I have been away for a week. Pack a lunch and strap yourself in.
137,842 dead.
416 out of every 1 million in the USA dead.
1 out of every 100 in this country testing positive.
Florida, were it a country, would be the 4th highest in new infections. It just posted another 12,624 cases overnight.
ICU beds are maxed out in large cities across the country. Arizona broke the record today for most ICU beds in use in the country.
We have no clear strategy, no cohesive thought process to educate the public, and those deaths rates lag up to two weeks behind, so buckle up.
One would think that in the face of all of these quantifiable FACTS, this administration would be getting out of its own way, pushing the experts forward, and FINALLY doing something substantive to protect the populace.
Instead, this derby of dolts, all convinced that if they just ignore it, or follow their guts, it will disappear, has come upon a new tactic: conduct a smear campaign against the leading expert: Dr. Anthony Fauci.
To quote from the 2004 inane comedy Dodgeball, "It's a bold strategy, Cotton, let's see if it pays off for 'em."
The push to push Dr. Fauci from the microphones began early on. In fact, he has not been called upon to brief Trump in TWO MONTHS. He is a truth teller which will always be at complete odds with the Hefty bag in chief. Bored with the whole pandemic, Trump's daily briefings stopped. And in a bid to avoid any responsibility for a rapidly climbing death toll, they refused to allow Fauci to speak. Just as the fire was beginning to blaze ever higher, they turned off the pumps and pulled the national fireman from the front lines.
It is no wonder there is such a disjointed understanding of COVID among the public; such a politicized stance on mask wearing; such a show of tangerine teat sucking by Republican governors as they rushed to reopen their states. Seriously, this clip should follow Florida Governor DeSantis to his own grave. Ignorant blowhard.
MAY 20: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantisFL) brags coronavirus outbreak “hasn’t happened.”
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) July 12, 2020
JULY 12: Florida reports 15,299 coronavirus cases, the largest single-day increase of any state ever, even beating California (11,694 in July) and New York (11,571 from April 15). pic.twitter.com/DYB7lTalC5
From the very beginning we have been hamstrung by President Adderall Von Smallhands - a man convinced he could bully a virus out of existence. A reprobate who refused for months to advocate for mask wearing, refused to wear one himself because of how he would look (Sorry, Sparky, but it could only help you in that arena) - because of his whining, lying, obfuscating, and avoidance, the latest research shows that if we had had a national mask mandate from the beginning - at least 33,000 people would still be alive.
Let that sink in.
33,000 people - parents, spouses, children, friends, co-workers - would still be alive if we had simply all put a goddamned mask over our whiny pieholes. Instead, over 137,000 people have died alone, ravaged by coronavirus. Relatives lucky if a nurse was available to hold an ipad for one last look via Facetime as their loved one drifted away.
It is heartbreaking. If you have a heart.
PAUSE - The best take I have seen on the praise being heaped on Trump for finally wearing a mask during a photo op at Walter Reed is this: I wouldn't praise my 26 year old child for finally shitting in the toilet instead of his pants. It's a bit late.
As the hubris and ego of so many governors has come home to roost in the form of surging cases in states like Arizona, Texas, and Florida - we are finally seeing mask ordinances take hold. And you know what?
PEOPLE ARE WEARING THEM.
I spent last week traveling by plane and minivan - doused in hand sanitizer, masked up, as distanced as possible, as careful as possible. My daughter and I were moving her from Boston to Dallas for grad school. I flew from Arizona to Massachusetts on Monday. We then drove to Dallas.
We traveled 11 states in three days. Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Texas. We stayed in hotels two nights.
Regardless of city or state requirements (and Arizona's governor's approach to this whole thing? Just be nice to each other. I shit you not.) airports, airlines, restaurants, gas stations, hotels - ALL HAD POSTED MASK REQUIREMENTS. And people were following through.
Because it is not that fucking hard to do the bare minimum. It is not asking for the world for you to honor your part in the implied social contract we should all be a part of - the one where we look out for the existence of ourselves, each other, our planet.
But as a whole, we are selfish pricks. So the fact that my daughter and I did not have any interactions or altercations with the Karens and Chads of this country does not mean they are stepping up - it just means we got lucky.
Then again, the Karens and Chads were probably in Orlando at Disney.
