Estimates

President Trump points at a bar graph, Getty Images

We have reached several bigly pandemical milestones. Yesterday, the 'global confirmed cases' total passed three million; the 'global death' total passed two hundred thousand. Also yesterday, the 'US confirmed cases' total passed one million; the 'US death' total was just below sixty thousand. The US will pass the 'mythical' sixty thousand mark later today (link to an article by Mike Tomasky, a childhood acquaintance). The data model used to generate that sixty thousand number, at IHME, has revised its expected total to over seventy-four thousand. Today, Portugal has under twenty-five thousand confirmed cases, and still under a thousand deaths.

These are the top-level stats that we can use to measure the pandemic; they give us scale. Now, states and nations are moving to 're-open', at least in part. The White House published gating criteria for the regions to re-open. One of the most aggressive states is Georgia, which began to re-open on Friday. Its governor, Brian Kemp, is flagrantly ignoring the criteria. Almost making matters worse, Georgia is scoring well, relative to other states, with informational tools like testing, so Governor Kemp should know better. Georgia has tested at a rate of about fourteen thousand per million; Portugal has tested at thirty nine thousand per million.

Interestingly, Georgia has about the same population as Portugal, both with around ten and a half million. And both Georgia and Portugal confirmed it's first COVID-19 case on March 2. This sets up an intriguing comparison. One notable statistical difference is in land area: Georgia is about fifty percent larger than Portugal.

Yesterday, the Portuguese government announced the end of the State of Emergency starting May 3rd. They announced that the nation would drop to a State of Calamity, but the kinds of restrictions that will still be in place are similar to those announced in Georgia. However, it seems that, unlike Georgia, larger venues like movie theaters and dine-in restaurants will remain closed, though universities will be given the option to restart.

Portugal's State of Emergency and stay-at-home orders began on March 19th; Georgia closed schools at about the same time, but did not order shelter-in-place until April 2nd. On April 1st, Portugal had almost twice as many cases (8,251 vs 4,748), so the growth curves have been different. Georgia passed Portugal in cases and deaths in just the past two or three days.

The White House and CDC criteria recommends a 'fourteen-day downward trajectory'; I could find no further guidance on how to calculate this. If we look at the confirmed cases data, we can apply, say, a ten-day rolling average trend line. Georgia's line rises steadily until about April 16th, then stays flat at just over eight hundred cases per day for about a week. From there it is on a downward trend for just a day or two when the state begins to re-open on April 24th. Portugal's line rises until April 5th, then stays flat at just under eight hundred cases per day until about April 10th. It has been dropping now for almost three weeks. Georgia's rolling average ending on April 28th is about seven hundred per day; Portugal's is about five hundred per day.

from Wikipedia, data source, GA Dept of Health

from Wikipedia, data source, Portugal DGS

By yesterday, the datasets for Georgia and Portugal were running almost in parallel, when considering total cases and deaths. Georgia reported just under twenty-five thousand (24,844) total confirmed cases, and Portugal reported just a little lower (24,322). Georgia reported just over a thousand (1,036) total deaths, and Portugal reported just under (948). However, day over day, over the most recent two weeks Georgia's numbers are growing much faster than Portugal's: about four percent (4.10%, or 733/day) to about two and half percent (2.45%, or 491/day) – these rates correspond with the rolling averages above.

In terms of deaths, a lagging statistical indicator, Georgia is increasing faster as well. Georgia is growing about six percent (5.73%, or 34.1/day), and Portugal about four percent (3.89%, or 25.4/day). So I'm very curious to watch what will happen going forward. What difference will it make: the few days earlier that Portugal locked-down, and the few days later that Portugal will open up?

Another interesting snap-shot of the pandemic is posted on Kieran Healey's blog. Here, Healey has nerded-out with some Maps data that Apple made public a few days ago. City by city, Healey shows the impact the pandemic has had on iPhone travel data: walking, driving, and mass transit. There are interesting spikes, for example, in the transit graphs right before the lock-downs as, perhaps, travelers scrambled to get home (look at Barcelona, and Stuttgart, for example). Also shocking to see how little the pandemic affected data for the cities in Taiwan (Taichung, Taipei).

