Pre-Pandemic: Hotto Potto

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Guest Post by Pam Schwartz, who does the food things.

Hotto Potto (3090 Aloma Ave. Winter Park, FL 407-951-8028) is a Chinese eatery and dim sum spot specializing in hot pots served table side with house made sauces.

I’ve already written this review once, like months ago, but this is what happens when your phone factory resets… your photos, your contacts, and at least 10,000 really important “memos,”  like this review, are lost.

On this night, Tom and I decided to make our relationship “official.” That is, our one where we go places and eat everything, he sketches, and I talk about it. We settled on Hotto Potto because a few of my staff swore it was better than Noodles and Rice (RIP…for now). I love Noodles and Rice so thought we had better check it out.

There was basically nobody in the place so Tom was immediately challenged as to what…empty…angle he wanted to take on. I was most interested in the tens of many sauces neatly organized in little plastic containers with fancy tiny dipper spoons on each table. I love all of the sauces and condiments all of the time.

The very pleasant waiter explained Hot Pot to Tom who had never imbibed before, while I patiently sat waiting to taste test every single condiment option as soon as he walked away. He pre-mixed a sauce for us which suited the less adventurous Tom. It was basically sweet. Very sweet and that is the epitome of everything Tom likes to eat.

I tried them all and found several many I could get behind. Give me all that garlic, sesame, and salty bits. Absolutely. If you have never done hot pot, it is a lot of fun to make your own creation, but can get expensive pretty quickly if you want a little bit of everything to throw in your mix, since you pay per ingredient. It is great if you can share fixings with people at your table, but then we have creatures like Tom. Chicken, spinach, and maybe he’d have a carrot. I wanted bean sprouts, water chestnuts, some Asian green variety I’d never heard of or tried before, daikon, etc. I was on my own here folks.

At hot pot they bring out you broth and nestle it onto a cooker in the middle of your table, you then submerge your ingredients and cook them as you wish before dipping them in your sauce concoction. One of those let me pay you to cook my own novelty dinner types of deals. It’s all about the experience. We cook similarly at home fairly often with hot pot, pick and mix ramens, shabu shabu, etc. but sometimes it is nice to go out.

Overall, the food was good. *I still liked Noodle and Rice better!* The wait staff was great and the place was clean with ample parking. However, we would probably try another place in the future considering this is also out of the neck of our general woods.

Now, during the pandemic Hotto Potto only offers take out.

Surprise!

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On May 30, 2020 a Texas Family planned a surprise birthday party for a 30 year old daughter in law. One family member, a construction worker,  was unknowingly infected with the COVID-19 virus. He thought his slight cough might have been from dust at the construction site. Everyone did their best to stay socially distant at the party. I can say, from first hand experience that if you are in a room conversing, it is hard to stay 6 feet away from others. No one wore masks since they are often around each other and care for each other dearly. 25 people attended.

Seven people became infected at the party. They spread the virus to 10 other people through their families and other interactions. In all 18 people became infected. Among those infected are two young children, two grandparents, and the parents, who are in their 80s. Three were hospitalized, the parents, and a sister, who is battling breast cancer.

The mom and sister recovered and are back home but dad is still in the hospital fighting for his life. Not being able to have visitors is the hardest part of being hospitalized. The dad is in need of blood plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients, who have established antibodies. However there is a shortage. Firefighters who had recovered wanted to donate blood but the donations are not allowed to go to one specific patient since there is a shortage. If you have recovered from the virus please donate blood.

“My dad’s hanging on by a thread,” a son said. “They’re saying this is one of the last straws for my dad.” When the son was allowed a phone call to his father, he said, “That’s really the best medicine. You know they’re in there by themselves with no family,” He said holding back tears. “It’s heartbreaking.”

All Bets are Off

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Las Vegas saw a record number of infections two weeks after the casinos re-opened June 4, 2020. Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak said the state is “not ready” to advance to Phase 3 of reopening as Covid-19 infections and hospitalizations continue to spike.

Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas all reported their highest single-day increases in cases over the past week, according to Newsweek.

Donald Trump has been rushing the states to re-open while trying to ignoring that the virus exists or that it will “Magically” go away and never wearing a mask.

