Trump Tsunami by Nancy OhanianDavid Feldman tapes a radio show/podcast with me every Monday. The new one-- with special guest eastern Washington state congressional candidate Chris Armitage-- will be posted online late tonight. David and I are pals and it feels like we've known each other for decades. Last week, though, he pissed me off no end by weaving some kind of cockamamie scenario and asking me to respond to it. I almost blew a gasket. He came up with something absolutely nonsensical-- "what if the the death rate goes down; will Trump win in November?" What kind of a crazy question is that? What if Trump gives everyone in the country-- or in the swing states-- a check for $100,000; will he win in November? What if Martians invade? What if Ivanka turns into a talking marlin?The second spike of the first wave is upon us-- and, thanks to Trump and incompetent governors, it is a doozy. Yesterday, as you've no doubt read, Florida reported its worst one-day numbers ever-- 15,300-- which is not just Florida's worst daily report, but the worst daily report of any state anywhere... ever. Yes, worst than New York's or New Jersey's worst days. That brought Florida's cases to 269,811-- 12,562 cases per million Floridians. Those numbers, reported yesterday, were for Saturday, a day the whole country reported 61,719 new cases. Yesterday the national increase was 58,349 bringing the total number of Americans who Trump has infected to 3,413,995-- and rapidly rising.And it isn't just Florida where new cases are out of control. Yesterday, judging by nothing but their one day reports these 10 states-- not even counting Florida-- were all pandemic disaster zones:
• California +7,702• Texas +6,091• Arizona- 2,537• Georgia +2,525• South Carolina +1,949• North Carolina +1,910• Alabama +1,640• Ohio +1,398• Louisiana +1,319• Tennessee +954
Why are those statistics important? Because in several weeks they will represent hospitals overrun with patients-- as they already are in Texas, Florida and Arizona-- and patients starting to die in larger numbers. In a statement to New Yorkers yesterday, Andrew Cuomo said "What's happening elsewhere in the United States is very concerning to us here at home, and our ability to avoid the same fate rests on New Yorkers' willingness to wear masks, socially distance and wash their hands, and local governments' willingness to enforce state guidelines. Today's numbers remain low and stable, but it is up to us to keep it that way. Being New York Tough isn't easy, but New Yorkers have shown the nation that we can effectively fight the virus when we all come together, and I urge them not to give up any ground now."
New York State is closely monitoring an uptick in COVID-19 cases in Rensselaer County, a number of which are being investigated as being linked to several individuals who tested positive for COVID-19 after traveling back to New York from Georgia. They are in isolation and the New York State Department of Health and Rensselaer County Health Department are conducting contact tracing.
On Friday, Cuomo predicted that the northeast will be hot again because of the surge in cases across the country. " Speaking on WAMC radio, he said the state government is "doing everything we can. The quarantine, we have an enforcement mechanism. But, you know, how do you catch somebody driving in, right? I mean, it’s very very difficult, it’s trying to catch water in a screen... You’re going to see our numbers and the Northeast numbers probably start to increase because the virus that you see now in the south and the west, California has real trouble, it’s going to come back here... The other states don’t take the same precautions. It rises up in the other states and then is going to come back here from the other states. That’s what’s going to happen. The only question is how far up our rate goes. But you can’t have it all across the country and not come back. You think nobody’s coming here from California and these states?"Yesterday the Associated Press reporter "A long-expected upturn in U.S. coronavirus deaths has begun, driven by fatalities in states in the South and West, according to data on the pandemic. The number of deaths per day from the virus had been falling for months, and even remained down as states like Florida and Texas saw explosions in cases and hospitalizations-- and reported daily U.S. infections broke records several times in recent days. Scientists warned it wouldn’t last. A coronavirus death, when it occurs, typically comes several weeks after a person is first infected. And experts predicted states that saw increases in cases and hospitalizations would, at some point, see deaths rise too. Now that’s happening."
“It’s consistently picking up. And it’s picking up at the time you’d expect it to,” said William Hanage, a Harvard University infectious diseases researcher.According to an Associated Press analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University, the seven-day rolling average for daily reported deaths in the U.S. has increased from 578 two weeks ago to 664 on July 10-- still well below the heights hit in April. Daily reported deaths increased in 27 states over that time period, but the majority of those states are averaging under 15 new deaths per day. A smaller group of states has been driving the nationwide increase in deaths....Deaths first began mounting in the U.S. in March. About two dozen deaths were being reported daily in the middle of that month. By late in the month, hundreds were being reported each day, and in April thousands. Most happened in New York, New Jersey and elsewhere in the Northeast.Deaths were so high there because it was a new virus tearing through a densely populated area, and it quickly swept through vulnerable groups of people in nursing homes and other places, said Perry Halkitis, the dean of the Rutgers University School of Public Health in New Jersey.Many of the infections occurred before government officials imposed stay-at-home orders and other social-distancing measures. The daily death toll started falling in mid-April-- and continued to fall until about a week ago.Researchers now expect deaths to rise for at least some weeks, but some think the count probably will not go up as dramatically as it did in the spring-- for several reasons.First, testing was extremely limited early in the pandemic, and it’s become clear that unrecognized infections were spreading on subways, in nursing homes and in other public places before anyone knew exactly what was going on. Now testing is more widespread, and the magnitude of outbreaks is becoming better understood.Second, many people’s health behaviors have changed, with mask-wearing becoming more common in some places. Although there is no vaccine yet, hospitals are also getting better at treating patients.Another factor, tragically, is that deadly new viruses often tear through vulnerable populations first, such as the elderly and people already weakened by other health conditions. That means that, in the Northeast at least, “many of the vulnerable people have already died,” Halkitis said.Now, the U.S. is likely in for “a much longer, slower burn,” Hanage, the Harvard researcher, said. “We’re not going to see as many deaths (as in the spring). But we’re going to see a total number of deaths, which is going to be large.”
But Disney is opening its properties... pandemic be damned.Generally, Americans are aghast at Trump's incompetent-- even sociopathic-- handling of the pandemic and are ready to let him know what they think of him and his enablers in November. The new Ipsos poll for Reuters released Friday show that an increasing a majority of registered voters disapprove of how Trump has handled the pandemic (57%), and only 37% approve, which is the lowest number since Ipsos began tracking in early March. When asked who they would vote for if the election were held today, voters prefer Biden over Trump 43% to 37%.
