The Hill (posted at 3:01 EDT):
President Trump said Tuesday that he has instructed his top aides to stop negotiating with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on future coronavirus stimulus legislation until after the November election.
The Dow Jones:
I suspect the steroids have rotted what little Trump had for brains.
It’s hard to tell everyday Trump crazy from unusually crazy, but after feedback from people like Rep. John Katko, a vulnerable GOP House member in a difficult reelection race, who said he disagreed with the president and “strongly urged” Trump to rethink the decision, Trump seems to be taking a different position this morning. Who knows what tomorrow will bring in Trump world.
Meanwhile, there has been a huge swing in polling among those 65+.
From Axios:
Something wild and unexpected unfolded in the second half of President Trump’s term, and now is accelerating: Elderly Americans, who helped elect him, have swung sharply against him.
•Why it matters: National and state polls show a total Trump collapse among Americans 65 and older. If this chasm remains, it could help bring the whole Republican power structure down with Trump.
In what has been a 50-50ish nation, it’s stunning to see polling gaps this wide:
•In a NBC/Wall Street Journal poll out Sunday, Joe Biden led Trump by 27 points among seniors (62% to 35%).
•In a CNN/SSRS poll out yesterday, similar story — 21 points (60% to 39%).
This is a group Trump won by seven points in 2016.
•The same gap shows up in state polling, including the critical battlegrounds of Florida .
The movement predates the virus. CNN polling guru Harry Enten notes .
• The main pre-pandemic reasons were health care and his strength with women, Axios’ Alexi McCammond and Margaret Talev wrote in May.
Republicans believe the big reason for the current chasm is the coronavirus, which has hit seniors far harder than any age group. A former senior White House official who remains close to the team told Axios’ Jonathan Swan:
•”[A] few of us screamed from the rooftops to them about in March. Who [cares] what anyone else thinks? If you can’t win seniors, you can’t win.”
•”And, if you don’t take something that is killing old people seriously, you will lose seniors.”
Between the lines: More women vote than men. More women go to college than men. More women than ever are running for election and winning. And more women than ever are turning on Trump and the GOP.
The bottom line: Younger, white men alone do not a victory make. So the 65+ trend represents a clear and present danger to the vitality and viability of the GOP.
•Trump has undermined himself with old people, women and minorities.
•National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar tweeted yesterday: “That’s going to be the story of this election: Pivotal Trump voting bloc in 2016 becoming part of the Biden base.”
Cunningham, despite his stupid sexting, continues to poll well ahead in N. Carolina. Pundits still call Maine a toss-up even though Collins has consistently polled behind Gideon since July. Same deal with Georgia, called a toss-up even though Ossoff is now winning most polls. Greenfield is winning most polls in Iowa. In Wisconsin, considered “the” critical state for Trump, Baldwin is killing it in recent polls.
Smog professional forecasters, Inside Elections and Nate Silver now give Democrats 50 Senate seats, while Cook, Sabato and Politico still call the Senate too close to call. Polling, however, now goes Democrats a win in the Senate.
I am, by the way, he world’s worst political forecaster.
Smog = most. Sorry.
md,
Baldwin is not up for reelection. She got it back in 2018. Nobody running for Senate in Wis this year.
Let’s just hope it’s the “Evil Dex” talking.
Actually, that “Evil Dex” thing is very real and Trump’s aides need to keep an eye on him. It might be time to temporarily invoke clause 4 of the 25th Amendment until he is taken off that medication. Not being snarky here. That ought to be a real concern within the national security team just as Nixon’s alcoholism was a concern in the waning days of his presidency. Recall that there was a virtual coup when Nixon’s chief-of-staff told the military to ignore any orders that came directly from Nixon.
Pelosi has been using the term Roid Rage in reference to Trump’s recent erratic behavior.
I blame Powell fed. They are lying on the extent of damage. Remember, they said the unemployment rate would be 9.3% by December……whoops.
Now nobody trusts forecasts. I don’t see the end of growth. US consumers have more debt capacity. Then when vaccinating starts, below 6% it will go.
Posted the person who doesn’t understand the role the Fed plays in an economy, or pretty much anything to do with macro economics.
