Alabama's coronavirus caseload worsening

Alabama coronavirus outlook worsening amid state reopening

Alabama's Confederate Swastika

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — With Alabama's coronavirus caseload worsening while casinos, churches and more reopen, the state's most recognizable person had some stern words about bringing COVID-19 under control.

“You need to be staying 6 feet away from me, and haven't I told you you have to wear a mask when you're in this building?” University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban, himself wearing a mask emblazoned with “Roll Tide," scolded the school's elephant mascot in a video released as the state reopened more.

Perhaps Saban's rant — which tied the prospects of fall football to disease control in a football-crazy state — will be the thing that makes people see a need for renewed vigilance in a place where life is largely back to normal despite a deepening health crisis.

From the Gulf Coast to the lush Tennessee Valley, Alabama's political leaders and health experts are struggling to make many residents see the continued need for social distancing, crowd limitations and wearing masks after Gov. Kay Ivey reopened much of the economy.

Cases are on the increase, but health officials say it's impossible to determine whether the rise is linked to additional testing or an actual increase in disease. Yet state statistics also show hospitalizations are up since early April, which has some health officials worried.

The situation in Alabama has become worse over the past 14 days, according to an AP analysis of testing data from The COVID Tracking Project. New daily cases have risen to 307 from 268, and the rate of daily tests coming back positive has increased from 6.7% to 7.5%. The AP used seven-day rolling averages to account for daily variability in the testing data. Data includes counts through Thursday.

In Jefferson County, the state's most populous area with nearly 660,000 residents, officials cited increasing cases and hospitalizations Friday in announcing more stringent rules than those enacted by Ivey.

The Republican governor, like President Donald Trump, hasn't modeled recommended behavior by regularly appearing publicly in a mask. But she has urged residents to do what's necessary to stem the spread of the disease while saying a vaccine could someday be created “right here in sweet home Alabama.”

"It takes all of us, y’all, being vigilant, and adhering to these social distancing guidelines in order to stop the spread of this disease,” she said.

So far, it's unclear whether Ivey's calls for “personal responsibility” have had much of an effect as businesses and other gatherings places reopen with restrictions on capacity and sanitation.

The parking lots outside some Birmingham-area restaurants and breweries are filling up again, and the state's beaches have been packed since reopening April 30. About two dozen adults and children filled a reopened suburban playground Friday; no one wore a mask, and no one was cleaning the slides and swings between uses.

Some people are trying to stay 6 feet (2 meters) apart, as required under state orders, but others aren't. In many public places, it's rare to see a covered face.

“As I’ve gone out to some of these retail stores, I’ve noticed that people are not wearing masks,” Dr. Rachael Lee, an infectious diseases expert with the University of Alabama at Birmingham, told an online news conference.

Omar Mohammad, a 17-year-old who skipped his own graduation from Spain Park High School in Hoover because of the pandemic, said people seem to have dropped their guard after state orders that loosened restrictions.

“I’ve seen people being like, `I can go get my nails done, so it can’t be too bad,'" he said.

Leaders in Republican-controlled, deeply conservative Alabama, like many states, are stuck between trying to revive a lagging economy and prevent the spread of disease.

As of Friday, more than 13,400 people had tested positive for the coronavirus in Alabama, and 533 had died. Most people recover from COVID-19, but patients with other health problems and the elderly are particularly susceptible.

Meanwhile, state unemployment has reached levels not seen in decades. Alabama’s jobless rate jumped to 12.9% in April during the economic shutdown linked to the coronavirus pandemic, the worst in nearly 38 years, the state said.

The state's overall health trend worries disease experts including Lee. Jefferson County had its highest case count yet this week, she said, and the capital of Montgomery, where about 200,000 people live, is looking like a disease hot spot.

“I’m actually concerned about the numbers," she said. "As we have been watching over the past couple of weeks, those numbers have either been at the same level or they’re slowly going up.”

___

AP writer Nicky Forster contributed from Berkley, Massachusetts.

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Follow AP coverage of the pandemic at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak.

Coronavirus still spreading at epidemic rates

The virus is still spreading at epidemic rates in nearly half of U.S.

