COVID-19 Update, August 6, 2020: Behind Closed Doors Congressional negotiations over the stimulus bill continue, but progress is elusive, and nobody seems to know what is happening in the room with Mark Meadows, Steven Mnuchin, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer. A Friday deadline looms, and the Senate's vacation recedes. Meanwhile, the world keeps spinning and the war on science continues, with insults, flights of fancy, and death threats. The latest: As both sides trade insults, it looks as if negotiations will drag on past the self-imposed Friday deadline: https://wapo.st/2DqZRDx. Strangely enough, Mitch McConnell is a witness, not a participant, in the stimulus talks: https://nyti.ms/30w6uxc. Enhanced unemployment has expired but, for the 20th straight week, more than a million Americans have filed new jobless claims: https://wapo.st/2XyY7it. Meanwhile: Dr. Deborah Birx warns nine cities and California's Central Valley about their increasing COVID-19 caseloads: https://cnn.it/31tewG7. Dr. Anthony Fauci's family is bombarded with death threats: https://bit.ly/2PwDNcY. Yet even as the president abandons science, scientists fight back: https://bit.ly/2PrIDs4. As the number of deaths rises, the rate of COVID-19 testing drops: https://bit.ly/2PweIPy. Facebook, Twitter remove posts by the president that falsely claim children are "almost immune" to COVID-19: https://n.pr/33CrLXR. You need to double-check your brand of hand-sanitizer, because some of them are toxic: https://bit.ly/3gCUCiC. And in another story we never thought we'd see, the CDC issues a warning against drinking hand sanitzer: https://bit.ly/2C9x1qM. Faced with multiple outbreaks among the Marlins and Cardinals, Major League Baseball revises its coronavirus protocols: https://bit.ly/3gB7x4m. In another likely blow to the economy, Halloween probably won't happen this year: https://bit.ly/2XDhffk. Rodney Davis becomes the third Congressman to test positive for the coronavirus this week: https://bit.ly/3fzo6MT. Nearly half of the world's cinemas have reopened: https://bit.ly/3gzE5vv. And LDI 2020 has been canceled: https://bit.ly/3fB5Um7. Food for thought: Why the US is the only affluent nation not to control its pandemic outbreak: https://tinyurl.com/y2jfdw2t. Las Vegas and the deteriorating state of Nevada: https://bit.ly/31sO5Au. Around the country: In California: A breakdown in electronic collection of coronavirus test data is leading some public health experts to count the results by hand: https://lat.ms/3a5REAv. The mayor of Los Angeles authorizes shutdowns of power and water to homes and other venues hosting large gatherings during the pandemic: https://bit.ly/3kjvNu7. Eight UCLA players test positive for the coronavirus: https://bit.ly/3gCULma. La Jolla Music Society's Summerfest will be held online this year: https://bit.ly/3gzByBJ. The first live, in-person professional theatre production on the West Coast will be a drive-in adaptation of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land: https://tinyurl.com/yxgew9mj. In Connecticut: University of Connecticut cancels its football season: https://es.pn/3fxAhK3. In Florida: The state stays below 8,000 in new infections and the positivity rate drops to 8.3%: https://bit.ly/2DsuCYD. In Georgia: The state passes 200,000 infections and nears 4,000 deaths: https://bit.ly/33BlnjA. In Massachusetts: The latest on the state's two Equity-approved summer theatre productions; check out the photos of performers onstage, standing behind shields: https://tinyurl.com/yxukcjvw. In Mississippi: More than 100 students in the Corinth School District test are infected with COVID-19: https://cnn.it/3a3JXe1. In New Jersey: A state attorney asks a judge to keep cinemas closed: https://bit.ly/2C2EF63. Around the world: In Brazil: A prominent indigenous leader dies of COVID-19: https://reut.rs/31ux4WA. In New Zealand: The country launches an offensive against "COVID fatigue:" https://bit.ly/3ifSAVO. In the UK: How the cancelation of the Christmas panto season could deal a devastating blow to the theatre industry: https://tinyurl.com/y3ctthly. Golfer John Catlin is kicked off the European Tour for breaking lockdown rules: https://bit.ly/39YPZgc. Training: Check out HOLD: Design for Empty Rooms, described by American Theatre as "a website that showcases halted productions with a soup-to-nuts peek at the design process. From audio files to costume renderings, from color palettes to pre-production photos, the website offers a glimpse at the directions some of the 2020 spring productions were headed:" https://www.holdfordesign.com/. On August 7, Meyer Sound hosts a Grateful Dead roundtable: https://bit.ly/2XBF1bp. For your entertainment: On August 25 at 8pm Bay Street Theatre in Long Island will stream The Letters of Noël Coward, starring Richard Dreyfuss and Marsha Mason: https://bit.ly/3fx5Q6D. Starting tonight at 7pm, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre will stream Love Stories, Judith Jamison's collaboration with Rennie Harris and Robert Battle. On August 13, the company will stream a double feature of ballets by Battle: In/Side, set to Nina Simone's "Wild is the Wind," and Ella, set to the scatting of Ella Fitzgerald: https://bit.ly/2DCRwfK. Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra presents World on a String, with some of the most swinging songs ever produced by Broadway. Joined by vocalist Kate Davis, the JLCO reinvents classics from the likes of Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, and more: https://bit.ly/39YQCq4. For your pleasure: On the anniversary of Hamilton's Broadway, opening, take it away, The Schuyler Sisters: https://bit.ly/3kkXhzG. That's all for today. Stay safe. - DB To receive your LSA copies at home (no charge), please email LSA@plasa.org or go to www.ezsubscription.com/lsa/mysubscription. Previous LSA COVID-19 Updates: plasa.me/lsacovid19resources. ![](/std_images/blank.gif)
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