CoViD-19 Hits 3rd-Leading Cause of US Deaths | California Burning | Recycle Right

Darren rockin out in the "speakeasy" (Taken 8.14.2020)

Darren and I have been having so much fun in the speakeasy lately. I've been teaching him to swing dance and salsa a little bit so we have this little dance parties that are completely out of character for both of us, or he'll play songs, or we'll just play his favorite podcast, Yo, Is This Racist? Last night I ended up staying up all night through this morning and ended up listening to the testimony of DeJoy. What a piece of shit that guy is. Absolutely unbelievable how these people have been allowed to carry on in their destruction of literally everything that Americans value right in front of our eyes with no repercussions.  
Of course, being up all night and morning meant I pretty much slept the day away, thankfully with no recurring ant nightmares. Fingers crossed that it starts feeling like San Diego again sooner rather than later because even at 2:30am with my A/C running, my living room is still almost 80 degrees and I am over it.  

• California COVID-19 Stats:
• 5,585 New Cases/650,336 Total Cases (.9% increase)
• 135 New Deaths/11,821 Total Deaths (1.2% increase)
• 6.5% 14-day test positivity rate
• San Diego County Stats
• State Data:
• 4,481 New Cases (Last 14 Days)/35,610 Total Cases
• 61 Deaths (Last 14 Days)/644 Total Deaths
• 133 cases/100k population 
• 6.0% Test Positivity (Last 14 Days)
• County Data:
• 304 New Cases/35,912 Total Cases 
• 8 New Daily Deaths/652 Total Deaths
• 81.9 cases (83.7 State Reporting)/100k population 
• 5% Daily Test Positivity/3.9% Test Positivity (14-day average)
• Case Investigation is 96%
• 7 New/19 Community Outbreaks (7-day)/ Active Outbreaks
• COVID-19
• The U.S. Covid-19 outbreak passed a grim milestone this week. It’s now likely the third-leading cause of death for Americans this year, behind only heart disease and cancer.
  The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention each year tracks the way Americans die, producing tables of data that measure the health of a nation and—hopefully—the grinding progress of public health. (The most recent published data from the CDC are for 2018, though there’s typically little change from year to year.)
  Over the years, those tables have shown the gradual progress against diseases like cancer and diabetes, as well as worrying increases in problems like drug overdose. What’s almost unheard of is for a new cause of death to suddenly make the top 10, or for the order to instantly change.
  But this year so far, Covid-19 has killed at least 173,000 Americans. That’s more than than fatal accidents, chronic respiratory diseases, cerebrovascular diseases like strokes, drug overdoses, Alzheimer’s or diabetes. (Deaths from influenza ranked eighth in 2017 and 2018, killing 55,672 and 59,120 those years, respectively—less than a third of what Covid-19 has done so far this year.)
  We’ve lived with most of those ailments for so long, they’re thought of less as a crisis and more as an inevitable ending to be chipped away at little by little, typically at great expense and effort. This new killer isn’t one we want to grow used to. - Bloomberg Coronavirus Daily Prognosis (8.21.2020)
• California's Wildfire and Covid-19 Disasters Just Collided: Rare thunderstorms have peppered the California landscape with conflagrations, pouring smoke into the Bay Area—all as the state struggles with the pandemic. - Wired (8.20.2020)
• Bill Nye Has Strong Feelings About Wearing a Mask While Hiking and Biking: The Science Guy on why and when we need to be masking up—and where he's planning to travel when the pandemic is under control. - Conde Nast Traveler (8.20.2020)
• Birx Stokes Hopes That Key Hospital Data Tracking Will Soon Return To CDC - NPR (8.20.2020)
• Trump Administration Declares Teachers Essential Workers (which is only guidance and nonbinding), Says Can Stay In Class If Exposed To Covid-19 - Forbes (8.20.2020)
• Long-Haulers Are Redefining COVID-19: Without understanding the lingering illness that some patients experience, we can’t understand the pandemic. - The Atlantic (8.19.2020)
• Telehealth and Online Mental Health Resources During COVID-19 Pandemic
• News/Reading
• California Is On Fire - CalFire/Governor Newsom Media Briefing
• California is currently fighting 560 active fires/complexes
• 2 of the fires currently burning are in the top 10 worst fires in recorded history
• State has received help from other states including Arizona, Oregon, Washington. Help from Texas, New Mexico, and Nevada are on the way. Also requested support from Canada and Australia.
• 6 of the fires have been declared disasters by FEMA
• Current burn area exceeds the size of Rhode Island (771k+ acres)
• County Launches Recycle Right Campaign - County News Center (8.21.2020)