In a state that just posted 8% of the world's new cases yesterday, the cash register that is the actual heart of the Mouse followed through on their plans to reopen two of the theme parks (Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom). When the plans were announced a month ago, excitement was palpable as Disney reinstated resort itineraries and announced their new reservation system to control the number of people in the park at any given time. They touted mandatory mask wearing, how social distancing would be enforced.
This was the line queuing for the Peter Pandemic ride Seven Dwarfs Mine train ride on Saturday.
Sing it with me! M-I-C K-E-Y C-O-V-I-D!
Look, more than most, I "get" the hit being taken by the hospitality industry. My husband runs a resort, we understand that without guests, hundreds of thousands of people in this country are without work. From hotels to restaurants to performers in Vegas, theme parks, Broadway, and on cruise ships, to the kid serving up your Mickey pretzel or Dole Whip - this virus has hit hard. It has been particularly head shaking to me how people could look at Las Vegas and Disney completely shutting down and still call COVID a hoax.
The Mouse and the House do not go dark unless something truly life threatening is afoot.
So there they are, open - albeit with controlled numbers and the pretense of distancing (and note, it is not just Disney. Universal and Sea World have been open for weeks), people driving and flying in to escape the reality of the virus for a few days. The problem is the virus is not escaping the reality of them.
It is everywhere. It is insidious. It is silent. And it gives not fuck one if you think it is real or not, if you are bored with it all. The latest viral share of a life lost is of a 30 year young man in Texas who had laughed it all off, even attending a COVID party. His last words to his nurse, as reported by Dr. Jane Appleby, Chief Medical Officer at Methodist Hospital in San Antonio, were, "I think I made a mistake, I thought this was a hoax, but it’s not."
End scene.
It's not a hoax. A fucking inconvenience? Sure. Rail at that all you like. No one is happy about what is going on. No, Bubba, not even those of us you mock as we wear masks and religiously wipe everything down. No one is enjoying being laid off, furloughed, fired. Those 32% of American households who missed July's rent/mortgage payment? Not thrilled. I don't know a single person rejoicing in having to don a mask in Phoenix, Arizona where it is 111 degrees today. I have yet to encounter anyone doing a happy dance about being cooped up inside for months.
But we are doing these things because people smarter than us have studied these dangers their entire adult lives and know WTF they are talking about.
Like Dr. Fauci. Today he participated in a StanfordMed LIVE virtual discussion in which he said, "We have not even seen the edge of this first wave yet."
And that was simply unnecessary. Had we been blessed with a government of sober minded, concerned, rational, intelligent adults, we would have shut this country down, given each citizen at least $2,000 per month to ride this out (like Canada and many other nations), and mandated mask wearing from the beginning. If we had done that, and if we were not a bunch of petulant, pants wetting freedumb babies, we would be in a wholly different position as we enter mid July. We would be ready to begin slowly reopening, testing the waters.
Dr. Fauci said as much today, "We did not shut down entirely and that's the reason why we went up."
But because we have a reality show carnie at the helm, enabled by a coven of power addicts, we are watching more citizens die, having to reclose things that never should have reopened, and watching our numbers rise.
It is still difficult, over four months after Trump boasted (March 6) that "Anyone that wants a test will get a test." to obtain a test. And if you can get one, it takes up to 10 days to get your results. So basically people who manage to get one are like, I'm so happy to find out I didn't have coronavirus TEN DAYS AGO.
And now, despite all guidelines from the CDC, experts from all corners, and graphs that illustrate where we are, this administrasham is hellbent on sending your kids back to school next month. Look at this and see if it makes any sense to you.
We closed schools down to protect kids and teachers then, and now, as the graph shoots to the top edge, are basically throwing them to the lions. Because economy.
House Elf, Dobby Betsy DeVos went on TV yesterday and mumbled her way through an interview about reopening schools. This is a woman whose main experience in anything is co-owning a basketball team and bilking the Amway wannabe millionaires. Yes, Amway. She is not an educator, an expert, a doctor. She is someone who bought her way into a cush job for which she is not remotely qualified. Basically like the entire Team Trump.
"There is nothing in the data that would suggest that kids being back in school is dangerous to them." That is her talking point. And that is complete bullshit.
