COVID-19 Shutdown Diary
Slow but steady transition back to normalcy at work. Technically I work at a government facility but have been working remotely and technically haven't been in the on-site work location. I live fairly close to one gate, but no in-traffic during the COVID-19 crisis. Only a few weeks back they allowed outflow for the evening rush hour. So there is another local (main) gate but basically I need to drive a horseshoe shaped route through downtown which adds several miles and maybe another 15 minutes to my commute.
[It sort of reminds me of high school in south Texas. I lived at family housing at the local AFB. The high school (and nearby junior high down the road) were about a mile west from the base entry. But the intervening land was owned by a local rancher. The rumor was the government wanted to build a road directly to the school, but the rancher wouldn't negotiate an acceptable price for the easement, so the buses had to do a multi-mile horseshoe workaround through the local city. Sometimes we had to wait for buses to drop off kids from a first pass in the afternoon. A few of us used to hike through the ranch, rather than wait the 20-30 minutes for another bus; I think the first time I joined one or 2 others, but mostly in the dozen or so times I did this, I was by myself. The ranch was like a Texas stereotype, full of cacti, an occasional skull, and the ominous rattles of rattlesnakes. (I'm not sure what I would have done if bitten. But I think we as young people felt invincible.)]
It looks like they'll finally open up the more convenient gate for inbound traffic next week for the first time in months. Plus, my own workgroup, which has been working remotely, will start transitioning back to work on-site within a few days, at first the same one workday per week. So our team lead circulated a cubicle plan that alternated cubicles, presumably for social distancing. Now part of the point of bringing up these specifics is because of the relevant group discussion. The local protocol is to wear masks, at least when walking outside one's own cubicle. But one colleague seemed desperately worried about the prospects of catching COVID-19 from the rest of us. Dude! Even with 8.2 M cases (and keep in mind at least some of the initial cases were inferred without testing), that's less than 3% of the US citizens. Now, granted, many more people could have been infected and don't realize it with mild or no clear symptoms--and they can spread the disease during their two-week or so . It might be there are unusual circumstances behind the colleague's worry: maybe his household has a member with high-risk factors, say an elderly parent or a child with a fragile immune system.
The latest from Washpo: it does seem we are in an uptrend, not yet what I consider a surge per se, but most days over the past week are 57K or above; what makes things worrisome is we are heading towards flu season (yes, I've already taken my shot) which may also be a contributing factor to hospital utilization rates
New daily reported cases rose 9.1%
New daily reported deaths rose 1.7%
Covid-related hospitalizations rose 8.4%
Political Potpourri
One of the annoying things this election season is somehow the GOP has discovered my cellphone number, and I've been getting unsolicited texts from WV, SC, and AZ. I last cast a vote as a Republican in the 2016 SC primary, intending to support Rand Paul, who had already withdrawn from the race. I then voted for Cruz, mostly as a protest vote against Trump. I officially left the GOP when Trump clinched the GOP nomination. I don't think SC recognized the Libertarian Party, but Arizona did. And I left Arizona over 3 years ago. The WV ad was something like "Tell Manchin to vote for Judge Barrett's confirmation." I'm like, "Dude, I haven't voted in WV since 2014." I mentioned in a prior post that a Congressional candidate in my old SC district (or maybe her staff) had contacted me to do some campaign work (putting up signs, etc); I thought she was running for my Maryland district. But far the most prolific and annoying was been McSally, the incumbent running against Kelly, husband to Gabby Giffords, former Congresswoman, victim of gun violence. There are all these personal attack ads on Kelly; let's be clear: if I were still living in AZ, I would not be voting for Kelly. But let me be clear: McSally has been a little too Trumpkin for my tastes, and I really don't like personal attack ads. But, for God knows what reasons, I've gotten many texts from Democrats trying to register me in Arizona. I have no idea why they think I must be registered in AZ, but I have gotten flyers from AZ sent to my current MD address. (Maybe they think I'm in the military?) As for Democrats trying to recruit me, isn't that cute? Not a chance. Of course, I can always block them if they get too annoying.