However, science requires peer review and confirmation through research, so I truly appreciated Healey's providing context:

The tendency to launch right into what social scientists call the “Storytime!” phase of data analysis when looking at some graph or table of results is really strong. We already know from other COVID-related analysis how tricky and indeed dangerous it can be to mistakenly infer too much from what you think you see in the data.

Good words to hold onto while we move through the pandemic. Regardless, we still strive to make some sense of this. As scary as these times are, there is a kind of natural fascination at work, as we watch nations and people react. Like estimates, those reactions live between fact and fiction.

cases: 3,141,981 global • 1,037,416 USA • 24,505 Portugal • 429 Taiwan

deaths: 218,564 global • 59,221 USA • 973 Portugal • 6 Taiwan 

---

Here is an interesting article on CNN about the scientists trying to find the origins and get ahead of the next pandemic.

Also, speaking of scientists, here is a video lecture with the Vice President of Taiwan, Dr. Chen Chien-jen, an epidemiologist trained at John Hopkins. Dr. Chen will soon be succeeded by Dr. Lai Ching-te, a medical doctor with a degree in public health from Harvard. Compare them to the Head of the US Coronavirus Task Force, VP Mike Pence – an anti-science, christian-conservative lawyer.

How is he going to kill me?

Earlier his week, I enjoyed getting reacquainted with explainer extraordinaire Michael Lewis on the Al Franken podcast. His book, The Fifth Risk, should be required reading for anyone who complains about the government. In the book, he recounts his journey through a series of departmental briefings that Trump's transition team never took – because there was no real transition team. He explains how he came to write the book in the first place (jump to 39:30 and listen to this little section):

As [Donald Trump] was walking up the White House steps, remember when the Obamas are waiting to let him in, greet him, and hand him the keys to the White House, I was in bed recovering from a surgery and I had opioids in me. And I hated them. I mean, I was vomiting. I was in a miserable state of mind. And the thought that crossed my mind was: how is he going to kill me?

Despite our moving to Portugal and gaining some distance, that question has been ricocheting around, intensely, inside my skull for about three days now. Looking back, before the start of the week, the sorry trail of startling techniques that Trump has dreamt up during the pandemic to threaten our existence included: by encouraging the 're-open' protests, by assuming 'total authority', by removing the IG at the DoD. and by claiming COVID-19 cases would peak by Easter.

In just the past three days, there are so many more to add to the list.

By removing the Director of BARDA 

On Tuesday night, I checked my iPad and saw a news notification that the Director of BARDA, Dr. Rick  Bright, had been 're-assigned'. This grabbed my attention because BARDA came up twice in my recent research and news-collecting: the first was when Dr. Perter Hotez mentioned them as a funding agency for the neglected efforts to develop a coronavirus vaccine, and second when the NY Times reported on BARDA's stalled efforts to replenish the Strategic National Stockpile with ventilators. Clearly, BARDA was a key agency, if not the most important point of coordination, in the US's efforts to develop countermeasures to COVID-19.

Dr. Bright has filed a complaint with the HHS IG and released a statement through his lawyers, hoping for a stay of his dismissal. While the news media has focused on his apparent accusations of 'politics or cronyism' for the removal, the line that got me was this:

While I am prepared to look at all options and to think "outside the box" for effective treatments, I rightly resisted efforts to provide an unproven drug on demand to the American public. I insisted that these drugs be provided only to hospitalized patients with confirmed COVID-19 while under the supervision of a physician.

His statement indicates that he resisted the approval of a program in which hydroxychloroquine would be made available to the public 'on demand' – at home, without a COVID-19 confirmation, without medical supervision.

That's deeply disturbing.

By contradicting the Director of the CDC

CDC director warns second wave of coronavirus is likely to be even more devastating (Washington Post headline, April 21)

'There’s a possibility that the assault of the virus on our nation next winter will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through." (Dr. Robert Redfield, Director of the CDC, April 21)

"Totally misquoted; I spoke to him, he said it was ridiculous." (President Trump, April 22)

"I'm accurately quoted in The Washington Post as 'difficult'." (Dr. Robert Redfield, Director of the CDC, April 22)

Once we saw that BARDA headline, we switched on the news. We had seen clips of the Task Force Briefings on YouTube, but we had never seen them live, and we were definitely not prepared for the opening video we saw (above). Trump said Dr. Redfield was 'totally misquoted'; Dr. Redfield said he was not – but, he fine-tuned his language from 'worse' to 'complicated', and from 'devastating' to 'even more difficult'. They were just nitpicking words, Trump (no master of nuance) trying to wordsmith every expression of 'bad'.

