The Globe is screaming about it at the top of their lungs:
"States backpedal and pause reopenings as coronavirus surges" by Paul J. Weber and Michelle R. Smith, Associated Press, June 26, 2020
AUSTIN, Texas — Texas and Florida reversed course and clamped down on bars again Friday in the nation’s biggest retreat yet as the daily number of confirmed coronavirus infections in the U.S. surged to an all-time high of 40,000.
Oh, those darn bars, huh?
Should take it to the streets, kids.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered all bars closed, while Florida banned alcohol at such establishments. The two states joined the small but growing list of those that are either backtracking or putting any further reopenings of their economies on hold because of a comeback by the virus, mostly in the South and West.
I hate to say it, put the above is the death knell noose for Trump.
Health experts have said a disturbingly large number of cases are being seen among young people who are going out again, often without wearing masks or observing other social-distancing rules.
“It is clear that the rise in cases is largely driven by certain types of activities, including Texans congregating in bars,” Abbott said.
A$$hole Abbott, and don't let them lock you up again, kids.
Abbott had pursued up to now one of the most aggressive reopening schedules of any governor. The Republican not only resisted calls to order masks be worn but also refused until last week to let local governments take such measures.
“The doctors told us at the time, and told anyone who would listen, this will be a disaster, and it has been,” said Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, a Democrat who is the county’s top official. “Once again, the governor is slow to act. He is now being forced to do the things that we’ve been demanding that he do for the last month and a half.”
Texas reported more than 17,000 new cases in the past three days, with a record high of nearly 6,000 on Thursday. The second-largest state also sets records daily for hospitalizations, surpassing 5,000 coronavirus patients for the first time Friday.
In Florida, under GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, the agency that regulates bars acted after the daily number of new confirmed cases neared 9,000, almost doubling the record set just two days earlier.
Colleen Corbett, a 30-year-old bartender at two places in Tampa, said that she was disappointed and worried about being unemployed again but that the restrictions are the right move. Most customers were not wearing masks, she said.
“It was like they forgot there was a pandemic or just stopped caring,” Corbett said.
Or they have wised-up to the fraud!
Related:
"Governor Charlie Baker on Friday urged residents to remain vigilant against the novel coronavirus, noting that states in the South and Southwest are “really starting to struggle” with new infections. “We do need to recognize and understand that this is still very much with us,” Baker said during a State House briefing. “And for anybody who thinks this is over, I would just ask them to take a look at the data coming out of a lot of the states in the South and the Southwest, which had a very positive set of statistics week over week in the months of April and May, and now they’re really starting to struggle. I think we all need to understand that vigilance and caution with regard to this and serious focus on the data and on the things that stop the spread is where we really need to play.”
Like it's a game?
A number of the hardest-hit states, including Arizona and Arkansas, have Republican governors who have resisted mask-wearing requirements and have largely echoed President Donald Trump’s desire to reopen the economy quickly amid warnings the virus could come storming back.
The White House coronavirus task force, led by Vice President Mike Pence, held its first briefing in nearly two months, and Pence gave assurances that the U.S. is “in a much better place” than it was two months ago. He said the country has more medical supplies on hand, a smaller share of patients are being hospitalized, and deaths are much lower than they were in the spring.
He can say that, but it is not a good sign and it appears that the second exercise or simulation with the deliberate release of a deadly respiratory pathogen as per WHO documents is imminent.
The count of new confirmed infections, provided by Johns Hopkins University, eclipsed the previous high of 36,400, set on April 24, during one of the deadliest stretches. Newly reported cases per day have risen on average about 60 percent over the past two weeks, according to an Associated Press analysis. Stocks fell sharply on Wall Street again over the surging case numbers.
Who f**king gives a crap about Wall Street anymore?
While the rise partly reflects expanded testing, experts say there is ample evidence the scourge is making a comeback, including rising deaths and hospitalizations in parts of the country and higher percentages of tests coming back positive for the virus.