I did publish a recent tweet saying basically Trump is done. Multiple negative events, including his disastrously unprofessional first debate, his getting infected with COVID-19 along with his unpopular handling of the crisis and his irrational decision to pull out of the second debate; he's behind in virtually every national poll by an average of over 7 points. He needed those last two debates more than Biden, but he refused to do a remote for the second debate, even while he was still infected. (I think he didn't like the fact they could cut his feed if he continued interrupting Biden.)
Now Biden had stretched his lead to almost 10 points, but almost everyone expected the race tightening a bit. I've been some polls showing a tie or leads within the margin of error in Iowa, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina. RCP had Trump taking back Ohio after earlier polls, but in the no-tossup scenario Biden is still swamping Trump with about 350 electoral votes. Trump isn't competitive in any Clinton state, so Biden is starting out with almost 230 votes and needs 270. Just to give an example, Texas has 38 votes and a recent poll there has Trump and Biden in a tie. If Biden wins Texas, he just needs one more Trump state, and not only does Biden lead in Michigan and Pennsylvania with statistically significant leads but RCP has AZ, FL, NC, IA, and WI leaning Biden, and Biden has clear shots to upset in TX, GA, and OH. So now Trump is having to play defense; maybe he can stave off a Biden landslide with a run of close races in the South. In the meanwhile, Biden has a huge campaign chest to take the fight to Trump in Trump's own 2016 states. But remember Trump's 304 electoral votes in 2016 were a 35 vote margin (over 269). This means if Trump lost Texas alone, he wouldn't have won the Presidency.
Now are there "shy Trump voters" misleading pollsters? Perhaps but unlikely. And of course it depends where Biden's votes are coming from: Biden doesn't need 60% of the votes in California, New York or Massachusetts to win those states. But the problem is that Trump has serious issues with women voters and has had almost consistently poor job approval numbers (I can only remember one week all term where Gallup had a net approval rating). Biden is roughly at parity favorability rating while Trump is more like 11% under. But I don't think that Trump will improve over the GOP's loss of the House in 2018. His highest winning issue has been the economy and we're still in a bad COVID-19 recession. And nothing demonstrates Trump's ineptitude in managing the COVID crisis like catching the disease himself.
Maybe some day, once Trump is safely out of office, I might explain how I would have handled the cards he's been dealt, but it's utterly absurd that his has ZERO plans for a mandate agenda, other than getting him for 4 more years. He's still trying to make Biden the issue. That ship has sailed.
Really, Trump's last gasp is tonight's debate. Trump is so shallow and incompetent he'll predictably try to go after Biden personally. All Biden needs to do is to keep his cool and let Trump burn his own bridges.
RCP also sees the Dems narrowly winning control of the Senate.
Entertainment Notes
- My signature blog now has the second highest annual accumulated posts in the history of the blog. A new record should be set by Thanksgiving.
- I snapped a long drought in 1K impression tweets this week.
- WWE continues to perplex me. They put a long awaited (PPV-worthy) match between one-time close buddies Sasha Banks and Bailey on Smackdown for Bailey's title. Predictably, Bailey got herself disqualified. I do like Roman Reign's new heel persona. I'm still not liking Drew McIntyre's reign, and his Orton program is boring. To me, newly drafted AJ Styles should be McIntyre's next feud opponent. I'm glad they finally ended the RAW Underground segment which seemed to be inspired by flicks like Fight Club. The Mysterio/Rollins program is stale. The Retribution rogue invasion is unbelievably bad. I'm still awaiting a decent challenger to RAW female champ Asuka, maybe Shayna or a rumored returning Rousey. I still don't know what they are doing with novelty act Otis' guaranteed championship; I seriously doubt that they'll have Reigns drop his title to Otis.
- Is it just me or do the holidays seem to come earlier each year? Walmart already has Thanksgiving turkeys out there. I've seen Christmas wreath promos out from Sam's Club. So Hallmark Channel and its sister channel HMM start their annual Christmas cable movie marathon tomorrow (HC 6 AM) and tonight (HMM, 10 PM) and its competition Lifetime does the same. (Well, marathon may be too strong a word. Hallmark does have a daily show it continues around midday on weekdays.)
