Cult of Ignorance-- Closed by Nancy Ohanian
North Dakota should get a medal... or at least a pat on the back. The state has the highest rate of COVID infection per capita-- 82,502 per million Dakotans. I think that means that by the time Trump is thrown out into the gutter in front of the White House, 1 out of 10 North Dakotans will have had or will have COVID. Today they reported 2,270 more cases, bring the state total to 62,872. They also reported 19 more deaths and since there is no more room in any of their hospitals, there is probably a lot of trouble ahead for this extremely Trumpist state, where they gave their fearless leader a 65.1% to 31.8% victory over Biden. The only county Biden won was Rolette (where 73.01% of the people are Native Americans).
But none of that is why I'm suggesting a medal or a pat on the head. Gov. Doug Burgum, who was reelected with an even bigger margin than Señor Trumpanzee (69.2%) last week, finally issued a statewide mask mandate Friday night. After adamantly resisting masks for 9 months, Burgum's statement suddenly admitted that "The most effective weapon against COVID-19 is wearing a mask. This is a simple tool, but one that’s critical in helping protect our loved ones and slow the spread." And anyone who doesn't like it... can go to South Dakota, where psychotic mass murderer Kristi Noem will happily give them refuge. (South Dakota has the second worst outbreak per capita in the country-- 72,550 per million-- with 1,855 more cases today and a total of 64,182. South Dakota also announced 53 more deaths today, an awful lot for a state with so few people. Noem seems to love every second of it.
California and our lame-ass governor is doing better than Noem and Burgum, of course, but California has 25,938 cases per million and that is starting to climb again, for two reasons:
1- Newsom is afraid to take stringent actions
2- Too many Californians ignore even the inadequate and weak, unenforced actions he has implemented.
Texas is the only state with more overall cases and the only state besides California with over a million cases (although Florida is probably going to catch up). Newsom was exposed as a hypocrite by the San Francisco Chronicle when he was caught at a super-fancy French Laundry dinner for Jason Kinney, a slimebag lobbyist (for, among other bad actors, Facebook) and one of Newsom's less than reputable cronies. There were 12 people at the dinner-- from more than 3 households-- so it violated Newsom's own guidelines. He apologized today and said he and the Kimberly Guilfoyle replacement shouldn't have gone. You think? Especially when he's telling Californians not to travel for Thanksgiving dinners.
This morning, L.A. Times reporters Maria L. La Ganga, Sonja Sharp, and Julia Barajas wrote about Californians' deteriorating mental health. "Pandemic Holiday Season 1.0 is taking its toll on psyches and pocketbooks," they wrote. "We’ve been cooped up for the better part of nine months, but instead of drawing up lists of guests and gifts, we’re cataloging the things we cannot do as temperatures drop and coronavirus cases soar across the country. Like visit far-flung family and friends. On Friday, the governors of the three West Coast states issued 'travel advisories,' recommending against nonessential travel and urging people entering California, Oregon and Washington to self-quarantine for two weeks to slow the virus’ spread. Or buy those loved ones holiday gifts. A second round of stimulus money to help hard-hit consumers is a distant dream because of a deadlocked Congress. And even if shoppers have money in their pockets, malls are what health experts warn against: closed-in spaces with the possibility of crowds. Or even, for the high school seniors among us, apply for college in any normal fashion. Campuses are largely on lockdown. Learning is remote. The extracurricular activities that burnish an application are on hold. And you can’t bump into your counselor in the hall for a little extra guidance."
Meanwhile, President-elect Biden implored Trump to confront the surging pandemic. Trump is angry and hurt he lost and would rather play gold while people die. Michael Shear reported that Biden called the "federal response 'woefully lacking,' even as Mr. Trump broke a 10-day silence on the pandemic to threaten to withhold a vaccine from New York."
In a blistering statement, Mr. Biden said that the recent surge, which is killing more than 1,000 Americans every day and has hospitalized about 70,000 in total, required a “robust and immediate federal response.”
“I will not be president until next year,” Mr. Biden said. “The crisis does not respect dates on the calendar, it is accelerating right now. Urgent action is needed today, now, by the current administration-- starting with an acknowledgment of how serious the current situation is.”
...A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, Rich Azzopardi, responded on Twitter, saying that Mr. Trump “has failed with his pandemic response, lied to Americans about how bad it was when he knew otherwise & was fired by voters for his incompetence. @NYGovCuomo is fighting to ensure the communities hit hardest by Covid get the vaccine. Feds providing 0 resources.”
Biden has a terrible decision to make in a few weeks, one he's certainly not looking forward to and probably wishes Trump would do it instead. There's no chance of that so it will be up to Biden to take the tough steps-- extremely unpopular in half the country-- needed to get control of the pandemic. AP's Alexandra Jaffe reported that members of Biden's coronavirus advisory board are arguing among themselves about whether or not a national lockdown is needed-- or feasible.
That’s a sign of the tough dynamic Biden will face when he is inaugurated in January. He campaigned as a more responsible steward of America’s public health than President Donald Trump is and has been blunt about the challenges that lie ahead for the country, warning of a “dark winter” as cases spike.
But talk of lockdowns are especially sensitive. For one, they’re nearly impossible for a president to enact on his own, requiring bipartisan support from state and local officials. But more broadly, they’re a political flashpoint that could undermine Biden’s efforts to unify a deeply divided country.
“It would create a backlash,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security who added that such a move could make the situation worse if people don’t comply with restrictions. “Lockdowns can have consequences that diminish the value of such an approach.”
During his first public appearance since losing the election, Trump noted on Friday that he wouldn’t support a lockdown. The president, who has yet to publicly acknowledge Biden’s victory, would likely reinforce that message to his loyal supporters once he’s left office.
...Even if a nationwide lockdown made sense, polling shows that Americans’ appetite for a closure waning. Gallup found that only 49% of Americans said they’d be “very likely” to comply with a monthlong stay-at-home order because of an outbreak of the virus. A full third said they’d be very or somewhat unlikely to comply with such an order.
Kathleen Sebelius, who was the health and human services secretary during the Obama administration, said Biden would be wise to keep his options open for now, especially as Trump criticizes lockdowns.
“It’s a very dicey topic” politically, she said. “I think wisely, the president-elect doesn’t want to get into a debate with the sitting president about some kind of mandate that he has no authority to implement.”
Because of Trump the U.S. reported 162,229 new cases on Thursday, 187,896 new cases on Friday and 157,081 new cases today, bringing the U.S. total to a horrific 11,226,038. With the exceptions of Vermont, Maine, NewHampshire, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and West Virginia, every state is in pandemic out-of-control territory. The half dozen states with the worst outbreaks per capital are all states were large numbers of people are willing to put themselves and their families in harm's way by listening to a deranged Trump rather than to public health officials and experts:
• North Dakota- 82,502 cases per million residents
• South Dakota- 72,550 cases per million residents
• Iowa- 57,479 cases per million residents
• Wisconsin- 52,609 cases per million residents
• Nebraska- 49,070 cases per million residents
• Utah- 47,144 cases per million residents
This, plus an incipient depression, is what Trump is leaving Biden-- and America.