The virus is blamed for about 125,000 deaths and nearly 2.5 million confirmed infections nationwide, by Johns Hopkins' count, but health officials believe the true number of infections is about 10 times higher. Worldwide, the virus has claimed close to a half-million lives.
If infections are 10x more than believed, then the disease is not that fatal and the populace has more herd immunity than thought. No more need for lockdowns!
At the task force briefing, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, urged people to mind their responsibility to others: “A risk for you is not just isolated to you.”
They censored his guilt trip!
Deaths from the coronavirus in the U.S. are running at about 600 per day, down from a peak of around 2,200 in mid-April. Some experts have expressed doubt that deaths will return to that level, because of advances in treatment and prevention and because younger adults are more likely than older ones to survive.
In a reversal of fortune, New York said it is offering equipment and other help to Arizona, Texas and Florida, noting that other states came to its aid when it was in the throes of the deadliest outbreak in the nation this spring. “We will never forget that graciousness, and we will repay it any way we can,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.
That's odd because my print copy says, and I quote:
"Cuomo clearly has not forgotten that DeSantis crowed about his state's less-stringent approach when it appeared Florida was spared the brunt of the virus. 'You played politics with this virus and you lost,' Cuomo said Thursday when asked in an interview about the Florida governor's earlier boasts."
What a REPREHENSIBLE CREATURE is CUOMO!
There he is RUBBING the other guys nose in the POLITICS of it, forgetting that we are talking about a PLAGUE PANDEMIC and MASSIVE DEATHS!
Yup, TOLD YOU SO!
It's like he is REVELING in the ORGY of DEATH cuz HE WAS RIGHT! What an UNFEELING MONSTER!
You may not like my skepticism regarding COVID-19, but I have never sunk that low!
That is what we are dealing with here when it comes to tin-pot potentates like the mass-murdering mobster Cuomo, folks, and it is the nest indicator of a MASSIVE FRAUD for POLITICAL PURPOSES!
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The web version carried New York Times slop:
"States walk back reopenings as confirmed coronavirus cases hit all-time high" by Patricia Mazzei, Sarah Mervosh and Shawn Hubler New York Times, June 26, 2020
MIAMI — As coronavirus cases surge across much of the United States, leaders are urgently rethinking their strategies to curb the spread and issuing new restrictions for parts of the economy that had resumed.
Time to stop obeying them, period. If you can riot, loot, and burn with their permission, you can live life like before without it.
The number of confirmed coronavirus infections per day in the United States surged to an all-time high of 40,000, and the nation’s top infectious disease expert pleaded for social distancing and mask wearing as “a societal responsibility.”
Leaders in Texas and Florida abruptly set new restrictions on bars, a reversal that appeared unthinkable just days ago. And Governor Gavin Newsom of California told rural Imperial County, where hospitals have been overwhelmed with patients, that it must reinstate a stay-at-home order, the most restrictive of requirements.
Telling that lie again despite the quiet hospitals all across the country the last three months.
Florida, Utah, and South Carolina hit daily highs Friday for reported new cases, but even leaders outside the new hot zones in the South and West expressed mounting anxiety.
“This is a very dangerous time,” Governor Mike DeWine of Ohio said Friday, as cases were trending steadily upward in his state after appearing to be under control for more than a month. “I think what is happening in Texas and Florida and several other states should be a warning to everyone. We have to be very careful,” he said.
Got it.
The stock market responded badly, with the S&P 500 dropping 2.4 percent. Losses accelerated after the Texas announcement, adding to investors’ concerns that the virus continued to be a threat to the economy.
This is my reaction to that.
The shifting assessments of the nation’s handling of the virus stretched to the highest levels of the federal government, where Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, made clear that the standard approach to controlling infectious diseases — testing sick people, isolating them, and tracing their contacts — was not working. The failure, he said, was in part because some infected Americans are asymptomatic and unknowingly spreading the virus but also because some people exposed to the virus are reluctant to self-quarantine or have no place to do so.
F**k him!
I am so sick of that $elf-$erving fraud and mon$ter.
He should have been fired on Day One!
