Author: BlackMask Financial

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San Francisco to impose curfew on Nov. 30

An increase in cases of COVID-19 has sent San Francisco into the purple level of California’s color-coded reopening plan, officials announced on November 28. As a result, the county must now join most of the rest of the state’s limited stay-at-home order, which requires that “non-essential work, movement, and gatherings,” including outdoor dining, cease between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. from November 30 until December 21. This isn’t a surprise to city and county health officials, who warned on November 20 that the region was on track to move from the red (“substantial risk” of COVID-19 exposure) to the most restrictive, purple tier (“widespread risk”) in coming days. Counties that enter the purple tier, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on November 19, must follow a state-mandated shelter-in-place order “designed to reduce opportunities for disease transmission,” including the weeks-long curfew. “Activities conducted during 10 PM to 5 AM are often non-essential and more likely related to social activities and gatherings that have a higher likelihood of leading to reduced inhibition and reduced likelihood for adherence to safety measures like wearing a face covering and maintaining physical distance,” the state said in a statement regarding the curfew, which now applies to 99.1 percent of the state’s population, including every county in the Bay Area but Marin (which, as of publication time, remains red). You can see a full list of tier assignments here.

According to the announcement of the shutdown from the city, customers must leave restaurants by 10 p.m., but restaurants may remain open for takeout or delivery. Other non-essential businesses must close and gatherings must cease, but businesses like grocery and convenience stores may remain open, with a capacity limit of 50 percent.

“This is the most aggressive surge SF has seen to date,” Breed says, as “we’re currently averaging 118 new cases per day compared to 73 per day in the first week of November…For the week of November 16th, we had 768 diagnosed cases compared to 217 diagnosed cases the week of October 12th.”

Breed’s remarks follow those of San Francisco Health Director Dr. Grant Colfax, who said on November 27 that the number of San Franciscans that have tested positive for COVID-19 “in the last 4 weeks has increased 265 percent.” It’s also expected — but still tough — news for the city’s restaurants, many of which rely on dinner service to remain afloat. In a statement, the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, the lobbying group for San Francisco’s dining industry, says that the 10 p.m. curfew means that “although outdoor dining in San Francisco will remain open…restaurants will in reality not be able to take reservations past 8 or 8:30 p.m., therefore severely limiting their ability to do business.” “Although our foremost concern remains with the health and well-being of our community, we expect immediate negative effects to our industry and continue to call on our city leaders to help us survive by making financial relief available for our restaurants and our employees,” the GGRA says. “We also call on Congress to pass a relief package that includes the Restaurants Act and additional PPP funding immediately.”  Nick Note: You could never tell by the insanity on Wall Street but the economy has entered another death plunge. The great white hope if it gives immunity for more then 6 months has not been deployed yet. And in order to give society wide protection it will take 2 years. The great equalizer that is superior to the masks and social distancing hoopla is simple. How many people are testing positive, how many are developing systems, how many are hospitalized and dying. See its all bullshit.  If the population is to sick to work and must be isolated all the toilet paper mask and vaccine myths do not count. Oh i forgot to mention the stimulus has run out and it will be to late next year when they start up the handouts again.

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Black Friday shopping in stores craters 52% during pandemic as e-commerce sales surge

  • Traffic at stores on Black Friday fell by 52.1% compared with last year, according to preliminary data from Sensormatic Solutions.
  • “Shoppers are spreading out their shopping throughout the holiday season because of concerns about social distancing and the pandemic,” said Brian Field.
  • Online spending on Black Friday surged 21.6% to hit a new record, according to data from Adobe Analytics.

Traffic at stores on Black Friday fell by 52.1% compared with last year, as Americans by and large eschewed heading to malls and queuing up in lines for shopping online, according to preliminary data from Sensormatic Solutions. For the six key weeks of the holiday season this year, traffic in retail stores is expected to be down 22% to 25% year over year, an earlier forecast by Sensormatic Solutions said. “We knew Black Friday [traffic] was going to be down, we just didn’t know how much it was going to be down,” said Brian Field, a senior director of global retail consulting at Sensormatic Solutions. “Shoppers are spreading out their shopping throughout the holiday season because of concerns about social distancing and the pandemic.” The Covid pandemic has pushed a record number of consumers to shop online, instead, as retailers place many of their top holiday doorbuster deals online and encourage shoppers to buy on the web and then pick up purchases curbside. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also recommended that Americans shop online the day after Thanksgiving.

