ANSWERS TO THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Who are the Ghanaian pallbearers, and why has Twitter embraced this funereal meme?

MARK RIPPETOE: In These Trying Times.

SOME OF THIS IS ABOUT INSUFFICIENT CONTAGION CONTROL, AND SOME OF IT IS ABOUT DENSITY AND INADEQUATE MEDICAL INFRASTRUCTURE: New wave of infections threatens to collapse Japan hospitals.

Hospitals in Japan are increasingly turning away sick people as the country struggles with surging coronavirus infections and its emergency medical system collapses.

In one recent case, an ambulance carrying a man with a fever and difficulty breathing was rejected by 80 hospitals and forced to search for hours for a hospital in downtown Tokyo that would treat him. Another feverish man finally reached a hospital after paramedics unsuccessfully contacted 40 clinics.

The Japanese Association for Acute Medicine and the Japanese Society for Emergency Medicine say many hospital emergency rooms are refusing to treat people including those suffering strokes, heart attacks and external injuries. . . .

The “collapse of emergency medicine” has already happened, a precursor to the overall collapse of medicine, the Japanese Association for Acute Medicine and the Japanese Society for Emergency Medicine said in a joint statement. By turning away patients, hospitals are putting an excessive burden on the limited number of advanced and critical emergency centers, the groups said. . . .

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said the government has secured 15,000 ventilators and is getting support of Sony and Toyota Motor Corp. to produce more.

Japanese hospitals also lack ICUs, with only five per 100,000 people, compared to about 30 in Germany, 35 in the U.S. and 12 in Italy, said Osamu Nishida, head of the Japanese Society of Intensive Care Medicine.

Italy’s 10% mortality rate, compared to Germany’s 1%, is partly due to the shortage of ICU facilities, Nishida said. “Japan, with ICUs not even half of Italy’s, is expected to face a fatality overshoot very quickly,” he said.

Japan has been limiting testing for the coronavirus mainly because of rules requiring any patients to be hospitalized. Surging infections have prompted the Health Ministry to loosen those rules and move patients with milder symptoms to hotels to free up beds for those requiring more care.

Calls for social distancing have not worked well enough in crowded cities like Tokyo, experts say, with many people still commuting to offices in crowded trains even after the prime minister declared a state of emergency.

Mass transit kills.

THE CHICOM TERRORISTS HAVE WON: 2020 Comic-Con Officially Canceled Due to Coronavirus Pandemic.

YEAH, WHAT TRUMP WAS DOING SEEMED EVEN MORE OBVIOUS THAN USUAL: “In a classic Trump move, he picked a fight with Democrat governors beforehand over who had the authority to dictate the openings. With his usual bluster, Trump insisted that he did. Suddenly discovering federalism, the governors insisted that they did. In the end, Trump gave the governors the authority they demanded, though the Feds will still supply the data and the non-binding guidelines. That was the outcome Trump desired all along, I suspect, and his fight with the governors was only to bait them into the position he wanted.”

CORONAVIRUS REPORT: Massachusetts may not be ready to reopen until June.

DEMS RUSH TO DEFEND KAVANAUGH AFTER HE PUTS ON JOE BIDEN MASK.

From – of course – America’s Newspaper of Record.

CAN A PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT EXPEL STUDENTS FOR MAKING A RACIST VIDEO AT HOME THAT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE SCHOOL?: I would think that the First Amendment bans such retaliation based on constitutionally-protected (albeit gross) speech, but the Carrollton City School district seems to disagree. One could argue that allowing the students back on campus would be disruptive, but the schools are closed for the academic year due to Covid-19, and the students are high school seniors. H/T Hans Bader.

THE POWER LINE WEEK IN PICTURES: Team Joe! Edition.

YOU CAN ALWAYS TELL WHO’S ON THE PAYROLL, OR AT LEAST ON THE TEAM: Cuomo Blunders Big Tying NY Recovery to CCP Apologists McKinsey. “To put it bluntly, McKinsey & Company, the giant American consulting firm with 127 offices worldwide and some 27,000 employees, has been in bed with communist China for decades. But don’t believe me. Believe the unstintingly liberal New York Times that did an extensive exposé of the company in 2018 entitled ‘How McKinsey Has Raised the Stature of Totalitarian Governments’.”

‘JOE BIDEN HAS A BIG CHINA PROBLEM:’ Trump preps campaign assault on fall foe.

SPOILER: IT WAS, IN FACT, GARBAGE. Public university fired professor for calling microaggressions handout ‘garbage’: lawsuit. “Also named in both official and individual capacities: the Board of Regents, Chancellor Lesa Roe, President Neal Smatresk, Provost Jennifer Evans-Cowley, Dean of the College of Science Su Gao, and Associate Math Department Chair William Cherry.” Bring the pain. It’s the only way these people will learn.

RIP: Medal of Honor recipient Bennie Adkins, 86, known for Vietnam heroics, dies of coronavirus.

CORONAVIRUS: San Clemente Fills Skatepark With 37 Tons Of Sand After Skaters Ignore ‘No Trespassing’ Signs.

ISOLATE CHINA: UK moves to drop Huawei as 5G vendor, citing China coronavirus transparency. “The mood in the parliamentary party has hardened.”

There. I fixed it.

TO BE FAIR, IT WAS A PROPAGANDA EFFORT, NOT A NEWS STORY OR A WORK OF HISTORY: New York Times published false claim on America’s founding. This history professor called its bluff.

AT AMAZON,