There is not enough time or space for us bloggers to write about everything happening around the Covid-19……MSM picks the most newsworthy to report and that leaves bloggers like me to give the “bummer” news that slips through most filters.

The Covid-19 in the US…1.5 million cases……88,000 deaths…..Nothing about those figures is encouraging…..

The most depressing news this past weak…..

The terrible toll of the coronavirus pandemic on the US economy continued unabated last week as another 3 million people filed for unemployment benefits and official figures showed 40% of low-earning families had now lost a breadwinner.

The latest figures from the labor department mean more than 36 million people have filed for benefits in the last two months. The rate of claims is slowing but the record-breaking pace of layoffs has already pushed unemployment to levels unseen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. For comparison, just 188,264 unemployment claims were filed in the same week in 2019.

(the guardian)

If that did not depress my reader then this should do the trick…..

Vaccine or no vaccine, the coronavirus could be here to stay, the World Health Organization warns. WHO emergencies director Dr. Mike Ryan said Wednesday that it is impossible to predict when or if the virus will disappear, the BBC reports. “It is important to put this on the table: this virus may become just another endemic virus in our communities, and this virus may never go away,” Ryan said. “HIV has not gone away—but we have come to terms with the virus,” he said. “I think there are no promises in this and there are no dates,” said Ryan, who called for a “massive effort” to overcome the virus. He said the world “may have a shot” at eliminating it, but any vaccine would have to be highly effective and widely available, reports CNN. He noted that vaccines have failed to wipe out diseases like measles.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at the virtual press conference in Geneva that controlling the trajectory of the pandemic is “everybody’s business” and warned that with no guaranteed way of easing lockdowns without causing a second wave of infections, “the alert at any country should be at the highest level possible.” WHO experts also warned that a mental health crisis caused by the pandemic is developing, the Guardian reports. “The isolation, the fear, the uncertainty, the economic turmoil—they all cause or could cause psychological distress,” said Devora Kestel, director of the WHO’s mental health department.

Will there be a Trump depression?

Much of the discourse on Covid-19 treats the virus as though it is an external dragon-like creature that must be slayed before the economy can get going. But what if an aggressive capitalism and the Covid-19 dragon have a symbiotic relation and grow together. An inegalitarian racially polarized society whose government is distrusted and shrinking is fertile ground for explosion of the virus. The deaths entailed often feed a deeper politics of demonization of minorities and foreigners, who often become disposable commodities sacrificed in the interest of toxic forms of growth. Trump’s constant attacks on China hide the role his bashing the CDC played in accelerating the global pandemic. He then takes the vast carnage and the necessary regulations it has required as an opportunity to “open the economy.” It sounds good to some but in practice amounts to doubling down on the financial, health, and safety deregulatory strategies that have left so many of our citizens so vulnerable.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/05/12/trump-depression-could-be-worse-great-depression

Here is my question…..why the hurry to open the country?

I know why…..electoral politics….it is all about the vote not the safety of the voter…..

He’s trying to force the economy to reopen to boost his electoral chances, and he’s selling out Americans’ health to seal the deal. No matter the cost, Donald Trump’s chief concern is and will always be himself.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/05/13/real-reason-trump-wants-reopen-economy

This report is a bummer for Donald the Orange…..

A new poll has revealed that nearly a quarter of Republicans think that the party should nominate someone other than president Donald Trump as their 2020 presidential nominee.

The poll, by Ramussen Reports, found that 23 per cent of likely Republican voters want the GOP to deny the president the chance of running for a second term, by nominating a different candidate.

According to the organisation, who conduct surveys nationwide, 70 per cent said that Mr Trump should be the Republican candidate, while seven per cent were undecided.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/president-donald-trump-republican-voters-a9517521.html

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“lego ergo scribo”