Trump Continues Making Every Single Wrong Decision-- And Continues Killing More And More Americans

On Monday, Dr, Fauci told National Geographic that he doesn't "think there’s a chance that this virus is just going to disappear. It’s going to be around, and if given the opportunity, it will resurge." Discarding the grudging bit of unenforced social distancing many states had, will guarantee the resurgence-- with a vengeance.

Gallup released the findings from a poll on April 26-- although just 4% of Democrats said they’re ready to return to normal activities, ten times as many Republicans (44%) said they are ready. Yesterday's Washington Post/University of Maryland poll reported that "Americans clearly oppose the reopening of restaurants, retail stores and other businesses, even as governors begin to lift restrictions that have kept the economy locked down in an effort to combat the coronavirus pandemic... The opposition expressed by sizable majorities of Americans reflects other cautions and concerns revealed in the survey, including continuing fears among most people that they could become infected by the coronavirus, as well as a belief that the worst of the medical crisis is not yet over. About half of states have eased restrictions on businesses, but Americans’ unease about patronizing them represents a major hurdle to restarting the economy. Many Americans have been making trips to grocery stores and 56 percent say they are comfortable doing so. But 67 percent say they would be uncomfortable shopping at a retail clothing store, and 78 percent would be uncomfortable eating at a sit-down restaurant. People in states with looser restrictions report similar levels of discomfort as those in states with stricter rules."

Reporters Dan Balz and Emily Guskin wrote that "Americans continue to give President Trump negative marks for his response to the outbreak, while offering widely positive assessments of their state governors, a trend that has been consistent throughout the pandemic. Trump’s ratings are 44 percent positive and 56 percent negative, in line with where he was two weeks ago and only slightly worse than a week ago. Governors earn positive marks from 75 percent of Americans, about the same as a week ago. Partisan differences remain sizable, with nearly 8 in 10 Republicans but just about 2 in 10 Democrats rating Trump positively. In contrast, governors earn big positive majorities across the parties."

On Monday, a trio of Post reporters noted that Trump is publicly encouraging right-wing governors to ignore his own government's reopening guidelines. They're moving too fast and too recklessly and moron governors like Ron DeSantis (R-FL), Brian Kemp (R-GA), Pete Ricketts (R-NE), Kim Reynolds (R-IA), Jared Polis (D-CO), Greg Abbott (R-TX), Kristi Noem (R-SD), Bill Lee (R-TN), Tate Reeves (R-MS), Ralph Northam (D-VA) and Eric Holcolmb (R-IN) are negating all the progressive we've made in battling the pandemic over theist month and a half-- not just in their won states, but nationally. In each of their states, the number of confirmed cases per million in the population is up... every day. These are the numbers, per million, from Monday to Tuesday:

• Iowa- 3,098 to 3,228
• Nebraska- 3,103 per million to 3,194
• Indiana- 3,090 to 3,169
• South Dakota- 3,087 to 3,148
• Colorado- 3,057 to 3,139
• Georgia- 2,859 to 2,898
• Mississippi- 2,636 to 2,746
• Virginia- 2,317 to 2,407
• Tennessee- 2,040 to 2,058
• Florida- 1,791 to 1,818
• Texas- 1,184 to 1,221

The leaked CDC report showing a possibility of 200,000 new daily cases and 3,000 daily deaths in as little as three weeks from now, has the Trump regime in a state of hysterical, maniacal denialism. "It underscores," wrote the trio, "how an eagerness by Trump and several state governors to begin restarting normal activities after a weeks-long economic slowdown has clashed with a stubbornly high national caseload that has defied the president’s predictions of a swift and safe reopening. It also marks another round of confusing guidance from Trump, who released the guidelines with fanfare during a briefing and now shows no problem with states that ignore them. 'There’s not too many states that I know of that are going up. Almost everybody is headed in the right direction,' Trump said during a Fox News town hall on Sunday, in which he presented a misleading and rosy assessment of the crisis. 'We’re on the right side of it, but we want to keep it that way, but we also want to get back to work.'"

In reality, new coronavirus cases are increasing in about a third of states, compared with just a few where there has been a sustained decline. A plurality of states are hovering around the same level, with neither a significant uptick nor decrease in daily cases. That mirrors the national trend, as the rate of new cases has leveled off in recent weeks but not declined.

Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, said most governors who have decided to open up are clearly not following the letter of the White House guidelines.

“The first part of the criteria is sustained decline. And we don’t see that,” Jha said.

...Politically, governors have come to learn they are more likely to be criticized by Trump for maintaining stay-at-home orders that comply with White House guidelines than they are for opening up their economies before meeting the Trump administration’s own criteria for doing so.

Trump has singled out Virginia for its reluctance to quickly ease social distancing measures, telling Fox News that it was one of the states that “aren’t going fast enough.”

Even though the number of coronavirus cases in Virginia continues to rise, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) announced Monday that he would probably begin easing the state’s restrictions on May 15-- including by allowing some gatherings of more than 10 people if social distancing protocols are met.