Not satisfied with repudiating the idea that an autumn with two epidemics might not be a good thing, Trump went on to suggest that COVID-19 would not return at all:

We may not even have corona coming back, just so you understand.

By conning the Mayor of Las Vegas

Two weekends ago, Trump's 'LIBERATE' tweets fueled the re-open protests, which were essentially campaign rallies. Today, the Governor of Georgia re-opened his state, initially with Trump's approval, and then without it. But the most stupefying form the re-open movement has taken so far was Wednesday's nonsensical interview by CNN's Anderson Cooper with Mayor Carolyn Goodman of Las Vegas.

Mayor Goodman called to 'open up Las Vegas': hotels, casinos, restaurants, boutiques, sports venues. Though lacking the authority to override Nevada's stay-at-home orders, her statements could still incite business owners and others to take irresponsible action. She provided no guidance in terms of precautions, and left that up to the business owners. Shockingly, she got into a circular quarrel with Cooper over whether she wanted Las Vegas to act as a 'control group' for COVID-19 testing:

No, no, no. No, wrong. Absolutely wrong. Don't put words in my mouth. Excuse me, what I said was I offered to be a control group and I was told by our statistician you can't do that because people from all parts of southern Nevada come to work in the city. And I said, 'Oh that's too bad,' because I know when you have a disease, you have a placebo that gets the water and the sugar and then you get those that actually get the shot. We would love to be that placebo side so you have something to measure against.

It's like watching a Looney Tunes argument.

By asking a DHS Under Secretary to test disinfectant injections

Yesterday, he raised the lunacy to seriously dangerous levels. At the Task Force Briefing, Trump introduced the DHS Under Secretary for Science and Technology, William Bryan, as a doctor (he is not a doctor). After a presentation explaining how the SARS-CoV-2 might be killed on surfaces and in the air, Trump asked Bryan to investigate various treatment options:

So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said that hasn't been checked but you're going to test it. And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do, either through the skin or in some other way? And I think you said you're going to test that, too, sounds interesting.

Right, and the I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning, because you see it gets in the lungs, and it does a tremendous number on the lungs? So it'd be interesting to check that.

In the wake of those requests most of today's news has been a series of doctors, health experts, government agencies, chemical suppliers, cleaner manufacturers, and poison centers all scrambling to tell the public not to ingest or inject disinfectants. Trump now claims he was asking 'sarcastically ... just to see what would happen'.

My. God.

The global total of COVID-19 cases is over two and three quarters million and the total of deaths is nearly two hundred thousand. The US total is one third of the global cases and a quarter of the global deaths. Portugal has over twenty-two thousand cases and over eight hundred deaths.

cases: 2,761,121 global • 903,098 USA • 22,797 Portugal

deaths: 193,671 global • 51,061 USA • 854 Portugal

God Bless America

'Re-open' protest, Olympia, Washington, April 19, Getty Images

I attended high school in New Hampshire, where the license plates say 'Live free or die'. That always struck me as existing on a fine line between a slogan and a threat. The distinction is if it's said with pride or contempt – in other words, who is expected to die?

Today we have our regular call with our financial planner. What a time to talk about finances. She takes our call, surprisingly, from her office; turns out they need to catch up on a lot of administrative work that has gone untended. I won't lie, I was kind of curious to see the inside of her house. Toward the end of the call, our conversation wanders to my mother's financial planning, which is a mess for a whole other set of reasons.

My mother trusted her money to Eric; she believed this man to be a financial planner, but he was really just a salesman, working on commission, pushing a specific sets of investments. We have been able to remove Eric and untangle most of his work, but there are a few things that are more difficult to undo – one in particular is a twenty-year annuity that is tied up with penalties. This financial planner sold my eight-nine year old mother a twenty-year annuity. When confronted, point by point, Eric repeated, "I only did what your parents asked me to do" – with the applied smile and assurance of someone who’s had practice with that line.

