Monday, August 24, 2020

Grand Old Plague, Convention Edition: 177,248 Dead the first day

446 Deaths April 23, 489 April 24. In the Sunday-Monday reporting aberrations that is the lowest two-day total since July 12-13.

Daily Cases are on Aug. 24, so far, but near the end of the day, at 37,266, actually a slight rise from Aug. 23 and Aug. 17.

My sense, only that, is that we have turned a corner. I think this thing is on the run and if we pressed and pressed we would be able to defeat it in fairly quick order. I see only one contingency that could halt or reverse the trend, the opening of schools at all levels, and the resumption of super-spreader events like college tackle football. Three of the five Power Conferences, the SEC, ACC, and Big XII (which has X members) are playing. The SEC packs 'em in in mammoth capacity stadia--Alabama, Auburn, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Georgia. The Big XII, or  X, has got Texas, Oklahoma, Okie State, Texas Tech, and Couch Burn. The ACC fortunately for this contingency has Miami and Pitt. Social distancing would not be a problem in those stadia if they were giving free 100% effective vaccine shots as a lure to fans to attend. But the ACC also has Clemson.

The school and football openings are the best opportunity for Trump to reinforce his message that he is not a bird brain because a bird brain would still have the sense to fly straight ahead whilst Trump with his brain flies backwards. Tomorrow is a tell-tale day, the typical start to the week's reporting peaks through Saturday. I predict...I don't have the confidence for a prediction...I am hopeful, and that hope is not a forlorn one but has some basis in recent history, that we will be short of last Tuesday's 1.324k Deaths.