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US COVID-29 News Wednesday

“Trump Sabotaged Coronavirus Testing to Keep Numbers Low” https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/08/trump-cdc-coronavirus-testing-keep-numbers-low.html

“The CDC this week said that people who have potentially been exposed to the virus and are asymptomatic don’t need to be tested. The agency, contrary to its previous recommendations, also said that people traveling from hot spots no longer need to self-quarantine for 14 days.” Bloomberg News

“The C.D.C. was pressured to change guidance on testing asymptomatic people who had been exposed to the virus. Scientists and epidemiologists say people infected with the virus can spread it even if they show no symptoms. Mr. Trump has suggested that the nation should do less testing, arguing that doing more tests was driving coronavirus case numbers up, making the United States look bad. But experts say the true measure of the pandemic is not case numbers, but test positivity rate — the percentage of tests coming back positive.” NY Times

On a conference call with the media, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo accused Republican President Donald Trump of using the agency to “forward his political agenda,” saying it’s “frightening and it is alarming.”

“The only plausible rationale is they want fewer people taking tests because, as the president has said, if we don’t take tests you won’t know that people are Covid-positive and the number of Covid-positive people will come down,” Cuomo said. “But it totally violates public health standards, and rationale and just fosters his failed policy of denial.”

I guess the big question now is will the number of people being tested in the US being lowered work to INCREASE the death rate… Many experts say it will.

Wednesday Local News: “Kansas City metro area health officials are grappling with how to handle continuing case count increases after reopening businesses more than a month ago.Kansas adds 1,536 new cases of COVID; Missouri adds 1,426.” KMBC News

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Depressing news for anyone hoping to see the COVID pandemic in the USA brought under control. Less testing doesn’t actually mean “less cases”. Instead, it means more spread from asymptomatic (undiagnosed) carriers of the virus. More spread means more deaths among the vulnerable.

It seems like our Stay-at-Home isolation (to prevent becoming a statistic) is going to continue on far longer than I initially anticipated. Watching the Republican convention for the past 3 days, it seems as if the Trump administration feels the pandemic is now a thing of the past. Yet reality shows that people are continuing to be hospitalized and to die from COVID-19.

If infection statistics are skewed, how will those, who are vulnerable, know when it’s eventually safe “out there” again? The US can't judge by what is happening in other countries. America is the leading country for both cases and for death. Right now, the only way to feel one is safe from COVID in the USA will be when Americans stop dying from COVID...

But when will THAT be? Months from now? Years? When herd immunity is eventually achieved after an unnecessary level of uncontrolled infections & deaths??? That time certainly isn’t now; even if fewer people are now getting tested & the current president claims he has already ended the pandemic.

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The photo above is based on one of our ornamental crab apple trees that I photographed today.

Our “fruiting” crab apple tree produces little apples that the wildlife (deer, squirrels, groundhogs, etc) really enjoy. The ornamental trees produces tiny fruit under an inch in size that also can be eaten. Birds seem to like the smaller fruit from some of the ornamental trees.