Hint: the Fed is nothing like your checking account. At all.
Remember – the Rage is not a person. He’s a Russian bot with shaky wiring.
Rage says nobody trust forecasts, then makes forecasts. Not sure that’s a credible way to make a point.
Speaking of the Fed, the latest FOMC minutes show forecasts of continued recovery assumed continued fiscal stimulus. Trump seems to have changed his mind (every misogynist’s perogative) since yesterday, but piecemeal stimulus is just another way of demanding all of what I want and none of what you want. Simply put, Trump impulsively heeped all the blame for ending fiscal stimulus on himself yesterday, today wants to share the blame with Democrats. Pelosi may be winning this particular staring contest. Trump needs a game-changer. Democrats, for now, do not. The nearer the final day of voting comes, the less benefit Trump can hope to glean from a fiscal package. Time is running out for rational economic policy in the short run.
to quote the greatest american philosopher of all times stupid is as stupid does
Amazing – Trump breaks off talks about stimulus. He now takes full responsibility for the fact that there will be no stimulus or additional unemployment checks to a huge number of people who are in a desperate cash crunch. Don’t forget that those people vote. He claims he will do it after the election, but he will still have to deal with the exact same house majority during the lame duck session – just that he will have wasted 4 weeks not talking to them.
He’s a man of the people, and works for the American people
https://youtu.be/fSyPDNSK7lc?t=55
Orange-ish fat Jabba not going to be fooled about Covid-19 hoax though:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTjTaR748eg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHkzqejFKbM
If Republicans get any dumber we’re going to have to see if it’s genetic or something has been put in the water Senate Republicans drink.
Trump is back on twitter negotiating for more stimulus. He is becoming schizophrenic. 2slugs is correct. The drugs are impacting his psychosis, and his handlers need to be careful. Since the nuke football carrier test positive for covid, it takes that mistake off the table.
I think the failure to secure a new stimulus package will be blamed on Trump. At the end of the day, the President has to get a deal done; like it or not the buck stops there.
I am not personally confident a deal will be consummated in a lame duck session. If the Democrats sweep DC, which I expect, the Republicans will ask too high a price for a deal, eg, no packing of the court, no end to the filibuster, etc. I think the Democrats will not want to pay the freight and will be happy to have the Republicans exit message be one of disaster and incompetence.
Therefore, if no package is passed in the next three weeks, then no new monies may reach the public and municipalities until March. I think a new deal is still possible, but with Trump likely ill for the balance of election season, I would take a guardedly pessimistic view on new stimulus and I would expect five months with no new cash.
Of course, if Trump wins, I expect a new package as the Democrats will be in a compromised position. For the moment, however, I believe both the President and the Republicans on Capitol Hill are facing daunting odds.
He’s gonna have a great stimulus bill and a great health insurance bill (where everybody can go to Walter Reed for the bestest health care), and we’re gonna have a tax cut because tax cuts always pay for themselves.
More tariffs will make the Chinese think twice about messing with us. So we’ll buy some stuff from Russia instead because they produce so many valuable goods.
Soybeans gonna rocket outside the Midwest unless the Chinese refuse to buy them because of their anti A merican biases.
Debt will be halved by 2024.
Cue the band for “God Bless America “.
I think illiterate Lee Greenwood’s song is their “go to” anthem. Which I have to admit to liking before MAGA abducted it.
It doesn’t matter if NINE American military leaders have been infected with Covid-19 now and have to be quarantined. When donald trump needs military leadership he’ll call up “sammy”, the restaurant owner who couldn’t find workers, and CoRev, the man who can’t tell you the difference between spot prices and futures prices and HCQ expert Bruce Hall and our military leadership will be as strong as ever. If the tactical military judgement gets bad from those 3 he can call up the “mathematical economist” in Harrisonburg who can’t subtract 12 from 20 when looking at someone’s resume experience. No worries.
https://youtu.be/3ma6Yb545AY?t=4
When you really take it down to its true essence, all of this 538 post I link to below is, is conjecture. Be that is it may, it is interesting conjecture. If one or the other candidate ends up looking very bad (in their debate presentations), it could make a small shift in undecided voters. It could make a difference in the electoral college in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida. Because of games by Florida officials stifling and suppressing elderly and black people’s votes, there is a high chance Biden will lose Florida, However Pennsylvania and Ohio are still up for grabs.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/harris-pence-vp-debate-poll/
Why would Florida officials stifel elderly voters?