The virus is still spreading at epidemic rates in nearly half of U.S. states, with Texas at the top of the list, according to a study by Imperial College London. “There’s evidence that the U.S. is not under control, as an entire country,” Samir Bhatt, a senior lecturer in geostatistics at the college, told The Post.  There's good news, too: The study found that the virus's spread has slowed to a trickle in blue states but the numbers look grim across much of the South and Midwest aka Trumpistan or Trumpanistan. Read our health desk's story to learn where your state ranks. To get a sense of what a gargantuan effort it will take to safely reopen the country, read two new stories that illustrate the problem in microcosm: The first looks at what a Michigan machine tool plant went through after two of its 40-some employees tested positive for the coronavirus last month — a hasty shutdown, technicians in hazmat suits, offices doused with sanitizer and workers spitting into vials in the parking lot as United Precision Products struggled to reopen its doors without inviting a mass outbreak. The second story is about a county in Maryland that is cobbling together a small army of contact tracers — hiring out-of-work school health employees to track down hundreds of people who may have been exposed to covid-19 patients in the area and convince them to get tested. It's grueling detective work, and it's just beginning. One study estimates the United States will need 100,000 contact tracers to keep new outbreaks from spreading widely. As for the roots of the outbreak in the United States, our national security desk looked back at the unintended consequences of President Trump's hastily conceived ban on travelers from virus-stricken Europe in March. Announced with no warning during an Oval Office address, the travel ban caused Americans overseas to rush back home lest they be stranded. Thousands of people crowded together in long lines at airports, some coughing into their sleeves before filtering across the country — delivering one last infusion of the virus to the United States. “It was people passing through a pinhole,” a student caught in the trans-Atlantic crush told The Post. “I can guarantee you that people were infected.” More important news Illinois' efforts to stay mostly closed down are being undermined as all five states on its border relax or abolish their quarantine restrictions. Federal prosecutors say a 34-year-old Georgia worker faked coronavirus, causing his boss to shut the business down and quarantine co-workers at a cost of more than $100,000. A government program to send surplus farm produce to hungry Americans has been hobbled by baffling decision-making. It snubbed established nonprofits and food distribution companies and instead giving tens of millions of dollars to companies that were ill-equipped to move the food. Hit harder by the virus than any other Canadian province, Quebec is also moving the most aggressively to reopen. Truckers are being held up for weeks at the border between Kenya and Tanzania to be tested for the virus, demonstrating how difficult it is for countries to let essential trade in while keeping the virus out.

Live updates and more Track deaths and confirmed cases in the U.S. and across the world.  Where states are reopening and what the rules are in each one. Post reporters across the world are publishing live dispatches nearly 24 hours a day. Read the latest about what's happening in the D.C. area. Submit a question and The Post may answer it in a future story, live chat or newsletter.

Treasonous Criminal Donald Trump Calls Hillary A Skank

Trump shares sexist tweets calling Hillary Clinton a 'skank' and insulting prominent Democrats

Treasonous Criminal Donald Trump

Treasonous Criminal Donald Trump shared a string of sexist tweets from a failed congressional candidate calling Hillary Clinton a "skank", suggesting that Nancy Pelosi's mouth be taped shut and mocking the physical appearance of former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.

The president shared eight posts from John K Stahl — who also has called Ms Abrams "Shamu" and the House Speaker "Super Skank" — amid a streak of messages attacking absentee ballots and promoting a discredited conspiracy theory about MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, while the nation's death toll from coronavirus pandemic approaches 100,000.

Mr Trump also has spent a part of the Memorial Day weekend golfing at his Trump National Golf Club in Virginia.

Op Ed: To Bill Clinton, Defend your wife honor and beat the shit out of Donald Trump and fuck his wife and daughter who really are skanks for good measure

Jesus Is Essential

‘Jesus Is Essential’: These Churches Answered Trump’s Call and Defied Lockdown

Op Ed: Attention all Trump supporting Christians -- Please continue to defy the lock down order. Jesus will protect you. For everyone else, follow the science.Jesus will not protect non Trump supporters.

On Sunday, just days after Donald Trump encouraged houses of worship to reopen even in states under coronavirus lockdowns, churches from Maine to California defied the law and welcomed worshippers at live services.