In an interview Friday, he said officials were having “intense discussions” about a possible shift to “pool testing,” in which samples from many people are tested at once in an effort to quickly find and isolate the infected.
FASCIST F**K!
Fauci also issued an urgent warning that while coronavirus infections were spiking mostly in the South, those outbreaks could spread to other regions.
Even in the face of the alarming news, the White House continued to praise its own efforts.
“We have made truly remarkable progress in moving our nation forward,” Vice President Mike Pence said at what has become a rare public briefing by the coronavirus task force in Washington. “We’ve all seen the encouraging news as we open up.”
What was encouraging about what Pence said was he said we needed to still defend and respect the Constitution!
Meanwhile, the European Union was close to agreement on a policy to bar Americans from traveling to the bloc amid the spike in cases.
In the United States, the renewed sense of urgency comes as the country confronts a new, treacherous phase of the pandemic, no longer defined by a crisis concentrated in New York City, but by rising cases in many cities and states. Alabama, Alaska, California, Georgia, Idaho, Missouri, Nevada, Oklahoma, and Texas also reported their highest single-day totals of new known cases this week, and the United States set records for daily new cases on both Wednesday and Thursday. By Friday, new daily cases were rising in 29 states.
Because of the massive amount of alleged tests they are conducting, but never mind all that. Shit your pants in fear because the NYT's hits a trigger note.
In Massachusetts, where the number of new cases has eased considerably, Governor Charlie Baker pointed to the surge in other states as evidence that people need to remain vigilant.
“We do need to recognize and understand that this is still very much with us,” Baker said during a State House briefing, “and for anybody who thinks this is over, I would just ask them to take a look at the data coming out of a lot of the states in the South and the Southwest, which had a very positive set of statistics week over week in the months of April and May, and now they’re really starting to struggle.”
That guy is covered in blood!
From Miami to Los Angeles, mayors were contemplating slowing or reversing their plans to return cities to public life. On Friday, San Francisco announced it was delaying plans to reopen zoos, museums, hair salons, tattoo parlors, and other businesses on Monday, citing a spike in new cases.
In Miami, officials were considering whether to revert to some of the limits they had set months ago. “We’re in a far more precarious position than we were a month ago,” Mayor Francis Suarez said.
Then the policies have failed, all of them. Time to go back to normal, come what may.
The decisions in Texas and Florida to revert to stronger restrictions Friday represented the strongest acknowledgment yet that reopening had not gone as planned in two of the nation’s most populous states, where only days ago their Republican governors were adamantly resisting calls to close back down.
Goodbye, President Trump.
On Thursday, Governor Greg Abbott of Texas placed the state’s reopening on pause, while remaining firm that going “backward” and closing down businesses was “the last thing we want to do,” but by Friday, he did just that, ordering bars closed and telling restaurants to limit themselves to 50 percent capacity rather than 75 percent.
By Friday, Texas had more than 130,000 known coronavirus cases and more than 2,300 deaths, and the leader of the third-largest county in America — Harris County, which is home to Houston — had deemed the region to be on a code-red coronavirus threat level.
SIGH!
In Florida, the speed of the virus’s growth was dizzying: State officials reported 8,942 new coronavirus cases Friday, by far outpacing its earlier single-day record of 5,508 cases, which had been set Wednesday.
How many are dying?
Are any of these cases even people who are sick?
I'm not buying the "you are sick but don't know it" shit, sorry.
Officials announced limits on bars, immediately banning alcohol consumption on the premises.
Why not CLOSE LIQUOR STORES, too?
Bars can still sell food if they are licensed to do so, but their facilities must remain at 50 percent capacity.
I will never go to a bar or restaurant ever again.
In Arizona, Governor Doug Ducey has held out on setting new limits in his state, even as cases there surged past 66,000, with an average of 2,750 new cases per day. He warned this week that hospitals were likely to hit surge capacity soon, but he has remained opposed to backtracking on reopening.
Are there not a lot of old people in Arizona?
