My county currently has the highest number of C19 cases, per-capita, in the state!

It’s a pretty small county, only 70K people. But we have a nursing home with 100+ cases and a poultry processing plant with 140+ cases. And together, they account for almost half of our 490 current cases.

Let’s reopen!

Here’s an actual headline / subhead on WaPo right now:

Democrats have proposed $100 billion for struggling renters. It may not be enough.
The plan was part of their $3 trillion coronavirus relief bill, which Republicans quickly rejected.

It goes on:

House Democrats included $100 billion for a national rental assistance program in their $3 trillion coronavirus relief bill this week.

Republicans quickly rejected the proposed legislation, and some tenant advocacy groups say $100 billion will not be enough.

That last ‘and’ sure is doing a lot of work, connecting two those completely unrelated items.

Would the Republicans not have “quickly rejected” it if the Dems had proposed more? OF COURSE NOT!

But, blame has been placed.

What can one infected person do in one night of bar hopping in Seoul?

Health authorities have been on alert after a 29-year-old tested positive after visiting five clubs and bars in Itaewon on May 1-2, in the first local infection reported in a few days.

The case quickly swelled into an infection cluster, affecting not only the 73 who had been in Itaewon but also 29 who were infected through secondary transmission. No tertiary transmission has been reported yet.

One person may have given it to 102 other people, in one night.

We’re all getting it. Make sure your affairs are in order..

As the Defense Department negotiates its way through the coronavirus pandemic and its fallout, military entrance processing stations are working with new guidance when it comes to bringing COVID-19 survivors into the services.

A past COVID-19 diagnosis is a no-go for processing, according to a recently released MEPCOM memo circulating on Twitter.

“During the medical history interview or examination, a history of COVID-19, confirmed by either a laboratory test or a clinician diagnosis, is permanently disqualifying …” the memo reads.

Does the military know something we don’t?

Kevin Drum’s lament is where I’m at.

These are bleak times. In the middle of a historic pandemic we are about to give up the fight and commit collective suicide because we are ruled by a mad king. Everyone is out to get me, he broods late at night, fingers flashing over his smartphone. Nobody appreciates what I’ve done for them. The press hates me. The pandemic is a Democratic plot to turn people against me. A cure is just around the corner. They’re exaggerating the death rate to make me look bad. We don’t need more testing. What happened to my beautiful economy? Where are my rallies?

And while the mad king raves, his courtiers shuffle around not knowing what to do. Some enthusiastically support him. Some mutter to the press. Some try to ignore the madness around them and keep working.

And the rest of us sit around feeling helpless. We are on the cusp of needlessly killing tens of thousands because the mad king deems it so, and there’s nothing we can do about it. At times we begin to wonder if we’re the ones who are mad. Maybe we have beaten the pandemic. Maybe the death toll will keep going down. Maybe we really did overdo the whole social distancing thing.

No. We haven’t beaten the pandemic and we know it. But the mad king says we have, and his followers roar their approval. We are headed deep into the darkness, and we’re not doing it because we lost a battle that we fought to the last man. We’re doing it because we’re in thrall to a mad king who no longer belongs to the same world the rest of us live in and tells us that we are all honored warriors for dying in his cause.

Thanks, GOP. You’re the best.

RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) – A leader of the ReOpen NC group revealed in a Facebook post that she tested positive for COVID-19.

Audrey Whitlock posted to the ReOpen NC Facebook page early Sunday saying her two-week quarantine was ending. She described herself as an “an asymptomatic COVID19 positive patient.”

…

“The reality is that modern society has not been able to eradicate contagious viruses. A typical public health quarantine would occur in a medical facility. I have been told not to participate in public or private accommodations as requested by the government, and therefore denied my 1st amendment right of freedom of religion,” Whitlock wrote.

She went on to say: “It has been insinuated by others that if I go out, I could be arrested for denying a quarantine order.”

If she was quarantined in a medical facility vs at home, the impact on her ‘freedom of religion’ would be different because… ?

Also, why did she get tested if she was asymptomatic ?

Testing people may not be the best way to see how much coronavirus is in a community. Testing sewers may be better.

New Castle County, Delaware is analyzing its sewers in a high-tech way to track the amount of coronavirus in the county.

An analysis made by BioBot, a startup connected to MIT, estimates more than 15,000 COVID-19 infections as of April 15, 10 times what conventional tests confirmed.

BioBot looks for traces of the virus in wastewater.

The company was founded by female scientists at MIT.

…

“You can get tests from different substations. You can then say, ‘OK, these are where our top three hotspots are, and we should focus our testing there,'” he adds.