Why Does Ron DeSantis Seem So Determined To Make His Pandemic Even Worse For Floridians?

 

Florida Man

On Thursday, Florida reported another 2,541 COVID cases and another 172 deaths (by far the worst in the U.S.). Only 7 full countries had more deaths on Thursday than Florida:

• India- 1,144
• U.S.A.- 942
• Brazil- 818
• Mexico- 601
• Argentina- 390
• Colombia- 178
• Iran- 175

Yesterday, Florida reported another 2,847 new cases-- bringing the state's total to 695,887, third worst after much bigger California and Texas. In fact, Florida now has 32,400 cases per million residents, compared to Texas' 26,243 cases per million and Califoirnia's 20,249, which is below the national average (21,767). Florida has 417,626 active cases, are than any state by far. In short, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, aided by Trump and a Republican-controlled legislature, has turned Florida into a COVID-basket case.

Yesterday DeSantis decided to make his pandemic worse by allowing restaurants at operate full capacity and preventing even the worst hit cities and counties from ordering businesses to close. This while new daily cases are spiking like mad in a dozen counties. Yesterday these were the 10 counties reporting new cases worse than some entire states!

• Miami-Dade- 503
• Broward- 191
• Palm Beach- 157
• Orange- 157
• Hillsborough- 155
• Duval- 120 (where Trump hel;d a super-spreader event Thursday night)
• Alachua- 98
• Polk- 96
• Brevard- 92
• Leon- 88

DeSantis announced that all restaurants in Florida will be allowed to operate with at least 50 percent capacity regardless of local rules. Additionally, the governor says local governments will have to justify any capacity restrictions between 50 and 100 percent. Those would require state approval... The governor says he will not allow local governments to close restaurants. As he has stated this week, he does not believe restaurant closures have made a difference in limiting the spread of COVID-19... [B]ars will be allowed to operate with at least 50 percent capacity, just like restaurants.

Meanwhile, DeSantis' boss, Donald, is reported to have "lost patience" with Dr. Robert Redfield the head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Preventio, "as well as with the other public health experts on his coronavirus team because their sober messaging on the future of the pandemic clashes with his rosy assessments.

Trump believes that breakthroughs are not coming swiftly enough, according to people familiar with the President's thinking. Trump's frustrations have caused some to question whether Redfield is on the chopping block, but a Trump adviser said they did not expect the President to make major staffing changes before the election.

The ever-looming threat, Trump's public undermining of the CDC chief and Redfield's tendency to fold to the White House are taking a toll on CDC staff, from top to bottom, employees say. Some have questioned whether their work is making a difference and others have even considered resigning-- and whether the sagging spirits may be hampering pandemic response.

Eight current and former public health officials described for CNN a crushing environment at the agencies charged with the coronavirus response brought on by a President intent on contradicting critical public health messaging and downplaying the threat of the virus, politically motivated pressure from the White House and baseless allegations from political appointees that government scientists are part of a disloyal "deep state."

"The morale is as low as I've ever seen it and we have no confidence in our leadership," a CDC official said. "People are miserable and it's a shame because this pandemic is still flying away and we still need a robust public health response."

Inside the White House, Drs. Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci have struggled to compete with the growing influence of Trump's new favorite coronavirus adviser, Dr. Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist with no public health or infectious disease expertise whose views are wildly out of step with leading public health experts. Birx has told people around her she is "distressed" with the direction of the task force and is uncertain how much longer she can continue to serve as the coronavirus task force coordinator.

And at the FDA, the agency's top career officials penned a Washington Post op-ed earlier this month reasserting the agency's independence and commitment to science amid political pressure from the White House and "deep state" allegations from the President.

In a nod to the dispirited mood engulfing his agency, Redfield registered his disappointment during a Senate hearing on Wednesday with since-departed top Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Michael Caputo's wild accusations that CDC scientists are part of a "deep state" engaging in "sedition."

Back to Florida for a moment. Matt Dixon reported at Politico that on Friday Bloomberg announced that he’s blanketing Florida airwaves with a $40 million TV ad buy, the first since he pledged to spend $100 million there to defeat Donald. "The massive buy, being made through the Bloomberg-funded Independence USA PAC, comes the same week that nearly 5 million vote-by-mail ballots are being sent to Florida voters in the the start of what effectively is a month-long Election Day in the nation’s largest swing state."

Bloomberg told Dixon that "This fall, the path to the presidency goes through Florida-- and with mail-in ballots going out this week, voters will soon start deciding who gets its 29 electoral votes. That’s why we’re doing everything in our power to tell the story of Donald Trump’s failed presidency and why we need Joe Biden as the next president of the United States."

Florida Republicans can't stop his ads but they are trying to stop him and others for paying the fines of felons so they can vote. Former Orlando Congressman Alan Grayson, one of the first supporters of the idea of re-enfranchising felons who had served their time, told me that "The threat to investigate Bloomberg is the best illustration so far of the psychopathology of the Florida GOP. Florida voted by almost two-to-one in favor of the principle that no one can take away your right to vote, even if you’re a convicted felon. That’s one of those 'INALIENABLE' rights-- a right that you cannot lose-- that the Founders said was 'endowed by the Creator.' But to the Florida GOP, that’s just LOL."





NPR reported yesterday that Ashley Moody, Florida's crackpot, right-wing attorney general, urged on by Matt Gaetz, the furthest right of the Florida congressional delegation, is demanding law enforcement agencies open an investigation into Bloomberg's contribution to the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition. The Republicans are whining that Bloomberg and other contributing to the Coalition are trying to buy their votes.

Northeast Florida state House candidate Joshua Hicks, endorsed yesterday by President Obama, isn't buying DeSantis' bullshit. "Last I checked, the pandemic is still present," he told me, "we haven't found a cure, people are still getting sick and dying. Yet, today's decision to reopen Florida by Gov. DeSantis was another example of his severe incompetence and his obvious need to please Donald Trump. This decision made by the Governor places lives in danger-- young and old-- and he's playing political games with all of our lives. It's shameful and unbecoming of a Governor. Instead of addressing this virus head on, the Governor has been spreading lies and hiding the facts from the people. He continues to do so and I look forward to holding him fully accountable when I'm elected to the Florida Legislature on November 3rd. Or, he added... as The Atlantic put it Thursday: "In present-day politics, we have one party that consistently seeks advantage in depriving the other party’s adherents of the right to vote."