The Joe Biden campaign said this in response to the pandemic…

The American people deserve an urgent, robust, and professional response to the growing public health and economic crisis caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. That is why Joe Biden is outlining a plan to mount:

  • A decisive public health response that ensures the wide availability of free testing; the elimination of all cost barriers to preventive care and treatment for COVID-19; the development of a vaccine; and the full deployment and operation of necessary supplies, personnel, and facilities.
  • A decisive economic response that starts with emergency paid leave for all those affected by the outbreak and gives all necessary help to workers, families, and small businesses that are hit hard by this crisis. Make no mistake: this will require an immediate set of ambitious and progressive economic measures, and further decisive action to address the larger macro-economic shock from this outbreak.

 

Virtual Courses and Summer Camps

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I had never used Zoom prior to the pandemic. I now use it every week to teach students traditional foundation drawings skills and animation for Elite Animation Academy. I like the platform because students can watch me draw live in an intimate online setting. I can take a drawing done by each student and then quickly add a few strokes to show them how their sketch might be improved. As students sketch away on assignments I like to sketch them from my end of the virtual classroom. I honestly feel that students get more from me than when I taught them in the classroom setting, pre-pandemic.

In a news conference Thursday June 18, 2020 Governor Ron DeSantis and Commissioner Richard Corcoran announced that they plan to reopen schools for in-person learning in the fall of 2020. DeSantis said, “We are not going to be instituting a lot of rules, or really any rules.”

  • Step 1 – June – open up campuses for youth activities and summer camps.
  • Step 2 – July – expand campus capacities further for summer recovery instruction.
  • Step 3 – August – open up campuses at full capacity for traditional start of the academic year.

According Florida Today, Florida’s surgeon general has acknowledged that a syndrome that attacks children and is associated with Covid-19 has surfaced in Florida, adding yet another critical layer to diagnosing and treating the disease. Emergency Medicine Physician Rajiv Bahl, MD, said that it’s too soon for children to begin playing together and having play dates.

Starting tomorrow, June 21, 2020, I will be teaching summer camps and classes 7 days a week until August 7, 2020. Summer camps will begin Monday June 22, 2020 at Elite Animation Academy and I will be instructing 5 days a week. I don’t know how many students are in the summer camps, but maintaining 6 feet of distance between students might be a challenge.

Today Sunday June 21, 2020 I will begin teaching a course at Crealde. Last week was the first class but I did not have the course on my calendar since I wasn’t given the course schedule, so I missed it. Six students showed up. I felt bad when I got the call and I was still in bed.

One Crealde student received notice that someone that they had been exposed to on June 11th, 2020 just received a Positive Covid-19 result.   Out of an abundance of caution, they were tested June 20, 2020, and will self isolate until results come back on Tuesday June 23, 2020 or Wednesday June 24, 2020.  They withdrew from class. I was asked to let the other five students know why the student left.  This student was with all of the other students for the entire 75 minutes that they waited on Sunday June 14, 2020 when I was at home.   Most students were wearing masks.  This student was wearing a mask.

The person this student was exposed to had no symptoms. People who are asymptomatic can expose others to the virus. They were both wearing masks, exposure was less than a minute together, the doctor says there is a very slim chance the student contracted Covid-19.  I feel like I dodged a bullet for now.
Tomorrow Sunday June 21, 2020 when I go to teach at Crealde I will of course wear a mask, but if any students decide to show up despite the possible Covid-19 exposure, then I will feel the need to get tested as well. I have been locked down for the past 3 months doing a pandemic themed painting every day. It will be a shock to try and return to “life as normal.”
At President Donald Trump‘s poorly attended Tulsa Rally, he said he had told officials in his administration to slow down coronavirus testing because of the rising number of cases in America. He said that the US has now tested some 25 million people. “Here’s the bad part… when you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people; you’re going to find more cases. So I said to my people, slow the testing down please.”
Florida reported another 4,049 coronavirus cases Saturday June 20, 2020, yet another record-shattering increase as the number of infections statewide approaches 94,000. Every day this week has show exponential growth in the spread through the state with a new record set each day. Florida has “all the markings of the next large epicenter of coronavirus transmission,” and risks being the “worst it has ever been,” according to projections from a model by scientists at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania.
Working 7 days a week, I will not be able to produce a pandemic themed painting each day. I will have to limp by, doing one or two a week. I am about the enter the Wild West of teaching summer camps and courses in the midst of a pandemic.

