Trump Continues Making The Pandemic Worse-- And His Moron Base Loves It

Lena Sun's report for the Washington Post over the weekend backs up fears that many have that Trump is trying to get control over coronavirus stats so that he can manipulate them for his campaign. "Political appointees at the Department of Health and Human Services," she wrote, "have sought to change, delay and prevent the release of reports about the coronavirus by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention because they were viewed as undermining President Trump’s message that the pandemic is under control. Michael Caputo, the top HHS spokesman, said in an interview Saturday that he and one of his advisers have been seeking greater scrutiny of the CDC’s weekly scientific dispatches, known as the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report [MMWR], for the past 3½ months. The adviser, Paul Alexander, has sent repeated emails to the CDC seeking changes and demanding that the reports be halted until he could make edits."

Alexander, is a smart-ass and aggressive shit bag who has accused the CDC of undermining Trumpanzee. Sun wrote that his emails "are the latest evidence of how the nation’s top public health agency is coming under intense pressure from Trump and his allies, who are playing down the dangers of the pandemic ahead of the Nov. 3 presidential election. 'Most often, the MMWRs are [issued] for purely scientific reasons,' Caputo said Saturday. 'But in an election year, and in the time of covid-19, it’s no longer unanimously scientific. There’s political content.'... MMWRs are written by career experts for scientists and public health specialists and are considered among the most authoritative public health reports because they provide evidence-based information on a range of health topics. The reports are independent scientific publications that undergo rigorous vetting, often with multiple drafts to check data and methodology. The reports are closely held; few individuals at the CDC have access until just before publication.

[A] report about the spread of the coronavirus at a Georgia sleep-away camp was also delayed, the former official said. That report, issued July 31, suggested that children of all ages are susceptible to coronavirus infection and may spread it to others-- a finding likely to intensify an already fraught discussion about the risks of sending children back to school.

“That report gave them a lot of grief,” the former official said. “But you can’t change facts.” The report likely was delayed, the former official said, to avoid being released around the same time Trump was calling for schools to reopen in person. The changes that were sought were not included, the former official said.

The tone of Alexander’s emails is harsh, this person said, because the CDC ignored his requests. In one email, Alexander wrote to CDC Director Robert Redfield asking that the agency modify two already published reports that Alexander said mistakenly inflated the risks of coronavirus to children and undermined Trump’s push to reopen schools.

“CDC to me appears to be writing hit pieces on the administration,” Alexander wrote in an email. “CDC tried to report as if once kids get together, there will be spread and this will impact school reopening... Very misleading by CDC and shame on them. Their aim is clear.”

The interference by HHS political appointees in the MMWR process has infuriated career scientists, who have been frustrated for months over the inability to allow scientists to fully share and explain information.

There was a similar report by a team of reporters in yesterday's NY Times noting that meddling from the Trumpist Regime is "turning widely followed and otherwise apolitical guidance on infectious disease, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports, into a political loyalty test, with career scientists framed as adversaries of the administration.

The political involvement "undermines the credibility of not only the MMWR but of the CDC. And the CDC's credibility has been tarnished throughout COVID already," said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University who sits on the external editorial board of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports.

"The MMWR had an unblemished reputation as being accurate, objective and science-based, free from political influence," he said.

The meddling from Washington has concerned Redfield, who often pushed back when Caputo called to pester him about the morbidity reports, according to a former senior government health official with direct knowledge of the conversations.

Over the weekend-- Friday, Saturday and Sunday-- the U.S. reported 117,755 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the total caseload to 6,708,458. That's 20,267 cases for every million Americans. To put that in perspective, these are the dozen worst hit (non-postage stamp sized) countries in western Europe:

• U.S.- 20,267 cases per million residents
• Spain- 12,334 cases per million residents
• Sweden- 8,555 cases per million residents
• Belgium- 7,972 cases per million residents
• Portugal- 6,279 cases per million residents
• Ireland- 6,261 cases per million residents
• France- 5,836 cases per million residents
• Switzerland- 5,443 cases per million residents
• U.K.- 5,422 cases per million residents
• Netherlands- 4,789 cases per million residents
• Italy- 4,761 cases per million residents
• Denmark- 3,431 cases per million residents
• Germany- 3,117 cases per million residents

The U.S. has had close to 200,000 confirmed COVID-deaths. The 12 European countries combined have had 175,654 deaths. The U.S. population is just over 331 million. The population of the 12 European countries comes to over 392 million-- more people, fewer deaths. Why? Trump. On Friday ABC News reported that Trump is choreographing scenes that willed to illness and death. "Amid a raging pandemic," wroteWill Steakin and Ben Gittleson, President Donald Trump has repeatedly choreographed a scene experts warn could lead to illness or even death: Thousands of supporters jammed together, mostly without masks, cheering for a candidate who mocks precautions against the novel coronavirus and has vowed to ignore his own health advisers. Fighting for reelection amid the COVID-19 outbreak, Trump enters the final stretch of the election increasingly ridiculing and ignoring coronavirus-related restrictions while holding packed campaign rallies across the country. Health experts, meanwhile, warn a bad flu season colliding with the coronavirus could be a devastating double threat to the country.

“We need to hunker down and get through this fall and winter, because it’s not going to be easy,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's foremost infectious disease expert, said Thursday.

Asked during an interview with CBS News on Wednesday if it was frustrating to see Trump hold massive rallies with little-to-no mask-wearing, Fauci said, "Yes, it is."

With flu season approaching, the president’s response to the virus has again reverted to mocking health precautions and holding packed rallies with thousands of mostly maskless supporters that float local state guidelines.