In a reversal of fortune, New York said it is offering equipment and other help to Arizona, Texas, and Florida, noting that other states came to New York’s aid when it was in the throes of the deadliest outbreak in the nation this spring.
New York still has the country’s highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths, but the day-to-day numbers have been steadily falling: At its peak, the virus claimed 1,000 lives a day in the state; on Thursday, the state recorded 17 deaths.
Governor Andrew Cuomo clearly has not forgotten that DeSantis crowed about his state’s less-stringent approach when it appeared Florida was spared the brunt of the virus.
“You played politics with this virus and you lost,” Cuomo said Thursday when asked in an interview about the Florida governor’s earlier boasts.
Oh, the New York Times at least did report on what a vituperative and vindictive asshole is Cuomo!
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I hope he heard that:
"Como Audio of Boston has been manufacturing its high-end music systems in China for years, but founder Tom DeVesto is ready to change that. He has leased industrial space in Braintree and has launched a crowdfunding campaign with the goal of making his company’s products in the United States. “Why should we depend on China to listen to Neil Young?” said DeVesto....."
Keep on rocking in the Free World?
They have locked you out of Maine:
"Coronavirus rules for Maine tourists ‘distressing’ for state’s hospitality industry" by Brian MacQuarrie Globe Staff, June 26, 2020
OGUNQUIT, Maine — In a state where summer tourism is indispensable to the economy, tough COVID-19 restrictions on out-of-state visitors have prompted dire warnings of irreparable harm from many in the Maine lodging business.
“Our industry has come to a full stop because of this virus,” said Nancy White, managing director of the sprawling Cliff House resort in Cape Neddick. “Hasn’t COVID done enough damage to us?”
On Friday, Maine opened its lodgings to all out-of-state visitors, but there’s a daunting barrier. Guests who don’t live in New Hampshire or Vermont must abide by these options: Quarantine for 14 days in Maine before or after checking in, or test negative for COVID from a specimen taken no more than 72 hours before arrival.
The restrictions apply to “all Maine lodging, campgrounds, seasonal rentals, and other commercial lodging, such as Airbnb,” according to a state government website.
Arrivals from New Hampshire and Vermont are exempt because the rate of active COVID cases there is similar to Maine’s number, but guests from visitor-rich Massachusetts, where infection rates have dropped dramatically, are not.
“Who will want to spend the money to quarantine for 14 nights?” asked the third-generation owner of the 83-year-old Beachmere Inn, Sarah Diment, as she looked around the lush, oceanfront lawn that once was her childhood playground. “Summer doesn’t come back in this business. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.”
This will also be our last quasi-normal summer, too, so enjoy it.
There also is the testing option, but that means scheduling a test, being tested, waiting for the results, and driving to Maine — all within three days. Several innkeepers described that alternative as impracticable, if not impossible, for out-of-state visitors.
Forget that.
Hotel occupancy is plummeting. Many seasonal staff haven’t been rehired, and innkeepers at century-old resorts and quaint bed-and-breakfasts are worried that the business they lose this year will vanish for good if visitors head elsewhere.
Already has.
“From a perspective of how Maine is welcoming our visitors, we are definitely going down the wrong path,” Diment said.
Too late to reverse course.
The Maine hospitality industry usually employs 110,000 people, Hewins said. Last summer, 22 million visitors traveled to the state, dwarfing its population of 1.3 million. This summer, only 7 million to 10 million visitors are expected, said Steve Hewins, president of the trade group HospitalityMaine. “The second wave of what is going to come for the state of Maine is the economic collapse of what remains of this industry,” he said.....
Don't they care about lives up there?
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Probably better off not making the car ride anyway, if you know what I mean (just be fighting the whole way).
Can always head to Mount Rushmore:
"Warnings have been made about the Trump administration’s plans for this year’s celebration. The plans include a giant fireworks display for July 3 at Mount Rushmore, despite a 10-year ban on such shows because of the risk of wildfire posed to thousands of acres of forest land. Firefighters battled a wildfire just this week 6 miles from Mount Rushmore. Environmental officials have said toxic residue from the fireworks pose a pollution threat to the national memorial’s drinking water. Health experts have warned that the event will draw crowds that can easily spread the novel coronavirus. Trump plans to attend the Mount Rushmore event and celebrate the actual holiday from the White House with events that include a military flyover....."