3000 Attend Street Party in Deland Fl

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3000 people gathered in the Spring Hill neighborhood, Deland, Florida for a late night block party. Cars were parked in the grass on either side of the road and the drinking commenced in the street. It appeared to be an impromptu car show. Cars were parked on multiple streets wrapping around the block. The gathering was reported to be a memorial for Kenya Alexander, a DeLand man who was murdered in 2008.

The block party eventually led to a visitor being shot in the foot and a rifle being pointed at a Volusia County Sheriff’s deputy, according to authorities. The violent resistance to police also included another deputy being struck with a bar stool, a third deputy suffering a leg injury, and a DeLand officer being hit in the head with a bottle. The Sheriff’s Office arrested seven people at the party, including three felons found with firearms. No one was wearing masks.

The aerial views of the crowd look like they could be be thermal imaging. With a thermal image heat generated is what is seen. Heat would be the  brightest thing seen which would be really convenient if you wanted to check an entire crowd to see who has a fever. With the Covid-19 pandemic of course there should not be any crowds over 50 people. Folks at this block party were certainly not social distancing and therefor the virus could spread easily among them and then they in turn, could pass the virus on to relatives and friends. Though I like the idea of thermal imaging, the police images are likely taken with night vision goggles.

Spring Hill has been a designated Covid-19 hot spot by the local the health department and testing will start Thursday May 21, 2020. People found out about the event through a flyer and social media.  The City of DeLand and Volusia County both confirmed earlier this week that they issued no permits for the block party.

Most in the crowd were black, and some made accusations that breaking up the crowd was racially play out until 10pm but it kept going past midnight. In a statement released alongside body camera footage from May 16, 2020 Sheriff Mike Chitwood said the police action taken that night was not in response to race but instead was for public safety.

“Not only was this a public safety issue, but it was a matter of public health,” Chief Umberger said, “no one should be getting together in large groups of 50 or more as of today under any circumstances in accordance with the order by Governor Ron DeSantis. While we may be reopening different parts of the city, county and state, no one should be having any large gatherings until the governor says it’s safe to do so.” Umberger added.

“It’s a personal responsibility (social distancing), it’s not law enforcement’s job to enforce quote unquote social distancing,” Chitwood responded during a news conference.

Badge of Honor

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94,936 Americans have died from Covid-19 as of this writing. Imagine 155 passengers crowded onto a Boeing 737. Now imagine one Boeing 737 crashing EVERY DAY for the last year and seven months. That would be close to an approximation of the devastation that has ravaged this country.

When asked about the large number of dead, Trump said “I view it as a badge of honor,” he continued, “When we have a lot of cases,” Trump continued, “I don’t look at that as a bad thing. I look at that as, in a certain respect, as being a good thing, because it means our testing is much better.” Trump seems to also think that testing and tracing is a bad idea since when tests are done you find that some people are infected. He would much prefer to live in his magical world where the numbers remain low with few tests as he sends people to their deaths. He has pushed the notion that Americans are “warriors” as they rush to re-open in the midst of the pandemic. Had there been more testing from the start there wouldn’t need to be prolonged social isolation.

The CDC quietly issued a report about how to safely open the country. Of course Trump is not one to listen to science or reason. He wants the state governors to re-open even if they have no plan in place. Today all 50 states are in some stage of re-opening. Control of the epidemic requires action at the individual, community, and population levels. The report offers extensive detailed guidance on contact tracing, infection control, and a wide range of other prevention and control topics. It is fair to assume that the president will never read the 60 page report.