There has been a big swing among elderly voters nation wide against Trump. Don’t know if that’s true in Florida, though.
Apparently it is. What is propping up Trump most recently apparently are evangelical Hispanics in Florida.
Four hours after Trump declared an end to stimulus talks, he is already disagreeing with that decision. FED chair Jerome Powell had called for more stimulus to which CNBC tweeted BREAKING: Fed Chair Powell calls for more help from Congress, says there’s a low risk of ‘overdoing it’.
Trump does to Twitter and declares this “True!”.
Has this virus further rotted Trump’s screwed up mind?
Rick Bright resigns from NIH:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/06/politics/rick-bright-resigns-nih-whistleblower/index.html
The ousted director of the office involved in developing a coronavirus vaccine has now resigned from his post at the National Institutes of Health, charging that the Trump administration “ignores scientific expertise, overrules public health guidance and disrespects career scientists.”
Rick Bright, who filed an extensive whistleblower complaint this spring alleging that his early warnings about the coronavirus were ignored and that his caution at hydroxychloroquine led to his removal, is exiting the federal government altogether after being “sidelined” at NIH, his attorneys said in a pointed statement released Tuesday.
“Although not allowed at NIH to utilize his expertise in vaccines or therapeutics, Dr. Bright developed a plan to implement a robust national testing infrastructure, which emphasized the critical need to provide screening tests for asymptomatic individuals and to provide services to underserved populations disproportionately impacted by COVID-19,” Bright’s attorneys, Debra Katz and Lisa Banks, said in a statement.
“NIH leadership declined to support Dr. Bright’s recommendations because of political considerations, plain and simple. After having his work suppressed for political reasons to the detriment of public health and safety, Dr. Bright was sidelined from doing any further work to combat this deadly virus,” they said.
“This was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. He can no longer countenance working for an administration that puts politics over science to the great detriment of the American people.”
Bright’s exit caps a tumultuous few months since he was ousted from his role leading the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and reassigned to a narrower role at NIH.
He said in a complaint following his removal that he had raised urgent concerns about shortages of critical supplies, including masks, to his superiors in the Trump administration but was met with skepticism and surprise.
While Bright said some officials shared his concerns — including top White House trade adviser Peter Navarro — he described an overall lack of action at the top of the administration even as the virus was spreading outside of China.
“I was pressured to let politics and cronyism drive decisions over the opinions of the best scientists we have in government,” he said on a call with reporters at the time.
Bright’s attorneys said Tuesday that his whistleblower complaint has been updated to include his allegations that he wasn’t given meaningful work at the NIH and that his suggestions have been ignored because of “political considerations.”
“Dr. Bright has been assigned no meaningful work since September 4, 2020, when he completed the one assignment given to him at NIH, and has been idle for weeks,” Bright’s attorneys wrote in an addendum to his complaint. “Having exhausted all efforts, on October 6, 2020, Dr. Bright submitted his involuntary resignation.”
After Bright initially aired his complaints, administration officials leveled a range of allegations against Bright, including accusing him of poorly managing his office, mistreating staff and failing to consult his superiors on consequential decisions.
But Bright’s most recent performance review from May 2019, a copy of which was obtained by CNN, delivered rave reviews for Bright’s management of his office and included no criticisms.
I’m going to make a comment/promise I may end up regretting here. If Nancy Pelosi gets to one day after the presidential election, without handing donald trump a political gift delivered on a silver platter, I will post an apology (which she couldn’t possibly/conceivably care less about) to Nancy Pelosi delivered on this blog. Which I expect (nearly demand) Barkley Rosser or Menzie to hold me to. I reserve the right to decipher what I view a political gift to donald trump to be, but intend to be objectively fair in this measure.
