Hillary in 1996 wanted to bring the superpredators to heel

Nine days after hitting the 90,000 threshold, Johns Hopkins shows over 100,000 COVID-19 deaths in the US

The addition of 10,000 deaths in nine days instead of seven, six and five previously shows how the stay-at-home policy in the US has slowed down the spread of infection and therefore the rate at which deaths have been adding to the total.

Using the convenient data shown at The Straits Times, there are still 1,153,566 active cases in the US after subtracting deaths and recoveries from total cases. At the case fatality rate of 5.8% we can expect 66,907 additional deaths within 4-6 weeks.

Adding more cases, however, will obviously mean adding more deaths beyond the current projection of about 167,000 deaths.

LOL, Michigan's rapacious utility Consumers Energy delays roll-out of new Summer Peak Rate program due to COVID-19

 

Due to COVID-19, Peak Pricing has Been Delayed Until 2021:

Given the economic challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, we are delaying the implementation of the summer peak pricing period until 2021.

While you will still see this rate code (1001) on your bill, we will not be moving forward with the peak pricing for this summer as initially communicated. You will instead have a flat rate for electricity throughout the remainder of 2020.

The Summer Peak Rate includes a peak period from June 1 through September 30. The peak period consists of “on-peak” and “off-peak” rate prices:

• “On-peak” rate price – From 2 to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday, your electricity rate will cost about 1.5 times higher than the “off-peak” rate price.
• “Off-peak” rate price – customers will pay a lower rate price for electricity used outside of on-peak times. This is the same rate you would pay October through May.

Trump will lose because he is alienating millions of people like this guy with incessant calls to reopen before it is safe

"Lehner, who now considers himself an independent, says he is frightened by the president's lack of leadership and maturity amid the nation's health and economic crisis. Several people in his gated community in Delray Beach, Florida, have gotten sick; at least one has died. He worries about his own health - he has an autoimmune disease - and also about his adult children, including a daughter who has gone back to work and a son whose pay has been cut. He plans to vote for Joe Biden in November."

More.

Trump took a big hit in April, now again in May, in Rasmussen's Trump Approval Index, net negative in double digits

Polls by both PEW of nearly 11,000 adults at the beginning of May and AP-NORC of 1,000+ in mid May both indicate 48% to 54% consensus that restrictions imposed by state authorities to prevent spread of COVID-19 have been/are "about right". The balance of opinion is split between "too harsh" and "not harsh enough".

Trump signed on to federal stay-at-home recommendations in mid March but began to argue against them within a week and hasn't let up since.

Meanwhile PEW found that 68% of all adults worried that states would re-open too soon and religious whites expressing falling support for Trump's crisis response.

Trump has a base of strong support at about a third of America.

Trump's greatest US economy ever suddenly has 25 million people on insured unemployment compensation

Somebody must have been asleep at the switch for something that bad to happen so quickly.

Who was that?

Projecting US deaths from COVID-19 to Nov 19, 2020 using optimistic assumptions

Daily US deaths from COVID-19 fell from 27,279 on 4/20 to 20,951 on 5/19, or 23.2% under circumstances of stay-at-home orders in many US states.

The following projection assumes, incorrectly but optimistically, that those orders would remain in place indefinitely, or at least the behaviors from them, and that case growth would continue to fall monthly at the same rate. 

Opening up the country as we are about to will eventually stop the decline trend and increase case counts and therefore death totals, but that's a problem for another day.

Assume that by 6/19 cases per day would fall to 16,090

by 7/19 to 12,357

by 8/19 to 9,490

by 9/19 to 7,288

by 10/19 to 5,597

Assume a simple average daily case addition per period of 18,520.5

14.223.5

10,923.5

8,389

6,442.5

each @30 days

Total cases added by 11/19: 1,754,970 @ 6% case fatality rate =  +105,298 deaths

plus 1.09 million existing cases @ 6% case fatality rate = +65,400 deaths

plus already existing deaths per Johns Hopkins = +92,149 deaths

Total deaths actual and baked in the cake by 11/19 = 262,847

Lots of variables could change the outcome, including improved treatment techniques in ICUs, ramped up use of new drugs like remdesivir, earlier diagnosis of patients through testing, earlier quarantining of the infected, stepped up contact tracing, more mask wearing in public, more social distancing, etc. The country seems quite divided about some of these, however, and many might throw caution to the wind while others do not. Much will depend on the character of local communities. In 1918 St. Louis turned out much differently than Philadelphia.

So as of right now, all things being equal, the much ridiculed original IHME estimate of 240,000 deaths looks more and more plausible with each passing day, even if the "by when" date isn't early August anymore.

