Day 158: Justiça Poética

On the world stage, the top four players remain the same: the US, Brazil, India, and Russia. The US hit three million cases yesterday. Today's title was inspired by news that Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro tested positive for coronavirus yesterday, showing mild symptoms and starting on hydroxychloroquine. Reuters has also reported the story (though also in Portuguese), which should make it into the Anglophone press soon enough. Apparently Bolsonaro has requested a recount, and new test results are expected today.

Peru has exceeded all versions of Spain's case count to take over the #5 slot a few days back, and Chile made a similar leap over the país natal today. Holding at #8 is the UK, where COVID survivor Prime Minister Boris Johnson has made waves allegedly blaming the care homes for deaths caused by poor COVID-19 control, when his government sent in untested patients a la Governor Cuomo. Number 10 has insisted Johnson's comments were not accusatory but merely a commentary on the consequences of the poor initial understanding of the coronavirus situation.

Next up at #9 is Mexico, an extremely strong performer in case counts despite minimal testing. Iran is at #10. Other big movers in the top 20 are #12 Pakistan, #13 Saudi Arabia, #15 South Africa (which just hit the 200,000 point yesterday with almost 9,000 cases in one day), #17 Bangladesh, and #19 Columbia.

In the US, Texas and Florida are struggling over the #3 and #4 spots, while a few more days of cases should put Arizona at #7 and push Massachusetts down to #8. The New York Times, quoting former city employee Frank Braconi, calls coronavirus a 'heart attack' for the NYC economy. The state has gone into 3.4 billion dollars of debt with the federal government after exhausting its own unemployment reserves in the economic crisis, and many companies remain closed or have already gone out of business.

Here in Massachusetts, The Hill reports that Governor Baker is letting us all vote by mail in both the primaries and the general election this fall. Also, a healthy smoothie shop owner in Plymouth is suing the governor in federal district court over his face mask requirement. She sounds pretty level-headed, but so far the news hasn't gone into the legal merits of her case.

P.S. Massachusetts cases are up a fifth of a percentage point today.

P.P.S. Fox News reports Trump's official withdrawal from the WHO effective July 2021. PlagueBlog notes that his threat to do so predates the WHO's silent admission at the end of June that they learned about the coronavirus epidemic from the Internet, and not from required reporting by China as they had long claimed.