The president has worked to shift focus to the economy and violent protests in the streets, looking to portray the pandemic as a thing of the past despite cases still rising in nearly two dozen states and health officials warning the fall season could be crucial to combating the COVID-19.

After briefly pausing rallies following the debacle in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in June, Trump has ramped up his campaign schedule to now holding multiple packed, outdoor rallies a week in airport hangars that often skirt local coronavirus restrictions.

At a rally last week in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, the president in one breath urged supporters to wear masks over the Labor Day weekend while in the next repeatedly attacking his Democratic rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, for wearing them, despite his own administration’s recommendations and the president himself in July tweeting a photo of himself in a mask calling it “patriotic.”

“Did you ever see a man that likes a mask as much as him?” Trump asked his supporters. "It gives him a feeling of security. If I was a psychiatrist, I'd say this guy has some big issues."

...Trump’s approach to the virus clashes with warnings about the seriousness of preventing spread entering the fall season.

Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has for months warned about the coronavirus and the seasonal flu striking at the same time this fall and winter.

"I'm asking you to do four simple things: wear a mask, social distance, wash your hands, and be smart about crowds," Redfield said in an interview with WebMD last month. "If you do those four things it will bring this outbreak down. But, if we don't do that… this could be the worst fall from a public health perspective we've ever had."

On Thursday, the president told reporters that even if "the experts" recommended a "lockdown," he would not listen, although enacting social distancing restrictions is largely a call for state and local officials.

"Whether expert or not, we're not doing any more shutdowns," Trump said.

Hospitals across the country are bracing for the looming double threat of a bad flu season combined with the coronavirus that could put significant strain on the health system.

“Flu season can hit really hard,” Leslie Gomez, a nurse in the Emergency Department at Sharp Chula Vista told ABC News. “And COVID-19 has been devastating so I’m worried that these two forces will combine and cause a really difficult fall and winter.”

As the president has taken a growing dismissive tone toward the virus, some of his supporters continue to follow his lead-- questioning the seriousness of COVID-19 and rejecting masks.

When Will Wave 2 Begin And How Bad Will It Be?

Europe seems to have gotten through the first phase of the pandemic relatively well-- at least compared to Trumpland. The virus burned through their population pretty early and pretty fast and then mostly died down as people followed social distancing and mask rules to an extent unheard of in most of the U.S. Even including Russia, most of which is part of Asia, Europe has had 3,161,778 cases, compared to America's 5,539,841 cases.

Then, about a month ago, as Europe started reopening and people started becoming lax about social distancing, cases started rising again in country after country. New cases in Western Europe Friday ---> Saturday and ---> Sunday:

• Spain +2,987 ---> no report ---> no report
• France +2,846 ---> +3,310 ---> +3,015
• Germany +1,505 ---> +704 ---> +519
• U.K. +1,440 ---> +1,077 ---> +1,040
• Netherlands +636 ---> 655 ---> +507
• Italy +574 ---> +627 ---> +479
• Belgium +544 ---> +922 ---> +756

Europeans may not be quite as idiotic as Americans... but there are plenty of idiots. Over the weekend, in two hot-beds for Wave II-- Madrid and Brussels-- hundreds of anti-mask protestors demonstrated their anger at renewed mask mandates. Spain is back in a full fledged pandemic, so bad that the government has stopped reporting out-of-control statistics. The idiot behavior there could only be compared to the state of Georgia here in the U.S. Hundreds of imbeciles in Madrid, clapping and chanting "freedom" rallied at Plaza de Colón yesterday, holding signs that read "The virus does not exist" and "Masks kill" and "We are not afraid." In Brussels, at least one moron had the sign "It's my body, it's my choice." Only Sweden has more cases per million residents than Spain (7,675) and Belgium (6,754) in Western Europe. Belgium has the most deaths per million, followed by Spain, among European countries.

Here in the U.S., the CDC now reports that "The number and rate of cases in children [ages 0-17] in the United States have been steadily increasing from March to July 2020. The true incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in children is not known due to lack of widespread testing and the prioritization of testing for adults and those with severe illness... It is unclear whether children are as susceptible to infection by SARS-CoV-2 compared with adults and whether they can transmit the virus as effectively as adults. Recent evidence suggests that children likely have the same or higher viral loads in their nasopharynx compared with adults and that children can spread the virus effectively in households and camp settings. Due to community mitigation measures and school closures, transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to and among children may have been reduced in the United States during the pandemic in the spring and early summer of 2020. This may explain the low incidence in children compared with adults. Comparing trends in pediatric infections before and after the return to in-person school and other activities may provide additional understanding about infections in children."

CNN reported that "In Georgia, where several districts reopened in recent weeks, more than 1,000 students and staff were asked to quarantine following cases of coronavirus or exposures to someone infected. A 15-year-old boy from the Atlanta area became the second-youngest person to die from Covid-19 in the state, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health (GDPH). Earlier this month a 7-year-old boy from Savannah died... More than 7,000 children have tested positive in Alabama, according to the Alabama Department of Public Health website. Three pediatric deaths have been reported in Alabama, Dr. Karen Landers, Area Health Officer for ADPH, told CNN in an email. The deaths were two infants and one teenager, all with underlying health problems."