Bob Lynch is a state House candidate in Miami-Dade, running against one of DeSantis' top allies in the legislature, Daniel Perez. Bob told me yesterday that "You have to remember that Ron DeSantis is doing this AFTER doing nothing to shore up our state’s unemployment, deliberately making it hard to access Federal PUA money, and not rejecting the extra $300 a week in Federal unemployment assistance. So what choice do people have who work in the restaurant industry? Go to work and get sick while bringing the virus into your home or stay home and get no assistance and risk starvation? If we had had a comprehensive state and Federal response since he beginning of the Pandemic we would not be facing this brutal decision.  We should have acted like other modern countries and paid people to stay home. Instead, the Republicans just want to send people to their deaths while providing immunity to business owners that don’t follow whatever messed up version of the CDC guidelines appear from day to day. There is no gray area on the science here. Dining indoors helps spread the virus. The negligence is criminal. The GOP has a very fluid position on states and local rights. They are all in favor of them as long as The will of the people is bent to their vision of what’s 'best'."

Lynch said that "Residents of Florida already overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative in 2018 to restore voting rights for felons. There was no provision for a poll tax to make them pay their fees. Michael Bloomberg, LeBron James, and Michael Jordan have honorably stepped in to assist in this effort as many ex-felons can’t even find out what they will be required to pay to exercise their Constitutional rights. Overturning the will of the people is nothing new in Florida. It happened with Medical Marijuana, it happened with disenfranchising felons, and it will happen again. Hopefully not with the results of the election in November. DeSantis will not provide a critical check on the Trump Regime and Florida Republicans will never provide a check on DeSantis. Our only hope is to vote them all out and elect Democrats who believe in science and the constitution. People will continue to die due to Ron DeSantis’ decisions."

If Rachel Brown wins her state Senate race in Lee County on November 3 you will read the next day that the Democrats, despite the party leadership-- and particularly despite Gary Farmer-- have flipped the chamber from red to blue. This morning Brown told me, referring to DeSantis and his puppets in the legislature, that "they are sacrificing people, school children, for the sake of 'normalcy.' A leader does not pretend everything is ok. A leader deals with an issue head on and is honest with their people. It was absolutely devastating, revolting, apocalyptic... the news. Now that the schools have adapted in these tough times, now this? Now they will have to deal with parents not sending their kids to school with a mask? ... Now it's not safe to go to the grocery store... or go out and vote? That was their plan all along. Discusting."

Europe Is Closing Up Again, While Trump Under-Boss Mobster William Barr Compares Quarantines To Slavery

 

Magical Mystery Cure by Chip Proser

I can remember back in mid-March thinking how horrible the pandemic was for Italy and being certain would never been that bad for us over here. (That Trump is in charge must have slipped my mind.) Yesterday Italy reported 1,585 new cases of COVID, bringing the country's total to 293,025 (4,848 cases per million residents). 4,848 cases per million residents is, at least relative to the U.S. pandemic, a very small number. Italy, in fact, is better off than every American state other than Maine (3,691 cases per million residents) and Vermont (2,732 cases per million residents). You want to see tragedy? Look at these ghastly numbers from the dozen worst-hit states in the U.S., which helps explain why Americans are banned from virtually every country on earth:

• Louisiana- 34,268 cases per million residents
• Florida- 31,403 cases per million residents
• Mississippi- 30,891 cases per million residents
• Arizona- 29,079 cases per million residents
• Alabama- 28,911 cases per million residents
• Georgia- 28,167 cases per million residents
• South Carolina- 26,050 cases per million residents
• Tennessee- 26,085 cases per million residents
• New York- 24,709 cases per million residents
• Texas- 24,460 cases per million residents
• Iowa- 24,425 cases per million residents
• Nevada- 24,218 cases per million residents

The U.S. average is 20,706. Italy is in another-- more habitable-- universe entirely. Except... It looks like Europe's second wave has begun, not just in Italy, but all across Europe. CNN reported that the World Health Organization warned that coronavirus cases are surging alarmingly in Europe, as a 'very serious situation' unfolds across the continent. As Covid-19 infections spike to record numbers, European governments are imposing strict local measures and weighing up further lockdowns in a bid to halt a second wave of the pandemic. But WHO regional director Hans Kluge said at a Thursday news conference that the increase in cases should serve as a warning of what is to come. 'Weekly cases have now exceeded those reported when the pandemic first peaked in Europe in March,' Kluge said. 'Last week, the region's weekly tally exceeded 300,000 patients.' More than half of European nations have reported an increase of more than 10% in new cases in the past two weeks, Kluge added. 'Of those, seven countries have seen newly reported cases increase more than two-fold in the same period,' he said."

There are now full blown emergencies unfolding across the continent. These were the reported new cases on Tuesday ---> Wednesday and ---> yesterday (along with cases per million residents):

• Spain +9,437 ---> +11,193 ---> +11,291 (13,380 cases per million residents)
• Belgium +851 ---> +489 ---> +1,153 (8,271 cases per million residents)
• Russia +5,529 ---> +5,670 ---> +5,762 (7,436 cases per million residents)
• France +7,852 ---> +9,784 ---> +10,593 (6,362 cases per million residents)
• Romania +1,111 ---> +1,713 ---> +1,679 (5,658 cases per million residents)
• U.K. +3,105 ---> +3,991 ---> +3,395 (5,615 cases per million residents)
• Netherlands +1,379 ---> +1,542 ---> +1,753 (5,138 cases per million residents)
• Italy +1,229 ---> +1,450 ---> 1,585 (4,848 cases per million residents)
• Ukraine +2,905 ---> +2,958 ---> +3,584 (3,806 cases per million residents)
• Czechia +1,674 ---> +2,136 ---> _1,707 (3,989 cases per million residents)
• Germany +1,623 ---> +2,021 ---> +1,393 (3,200 cases per million residents)

Kluge told CNN that "In the spring and early summer we were able to see the impact of strict lockdown measures. Our efforts, our sacrifices, paid off. In June cases hit an all-time low. The September case numbers, however, should serve as a wake-up call for all of us. Although these numbers reflect more comprehensive testing, it also shows alarming rates of transmission across the region. This pandemic has taken so much from us... And this tells only part of the story. The impact on our mental health, economies, livelihoods and society has been monumental."

While there was an increase in cases in older age groups, those aged 50 to 79, in the first week of September, Kluge said, the biggest proportion of new cases is still among 25- to 49-year-olds.

Countries across the continent have been easing lockdowns and reopening their economies, but governments are now scrambling to avert further outbreaks.

In France, Covid-19 hospitalizations have risen in recent days in large cities such as Paris, Bordeaux and Marseille.

Earlier this year, the first coronavirus wave spiked fast in France, but it was cut short by a strict nationwide lockdown. In total more than 31,000 people died there from the disease, out of more than 443,000 cases, according to Johns Hopkins University (JHU).