Signed, hatefully to Nancy,
Creepers Uncle Moses
i hate nancy too!!! She doesn’t invite me to her partys. Bi***! [edited MDC]
Josh Marshall:
“As I mentioned last night, I think there’s a decent chance Mitch McConnell suckered President Trump into canceling stimulus bill negotiations. The GOP looks to be shifting into bust out mode. McConnell and other party leaders likely see that Trump is finished and that the Senate majority probably is too. The cynical play is straightforward: pocket the Court seat and leave an incoming Biden administration in as deep a hole as possible. It even cues Republicans up to switch seamlessly back into austerity/fiscal scold mode in 2021, without their fingerprints on any more stimulus spending. Little discussed here is Trump’s assertion that leaving stimulus negotiations until after the election will clear the calendar to focus on confirming Amy Coney Barrett. Of course it will. That seems to be the point. Normally it would be reasonable to ask whether anyone really thinks that cynically about governance. With Mitch McConnell not only do we know he thinks that cynically he actually acted this cynically under Barack Obama. We have a track record.”
We need to end the filibuster so McConnell can not have his 2009 redux. But we need to go further and put McConnell in jail for the rest of his partisan and unAmerican life.
Thing is, starting in a hole is often politically advantageous. I Dems win control of the Senate, they an pass stimulus by the end of January. The mid-term election, when 20 Republican Senate seats are up for re-election vs just 12 Democrats, could take place under much improved economic conditions. There may not be much Republicans can do to change political outcome after the election.
Judicial outcomes are another matter.
Posted on Drudge:
“Sociopathy”: Psychiatrist says Trump’s behavior “meets criteria for a locked psychiatric facility”
https://www.salon.com/2020/10/06/sociopathy-psychiatrist-says-trumps-behavior-meets-criteria-for-a-locked-psychiatric-facility/
Excerpt:
Lee told Salon after the viral photo-op that it “would not be an exaggeration” to say that Trump “delights in putting people in danger.”
“Sociopathy is dangerous, in part because out of envy of other human beings for having human characteristics, it actively desires people to suffer and die,” she said.
An aside, but surely remarkable in writing on political economics:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/06/world/europe/virus-UK-universities.html
October 6, 2020
‘It Really Was Abandonment.’ Virus Crisis Grips British Universities
With no bailout forthcoming from the government, financially strapped British universities beckoned students back to campus, with predictably dire results.
By Benjamin Mueller
LONDON — Inside a dormitory now known by students as H.M.P., for Her Majesty’s Prison, trash piled up in shared kitchens. Students washed their clothes in bathroom sinks. Security guards stalked the gates, keeping anyone from leaving or entering.
The building had been primed for a coronavirus outbreak since first-year students arrived at Manchester Metropolitan University for Freshers’ Week, Britain’s debaucherous baptism into university life, complete with trips to heaving pubs and dorm room parties.
But when the inevitable happened, and the virus tore through chockablock student suites, the university largely left students on their own: It imposed such a draconian lockdown that students had to nurse roommates back to health, parents drove hours to deliver food and lawyers offered pro bono help.
To date, roughly 90 British universities have reported coronavirus cases. Thousands of students are confined to their halls, some in suites with infected classmates, and many are struggling to get tested. The government, fearful of students seeding outbreaks far from campus, has warned that they may need to quarantine before returning home for Christmas.
Britain had ample warning: The reopening of American colleges weeks earlier reportedly swelled the country’s case count by 3,000 a day and left several students dead. But British universities beckoned students to campus anyway, fueling outbreaks that are seeping into surrounding towns. The infection rate in Manchester is ten times as high as it was in August.
The outbreaks have shone a harsh light on Britain’s decade-long campaign to turn higher education into a ruthless market. By cutting state grants and leaving schools dependent on tuition fees and room rents, the government encouraged them to jam more students onto campuses.
The pandemic threatened to dry out that income stream. But Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative government largely withheld the rescue money it gave to other industries, so universities carried on as normal, whatever the risks.
To academics, the government’s policies reflect not only its erratic and fumbling approach to the coronavirus, but also its longstanding suspicions of universities….