With ideological Trumpist governors eager for genocide-- particularly Brian Kemp (GA), but also Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott (TX)-- we'll be able to watch as unsafe openings of schools continue to lead to big increases of cases. These are the half dozen Trumpist governors who appear to be working hardest to kill as many people as they can-- reported new cases on Saturday and ---> Sunday (if they can be believed as legitimate; I have my doubts):

• Greg Abbott (TX) +8,058 ---> +2,841
• Ron DeSantis (FL) +6,352 ---> +3,779
• Brian Kemp (GA) +3,273 ---> +1,862
• Bill Lee (TN) +1,289 ---> +1,961
• Kay Ivey (AL) +1,271 ---> +853
• Henry McMaster (SC) +1,041 ---> +615

Trumptards by Chip Proser

Reporter Megan Marples, also reporting for CNN, looked at Pandemic denial: Why some people can't accept Covid-19's realities. And it isn't only because they are Fox-viewing Trumptards with pitifully low IQs. "With so much information available about the severity of the coronavirus and the need to follow guidelines," wrote Marples, "some people still refuse to accept reality. The denial manifests itself in many ways, whether that be refusing to wear a mask or attending large gatherings. Using denial as a coping mechanism is not always a bad choice. Short-term, it gives someone the time to adjust to a situation. When it becomes a long-term crutch and puts others in harm's way, it can be dangerous. There's also a psychology term called rationalism, which people often confuse with denial. It's a defense mechanism where people try to justify unacceptable behavior. With over 30 years of experience in their profession, psychologists Eve and Mark Whitmore have spent recent years studying misinformation and confirmation bias. Eve Whitmore currently works as a clinical psychologist in Stow, Ohio, and Mark Whitmore works as an associate professor in the College of Business Administration at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio."

CNN: Why do some people deny or rationalize?

Mark Whitmore: Whether you react to situations with stress and anxiety or you react more positively by figuring out how to deal with them has to do with your sense of control over those situations. When the pandemic was first announced, there was very little information and we didn't know what kinds of precautions we should be taking.

Since then, the pandemic has progressed. We've gotten more information about ways to protect ourselves and have some sense of control by the types of behaviors we engage in.

But back in March and April, we didn't have that much information and some of the information was contradictory, and that contributed to people's feelings of not being in control. Some people felt a lot of anxiety and stress, and at that point, we have to figure out how to deal with that so we can function. For some, that's creating a myth about the pandemic or simply seeking out information that will reinforce their viewpoint that it's not really as severe as people are saying.

CNN: How can being in denial or using rationalization be dangerous?

MW: Both denial and rationalization are considered to be maladaptive, meaning they don't help the individual adapt to the source of the threat. It can actually expose them to an even greater chance of whatever that threatening thing is.

In the case of the pandemic, you could become ill because if you're in denial, you're rationalizing the severity of the situation. Then you probably won't take the proper necessary precautions to protect yourself.

Eve Whitmore: We've observed people saying, "I want to get the virus and just get it over with." There are also people traveling across the United States to different states, even though it's not recommended, because they don't believe Covid-19 is that bad. They can be asymptomatic and bring it back to their own state.

We also heard people saying that they thought they were already exposed to the virus because someone in their family was sick with some undiagnosed illness and now they think it was Covid-19, and therefore they think they are fine because they should be immune.

CNN: Where do people learn these behaviors?

EW: These constructs develop in children and are typically reinforced by parents or guardians. By about the age of 6 or 7, a child is able to make sense of what's fact and what's fiction, but in our culture, fiction is reinforced, often with parents and children. You know that there's a Santa Claus and an Easter Bunny. Some of that is part of development and it helps children with fantasy, and fantasy can be a good thing. But sometimes, we see it can become extreme.

MW: The key thing is not so much Santa Claus. It's that as parents, we teach children to face decisions, not with facts but with belief or faith. As parents we did the whole Santa Claus thing, but we also taught our children about how to make decisions based on factual information.

When adults have been raised in an environment where unfounded beliefs were a part of their upbringing, they are much more likely to believe in conspiracy theories and hoaxes. They also tend to make decisions based on hunches and preconceived ideas and biases as opposed to using factual information.

CNN: If you have a friend or family member who isn't following proper safety guidelines because they're in denial or rationalizing, how can you help them?

MW: This also gets at confirmatory bias, where you create a bubble by surrounding yourself with people who believe what you believe, and you search out information that supports the way you believe.

That would help would be for a person to receive contradictory information, things that contradict their viewpoints. A person needs to be forced to face it and do something about it. This is best done in phases. Start out by presenting the individual with contradictory, factual information that's not so threatening along with what they can do to protect themselves.

Once they begin to accept it, then you escalate the intensity of the realistic information in stages until they more fully accept it and achieve a greater sense of control.

EW: You can also lead by example. They can see that you're wearing a mask washing your hands and keeping social distance. They can also see you following the mandated rules of your state.

Sunday morning, Politico reported that the Trump Regime is planning to cut the military health care by $2.2 billion, "a reduction that some defense officials say could effectively gut the Pentagon’s health care system during a nationwide pandemic... [T]wo senior defense officials say the effort has been rushed and driven by an arbitrary cost-savings goal, and argue that the cuts to the system will imperil the health care of millions of military personnel and their families as the nation grapples with Covid-19 [Trumpist Defense Secretary Mark] Esper and his deputies have argued that America's private health system can pick up the slack."

In all likelihood Trump will make a big noisy deal out of stopping that-- until after the election. Since former military officer and current Trump bootlicker Donald J Bacon never breaks with Trump on anything, I asked his Democratic challenger, Kara Eastman, for a comment on the Pentagon plans. "This issue demands more attention and an immediate response from all elected officials," she told me. "By arbitrarily cutting the health care benefits of those who’ve bravely served our country, Esper’s proposal betrays the very values of our nation. It’s unfortunate that Rep. Bacon is silent on this issue while he waits for Trump to give him his talking points."