She said that "only" .02% of school children will die from COVID. Like that's a good thing. Here's the math on that number, Betsy. 14,740 children will die.
Parents? Are you willing to pony up little Jacob or Courtney for the cause? Anyone ready to throw their cherub on the fire of the economy to get it roaring again?
"Only" 14,470 children. Fuck you, Betsy DeVos. Children are not an MLM pyramid scheme for you to make bank on. And even if they don't die from COVID, they can carry it to their older teachers who might. A dear friend is still coming back from breast cancer and the toll treatment took on her entire body. She is a teacher. And she is terrified of having to go back next month. Not for herself, though she should be, but because she may carry it home and infect her husband who fights his own heath battles. Nowhere in any of the criteria for opening are there accommodations for PPE for teachers or students either. Not that it should surprise anyone. After all teachers have routinely used their own salaries to buy classroom supplies for decades. So why would our government provide what they know teachers will pay for?
But back to Dr. Fauci - he also said this morning, “Although you may not get sick, almost certainly you’re going to infect somebody else, who almost certainly infects somebody else and then you will get a vulnerable person who will be sick, who will go to the hospital, who might die.”
See? That part about the implied social contract again. IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT YOU.
Writer Franklin Veaux put together this breakdown to help get through to the detractors, nonbelievers, hoaxers, and dimbulbs - just WHY we cannot blow off a virus with a mortality rate of only 1%.
Because it extends so much further than that. READ. ABSORB.
Getting it? Even a little bit? The effects of this virus go far beyond whether you live or you die. Those are not the only options. Especially because people believe that surviving it means life just cruises on without incident. Not true. There are so many potential catastrophes between life and death from COVID, effects that will follow a person for as long as they manage to live. Effects that are not being meaningfully translated to the public. And now, the one man who has tried from the beginning to bring home the seriousness of this virus is being smeared for his efforts because they do not suit the current narrative of the Coalition of COVIDdiots.
Dr. Anthony Fauci is smarter than you. He just is. Deal with it. A lot of people are smarter than you and me. They study things we don't understand. Their minds grasp concepts that slip right through our cerebral hands. They pursue careers in which we would not begin to know where to take the first step. They dedicate years, decades of their lives to undergrad, grad school, research, to development, to cures - FOR US. They and their years spent are valuable to all of us. They spend all those years for our benefit.
And not for nothing, but you people set your hair on fire over a handful of people dying of ebola on Obama's watch, and the word Benghazi (4 people) still gets you hard. Yet somehow, 137,000+ are dead under Trump and you still think he is the Second Coming. Make sense, please.
That a clowncar of people who would be used car salesmen if they hadn't lucked their way into office, led by a terminally stupid snakeoil hawker are trying to discredit a man who has dedicated his life to others, is repulsive in the extreme.
Dr. Fauci was 1st in his class at Cornell. He has held three Head, Chief, and Director positions at the NIH. He holds 30 honorary doctorates. He is the most cited scientist in scientific journals. His experience puts the word 'extensive' to shame. He has worked under 6 Presidents of both parties. He was instrumental in the work done on AIDS, Ebola, the Zika virus and anthrax scares. He was even cited by George Bush the elder as a hero, someone kids should look up to when asked the question in a Presidential debate in 1988. Asked who is your hero, who would you "point out to young Americans as figures who should inspire this country?" Bush responded "Fauci ...top doctor at NIH, working hard doing something about research on this disease of AIDS."
Fauci has nothing to gain in this fight against COVID. He is not running scams behind the scenes like the Jareds and Trumps and numerous legislators who dumped or bought stocks based on insider information about the virus. He is a man of science. Period. And quite frankly, you mouth breathers should get down on your damned knees and thank your God for people like him who work on behalf of dullards like you.
Trump is openly disparaging Fauci while at the same time reTweeting manure piles by Cremo spokesperson, Chuck Woolery. Hmmm, who should I believe? A man of science, probity, fact, and reason or a guy whose biggest accomplishment was enabling televised hookups via Love Connection?
138,108 now dead. (This piece went long, but that's 266 more lives lost.)
I know my answer. Sad that I know the MAGAt answer, too. Oh, well, It's a bold strategy, Cotton, let's see if it pays off for 'em...
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