COVID-19
Really hard to stay on top of this story. Probably the biggest health-related story of our lifetimes. There is so much happening we can only point out a few interesting things and move on. Every day it seems to jump to a whole new level.
Last night President Trump
attempted to assuage
peoples fears of this "foreign" virus by shutting the barn door after the horse had bolted and banning most travel from Europe to the U.S. European travel is mostly irrelevant when you have 10,000+ confirmed cases (despite massive under-testing). This is the time for mitigation, not prevention. Without pointing out each issue with last night's speech, we will just say, this is not leadership.
People (in charge of powerful countries) are talking like this is the flu - only difference is we have flu vaccines, antivirals and 100+ years experience treating the flu. So...actually nothing at all like the flu. In a really bad flu season, 35 million Americans get it and 50,000 die from it. COVID looks more like a 1-2% death rate. And we have NO vaccine, NO antiviral and NO experience treating it. Because of this lack of any controlling mechanisms, it's not unreasonable to assume 50% or more of Americans is going to get it eventually. At a 1% death rate, that would be 16 million people.
For those who think we should just "get it over with" and give up trying to stop the spread, Italian hospitals in Lombardy are
already overwhelmed
only weeks after discovering the outbreak. They are talking about war-like triage situations where care will be denied to people least likely to survive. The *only* thing we can do right now is slow this infection down to ensure as many people as possible can get treatment when ill.
On that note, Universities have discontinued in-person classes, the US has banned travel to Europe, the NBA has suspended their season and March Madness will be played in empty arenas, if at all. Wrap your head around that sentence. This is truly an incredible event.
CDC is coming out with
guidance
telling older folks to stay home, but judging by the grocery store this morning, they really couldn't care less. Obviously we have heard enough about handwashing. But, hey, elephant in the room - what about touching other people? Can we end this ridiculous handshaking practice already? Japan has done fine with bowing and pretty much everyone in the world is familiar enough with it that the practice passes the weirdness test (saluting would probably not pass the weirdness test, being very military-affiliated)
You may remember Rep. Matt Gaetz (Dbag-FL) from last week, wearing a gasmask to the house floor to vote on the COVID package. One of his
own constituents
died from the virus days after that asinine stunt. And it turns out Mr. Gaetz was at CPAC the week before and shook hands with an individual who has now been found to be infected with the coronavirus. He later
tested negative
but is choosing to remain in 14-day self quarantine, though unfortunately for us, he still has Twitter access.
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