I read yesterday that of the nurses who have died from COVID, 30% of them are Filipinos.  Filipinos make up about 4% of the nurses in this country.  So the death rate of Filipino nurses is more than 7 times of what is expected based on their percentage of the total nurses population.  There are, of course, multiple factors involved.  But the death rate of Filipino nurses, like that of all healthcare workers in this pandemic, could have been much lower if all of us had done better.

I don't have the statistics but based on my own experience, the Filipino nurses tend to work in ER, ICU and nursing homes.  Those are areas that have been hit hardest by the pandemic.  I also think they tend to end up at locations where it is difficult to recruit American nurses.  I also suspect when PPEs and other precautions were lacking, the Filipino nurses were less likely to complain and demand safety measures to be implemented.  

Yes, there may be personal factors also.  Filipinos have a higher rate of hypertension and diabetes which are risk factors of having severe complications from COVID.  As immigrants, they may also have to live in homes with more people.  While these factors cannot be changed easily, the actions of the American government and American people should be improved.  

We, the people, should take all the precautions to prevent the spread of the virus.  The less people end up in the hospital, the less chance healthcare workers will get sick and die.  There are people who still believe this is a hoax.  Some still believe in Trump's version of this disease.  I say to these people:  don't go to  the hospital when you sick if that is your belief.  You can stay home and take hydroxychloroquine and inject disinfectants into your body as Trump suggested.

There are still a few weeks until the Biden administration take over.  Until then, not much will change as Trump has basically checked out.  He even left the G20 meeting about the pandemic and went to play golf.  We can't count on anything done before he is out of the White House.  Biden will do better but I notice that the task force he named for the pandemic does not include a nurse.  I think that is a bad omission.  I think the nurses are the ones closest to the patients and their experience in taking care of these patients will give great insight in the war against this virus.

 As the country reaches 250,00o deaths, it is incredible that a big part of the population does not believe in the science of wearing a mask.  In fact, some of our "leaders" still attack people who advocate wearing a mask.  Ted Cruz, for example, called a fellow senator an ass for asking a fellow lawmaker to wear a mask in the senate chamber.  Shortly after, Senator Grassley of Iowa announced he contracted the virus.  Since then two more Republican Congressmen also got infected.  Attacking someone when you are completely wrong is despicable.  I won't call Cruz an ass because an ass cannot lick somebody else's ass as he has been doing for Trump.  

Cruz is such a little man that he kisses Trump's ass even though Trump called him all kinds of names and belittled him during the 2016 campaign.  But Cruz has no pride and he resorted to kissing Trump's ass in order to survive his Senate campaign last time.  But even though he won't be up for reelection until way after Trump is out of the office, he is still one of Trump's sycophant.  That is because he thinks he can win the nomination for president in 2024 so he doesn't want to lose Trump supporters.  Everybody, including Trump supporters, know that he is a weak man in 2016 and today.  He has no chance to get the nomination.   And according the GOP thinking, he is not eligible anyway.  He was born outside of the U.S. and if the GOP think that Obama was not eligible because he "may" have been born outside of the U.S., shouldn't Cruz be ineligible since he was definitely born outside of the U.S.?   But then the Republicans are hypocrites, of course.

 I have obtained a copy of another letter from Xi Jinping to Donald Trump congratulating him on his reelection.  This is obviously quite different from most world leaders who have congratulated Joe Biden.  So lets see what Xi has to say.

Dear President Trump

Congratulations to your win last week.  I know the fake press in the U.S. have declared Sleepy Joe as the winner but we both know better.  I understand you are heroically fighting to retain your job and I have great admiration for your courage.

I see that there are many traitors in your country who are trying to undermine the will of the people.  So I think you are doing the right thing by ignoring your own Department of Homeland Security which has declared that this election is the most secure.  Putin has information that this is not so.  So I think you should fire your DHS staff for not announcing that the election was a fraud.  