Now, the number of new infections is rising fast. A record was set over the weekend with more than 10,000 new cases in a single day. The number of clusters has been rising steadily and, most worryingly, nationwide, the number of people in intensive care has risen 25% in the past week.

Cases in the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain and Italy have also increased.

New restrictions were imposed across England this week barring people from meeting socially in groups of more than six, of all ages, indoors or outdoors. Scotland and Wales have also tightened their social distancing rules.

From Friday, even stricter measures will apply in the northeast of England amid a "concerning rise" in Covid-19 infection rates there, UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced in Parliament on Thursday.

The measures include a ban on socializing outside households or "support bubbles" and a mandated closing time of 10 p.m. for all bars, pubs, restaurants and leisure centers. They will apply to seven areas-- including the cities of Newcastle, Sunderland and Durham-- and will affect more than 1.5 million people.

Hancock stressed the need to take "immediate action" against the virus with winter approaching.

At least 41,773 people have died with coronavirus in the UK, according to JHU, the highest toll in Europe and fifth-largest number of any country in the world.

The UK government has come under pressure over recent failings in its coronavirus testing system, with some people-- including health care workers-- experiencing difficulty in accessing tests or being directed to testing sites far from home.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson defended Britain's coronavirus testing record Wednesday, saying it compared favorably to other European countries and that recent problems were due to a "colossal spike" in demand.

Authorities in the Spanish capital of Madrid are to announce new coronavirus restrictions on Friday as the country also responds to an uptick in the number of cases.

Spain has now recorded more than 30,000 deaths since the start of the outbreak, with more than 600,000 total cases.

Madrid accounts for approximately a third of all new cases, according to data from the country's health ministry.

The president of Madrid's regional government, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, has suggested that migrant populations are partly to blame.

"(The outbreaks are partly) due to the way of life of Madrid's immigrants and the population density of these districts," she said Tuesday. "It is a way of life in Madrid."

Meanwhile, German authorities have imposed new restrictions and ordered more testing in a popular Bavarian ski resort after a coronavirus outbreak that has been linked to a US citizen working at a lodge operated by the US Army.

The state prosecution service in Munich said it had launched an investigation into the American who may have caused the surge in cases.

New regulations imposed in the town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen over the weekend mean local bars will now close at 10 p.m. Parties are limited to 100 people-- down from 200-- and groups eating indoors are capped at five, down from twice that.

In America... it's all denialism from the nation's leaders-- pretending. Trump and the Trumpist governors first and foremost. Oh... and the goons I hope to see at Nuremberg-like trials one day, like his consiglieri William Barr. He likened the effort to protect the country from a pandemic he doesn't understand to slavery. Watch the idiot:





New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio thought again about opening up his city's schools. He was smart to do so, while most "leaders" are trying to shove decisions like that off on anyone they can. The NY Times' Eliza Shapiro reported that he acknowledged that "the system had still not fully surmounted the many obstacles that it faced in bringing children back during the pandemic." Shapiro is too dull-witted to understand that DeBlasio was doing the right thing and the courageous thing and she slanted her entire piece to disparage him. What a piece of crap this one is! Most of her writing made me want to vomit. It could have been written by anyone from inside the Trump Regime.

She did note, however that "The mayor said that he decided to delay the start of the school year and opt instead for a phased-in reopening after a three-hour conversation at City Hall on Wednesday with the leaders of the unions representing the city’s principals and teachers, along with senior mayoral aides. Those union leaders have been explicitly warning for weeks that schools were not ready to reopen for myriad reasons, from poor ventilation in some aging buildings to a severe staffing crunch that the principals’ union estimated could leave the city needing as many as 10,000 educators. A Thursday report from the city’s Independent Budget Office put that number closer to 12,000. Some principals have said in recent days that they lacked dozens of teachers for their schools. Mr. de Blasio said that the teacher shortage was his main reason for again delaying in-person classes. But he did not explain why he waited until just before the start of the school year to acknowledge the seriousness of the staffing issue, even though union leaders and his own aides have been raising alarms about it for weeks... No large district in the country has yet attempted to reopen schools on a hybrid basis, and New York’s challenges may discourage other systems from trying a similar approach. The nation’s other large school systems decided earlier in the summer to start their school years remote-only, but none have a virus transmission rate as low as New York’s." I hope the school's in L.A. get a clue. God knows they have no leadership worth calling a leader. And the teachers' unions' officials in California need to grow some balls or step aside for younger members.

The Pandemic Turns Out To Be Bad For Drunks And School Kids-- Who Could Have Imagined?

Back To School With Betsy And Donald by Nancy Ohanian

Reporting from Martin County on Florida's Atlantic coast yesterday, CNN warned that since Trump and his puppet governor, Ron DeSantis, stampeded Florida schools into opening prematurely last month, "the number of children under 18 who have contracted Covid-19 statewide has jumped 26%." DeSantis then tried hiding the data from the public. Before the opening there were 42,761 school aged kids with COVID-19. A month later, the number is 53,717. The rate of infection is even worse in Martin County than in the rest of the state. DeSantis is still hiding the results from the public.

Some say Katherine Norman's state Senate race is one of the two or three most important legislative races in Florida this year. Her opponent is top Trump /DeSantis ally, Joe Gruters, chair of the state GOP. Today, Katherine told us she finds it "incredibly sad to see Governor DeSantis and others like my opponent who campaigned by lying and deceiving the public so egregiously because of their loyalties to this administration. They have had to lie for this administration so many times they either don’t even mark it is significant, can no longer discern fact from fiction, or don’t care anymore as long as it is for political gain. My opponent, Florida Republican Party chair Joe Gruters lied to CBS news reporter Jim DeFede claiming Black Lives Matter protestors were armed and threatening the McCloskeys who spoke at the Republican National Convention. Deliberately inflaming the incident and amplifying it by alleging that BLM protestors were some how responsible for or an aggressive force in this instance is a deliberate attempt to smear the movement, which is peaceful and asking for basic compassion in response to police violence and justice in excessive force cases. I am not sure why anyone would try to take opposition to confronting racial bias in our communities or law enforcement agencies, or why an elected official would ignore the pain from constituents wrongly harmed. The blind loyalty to this administration has cost these elected officials connection with actual voters in our area and the issues that matter here. Voters can no longer trust the Florida GOP."

