Health News at Your Fingertips

Back to the coronavirus pandemic, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said at the weekend that the spread of coronavirus is out of control in New Mexico, as she urged residents to stay home and avoid gathering with others.

“Please do your part to protect yourself and your fellow New Mexicans by celebrating a COVID-SAFE Halloween,” the Democratic governor’s office said in a Facebook post. “Stay home. Do not gather with others.”

State officials on Saturday reported 592 additional known virus cases and 11 additional deaths but said the case data for the day was incomplete due to a technical problem.

“Due to a technical disruption of the electronic laboratory reporting system, the following data reflects only a partial total for today’s case update,” state officials said in a statement. “The delayed results will be included in the state’s reporting as soon as they are received and confirmed.”

The additional cases and deaths reported Saturday increased the state’s totals to 46,490 cases and 1,018 deaths.

Here’s the latest nationwide figures according to the Johns Hopkins University, as of this morning. Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota and Alaska continue to be the states showing the most alarming rises in cases.

Rachel Bitecofer, one of Project Lincoln’s senior advisers and a sometime contributor to this website, is letting her election nerves show.

Donald Trump has often referenced his ‘beautiful’ wall on the US-Mexico border, but I don’t imagine he was thinking of it being decorated like this when he said it.

Reuters report that protesters in Mexico burned effigies of Donald Trump and a border patrol agent yesterday while condemning the administration’s immigration policies and urging Americans to reject Trump at the ballot box on Tuesday.

A few dozen migrant activists marched to the beach fence separating Mexico from the United States at the border city of Tijuana chanting, “Trump, we won’t pay for your wall,” then set fire to a crude, besuited effigy of the president on a stick.

“We’re calling on people to vote against Trump and in favor of hope. Biden has promised us a humanitarian migration reform, we’ll be watching to ensure the promises are kept this time,” said Hugo Castro, a Mexican-American migrant activist.

Lauren Boebert, who has generated plenty of column inches as she runs for Congress, has been having a slow motion spat on Twitter with her Democratic opponent for Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, Diane Mitsch Bush.

Boebert yesterday boasted that she had been endorsed by South Dakota’s Gov. Kristi Noem.

Bush made a joke in a familiar online meme-format, suggesting that perhaps Boebert was confused about the geography of where she was standing for election.

Boebert has made it clear this morning that she didn’t find it particularly funny.

Which is slightly surprising, as given that Boebert is one of the Congressional candidates who have given some credence to the QAnon conspiracy theory, you’d think she’d be more in favor of internet memeology.

The Trump team has ten rallies planned in the next 48 hours. Facing what appears to be a narrow path to re-election, the president is to make stops in seven states likely to prove pivotal in deciding if he will remain in the White House for four more years, or whether he will become the first president since the senior George Bush failed in a bid for a second term in 1992.

It is his campaign’s busiest stretch, reports Steve Holland for Reuters. The Republican incumbent aims to generate enough momentum to drive an overwhelming turnout by his supporters. He will finish the two-day blitz with a late-night rally on Monday in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the same location where he finished his campaign in 2016.

Weighing down Trump is a rising number of coronavirus infections. Trump has continually played down the virus and says his opponents are using it against him. He’s even gone on the attack against the very doctors who have been trying to save the lives of the Americans who have been hospitalised with Covid.

At a rally on Saturday in Newtown, Pennsylvania, Trump seemed to lament his close race with Biden, who he considers a weak opponent.
“This could only happen to me,” Trump said. “How could we be tied?”

Some Republicans are pessimistic about Trump’s chances, believing he has too many states where his back is up against the wall, fearing the 90 million who have cast ballots early suggest a wave building against the president.

But Trump and his team believe polls undersell the Republican’s level of support, arguing many of his backers do not want to admit as much to pollsters and that, thanks to a strong Republican get-out-the-vote effort, the incumbent will win.

Gary Langer at ABC News brings us more on the final few polls of election season. He says there’s been little change from September in the two critical swing states of Florida and Pennsylvania.

The pandemic versus the economy defines the presidential contest in two key battlegrounds, with Florida holding firm to its toss-up status while Joe Biden leads slightly in Pennsylvania in the season’s final ABC News/Washington Post polls.

There’s little change in either state. In Florida, Donald Trump has 50% support among likely voters to Biden’s 48%; it was 51%-47% in an ABC/Post poll Sept. 20. Trump won the state by 112,911 votes out of more than 9.4 million cast in 2016.

In Pennsylvania, the race stands at 51%-44%, Biden-Trump, a 7-point advantage for the Democrat; that compares with a 9-point margin late last month. Here, Trump’s 2016 win was even narrower: 44,292 votes out of nearly 6.2 million cast.

The president finishes his busy day with an 11pm rally in Florida today. Biden is on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania both Sunday and Monday.

Read more here: ABC News – Florida maintains toss-up status while Biden leads slightly in Pennsylvania

Newsweek bring us a report on events outside Attorney General William Barr’s house last night, where it seems that pro-Trump demonstrators rocked up to protest that Barr hasn’t done enough to lock up Joe Biden in the run-up to the election.

Protesters carrying Trump flags picketed Attorney General William Barr’s home on Saturday because they believe he isn’t doing enough to bring former Vice President Joe Biden to justice.

President Donald Trump has referred to Biden as a criminal and said he and his son, Hunter Biden, are part of an “organized crime family.” This is due in part to unsubstantiated allegations about the Bidens’ business dealings with foreign countries.

Social media users also shared photos of the scene, with one picture featuring a white horse. AP journalist Mike Balsamo reported that the Department of Justice had said Barr went out to speak to the picketers.

“Let me tell you something, Joe Biden is a criminal and he’s been a criminal for a long time, and you’re a criminal and the media for not reporting it,” Trump told reporters on 20 October.

Read more here: Newsweek – Protesters with Trump flags swarm William Barr’s home demanding he ‘lock up Joe Biden’

Very different tenors in the opening social media salvos from each campaign this morning…