West Virginia progress Cathy Kunkel, running for the seat occupied by Trump-enabler Alex Mooney pointed out that "Providing health care for military personnel is part of paying for the true cost of war. It is a telling statement of priorities that this administration would push for cutting the Pentagon's healthcare budget, but not for cutting unnecessary military spending. Congress must ensure that this attack on our military personnel and their families does not move forward."

"Healthcare, said Texas progressive Julie Oliver, "is the reason I’m running for Congress. And our district has one of the largest populations of veterans in the country. It is critical that we live up to our commitments to veterans and ensure that they get the highest quality care-- and we need someone in Congress who will fight back against any threats to cut healthcare for veterans and active-duty families in the middle of a pandemic. Today, veterans struggle with a host of service-related issues, including rates of unemployment and homelessness that far exceed the national average. Too many veterans suffer quietly from invisible wounds of war like PTSD and traumatic brain injury, and when left untreated, these combat-induced injuries lead to the elevated levels of depression, substance abuse and suicide we’re seeing among today’s veterans. What we don’t need right now is lip service-- we need action, and real Congressional oversight, so that we have accountability and transparency in how veterans and military families get the care they have earned and deserve."

Tomorrow is a big day for Adam Christensen-- a 3-way primary in his race to replace Ted Yoho in north central Florida. Adam is the progressive in the race-- and the favorite to win. "This shouldn’t even be a question," he tole me this morning. "Every single person in the United States should have healthcare especially in a pandemic. If they want to cut something from the budget, let’s try not dropping bombs in Somalia. Or stop ordering new fighter jets that we don’t need. People’s health is what matters, and if you try to take that away from them they will fight with everything that they have. People are tired of politicians that say they care but then don’t do anything. It’s time for Democrats to fight back and not just beg to be treated fairly."

The Pandemic-- Whose Fault Is The Second Spike?

The Second Spike by Nancy Ohanian

The Wall Street Journal managed to do a whole piece on How the Covid-19 surge shifted to the South and West without once mentioning Trump or any of his stupid Republican enablers. It's not a bad post, although reporter Randy Yeip missed the whole meaning of "how" in his title.

Trump didn't invent coronavirus but the ferocity and endurance of the pandemic in America belongs entirely to him and that is the "how."

Friday was another terrible pandemic day for America. The country had 54,904 confirmed new cases. The 10 states with the most new cases Friday and ---> Saturday:

• Florida +9,488 ---> 11,458
• Texas +7,343 ---> 5,382
• California +4,509 ---> 3,718
• Arizona +4,433 ---> 2,695
• Georgia +2,784 --->2,826
• North Carolina +2,054 ---> 1,092
• South Carolina +1,831 ---> 1,854
• Tennessee +1,822 ---> 1,428
• Alabama +1,754 ---> 997
• Louisiana +1,728 ---> no report

Not in the "top 10," but also spiking badly: Mississippi, Ohio, Nevada, Missouri, Utah, Arkansas and Oklahoma.

Yep noted that "Americans are seeing the coronavirus pandemic play out in two parts, as states that bore the brunt of cases in the early months of the pandemic have mostly contained the spread, while a new wave of infections is now threatening much of the rest of the country. At the start of April, New York and New Jersey accounted for fully half of all cases nationwide. Those two states plus five others saw a combined rate of confirmed infections that was nearly eight times that of the rest of the country. But mitigation efforts that brought everyday life practically to a standstill bent the curve dramatically." SO what about the states that eschewed those mitigation efforts? The curve bent-- but in the wrong direction.

Then just as life in many of those states tiptoed toward a new normal, Americans elsewhere saw a rapid rise in infections. The divergence has been so dramatic that through July 1 those other 43 states now account for two-thirds of all confirmed cases nationwide.

To be sure, there have been exceptions. While many of the states hit hardest in the earliest days have kept infections in check so far, states like Louisiana, Michigan and Washington are seeing a resurgence. But the center of gravity has clearly shifted south and west, as states such as Florida, Texas and Arizona experience explosive growth in case counts.

What might account for the shift? A look at the data suggests that mitigation efforts in the newest hot spots may not have gone far enough, or lasted long enough, to effectively tame the spread. In many of the states experiencing a surge in new infections, bars, restaurants and retail businesses were shut down for a much shorter period than in the states that saw the first wave of cases. And governors in places like New York and New Jersey were more aggressive in requiring the public to wear face masks.

States in the Northeast that accounted for much of the early surge in cases were among the first to implement restrictions. Confirmed infections in each peaked in April, but most didn’t lift restrictions on restaurants, bars and indoor retail until case counts had dropped considerably and were continuing on a downward trend.

Three other states that saw early surges also kept those restrictions in place until case counts were well off their peaks. But unlike New York and New Jersey, for instance, the downward trends had slowed or even reversed before restrictions were lifted. Washington state and Louisiana have seen a continued upward trajectory since then. Michigan’s rate of Covid cases initially resumed its decline but in recent weeks has seen cases rising again, including more than 130 traced to a bar in East Lansing, Michigan.

Many of the newest outbreaks are occurring in populous states in the South and West. California was the first state to implement a statewide stay-at-home order, but the state relaxed restrictions even while confirmed cases continued to rise. Arizona, Florida and Texas had kept case counts low, but never saw a significant decline in infection rates before reopening. Governors in all four states have now reimplemented some restrictions in an effort to contain the spread.

Is Trump and his sycophantic enablers to blame? That simple? Well, meet Pam Bondi, former Florida Attorney General and slimy corporate lobbyist; there is no worse Trump sycophant anywhere. She's also a psychotic anti-masker who has said that that Biden’s proposal to make masks mandatory nationally-- like most countries that have whipped the pandemic do-- is really a harbinger of Marxist totalitarianism. She was on Hannity's show this week comparing Biden to Castro.