With thoughts of Eric still fresh, I watch the above CNN interview with Pastor Tony Spell. The context is excruciating: Spell continues to defy state orders in Louisiana, buses in hundreds of people from the surrounding counties for services, feeds them, neglects health precautions (masks, distancing), and asks for donations of stimulus checks.

The Bible tells us to lay hands on the sick and they shall recover and will continue to do that without the fear of the spread of any virus.

The interviewer for CNN, Victor Blackwell, points out that Spell's own lawyer, who attended the service on Palm Sunday is now hospitalized with COVID-19. His lawyer's wife, who did not attend, is also positive for SAR-CoV-2. Another congregant died last week, which makes Spell's assurance that 'they shall recover' an obscene con. It also gives his continued defiance the appearance of manslaughter, with a smile and a blessing. Like another who’s practiced his lines, he says:

You have no way to prove that they contracted this virus in our services.

It's Tuesday. It's always Tuesday now.

Today, the world has two and a half million cases of COVID-19, with one hundred and seventy thousand deaths. The US has eight hundred thousand cases and well over forty thousand deaths. Portugal has over twenty thousand cases and seven hundred deaths.

Any predictions the the virus would only kill sixty thousand in the US, as was reported just two weeks ago, are starting to sound like a con, too. At the present rate, the US will blow past sixty thousand by the end of April.

cases: 2,501,156 global • 800,932 USA • 21,379 Portugal

deaths: 171,810 global • 43,006 USA • 762 Portugal

---

UPDATE: Pastor Tony Spell was handcuffed and arrested near his church this afternoon, and faces charges of aggravated assault.

Authority

"When somebody's the President of the United States, the authority is total. And that's the way it's got to be. It's total. It's total." (President Trump, April 13th)

This is the one-month anniversary of Portugal's State of Emergency decree, which has been extended til May 1st (before the emergency, the country was already in a state of 'alert', with social distancing being practiced, restaurants closed, events cancelled, etc. – the alert was declared March 12th and followed WHO's pandemic declaration on March 11th). It's a bit cloudy lately, but still always warm; next week we'll be back in the 70's (°F, 20's °C). Things are still super quiet here, and the Portuguese, sensibly, seem content to trust the government and ride this out. So we've been like this now for over a month.

"We are not going to cause problems for the country just to cause problems for the government." (Rui Rio, Portuguese opposition leader, Social Democratic Party)

It's difficult to process the stream of lunacy flowing from the US. It's not just that the politicians playing 'responsibility keep-away' while assuming all the power, it's the media doing the same. Why have TV-doctors, like Dr. Oz, Dr, Phil, and Dr. Drew, been given an audience? They are not authorities in infectious diseases; Dr. Phil is not even a medical doctor.

For example, Dr. Oz suggested that re-opening schools is like 'appetizing' low-hanging fruit; it is not. In order to re-open schools, you need to basically put mass-transit back on a regular schedule, restart public and private school buses. Those buses need to be cleaned for each route. The drivers need PPE and training. Can the students sit side-by-sie on the benches? Who knows.

In order to get all the teachers back, you need to re-open child-care and day-care centers. Also, everything needed to support general commuting needs to re-open: gas stations, toll systems, parking garages, police, safety personnel. It's not just students and teachers, it's deans, counselors, nurses, librarians, coaches, and administrative staff. Schools include: food and supply deliveries, emergency and security systems, landscaping and janitorial services. How are all those people screened and prevented from touching common items?

"I tell you, schools are a real appetizing opportunity. [T]he opening of schools may only cost us two or three percent in terms of total mortality." (Dr. Mehmet Oz, April 14th)

"Look, the fact of the matter is, we have people dying. Forty-five thousand people a year die from automobile accidents." (Dr. Phil McGraw, April 16th)

"Because of panic, not because of the virus. The flu virus in this country is vastly more consequential, and no one is talking about that." (Dr. Drew Pinsky, March 3rd)

And it's not just classes – how do you feed a few hundred or a few thousand kids in a cafeteria? how do you space them out? how do you adjust schedules to minimize contact and exposure? do you need to source compostable sporks? who disinfects the dining hall? what about recess? sports? performing arts?