Another Republican against Trump:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/10/07/former_nsa_head_michael_hayden_endorses_biden_hes_a_good_man_donald_trump_is_not.html?fbclid=IwAR3AfXYoU4nm6g842XM40ZKUDHHV2e-TK3-QHnGSjWt1GsXACepK2xLCQYA
Former NSA Head Michael Hayden Endorses Biden: He’s A Good Man, Donald Trump Is Not
Retired Gen. Michael Hayden, who served as director of both the CIA and the NSA during the Bush and Obama administrations, appears in this ad from the “Republican Voters Against Trump” group to endorse Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
Check out his reasoning in that 1 minute 40 second discussion.
Opening music for the Harris-Pence debate??
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlJqo3v2J1s
I like this song so much because I’ve always been a Steve Vai fan, but thought his songs missed a lot of balls. I like the low tones of this song and I think it’s a little more masculine like he did before he went solo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pl46Qsk-Wvs
I used to listen to his Ultra Zone CD when I lived in northeast China on like volume eleven, I would get drunk on “Bud Ice” alone in the building apartment on Fridays, and there was this female Japanese-Japanese teacher right updoors from me, I think I must have drove her insane from the loud music, but she never said a single word.
A metaphor for Trump’s response to everything about this COVID 19 crisis:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/completely-inadequate-epidemiologists-question-abrupt-end-to-wh-contact-tracing
‘Completely Inadequate’: Epidemiologists Question Abrupt End To WH Contact Tracing
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2029812
October 8, 2020
Dying in a Leadership Vacuum
Covid-19 has created a crisis throughout the world. This crisis has produced a test of leadership. With no good options to combat a novel pathogen, countries were forced to make hard choices about how to respond. Here in the United States, our leaders have failed that test. They have taken a crisis and turned it into a tragedy.
The magnitude of this failure is astonishing. According to the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering, the United States leads the world in Covid-19 cases and in deaths due to the disease, far exceeding the numbers in much larger countries, such as China. The death rate in this country is more than double that of Canada, exceeds that of Japan, a country with a vulnerable and elderly population, by a factor of almost 50, and even dwarfs the rates in lower-middle-income countries, such as Vietnam, by a factor of almost 2000. Covid-19 is an overwhelming challenge, and many factors contribute to its severity. But the one we can control is how we behave. And in the United States we have consistently behaved poorly.
We know that we could have done better. China, faced with the first outbreak, chose strict quarantine and isolation after an initial delay. These measures were severe but effective, essentially eliminating transmission at the point where the outbreak began and reducing the death rate to a reported 3 per million, as compared with more than 500 per million in the United States. Countries that had far more exchange with China, such as Singapore and South Korea, began intensive testing early, along with aggressive contact tracing and appropriate isolation, and have had relatively small outbreaks. And New Zealand has used these same measures, together with its geographic advantages, to come close to eliminating the disease, something that has allowed that country to limit the time of closure and to largely reopen society to a prepandemic level. In general, not only have many democracies done better than the United States, but they have also outperformed us by orders of magnitude.
Why has the United States handled this pandemic so badly? We have failed at almost every step. We had ample warning, but when the disease first arrived, we were incapable of testing effectively and couldn’t provide even the most basic personal protective equipment to health care workers and the general public. And we continue to be way behind the curve in testing. While the absolute numbers of tests have increased substantially, the more useful metric is the number of tests performed per infected person, a rate that puts us far down the international list, below such places as Kazakhstan, Zimbabwe, and Ethiopia, countries that cannot boast the biomedical infrastructure or the manufacturing capacity that we have. Moreover, a lack of emphasis on developing capacity has meant that U.S. test results are often long delayed, rendering the results useless for disease control….
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
October 6, 2020
Coronavirus
US
Cases ( 7,722,746)
Deaths ( 215,822)
India
Cases ( 6,754,179)
Deaths ( 104,591)
Mexico
Cases ( 789,780)
Deaths ( 81,877)
France
Cases ( 634,763)
Deaths ( 32,365)
UK
Cases ( 530,113)
Deaths ( 42,445)
Germany
Cases ( 307,119)
Deaths ( 9,635)
Canada
Cases ( 171,323)
Deaths ( 9,530)
China
Cases ( 85,482)
Deaths ( 4,634)
October 6, 2020
Coronavirus (Deaths per million)
US ( 651)
Mexico ( 633)
UK ( 624)
France ( 496)
Canada ( 252)
Germany ( 115)
India ( 76)
China ( 3)
Notice the ratios of deaths to coronavirus cases are 10.4%, 8.0% and 5.1% for Mexico, the United Kingdom and France respectively.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-10-07/Chinese-mainland-reports-7-new-COVID-19-cases-all-from-overseas-UnYv9qrwGI/index.html
October 7, 2020
Chinese mainland reports 7 new COVID-19 cases
The Chinese mainland on Tuesday registered 7 new COVID-19 cases, all from overseas, the National Health Commission announced on Wednesday.