You have taken the right step of firing you Secretary of Defense.  I believe you will also fire your head of the CIA and FBI.  You don't need these people to run your department.  Put in your friends who will defend you against traitors in your country.  If you need help with world order, I will be glad to run things for you in Asia and Putin will run things for you in Europe.  No hurry to hire new heads for your departments.  And don't share intel with Biden.  Who knows what he will do with the info?  In any case, why would he need those?  You will still be president for the next four years at least.

It seems to me there were a lots of fraud in your election.  If I were you, I would call for recounts in all the states you "lost".  I am sure the UN will be happy to send election watchers to all your states to monitor the situation, making sure all the recounts are done correctly.  The UN, under the direction of the U.S. has sent many teams to various banana republics in the past to monitor elections.  So I am sure they can return the favor this time.

I know you have been preoccupied with the COVID situation in your country.  No need to worry, I am sure Doctors without Borders and other organizations will be happy to come here to help your health workers.  They have experience going to third world countries for decades.  Given your situation, though not due to your fault, they will come to the U.S. to help instead of Africa soon.

Due to leaders like Mao Zedong in my country, we have become the number 2 power in the world in a short time.  I am sure with your similar leadership, after your next 4 years as president, you will be able to make the U.S. the number 2 power in the world!  Such an achievement in such a short time!  Much admiration!  Good luck.

Your comrade in power play

Jinping

 After three days and nights of watching the election playing out, I finally got some decent sleep and exercise over the past couple of days and can now look back at this roller coaster ride.  Amazingly, even though my predictions were not as accurate as I would have liked, if things hold as it is now, the finall tally will be 306-232, exactly as I had predicted!  Basically, I got wrong on NC and a district in Maine wrong but that was balanced on the opposite wrong call from Georgia.  It balanced out!.  So now let's review the past 5 days.

November 3rd started well for the Democrats as Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania were all going Biden's way.  But the jubilation quickly turned into despair as those three states along with Wisconsin and Michigan all seemed to be going Trump's way.  The only bright spot was Arizona which may flip to Biden.  I stayed up until 1:30 am Pacific time with not much hope.  Trump declared victory even as pundits say that mail-in ballots will go toward Biden.

November 4:  I woke up at 6 am and checked the tv wearily.  Surprisingly, Biden had overtaken Trump in Wisconsin and Michigan.  Pennsylvania was still in Trump's column but the margin had decreased from over 700,000 to a little over 200,000.  Even though North Carolina didn't look good, Georgia began to look more promising.  

November 5:  Wisconsin and Michigan are called for Biden.  Pennsylvania and Georgia continue to tighten.  I feel much better because if Arizona and Nevada remain with Biden, he gets to 270.  But Arizona is tightening  and so Pennsylvania and Georgia maybe our plan B.  A sign that is good is that Trump is threatening lawsuits in states that he is leading.  He seems desperate so he must know things are turning against him.  

November 6:  Biden has taken over the lead in Pennsylvania.  Georgia is also closing in.  Arizona is tightening up.  Nevada looks to be staying with Biden.  While this is looking good and I am more relieved, it looks like the so called blue wave is not happening.  In fact, the GOP will gain in the House, even though the Democrats will stay in power.  The Senate will not flip to the Democrats.

November 7:  Finally, Pennsylvania is called for Biden and it is over except for the final margin.  It is a great day for America and the world.  Trump had not conceded and who knows if he ever will.  He wants to litigate all the way to the Supreme Court even though he has not presented any evidence of fraud that changed the election.  Biden and Harris make good speeches to try to unite the country.  The feeling is that they have a hard road ahead of them.

The first tough task for the new administration is the pandemic.  Five straight days of record breaking cases with the last 3 days recording over 120,000 cases.  I don't envy Biden and Harris.  Without the Senate and the Supreme Court on their side, it will be tough to implement their strategies.  Good luck to them.

 It is time for the AAAA, ie, the Angry Asian Accurate Assessment.  Usually this is a prediction of the Big Ten football bowl games results.  But we have a much more important topic today:  the American presidential election.  So here we go.