Many malls looked bleak, and parking lots were more empty than full, across much of the country during the early hours of the morning Friday.

Some reported traffic picking up later in the day, especially at outlet and open-air shopping centers, as some consumers felt more comfortable heading out. The warmer weather that blanketed much of the country also helped. The typical peak time for shopping on Black Friday remained the same this year, hitting at about 2 p.m., Sensormatic Solutions said. On Thanksgiving Day, when many retailers including Walmart and Target closed their stores this year due to the pandemic, traffic dropped 94.9% year over year, according to the firm. Week-to-date, traffic is down 45.2% across the U.S. “Black Friday this year, from a traffic impact perspective, looked a lot like a typical Saturday after a Black Friday,” Field said. Nick Note: Besides the virus run wild and the boiling middle east cauldron the markets are ignoring the retail store-mall disaster in the making. Yes people are shopping online. Great for Amazon… one stock. The Rits and department stores and big box retailers are in trouble. Never mind this spells the demise for small retailers

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Was scientist’s killing the opening shot of a Trump-led war on Iran

The assassination of the country’s top nuclear expert raises fears that the outgoing US president is determined to take further action

The assassination on Friday of Iran’s leading nuclear scientist has heightened suspicions t hat Donald Trump, in cahoots with hardline Israeli and Saudi allies, may be trying to lure the Tehran regime into an all-out confrontation in the dying days of his presidency. Trump’s four-year-long Iranian vendetta is approaching a climax – and he still has the power and the means to inflict lasting damage. Speculation that Trump might soon initiate or support some kind of attack on Iran, overt or covert, kinetic or cyber, had swirled across the Middle East in the wake of last weekend’s unprecedented meeting in Saudi Arabia between Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. What the three men discussed remains a closely guarded secret, a fact that has only served to encourage conspiracy claims. In the absence of an official statement, it’s suggested they may have agreed to intensify efforts to provoke and weaken the Tehran regime. Any ensuing retaliation by Iran might then potentially be used to justify an attack on its nuclear facilities before Trump leaves office on 20 January. The meeting in Neom, a city near the Red Sea, and the possibly deliberate leak revealing it had taken place, served another important purpose. By presenting a united anti-Iran front, the participants put US president-elect Joe Biden on notice that his plans to resume dialogue with Tehran, and revive the 2015 nuclear deal abandoned by Trump, will face fierce resistance and may have to be rethought. If Iran hits back over the assassination, as threatened by its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Biden’s hopes of calming the regional situation could be blown apart – along with Iran’s nuclear facilities at Natanz and elsewhere. And there’s another danger. Even if the regime holds back, loyalist Shia militias in Iraq, Syria or Lebanon could take matters into their own hands. “We will strike as thunder at the killers of this oppressed martyr and will make them regret their action,” Hossein Dehghan, a senior military commander, vowed in a tweet. Yet Iran’s dilemma is excruciating. If it does retaliate in any obvious way, it could give its enemies the excuse they want and the opportunity they crave to deliver a crushing blow. Iran’s leaders have little doubt that Israel, with a probable green light from Washington, was behind the assassination. President Hassan Rouhani expressly blamed the “usurper Zionist regime”. Foreign minister Javad Zarif tweeted that there were “serious indications” of an Israeli role. “Iran calls on international community – and especially EU – to end their shameful double standards & condemn this act of state terror,” he wrote. The methods used to kill the scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was gunned down in a street near Tehran, resembled those used in a spate of similar killings of nuclear experts between 2010 and 2012 that Iran blamed on Israel. In 2018, Netanyahu singled Fakhrizadeh out as Iran’s supposed nuclear weapons mastermind. The US and Israel are believed to have launched repeated sabotage attacks inside Iran on Trump’s watch. In July, the Natanz nuclear fuel enrichment facilities were damaged by a mysterious explosion.