  Kind of related in a weird way, Washington Post reporters Rachel Weiner, Chris Alcantara and Andrew Ba Tran wrote yesterday how political pressures on weak and incompetent leaders are forcing bars and restaurants open, even though rates of infection in cities, counties and states that open bars immediately rises. New York City is opening restaurants for in-door dining and Florida started re-opening bars Monday. Our trio of Post writers reports that "One decision appears to be riskier than the other... States that have reopened bars experienced a doubling in the rate of coronavirus cases three weeks after the opening of doors, on average. The Post analysis-- using data provided by SafeGraph, a company that aggregates cellphone location information-- found a statistically significant national relationship between foot traffic to bars one week after they reopened and an increase in cases three weeks later... [T]here is not as strong a relationship between the reopening of restaurants and a rise in cases."

A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of nearly 300 adults who tested positive for the coronavirus found that they were more than twice as likely to have dined at a restaurant in the two weeks before getting sick than people who were uninfected. Those who tested positive and did not have close contact with anyone sick were also more likely to report going to a bar or coffee shop. The same effect was not seen in visits to salons, gyms and houses of worship, or in the use of public transportation.

“You’re sitting there for a long time, everyone’s talking,” said Linsey Marr, an environmental engineer at Virginia Tech. “And that’s just a recipe for spread.”

Few states make their contact-tracing data available, but in two that do-- Colorado and Louisiana-- bars and restaurants are responsible for about 20 percent of cases traced to a known source. San Diego traced nearly one-third of community outbreaks to restaurants and bars, more than any other setting.

But Louisiana’s experience suggests bar patrons contribute more to the spread of the virus than restaurant diners. There have been 41 outbreaks tied to restaurants and the same number of outbreaks associated with bars, but bar outbreaks appeared to result in more infections, with 480 cases traced to those establishments compared with 180 from restaurants.

Marr said indoor dining can be reasonably safe in a restaurant operating at 25 percent capacity and with a ventilation system that fully recirculates air every 10 minutes. New York City’s policy will allow for only 25 percent capacity at first, with a scheduled increase to 50 percent in November if transmission rates remain low.

Still, Marr said, she “will not eat inside a restaurant until the pandemic is over.” As one of the first scientists to begin emphasizing that the virus was spread primarily by air, she has been concerned about indoor drinking and dining since March.

“People go to restaurants to talk,” she said, “and we know that it’s talking that produces a lot-- 10 to 100 times more-- aerosols than just sitting.”

Other countries facing outbreaks imposed stricter and longer shutdowns on bars and restaurants. Ireland has yet to open its pubs. Countries that did reopen bars and restaurants have, like American states, scaled back in the face of fresh outbreaks.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say that because U.S. policies vary by state and county, waves of closures and reopenings may have perversely led to more viral spread, as people traveled to enjoy freedoms not allowed closer to home.

The National Restaurant Association argues that restaurants are safe if they follow proper mitigation guidelines and that the industry has been unfairly maligned by the actions of an irresponsible few.

“Bars become particularly risky,” said Larry Lynch, who handles food science for the restaurant trade group. “Anybody who had been in bars knows that conversations get louder, people get closer.”

But, he said, “we haven’t seen... any kind of systemic outbreaks from people going into a restaurant that’s practicing what we ask them to practice.”

Lynch questioned the methodology of the CDC study, noting it covered only 295 people and did not identify the sources of transmission.

The American Nightlife Association, which represents the bar and nightclub industry, did not respond to a request for comment.

Kristen Ehresmann, director of the Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Prevention and Control Division at the Minnesota Department of Health, agreed that when restaurants and bars abide by guidelines designed to reduce transmission, few cases of the coronavirus have been traced to those establishments.

But there are more than a few bad actors, she said: 1,592 cases of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, have been tied to 66 bars and restaurants in Minnesota. And in 58 other establishments, cases were reported among only staff members, resulting in 240 illnesses. One bar in St. Cloud, Minnesota, the Pickled Loon, was the only place visited by 73 people who got sick and was one stop among several for 44 other people.

“The bottom line is, we’re seeing a big chunk of our cases associated with these venues, and those cases go on to get other cases in other settings,” Ehresmann said. “We can’t ignore the impact.”

Iowa’s first big spike in coronavirus cases originated in the meatpacking industry. Then, says University of Iowa epidemiologist Jorge Salinas, came bars in college towns such as Iowa City, where he is based.

“It was very clear,” Salinas said. “We reviewed records for patients, and they all shared that common exposure of having been to a bar in the previous five days or so. Usually, the same bars that tend to be very crowded and very loud, rather than a place you just sit down to go and have a beer.”

He said those bars began closing not because of government intervention, but because so many staff members fell ill. By that point, the young people who got infected at bars had begun spreading the virus to an older population through family and work.

After about two months, the outbreak in Iowa City started to burn out. But then college students started returning to campus.

“It’s just a different group of young people but similar exposures-- going to bars, hanging out, going to large parties,” he said.

Remember this? Politicians don't seem to

He said an order from Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) closing bars in Iowa City and five other hard-hit counties was welcome but overdue. In the past two weeks, more than 1,000 young people in the region have become infected.

“Unfortunately, it’s late in the game,” Salinas said. “It would have been better if it had been done to prevent this rather than as a reaction to this.”

Politicians who favor an aggressive approach to containing the coronavirus have been hesitant to shut down bars and restaurants. Expanded federal unemployment benefits lapsed more than a month ago. Loans to small businesses are forgiven only if they can keep workers on the payroll, which is usually impossible while running at reduced capacity.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2.5 million jobs in bars and restaurants have been lost since February. Although that’s an improvement from the spring, many restaurant owners say they are barely hanging on.

“Winter is coming, and I’m staring down the barrel of the gun of what’s going to happen,” said Ivy Mix, owner of a restaurant called Leyenda in New York and author of the book “Spirits of Latin America.” Even when indoor dining reopens, Mix said she is not sure she and her staff would be comfortable serving enough people inside her Brooklyn restaurant to make a profit.

“This is almost like being thrown a deflated life-jacket-- the action and the symbolism is there, but the actual aid is not,” she said.

That’s why she says the only solution is federal legislation introduced by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) that would issue $120 billion in grants to independent bars and restaurants. A Senate version would cover some chains as well.

“Eleven million people work for these independent restaurants,” Blumenauer said. “If we don’t do something, the evidence suggests that 85 percent of them are not going to survive this year.”

His office estimates that the legislation would more than pay for itself, generating $186 billion in tax revenue and unemployment savings. He said President Trump was receptive in a meeting with supporters earlier this year, but that in recent weeks the administration “has basically shut down meaningful negotiations.”

Arizona reopened indoor restaurants and some bars at the end of August, after a hasty spring reopening and more than 5,000 deaths.