What scale of effort needs to be applied to re-open schools for a month or two?

I assume the folks at Fox News pay their own experts and package these stories because their viewers can consume simple answers. They know that opening schools is a necessary first-step for getting everybody back to work; after all, how can you go to work if the kids are still at home? But there are so many moving pieces involved, and so many who would be exposed.

Just to note the obvious, all of these 'experts' are using their 'authority' to frame these disconnected 'facts' to create a story of 'acceptable losses'. Dr. Oz is talking about a Lancet study that calculated a two to four percent prevention rate in total deaths from COVID-19 as a result of closing schools; that would be about 650-1300 prevented deaths (based on today's statistics, which would increase proportionally with infections). Dr. Phil suggests that we live with forty-five thousand automobile deaths per year, but those deaths are spread out over a year, not a month; and stopping one bad driver does not necessarily prevent other deaths, like preventing infections. Dr. Drew is comparing COVID-19 to the influenza virus, echoing President Trump, but there are vaccines and treatments for the flu; our health systems is built for the seasonal pressure from flu patients, unlike the overwhelming effects that COVID-19 is having on hospital ICU's, PPE suppliers, and ventilator manufacturers.

Lies. Damned lies. Statistics. Driving home the point of these absurd 'factually correct' statements is this graphical news story by the Washington Post, with the headline (compare for yourself its impact versus accidents or the flu):

Covid-19 is rapidly becoming America’s leading cause of death

At the same time, actual experts are devalued and attacked. Of course, the right-wing media personalities, including Laura Ingraham and Rush Limbaugh, target actual infectious disease experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx, but go further to accuse the well-informed, like Bill Gates. Worse, Gates is now at the center of a number of conspiracy theories because he gave a prophetic TED Talk in 2015 that was, maybe, a bit too prophetic for some.

The Gates Foundation has been working to rid the world of infectious diseases for nearly two decades. Gates does not have a medical degree, or a PhD, but he has years of operational knowledge, and on-the-ground experience. He is a better source of good information on a global pandemic and infectious diseases than Dr. Phil.

The frightening outcome of all this is that President Trump demands that the economy re-opens, the right-wing media comes up with 'alternative facts', their experts spin some story about how these facts offer these 'reasonable' options, and then protests break out to apply pressure on governors and other local authorities to re-open the economy: in Michigan, Ohio, and North Carolina. These are not 'just powers derived from the consent of the governed'; it's synthetic. It's manufactured.

It is difficult to image how any responsible party wouldn't try to prevent thousands, or tens of thousands of deaths. Or, as President Trump tweeted on Friday:

LIBERATE MICHIGAN! LIBERATE MINNESOTA! LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!

I had to go to the dentist on Wednesday. In the waiting room, we met a nurse who worked in a COVID unit here in Lisbon. He was actually helping our dentist with her PPE. I asked him if he was tired or stressed. He said that he was not, though he did complain that working all day with PPE was very uncomfortable. He seemed remarkably calm about the whole thing, even as he waited for the dentist.

There are about one thousand (1,033) COVID-19 cases, to date, in Lisbon (a city of 552,700).

There are two and a quarter million COVID-19 cases worldwide, and over one hundred and fifty thousand deaths. In the US, there are over seven hundred thousand cases and over thirty thousand deaths – US deaths have more than doubled in four days. In Portugal, there are almost twenty thousand cases and approaching seven hundred deaths.

cases: 2,256,844 global • 716,995 USA • 19,685 Portugal

deaths: 154,350 global • 33,082 USA • 687 Portugal

---

A very good summary story from the Guardian (link) and a video from Euronews (below).

Metrics

Lisbon is warm and sunny this Easter. This is the day President Trump proposed to 're-open' the country several weeks ago. How are high-level decisions being made? At the task force briefing on Friday, he still seemed eager to re-open, but proposed a new date of May 1st. During the briefing, a reporter asked the President, "what metrics you will use to make that decision?" Trump replied by pointing to his temple and saying, "The metrics right here, that's my metrics."