It is obvious there are states that are in the pockets of either the Democrats or the Republicans.   So off the bat, Biden has 216 votes in his pocket and Trump has 125.  I will also give Biden Minnesota and Nevada even though Trump thinks it is competitive.  So that means Biden has 16 more votes and a total of 232 so far.  I will give Trump Texas even though Biden camp thinks it can flip it.  I don't think so.  So Trump gets 38 votes and now has 163.

Florida 29 votes, Trump wins by 1 percentage point, 

Georgia 16 vote, Trump wins by 1.5 points

Ohio 18 votes, Trump wins by 2 points

Iowa 6 votes Trump wins by 2 points.  So Trump total 232.

Wisconsin 10 votes, Biden wins by 6 points

North Carolina 15 votes, Biden wins 1 point

Pennsylvania, 20 votes, Biden wins by 4 points

Michigan 16 votes, Biden wins by 6 points

Arizona 11 votes, Biden wins by 1.5 point

District in Maine, Biden wins by 3 points

District in Nebraska, Biden wins by 2 points  So Biden has  a total of 306

What is amazing is that this is exactly total that Trump beat Clinton in 2016:  306-232!  Basically, I am predicting that Biden flip the "blue wall" back to the Democratic column and add North Carolina, Arizona and the the two districts.  I will also predict that Biden wins the popular vote by 6 points.

I will also predict that the election won't be decided tomorrow.  Florida maybe able to finish counting tomorrow and if Biden wins there, it will be all over.  But I think Trump will win it and then we have to wait of the blue wall results.  Pennsylvania isn't even allowed to start counting early ballots till tomorrow and the urban votes will come in even later than the rural votes.  So it is likely that Trump maybe ahead there at end of tomorrow night.  If North Carolina and Arizona comes in for Biden, it also will be over but both will be close and unlikely decided tomorrow.

So Trump may declare victory tomorrow night without any neutral sites agreeing.  By Wednesday night, I think the tide will turn and Biden will look like the winner.  There maybe litigation as Trump had promised.  But I believe that results will be decisive enough to prevent the country from getting into chaos.  Otherwise we will look like a banana republic.

I will also predict that the Democrats will win the senate.  They will lose Alabama but flip Arizona, Colorado, Maine, and North Carolina.  That will give them a net gain of 3 which is enough if Biden wins.  I also think they will flip Iowa, although that will be very close.  They may flip one of the Georgia seats but it is likely that nobody will get 50%, leading to a runoff later.  Without a presidential election, the Democrat candidate will be at a disadvantage.

 Two days left before the most important election of our time!  Tomorrow I will try to make my prediction of the election.  So try to check it out.

As a physician, I am offended by Trump saying that the COVID deaths are inflated because doctors get paid more if they diagnosed COVID as the cause of death.  This is again another attempt to deflect blame for his incompetence in handling the pandemic.  Everyone from the Chinese government, the state governors, and Fauci had been blamed by Trump before.  Now he goes after the doctors who treat COVID patients.  Never mind that some of those saved his life.  As I said before, if he doesn't believe the science and thinks he know better than the doctors, why didn't he take hydroxychloroquine and inject disinfectants when he got sick?

The truth is that the COVID deaths totals are probably under counted.  There are more than 100,000 excessive deaths this year compare to the average.  That means you take the total numbers of deaths this year (up to end of October), subtract the number of deaths due to COVID and you get around 100,000.  There maybe increase in deaths due to other illnesses this year.  There also could be more people died at home because they were too scared of going to the hospital during the pandemic.  But at least some of these excessive deaths are probably caused by COVID but were not diagnosed.  So I think the number of COVID deaths have been under counted.

Trump complained about Fauci talking to the press.  That is because Fauci is telling the truth and Trump doesn't want the people to hear it.  He does want his "expert" Scott Atlas to talk because he says what Trump wants to hear.  The problem is Atlas is a neuro radiologist and has no expertise in infectious disease and epidemiology.  This is like me, an internist, talking about open heart surgery.  Or a neuro surgeon running the department of HUD.  Oh, Trump did appoint one of those.