The Trump administration is ignoring many of a CDC report’s recommendations on reopening the US in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak. The report gives community leaders detailed instructions for how to reopen than were ultimately released. The measures are meant to be a starting point that could be adapted to any given area. Hopefully Sate Governors and local mayors will read the report since Trump has given them total control over how they plan to re-open safely. I plan to read the report so I know how to keep myself safe moving forward. The CDC launched a new website that tracks cases, deaths and tests done. The CDC findings often contradict what states are reporting. In the case of Florida the state dashboard is now reporting fewer deaths than the CDC. The Georgia Department of Public Health’s website posted a bar graph with the dates out of order, suggesting cases were declining over time. It was clearly misleading.

New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo had his daughter organize a video promotional campaign for wearing masks. The finalist results are inspired. Many consider wearing a mask to be patriotic. While others following Trump’s example feel it is patriotic to refuse to wear masks, feeling they are sheep if they care about the people around them.

…

CDC Bound and Gagged

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Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) are concerned that the Covid-19 pandemic is being driven by politics rather than the data and science needed to combat it. The decisions made by government officials rather than scientists have made the devastating reach of the pandemic worse. President Donald Trump was quoted as saying that having over 90,000 dead is a badge of honor rather than a horrific national tragedy. Staff inside the CDC have said the White house has stifled the agencies response to the virus. The white house is also limiting the agencies ability to provide health information to the public. A CDC official put it bluntly, “We’ve been muzzled.”

The work the agency is doing is filtered through a political lens. On March 2, 2020 a CDC internal report found that the virus was being spread locally in 29 countries. Two days later the number jumped to 85 countries. On March 5, 2020 three of the countries affected were in Europe. The CDC was preparing to issue a global travel alert to try and keep the virus from spreading to America. The alert would have urged precautions on all international travel. It was to be posted on the evening of March 5, 2020. The alert was delayed for unexplained reasons. When the White house was told about the spread of the virus in Europe they only wanted to focus on China and not anger Europe.

The CDC alert would not post until March 11, 2020 when Trump announced his restrictions on travel from Europe. Those 6 days were critical in bringing Covid-19 exposure to the east coast of the United States as Europeans flew in to New York. While passengers coming from China were checked, those coming from Europe went unchecked spreading the virus freely.

If the CDC had testing in place they could have found that there were likely cases to be found in America as early as January 2020. Had testing been wide spread at the time, they could have caught the infected people flooding in from Europe.

It would be nice if scientists from the CDC could have daily briefings to keep the Americans  informed, but instead we have a president who used the briefings to spew his ideas of injecting light into bodies and taking disinfectants to handle the virus. He has to be corrected at every turn and it would be nice if he just let the experts speak. In the past, the CDC provided important information at briefings to help keep the public safe. During an e coli outbreak in 2018 their investigators got to the root of the problem and offered solid, meaningful and blunt guidance on how to keep it from happening again. However the CDC is not offering the same blunt guidance today in the face of a pandemic.

The virus is spreading like wild fire in retirement homes, veterans hospitals, prisons, and meat packing plants. On May 14, 2020 it was reported that counties with or near meatpacking plants have almost twice the rate of known Covid-19 infections as the national average. Tyson Fresh Meats processing plant in Dakota City, Nebraska had a surge in Covid-19 infections among its 4300 workers. Local mayors were unable to get any answers as to how many cases of the virus are in the meat plant. Workers were not being tested. It was assumed that everyone was infected. Iowa, South Dakota and Nebraska never issued stay at home orders.

The CDC did do an investigation at one of the first meat plant outbreaks in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. However the report isn’t as authoritative as past reports. Instead they offered recommendations that are not required or mandated by the organization. There were loose suggestions that the meat plant could implement if they “if they wanted.” Face masks were recommended but not required. The meat packing plant can easy decide that any CDC suggestions are “not feasible.” The president is of course insisting that all meat packing plants should remain open. So it would seem the CDC has softened its stance. As the “suggestions” are ignored, workers will die.

The White House needs to place blame for over 90,000 deaths.  White House trade adviser Peter Navarro publicly blamed the CDC for the testing failures in the United States. Navarro argued that the top health agency, under Dr. Robert Redfield, “let the country down” on testing. President Trump privately threw the CDC under the bus to Republican senators during a lunch on Capitol Hill. He praised his son in law, while blaming the CDC for botched testing. A senior CDC official said, “I would urge the President to understand that to prevent spread we must focus on containment and mitigation. He wants to focus on criticism. We will focus on the science, as we have done from the beginning.”