This month, Trump reportedly discussed options for hitting Natanz and other targets after UN inspectors said Iran’s low-enriched uranium stockpile was now 12 times higher than permitted under the 2015 nuclear deal abandoned by Trump.

For still undisclosed reasons, Trump ordered several nuclear-capable B-52 Stratofortress bombers to fly 7,000 miles to the Middle East last weekend. Nick Bit: Sources inform me these planes were/are carrying the biggest non nuclear bomb ever made the GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) is a precision-guided, 30,000-pound (14,000 kg) “bunker buster” bomb used by the United States Air Force. The Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) is a weapon system designed to accomplish a difficult, complicated mission of reaching and destroying an adversary’s weapons of mass destruction located in well-protected facilities. This weapon is so massive that the only way to deliver it is by the B-52 Stratofortress B52 bomber. Because of this weapons size its the only thing short of a nuke that can destroy Iran’s underground nuclear bomb factory deep underground at Natanz. It is a hardened Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) covering 100,000 square meters that is built 8 meters underground and protected by a concrete wall 2.5 meters thick, itself protected by another concrete wall.

Was the assassination a prelude to something more strategically explosive as Trump strives to secure his wished-for legacy as scourge of Iran and saviour of Israel? Trump certainly needs a win. His Iran policy to date has mostly resulted in own goals. His “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign hurt the Iranian people but left their leaders unbowed. The regime is now closer to acquiring nuclear bomb-making capability than it would have been had Trump not reneged on the nuclear deal.

Yet what happens next also depends, up to a point, on Israel and Saudi Arabia. Netanyahu and Prince Mohammed are keen to send a message to Biden that what they characterise as appeasement of Iran will not work.

If the nuclear deal is to be resurrected, they want loopholes plugged and new elements added. Meanwhile, they say sanctions on Iran should continue. But both men must tread carefully. Netanyahu cannot ignore Biden’s views or the impact expanding hostilities could have on Israel’s security. As for the crown prince, he would doubtless like to see Iran given a bloody nose. But he, too, has to ponder the cost of turning Saudi cities and oil terminals into targets. For them, the assassination represents a high-risk gamble. Iran’s leaders must now decide whether to resist the urge to retaliate – or lash out and invite a larger conflict at a moment when the country’s sanctions and Covid-hit economy is on its knees. It’s a fateful moment for the entire Middle East. Full of brooding malevolence, Trump is waiting to pounce. After four years of failure, he may be tempted to go out with a bang. Nick Note: Lets get real here.Iran can not take on the USA. Weather to retaliate or sit tight is the decision in the balance in Tehran, Washington and Jerusalem also have a decision to make To bomb with the approval of the Saudi’s and Israel  the Nantaz underground Nuclear facility. The free world MUST stop Iran’s nuclear program. The issue is retaliation. Iran has 6000 conventional long range missiles. And they could devastate the Saudi oil infrastructure and cause REAL damage to major cities in Israel. I do not see this happening. BUT a missile or two striking the oil fields of Saudi Arabia and Tel Avive could be in the cards. These decisions are in the balance as we speak. A parting thought…. mistakes can happen and miscalculations could escalate world events in dangerous ways, And the stock market in vaccine euphoria  are ignoring these critical events.

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Iran’s supreme leader vows revenge over slain scientist …

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s supreme leader on Saturday called for the “definitive punishment” of those behind the killing of a scientist linked to Tehran’s disbanded military nuclear program, a slaying the Islamic Republic has blamed on Israel. Israel, long suspected of killing Iranian scientists a decade ago amid tensions over Tehran’s nuclear program, has yet to comment on the killing Friday of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. However, the attack bore the hallmarks of a carefully planned, military-style ambush. The slaying threatens to renew tensions between the U.S. and Iran in the waning days of President Donald Trump’s term, just as President-elect Joe Biden has suggested his administration could return to Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers from which Trump earlier withdrew. The Pentagon announced early Saturday that it sent the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier back into the Mideast. In a statement, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called Fakhrizadeh “the country’s prominent and distinguished nuclear and defensive scientist.”