So Atlas goes on RT America which is a Russian operation whose goal is to spread Russian propaganda in the U.S.  Atlas claims that he didn't know what RT is.  Maybe he could have looked it up before the interview?  During the interview, he spew his usual agenda of ant-mask, anti-lock down and anti-testing of asymptomatic people.  Not only was he giving the Russian media access to somebody close to the president, he looked foolish with his views which I am sure the Russians will be too happy to share with the rest of the world.

Sometimes people who has great academic credential do not have a lot of common sense.  My wife told me she talked to a friend of ours recently and found out he voted for Trump again.  This man is Chinese American with a doctorate in science from one of the top university in the country.  He also recently lost his job with a top U.S. defense contractor.  The pandemic was the reason given for his layoff.  His reasoning for voting for Trump?  Tax cut.  He understands all the lies, all the mishandling of the pandemic, and the racial tension under Trump.  But the tax cut trumps all those!  It is impossible to debate this.  If I am mean, I guess my final response would be that, yes, he will be paying lower taxes this year.  After all, your income tax surely will certainly fall without employment income!  And that is directly related to mishandling of the pandemic!

 In this political season I expected to be bombarded with political advertising.  This is true, but unexpectedly I am also getting political advertising both for and against China.  Every couple of weeks or so, a supplement called China Watch is placed inside the Sunday edition of the LA Times.  Also every couple of weeks or so, I get a copy of the Epoch Times in the mail.  With our own election going on, I have not read either one much.  I am not sure if either publication believe it can influence the minds of Americans.  But obviously, they are trying hard to do so.

China Watch is published by the Chinese newspaper China Daily and it said so on the front of the paper.  So it is obvious to readers that it is a publication from China.  It tends to show China in a positive light, including in minority areas such as Tibet and Xinjiang.  I think most Americans will see through this and take the articles with a grain of salt.  There maybe truths in these articles but I bet most Americans who read the LA Times, a liberal publication, will be skeptical of the paper.

The Epoch Times is a media arm of the religious group Falun Gong.  It claims to be a multi-national publication.  Falun Gong claims to be oppressed by the Chinese government.  So it is no wonder that Epoch Times is fervently anti-Chinese government.  So to many Americans, it may very be a fair reporting of the bad things happening in China, especially when it comes to putting down dissent.  

What is not obvious to the casual reader is that the Epoch Times back far right politicians in Europe and Donald Trump in the U.S.  It has association with Steve Bannon who has called for the overthrow of China.  The Epoch Times has also spread conspiracy theories such as QAnon and anti-vaccine propaganda.  

I don't know how successful China Watch and Epoch Times are in influencing Americans with their free papers.  But I would bet that few Americans, either left or right leaning, will suddenly think that everything is great in Tibet and Xinjiang after reading China Watch.  On the other hand, some Americans who lean right, may find the Epoch Times stories to be believable.  So I think the misinformation from the Epoch Times may be more dangerous than those from China Watch.

 Didn't watch much of the debate tonight.  Did watch the analysis afterward.  It was pretty much what I expected.  I am comparing this year's debates to a soccer playoff of 2 games.  In the first game, Trump scores bunch of own goals and so needs a big game tonight.  Biden just needs to not collapse.  So the final score tonight was nil nil.  Biden wins the overall debates.  Kristen Welker was a much better referee than Wallace was in the first debate.  But there were less fighting this time and Walker could hand out yellow cards (muting) this time.  So this was a much easier game to officiate.

So it looks like Biden is in good shape.  But who knows if a James Comey thing from 2016 will happen this year.  Trump and his people are trying to use Hunter Biden to change the narrative like Comey's announcement about Clinton's email last time.  But I think Biden is more liked and trusted by people than Clinton was.  So they are less likely to believe a Biden scandal.  So hopefully Trump will fail to change the narrative this time.

The World Series is getting serious!  I thought that the Dodgers were in good shape with better pitching.  But the young guys are not doing as well as they did in the regular season.  Buehler is the ace and is scheduled for game 3.  That would seem a good situation until I realize the Rays have Morton who beat the Dodgers in 2017 game 7, beat the Astros twice this year, including game 7.  He and Buehler are matched up for games 3 and possibly 7.  So this will be interesting!

