TPM Reader PC nails it:

Longtime TPM reader in Canada. The other comments from abroad got me thinking about the alleged White House strategy of getting the public accustomed to living with a high level of outbreaks. It might seem delusional to expect people to accept mass illness and death – but there’s plenty of precedent.

As Summer Concepcion and I discussed how to cover President Trump’s press briefing last night, we were both utterly gaping at his behavior — that’s coming from two journalists who have been following the ins-and-outs of the Trump-era since Day 1.

From TPM Reader SA …

I’m a long-time TPM reader (back to 2002 or something) and one of the original prime members and also a TPM insider. I live in NYC, most of the time. My wife and I are both professors at a university in New York City and we have small children (ages 6 and 4). We are overall extremely lucky: no one got sick and we are not in much danger of losing our jobs. But, the lack of child care, and the *uncertainty* around child care, has just been really tough.

About a month ago we were in a zoom meeting with the school where our smallest is registered for pre-K when we were blindsided by the sudden realization that ***they were really contemplating not opening the schools full time.***

From TPM Reader CF …

I’m a US citizen in Australia – haven’t lived in the US since 2005 (was in Europe for a number of years and I’m married to a european), but all my family is in New England (specifically in an area with pretty low Covid rates). Reading the commentary on the editor’s blog from all the CA residents really brought home the dissonance between how Americans are experiencing this pandemic and how I am down here.

From TPM Reader DW …

My eldest daughter (a French citizen) lives in Paris. When Paris locked down, she was only allowed to go out of her house – up to 1 kilometer- for exercise or to the store, twice a day, and for exercise- it had to be between specific hours. It was pretty drastic since she lives in a very tiny Parisian studio and was not allowed to do any exercise socially, such as walk with a friend. She was required to carry a written statement about why she was out should law enforcement stop her. They did allow people to return to their families before their shutdown and most of her Parisian apartment neighbors went to their parents’ regional homes. The only people she came in contact with were the grocery store clerks, who were behind plastic panels. Her hours at the university that employs her were reduced, but French unemployment made up the difference.

This story about sending the National Guard into hospitals is bizarre and telling about our national situation. Six months into this crisis the canonical sources of data on the COVID epidemic in the US are one data project run out of The Atlantic (The COVID Tracking Project) and another run out of Johns Hopkins University. The federal government isn’t really even in the game. These are glorious, impressive, dedicated works of public service and data science. But the fact that they need to exist is, frankly, a disgrace.

Now the Trump administration has decided that hospitals are being lax about reporting data on COVID cases. It appears likely that most hospitals are doing just what they’re told and that the problem is disorganized and inconsistent guidance from the Department of Health and Human Services.

It feels like a lifetime ago that we religiously covered President Trump’s repeated attacks on his ex-Attorney General Jeff Sessions. It’s laughable now that the “beleaguered” tweet day felt like a critical moment in Trump’s presidency.

From TPM Reader TK …

I just read the post from ME in CA.

I too am from CA. I could not agree more with the entirety of his comments.
I’m seeing and hearing a lot of comments from CA citizens blaming Newsom. Some want an immediate recall. They are foolish and idiotic.

From TPM Reader FW …

I echo ME’s anger. We both are in our mid 60’s and work from home so that part of Covid hasn’t been a big deal. We started to draw back in mid February, when I started stocking up on stapes. Except for early voting in late February I haven’t been anywhere outside of our immediate neighborhood. I switched to grocery delivery. We get food delivered once or twice a week. Some enterprising neighbor has arranged for food trucks to copy by a few times a week (they normally get their business from bars). I haven’t had a draft beer since February and was sort of hoping that by now I would feel safe visiting a local brewery with a beer garden — but no. Probably 75% of the people I see walking the neighborhood wear masks and I could have predicted most of the 25% that don’t from behavior before the pandemic.