COVID-19 Megathread 5: The Trumps catch COVID-19

[woodley park]

"Trump did Coronavirus" isn't going to have the same legs as "Bush did 9/11" as conspiracy theories go. He's not acting like someone trying to please his Chinese creditors, he's acting like someone who has no clue how to respond to a crisis he can't bully away.

Frankly, we don't need a subplot about debt to China to attack Trump's disastrous response to COVID. Its much more straightforward to just attack his incompetence, inaction, and repeated downplaying of the threat, using his own words against him. His own words after all, have been repeatedly captured on video for months. Hard pass on whatever Abramson is cooking up.

[woodley park]

Governor Andrew Cuomo takes action to require masks in stores:

https://twitter.com/NYGovCuomo/status/1266036686053613574

I really really hope this is already the case for public transport as well.

If yes, normal, sane decision.

If people can't be bothered to wear a thin piece of fabric for a short part of their day in certain spaces, I guess they can just use their own cars and order stuff online.

I continue to remain wary of mask mandates emanating from government, especially if they come attached with penalties of some kind. And as we move into summer, I am beginning to wonder whether or not they will truly be a permanent fixture of society until there is a vaccine.

I think these orders have gone on long enough. It's been March since the country actually started getting a large number of cases. March. And we're still getting a lot of cases when it's almost June?

Never would have thought we'd have this many cases for this long.

Just imagine where we would be if we had not done anything.

[woodley park]

U.S. will terminate its relationship with World Health Organization, Trump says

In the great game, China wants to win without fighting. Part of that involves changing existing global institutions to suit their needs, from the inside out, without provoking a response from everybody else. When we pull out of organizations like this, we open the door for them to do exactly that.

[woodley park]

It's amazing the American mask compliance is so superior to Europe given that half of one party is completely adamant about not using it. Not that that compliance is helping us very much right now.

I find it bizarre that this is so partisan. Everybody I know regardless of party affiliation is taking this incredibly seriously, and I see pretty darn good compliance. I don't know if that comes from being from the most impacted area or if I simply do not know the 'rural' type of Republican. Likely a combination. When I was down south, the compliance was near zero but that was six weeks ago before major cases were ubiquitous.

I was in South Carolina last week and I am gonna estimate that only 20-30% of the people I saw were wearing masks (and a decent chunk weren't wearing their masks over their noses).

I'd surmise that some of it comes from that relaxed Southern lifestyle. 

Is not wearing a mask over your nose basically as bad as not wearing one at all? Does leaving the nose uncovered endanger the person with the uncovered nose, the people around them, or both?

[woodley park]

Trump's press briefing seemed to give the impression that he almost completely flip-flopped on COVID. The pandemic is now serious, but up until that Chris Wallace interview it totally wasn't. Question is how long he'll be able to keep this up until he reverts back to his usual self... a week maybe? He was rather restrained today, but in the long run he was never able to control his impulses sufficiently.

I’m not very optimistic. This reeks of something his advisors forced him to do, and he is terrible at sticking to things he was forced to do.

I’m sure though that Van Jones will be hyping his “new tone” and how he “became president” today.

[woodley park]

From Politico: A gap in federal unemployment benefits is now unavoidable. Here’s why.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/23/gap-unemployment-heres-why-379267

Tens of millions of laid-off American workers will go weeks without federal jobless aid — because Congress hasn’t renewed the benefits in time for overwhelmed state unemployment systems to adjust their computers.

State offices will need weeks to reprogram their systems to account for an extension of the $600 weekly federal payments that expire on Saturday — or any changes that Congress makes to the benefit amount or eligibility rules. That comes on top of hardships faced by workers in states like Washington and Nevada, who are already waiting months to get their first payments in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic because their unemployment offices can’t handle the historic flood of claims.

In some states with particularly antiquated systems, it’s already too late to prevent a lapse, even though the federal benefits haven’t officially expired, according to people familiar with how the systems work.

“In some states, it could take quite a bit of time, and it could cause severe delays,” said Arindrajit Dube, a professor of economics at UMass Amherst. “This is the kind of thing you don't try to change in the middle of a pandemic.

Well that is depressing.

[woodley park]

From WaPo: Republicans scrap Trump’s demand for payroll tax cut as they cobble together draft coronavirus bill


https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/07/23/congress-stimulus-coronavirus-trump/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-high_virushill-9am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans

Senate Republicans have cast aside one of President Trump’s key demands in their emerging coronavirus stimulus package, refusing to include a payroll tax cut in their opening offer to Democrats, which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is aiming to announce Thursday.

The development came amid a frantic GOP effort to try and salvage other parts of the package, though the entire process remained fluid and there was confusion among Republican aides about when a deal might be reached. Republicans had hoped to reach a deal amongst themselves on Wednesday but they were unable to sort out a number of competing intraparty issues.

Yikes, defying Trump on his signature demand for the relief bill. The process is 'fluid' however; I wonder if they are going to fold like they have on ..*checks notes*... everything else.

[woodley park]

Trump's briefings were meant to show him in charge -- now they are becoming absurd

President Donald Trump says the country is doing great in a pandemic that just infected its four millionth US victim and is killing 1,000 people a day. But his claim is based on a brazen confidence trick, requiring Americans to ignore his responsibility for the spike in the southern and western states as he claims credit for the success of northeastern states that suppressed the disease after not heeding his advice to reopen before the virus was under control.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/07/24/politics/donald-trump-coronavirus-briefing-jacksonville/index.html

[woodley park]

Really a bad look given POTUS aggravating the need for baseball and sports to resume.