Khamenei said Iran’s first priority after the killing was the “definitive punishment of the perpetrators and those who ordered it.” He did not elaborate.

Speaking to a meeting of his government’s coronavirus task force earlier Saturday, President Hassan Rouhani blamed Israel for the killing. Rouhani said that Fakhrizadeh’s death would not stop its nuclear program, something Khamenei said as well. Iran’s civilian nuclear program has continued its experiments and now enriches uranium up to 4.5%, far below weapons-grade levels of 90%. But analysts have compared Fakhrizadeh to being on a par with Robert Oppenheimer, the scientist who led the U.S.′ Manhattan Project in World War II that created the atom bomb. “We will respond to the assassination of Martyr Fakhrizadeh in a proper time,” Rouhani said. He added: “The Iranian nation is smarter than falling into the trap of the Zionists. They are thinking to create chaos.” Friday’s attack happened in Absard, a village just east of the capital that is a retreat for the Iranian elite. Iranian state television said an old truck with explosives hidden under a load of wood blew up near a sedan carrying Fakhrizadeh. As Fakhrizadeh’s sedan stopped, at least five gunmen emerged and raked the car with rapid fire, the semiofficial Tasnim news agency said. Fakhrizadeh died at a hospital after doctors and paramedics couldn’t revive him. Others wounded included Fakhrizadeh’s bodyguards.

Hours after the attack, the Pentagon announced it had brought the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier back into the Middle East, an unusual move as the carrier already spent months in the region.

It cited the drawdown of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq as the reason for the decision, saying “it was prudent to have additional defensive capabilities in the region to meet any contingency.” The attack comes just days before the 10-year anniversary of the killing of Iranian nuclear scientist Majid Shahriari that Tehran also blamed on Israel. That and other targeted killings happened at the time that the so-called Stuxnet virus, believed to be an Israeli and American creation, destroyed Iranian centrifuges. Those assaults occurred at the height of Western fears over Iran’s nuclear program. Tehran long has insisted its program is peaceful. However, Fakhrizadeh led Iran’s so-called AMAD program that Israel and the West have alleged was a military operation looking at the feasibility of building a nuclear weapon. The International Atomic Energy Agency says that “structured program” ended in 2003. IAEA inspectors monitor Iranian nuclear sites as part of the now-unraveling nuclear deal with world powers, which saw Tehran limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. After Trump’s 2018 withdrawal from the deal, Iran has abandoned all those limits. Experts now believe Iran has enough low-enriched uranium to make at least two nuclear weapons if it chose to pursue the bomb. Meanwhile, an advanced centrifuge assembly plant at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility exploded in July in what Tehran now calls a sabotage attack. Fakhrizadeh, born in 1958, had been sanctioned by the U.N. Security Council and the U.S. for his work on AMAD. Iran always described him as a university physics professor. A member of the Revolutionary Guard, Fakhrizadeh had been seen in pictures in meetings attended by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a sign of his importance in Iran’s theocracy. In recent years, U.S. sanctions lists name him as heading Iran’s Organization for Defensive Innovation and Research. The State Department described that organization last year as working on “dual-use research and development activities, of which aspects are potentially useful for nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons delivery systems. Nick Note: Trump moves closer to bombing Iran Nuclear facilities. What a parting shot that would be. Iran needs to be stopped and for sure Biden and his gang of merry liberals will restart Clinton’s and Obama’s appeasement program… that will end up getting US and allies nuked.

 

 

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Pennsylvania Senate Majority Policy Committee hearings on election fraud at the request of Republican senator Doug Mastriano

Wednesday, November 25, 2020: At the request of Senator Doug Mastriano (R-Adams/Cumberland/Franklin/York), the Senate Majority Policy Committee is held a public hearing Wednesday to discuss 2020 election issues and irregularities.