In Washington State—the early ground zero of COVID-19 in America—Covenant Christian Church in Spokane welcomed a sizeable, mask-less crowd for morning prayers, according to the local Spokesman-Review. The Reverend Ken Peters, who claims he’d been holding in-person services since May 3, blasted the “satanic” agenda of Governor Jay Inslee’s stay-at-home order and vowed to start offering a second in-person service each Sunday evening.

And in California, where in-person services also remain banned and where officials say more than 180 people were exposed to the virus at an illicit church gathering on Mother’s Day, News Channel 3 reported that Church Unlimited in Indio flouted state rules by reopening its doors this weekend. On Saturday, a Pentecostal church in Chula Vista also filed an emergency motion with the U.S. Supreme Court in hopes of forcing Governor Gavin Newsom to allow churches to open.

Meanwhile, an independent Baptist church in southern New Jersey defied that state’s lockdown to hold Sunday services in a challenge to Governor Phil Murphy—whose executive order has kept churches closed since March, and who on Friday announced he’d allow gatherings of up to 25 people, but only outdoors. The Solid Rock Baptist Church in Berlin, along with the nearby Bible Baptist Church in Clementon, invited their members to the first in-person services since March, when those initial stay-at-home orders went into effect.

Pastor Ken Graves preaches during an indoor service at Calvary Chapel in Orrington, Maine, May 24. The service was held in defiance of Maine Gov. Janet Mills’ order that churches not reopen until May 29 and then only if they limit gatherings to 50 people or less and everyone wears a face mask.

Johanna S. Billings

Both of the Solid Rock pastors, Charles Clark Jr. and Charles Clark III, couched their reopening as a First Amendment right. They insisted that it was a patriotic act, and during their Sunday sermons, they repeatedly invoked Memorial Day, reminding congregants that men and women died to give Americans their freedom. And that freedom, they said, included the right to assemble and practice religion inside their church. 

Out of precaution, coronavirus restrictions in New Jersey have kept church members worshipping via livestreams or limited to drive-in services. But many seemed eager to return, like the Clarks, who downplayed the risks of transmission by arguing that people were allowed in all sorts of places not protected by the Constitution, like Walmart and Starbucks. 

“I was just in town, it was hopping,” Pastor Andrew Reese of the Clementon Bible Baptist Church told The Daily Beast on Saturday night. He had reopened last Sunday, and already has a court date in June for breaking Murphy’s executive order. That won’t stop him though, he said, even if he isn’t certain what the legal consequences might be. 

Nor did it seem to be stopping Solid Rock members. The scene at the church Sunday morning looked less like the start of prayer and more like the beginning of a professional sporting event, as hundreds of congregants—many dressed in their church finest—flooded in to attend the 10 AM service.

Alex Norcia for The Daily Beast

During a fiery press conference before the service, the elder Pastor Clark delivered a sermon of sorts to the news cameras, calling Governor Murphy a “tyrant” and going so far as to read out the Merriam-Webster definition of the word in full. At one point, he even compared New Jersey to Nazi Germany, emphasizing that the U.S. Constitution was at stake. “This is not North Korea,” he said. “This is not China.”  

That much was clear. American flags were everywhere—adorning the lawn, plopped next to the podium, draped behind the altar. Music blared from a pair of speakers. People carried signs and posters that read “Church Is Essential.”

A group of men and women in orange vests greeted members as they drove into the parking lot and led them to socially distanced spaces. At the entrance to the building, an usher directed church-goers through propped open doors, where they had their temperatures checked. 

“This is so stupid,” a man murmured to church staff. 

Inside, members had to sit at least six feet away from each other in the pews. Nobody could attend without a mask either—even if they disagreed. 

“Personally, I can’t stand the masks,” said Andrew Heier, who has been a member of Solid Rock for five years and identified himself as a supporter of President Trump. “I’ll wear them if I have to. If this was on a scale, though, I’d fall somewhere in the middle: States need to reopen, but they need to do it carefully. Just because I want to go to church doesn’t mean I don’t care about other people.”

“It’s not, like, church is open, and then everybody’s sitting on each other’s laps and licking door handles,” he continued. 