Friday was also the last day of service for the head of USAID, Mark Green; the leadership in the US continues to thin.

There are nearly two million COVID-19 cases worldwide, and over one hundred thousand deaths. In the US, there are well over half a million cases and over twenty thousand deaths. In Portugal, there are over sixteen thousand cases and over five hundred deaths.

The US now leads all nations in terms of both total confirmed cases and total deaths from COVID-19.

cases: 1,833,685 global • 553,380 USA • 16,585 Portugal

deaths: 113,296 global • 21,731 USA • 504 Portugal

---

On CBS This Morning, they play a roll-call of some of those who recently passed.

Masks

We are celebrating National Public Health Week by making cloth face masks. We cannot find masks in any of the shops or pharmacies in the neighborhood, though it seems we should be wearing them. At least we can say that the Portuguese government is trying to recover stolen face masks, not perpetrating their ‘thefts’, as in the US. These are the times.

Disturbing news continues to flood over the Atlantic ...

Last Friday we found out that Acting Secretary of the Navy, Thomas Modly, relieved Captain Brett Crozier of his command aboard the carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt. His ship stricken with COVID-19, Capt Crozier was unable to quarantine his crew and keep them safe. He wrote a terse letter that leaked to the SF Chronicle. Capt Crozier was dismissed despite Sec Modly‘s assurance that the letter "would absolutely not result in any type of retaliation". As the Captain departed the ship on Monday, the crew gave their CO an emotional send-off. Along with over one hundred and seventy shipmates, Capt Crozier tested positive for COVID-19.

On Saturday, we learned that President Trump fired the Inspector General, Michael Atkinson, who handled the Ukraine Whistleblower report. This, of course, followed the firings of: Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovonavitch, NSC Director for European Affairs Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, NSC Attorney Lieutenant Colonel Yevgeny Vindman (Alexander's twin brother), and Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland.

Yesterday we received the news that Sec Modly, himself, resigned. This, after he flew eight thousand miles to Guam, and got on the USS Rosevelt's PA system in order to, apparently, berate the crew and their former CO. Sec Modly claimed Capt Crozier was "too naive or too stupid to be a commanding officer" if he believed his letter would not leak. Ironically, it was a leaked audio clip of his ‘Trumpian’ announcement that provided the self-inflicted pressure for his own resignation. Modly was preceded as Secretary by Richard Spencer, who was fired last November following another personnel disagreement (Spencer also served briefly as Secretary of Defense, and was Modly's boss for about a week). Modly is succeeded by James McPherson, who becomes Trump's fourth Secretary of the Navy (sixth if you count Modly's and Spencer's discontinuous terms).

Also yesterday, we heard that Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham resigned after holding exactly zero press briefings; she served 281 days. She is succeeded by Kayleigh McEnany, Trump's fourth Press Secretary after Sean Spicer, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Grisham.

Finally yesterday, we learned that Glenn Fine was removed as the IG preparing to oversee the two trillion dollar COVID-19 relief fund. Fine was the Acting Inspector General for the Department of Defense, with a reputation for independence, and was set to chair the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee. Trump replaced Fine with Sean O-Donnell, the IG at the EPA, who will now serve both the EPA and the DoD. No reason was given for the dismissal.

These high-level government jobs are passed around like funny hats. No one wears them for very long. Too naive or too stupid? Maybe the only person laughing is Trump himself.

Meanwhile, there are one and a half million COVID-19 cases worldwide, and nearly ninety thousand deaths. In the US, there are well over four hundred thousand cases and, in a sharp rise, over fourteen thousand deaths. In Portugal, there are over thirteen thousand cases and approaching four hundred deaths; since April 1, the new case totals in Portugal have definitely leveled-off – a ray of hope that the quarantine is working.

cases: 1,495,051 global • 425,107 USA • 13,141 Portugal

deaths: 87,469 global • 14,262 USA • 380 Portugal

---

Painfully, we lost John Prine to COVID-19 yesterday, too. His wife Fiona, who recovered from the virus, was with him.

When I die let my ashes float down the Green River
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam
I'll be halfway to heaven with Paradise waitin'
Just five miles away from wherever I am
 – from "Paradise"

Trust

Great to see this feature report from PBS Newshour on Taiwan's efforts to manage the COVID-19 outbreak. Imagine: ex-pats are flocking home because citizens trust their government and their health care system.