WHO: Senate Majority Policy Committee Chair David Argall (R-Berks/Schuylkill); Senate Majority Leader-Elect Kim Ward (R-39); State Rep. Dan Moul (R-91); State Rep. Rob Kauffman (R-89); and State Rep Paul Schemel (R-90); among other lawmakers will join Senator Mastriano in this historic hearing.

“Elections are a fundamental principle of our democracy – unfortunately, Pennsylvanians have lost faith in the electoral system,” said Mastriano, who recently called for the resignation of State Department Secretary Kathy Boockvar for negligence and incompetence. “It is unacceptable.”

“Over the past few weeks, I have heard from thousands of Pennsylvanians regarding issues experienced at the polls, irregularities with the mail-in voting system and concerns whether their vote was counted,” said Mastriano. “We need to correct these issues to restore faith in our republic.” “We want assurance that the issues encountered during this past election don’t happen again,” said Chairman Argall. “Senator Mastriano requested this meeting because Pennsylvanians deserve a fair election.” Nick Note: Look at the tape… Very very credible witnesses testify to POTENTIAL massive organized voter fraud. The french concluded that mail in elections were impossible to be fair. And opened up elections to massive fraud. through huge data breaches and hacking of computerized counting machines. It is obvious that something is very fishy in Denmark. Unfortunately these allegations are coming too late in the process. But you never know. Part of the problem is Trumps legale fight is about as organized as a rain deer round up!

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Biden can enter WH only if proves all his votes were legal – Trump

https://youtu.be/ksvttXWJ8p4

Less than 24 hours after Donald Trump said he was ready to step aside for president-elect Joe Biden, he has reversed his position, claiming that Biden must first “prove” he actually won the 80 million votes that states across the US have counted in his favour. On Friday, a federal appeals court panel in Philadelphia shot down Trump’s legal team’s attempt to challenge election results in Pennsylvania, a state Biden won. Yet in a tweet completely detached from reality, Trump insisted that it’s now Biden who has a “big unsolvable problem.”

The president-elect can “only enter the White House as president if he can prove that his ridiculous ‘80,000,000 votes’ were not fraudulently or illegally obtained,” Trump tweeted Friday.

He did not indicate how Biden was expected to prove the legitimacy of votes that have already gone through a certification process. Trump also falsely said Biden only did well in the large cities of Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Milwaukee, which he claimed have “long [been] known as being politically corrupt.” Trump won the states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin in 2016, but not this year. Twitter marked both of Trump’s tweets as “disputed.”

“Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here,” Trump appointee Judge Stephanos Bibas wrote in an opinion filed Friday for the three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The judges on the panel were all appointed by GOP presidents. “Voters, not lawyers, choose the president. Ballots, not briefs, decide elections,” the court said. “The campaign cannot win this lawsuit.” When reporters had asked Trump on Thursday if he would leave the White House when his term is up, the president had responded: “Certainly I will… Certainly I will, and you know that.” But he also said it was “going to be a very hard thing to concede” and again falsely insisted there “was massive fraud.”  Members of the US’ electoral college will meet on December 14 to cast their votes in their respective states, a move that constitutionally determines the next president. Trump refused to say on Thursday if he planned to attend Biden’s inauguration. The president golfed on Friday at his club in Virginia before traveling on Marine One to Camp David.  Nick Note: Trump chances  of over turning the election in the courts are now 1 in a 100. But that is not where we should focus our attention. Is what other non judicial mover he could make.  And imagine the damage a aggrieved President could do if he believes the election was stolen from him. Is Trump vindictive? Does a cat eat mice?  Bomb Iran is on the Table.. After all he authorized the assignation of Iran’s top Nuclear scientist. He has taken over the pentagon and chief of staff with his loyalists. These are strategic moves…… He is certainly laying the ground work for something spectacular. The only question is will he pull the pin on the grenade as he is forced out of office..

