With New Virus Cases At An All-Time High, Trump Wants Schools To Open With No Plans To Do So Safely: "Because, You Know"

US, To Reach 1,000,000 Cases: 99 days
US, To Reach 2,000,000 Cases: 43 days
US, To Reach 3,000,000 Cases: 28 days

New COVID-19 cases are skyrocketing across the United States.

Only two weeks ago (June 24), the single-day high for new cases was 38,412. Every single day since then has had more than 40,000. The five days with 50,000+ new cases during the pandemic have all occurred within the last week. Yesterday, the US topped 60,000 in a single day for the first time.

Donald Trump is pushing for schools to open across the country. Yesterday, without evidence, he said:

We want to reopen the schools. Everybody wants it. The moms want it. The dads want it. The kids want it. It's time to do it.

On Wednesday, Trump criticized the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's guidelines for safely reopening schools as "very tough & expensive ... We're very much going to put pressure on governors and everybody else to open the schools."

Trump threatened to "cut off funding" for schools that do not reopen. (He has no clue that most public school funding comes from state and local governments, not the federal government.)

Trump also said, without evidence, that some schools will stay closed "for political reasons", meaning they will not open for the sole reason of hurting him politically. Because everything is about him. He previously said the only reason people were wearing masks was a statement against him.

It has been eight months since Trump was first warned about the virus and he still has no plan to deal with any aspect of the pandemic. No medical plan, no economic plan, no national testing strategy ... nothing. All he has done is mention every few weeks (since February!) about how it will magically vanish very soon!

Trump was asked yesterday to outline the specific steps he is taking to make sure schools open safely. He refused to answer the question.

I would say that when we talk about the fall, that seems like a long time. It's a long time. ... We're going to see. Well, we have a long time to think about the school stuff. Because, you know.

Some schools are scheduled to open in August. ... Next month. ... Not "a long time" away.

From CNN:

31 states have showed an increase in new cases of 10+% over the last seven days:

Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin

Florida: 56 intensive care units and 43 hospitals are filled to capacity and another 35 hospitals have fewer than 10% of ICU bed availability.

Georgia: Became the ninth state to report 100,000 cases.

California: Nearly 6,000 patients are hospitalized, the highest number since the pandemic began. The number of patients in ICUs is also at an all-time high.

Texas: Reported 10,000+ new cases yesterday, the highest single day total. Medical staff at Houston's United Memorial Medical Center are working 16-20 hours a day. In Weslaco, a hospital has set up a tent outside to help deal with the overflow of emergency room patients.

Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, and North Carolina are also overrun by the surge of cases.

An influential coronavirus model often cited by the White House is now forecasting more than 208,000 deaths by November. (Like every other forecast made by anyone during the pandemic, this one will likely be shown to be extremely optimistic. The US will likely pass 208,000 deaths in September.)