This is the 52nd consecutive day of zero domestic transmissions reported on the Chinese mainland. No deaths related to the coronavirus were reported over the previous 24 hours, while 15 patients were discharged from hospitals.
The COVID-19 tally on the Chinese mainland stands at 85,489 infections and 4,634 fatalities, while 376 asymptomatic patients remain under medical observation.
Chinese mainland new imported cases
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-10-07/Chinese-mainland-reports-7-new-COVID-19-cases-all-from-overseas-UnYv9qrwGI/img/8af18011530743f0a3d25e25d26eb9e6/8af18011530743f0a3d25e25d26eb9e6.jpeg
Chinese mainland new asymptomatic cases
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-10-07/Chinese-mainland-reports-7-new-COVID-19-cases-all-from-overseas-UnYv9qrwGI/img/0849a27bb2a2414d9fbb7d015c39d341/0849a27bb2a2414d9fbb7d015c39d341.jpeg
[ There has been no coronavirus death on the Chinese mainland since May 17. There has been no community or domestic coronavirus case for 52 days. Since June began there have been only 2 limited community clusters of infections, in Beijing and Urumqi in Xinjiang, both of which were contained with mass testing, contact tracing and quarantine, and both outbreaks ended in a few weeks. Imported coronavirus cases are caught at entry points with required testing and immediate quarantine. Asymptomatic cases are all quarantined.
The flow of imported cases to China is low, but has been persistent. There are as a result 205 active imported coronavirus cases on the Chinese mainland, but of which only 2 cases are classed as serious or critical. ]
LOL! Perhaps “Wall Street” had second thoughts.
28,303.46
^ 530.70 1.91%
Bruce Hall: Well, it would make sense to the extent that probability of additional fiscal impulse rose.
Well that is because Trump decided stimulus was back on. Was the LOL your dog laughing at your latest stupidity?
Then down it goes again. That was a bad move.
Bruce,
You need to face up to the fact that apparently Wall Street is incrasingly fine with Biden beating Trump, even though he will raise taxes on the rich. Reportedly 70% of CEOs now support Biden. Trump is just such an unpredictable messup, they have had it with him.
So, end of talks makes it look like economy not doing so well, but then the rethink is, “Ah, but this really cinches it for Biden, so great!”
As Amartya Sen has pointed out, Indian development has been distressingly unbalanced:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/08/world/asia/india-covid-19-rural.html
October 8, 2020
‘Rural Surge’ Propels India Toward More Covid-19 Infections Than U.S.
The contagion is hitting towns and villages where resources are scant and people are skeptical of lockdown efforts. If unchecked, Indian infections could exceed those in the United States.
By Karan Deep Singh and Jeffrey Gettleman
MASLI, India — Sliding out of their rickshaw, masks on, fresh sanitizer smeared across their hands, a team of health workers approached one of the mud-walled homes in Masli, a remote village in northeast India surrounded by miles of mountainous rainforest.
“Are you Amit Deb?” they asked a lean, shirtless man standing in his yard. Mr. Deb nodded cautiously. Five days earlier, he had tested positive for the coronavirus. Now his family members needed to be tested.
They all refused.
“We can’t afford to quarantine,” explained Mr. Deb, a shopkeeper. If anyone else in his family was found positive, they would all be ordered to stay inside, which would mean even more weeks of not working, which would push the family closer to running out of food.
The medical team moved on to the next house. But they kept meeting more refusals.
The defiance of the coronavirus rules is being reflected across rural India, and it is propelling this nation’s virus caseload toward the No. 1 spot globally. Infections are rippling into every corner of this country of 1.3 billion people. The Indian news media is calling it “The Rural Surge.” …