USA hits 90,312 deaths from COVID-19 in John Hopkins University data, cases climb to 1,500,753

Here's the recent timeline of fatalities:

50k 4/24/20

60k 4/29

70k 5/5

80k 5/11

90k 5/18

We've gone from adding 10k dead every 5 days to every 6 days and to now 7 days. 

Safe to say we'll be at 100k dead in about a week, approximately May 25 or shortly thereafter.

If you subtract recoveries and fatalities from total cases, there remain roughly 1.09 million active cases as of right now. Keep that in mind for a moment in the context of stay-at-home orders more or less strictly applied around the country.

At the current case fatality rate of 5.95%, that means about 65k more deaths are baked in the cake as of right now, for a total of 155,000 deaths. This would be roughly by July 15.

I will be glad to be wrong and see the number fall, but I can't see why it should given the circumstances. Perhaps there will be improvement at the clinical care stage based on experiences to date. Hard to say.

One thing which might help is seeking help earlier. People have been afraid to go in to hospitals because they don't want to end up on a ventilator. There is evidence that seeking treatment earlier improves your odds.

That said, there is going to be disease spread picking up the pace as states re-open. The curve of infection has flattened precisely because of semi-quarantining of much of the population. Take that away and off we go again.

Ending stay-at-home will give new life to the epidemic in the US, and therefore to the death toll.

This isn't over by a long shot.

Meanwhile the secular bear market in stocks since August 2000 rolls on in April 2020

Return in the last 19.6 years lags the previous period of equal length by 75%, and lags long term return before that by 52%. 

April 2020 Climate Update for KGRR, Grand Rapids, Michigan

April 2020 Climate Update for KGRR

Max temp 75, Mean 79

Min temp 24, Mean 22

Av temp 44.2, Mean 46.5

Precip 4.09, Mean 3.31

Snow 2.2, Mean 2.4

HDD 617, Mean 553

HDD to date 5942, Mean to date 6399

Using Heating Degree Days, a deficit of 457 HDD from the mean to date indicates that this winter has been 7.14% milder through April than the mean winter through April.

May has already racked up enough HDD, however, to take this winter season out of the running to make the list of top ten warmest winters on record. 

Grand total foreign holdings of US Treasury securities in May, 2000-2019

Demand slowed from 2013 as stocks once again got a bid (permanent adoption of Bush tax cuts by Obama and Boehner removed uncertainty), but a flight to safety reappeared in 2019 and 2020. Total was still $6.8 trillion in Mar 2020 even after a big drop from Feb amid currency turmoil, the latest report.

The bid for bonds shows the global economy was already weak last year.

The only thing Trump has accomplished at "warp speed" is ruining the US economy because he ignored a deadly virus until it was too late

Trump, the supposed savior of US manufacturing, has presided over the utter collapse of manufacturing capacity utilization to a level in April 2020 never experienced in the post-war. The president could lawfully and easily order this unused capacity to make masks which would in fact protect everyone, and other PPE for hospital workers and care-givers to protect our front line workers, but he has not. Were he serious about re-opening the country, he would have made this JOB 2 on Feb 1, after JOB 1, which was hard-stopping all passenger air travel, the primary vector for the pandemic. Trump didn't do JOB 1, either.

Industrial production generally has imploded to levels never seen since 1919. The so-called America first president has done nothing in three years to make America strong enough to prevent this from happening. Remember Ann Coulter said long ago already that Trump was a lazy ignoramus. 

Motor vehicle production annualized has tanked 11 million units in just two months to fewer than 72,000 annualized. That's the typical monthly sales figure for a single popular car. 

Oh, I've forgotten unemployment, which also is unprecedented, though understated, at 14.7%. It's actually closer to 20%. North of 33 million not-seasonally-adjusted have made first time claims for unemployment from March 19th inclusive.

Trump's numbers are truly great, as in "you great oaf!"

Yes the government has "bailed out" the workers and the businesses, but with a Rube Goldberg machine which has been completely unfair in its results, picking winners by virtue of their established access to bankers or savvy state systems of unemployment administration. Bank or live somewhere not up to speed? Dats tuff, Anwar. You're a loser anyway.

Meanwhile coronavirus infections are set to soar again because our president is throwing a tantrum to open the country but hasn't made it safe to do so. He's had two months for that but has produced BUPKIS. If you want people to go back to work, they need masks. Where are the masks? Oh well, you were on your last legs anyway.

How anyone can vote to re-elect this level of horrific incompetence and reptilian danger is beyond me.

Beyond parody: Delusional Rush Limbaugh says red states are paying for all this emergency spending

Here:

"The red states are gonna create capital and money to transfer to pay these people their stupid welfare costs (and whatever else they’re using to bleed this country dry), while their population sits home, doesn’t work, waits for the federal check to show up — and they sit around and they trash the supposedly reckless red states. I cannot tell you how this irritates me".

