COVID Latest: USA Hits Another Record Number Of Infections As Virus Spirals Out Of Control
Saturday: nationwide toilet paper purchase limits; hotel quarantine changes
Morning! It’s Saturday, June 27. Here is today’s ‘5+5: coronavirus edition’ — 5 things to know about COVID-19 today, + 5 non-corona things as well.
Latest AU stats: as of 9pm Friday, Australia has 7595 reported cases of COVID-19 (that’s +37 since the day before), with 6958 reported as ‘recovered’, and 104 deaths, according to the latest federal Department of Health stats. More stats below.
1 PERSONAL THING
If you’ll permit me a brief indulgence:
I’m moving to Canberra to join The New Daily, which I’m very excited about. I’ll be covering federal parliament and politics, which will be dominated by COVID for the foreseeable future. I plan to keep doing this newsletter, of course, but it may be a little less frequent for a while, especially as I first settle into the new job. I’ll still do it as often as possible, at least a few days a week, so please keep reading! But in addition to reading my stuff here, check out The New Daily — bookmark the site, follow their socials, and tell your friends.
Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled programming…
5 CORONAVIRUS THINGS
Another record day for USA cases as virus spirals out of control
America has again had its biggest ever day of new COVID cases, as the virus continues to run rampant across the USA — 40,000 confirmed in a single day (link). In contrast to other developed nations, where the virus suddenly spiked before the ‘curve’ was flattened relatively quickly, the USA is already facing a second, even larger peak. More global stats below.
(These stats are from several days ago, the USA line is actually even higher now)
U.S. vice president Mike Pence claimed there were “encouraging signs” and “extraordinary progress” had been made — but that seems to be mostly in reference to states opening their economies back up, rather than on infections or health outcomes. Because oh yes, despite the huge spikes in cases, lockdowns are ending and things are returning to what they were like pre-COVID — bars, tourist attractions and shopping centres are crowded again. This comes even as more than 30 states are reporting rises in cases, with 11 — including Florida, Texas and Arizona — having more than a 50% increase in cases compared to last week.
The USA is, plainly, not dealing with this. It seems many have given up.
Many states with many thousands of new cases are reopening even more parts of their economies, faster, than Australian states with basically zero cases. Large parts of the USA are enacting laws to make face masks mandatory in public areas (but that is also proving controversial, with residents in Florida’s Palm Beach going viral for calling face masks “the devil’s law”) while carrier American Airlines will start booking full flights next week — forgoing social distancing altogether (link).
In addition, this devastating anti-Trump ad has been released. Again, the stats are out of date, and even worse now.
Panic-buying rules are returning
Supermarket buying limits on staples like toilet paper are back! Panic-buying restrictions were recently enacted in Victoria as the state experienced a small rise in COVID cases, but now the rules have been rolled out nationwide (link).
“We’ve regrettably started to see elevated demand for toilet roll move outside Victoria in the past 24 hours,” Woolworths Supermarkets managing director Claire Peters said. “While the demand is not at the same level as Victoria, we’re taking preventative action now to get ahead of any excessive buying this weekend and help maintain social distancing in our stores.”
Hotel quarantine testing may become mandatory
As Victoria’s new cases continue to grow thanks to some worrying community transmission, elsewhere in Australia, cases are only increasing thanks to travellers returning from overseas. Australia has long had mandatory quarantine in hotels for international arrivals, so they don’t bring the virus into the community from a potential overseas hotspot. It’s been a massively successful and important step, which will continue for some time, but officials are looking to upgrade it by potentially forcing people to get tests before and after entering quarantine (link).
Some one-third of people are reportedly refusing to get tested, meaning they could potentially be taking the virus out of the hotel and into the community when they go home. The two-week quarantine period is meant to keep people inside until they recover from the virus, but this may not always be the case.
Pete Evans
And one more tangentially linked to COVID today — a little update on Pete Evans. The celebrity chef, turned paleo advocate, turned wellness blogger, turned conspiracy theorist, seems to be going deeper into some strange corners of the internet — and sharing that with his 1.75 million social media followers. He’s been spruiking anti-government, anti-lockdown, anti-vaxxer, COVID-sceptic content for a while, but some of his latest posts might be of interest.