“We really kind of reaped the whirlwind,” said David Engelthaler, a former state epidemiologist now at the Translational Genomics Research Institute. “A lot of that was driven by people going into bars and nightclubs, typically the 20- to 30-year-old set, interacting, socializing like they did prepandemic. And that just supported a kind of wildfire of cases.”

He said he thinks it is probably feasible to reopen restaurants at reduced capacity, but bars are a different story.

“One thing that all bars have in common is that they create a lowering of inhibition, and I think more than anything, this will cause the spread of covid,” he said. “We get more complacent, more comfortable, covid starts spreading.”

With temperatures still regularly topping 100 degrees in Arizona, the appeal of outdoor food and drink is limited. After a rapid May reopening led to a spike in cases and deaths, the state has just begun trying a more cautious approach.

Under Arizona’s new, more deliberate reopening, businesses must apply to reopen and bars must serve food to qualify. But Saskia Popescu, an epidemiologist based in Phoenix, said it is unclear whether those requirements are sufficiently stringent.

“If you put out two items does that count?” she asked. “I just worry that we’re kind of all doing this at once.” She noted that more than 500 new cases a day continue to be reported in Arizona, about the same as during the first reopening: “We’ll see if we learn from our lessons.”

Last Friday, the Associated Press noted that the 2 maskless Dakotas are leading the country in COVID-growth. Each state has a moron governor, more concerned about Trumpist politics than keeping their citizens safe-- or even alive. "Coronavirus infections in the Dakotas are growing faster than anywhere else in the nation," reported the AP, "fueling impassioned debates over masks and personal freedom after months in which the two states avoided the worst of the pandemic... Amid the brute force of the pandemic, health experts warn that the infections must be contained before care systems are overwhelmed. North Dakota and South Dakota lead the country in new cases per capita over the last two weeks, ranking first and second respectively, according to Johns Hopkins University researchers.

COVID-Kristi

South Dakota has also posted some of the country’s highest positivity rates for COVID-19 tests in the last week-- over 17 percent-- an indication that there are more infections than tests are catching.

Infections have been spurred by schools and universities reopening and mass gatherings like the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, which drew hundreds of thousands of people from across the country.

“It is not a surprise that South Dakota has one of the highest (COVID-19) reproduction rates in the country,” Brookings City Council member Nick Wendell said as he commented on the many people who forgo masks in public.

The Republican governors of both states have eschewed mask requirements, tapping into a spirit of independence hewn from enduring the winters and storms of the Great Plains.

The Dakotas were not always a hot spot. For months, the states appeared to avoid the worst of the pandemic, watching from afar as it raged through large cities. But spiking infection rates have fanned out across the nation, from the East Coast to the Sun Belt and now into the Midwest, where states like Iowa and Kansas are also dealing with surges.

When the case count stayed low during the spring and early summer, people grew weary of constantly taking precautions, said Dr. Benjamin Aaker, president of the South Dakota State Medical Association.

“People have a tendency to become complacent,” he said. “Then they start to relax the things that they were doing properly, and that’s when the increase in cases starts to go up.”

Health officials point out that the COVID-19 case increases have been among younger groups that are not hospitalized at high rates. But infections have not been contained to college campuses.

“College students work in places where the vulnerable live, such as nursing homes,” said Dr. Joel Walz, the Grand Forks, North Dakota, city and county health officer. “Some of them are nursing students who are doing rotations where they’re going to see people who are really at risk. I worry about that.”

Over 1,000 students at the states’ four largest universities (the University of North Dakota, North Dakota State University, South Dakota State University and University of South Dakota) left campus to quarantine after being exposed to the virus, according to data released by the schools. The Sturgis rally also spread infections across the region, with health officials in 12 states reporting over 300 cases among people who attended the event.

But requiring masks has been controversial. In Brookings, opponents said they believed the virus threat was not as serious as portrayed and that a mandate was a violation of civil liberties.

“There are a lot of things we have in life that we have to deal with that cause death,” business owner Teresa Holloman told the council. “We live in America, and we have certain inalienable rights.”

North Dakota has 52 counties and South Dakota has 66. Trump only lost two counties in North Dakota (both basically Indian reservations). And of South Dakota's 66, Trump won 61. Trump won 62.96% of the North Dakota vote and 61.53% of the South Dakota vote. Only West Virginia, Wyoming and Oklahoma were more taken in by Trump's bullshit. (Kentucky and Alabama voters fell for the hustle more than South Dakota but slightly less than North Dakota.)

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Happy Labor Day!

Let's not forget that too many of our fellow citizens have lost their jobs this year due to the cavalier psychopathy or sociopathy of those in Washington who work for wages paid out of my taxes and yours, even if we no longer have a job. As I write this at the beginning of the Labor Day Weekend, such lowlifes as those in the White House are touting a just received August jobs report that says the citizens of America gained over 1 million jobs last month. However, decent, moral people would not try to pass off American citizens going back to their jobs after months of being shut out of their workplace, as having gotten a "new job," especially when we are still 20,000,000 jobs in the hole if one bothers to look at the 40,000,000 jobs lost this year. Really, not even a "similar" job or one at reduced pay shouldn't count as a new job either. It's cynical and disingenuous to the max to not provide an honest context, but, republicans in Washington are known to say, "I really don't care, do you?" Yeah, Mr., Miss, or Mrs. Repug, I do care. Go ahead and call me a Marxist, a trouble maker, or whatever your favorite word of the week is but you, Mr., Miss, or Mrs. Repug can just go fuck off!

I obviously chose tonight's meme because it reminds me that, as the school year begins, our teachers are facing a new danger this year; not one brought about due to the increase in violent weather due to ignored climate change dangers or the failure to act on gun safety issues, but because the mass murderer in the White House and his accomplices willfully chose to ignore the dangers indicated in early coronavirus reports that they had in their possession as early as December of 2019. Now our teachers are being asked to face yet another threat to their lives and the lives of their students and their families. Not only that, but our teachers are not even being given so much as an extra dime of hazard pay.

Governors Like Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott And Brian Kemp Are Killing Their State's Residents For Trump's Politics

Back To School With Betsy And Donald by Nancy Ohanian

The Wednesday Washington Post headline was likely chilling for many people: U.S. reports highest number of covid-19 deaths in one day since mid-May. Brady Dennis and Jacqueline Dupree reported that "As the United States reported its highest number of deaths from the novel coronavirus in a single day since mid-May, President Trump on Wednesday continued to press for the nation’s schools to bring children into classrooms, for businesses to open and for athletes to fill stadiums. 'We’ve got to open up our schools and open up our businesses,' Trump said at an evening news conference at the White House, adding that he wanted to see a college football season this fall. 'Let them play,' he said. The president also made his latest concerted push to get students back into U.S. schools, saying that '99.9 percent' of deaths from the coronavirus pandemic involve adults. He threatened to divert federal money from schools that don’t open, and warned of the intellectual damage that could result if children remain at home indefinitely."