“What’s it similar to? In Cuba, where Castro makes all school-aged children wear a Pioneer Scarf,” Bondi said Friday night on Fox News’ Hannity.

“What’s going to be next? Banning guns,” Bondi added. “The first words out of his mouth are talking about making every American wear a mask.”

Bondi said that was part of the Biden “socialist agenda,” a creed the Delaware Democrat purportedly shares with “Bernie Sanders and AOC.”

“That’s the path America would be headed down if that man was elected as President,” the former Attorney General contended.

...“We hope that people are going to stay socially distanced, are going to wear a mask, [use] hand sanitizer and be respectful of each other,” Bondi said to The Guardian.

“It’s not a legal requirement, it’s people’s own free choice. But we hope everyone will be peaceful and happy and have a great rally and social distance,” she added.

With Republicans desperate to hold onto Florida, facing polls that show a strong Biden lead consistently, expect more comparisons between Biden and Castro.

The hopes for Trump partisans is that some of them will stick.

Meanwhile, NBC News reported that After several months of mixed messages on the coronavirus pandemic, the White House is settling on a new one: Learn to live with it. Administration officials are planning to intensify what they hope is a sharper, and less conflicting, message of the pandemic next week, according to senior administration officials, after struggling to offer clear directives amid a crippling surge in cases across the country... At the crux of the message, officials said, is a recognition by the White House that the virus is not going away any time soon-- and will be around through the November election. As a result, President Donald Trump's top advisers plan to argue, the country must figure out how to press forward despite it. Therapeutic drugs will be showcased as a key component for doing that and the White House will increasingly emphasize the relatively low risk most Americans have of dying from the virus, officials said. Dr. Anthony Fauci, for his part, has been issuing dire warnings on the future of the pandemic... He testified on Capitol Hill this week that if current trends continue, Americans could see as many as 100,000 new cases daily. In an interview with BBC Radio on Thursday, Fauci said: 'What we've seen over the last several days is a spike in cases that are well beyond the worse spikes that we've seen. That is not good news, we've got to get that under control or we risk an even greater outbreak in the United States.'"

When It Comes To Making Plans, COVID Is In The Driver's Seat, Not Mere Mortals

Next month is my friend's birthday. His wife called me today to ask me to come over for a little birthday party. "How little," I asked. She named about a dozen people. "This year?" I asked to confirm my suspicion. I told hold all my plans are being made by the pandemic, not by arbitrary dates and wishes. She did not want to hear that. Maybe I'll suit up and go visit him the day before the party.

Yesterday Thomas Franck wrote a piece for CNBC.com about Mnuchin declaring "We can't shut down the economy again." LOL. We can't-- but COVID-19 can. The Dow lost 6.9% today-- 1,861.82 points. That's a gargantuan one-day loss... and it's because of Wave II fears.

“We can’t shut down the economy again. I think we’ve learned that if you shut down the economy, you’re going to create more damage,” Mnuchin said in an interview with CNBC’s Jim Cramer on “Squawk on the Street.”

“And not just economic damage, but there are other areas and we’ve talked about this: medical problems and everything else that get put on hold,”  he added. “I think it was very prudent what the president did, but I think we’ve learned a lot.”

The rise cases amid U.S. reopening efforts has made investors nervous that states may have to reimpose business closures to again try to slow the spread of the coronavirus. That pessimism contributed to the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s 800 point slide Thursday morning and the S&P 500′s 2.6% loss.

Stocks that would benefit the most under a total U.S. reopening led the way lower, with United Airlines down 10%, cruise operator Carnival losing 8.8% and Gap shedding 6.6%.

Mnuchin also said he’s prepared to return to Congress to request additional fiscal spending to help juice the economy if needed.

“We have the Fed program, we have Main Street [lending program], which is going to be now up and running, and we’re prepared to go back to Congress for more money to support the American worker,” he said. “So we’re going to get everybody back to work. That’s my No. 1 job working with the president and we’re going to do that.”

House Democrats last month passed a $3.5 trillion stimulus bill known as the HEROES Act that would prolong jobless benefits through the end of 2020 and provide relief for cities and states that have seen a marked drop in tax revenues. Senate Republicans have opted for a wait-and-see approach and await more data, such as last Friday’s better-than-expected [fake] jobs report, before voting to widen the federal deficit.

It's great-- almost miraculous-- that the early states now have rapidly and consistently sinking rates of new cases. These were yesterday's numbers:

New York +688--> +893
New Jersey +526--> +642
Massachusetts +511--> +392
Pennsylvania +548--> +646
Michigan +267--> +223
Connecticut +114--> +228
Rhode Island +106--> +85
Delaware +50--> +67
Washington +285--> +308

This are also yesterday's numbers for new cases, followed by today's, rapidly growing cases in these states:

California +3,574--> +3,627
Texas +2,023--> +2,012
Florida +1,698--> +1,902 (stats are fake and could be double or triple)
Arizona +1,412--> +1,654
North Carolina 1,177--> +1,846
Georgia +993--> +810
Alabama +856--> +865

New York City Started Re-Opening Yesterday-- Cautiously

America 2020 by Nancy Ohanian

Yesterday, as states and cities rush to re-open, some carefully, others not, the Washington Post ran a piece by Joel Achenbach, Shutdowns prevented 60 million coronavirus infections in the U.S., study finds. "Shutdown orders," he wrote, "prevented about 60 million novel coronavirus infections in the United States and 285 million in China, according to a research study published Monday that examined how stay-at-home orders and other restrictions limited the spread of the contagion. A separate study from epidemiologists at Imperial College London estimated the shutdowns saved about 3.1 million lives in 11 European countries, including 500,000 in the United Kingdom, and dropped infection rates by an average of 82 percent, sufficient to drive the contagion well below epidemic levels."

