July 16 – 13,558,000 worldwide: confirmed infections; 585,000 deaths
July 22 - US: 3,971,000 confirmed infections; 143,200 deaths
July 16 - US: 3,500.000 confirmed infections; 138,000 deaths
July 22 - SA: 395,000 confirmed infections; 5,940 deaths
July 16 - SA: 311,050 confirmed infections; 4,460 deaths
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| Numbers from April 9, 2020. Click to enlarge. |
South African news reports 572 new COVID-19 related deaths in the last 24 hours, 400 of which occurred in the Eastern Cape.
The bad news: the number of confirmed cases jumped by more than 13,000.
The better news: the recovery rate has improved 58 percent. This means almost 230,000 people have already recovered.
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| Numbers from July 22, 2020. Click to enlarge. |
California hit a single-day record for new COVID cases. San Francisco Bay Area counties are doing better than the rest of the state, especially compared to Southern California counties.
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Now for a break from "the horror, the horror": The Lincoln Project: Failure (2:13 mins)
A summary of Trump’s response to coronavirus over the past five months.
Trump sums it up: “That’s the way it is”.
Randy Rainbow is pro-Anthony Fauci (so am I!): GEE, ANTHONY FAUCI! - A Randy Rainbow Song Parody (3:53 mins)
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
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| © Photo: JOSH EDELSON/ AFP Via Getty Images Click to enlarge. |
A recent post described fire season in KZN and in California.
Today, the Hog Fire announces California fire season is roaring back.
A massive pyrocumulonimbus cloud, or fire cloud, formed over the Hog Fire in far northeastern California Monday, generating its own weather with a wild mix of thunderstorms, rain, and fire whirls….
Thunderstorms passing over the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Range kicked up high winds that fanned flames in the late afternoon and spread the blaze in remote Lassen County. The intense heat in the vigorous updraft created a foreboding weather cloud of smoke and ash, reaching 30,000 to 35,000 feet (10,000 to 12,000 meters) in height.
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Since police in this area are, well, hopeless, this post is in the spirit of spreading the word so that, in the horrible event that I’m attacked by my mother’s domestic worker’s drunk-of-a-ne’er-do-well son security personnel know where to look for a culprit. (Background)
And aother wrinkle in an ongoing saga.
The upper security gate has been used in the past by the domestic worker to allow her son onto the property after the alarm was armed for the night.
I’d discovered this two years ago after returning to SA for a visit.
I heard a buzz from the alarm panel located in my bedroom. At first, jet lagged, I paid little attention. After several nights hearing the same sound, I investigated.
I checked the security cam replay and found footage of the domestic worker responding to her son’s after-hours call through the intercom. In the footage, the domestic worker, dressed for bed, appears on the monitor, unlocks the padlock, opens the gate with the remote-control opener, ushers him inside, then re-arms the alarm and re-locks the padlock on the gate.
I showed my mother the footage.
Her first reaction was to flinch … then she shrugged.
The message she conveyed? So, what’s your point?
Six months before I’d arrived for that visit, my mother had caved when her domestic worker begged permission for her son had to live on the property. Despite his conviction and 5-year prison sentence served for rape, his lack of employment, his history of alcohol abuse, my mother had allowed the 40-year-old to move into his mother’s living space.
Back then, I copied the footage from the security cam and saved it on my laptop. I also changed the security on the gate so that the domestic worker could no longer open it.
Since she lies to my face, I said nothing directly to her: sometimes actions speak louder than words.
Fast forward to yesterday, July 22 – approximately two-and-a-half weeks after the incident wherein the ne’er do well – evicted – son threatened to kill, rape, etc., me.
While the domestic worker uses a leaf blower to clean my mother’s front verandah, I’ve never seen her use it to clean the area between the garage’s folding door and the upper security gate.
Suspicious, I checked the padlock on the upper security gate.
It was unlocked.
The key to that padlock is one on a set everyone in the household uses.
I removed the key from the set, switched padlocks, and held both keys to the new padlock.
Today, I reviewed yesterday’s security cam footage.
At 11:37 am, the domestic worker leaf blows in the vicinity of the gate and padlock – quickly unlocks the padlock, then finishes leaf blowing.
A copy of that footage now resides on a thumb drive and on my laptop.
Creepy.
My mother – a receptacle for denial of reality for much of her 87 years – refuses to believe the evidence of her own eyes.
Me? I don’t feel heard – or safe.
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