As of May 20, 2020 the CDC is reporting that 12,601,143 tests have been done with 1,699,375 positive tests reported. 93,533 Americans have died and the nations top Disease Control agency is being sidelined. As I write this, the World Health Organization reported106,000 new cases worldwide. This is the most cases in a single day since the pandemic began.

Hydroxidistraction

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President Donald Trump likes to grab headlines with distracting insane baubles for the media to run with. His latest rant is that he has been taking Hydroxychloroquine for the past week. I personally don’t think he has been taking the unapproved drug as a prophylactic against Covid-19. He doesn’t have the balls. He knows the dangerous side effects, and that there is no evidence to support the idea that it helps in any way against the virus. The FDA warned that the drug can cause serious side effects and even death. I will need to see a video of him actually taking the drug and then having a health professional check under his tongue like they do in psychiatric hospitals before I believe he is taking the drug.  This is a lie intended to make him appear macho for his base. They already believe his Hydroxi claims. Science be damned. It is also a distraction to keep reporters from asking about why there is not adequate testing and tracking as the country prepares to open.t of the pandemic Trump has decided to cut funding the the World Health Organization. This is like closing the fire department as your house burns.

Rick Bright, who filed a whistleblower complaint after being removed from his position as head of the agency in charge of pandemic response, testified for just under four hours Thursday May 14, 2020 before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s health subcommittee. Bright said.  “The Trump administration rushed out recommendations about the drug hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus.” Bright’s whistleblower complaint alleged he was removed from his post in retaliation for opposing the broad use of hydroxychloroquine.

More important for us in Central Florida is the fact that Rebekah Jones the architect of Florida’s COVID-19 dashboard was fired on May 5, 2020 for failing to manipulate covid-19 data which might possibly contradict the states narrative that it is safe to open up the economy. What we need moving forward is not some magic pill but cold hard facts. Independent researchers are worried that this is government censorship. Since Rebekah was fired, the site has “crashed” and gone offline and data has gone missing without explanation while access to the underlying data sheets has become increasingly difficult. The site was created by a team of Florida Department of Health data scientists and public health officers headed by Rebekah Jones.

She single-handedly created two applications in two languages, four dashboards, six unique maps with layers of data functionality for 32 variables covering a half a million lines of data. Her objective was to create a way for Floridians and researchers to see what the Covid-19 situation was in real time.

“I worked on it alone, sixteen hours a day for two months, most of which I was never paid for, and now that this has happened I’ll probably never get paid for,” she wrote in an email, confirming that she had not just been reassigned on May 5, but fired from her job as Geographic Information Systems manager for the Florida Department of Health.  

In her farewell letter she wrote, “I understand, appreciate, and even share your concern about all the dramatic changes that have occurred and those that are yet to come. As a word of caution, I would not expect the new team to continue the same level of accessibility and transparency that I made central to the process during the first two months. After all, my commitment to both is largely (arguably entirely) the reason I am no longer managing it.” She signed off, “It was great working with you guys. Good luck, and stay safe.” Governor Ron DeSantis implied that Rebekah just needed a vacation and then he abruptly walked out of the press conference to avoid further questioning by reporters.

Restricting the data, is the equivalent of cutting off hurricane forecasts as a storm approaches. When requesting the previously available underlying data, Department of Health officials said that because the data is “provisional” no such requests would be considered until May 2021. Racial and ethnic data and cause of death have been consistently excluded from Florida’s line listing of cases. Such data was reported by medical examiners, but that data table has also been censored by the Department of Health making it virtually useless. 

Asal M. Johnson, an assistant Professor of Public Health at Stetson University, has also been frustrated with decreasing data access.  “They are pretending that public health is what has damaged (the) economy. They are getting it wrong; the economy is damaged because we ignored evidence to protect public health,” she wrote, adding  “They think they can save their own political interest by restricting information.”

Even children learn that by closing your eyes, the problem does not go away. The virus does not care if the numbers are hidden.

