Here’s the coronavirus death toll through June 26. France, Germany, and Italy are all below 0.5 deaths per million. Sweden and the UK are a bit above 2 deaths per million, and the United States is below 2 deaths per million.

The raw data from Johns Hopkins is here. The Public Health Agency of Sweden is here.

Here is Hilbert standing guard at the patio door against any enemies who might storm the castle gates and invade his house. In this case, I believe that “enemies” mainly means Hopper, who is forced to jump over him if she wants to come in. Still, you never know what else might try to lead an assault on the food bowl. It’s best to be prepared.

I have some family business to take care of today, so there probably won’t be any further blogging. Cats, of course, will show up at their usual time.

I’ve deleted this post, which was based on an error in COVID-19 reporting from New Jersey. Click here for the correct numbers for June 25.

Here’s the coronavirus death toll through June 25. UPDATE: I originally showed a sharp uptick in deaths, but it turns out this was because New Jersey reported a whole bunch of “probable” deaths all at once on June 25, which caused the spike. I’ve now corrected for that and the chart shows roughly the same plateau that we’ve had for the past few days.

The raw data from Johns Hopkins is here. The Public Health Agency of Sweden is here.

This is a splendid mariposa lily, a member of the mariposa lily family. I’m not sure where the “splendid” part comes from. I mean, it’s very nice and all, but why not violet mariposa lily or lavender mariposa lily or something like that? It’s a mystery. Still, it is lovely.

Ramesh Ponnuru reports that Republicans are finally warming up to a follow-up stimulus bill:

They think enough time has passed to ensure that they won’t have to pass expensive bill after bill before the election. They’re facing rising pressure to do something. And bad polling for Republicans up and down the ticket is concentrating minds. So it looks like they’re going to try to pass a bill next month. The most contentious issues, it seems pretty likely, will be (1) whether to scale back unemployment-insurance levels and (2) how much aid to give states and localities, and with what strings.

That would have been my guess too. I can live with UI benefits that are scaled back from the very generous levels of the last stimulus bill, but we desperately need solid levels of assistance to states and cities. I still like my idea of using this as an opportunity to fully federalize Medicaid, which would provide about the right amount of assistance and improve Medicaid at the same time, but I don’t suppose that’s in the cards. In lieu of that, our best bet is to simply hand out large sums of money and try to keep the strings at a reasonable level.

How long is it going to be until we finally conclude that there should be no sports for the rest of the year? Especially college sports. The danger signs are already visible here and there, and that’s how it always starts. It will get worse before long.

Everybody should get it through their heads that 2020 is over so they can stop wasting time on increasingly head-in-the-sand plans to reopen. Or are we just waiting for a few high-profile dead bodies first?

The NBA took the lead on shutting down in March. Maybe they should take the lead in finally canceling the rest of their season too?

Here’s the coronavirus death toll through June 24. Mexico continues to rise. The US continues to plateau, with everyone holding their breath to see if this turns into an upward spike in a few days. Even places like Germany are having troubles. An outbreak of COVID-19 in a slaughterhouse has prompted a renewed lockdown of two regions, and residents are none too happy about it. So far they’re complying, but how many lockdowns will people accept?

The raw data from Johns Hopkins is here. The Public Health Agency of Sweden is here.

The fuckwit-in-chief at his rally in Tulsa last week.Tyler Tomasello/ZUMA

Words fail:

Dozens of Secret Service officers and agents who were on site for President Trump’s rally in Tulsa last week were ordered to self-quarantine after two of their colleagues tested positive for the novel coronavirus, part of the fallout from Trump’s insistence on holding the mass gathering over the objections of public health officials. The Secret Service instructed employees who worked the Tulsa event to stay at home for 14 days when they returned from the weekend trip, according to two people familiar with the agency’s decision.

When do Republicans stop defending Trump? What does it finally take?