Reynolds seems to be listening to Trump and following him in his slow reaction to the problem. Granted, they received obsolete info from the CDC, but that should be traceable to the Trump actions, as well, by cutting CDC's funding. She hasn't done anything to impress me, but then I have pretty much ignored her. My bad?

Just curious if anyone in Iowa has received a call from "Congress" with the phone number of Harkin's office? (I checked it out online.) I assume it is from Ernst? I didn't answer the calls (I've had 2) but am curious if she was campaigning...maybe polling about something? I don't think campaigning would be legal from her office for her or her staff.

https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/en/test?state=IA

https://covidtracking.com/data/#IA

Positive
235
Negative
3,740
Pending
N/A
Hospitalized
50
Deaths
3
Total test results
Positive + Negative
3,975
Iowa dataLast updated: 3/27 15:40 ET Last checked: 3/27 15:02 ET
Best current data source for Iowa.

Historical data for Iowa.

Data quality grade: C

If no timestamp was given, time = 00:00. Not all commercial labs report negatives to Iowa, as per their guidance.
(much better at link)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That phone call was from Ernst's office inviting you to a telephone town hall. I listened in on the first. No one was asking any real questions. The second on I got a call after it was over.

I assume this is her campaign replacement. After all she cares for Iowans.

She could probably say she wanted to get the opinion of her constituents, but if she did any campaigning...even a few minutes during the town hall...she would violate the act, because she used governmental phone lines to contact people when to attend. Just thinkin'.

Thanks for the info.

Coronavirus: Is Egypt suppressing the true outbreak figures?

In Egypt, the first person to die of the novel coronavirus was a 60-year-old German man who visited tourist hotspots during a Nile cruise trip. While traveling from the historic city of Luxor to the Red Sea resort town of Hurghada, he started running a fever.

He went to a nearby hospital on March 6, where he tested positive for COVID-19 and, within days, succumbed to respiratory failure caused by acute pneumonia. His case was one of many linked to Nile cruises in Upper Egypt.

Egyptian authorities eventually tested dozens of people aboard cruise ships operating in the area and discovered 45 positive cases of coronavirus, including 12 staff members. None of them had purportedly shown symptoms of the deadly pathogen.

Yet, weeks before Egyptian authorities started waking up to the magnitude of the epidemic in early March, public health officials as far as the US, Taiwan and Canada were piecing together a severe albeit unreported outbreak deep in the Egyptian heartland.
...
https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-is-egypt-suppressing-the-true-outbreak-figures/a-52801568

Germany is now testing 300,000-500,000 samples per day. That's about one test for every 200 citizens, per week. By that measure, Iowa should be running about 16,000 per week. The number of total cases Iowa has had over the past few days is nearly the same each day as Italy had one month before.

I hope rural states can break out of this naive stupor, the idea that somehow distance between small towns is protective. It's not. Surface contact:the virus doesn't care how far you drove to fondle fruit in the grocery isle. The more surface you share, the higher the risk, and it doesn't matter if it's the checkout lane at Walmart in the county seat, or a pump handle at a gas station, or a church pew. The only advantage Iowa has is less total virus food and more room in the cemetery.

#staythefuckhome