“As you can see, our cases continue to rise,” he said, before adding that the state’s percentage of positive tests-- another key measure in the White House guidelines-- had begun to decline.

Trump’s light criticism of Georgia’s decision to begin opening up businesses including barbershops and bowling alleys before meeting White House benchmarks was short-lived.

While the president said on April 23, he was “not happy” with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) for the defying the guidelines, it took him only a week to deny his own remarks.

“I didn’t say that,” Trump said Friday when his quote about Kemp was read back to him. “I said I didn’t like the particular place-- a spa, a tattoo parlor. No, no, I think it’s wonderful.”

...Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, has repeatedly warned governors against moving too quickly to lift restrictions, saying he was concerned that states that flout the White House guidelines could spark a resurgence of the virus.

“The guidelines are very, very explicit, and very clear,” he said last week on NBC’s Today show. “There’s a lot of leeway because we give the governors the opportunity to be very flexible, but you have to have the core principles of the guidelines. You can’t just leap over things and get into a situation where you’re really tempting a rebound.”

...Several governors have ignored that criteria.

In Texas, for instance, new cases dipped in mid-April but have lately been on the rise, with a spike late last week to more than 1,000 daily that has brought the total to more than 32,000. Nonetheless, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) went ahead with a plan to reopen the state’s stores, restaurants, movie theaters and malls provided they operate at less than 25 percent capacity.

Lauren Ancel Meyers, a University of Texas at Austin biologist who has modeled possible trend lines in the state’s capital as social distancing requirements are eased, said much will depend on how vigilant people remain with social distancing.

Models of potential transmission in Austin that she has run range anywhere from “hardly any additional hospitalizations” to “a catastrophic second wave.”

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) let his stay-at-home order expire last week and replaced it with a far less restrictive set of rules that allow restaurants, shops and fitness centers to open in nearly all parts of the state. Hair and nail salons, which weren’t part of the original reopening, will be allowed to begin service again this week. That’s despite the fact that new cases have jumped in recent days and now total more than 13,000.

Some public officials have been unnerved at the speed with which the reopening has happened and the apparent disregard for guidelines set by medical experts.

“The state policymakers believe that the economic climate is more important than those guidelines,” said Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke (D). “I don’t see any other explanation.”

But as states have defied that criteria to begin restarting business activity-- from retail stores in Colorado to restaurants in Florida to elective surgeries in Ohio-- they have been cheered on by Trump and his allies.

Vice President Pence has hailed the 41 states that have announced or began plans for reopening.

COVID-Czar by Nancy Ohanian

But some of those states have pushed ahead with reopening plans that skip ahead of the White House’s recommended phased approach. The recommendations call for certain testing and contract tracing capabilities to be in place before states push forward with returning to normalcy.

A lack of planning on those fronts could leave states vulnerable if there is another outbreak, said Jeffrey Shaman, one of the country’s leading epidemiologists at Columbia University.

“We don’t have the testing. We don’t have the contract tracing. We can’t detect a rebound,” he said. “It’s a really problematic place to be. This is not where we want to be.”

Ali Khan, dean of the College of Public Health at the University of Nebraska, said the governors are clearly reacting to “shelter-in-place fatigue” as they skirt the guidelines. But he said that’s a risky bet, given the danger that the virus comes roaring back.

There is widespread uncertainty about what will happen as states race to ease their restrictions on residents and businesses.

A draft government report projects coronavirus cases will surge to about 200,000 per day by June 1, a staggering jump that would be accompanied by more than 3,000 deaths each day.

The document predicts a sharp increase in both cases and deaths beginning about May 14, according to a copy shared with the Washington Post. The forecast stops at June 1 but shows both daily cases and deaths on an upward trajectory at that point.

The NY Times had its own trio of reporters on the case Tuesday-- showing how drops in the cities and states where the pandemic hit early are being offset by growing outbreaks in the states with the moron and/or genocidal governors. Their work will be seen as prophetic in less than a month: "In New York City, the daily onslaught of death from the coronavirus has dropped to half of what it was. In Chicago, a makeshift hospital in a lakefront convention center is closing, deemed no longer needed. And in New Orleans, new cases have dwindled to a handful each day. Yet across America, those signs of progress obscure a darker reality... For every indication of improvement in controlling the virus, new outbreaks have emerged elsewhere, leaving the nation stuck in a steady, unrelenting march of deaths and infections."

As states continue to lift restrictions meant to stop the virus, impatient Americans are freely returning to shopping, lingering in restaurants and gathering in parks. Regular new flare-ups and super-spreader events are expected to be close behind.

Any notion that the coronavirus threat is fading away appears to be magical thinking, at odds with what the latest numbers show.

Coronavirus in America now looks like this: More than a month has passed since there was a day with fewer than 1,000 deaths from the virus. Almost every day, at least 25,000 new coronavirus cases are identified, meaning that the total in the United States-- which has the highest number of known cases in the world with more than a million-- is expanding by between 2 and 4 percent daily.

