From Worldometer (new COVID-19 deaths yesterday):
DAY USA WORLD Brazil India South Africa
2020
June 9 1093 4732 1185 246 82
July 22 1205 7128 1293 1120 572
Aug 12 1504 6556 1242 835 130
Sept 9 1208 6222 1136 1168 82
Oct 21 1225 6849 571 703 85
Nov 25 2304 12025 620 518 118
Dec 30 3880 14748 1224 299 465
2021
Jan 14 4142 15512 1151 189 712
Feb 3 4005 14265 1209 107 398
Mar 2 1989 9490 1726 110 194
April 6 906 11787 4211 631 37
May 4 853 13667 3025 3786 59
June 1 287 10637 2346 3205 95
July 7 251 8440 1595 817 411
Aug 4 656 10120 1118 532 423
Sept 22 2228 9326 839 279 124
Oct 6 2102 8255 543 315 59
Nov 3 1436 7830 186 458 23
Dec 1 1633 8475 266 477 28
2022
Jan 7 2025 6729 148 285 140
Feb 2 2990 12012 946 991 175
Mar 2 1778 7756 335 173 28
Apr 1 439 4056 290 52 12
May 5 225 2404 151 ? 64
June 2 216 1413 130 10 31
July 6 316 1627 335 35 12
Aug 4 311 2138 258 70 ?
Sep 1 272 1732 174 ? ?
Oct 6 281 1305 119 9 ?
Nov 3 167 980 16 ? ?
25 88 985 71 3 ?
Dec 3 149 1029 131 3 ?
8 194 1320 104 6 86
15 147 1295 124 4 ?
22 289 1637 165 9 ?
28 296 1768 337 2 ?
Summary:
- Japan led the world in new deaths with 415. #2 Brazil 337 and #3 U.S. 296.
- Japan also was #1 in new cases with 216,219, #2 S. Korea 87,517, #3 Germany 40,810, #4 Brazil 37,104 and #5 USA 36,881.
- New cases/million population.
- #1 Niue 9864
- #2 Hong Kong 2,744
- #3 Japan 1,722
- #4 S. Korea 1705
- #6 Taiwan 1,179
- #11 Germany 487
- #13 France 398
- #15 Singapore 260
- #25 USA 110
- #49 China 4
I would bet a lot that the hotspot today is not Japan, but China. The U.S. yesterday announced that all travelers from China from January 5 will need to test negative, regardless of nationality and vaccination status.
Under the new U.S. rules, travelers to the U.S. from China, Hong Kong and Macau, will be required to take a COVID-19 test no more than two days before travel and provide a negative test before boarding their flight. The testing applies to anyone 2 years and older, including U.S. citizens.
Similar restrictions no doubt will be set by the rest of the world. China has just not reported the truth from the beginning, and this misinformation miasma is worse today. In fact, they have essentially stopped publishing daily COVID-19 data.
- For example, in eastern Zhejiang province alone, the provincial government said it was experiencing about a million new daily cases. Located just south of Shanghai, this province has less than 2% the population of China. Now, this does not mean that China necessarily has 20 million cases/day, but certainly, it must lead the world by a wide margin.
- Maybe more meaningful is a leaked estimate by top Chinese officials to Bloomberg and Financial Times that as many as 250 million were infected in the first 20 days of December. Doing the calculations, this would mean that the entire country must have around 12.5 million new cases/day. So the new cases/day/million population rate of China would be around 9,000. Remember that the world's worst today is Japan with slightly more than 200,000 cases/day, which translates to a new case/million rate of 1,722. China would then be #2 to Niue (island off New Zealand), with 9864 new cases/million.
- So how many deaths is China experiencing? A rough estimate is that the world yesterday showed a mortality rate of 0.3% with 1768 total deaths. The result for China would then would be 37,500 deaths/day, or 21 times more than the entire world!
- Hot off the press: 50% of passengers from China on two flights to Milan TESTED POSITIVE!!!. WOW, WE CAN'T WAIT UNTIL JANUARY 5. TRAVEL RULES MUST BE INITIATED NOW!!!
- Something can't be right about all the above, but if true for China today, January will only be worse.
One more bit of covid news.
- In April, Shanghai had a COVID-19 asymptomatic rate of 70%, which was double the expectation as has been estimated by our CDC.