The younger Clark, who led Sunday morning’s service, said that Solid Rock and Clementon Bible Baptist were prepared to file a lawsuit should the governor not change his executive order and deem churches essential by the end of the week. Solid Rock already sent a letter directly to Murphy last week, and dozens of other pastors together recently signed a separate letter, urging the governor to reopen churches in New Jersey and threatening him with legal action should he not concede.

“This week, with or without permission, churches will be open,” the elder Clark promised during the service. 

“Jesus,” he later said, “is essential.”

Alex Norcia for The Daily Beast

A similar vibe emanated from in-person services in Orrington, Maine on Sunday, where between 200 and 400 people gathered inside an old gym that now serves as Calvary Chapel. They were there not only to worship God but also to defy a state order that churches not reopen until May 29.

Governor Janet Mills announced May 22 that churches in Maine could reopen a week later for in-person services only if certain rules are followed. These include a 50-person limit, the wearing of face masks and maintaining six feet of space between attendees unless they are members of the same household.

Also on May 22, President Donald Trump declared he was identifying houses of worship as “essential places that provide essential services” and called upon state governors to allow them to reopen immediately.

“The governors need to do the right thing and allow these very important essential places of faith to open right now, for this weekend,” Trump said. “If they don’t do it, I will override the governors.”

During the 8 a.m. service, Calvary pastor Ken Graves thanked Trump for his support. “I’m very grateful to the chief executive for speaking up for our churches,” he told those gathered for the service, none of whom were wearing masks. Outside, a handful of people were wearing them but only intermittently.

Graves encouraged worshippers to resist the “police state.” Earlier this month, the church filed a complaint in U.S. District Court alleging that Mills’ decision to limit gatherings to 10 or fewer people violates religious freedom guaranteed by the Constitution. The church lost but has appealed the decision. During a prayer, Graves asked God to “open the eyes of the state” and “cause people to recognize what is being done.”

Speaking to the Daily Beast after the service, Graves said the church has been “in a state of defiance” against Maine for the past month.

“We’ll continue to meet in person in greater numbers than the state will allow,” he said. “The state has no authority to ban people from going to church.”

A woman carries a Trump campaign sign following indoor services held at Calvary Chapel May 24 in Orrington, Maine. The signs and other campaign literature were available in the parking lot of the church before and after services May 24, which were held in defiance of state mandates.

Johanna S. Billings

Calvary Chapel has been holding outdoor services every Sunday for the past month to demonstrate that “what really matters to us is being able to gather,” Graves said. On Sunday, two days after Trump’s announcement, the 8 a.m. service moved indoors. Two additional services took place outside as they had previously. The church will continue this schedule.

Graves maintains congregation members are just as safe attending church services indoors as they are going to Walmart.

“We can do a better job [of keeping people safe] than Walmart can,” he said. “We’re motivated by love.”

“We still recognize that it’s a highly contagious virus,” said Eric Meyerson, who serves as an assistant pastor. Attendees were advised not to shake hands and to make use of the hand sanitizer that was provided. Stacie Haverlock, who heads the church’s school ministry, regularly sanitized surfaces including door handles, and cleaned the restrooms between uses.

The church removed some of the seating on the gym floor to create physical distance. In the bleachers on either side of the room, people sat in small groups presumably with close family members. A few people sat outside the gym, watching the service on a TV screens. When services were over, people crowded around a table in the parking lot to get Trump campaign signs.

People are allowed to address their physical health during the pandemic and should be able to address their spiritual health, said Haverlock.

“There’s just nothing like getting together with fellow believers and worshipping our god,” she said.

Jade Dileonardi, who attended the indoor service with her husband, Michael, agreed.

“It strengthens our faith having other believers around,” she said.

Op Ed: Attention all Trump supporting Christians -- Please continue to defy the lockdown order. Jesus will protect you. For everyone else, follow the science.Jesus will not protect non Trump supporters.

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Trump Says He Quit Taking Hydroxychloroquine

Trump Says He Quit Taking Hydroxychloroquine Here's What Folk Are Saying

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-says-hes-finished-hydroxychloroquine-205620452.html

Trump Says He Stopped Taking Hydroxychloroquine

48 minutes ago

Can guarantee that he was never on it to begin with. He is only pushing it to help his friends that profit from the drug. He knows full well that it is dangerous, he just doesn't care if people die as long as it makes he, his family and his friends more money.