Even thought that event is outside, it's a super-spreader..... as opposed to the correct kind of authority-approved action:
"Baker overstated the number of protesters who tested positive for COVID" by Matt Stout Globe Staff, June 26, 2020
When I first glanced at the headline in print it said he was incorrect on the percentage, and I assumed the rate was higher. I was wrong.
By nearly all accounts, the development was positive news: 2.5 percent of demonstrators who took part in events protesting police brutality and systemic racism had tested positive for the novel coronavirus at free testing sites across Massachusetts. Governor Charlie Baker, in making the announcement Tuesday, said he considered the figure to be “quite low.”
It also was wrong.
The figure Baker originally disclosed was, in fact, nearly double the actual share of demonstrators who received positive COVID-19 tests, according to data released Friday by his administration. The state’s new disclosure shows that of 16,526 tests conducted across the 50-plus pop-up testing sites, about 1.3 percent came back positive.
All that proves is the TEST RESULTS are either COMPLETELY UNRELIABLE, COMPLETELY BOGUS, or the authorities are FABULOUS LIARS!
Readers, this BG crap is reaching the point of agenda-pushing ridiculousness!
Baker, speaking Tuesday, had said there had been 17,617 tests conducted — which also inflated the number of tests that demonstrators received — meaning at the 2.5 percent rate he cited, about 440 people would have tested positive for COVID, but, in reality, there were 210 positive tests, according to results submitted from the individual sites and released Friday in response to a Globe request.
It is becoming more and more clear on a daily basis that the government and its Globe mouthpiece have no connection whatsoever to reality.
A Baker spokeswoman said Friday that since the governor’s announcement, officials “continued to refine the data, including removing some duplicative records,” to explain the marked difference in the data.
(Blog editor shakes head in exasperation)
The 1.27 percent positive rate “is the most up-to-date number” for the tests conducted on demonstrators and protesters, the spokeswoman confirmed.
The new data doesn’t dramatically change the conclusion that Baker and epidemiologists had originally drawn: Even as thousands of people gathered in demonstrations sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, many had taken precautions such as wearing face coverings that experts believe can dramatically reduce the risk of spreading the virus.
Baker also noted that virtually all the events took place outside, and in many cases, people were moving, further helping to blunt any potential transmission. The test results, he said Tuesday, were a “big indicator about how important it is for people to follow the guidance and the rules.”
But you can't congregate at the beach or outside a church or go to a football game or outdoors Trump rally.
When will people wake up to this obvious $cam and fraud?
In a statement, state officials described the new numbers as “updated” self-reported data the state had aggregated from the 52 testing sites, more than half of which were run by CVS. The majority of the free tests were conducted on June 17 and 18; four sites collectively offered hundreds of tests on a third day.
The state statistics carry the malodorous stench of fermented $hit.
Cambridge Health Alliance reported the most tests, conducting 3,575 across three pop-up sites in Cambridge, Malden, and Somerville, 1.2 percent of which were positive, but the sites with the highest positive rates were in hard-hit, predominantly minority cities that have already suffered high infection rates.
When combining those results with other testing data from those two days, the state’s overall positive test rate stood at 2.45 percent over the stretch, a figure that hews closely to what Baker originally described for the free testing sites alone.
The Baker administration did not release a breakdown of demographic data for those who received tests at the pop-up sites, but with the addition of those sites, the number of younger people being tested statewide soared compared to the previous two days.
For people in their 20s, it jumped by 53 percent, the largest increase for any age group, the data show. Testing of people in their 30s also spiked, by 45 percent, as did those given to people 19 or younger, which saw a 31 percent jump.
In fact, all age groups saw some type of increase, except for those 80 years or older.