The two reports, published Monday in the journal Nature, provide fresh evidence that aggressive and unprecedented shutdowns, which caused massive economic disruptions and job losses, were necessary to halt the exponential spread of the novel coronavirus.

But the overwhelming majority of people remain susceptible to the virus. Only about 3 percent to 4 percent of people in the countries being studied have been infected to date, said Samir Bhatt, senior author of the Imperial College London study.

“This is just the beginning of the epidemic: we’re very far from herd immunity,” Bhatt said Monday in an email. “The risk of a second wave happening if all interventions and precautions are abandoned is very real.”

The first study, from researchers at the University of California at Berkeley, examined six countries-- China, the United States, France, Italy, Iran and South Korea-- and estimated how 1,717 interventions, such as stay-at-home orders, business closings and travel bans, altered the spread of the virus. The report concluded that those six countries collectively managed to avert 62 million test-confirmed infections. Because most people who are infected never get tested, the actual number of infections that were averted is much higher-- about 530 million in the six countries, the Berkeley researchers estimated.

Timing is crucial, the study found. Small delays in implementing shutdowns can lead to “dramatically different health outcomes.” The report, while reviewing what worked and what made little difference, is clearly aimed at the many countries around the planet that are still early in their battle against the coronavirus.

“Societies around the world are weighing whether the health benefits of anti-contagion policies are worth their social and economic costs,” the Berkeley team wrote. The economic costs of shutdowns are highly visible-- closed stores, huge job losses, empty streets, food lines. The health benefits of the shutdowns, however, are invisible, because they involve people not sickened.

That spurred the researchers to come up with their estimates of infections prevented. The Berkeley team did not produce an estimate of lives saved.

Achenbach is a health-and-politics reporter but J. David Goodman covers lobbying, fund-raising and the influence of money in politics. Interesting that the NY Times assigned him the job of covering the reopening of New York City. But with Cuomo in charge, it was a sensible approach. "Exactly 100 days since its first case of coronavirus was confirmed, New York City, which weathered extensive hardship as an epicenter of the worldwide outbreak, is set to take the first tentative steps toward reopening its doors on Monday," he wrote on Sunday. "Getting here took the sacrifice of millions of New Yorkers who learned to live radically different lives. More than 205,000 have been infected, and nearly 22,000 have died."

As many as 400,000 workers could begin returning to construction jobs, manufacturing sites and retail stores in the city’s first phase of reopening-- a surge of normalcy that seemed almost inconceivable several weeks ago, when the city’s hospitals were at a breaking point and as many as 800 people were dying from Covid-19 on a single day.

Many retail stores, battered by months of closure, are readying to do business again on Monday, starting with curbside and in-store pickup. Construction companies are adding safety features and stockpiling masks and gloves. Manufacturers, whose shop floors have idled since March, are testing machines.

State and city officials said they were optimistic that the city would begin to spring back to life. Testing is robust, reaching 33,000 people on a recent day. And new infections are now down to around 500 a day-- half as many as there were just a few weeks ago.

That is low enough for New York City’s corps of contract tracers, who began work last week, to try to track every close interaction and, officials hope, stop a resurgence of the virus.

New confirmed cases on Sunday and Monday for New York state was 1,018 and 1,064. NYC was 460 and 389:

Brooklyn- 168 and 129
Queens- 114 and 134
Bronx- 98 and 74
Manhattan- 54 and 42
Staten Island- 26 and 10

Suffolk County, a big suburb on Long Island, filled with crackpot Republicans who refused to wear masks or social distance, had 291 new cases on Sunday and 364 on Monday, each day the worst of any county in New York state. Commuters from Suffolk County could well spread the contagion in the city. Cuomo, who is always trying to take credit for NYC's progress, even though thousands became sick because he was so slow to recognize and act on the pandemic early on, said "You want to talk about a turnaround-- this one, my friends, is going to go in the history books."

New York City, like nine other regions in the state, was required to meet seven health-related metrics before beginning reopening. New York City was the last part of the state to do so; much of upstate has already moved on to Phase 2, which allows most stores, offices and hair salons to open, with restrictions on capacity and social distance.

The road back will undoubtedly be challenging. More than 885,000 jobs vanished during the outbreak, and strong gains are not expected for the city until 2022. The city budget hemorrhaged tax revenue and now faces a $9 billion shortfall over the next year.

And the reopening has been complicated by the vast protests for racial justice that have swept the city for more than a week and have forced government officials and business owners to unexpectedly adjust their plans.

Hundreds of stores were burglarized by looters who took advantage of the protests to prey on commercial districts, from Midtown to the Bronx. Shop owners scrambled to cover windows in plywood rather than reaching for welcome banners. Police officers enforced a nightly curfew.

...Even before the protests, some public health officials were privately fretting that the timeline set by Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio was too ambitious. They worried that infections could increase as people returned to work and commuters began to take the subway again.

But the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said it did not believe that rush hour would meaningfully return on Monday-- or anytime soon. Even when schools and Broadway are allowed to open in the fourth and final phase of the reopening, the authority is projecting ridership will be under 70 percent.

One person briefed on the authority’s planning said officials there expected the trains to be at well below 50 percent capacity at least through Labor Day-- a calculation based on the idea that many office workers would continue to work remotely into the fall.

Many business leaders, particularly those in office-based jobs like technology and finance, are watching the transit system for signs that it is safe. The authority has embarked on large-scale cleanings and required riders to wear masks, but said social distancing may not be possible if subways and buses carry anywhere close to their normal loads.