That’s Evans chatting with Rod Culleton — the former One Nation senator from Western Australia, who was kicked out of the party over a dispute with Pauline Hanson and then eventually kicked out of the Senate over a criminal conviction. He later formed his own Great Australia Party, and speaks a lot online about alleged inconsistencies or conspiracies about the federal constitution and law. There’s speculation online that Evans himself may look at a run for high office at some stage, and while I think that’s probably not imminent, this is the most concrete sign I’ve seen yet of a flirtation with politics. I’ll be interested to see what kind of video Evans or Culleton shares from their chat.
Evans also shared this image on his Instagram stories — a hat linked to the Qanon movement. I’ve written about this before (you might remember the Qanon signs at the huge anti-vaxxer/anti-5G/anti-lockdown rally) but basically it’s a weird message board conspiracy that an anonymous person with the “code name” Q (hence, Qanon) is sharing information about Donald Trump preventing the end of the world and locking up all the satanic paedophiles that run government, Hollywood and science. Massive numbers of Americans (and a growing number of Aussies) believe it whole-heartedly. The Qanon crowd also believe COVID is a government conspiracy too. It’s a wild ride, Google it if you want to learn more, but don’t fall down the rabbit hole yourself…
Anyway, that’s Pete Evans wearing a hat with a Q on it, with part of the letter being made up of a white rabbit — i.e. rabbit hole, a Matrix reference, blue/red-pilled, etc etc, all that good stuff.
Today’s stats:
The latest stats from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering (as of 9.08am AEST Saturday) report 9,761,594 confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide. There have been 492,767 deaths. We’ll hit 10 million cases in the next few days, and 500,000 deaths even sooner.
The United States has 2,462,057 confirmed cases; Brazil is next on 1,274,584, then Russia (619,936). The U.S. has the most deaths (124,960), then Brazil on 55,957 and the United Kingdom third on 43,498.
In Australia, the latest federal stats (as of 9pm Friday) show 7595 cases, 6958 people recovered, and 104 deaths.
The latest Australian graph:
5 NON-CORONAVIRUS THINGS
A man was shot dead after stabbing six people, including a police officer, in a frenzied attack at a Glasgow hotel overnight (link). Police are not treating it as a terrorism incident, but the hotel is currently being used to house asylum seekers.
Further sexual harassment allegations have been levelled against former High Court judge Dyson Heydon (link). He denies all the claims.
ABC chair Ita Buttrose has hit back at PM Scott Morrison’s claims that there “are no cuts” to the public broadcaster’s budget, outlining a passionate defence of the network despite diminishing increases in funding (link). “These funding cuts are unsustainable if we are to provide the media services that Australians expect of us,” she wrote.
The by-election in the southern NSW seat of Eden-Monaro is on next weekend, and it’s hotting up. The New Daily columnist Dennis Atkins says it is “a test run for pandemic-era politics” (link), considering traditional rallies and public events could not be held as usual, and many people have looked at postal or pre-poll voting instead of lining up on Saturday morning — while The Guardian has this piece on how the twin effects of last summer’s bushfires and the COVID outbreak make this an unpredictable contest.
And Kanye West is back, and he’s made some horrendously expensive Crocs for you to buy:
IMPORTANT EVERY DAY
Be hygienic; wash your hands properly, at least 30 seconds with soap and water, multiple times a day (here’s how you need to do it, plus a handy Dr Karl video tutorial); sneeze and cough into your elbows.
Listen to only official information from the World Health Organisation and legitimate health bodies — Don’t share dodgy stuff on Facebook. If it looks too good (or bad) to be true, it often is.
World Health Organisation latest statistics here; Australian government latest statistics here.
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Email me at joshbutler.journalist@protonmail.com for tips, ideas or just to chat. You can also find me on Twitter at @joshbutler; on Facebook; and Instagram.
Signing off — stay safe, be healthy, look after yourself and others.
Josh