Give Me Drink or Give Me Death

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For weeks in multiple states, armed protestors, encouraged by Donald Trump have been demanding the freedom to get back to work. Governor Tony Evers of Wisconsin wanted to move slower than the president in re-opening his state during the pandemic. Conservative justices on the Wisconsin Supreme Court overruled the governors stay at home order leaving the state with no public health restrictions or any plan on a re-opening safely. Wisconsin is now the only state in the nation without a single protective measure in place to combat Codid-19. The judges made this ruling from the safety of a video conference.

Across the lake in Michigan, armed protestors entered the state capitol and stood in the upper gallery above law makers prompting at least one lawmaker to put on a bullet proof vest. Protestors chanted: “Our House” and “Let Us In”. Despite this, Governor Gretchen Whitmer extended the stay at home order to May 28, 2020. She has issued over 75 executive orders in an attempt to keep her constituents safe. Law makers have been arguing about weather to ban guns in the capitol. One argument is that State Police should arrest anyone entering the building with a weapon. A 32 years old man was arrested on counts of terrorism for making death threats against Governor Whitmer. Joe Biden is considering Whitmer as a possible running mate.

After the Wisconsin “Safer at Home” order was overruled, nurse Katie Koutsky, decided to help her sister re-open her bar. She was filmed by a local news station in the crowded bar not wearing a mask. She said, “I don’t think the risk presents any higher than me going to a grocery store.” She later walked back that statement saying, “I’d like to express my regret for not wearing a mask or practicing social distancing while there,” she said in a statement released by Advocate Aurora Health. She is quarantining herself for the next seven days.

Health care workers are usually seen as the heroes fighting against the virus putting themselves in harms way. They sacrifice for the greater good. Her flippant disregard for public safety put her in the camp of the protestors, who demand and threaten without concern for others. Protestors wanted the liberty to rush and crowd back into bars. Drunks are not great at social distancing.

The Orlando Weekly reported that several downtown bars have not been following Phase 1 rules about re-opening. If a business earns more than half its income from the sale of alcohol it is supposed to remain closed. On May 4, the OPD found four Orlando bars operating despite the Ron DeSantis Phase 1 executive order which states that a bar should not be open for on-premise consumption of alcohol. Officers advised the owners on the guidelines. Despite this, two bars continues serving drinks for consumption. The Dapper Duck and Downtown Pourhouse continued serving drinks. Since they saw no penalty to not do so. No one has been reprimanded or fined. Three days later the bars still were not complying. Bars being closed are a flashpoint for many. Some would kill for a drink.

Are you helping or complaining?

Phase 1

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced that Florida will go into a Full Phase One Opening on Monday May 18, 2020. Gyms throughout the state will reopen along with restaurants and retail stores, which so far have been allowed to reopen at 25 percent capacity. They can now serve patrons at 50 percent capacity. Theme parks will remain closed for now. Movie theaters throughout the state will also remain closed. Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez said during a virtual town hall Friday that fitness centers and gyms in Miami-Dade County will remain closed for the time being.

Over 40 states are at some stage of re-opening at the height of the pandemic. Public health experts warn that this increased activity is likely to cause a surge of new infections. Most states are seeing a plateau, with neither a significant rise nor fall in reported daily cases. Far fewer states are seeing a sustained decline – or a “downward trajectory of documented cases within a 14-day period” as recommended by the White House reopening guidelines.

“There is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control” by reopening too quickly, said infectious-disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci in Senate testimony May 12, 2020 “leading to some suffering and death that could be avoided.”

Dr. Rick Bright the ousted director of a key federal office charged with developing medical countermeasures, testified before the senate om May 14, 2020. He said, “Our window of opportunity is closing. If we fail to develop a national coordinated response, based in science, I fear the pandemic will get far worse and be prolonged, causing unprecedented illness and fatalities. Without clear planning and implementation of the steps that I and other experts have outlined, 2020 will be darkest winter in modern history.”

Experts at Harvard University have said 900,000 tests a day are needed in the US to reopen the economy. That’s about 275 tests per 100,000 people per day – only nine states are around this level of testing currently. Many other states which have already begun to reopen fall below that benchmark, such as Georgia, Florida and Colorado. Trump seems to think testing is overrated.