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The Stock Market and Derivatives Are Sending Different Signals

The Dow soared back to a record this week, but Wall Street’s fear gauge also remains elevated

Rising stock indexes suggest investors are breathing a sigh of relief right now. Wall Street’s fear gauge says otherwise, though. Stocks have soared back to records, fueled by optimism about a coming vaccine for the novel coronavirus as well as relief that the election—widely anticipated for months—has passed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has rallied 12.7% in November, on track for its strongest month since 1987. The S&P 500 has advanced 11% this month and hit a high on Tuesday Although market volatility has edged lower in recent days, the Cboe Volatility Index has hovered above 20 since Feb. 24, marking 194 consecutive trading sessions that it has not closed below that threshold. That is the longest such streak since one ending in 2009 during the financial crisis, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The gauge is based on options prices tied to the S&P 500 and tends to fall as stocks are rising. The VIX at an elevated level signals investors remain cautious despite a stock market that is flying high, with concerns lingering that the volatility that gripped markets earlier in the year could return. It also reflects elevated prices for options bets tied to the S&P 500, which investors often tap to hedge portfolios or make directional bets on stocks. The stretch is remarkable because it includes a period in which U.S. stocks tumbled into a bear market—defined as a drop of at least 20%—before rebounding back toward new highs. Despite the recent ascent for stocks, the elevated VIX signals some anxiety about the market’s path. Since Feb. 24, the S&P 500 has gained about 12.5%.

In six out of eight of the past periods where the VIX hovered above 20 for at least 100 sessions, the S&P 500 had fallen, not risen, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

“There’s still a lot of scars from what happened earlier in the year,” said Chris Murphy, co-head of derivatives strategy at Susquehanna. Some analysts said the elevated VIX has been driven by doubts about the recent stock rally, driving demand for insurance-like contracts through the end of the year to protect recent gains.

“There’s so much uncertainty out there,” said Stuart Kaiser, head of equity derivatives research at UBS Group AG . “Nobody wants to be on the wrong side of this.”

Despite positive news about the vaccine recently, it isn’t clear when it will be distributed and how quickly the economy will bounce back. And of course, it has been a rocky year. There have been more single-day stock moves of at least 3% for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite—up or down—than in any year since 2008.

There are some signs that traders are positioning for the gauge to snap its streak above 20 and plummet. Leveraged funds like hedge funds recently ramped up wagers that would pay out if the VIX fell. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show such wagers recently hit their highest level since at least early August. Bearish bets like these on the volatility gauge are akin to bullish ones on stocks.

Meanwhile, there has been a flurry of bullish call options activity tied to the iShares Russell 2000 exchange-traded fund, which tracks shares of small companies. The Russell 2000 is up 20% this month, on track for its best month since its 1984 inception. Investors confident that the economy will continue to improve because of the vaccine have piled into the sector. Nick Note:  My dick is hard… Please GOD get it HIGHER… I want to buy a fleet of the new 1000 HP EV Hummers. And then rip that electrics shit out for my solar panels ant put in  proper big block! like the ZZ572/620….727 HONEST HORSEPOWER. And the really neat part is i am doing my part to kill the ozone layer and get rid of those left over from the tropic age all those nasty ice caps…

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Every hour, 65 Americans are dying; AstraZeneca plans additional trial after error; hospitalizations hit record, again

https://youtu.be/Aw6egSqLp3I

The deadly reality of America’s bitter battle against coronavirus was obvious to families that gathered across the country for Thanksgiving dinner: There were empty seats around the table. In Deer Park, New York, Vivian Zayas replaced a seat from the table at her home with her late mother’s walker. She scrolled through photos of last Thanksgiving, when her mother, Ana Martinez, who died in April of COVID-19, stood at the stove making a pot of rice and beans. For Jessica Franz, a nurse who works the graveyard shift at Olathe Medical Center in a Kansas suburb, a typical year would have her mother-in-law laying out a feast for her children. That didn’t happen this year: Elaine Franz died of the coronavirus on Nov. 10, a day before her 78th birthday. The number of COVID-19 hospitalizations continues to rise, hitting a record for the 17th straight day Thursday with more than 90,400 admissions, according to the COVID Tracking Project. Tuesday and Wednesday saw record deaths of over 2,100 each day, according to John Hopkins University data.  Every minute, 114 Americans are testing positive for COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University data. Every hour, 65 Americans are dying.  The turnaround time for test results is lagging, too. Amid a record demand ahead of the Thanksgiving weekend, Quest Diagnostics said this week that it’s taking up to three days to complete a test after receiving a sample. LabCorp, another large private lab company, reported tests now taking up to two days. The U.S. has reported more than 12.8 million cases and over 263,400 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. This week week, five states set death records and 23 states had higher case counts than last week. The global totals: more than 61 million cases and 1.4 million deaths.