- Way back in 2020, Wuhan found that 82.1% were asymptomatic. Yet other studies in those days showed only a 4.52% asymptomaticity in in nursing homes. And only 0.75% of healthcare workers were asymptomatic. In other words, asymptomaticity ranged from 0.75% to 82.1%, which makes no sense.
- In the Beta and Delta outbreaks in South Africa, the asymptomatic rate was 2.6%. During Omicron, the asymptomatic rate increased to 16%.
- The Omicron wave in China showed China's asymptomatic rate at 70% (matches Shanghai data), but that 95% of cases either had no or very mild symptoms.
- The bottom line thus remains somewhat blurred. Is asymptomaticity close to 90% or 1%? I have not seen any kind of worldwide consensus.
Changing topics to my most despised subject (this is also a pun), how can Democrats keep Donald Trump relevant until July of 2024? That would be the highest order priority to win the presidency on 5November2024, hold the Senate and win back the House.
Amazingly enough:
Trump remains the most potent force in GOP politics, but polls show that his support among Republicans is beginning to soften. The share of Republicans who see Trump favorably dropped to 64% in December, according to a USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll, down from 75% two months earlier. More Republicans are open to other candidates as well. The same poll found that 61% of Republicans prefer a GOP candidate other than Trump who would pursue the policies from the Trump Administration. Thirty-one percent of Republicans want Trump to run in 2024, the poll found.
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The task of insuring for the relevance of Trump for almost two years, however, will be difficult. For one, Georgia, a Republican state, will be tasked by Republican insiders to nail him as soon as possible to avoid a Republican Convention showdown, scheduled from July 15-18, 2024 at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
There are other inconveniences, such as the New York effort to further penalize Trump's corporative activities. But no political problem here, for he will not go to jail. By the way, do you realize that there are 4,095 lawsuits on file against The Donald? I guess that comparison to the right says something about Republican presidents.
About his taxes, the House Ways and Means Committee will release on Friday Trump's tax returns of 2015-2020. Most likely there will not be too many legal problems for him. However, we will see that he might just not be as rich as he says he is. The fact that he tried to hide all this will at least be an embarrassment. And that is his best case outcome.
Earlier this week, the Georgia special grand jury wrapped up its probe of Trump and his allies to steal the state election. The Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is a Democrat. Changes are that she will not proceed with any particular speed to convict Trump. No official criminal charges yet But they have him on tape.
In a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the president suggested that the state's top elections official, a fellow Republican, could "find" the votes needed to overturn his narrow loss in the state to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump told Raffensperger he needed 11,780 votes, one more than Biden won. That was a mistake, Cunningham said, because the specific and transactional nature of that comment makes it hard to say he was just generally urging Raffensperger to look into alleged fraud.
The Department of Justice, no matter who says what, is today a Democrat weapon to try Trump. Attorney General Merrick Garland reports to President Joe Biden. They have on file now the 18-month House investigation, which recommends prosecuting Donald Trump.
The committee’s final report made 17 findings about the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, including that Trump plotted to overturn the 2020 results despite knowing he’d lost, sent an angry and armed mob to the Capitol and failed to respond to the violence as it unfolded on television.
They, too, will take their time, for they can wait until August of 2024 to prove anything, and will have three months of active effort until the November 5, 2024 presidential election. So far:
- Around 900 defendants have been arrested, from every state.
- 283 were charged for higher crimes, and 99 for lower ones.
- 470 pleaded guilty.
- 335 were adjudicated and received sentences, with 185 going to jail.
- They might proceed as they have for convicting the 6January2020 culprits. Start low and work up to Donald Trump. Perhaps John Eastman, said to be the architect of the effort, might get the initial attention. The House Special Committee reported:
At the heart of the committee’s story is evidence that Trump began planning to overturn the election months before voters went to the polls. Trump would follow the advice of allies like Rudy Giuliani, Steve Bannon and Roger Stone to declare victory on election night, despite signs that Biden was leading or likely to take the lead in several key swing states.
And, of course, what about the Mar-a-Lago classified documents? The more they look, the more they find. This trial can proceed, for the end result will not crush Trump, merely cause some deserved pain.
Ironic that the solution to preserving democracy might well be to back off on the the primary cause, former president Donald Trump. There seems to be a higher confidence today that our form of government seems secure enough, that we can wait to later convict him. He can still actually win the Republican nomination in July of 2024, but, surely, that will only further insure for Democrat-dominance on 5November2024. Is it worth that gamble?
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