U S A

A Colorada Bridge Club

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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/29/us/coronavirus-bridge-colorado-springs.html

A sad tale of contaminated cards, or just coughs and sneezes

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https://www.facebook.com/OccupyDemocrats/videos/236673061013278/

the above just one of the Trump videos that enlightened the Lockdown

Lockdown in Texas

A big hug from Texas.. Apologies for disappearing for weeks. I gave out grades yesterday and am finally, more or less, done for the semester. It was crazy getting everything online! It took so much work it was unbelievable. I essentially worked straight through, no days off, for about three and half weeks. After that I just let my standards slide; I was too tired for words. And the students don't make it easy on us. Very few show up for Zoom lectures and no one watches taped lectures until right up against the exam when they binge watch. Dreadful.

On the bright side, I have as many as five different crews of Mexicans repairing the roof, cleaning and staining the redwood siding, and doing assorted other repairs, on a daily basis. Of course they are all outside. I ask them daily if they have a fever or a cough. They keep me company and I am helping the local economy. Don't remember whether I told you but I finally found a general contractor to run the whole operation, for an 18% fee of course. But I think he more than earns it. Besides, I couldn't get anyone to bid on anything. The town has grown so much, there is so much new construction going on, no one bothers with repairs. He builds houses and keeps the various contractors occupied so they cannot turn him down. In all, this is costing a fortune and it is not even a remodel, just repairs! I'll never retire at this rate, especially with the gyrations in the stock market. As you can tell, I am not going to lose any sleep over this. In fact I was losing sleep over not being able to get everything repaired.

I have kept my sanity by doing yoga almost daily. Twice a week I attend a live yoga session on Zoom. I got everyone organized. It is with my school friends who all went to the Bahamas last November. Remember I told you about that trip? One of them is a physician but she no longer practices medicine; she gave it up to become a yoga instructor. Fabulous. She is awesome. 

I have brunch on Sundays with the friends I see at the opera, also via Zoom. And every now and then I have a glass of wine with one or more friends via Skype or Zoom. All this digital social life keeps me from going bananas.

They lifted the lock down in Texas a week ago. Of course there is no plan to test, do contact tracing, isolate, nothing. Our republican governor takes his marching orders from the moron in the white house, whose sole concern is restarting the economy in hopes of getting reelected. We are so used to the daily death tally in the 2,000 to 2,500 range it is no longer headline news. No one would have believed that by early May the death toll would be 76,000+ yet here we are. I go grocery shopping once every two weeks and stay home otherwise. Oh, and I go for walks around the neighborhood. This is suburbia so I don't come anywhere close to other people. I think I know what the new normal will look like. Most young people at the grocery store were in groups, with friends not family, and not wearing masks. The old folks like me were all covered with masks and eye protection. So I guess the Millennials will take out the Baby Boomers! My friends in Santiago tell me the same things is happening there.

The numbers in Spain are pretty horrid too. At the rate we are going, I think we will eventually top the charts in deaths per 1 million in the population, unless Brazil and Russia keep doing nothing and catch up to us. France is about to relegate Spain to fourth place on total deaths! Boris is trying to do a good job after his scare. Too bad our narcissist in chief didn't get the virus early on when he took no precautions. Oh well.

So that's my report for now. My plan for the next week is to work through a mountain of laundry, get in touch with everyone I have neglected since mid March, and supervise all those Mexicans!

 

manu

The professor, 2nd from right, in Venezuela in 2015

- A report from a Chilean / American Economics professor at a Texan University 7/5/2020

Hospitals in the state capital of Texas are within a fortnight of being overwhelmed, officials said yesterday, as coronavirus cases continued to soar across the United States.- 12/7/2020

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Lockdown in Michigan

We have now spent some 14 days in self isolation.
It seems personal distance and self isolation are the only way to stop this Chinese virus. 
We are told the Michigan virus peak should hit Michigan in two weeks.  What a mess!  We can go for walks and today I will go out and pick up Chinese food for lunch.  Many folks buying their groceries through the mail:  Amazon.com or Instacart.com.  Same day delivery.
We have food to last 30 days. 