...Some businesses are taking it slowly and carefully.

Only about a third of textile workers in the city are expected to be back at work on Monday, said Edgar Romney, the secretary-treasurer of their union, Workers United/SEIU. Businesses that are operating have altered their shifts to reduce crowding and installed plastic shields to separate tightly packed sewing machines.

But many, particularly in Midtown Manhattan, have remained closed, he said.

For retailers, the picture is even more complex. Just opening the doors does not guarantee that customers will return. Curbside pickup does not make a lot of sense for many retailers either, particularly in Manhattan.

Business groups said many retailers were waiting for the next phase to venture out, when outdoor dining is allowed, office workers are permitted to return and shoppers are able to enter and browse around all types of stores, local business groups said.

The earliest that could begin would be late June, based on state mandates that each phase last at least two weeks. But Mayor de Blasio said on Thursday that he did not anticipate the city moving into the next phase until early July.

“Businesses can be ready, but are the consumers ready?” asked Thomas J. Grech, president of the Queens Chamber of Commerce. “I want to demonstrate to the buying public, to the consumers out there, that the businesses are making it safe.”

When more than 100 workers return next week to Newlab, a technology hub in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, they will have the option of wearing a device that buzzes every time two colleagues get too close to each other-- a high-tech way to enforce social distancing.

The devices, made by StrongArm Technologies, a company based in the hub, were already being worn by most of the 80 or so workers deemed essential.

“In the first week, people were getting buzzed all the time,” said Shaun Stewart, the chief executive of Newlab. “It flashes and it vibrates. That alone, that immediately changes your behavior and your perspective on distancing.”

The city’s contact tracing efforts are far less high tech. But for the past week, newly infected New Yorkers have been receiving calls from the new corps of tracers. City Hall did not provide figures for how many people they were able to reach.

“The beginning of any program is challenging,” said Jay Varma, an adviser to Mr. de Blasio on public health. But so far, he said, “people are willing to participate, they’re willing to give information about their health conditions and about their close contacts.”

Still, a jump in cases could overwhelm the system, as happened at the start of the pandemic in New York in March.

Officials are watching barometers of the virus’s spread closely, from new positive tests to emergency room data, for any sign that the newly flattened curve of infection might be arcing upward again.

The work of contact tracing has taken on new urgency because of the public outpouring of anger at the death of George Floyd, a black man killed in Minneapolis on May 25 in a confrontation with four police officers... [which] raised questions about how mass gatherings might spread the virus, with some participants not observing social distancing.

“On the public health side, this has been a really long, arduous nearly 100 days of something none of us had never dealt with before, and then you see that activity, of course you’re concerned,” said Jim Malatras, a close adviser to Mr. Cuomo. “The top blew off. The top blew off across this country.”

Mr. Malatras said he envisioned several possible results of the demonstrations.

People who are asymptomatic could transmit the disease far beyond the ranks of the protesters. Or, if there is no immediate surge of infections, some New Yorkers may begin to doubt strict adherence to social distancing.

The impact of having crowds of at least 20,000 protesters on the streets would not be apparent for as long as two weeks, officials cautioned.

“The mayor is appropriately concerned about the risk of a resurgence due to the mass gatherings that have occurred,” said Mr. Varma, adding that “there is a lot that we don’t know about how people’s behavior will change after June 8.”

He said, however, that because the protests took place outdoors and many demonstrators wore masks, the risks may have been lessened.

The state and the city will not make a decision about moving to the second phase of reopening for at least two weeks, at which point the public health effects of the protests should be more clear, officials said.

Do You Want To Go Out To Eat Again? I'm Wary

We've been eating well during the pandemic, actually better than we have for the preceding couple of decades. That's because we ate out a lot and even the very best restaurant food is never as healthy as home-cooking. Also because I was a chef for almost 4 years-- and in a vegan/health food restaurant-- when I lived in Amsterdam. No need to hear the whole saga but but, as I've said before, cooking is more or less like riding a bike; you don't forget the techniques and food combinations and after a while you start recalling all the old recipes.

So, virtually nothing but the best oils, best organic produce, best everything... and well-prepared. I enjoy it because I learned cooking in a meditation center and cooking puts me in the zone. And because I'm also cognizant of how healthy homemade food is. I feel healthier than I have in decades! And it helps that Roland loves the food and compliments it everyday. He flipped out over the rhubarb-berry pie I made yesterday... with homemade "ice-cream" (from frozen bananas) on top.

Anyway, that said... we were both talking about how we are eager to get back to Avra, a Greek restaurant in Beverly Hills that is not doing delivery and pick up and the chef-iest restaurant in town-- Auburn in Hollywood, which isn't doing pick up or delivery either. So it interested me to read the report in the Washington Post by Bonnie Berkowitz and Kevin Schaul, As states start to reopen, here's where people are going. Americans are "venturing out with varying degrees of caution."

In and around the nation’s densest cities, people are spending almost as much time at home as they were at the height of the stay-home peak around April 7, according to a Washington Post analysis of data provided by SafeGraph, a company that aggregates cellphone location information.

Elsewhere, particularly in pockets of the Upper Midwest and the South, people are spending less time at home now than they did before the arrival of widespread restrictions (and, for many, before the arrival of spring weather). These also tend to be areas where officials were early to roll back stay-home restrictions.

People in most areas fall somewhere in between the extremes, going out more than they did in early April but not nearly as much as they did before the novel coronavirus emerged.

To determine when people are home, SafeGraph obtains GPS data through regular pings from smartphones that are running one or more apps from an undisclosed list. The company defines “home” as a common location from which a phone pings between 6 p.m. and 7 a.m.

