16,420,287 total cases
652,256 dead
10,048,052 recovered
In the US:
4,371,839 total cases
149,849 dead
2,090,129 recovered
Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:
Trump insider Robert O’Brien has tested positive. Also, in our 4 day old baseball season 13 or 14 Florida Marlins tested positive. They were in Philadelphia. 
All the sports trying to have their cake and eat it too is mostly somewhere between abject stupidity and dangerously misplaced priorities, IMO.
Andy Slavitt gets it:
Way to go, New Jersey!
at 1:35 in the video: “Police across the state have had to respond to similar house parties”
16,646,987 total cases
656,608 dead
10,232,055 recovered
In the US:
4,433,410 total cases
150,444 dead
2,136,603 recovered
Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:
Meanwhile, in Turkmenistan…
I’m not posting this to be political. It is a worrisome blast of false information in a video that has had 13 million views. Both Donald Trump and DT, Jr. have been promoting the views of a bizarre doctor, Stella Immanuel, whose viral video since removed by Facebook) makes some strange and baseless claims:
• STD’s, miscarriages, infertility, and endometriosis in women are caused by having sex with witches and demons in their dreams.
• “We don’t need masks.” “We don’t need to die. This virus has a cure. It is called hydroxyzine, zinc, and Zithromax.”
She’s also claimed doctors use alien DNA in medical treatment and that lizard-like aliens are involved in the US government.
Trump claims he’s highly impressed, even though he admits he doesn’t know who she is or what country she comes from. (It’s Cameroon.)
Immanuel practices in Houston, TX and got her medical degree in Nigeria. Nigeria cautions people against Immanuel’s theories.
Immanuel demands that Dr. Fauci, the “talking heads on CNN” and all senators who disagree with her to give a urine sample, as she’s convinced they’re all taking hydroxychloroquine.
She also says Jesus will come down hard on Facebook for removing her page.
How do we effectively fight a virus with a president promoting a doctor making such baseless and outlandish claims?
Do the right political thing on November 3, if we all live till then.
Frick. I was just on Facebook. A former colleague posted Stella Immanuel’s claims alongside those of a Yale researcher who claims hydroxychloroquine really does treat COVID, and now dozens of people have replied that they believe it works and that there’s a big conspiracy against Immanuel and Trump. One guy claims to be a pharmacist and says he’s read “dozens” of studies and that it’s “well-known” the combo works.
I give up. Really, unless we can somehow all return to rational belief and scientific reasoning, we’re screwed.
16,895,076 total cases
663,476 dead
10,458,632 recovered
In the US:
4,498,343 total cases
152,320 dead
2,185,894 recovered
Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:
There will be over 17,000,000 total cases worldwide tomorrow. At the current rate, we are adding over 1,000,000 cases every 4-5 days.
One person posted that on my NextDoor group, and was jumped all over by a dozen people with links and cites. Hopefully it gets removed quickly.
The AP has an article about the current state of the United States with regard to the pandemic:
It does not paint a rosy picture of sunshine and lollipops.
Health officials are predicting that the Melbourne.Victoria.Australia outbreak is coming to an end, based on data which they don’t seem to be releasing to the public or to the media.
We are getting 5 day peaks, so the next peak will probably be around August 1. Based on the estimated date of infection (data not published anywhere) for existing cases, case rate should start to fall. Apparently, the case peaks we are seeing now are the trailing edge, peaking now because of the cumulative effect of the outbreak.
I’ve already been dissatisfied about the way COVID has been reported (emphasizing largely irrelevant numbers like “the total number of infected people who’ve returned to Australia in the last couple of months”), and this reporting just makes me irritated all over again.
This is a comprehensive summary of Where We Are Right Now. It is scary, depressing, and there is no pony in this room. If he’s there, he’s gasping for air and will soon be dead.
TL;DR - We’re thoroughly fucked.
Once again, the coronavirus is ascendant. As infections mount across the country, it is dawning on Americans that the epidemic is now unstoppable, and that no corner of the nation will be left untouched.
