President Trump, please announce at the SOTU that you have noticed that RBG is unavailable to do her job, and wish her well.
Then announce that you will be nominating a new candidate for SC Justice later in the week such that the preparations or the confirmation hearing circus can begin.
Commit that no Senate confirmation vote may will be scheduled until RBG officially retires, or the fact she is actually dead is revealed.
Take all of the above actions “in the spirit of “keeping all 9 seats filled” and not letting a vacancy linger.
This will explode more than a few dem heads, and derail their strategy of running the clock until the Biden rule can be claimed to apply, or they file impeachment charges and say that prevents Trump from making any SC nominations.
Clarence Thomas has been making noises about wanting to retire for a while now. Perhaps Thomas could announce that he was conditionally planning to retire at the end of 2019, provided his replacement is confirmed before that point.
If Ruth dies before the end of 2019, any confirmed nominee would fill HER seat, and the confirmation process start again for somebody to replace Thomas.