When I last checked — just a few days ago — the widely respected Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation's doomsday projection, the predicted covid-19 death toll was 66,000, up from 60,000, which was radically down from around 90,000. Pessimism now seems to be infiltrating professional estimates — because of, I assume, idiots such as Georgia's governor, Brian Kemp, egged on by the nation's most dangerous imbecile, Donald Trump?