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Trump: It’ll be very hard to concede due to massive fraud

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Thursday that he will leave the White House if the Electoral College formalizes President-Elect Joe Biden’s victory — even as he insisted such a decision would be a “mistake” — as he spent his Thanksgiving renewing baseless claims that “massive fraud” and crooked officials in battleground states caused his election defeat.

“Certainly I will. But you know that,” Trump said Thursday when asked whether he would vacate the building, allowing a peaceful transition of power in January. But Trump — taking questions for the first time since Election Day — insisted that “a lot of things” would happen between now and then that might alter the results.“This has a long way to go,” Trump said, even though he lost.

The fact that a sitting American president even had to address whether or not he would leave office after losing reelection underscores the extent to which Trump has smashed one convention after another over the last three weeks. While there is no evidence of the kind of widespread fraud Trump has been alleging, he and his legal team have nonetheless been working to cast doubt on the integrity of the election and trying to overturn voters’ will in an unprecedented breach of democratic norms. Trump spoke to reporters in the White House’s ornate Diplomatic Reception Room after holding a teleconference with U.S. military leaders stationed across the globe. He thanked them for their service and jokingly warned them not to eat too much turkey, then turned to the election after ending the call. He repeated grievances and angrily denounced officials in Georgia and Pennsylvania, two key swing states that helped give Biden the win.

Trump claimed, despite the results, that this may not be his last Thanksgiving at the White House. And he insisted there had been “massive fraud,”

even though state officials and international observers have said no evidence of that exists and Trump’s campaign has repeatedly failed in court. Trump’s administration has already given the green light for a formal transition to get underway. But Trump took issue with Biden moving forward. “I think it’s not right that he’s trying to pick a Cabinet,” Trump said, even though officials from both teams are already working together to get Biden’s team up to speed. And as he refused to concede, Trump announced that he will be travelling to Georgia to rally supporters ahead of two Senate runoff elections that will determine which party controls the Senate. Trump said the rally for Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler would likely be held Saturday. The White House later clarified he had meant Dec. 5. One of the reasons Republicans have stood by Trump and his baseless claims of fraud has been to keep his loyal base energized ahead of those runoffs on Jan. 5. But Trump, in his remarks, openly questioned whether that election would be fair in a move that could dampen Republican turnout.

“I think you’re dealing with a very fraudulent system. I’m very worried about that,” he said. “People are very disappointed that we were robbed.”

As for the Electoral College, Trump made clear that he will likely never formally concede, even if he said he would leave the White House.

“It’s gonna be a very hard thing to concede. Because we know there was massive fraud,” he said, noting that, “time isn’t on our side.” “If they do,” vote against him, Trump added, “they’ve made a mistake.”

Asked whether he would attend Biden’s inauguration, Trump said he knew the answer but didn’t want to share it yet. But there were some signs that Trump was coming to terms with his loss. At one point he urged reporters not to allow Biden the credit for pending coronavirus vaccines. “Don’t let him take credit for the vaccines because the vaccines were me and I pushed people harder than they’ve ever been pushed before,” he said. As for whether or not he plans to formally declare his candidacy to run again in 2024 — as he has discussed with aides — Trump said he didn’t “want to talk about 2024 yet.” All states must certify their results before the Electoral College meets on Dec. 14, and any challenge to the results must be resolved by Dec. 8. States have already begun that process, including Michigan, where Trump and his allies tried and failed to delay the process, and Georgia and Pennsylvania. Vote certification at the local and state level is typically a ministerial task that gets little notice, but that changed this year with Trump’s refusal to concede and his unprecedented attempts to overturn the results of the election through a fusillade of legal challenges and attempts to manipulate the certification process in battleground states he lost. Biden won by wide margins in both the Electoral College and popular vote, where he received nearly 80 million votes, a record. Nick Note: When the most powerful man in the world tells you this election has got a long way to go it would be wise not to blow it off. His chances of pulling a rabbit out of his hat is now down to less then 10%. BUT BUT I am sure he is contemplating great evil… So you have to say the potential is their……. He is certainley laying the ground work.