Speaking from painful first hand and very consequential experience, Trump added that "When you sit at home in a basement looking at a computer, your brain starts to wither away... all schools should be making plans to resume in-person classes as soon as possible." Unfortunately, many schools in the Trump states that were stampeded into unsafe, hasty openings are already re-closing down.

Mr Potato Head

On Wednesday, the country reported its highest number of deaths in a single day since mid-May, at nearly 1,500. The country has now seen its seven-day average of newly reported deaths remain above 1,000 for 17 consecutive days. Georgia reported 105 deaths Wednesday, marking its second triple-digit day in a row. North Carolina reported an additional 45 deaths Wednesday, tying its highest daily number, from July 29. Texas reported 324 additional deaths from the disease.

School systems around the country continue to take different approaches as the academic year begins. Some have already insisted they will stick to virtual learning for the time being. Others have adopted a hybrid model in which students attend in person only periodically. And some school systems have opened their doors to full-time instruction, with mixed results so far.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) has said the city’s public schools expect to welcome some 700,000 students who want in-person learning when campuses open in September. That represents the majority of the 1.1 million students in the school district, the largest in the country.

New York City is poised to be the only one of the country’s 10 largest school districts to open schools for the start of the 2020-2021 school year. That became possible when the state-- once the U.S. epicenter of the pandemic-- dramatically lowered its infection rate through strict public health measures.

New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) announced last week that school districts could choose to reopen as long as the percentage of people who test positive for the virus in a region is under 5 percent.

Other school systems continue to wrestle with the specter of outbreaks. At Etowah High School in Woodstock, Georgia, dozens of seniors packed together to pose side-by-side for a photo when classes began Aug. 3. Not a single smile was covered with a mask.

Just over a week later, the students all have been sent home and the school is shut.

In all, more than 900 students and staff in the Cherokee County School District had been ordered to quarantine as of Tuesday morning after 59 students and staff tested positive for the coronavirus, according to school officials. A third of those quarantined are from Etowah High School, which has had 14 confirmed cases.

Cherokee County School District Superintendent Brian V. Hightower said in a message to the community this week that the high school will be shut until Aug. 31, and that the number of people who need to quarantine could “increase dramatically” as more positive test results come in.

Meanwhile, at another Georgia school district, parents, teachers and students voiced conflicting beliefs on school safety and leadership in an emotional meeting late Tuesday.

The Paulding County School District was shoved onto the national stage in the past week when at least two North Paulding High School students shared pictures and video that went viral of a crowded hallway of mostly maskless students.

The students were suspended for posting the images, a decision that was later reversed for at least one of them. The school shuttered its doors this week for a third day for cleaning after six students and at least three staff members tested positive for the virus.

During a school board meeting this week, some parents underscored the need for in-person learning as they try to maintain full-time jobs, and others asked the district to provide a data-driven agenda for in-person learning as well as mask mandates.

The increasing loss of life and the wave of joblessness the pandemic has created have not stopped a rebound on Wall Street.

...The S&P’s climb upward, like other rallies in recent months, offers a stark contrast in economic signals.

Joblessness remains at historically high levels, with more than 30 million Americans receiving some kind of unemployment assistance. The U.S. economy shrank by a stunning 9.5 percent from April through June, in what was the fastest quarterly rate drop in modern record-keeping. And corporations have suffered staggering losses as many American consumers are confined to their homes, have abandoned travel and have curtailed retail spending.

In the latest reminder that the virus is altering the U.S. retail landscape, discount chain Stein Mart filed for bankruptcy Wednesday and announced plans to close most, if not all, its stores while it searches for a buyer for its e-commerce business.

The Jacksonville, Florida.-based company said it had run out of cash to keep operating during the pandemic, despite a $10 million small-business loan from the government’s Paycheck Protection Program. In its bankruptcy filing, it said it owed between $500 million and $1 billion to as many as 10,000 lenders.

“The combined effects of a challenging retail environment coupled with the impact of the pandemic have caused significant financial distress on our business,” Hunt Hawkins, the retailer’s chief executive, said in a statement.

More than a dozen major retailers, including J.C. Penney, J. Crew and Neiman Marcus, have filed for Chapter 11 protection since the coronavirus crisis took hold. Lord & Taylor and the parent company of Men’s Wearhouse, Tailored Brands, filed last week.

Other nations are also coping with economies rocked by the virus.

The British economy has officially plunged into a record-shattering recession, according to data released Wednesday, shrinking by a fifth in the second quarter and posting the steepest decline of any Group of Seven nation.

Alongside huge job losses announced a day earlier, Britain now finds itself with the worst economy and highest death toll in Europe from the coronavirus. Its death toll is behind only the United States, Brazil and Mexico.

The official data released Wednesday by the U.K.’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed that gross domestic product fell 20.4 percent in the second quarter compared with the first quarter. The downturn reflected losses across all sectors.

“The recession brought on by the coronavirus pandemic has led to the biggest fall in quarterly GDP on record,” said Jonathan Athow, ONS deputy national statistician.

A recession is when two consecutive quarters show contraction in gross domestic product. Britain’s first quarter in January, February and March was down 2.2 percent. This is Britain’s first recession in 11 years, since the global downturn in 2009.

Meanwhile, the number of new daily coronavirus cases is rising in several major European countries, including Germany, France and Spain.

Germany on Wednesday announced 1,226 new cases, the highest figure since early May. Speaking to the country’s public broadcaster, German Health Minister Jens Spahn cautioned that the rise in cases was attributable to clusters “in almost all regions of the country.”

Counting Sheep by Nancy Ohanian

Many of the deaths in the U.S. are in states run by Trumpist governors obsessed with opening up schools and businesses quickly and ignoring warning from scientists that they will kill people and the economy. These are the half dozen Trumpist governors who murdered the most people on Wednesday and ---> Thursday:

• Greg Abbott (TX) +225 ---> 274
• Ron DeSantis (FL) +212 ---> +147
• Doug Ducey (AZ) +148 ---> +36
• Brian Kemp (GA) +105 ---> +82
• Henry McMaster (SC) +46 ---> +42
• Tate Reeves (MS) +45 ---> +22

Meanwhile, CDC Director Robert Redfield old WebMD that if the public-- even in the most politically backward and primitive counties in idiot places like Georgia and Tennessee don't follow recommended coronavirus mitigation measures, the whole country will have the worst fall for public health in U.S. history. We should have let them goo when they seceded. "For your country right now and for the war that we’re in against Covid, I’m asking you to do four simple things: wear a mask, social distance, wash your hands and be smart about crowds... I’m not asking some of America to do it. We all gotta do it."

