Poof! into thin air- by Nancy OhanianThere are a lot of ways to interpret the data Worldometers puts out on the pandemic. One that I find useful is to look at daily new cases, which generally track future mortality. Cases per million residents is also important since it's otherwise pointless to compare a state with very few people to a state with many millions of people.
Queens, New YorkLast week Edward Luce, writing for the Financial Times, made it abundantly clear who's to blame for the out-sized U.S. pandemic death rate. His piece is the best document about what happened so far.
Never Waste A Serious Crisis by Nancy OhanianThe pandemic hit South Korea early through crowded churches. The entire society mobilized and beat the crap out of the coronavirus. Korea has been a model of how to handle this-- a model followed by some countries but not others. Korea has only had 10,874 cases (same number as Minnesota-- and South Korea has 10 times more people) and 256 deaths.
Utah has a couple of blue and purple counties-- Salt Lake and Summit (which Hillary won in 2016) and Grand which she kind of won too-- 1,934 for Hillary and 1,932 for Señor Trumpanzee, a 43.4% to 43.4% tie, with #NeverTrump conservative Evan McMullin and Libertarian Gary Johnson getting most of the balance. In 2018 Mitt Romney lost both Summit and Grand to Jenny Wilson, a Democrat.
No matter how many thousands-- or even millions-- of Americans die in the pandemic, Trump can't be prosecuted for his inadequate response. Even if the Trump Recession turned into the Trump Depression, don't imagine Trump's head on a pike or in a prison cell. Hopefully, though, he'll lose the November election (even to the corpse the Democratic establishment is determined to replace him with).
The week started with Señor Trumpanzee announcing an expansion of his trade war antics against Brazil, Argentina and France (and its only Wednesday!)-- followed by grandstanding self-destructive nonsense about trade with China that caused domestic and world markets to crash.Bloomberg reporters Derek Wallbank and
Buzz on Capitol Hill is that Mark Meadows may give up his safe House seat for a year-- if he lasts a year-- as Trump's chief of staff.