No one is "paying" for anything. It's all borrowed. And Limbaugh's personal portfolio is probably buying a bunch of it, as is every portfolio out there, from individual investors to institutional, to sovereigns, etc. The entire world craves the safety and security of US Treasury securities and can hardly get enough of them, but Limbaugh thinks Republican states are carrying the whole world on their shoulders.

Even as Limbaugh was yammering away spouting stupid, 10-year Treasury securities were flying out the door at record low rates at auction:

"The U.S. Treasury held an auction for $32 billion of 10-year notes in Tuesday afternoon, selling them at a record low yield of 0.70%". 

Federal debt has soared from $23.5 trillion on March 16th to $25.1 trillion on May 11th, and it'll keep soaring.

The Federal Reserve Bank's balance sheet has soared from $4.1 trillion on February 26th to $6.7 trillion on May 6th, and it will keep soaring.

And they are just getting started:

"The central bank had previously balked at direct aid to nonfinancial businesses, but is set to finance trillions in relief across nearly every sector of the economy amid a historic downturn".

Meanwhile Federal Reserve lending operations at ultra-low rates continue to keep businesses alive which should have died long ago. They were doing it before Trump came along, did it with Trump's assent after his election, and will keep doing it.

The Trump administration has signed off on this gargantuan repudiation of free market capitalism, but Rush Limbaugh thinks it's all paid for by Joe Sixpack.

Trump marks the end of Republicanism's "fiscal conservative" brand for at least a generation, and that's what really irritates Rush Limbaugh. He's hitched his wagon to a wayward horse and now it's in the ditch along with the rest of the country.

Stupid is as stupid does.

Don't catch a "cold" down there in that puddle.

We live in a culture of death, which makes it an anti-culture, where a meaningless conservatism has sat still for millions upon millions of abortion deaths, and will sit still now for deaths from COVID-19

USA hits 80,239 COVID-19 deaths, 1,345,307 cases, according to Johns Hopkins data, mortality rate rises to 5.96%

Mr. 15-cases-going-to-zero:

Two months ago, on the morning of March 10, Michigan still had zero cases of SARS-CoV-2

Today, May 10, Michigan has 46,756 cases and 4,526 deaths.

The case fatality rate of 9.68% is the highest in the nation.

In my county of Kent, barely 21% of the cases are Caucasian. By far Hispanic or Latino people have the most infections at over 35%, with African Americans having fewer cases than whites at 19.5%. Asians have fewer than 8% of total infections.

Frankly when I began posting about this in late January after following the news in China quietly for a few weeks prior to that I never imagined we'd be in this situation.

I felt certain America's health care system was too robust to let it happen.

Boy was I wrong. 

15% of those tested in the US have turned up positive so far, and of those 5.9% have died. Mind you, the average flu season in the US sees 8% of the population estimated to have been infected, with just 0.1% dying.

South Korea, on which I had hung my hopes as the proper comparison, has had just 1.6% test positive so far, with just 2.3% dying.

It's infection rate came way down from the 4.7% which obtained in early March because it employed extensive testing, quarantining (using phone apps to track, and gps wrist bracelets where necessary for scofflaws) and contact tracing. In other words, South Korea acted like Big Brother if you are an American libertarian.

South Korea's mortality rate came up dramatically from the 0.6% which obtained in early March, but of course it was still early in the outbreak. Needless to say, America's current rate of death at 5.9% is still 156% higher than South Korea's, despite the massive rise from 0.6%.

Cases in South Korea stubbornly remain below 11,000 in a country of 52 million (.02/million) because it determined to stop the spread.

In the USA we have .4/million and climbing (1900% more) because we are not a serious country.

We are a country filled with and run by childish people whose disregard for the health care system resembles nothing so much as the disobedient child's interminable disregard for a parent who never disciplines it.

Guess what? SARS-CoV-2 is coming for you. The beating will continue until morale improves.

Case positivity rates for SARS-CoV-2 in countries with 1+million tests and in US states with the most tests

Ranked by most tests performed:

USA 15.1%

Germany 6.2%

Italy 8.7%

Spain 10.6%

UK 12.5%

France 12.8%

WHO says epidemic control is predicated on the case positivity rate falling to 10% and lower.