Speaking of trust, here are a couple of quick snap-shot graphs. First from Portugal Resident, the logarithmic increase for new COVID-19 cases in Portugal is starting to drop-off the curve for the rest of Europe, and starting to line-up with South Korea – a hopeful sign. The US (EUA), on the other hand and unfortunately, is headed in the opposite direction.

New unemployment figures from the BLS for the US are out for last week, and they are shocking: 6.65 million new claims in the week. This is double the shocking record set the prior week of 3.31 million claims, so ten million new claims total. I believe this easily wipes out all the job gains made during the Trump administration. The stock market is similarly back to 'square-one', with regard to the Trump's term as President. These stats underscores the thin and fragile nature of the Trump 'economic boom', and how reckless it is to build such a house of cards, driving up insane levels of debt to finance an outrageous tax break for the rich, without building a safety net for everyone else. Shameful.

The world continues it's march to a million cases of COVID-19, with over fifty thousand deaths. The US is well over two hundred thousand cases, and well over five thousand deaths. Portugal is closing in on ten thousand cases and over two hundred deaths. Taiwan reports over three hundred cases and five deaths.

In less than two weeks (since my March 21 post), the world's COVID-19 case total has more than tripled from three hundred thousand cases, and more than quadrupled from nearly twelve thousand deaths. Cases in the US have increased twelve-fold from twenty thousand, and more than twenty-fold in terms of deaths. In Portugal, cases are up by nine times, from just over one thousand, and up from just six deaths. On Taiwan, cases have just doubled from over one hundred and fifty cases, and two deaths.

cases: 981,221 global • 235,787 USA • 9,034 Portugal • 339 Taiwan

deaths: 50,230 global • 5,764 USA • 209 Portugal • 5 Taiwan

---

UPDATE [10:30PM DST]: The world’s COVID-19 case total passes one million, adding over twenty thousand in just a few hours (1,007,977).

Happy Enchilada

Happy April Fools. I'm so glad for the news today that John Prine is 'stable', after hearing he’d been intubated last night in 'critical' condition with COVID-19 as I went to bed. So this is my new hand-washing song:

I know a guy that's got a lot to lose
He's a pretty nice fellow, kinda confused
Got muscles in his head, ain't never been used
Thinks he owns half of this town

Started drinking heavy, got a big red nose
Beat his old lady with a rubber hose
Then he took her out to dinner, bought her new clothes
That's the way that the world goes 'round

That's the way that the world goes 'round
You're up one day, the next you're down
It's a half an inch of water, you think you're gonna drown
That's the way that the world goes 'round

I was sitting in the bathtub, counting my toes
When the radiator broke, water all froze
I got stuck in the ice without any clothes
Naked as the eyes of a clown

I was crying ice cubes, hoping I'd croak
But when the sun come in the window, the ice all broke
I stood up and laughed, thought it was a joke
That's the way that the world goes 'round

That's the way that the world goes 'round
You're up one day, the next you're down
It's a half an inch of water, you think you're gonna drown
That's the way that the world goes 'round
That's the way that the world goes 'round
That's the way that the world ... goes 'round

It works as a hand-washing song (twenty seconds) if you sing the chorus and repeat the last line three times, which is the way the song usually ends. To understand the 'enchilada' foolishness that goes with the song, watch this rendition:

The world is approaching a million cases of COVID-19, with over forty-five thousand deaths. The US breaks two hundred thousand cases, and over a forty-five hundred deaths. Portugal is closing in on ten thousand cases and two hundred deaths.

cases: 920,939 global • 207,637 USA • 8,251 Portugal

deaths: 46,153 global • 4,601 USA • 187 Portugal

---

BONUS FOOL: According to this story in the Wall Street Journal, the New England Patriots' team plane is being used to transport 1.2 million face masks from China, at the request of Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker; about three hundred thousand are then be routed to New York in support of Gov. Andrew Cuomo. I know it’s a pandemic and everything, but the masks will be in the air for a while, so can’t they use that time to put Patriots stickers on the packages headed to New York or something?