Rural towns that one month ago were unscathed are suddenly hot spots for the virus. It is rampaging through nursing homes, meatpacking plants and prisons, killing the medically vulnerable and the poor, and new outbreaks keep emerging in grocery stores, Walmarts or factories, an ominous harbinger of what a full reopening of the economy will bring.

While dozens of rural counties have no known coronavirus cases, a panoramic view of the country reveals a grim and distressing picture.

“If you include New York, it looks like a plateau moving down," said Andrew Noymer, an associate professor of public health at the University of California, Irvine. “If you exclude New York, it’s a plateau slowly moving up.”

In early April, more than 5,000 new cases were regularly being added in New York City on a daily basis. Those numbers have dropped significantly over the last few weeks, but that progress has been largely offset by increases in other major cities.

Consider Chicago and Los Angeles, which have flattened their curves and avoided the explosive growth of New York City. Even so, coronavirus cases in their counties have more than doubled since April 18. Cook County, home to Chicago, is now sometimes adding more than 2,000 new cases in a day, and Los Angeles County has often been adding at least 1,000.

Dallas County in Texas has been adding about 100 more cases than it was a month ago, and the counties that include Boston and Indianapolis have also reported higher numbers.

It is not just the major cities. Smaller towns and rural counties in the Midwest and South have suddenly been hit hard, underscoring the capriciousness of the pandemic.

Dakota County, Neb., which has the third-most cases per capita in the country, had no known cases as recently as April 11. Now the county is a hot zone for the virus.

Dakota City is home to a major Tyson beef-processing plant, where cases have been reported. And the region, which spreads across the borders of both Iowa and South Dakota, is dotted with meat-processing plants that have been a major source of work for generations. The pattern has repeated all over: Federal authorities say that at least 4,900 meat and poultry processing workers have been infected across 19 states.

The Tyson plant in Dakota City has temporarily closed for deep cleaning. Now the workers wait, afraid to go back to work but fearful not to.

“They need money and they want to go back of course,” said Qudsia Hussein, whose husband is an imam in the area. With many businesses shuttered or suffering financially because of the pandemic, she said, “There’s no other place they can work.”

Trousdale County, Tenn., another rural area, suddenly finds itself with the nation’s highest per capita infection rate by far. A prison appears responsible for a huge spike in cases; in 10 days, this county of about 11,000 residents saw its known cases skyrocket to 1,344 from 27.

As of last week, more than half of the inmates and staff members tested at Trousdale Turner Correctional Center in Hartsville, Tenn., were positive for the virus, officials said.

“It’s been my worst nightmare since the beginning of this that this would happen,” said Dwight Jewell, chairman of the Trousdale County Commission. “I’ve been expecting this. You put that many people in a contained environment and all it takes is one.”

Everyone in town knows about the outbreak. But they are defiant: Businesses in the county are reopening this week. On Monday evening, county commissioners were scheduled to have an in-person meeting, with chairs spaced six feet apart. They have a budget to pass and other issues facing the county, Mr. Jewell said.

“We’ve got to get back to the business of the community,” he said.

Infectious-disease experts are troubled by perceptions that the United States has seen the worst of the virus, and have sought to caution against misplaced optimism.

“I don’t see why we expect large declines in daily case counts over the next month,” Trevor Bedford, a scientist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center who has studied the spread and evolution of the virus, wrote on Twitter. He added, “There may well be cities / counties that achieve suppression locally, but nationally I expect things to be messy with flare-ups in various geographies followed by responses to these flare-ups.”

...There is no escaping some basic epidemic math.

In the absence of a vaccine, stopping the spread of the virus requires about two-thirds of the population to have been infected. And some experts have argued that before what is known as herd immunity kicks in, the number of people infected nationwide could reach a staggering 90 percent if social distancing is relaxed and transmission rates climb. (It is also not clear how long immunity will last among those who have been infected.)

As testing capacity has increased, so has the number of cases being counted. But many jurisdictions are still missing cases and undercounting deaths. Many epidemiologists assume that roughly 10 times as many people have been infected with the coronavirus than the number of known cases.

Because of the time it will take for infections to spread, incubate and cause people to die, the effects of reopening states may not be known until at six weeks after the fact. One model used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention includes an assumption that the infection rate will increase up to 20 percent in states that reopen.

Under that model, by early August, the most likely outcome is 3,000 more deaths in Georgia than the state has right now, 10,000 more each in New York and New Jersey, and around 7,000 more each in Pennsylvania, Illinois and Massachusetts. Under the model’s most likely forecast, the nation will see about 100,000 additional deaths by Aug. 4.

“Even if we’re past the first peak, that doesn’t mean the worst is behind us,” said Youyang Gu, the data scientist who created the model. “It goes up quickly but it’s a slow decline down.”