The data did not show significant increases in testing on Hispanic and Black people on those two days compared to the previous two, but the figures come with a caveat: In half the tests conducted across the state on June 17 and June 18, no data on race or ethnic status was recorded.....
OF COURSE!
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THE LYING SHAMELESSNESS KNOWS NO BOUNDS when it comes to the Bo$ton Globe!!
Related:
"Governor Charlie Baker and his team on Friday touted changes they’ve made to an economic development bill they filed with the Legislature prior to the pandemic. The changes, officials said, would pump additional tens of millions of dollars of investment into boosting affordable housing for communities of color and creating opportunities for minority-, women-, and veteran-owned businesses. In addition, the Baker administration is proposing a rule change that would allow local city councils and select boards to approve housing projects by simple majority rather than a two-thirds supermajority, in an effort to spur more development of affordable, moderately-priced, transit-oriented and senior housing. “There’s no question” that the pandemic “has laid bare a number of significant issues and challenges for urban communities and especially communities of color, many of which relate to a lack of affordable housing in those communities,” Baker said, adding that his administration has been working on the issue for the last two years. In many communities of color, Baker said, “The process to develop new housing and affordable housing is profoundly difficult, and that needs to get fixed.” Separately Friday....."
See: Baker says pandemic adds to the need for his Housing Choice bill
Also $ee:
Sanofi expedites its vaccine timeline, strikes $2.3B deal with Translate Bio
It's another DNA-altering RNA vaccine!
Akouos raises $213m in its IPO
I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over the chewing:
"Albertsons, owner of Shaw’s and Star Market supermarkets, emerged Friday from 14 years of private ownership by Cerberus Capital Management with a whimper as its shares failed to take off after a shrunken initial public offering. The stock opened in New York at $15.50, below the targeted price range of $18 to $20. Private equity firm Cerberus and other backers of the supermarket chain sold just 50 million shares to raise $800 million, having earlier offered 65.8 million shares to potential investors. The shares fell 3.44 percent to close at $15.45. While the pandemic has boosted the grocer’s business, the company had total debt of $8.7 billion as of its last fiscal year, according to its filings. That makes it more levered than US supermarket rivals Sprouts Farmers Market Inc. and Grocery Outlet Holding Corp., according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It’s also behind rivals such as Walmart and Kroger in rolling out popular services such as free curbside pickup of online orders. Chief Executive Officer Vivek Sankaran said in an interview the company has gained market share in recent months thanks to a “significant increase’’ in new shoppers, as Americans shifted to consume more food at home. He said the company will invest more to accelerate its e-commerce business. Albertsons’ public debut comes after a failed attempt five years ago. In 2015, the company filed for a listing to raise as much as $1.7 billion before eventually withdrawing that plan....."
The "opportunity for growth" left them hungry and grounded:
"American Airlines will start booking flights to full capacity next week, ending any effort to promote social distancing on its planes while the United States sets records for new reported cases of the coronavirus. American’s move matches the policy of United Airlines but contrasts sharply with rivals that limit bookings to create space between passengers to minimize the risk of contagion. American said Friday that it will continue to notify customers if their flights are likely to be full, and let them change flights at no extra cost. The airline said it will also let passengers change seats on the plane if there is room and if they stay in the same cabin. The number of confirmed new COVID-19 infections in the United States hit an all-time high of 40,000 Friday, according to Johns Hopkins University....."
Time to land this f**ker:
"Rising coronavirus infections roiled investors on Friday, sending stocks into a sharp decline as big-economy states like Texas and Florida put a pause on reopening to stop the disease’s spread. Goldman Sachs was the biggest drag on the Dow, its shares sliding 8.6 percent, after the Federal Reserve said it will cap dividends and restrict stock buybacks of the big banks as part of a “stress test” and analysis of the impact of covid-19. “While I expect banks will continue to manage their capital actions and liquidity risk prudently, and in support of the real economy, there is material uncertainty about the trajectory for the economic recovery,” Fed Vice Chair Randal Quarles said in a statement....."
At least $ports are coming back come hell or high water!
