You assume that if we get out of hibernation, things will return to normal. But they won’t. You KNOW that. So unless we want the country to plunge into real depression and despair, we will have to rethink how we fund and run this nation. We will need a new way of looking at taxes, infrastructure, social order, funding, transportation – everything.
Will we do that? Probably not. And we’ll pay the price. This is just the beginning of that price, IMO. And it’s not just my opinion, but that of a lot of smarter people who study these things.
“…Researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health expect to shortly begin two trials of convalescent plasma – plasma taken from recovered COVID-19 patients – next week, with an eye on reducing hospital strain and helping both high-risk populations and those getting sick at home…”
“…“We know that most people recover,” Casadevall said. “Most people who are sick are sitting at home, hoping to get better. Unfortunately, some fraction of them get worse and continue to develop symptoms and these symptoms become unbearable and they have to go to the emergency room. The question is: can you intervene at home?”…”
My local news reports that many students are having trouble obtaining remote education because ONE THIRD of households do not have access to high speed internet (or any internet).
I’m surprised by that statistic, but I probably shouldn’t be.
You shouldn’t be. Many progressives have pushed to make high speed internet a utility available to everyone. As it is, it’s just another facet of inequity pervasive in our country.
Note that Sint Maarten only has a population of a little less than 41,000 making deaths per million rather meaningless. The smaller the population gets, the more skewed the numbers get. Their part of the island (island is shared with French St Maarten) has only had 14 deaths total. The French side has had three deaths - population of about 37,000.
Statistics never apply to the individual, only to large groups. With small groups one has to realized there can be a skew and would have to look at the 14 deaths more closely to see how it compared to larger countries.
NY State, with its population of 19.5 million can be compared like a smaller country. Small islands or city states? Not so much.
That said, it’s certainly dangerous to have been in San Marino, Andorra, or Sint Maartin on a per capita rate - and relatively safe to have been in HI.
Some countries with small numbers may just be awful at collecting numbers, esp if they are second or third world and this pandemic is just another health issue they are having to deal with on top of everything else.
It’s more like 3/4 don’t for my two DDs students. They haven’t even been able to connect with a majority of the parents. Low income, non-English speaking for the most part.
VP Pence’s press secretary - Katie Miller (wife of Trump’s close aid and speechwriter, Stephen Miller) tested positive today for CV after testing negative yesterday. With contact tracing, we may soon find out how quickly after exposure the virus shows up on the Abbot quick test. Trump’s personal valet tested positive yesterday. From what I read, there is very little social distancing going on in the white house, minimal use of masks.
Our friend who teaches 6th grade has only 8-10 kids turning in homework out of 30-40 students. She’s using zoom and is very frustrated. She’s heartbroken reading about them being hungry and broke and worrying about where they’ll get food since there are fewer food distribution sites and they can’t get food on campus since it’s closed.
Call me skeptical, but I’m imagining all of those well connected and now exposed people are getting IV remdesivir, convalescent plasma, and hydroxychloroquine+zinc as we speak.
From the study report itself (linked from the above article, some estimates of one way travel time in minutes (columns are 2018 baseline; 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, all transit users switching to cars; city):
34 45 58 76 99 San Francisco
31 34 39 46 56 New York
32 35 38 43 48 Boston
31 33 36 40 45 Seattle
29 31 33 35 38 Philadelphia
However, the study appears to assume similar commute volume; if people work remotely more frequently (whether due to virus fears or because traffic got worse), then the increase in travel time may not be as great.
Do Floridians spend more time in chlorinated water (like pools) that might kill the virus? Is FL hygiene better than OH in some way we haven’t thought of?
Could Florida just be lucky, compared to other states? Florida could have had superspreader events, like other similar states. After all, Floridians go to church and to birthday parties just like residents of other states.
Santa Clara County, where I live, pretty clearly was lucky. We had the virus circulating in January, but (probably mostly by luck) we didn’t get a superspreader event. If one of the infected people had gone to a Sharks game, if they’d been particularly infectious, we could have had a huge outbreak. But we didn’t. By luck.
Yes - there have been more retirements announced than I expected in my district, and a colleague who was downsized now sees a lot more positions to apply for.
@fretfulmother , sunchoke is another name for Jerusalem artichoke. They’re knobby. They can be eaten raw or cooked. I’m a little concerned about the nettles, but hey, I will attempt to prepare them the way the farm recommends, which will prevent getting poked by the pokey things. Ramps are a type of onion, I think.
COVID-19 news (from a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter) about Wisconsin and nearby states:
Wisconsin has fewer confirmed cases of coronavirus than all of its neighbors at 9,590 cases (pop. 5.8M)
Just an off track note to go light on the sunchoke to start with. They can cause a lot of gas in some people. My lad grows them and eats them, but he’s learned to not chow down on them after spending some days in agony and not quite sure what was wrong. With a bit of moderation he seems to do fine. Others haven’t had the same problem, so test first.
Personally, I can’t eat much of them because their 28% RDA for Iron is a bit high for my system. I have to be aware of all high iron content foods (meat, cereals, etc). That won’t apply to most people. The gas production possibility might.
They are yummy roasted.