New York 29.8%

California 7.3%

Florida 7.6%
Texas 7.9%
Illinois 18.3%
New Jersey 45.6%
Pennsylvania 20.5%
Michigan 16.6%
Georgia 13.8%
Colorado 19.3%

It's the libertarian crazies among us who are clueless and spoiled, not the cooks, servers and dishwashers

"In other words, if they’re farming or working in a mine, they’re doing so by choice. This should be remembered the next time some spoiled or clueless American politician, economic thinker or worker yearns for a return of the jobs of the past. ... Increased devastation in the U.S. born of lockdowns will be cruel, and if not arrested through a cessation of lockdowns, will reduce Americans to work they previously wouldn’t have been caught dead doing".

-- John Tamny

How does 200,000 COVID-19 deaths by the 4th of July sound to you?

Trump did not keep us safe.

Trump will never understand how he could have stopped this outcome even after failing repeatedly from Feb 1.  Which means we're in for much worse after July 4th unless someone gets through to him.

Sad.

Chart.

Michigan falls to fourth for COVID-19 deaths, replaced in third by Massachusetts

This is the Reuters data.

NY Times is now behind a registration/pay wall.

The case mortality rate for the US has climbed to 5.96%.

New York's is 7.788%.

New Jersey's is 6.48%.

Massachusetts' is 6.13%.

Michigan's is 9.43% (worst in the nation).

USA hits 70,115 COVID-19 deaths according to Johns Hopkins data just six days after hitting 60,000, mortality rate rises to 5.88%

Donald Trump's 15-cases-going-to-zero now total:

1,192,119

COVID-19 in Australia: How did they succeed?

COVID-19 in Australia

cases 6801

deaths 95

case-fatality rate 1.4%

tests 633,107

test-case rate 1.07%

WHO indicates that it is essential to get the test-case rate below 10% in order to control any epidemic. Australia's rate of 1.07% shows that they've done that admirably well. By contrast, the USA's rate is still in the double digits at 16.5%. America didn't test for weeks and weeks at the critical beginning of the pandemic because of a faulty test, and still isn't testing nearly enough. Losing that early jump on the outbreak has put America way behind.

Australia has already tested 2.5% of its population. The US is still at 2.1%.

But other things need to be done, too, to control the virus and Australia has done them, whereas America looks ready to give up on most of them:

Australia’s response to the pandemic has largely centred on shutting its borders, limiting public gatherings and conducting large-scale testing and contact tracing.

Travelling overseas is banned, foreigners aren’t allowed to enter the country, and Australians who return from other countries are kept in mandatory quarantine at specially designated hotels for two weeks.

Social gatherings of more than two people are also forbidden and leaving the house is permitted only for essential reasons like buying food and exercising. ...

When someone tests positive, their close contacts are tracked down and ordered to self-isolate for two weeks.

The main reason for Australia’s success is probably its strict travel restrictions, says Adam Kamradt-Scott at the University of Sydney. About 70 per cent of Australians who have tested positive for covid-19 picked it up while they were overseas, making it important to stem this flow, he says, and being an island nation has made it easier for Australia to rapidly shut its borders.

Social distancing, testing and contact tracing have added to the success of travel bans, says Kamradt-Scott. Plus, there may be cultural factors that have limited the spread of the virus, like the fact that most Australians choose to live in separate dwellings rather than apartment buildings and older people who require care tend to live in care homes rather than with their families, he says.

Unlike many other countries, Australia has kept schools open, but they don’t appear to have been drivers of virus spread so far, says Kathryn Snow at the University of Melbourne.

Despite these successes, Australia has also committed some major blunders. For example, it allowed 2700 passengers to disembark from the Ruby Princess cruise ship on 19 March, even though many were showing covid-19-like symptoms. More than 600 cases have now been linked back to the ship. Some Australians have also ignored social distancing recommendations and crammed into beaches and parks. 

Australia has taken a big hit to GDP just like the US because it basically shut down business to help cope with the spread.

But Australia is in much better shape than we are in America because it is controlling the virus whereas in America the virus is still controlling us.

South Korea today has 0.0002 confirmed coronavirus cases per million population, America has 0.0033, 16.5x as many

South Korea's first coronavirus infection was reported on the same day as America's first infection, but South Korea practiced strict quarantine of infected people, contact tracing, widespread testing, mask-wearing and social distancing, without locking down its economy.

America did only the social distancing part after it was already too late, and then a hodge-podge of lockdowns with that.

As a result, South Korea has almost 11,000 confirmed cases today, but America has almost 1.1 million, 100x as many.

As for deaths, South Korea has 0.0000047 per million, the US 0.0001935 per million, 41x as many.

Year over year in 1Q2020, South Korean GDP actually grew by 1.3% vs. just 0.3% for GDP in the United States (BEA Table 6), 4.3x better.

South Korea has had far fewer cases of the disease, far fewer deaths and a much better economic outcome than in the United States because it wisely understood that what it had to do wasn't an existential threat to liberty.