And by detecting pings that come from phones that are within the footprints of buildings, the company can estimate foot traffic in a place of business or worship.

The data is not perfect, but it is a good indicator of where people are going.

At the height of the lockdown, all types of restaurants lost customers as people hunkered down in their homes with stashes of fresh groceries. But fast-food joints took less of a sales hit than full-service restaurants, according to NPD Group, and their visitation appears to be rebounding faster.

In many states, especially in the South and Midwest, traffic at fast-food restaurants is now higher than it was before the restrictions, and the U.S. average has crept close to March 1 levels.

That not the case for full-service, sit-down restaurants.

Customers clearly are warier of sitting in a room with strangers than waiting in drive-through lines. Seventy-eight percent of respondents in a Washington Post/University of Maryland poll published May 5 said they would be uncomfortable eating in a sit-down restaurant.

In addition, so many people are out of work-- more than 40 million unemployment claims were filed in the past 10 weeks-- that fine dining is likely not in the budget for people who previously may have been willing to splurge. Full-service eateries have been hit especially hard because they tend to operate at lower profit margins than fast-food franchises, and most states are restricting their capacity to maintain social distancing.

But sit-down restaurants in states that allowed them to reopen got a Mother’s Day bump, and full-service chains such as Applebee’s and Olive Garden report that they are beginning to make up lost ground, according to NPD’s data.

You may notice that one non-state, the District of Columbia, stands alone on these charts. One reason is that the city has only begun to reopen today. Another is that it is completely urban, unlike the 50 states, which are all a mix of cities and non-cities. If New York City or San Francisco were measured separately, their data probably would look about the same.

In addition to restaurants, other industries are looking up-- and a few are not.

If you’re peering at this story through overgrown bangs, you won’t be surprised customers in many states surged to barber shops and hair salons as soon as they reopened.

Unfortunately, data for hair establishments is uniquely muddied by salons tucked into locations such as private homes, apartment buildings, grocery stores, senior centers and hospitals. Customer cellphone pings in those sites can be impossible to distinguish from people who are in the building for other reasons. But while individual state data can be sketchy, the overall trend is clearly upward, and we removed a few major outliers when possible.

Foot traffic for many of these categories varies quite a bit among states, in part because of staggered dates of reopening.

Bar traffic, for instance, varies wildly, with Montana and Alabama showing large recent spikes. That’s because SafeGraph’s data contains a relatively small sampling of bars, but also because the definition of a bar is somewhat loose. For instance, the spike in Alabama is heavily skewed by one giant beach bar/restaurant/entertainment complex that hosted, among other events, a May 22 high school graduation.

Grocery-store traffic peaked right before widespread shutdowns and then dipped when most Americans were staying home. Since then, it has settled into a traffic pattern that is as busy-- and often busier-- than in early March. (A similar trend is playing out at general merchandise retailers such as Walmart and dollar stores, many of which also sell groceries.)

Supermarkets were always counted as essential businesses, so as the pandemic unfolded, management at many stores scrambled to come up with sanitizing and social distancing measures to try to protect customers and employees, who suddenly became front-line workers.

At least 100 grocery workers nationwide have died of complications from the virus since late March, and at least 5,500 others have tested positive, according to a Post review of data from the nation’s largest grocery workers union, other workers’ rights coalitions and media reports.

Flocks have not flocked back to churches and other religious organizations in most of the country, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are wandering without shepherds.

Pastors, priests, rabbis and other religious leaders have been creative. Many streamed sermons and prayers online during the lockdown, and some are resuming services in person but outdoors, where the coronavirus is thought to be less likely to spread.

Some have even resurrected a quirky remnant of the 1950s and 1960s: drive-in church.

When it comes to gyms and fitness centers, states are clearly split. Many have not allowed them to reopen at all; others, such as Oklahoma and Georgia, allowed them to open weeks ago.

Experts in virus transmission are extremely leery of indoor gyms, where people pant and grunt for extended periods of time close to one another, sometimes in rooms with questionable ventilation and sanitization. A growing number of studies indicate that the coronavirus may be spread through expelled droplets that hang in the air for minutes.

U.S. residents seem less wary of outdoor recreation. Spikes in both Oklahoma, where indoor gyms are open, and Rhode Island, where they are closed, are skewed by visits to a few large, outdoor sports parks with grassy fields and walking trails. Kids’ baseball leagues and tournaments have resumed in some states, including Oklahoma. Some studios have moved classes outside so customers can exercise in fresh air.

Movie theater chains

Even in states that have allowed theaters to reopen, most owners have kept their projectors dark. That includes AMC Theatres, the country’s largest chain.

Hollywood studios have held back new releases that had been planned for spring and early summer, so theaters would have little to screen even if they did open. The first major studio to test the waters is expected to be Warner Bros., which plans to release Christopher Nolan’s new thriller, Tenet, on July 17. The next week, Disney plans to debut its live-action version of Mulan.

A huge majority of respondents in The Post’s early May poll-- 82 percent-- said they opposed the reopening of movie theaters more than any other category of business (with gyms not far behind). Another mid-May survey found that even if the cost was the same, only 13 percent of respondents would prefer to watch a first-run movie in a theater as opposed to their living rooms.

With most indoor theaters closed, however, some of the country’s roughly 300 drive-in theaters are stealing the show. The retro but social-distance-friendly activity is experiencing such a resurgence that at least one indoor theater, in Utah, has temporarily converted its parking lot to a drive-in.

The takeaway? Americans seem to be eager-- or at least willing-- to venture out of their homes a bit more. But when it comes to indoor spaces with groups of strangers, most of us are still staying away.