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AstraZeneca manufacturing error clouds vaccine study results

LONDON (AP) — AstraZeneca and Oxford University on Wednesday acknowledged a manufacturing error that is raising questions about preliminary results of their experimental COVID-19 vaccine. A statement describing the error came days after the company and the university described the shots as “highly effective” and made no mention of why some study participants didn’t receive as much vaccine in the first of two shots as expected. In a surprise, the group of volunteers that got a lower dose seemed to be much better protected than the volunteers who got two full doses. In the low-dose group, AstraZeneca said, the vaccine appeared to be 90% effective. In the group that got two full doses, the vaccine appeared to be 62% effective. Combined, the drugmakers said the vaccine appeared to be 70% effective. But the way in which the results were arrived at and reported by the companies has led to pointed questions from experts. The partial results announced Monday are from large ongoing studies in the U.K. and Brazil designed to determine the optimal dose of vaccine, as well as examine safety and effectiveness. Multiple combinations and doses were tried in the volunteers. They were compared to others who were given a meningitis vaccine or a saline shot.

DID RESEARCHERS MEAN TO GIVE A HALF DOSE?

Before they begin their research, scientists spell out all the steps they are taking, and how they will analyze the results. Any deviation from that protocol can put the results in question.

In a statement Wednesday, Oxford University said some of the vials used in the trial didn’t have the right concentration of vaccine so some volunteers got a half dose.

The university said that it discussed the problem with regulators, and agreed to complete the late stage trial with two groups. The manufacturing problem has been corrected, according to the statement. Experts say the relatively small number of people in the low dose group makes it difficult to know if the effectiveness seen in the group is real or a statistical quirk. Some 2,741 people received a half dose of the vaccine followed by a full dose, AstraZeneca said. A total of 8,895 people received two full doses. Another factor: none of the people in the low-dose group were over 55 years old. Younger people tend to mount a stronger immune response than older people, so it could be that the youth of the participants in the low-dose group is why it looked more effective, not the size of the dose. Another point of confusion comes from a decision to pool results from two groups of participants who received different dosing levels to reach an average 70% effectiveness, said David Salisbury, and associate fellow of the global health program at the Chatham House think tank. “You’ve taken two studies for which different doses were used and come up with a composite that doesn’t represent either of the doses,″ he said of the figure. “I think many people are having trouble with that.″

WHY WOULD A SMALLER FIRST DOSE BE MORE EFFECTIVE?

Oxford researchers say they aren’t certain and they are working to uncover the reason. Sarah Gilbert, one of the Oxford scientists leading the research, said the answer is probably related to providing exactly the right amount of vaccine to trigger the best immune response. “It’s the Goldilocks amount that you want, I think, not too little and not too much. Too much could give you a poor quality response as well,” she said. “So you want just the right amount and it’s a bit hit and miss when you’re trying to go quickly to get that perfect first time.” Details of the trial results will be published in medical journals and provided to U.K. regulators so they can decide whether to authorize distribution of the vaccine. Those reports will include a detailed breakdown that includes demographic and other information about who got sick in each group, and give a more complete picture of how effective the vaccine is. Moncef Slaoui, who leads the U.S. coronavirus vaccine program Operation Warp Speed, said Tuesday in a call with reporters that U.S. officials are trying to determine what immune response the vaccine produced, and may decide to modify the As results. AstratraZeneca study in the U.S. to include a half dose. “But we want it to be based on data and science,” he said. Nick Note: Who knows what sins lie in the data. Do you really want a warp speed vaccine? I prefer till i see the test monkey results. That is our friends and neighbors… Let me know how it works out