensate for that with debt. The debt got out of hand in both sheer quantity and from the dishonest games that bankers and politicians were playing with it. All of this happened for the reason that most things happen in history: it seemed like a good idea at the time.

The old system is permanently broken now. We’re having a hard time recognizing that, plague or no plague. Many activities have flunked the scale challenge and will not come back to running the way they used to, generally anything organized at the giant scale: global supply chains, global corporations that depend on them, fracking for shale oil, big institutions like colleges and even public school systems, commercial aviation and tourism, the auto industry, show business (including the Disney empire and things like it), suburbia as a general proposition, skyscrapers and megastructures, shopping malls, pension funds, insurance companies, mega-banks, and, of course, medical conglomerates. We’re deceived by Amazon.com, which appears to be successful at the moment because it is filling a vacuum that Amazon will also eventually fall into. Amazon’s business model is a joke. The model is: every item purchased makes a separate journey by truck to the customer. That’s a “sell” signal to me.

The lockdown is making people crazy. It’s one thing to be stuck in the house with spouses and relatives you can barely stand under normal circumstances. But to see all your financial support systems melt down at the same time, along with the implications for your hopes-and-dreams, is a pretty big shock. Naturally so many want to bust out of the waking nightmare and get going, to return to action, to at least see whether what they were doing before all this happened might restart.”
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/turning-and-churning/