 Didn't watch any of the townhalls yesterday.  Figured the baseball game was better.  It didn't turn out that way as the Dodgers got clobbered.  The townhalls went about as expected, according to the pundits, with Trump fighting the moderator and Biden being too boring with details.  But there were a few surprises.

I had expected that Trump will get the better ratings since he is bombastic and try to make absurd claims all the time.  Being a reality tv guy, I would think he knows how to get better ratings.  People hate to admit it but they watch car races awaiting for an accident to occur.  If it is just cars going around in circles, fewer people would watch for sure.  But the preliminary ratings had ABC with Biden beating the combine ratings of NBC, MSNBC and CNBC with Trump.  One of Trump's aides had said that Biden's townhall looks like Mister Rogers Neighborhood.  So I guess Mr. Rogers beats train wreck this time!

Trump, having feasted of softballs from Fox all the time, had trouble answering hard balls from Guthrie.  He basically admits not having tested himself before the first debate, admitted that he only paid a small sum of taxes, admitted that he owes $400 million.  He also refused to condemn the conspiracy theories put out by QAnon.  You would think that without an opponent to attack, he would have to answer questions from the moderator and the audience.  Yet he had no good answers.  Well, maybe there are no good answers possible.

Chris Christie is discharged, which is good.  He also admits he has been wrong.  At least his bout with the virus changed his outlook.  That is unlike Trump who did not see the light but instead doubled down.  He will never change.

Two and  a half weeks left till the election.  Will we finally get rid of this guy or will we turn into a banana republic with a dictator trying to hold on to power and total chaos erupt in the country?

 I was watching CNN last night about Melania's former aide who is promoting her book on Melania.  She had taped some of their conversations and it was not flattering to Melania.  So I was thinking that the tax thing on Trump came out last week and now this.  All seem to be timed for maximum effect before the election.  Still, neither may make any difference.  I was about to get back to watching baseball playoffs.

Then Bloomberg reported that Hope Hicks, one of Trump's closest aide tested positive for COVID.  The timeline seem to make no sense.  As reported, Hicks felt sick on Wednesday night and tested positive on Thursday morning.  She was shown going on Marine One and subsequently Air Force One with Trump and others on Wednesday morning.  None were wearing masks.  So I am thinking everybody on that staff, including Trump, had to know Hicks was sick and should have received tests at latest Thursday morning.  Even if all others were negative, they should have been quarantined.  Yet Trump left for New Jersey Thursday morning for a fund raiser.  There was also no announcement about Hicks' positive test or the results of the tests of anyone else.

Later Trump went on Fox and admitted that Hicks was sick and he got tested and was waiting for the result.  Eventually at 10 pm my time or 1 am on the east coast, Trump tweeted that he and Melania were positive.  It should not have taken the whole day for the results to come back.  He should not have gone to New Jersey even if his test initially was negative.  There was no transparency for the whole thing until Bloomberg broke the news.  The WH spokeswoman must have know about Hicks in her morning press briefing and yet she never talked about it, even though some of the journalists were traveling with Hicks the day before.

So now what?  Who knows!  Trump joins Boris Johnson and Brazilian president Bolsonaro as COVID patients.  All three were skeptical of the effect of the virus in public.  Johnson had a change of heart after spending time in the ICU.  Will Trump do the same?  Will he get sympathy vote from the public even if he is responsible for much of the spread of the virus itself due to his "leadership".  The second debate is probably off.  What would his ardent followers think?  More important, what do the independents think?

Biden, being on stage with Trump on Tuesday, will have to be tested everyday until at least Monday to be sure he didn't catch it from Trump.  God forbid, if Biden got it what kind of chaos will follow?  Trump won't be able to travel to campaign.   Biden may have to play the good competitor and don't campaign in public as well.  But it won't affect Biden as much as he has been careful and has not campaigned in large rallies.

Well, that is all for now.  But this story will dominate for the next two weeks at least.   Will the WH be more transparent?  Will Trump and the WH follow guidelines now?  Don't hold your breath?  Trump won't be able to change the subject as he has been trying.  But at least the tax thing and Melania story will be put on the back burner for now.