1 hour ago

A massive study found that coronavirus patients who took the malaria drug touted by Trump had a higher risk of death.

1 hour ago

Someone needs to drive home the medical point to Doc Trump that medications are not approved for use based on rave reviews or because many people think it saved their lives. Without proper testing there is no way to know if a drug is effective against a specific malady or how it should be used against that malady or if there are dangerous side effects. As Mr. Trump has said, the cure shouldn't be worse than the disease. It's interesting that our stable genius leader loves to talk about those rave reviews but is less enthusiastic about reviews that aren't so positive regarding his favorite drugs. Even a Kool Aid Trumpite should be able to understand that whether a drug works or doesn't is not a political fact but ratehr a scientific one. Either it does or it doesn't regardless of what Donald Trump thinks.

2 hours ago

He was never given it. They gave him sugar pills which he promptly ground up and snorted with his Adderall

1 hour ago

The next phase for him is to INJECT HIS LUNGS WITH DISINFECTANT/BLEACH AND HE WILL BE CURED!

Lying Trump Whore Kayleigh McEnany

Chris Wallace of Fox News Slams Kayleigh McEnany: 'I Never Saw A W.H. Press Sec. Act Like That'

Lying Trump Whore Kayleigh McEnany

Fox News anchor Chris Wallace took aim at White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Sunday, slamming her for going after reporters about their religious faith and for telling them what questions they should be asking.

McEnany had on Friday accused journalists of “desperately” wanting churches and places of worship to stay closed after she was questioned about President Donald Trump’s claim he would “override” governors who ignored his demand to immediately reopen churches amid the COVID-19 pandemic. A reporter was asking what legal authority the president has to do so.

“I spent six years in the White House briefing room covering Ronald Reagan. I have to say, I never — and in the years since too — I never saw a White House press secretary act like that,” Wallace said to a panel on “Fox News Sunday.”

Donna Brazile, the former interim Democratic National Committee chair, responded that she personally knows McEnany to be an “extraordinary person” but criticized the “combative” approach she’d taken in her new role.

Related: Kayleigh McEnany says Trump has never lied to the public ...

Wallace continued by playing another excerpt from Friday’s press briefing. During that clip, McEnany posed a series of questions ― complete with prepared slides ― that she said journalists should be asking about former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Conservative commentator Jonah Goldberg labeled McEnany’s behavior “indefensible and grotesque.”

“What Donald Trump wants in a press secretary is a Twitter troll who goes on attack,” Golberg told Wallace. “Doesn’t actually care about doing the job they have, and instead wants to impress really an audience of one and make another part of official Washington another one of these essentially cable news and Twitter gladiatorial arenas.”

Wallace added that McEnany “isn’t acting like she’s working for the public” and acts instead like “what she used to be, which is a spokesperson for the Trump campaign.”

Another panelist, Josh Holmes, the former chief of staff for Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), defended McEnany. He claimed her behavior was different from past press secretaries because any spokesperson in the Trump administration and campaign “finds themselves under constant attack by the press.” 

“Let me just say, Sam Donaldson and me in the Reagan White House, we were pretty tough on the White House press secretaries and we never had our religious beliefs questioned or were lectured on what we should ask,” Wallace replied.

Wallace, a frequent and vocal Trump critic, was the subject of Trump Twitter outrage last month after a “Fox News Sunday” segment critical of his administration’s pandemic response. 

His latest comments will likely come as another escalation in tensions with Trump. While some primetime Fox News personalities routinely stump for the president, negative coverage last week sent Trump into a Twitter tailspin against the network. On Monday, anchor Neil Cavuto had harshly criticized the president’s claim he’s using the unproven and potentially dangerous drug hydroxychloroquine to protect against coronavirus.

Trump declared Monday he was “looking for a new outlet” and on Thursday complained that Fox News was “doing nothing” to help him get re-elected in November. And on Friday, he raged at the network for airing a poll that showed him trailing presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.