As of Tuesday, the pathogen had infected at least 4.3 million Americans, killing almost 150,000. Many experts fear the virus could kill 200,000 or even 300,000 by year’s end. Even President Trump has donned a mask, after resisting for months, and has canceled the Republican National Convention celebrations in Florida.
Each state, each city has its own crisis driven by its own risk factors: vacation crowds in one, bars reopened too soon in another, a revolt against masks in a third.
“We are in a worse place than we were in March,” when the virus coursed through New York, said Dr. Leana S. Wen, a former Baltimore health commissioner. “Back then we had one epicenter. Now we have lots.”
…
[Major snippage, as this is a looooong article.]
Millions of Americans have lost their jobs and their health insurance, and are in danger of losing their homes, even as they find themselves in the path of a lethal disease. The Trump presidency “is the symptom of the denigration of science and the gutting of the public contract about what we owe each other as citizens,” said Dr. Joia S. Mukherjee, the chief medical officer of Partners in Health in Boston.
One lesson that will surely be learned is that the country needs to be better prepared for microbial assaults, said Dr. Julie Gerberding, a former director of the C.D.C.
“This is not a once-in-a-century event. It’s a harbinger of things to come.”
The New York Times is making COVID-related articles free for non-subscribers. You might have to create a login and register.
“Rep. Louie Gohmert — a Texas Republican who has been walking around the Capitol without a mask — has tested positive for the coronavirus, according to multiple sources.
…
Gohmert attended Tuesday’s blockbuster House Judiciary Committee hearing with Attorney General William Barr in person, where lawmakers were seated at some distance from one another.
But footage from before the hearing shows Gohmert and Barr walking together in close contact, with neither wearing a mask.”
I enjoyed this article on “hygiene theatre”.
Things have not been good here in Panama for the last three months. Until May 26 we had been averaging about 150 cases a day since mid April. Then daily cases started climbing, hitting over 1000 day on June 26. We peaked (at least I hope it will be the peak) at 2,165 on July 20. Since then we seem to have plateaued, with the 7-day average running around 1,100/day. They’re reporting the R0 is down to 1.16, however, so maybe they are finally getting it under control. To date, Panama has had 63,000 cases and almost 1,400 deaths, in a population of 4 million.
This has been despite one of the hardest lockdowns in the world. In Panama City and its suburbs, most people are only allowed to leave the house for essential shopping for 6 hours (women) or 4 hours (men) a week. (A couple of weeks ago they imposed a curfew on Saturdays, which was one of the men’s shopping days, so I’m restricted from leaving the house from 10 AM Thursday until 5 AM the following Tuesday.)
I was reading just the other day that Vietnam didn’t even have ONE COVID case. Then this:
…But over the weekend, Vietnam, which had gone about 100 days without a single confirmed case of local transmission, announced that the virus was lurking in the country after all — and it was spreading.
First, a 57-year-old man from Danang tested positive for the virus and is now on life support. Then clusters quickly emerged in five hospitals. By Wednesday, the virus had spread north to Hanoi, the capital, south to Ho Chi Minh City and afflicted two provinces in central Vietnam, as well as the remote Central Highlands.
The surge of the coronavirus in Vietnam, which has so far recorded fewer than 450 cases, revealed the dangers of the virus even in places that appeared to have done most everything right in their battle against contagion.
…
Thanks for the update, Colibri. Been thinking about you when I see Panama pop up on the dashboards. Question for you about those stringent lockdowns. Are there regular news stories about people flouting the rules? If so, are there arrests, fines, business closures? Just wondering how strong the compliance is, or what might account for continued, or even increased, spread in the face of such containment measures.
Not one death, I believe. I think 400 or so cases, or maybe a little under that, they say. Although they didn’t have really pervasive or extended lockdowns, I don’t think, they definitely get serious about things when they decide to. I mean, evacuating 80,000 people from a city after they find a handful of cases…that ain’t messin’ around.