Yesterday, during a panel for National Geographic Fauci stated flatly that "You can't run away from the numbers. You can't run away from the numbers of people who've died, the number of people getting hospitalized, the surges we're seeing... How long we're going to have to be doing this depends totally on us. If we keep running away from the reality of the need to do it, it could linger on and linger on."

If you think it's odd that deaths are soaring but that the number of reported cases is flat. That;'s not a coincidence. Trump and his enablers are making sure there are far fewer tests being administered so that it looks like cases are going down. Tests are way, way down in states where Trump has complete control and where the GOP governors don't care about being labeled genocidal maniacs, especially Texas (-45%), Arizona (-36%), Florida (-27%) and South Carolina (-17%). Testing should be increasing gigantically now in any state interested in stemming the pandemic.

Axios reported that The U.S. is cutting back on coronavirus testing. Nationally, the number of tests performed each day is about 17% lower than it was at the end of July, and testing is also declining in hard-hit states... Even as states with particularly bad outbreaks pull back on their testing, the proportion of tests coming back positive is still high-- which would normally be an indication that they need to be doing more tests. In Texas, 19% of tests are coming back positive, according to Nephron Research. In Florida, the rate of positive tests is 18%, and in Nevada, 17%."

Not all the bad news is in the U.S., of course. AP reported that "Researchers at Imperial College estimate 6% of England’s population-- or 3.4 million people-- have been infected by COVID-19."

The U.K. has the most deaths of any European country-- 41,347-- and their caseload has been rising again. On Tuesday there were 1,148 new cases and another 1,009 on Wednesday, bringing their total cases to 313,798, second only to Spain in western Europe-- and even worse than Georgia's 228,668 cases-- although Georgia has 21,537 cases per resident and the U.K. "just" 4,620 cases per resident.

Which Is A Worse Trait Of Brian Kemp's-- His Authoritarian Bent Or His Incredible Stupidity? Or Is He Just A Genocidal Murderer?

COVID-Kemp with another idiot

On Friday, Georgia reported 4,109 new cases of COVID-19, the 4th most of any state, after much more heavily populated California, Florida and Texas. As of this afternoon, there have been 216,956 confirmed cases in the state or 20,400 cases per million residents-- worse than California or Texas and worse than any European country. There's only one reason Georgia is doing so badly: Brian Kemp and a Republican controlled legislature to back him up. Yesterday there were another 4,423 new confirmed cases reported and today another 3,169.

Kemp, one of the country's worst of the aggressively knee-jerk Trumpists, was Georgia's secretary of state when he ran for governor in 2018. He clearly lost the election and then stole it from rightful governor or Georgia, Stacey Abrams. So now he gets to kill students and teachers in a school re-opening rush that is already turning catastrophic.

Yesterday, reporting for The Atlantic, Amanda Mull penned a definitive Kemp piece, America’s Authoritarian Governor. Her point isn't just that he's a proto-fascist, but that he is also willfully stupid-- and Georgians are dying because of it. (There were 91 new deaths reported Friday, bringing the total to 4,117-- 388 deaths per million Georgians-- worse than California, Florida or Texas.) She wrote that the country has seen "as many leadership bungles in regard to the pandemic as there are states: Some failed to heed early warnings. Others refused to learn the lessons of outbreaks that came before theirs. Still others played politics instead of following science. And then there’s Georgia.

Georgia’s response to the pandemic has not been going well. It was bad from the beginning: Back in early April, weeks after other states took initial precautions, Georgia dawdled toward a shutdown while its coronavirus cases surged. Still, less than a month later, the state chose to be among the first in the nation to reopen, bringing back businesses known to accelerate the virus’s spread, such as restaurants and gyms, even though new infections had never made a significant or sustained decline. In June, the state welcomed back bars. What happened next was predictable, and was predicted: Case counts came roaring back. More people got sick and died. Many of these deaths were preventable. The state now has the sixth-highest number of coronavirus cases in the United States, behind five states with significantly larger populations.

Lots of states-- such as Florida, California, and New York-- have mishandled the pandemic since it hit in March. But when you look closely at Georgia, you see a state with a leader unique among his peers. First-term Republican Governor Brian Kemp presided over a late shutdown so short that his reopening drew a public rebuke from President Donald Trump, who has frequently opposed shutdowns altogether. Kemp’s administration has repeatedly been accused of manipulating data to downplay the severity of the outbreak. He has sparred publicly with the state’s mayors and sued to stop them from implementing safety restrictions or even speaking to the press.

To understand the course that Georgia has plotted through the pandemic, you have to understand Kemp’s failures. Those same failures, and the trajectory of the state governed by them, also represent a microcosm of America under Trump. The governor has demonstrated a willingness to defer to the president instead of his own constituents, sacrifice Georgians’ safety to snipe at his political foes, and shore up his own power at the expense of democracy. In short, Kemp is a wannabe authoritarian, and millions of Georgians have suffered as a result, with no end in sight.

Kemp has emulated strongmen since he entered state government. In 2018, as Georgia’s secretary of state, Kemp administered his own election by a thin, contested margin, despite calls to resign the office before running for governor. In his previous role, Kemp systematically purged more than 1 million voters from the state’s rolls, disproportionately disenfranchising Georgians of color. More than half a million of those voter registrations were voided in July 2017 alone, months into Kemp’s campaign for governor. Kemp’s office did not respond to a request for an interview, but in the past, he has repeatedly denied that these actions amounted to voter suppression.

In Georgia, and around the world, it has become clear that a novel virus doesn’t respond to the anti-scientific, expertise-shirking preferences of modern authoritarianism. When Kemp announced the closure of the state’s nonessential businesses on April 2, he said it was because he had learned something game-changing about the virus: that it is transmissible before an infected person develops symptoms. In reality, that had been a widely accepted belief for weeks, one that had helped encourage earlier lockdowns around the country. And unlike other states that were slow to shut down, Georgia already had a raging outbreak of nearly 5,000 identified cases. In southwest Georgia in late February, a funeral in the small, majority-Black town of Albany set off a chain of infection that sickened hundreds of people and left the local hospital system overburdened and overpaying for low-quality protective gear.