Told the kids they are not allowed to come over any more.  Just to dangerous.  In the US people are equal to dogs( a refernce to the fact that at this time only people with dogs were allowed outside in Spain) and we are allowed to go out for a walk.  The World has changed forever.

words from a relative in Michigan 1/4/2020

All is well here.  Well, in Northern Michigan things are safe.  Dentist opened last week.  Sue can finally go to a salon and get a haircut.  It's the little things in life.

-same relative 30/6/2020

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At the end of May, protests broke out in Minneapolis and then all over the USA over the death of a black man, George Floyd, caused by a police officer

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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/george-floyd-protests-in-america-provide-perfect-recipe-for-spreading-coronavirus-97tbxvrm0?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=newsletter_144&utm_medium=email&utm_content=144_9596345&CMP=TNLEmail_118918_9596345_144

 

More madness from Trump

President Trump’s planned rally in Tulsa on Saturday is a “perfect storm” for spreading the coronavirus, according to health officials who urged it to be moved outdoors to limit infection.

Mr Trump, who has been eager to resume rallies halted by the pandemic in March, claimed yesterday that “almost one million” people had requested tickets to the 20,000-capacity venue.

Speaking to reporters yesterday afternoon, the president praised the “magnificent arena” in Tulsa and said he expected it to be full. “We’ve never had an empty seat,” he claimed. He said he was considering using a nearby convention centre to hold an additional 40,000 people.

Tulsa’s health director called on the president to postpone the event and the Tulsa World newspaper wrote yesterday: “We can’t see any way that his visit will be good for the city.”

The rally has already been delayed a day after complaints that it originally fell on Juneteenth, an annual June 19 commemoration of the end of slavery.

“It’s a perfect storm set-up: the idea of tons of people, where one sick person can have an impact of generating secondary cases on this immense level, where it’s indoors, where there’s no ventilation,” Nahid Bhadelia, of the special pathogens unit at Boston University School of Medicine, told NBC.

Bruce Dart, the Tulsa health department director, said: “I’m concerned about our ability to protect anyone who attends a large indoor event and I’m also concerned about our ability to ensure the president stays safe as well.”

Mr Trump, 74, has been leading calls for businesses and schools to reopen, even though cases are rising in 22 states. However, the US recorded only 385 deaths yesterday, the second day in a row that fatalities have fallen below 400.

The US has so far recorded 116,114 deaths, the highest in the world, along with more than 2.1 million infections.- 16/6/2020

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The US has registered a record seven-day average of new coronavirus cases for the 26th day in a row.

On Saturday the rolling weekly average for new daily cases hit 48,361. The figure, compiled by The Washington Post, was 11,740 up on a week before as case numbers soared in many states.

Florida reported a daily record of 11,445 cases on Saturday. The figure fell to 10,059 yesterday for a total of 200,111, according to the state’s health officials. Francis Suarez, the Republican mayor of Miami, said that the state’s early reopening had been a key factor in the rise. “People started socialising as if the virus didn’t exist,” he told ABC News.

Miami has introduced mandatory face coverings in all public spaces. “If you get in a car accident, there’s a good chance that you’ll walk away if you’re wearing a seatbelt,” Mr Suarez said. “If people are wearing the masks in public, there’s a very good chance that we’re going to be able to stop the spread.”

People who repeatedly refuse to wear masks will be fined $500 - 6/6/2020

On Saturday Trump repeated his argument that “if we didn’t test so much and so successfully, we would have very few cases”.

Mr Trump accurately observed that “deaths and the all-important mortality rate” are declining. This is thought to be partly because more of the infections are affecting young people.-6/6/2020

 

 

More Tales of lockdown