If a slow shutdown had been Kemp’s only major fumble, he’d be in broad and ideologically varied company both nationally and internationally. Instead, he has continued to double down on the state’s approach to the virus in ways that mirror not just Trump, but authoritarian leaders overseeing poorly controlled outbreaks all over the world, such as Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and India’s Narendra Modi. He has also taken a more hard-line stance than most of his Republican peers. GOP governors in Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas have implemented statewide mask rules in response to worsening outbreaks, and others who haven’t, such as Ron DeSantis in Florida and Doug Ducey in Arizona, have still allowed cities and counties to enforce their own local requirements. Not only has Kemp repeatedly refused to require masks in Georgia, but the state’s current pandemic emergency order was written with an explicit restriction to prevent local leaders from implementing their own mask rules.

Kemp’s administration has gone so far as to sue Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms over the city’s mask mandate and its plan to roll back the city’s reopening to its earliest stage, closing bars and restricting restaurants to takeout. When Bottoms fought the lawsuit, Kemp sought to stop her from speaking to the press. Other cities in the state, such as Savannah and Athens, also passed their own mandates but escaped inclusion in the lawsuit, which has pushed some to question whether the governor was trying to punish Bottoms for her support of Joe Biden. A Kemp spokesperson told the Washington Post that the lawsuit was primarily about the new restrictions on businesses in Bottoms’s order, which weren’t present in other municipalities’ mask mandates, but as the paper pointed out, masks were listed as the first issue in the complaint. “One has to ask about the political aspect of a conservative southern governor and a strong supporter of the president having a very public legal action against the Atlanta mayor, who’s been a vocal supporter of Joe Biden,” Harry Heiman, a professor at the Georgia State University School of Public Health, told me. Kemp backed down from the lawsuit last week, and Atlanta’s local mandate remains in effect.

None of Kemp’s actions has been popular among the state’s residents. According to findings released last week by the Atlanta-based market-research platform 1Q, 73 percent of Georgians surveyed believe that cities should be able to enforce their own mask mandates, and 70 percent disagree with Kemp’s refusal to institute a mandate statewide. In recent months, his overall approval rating has taken a hit. In May, Kemp was the only governor whose coronavirus response was less popular than the president’s among his own constituents. A recent poll pegged Kemp’s approval rating at 43 percent, down from more than 59 percent in January.

Kemp, like Trump, has recently started to encourage mask usage while still aggressively opposing any kind of enforceable mask rule. The problem with that approach, according to public-health experts, is that it sows confusion, making it more difficult for people to feel confident in their safety. The state’s own messaging has at times been misleading in other ways. On its Department of Public Health website, the state spent months backdating cases to a patient’s first symptoms, which meant that the most recent two weeks of the graph always looked as if the pandemic was in marked decline. The state has also released misleading graphics that it later insisted were honest errors in data rendering, such as a bar graph of case counts with the dates out of chronological order, again depicting a nonexistent downward slope.

In mid-July, two nearly identical maps of Georgia’s coronavirus outbreak began circulating on Twitter, depicting the state’s outbreaks on July 2 and July 17, over which time cases increased significantly. Both maps show only three of the state’s 159 counties shaded in red, marking the most dire spread of the disease. As case counts exploded, the state had raised the number of cases required for a county to change color. Once local media took notice, the state redesigned its map. The public health department’s website also now allows users to sort new coronavirus cases by date of diagnosis, the method used almost exclusively in other government and media visualizations of the pandemic.

Then there is the matter of reopening schools. The state’s accelerated reopening spiked cases just in time for the South’s typically early school calendar to begin, leaving educators, parents, and students to fend for themselves as Kemp urges the resumption of in-person instruction in order to protect kids from non-coronavirus threats such as malnutrition and abuse. But if Kemp’s concerns lie with the safety of the state’s children and the importance of getting them back in the classroom, why didn’t he do more to stop the spread of the virus? Why, instead, did he prioritize sending low-wage workers back to their jobs in bars, restaurants, nail salons, and gyms?

Some of Georgia’s school districts opened this week, and already the system is buckling under the weight of infection: Yesterday, we learned that the state’s outbreak had claimed its youngest victim yet, an otherwise healthy 7-year-old boy. One Cherokee County elementary-school class has already had to be quarantined after a second grader received a positive test result on the first day of school. Earlier this week, a photo from inside North Paulding High School in exurban Atlanta showed a crowded hallway with few teenagers wearing masks. An outbreak has already sickened members of the school’s football team, and students say they fear expulsion if they don’t show up. Two students were suspended for distributing photos of the school’s lax safety measures; at least one of those students has been reinstated following a public outcry over her right to free speech.

Georgia’s public universities, which are preparing for students to come back over the next couple of weeks, provide a bleak view of how the state is managing the dangers that a return to regular life presents for Georgians. For much of this summer, the University System of Georgia refused pleas from faculty and staff to require students to wear masks to class, or to allow individual colleges to make their own mask rules, before eventually relenting and requiring masks. At the University of Georgia, freshmen will still be required to live in cramped on-campus housing, much of which assigns two students to one privacy-free room, even if their classes are remote. For students who attend instruction in person, photos have begun to circulate on social media of the safety measures that await them: a small plexiglass divider loosely affixed to the front of a teacher’s classroom desk, or every other urinal in a public bathroom marked off with painter’s tape. With the majority of students yet to return, UGA already has the third-largest campus outbreak in the country, and Athens, the town where the school is located, ran out of intensive-care beds last week.

Is Paulding County ready for a Kemp-COVID outbreak?

Despite all his mistakes, it’s not too late for Kemp to wrangle the pandemic, said Heiman, the Georgia State professor. He told me that a statewide mask mandate; closing bars, gyms, and indoor dining; and clear, consistent messaging from state leadership about pandemic safety can work quickly to limit transmission of the virus, just as such measures have in New York, following that state’s catastrophic outbreak. Once transmission is low, more businesses can be safely reopened, testing supplies and personal protective equipment can be stockpiled, school buildings can be altered for better ventilation, and life can return to something closer to normalcy while Georgians wait for treatments and vaccines to come along.

In order to do that, though, Kemp would have to do something authoritarians hate: admit he was wrong, and change his mind based on evidence, the advice of experts, and the will of the people. The same is true for the country as a whole. America is a few decisions away from a much different future.

Instead, like the authoritarian he’s shown himself to be, Kemp seems intent on maintaining the disastrous course his administration has plotted so far, at the expense of the people of Georgia. “It’s truly unbelievable,” Heiman said. “It will be a case study for decades to come of what an utter collapse of political and public-health leadership looks like.”