Here in the US, the coronavirus pandemic is out of control.
Today states reported 144,000 new Covid-19 cases and 1,562 Americans died.
Hospitalizations are rising quickly, with more than 1,600 people admitted every day.
Texas has had more than 1 million infections, and has set up mobile morgues.
In North Dakota, the hospitals are at full capacity and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum (R), who has refused to issue a mask requirement, is now allowing infected health care workers to deliver care to those who are sick.
Here in Maryland, the number of Covid cases has doubled in the last 3 days, which means a spike in deaths around Thanksgiving.
In two weeks, Thanksgiving family gatherings will drive another spike in Covid cases, with deaths soaring around Christmas.
Total US Covid deaths are now at over 242,000.
We could see 100,000 deaths a month by January.
To be clear, most of the sickness and death that has occurred could have been prevented with political leadership requiring mask wearing in public spaces.
Today, 10 months into the pandemic, we still have no national Covid plan of any kind and no national mask requirement. Instead, we have a White House that has become a Covid hot spot holding “super spreader” events across the country.
News of a vaccine in development is promising, but likely a mirage as the vaccine requires refrigeration at -90 degree below zero.
In addition, setting aside all the massive replication, storage, and distribution logistics, huge swaths of America say they will take no vaccine offered, prefering to risk getting sick and killing their relatives to either: a) “own the libs”, or; b) show they are too smart to take a vaccine made with “chemicals” and “GMO”.
Universal mask wearing would actually be a cheaper, quicker, and more assured way of reducing infection and mortality than a vaccine, but without political leadership from the top, America must make do with body bags, burial plots, permanent lung damage, closed schools, bankrupt bars and restaurants, and health care liabilities that will stretch decades into the future.
1 comment:
Pretty sure I've escaped catching Covid twice thanks to wearing a mask. I work 12 hour shifts in a lab, and two separate times people I was working with had it and they didn't know. They did come to work sick thinking they only had a cold. Coughing, runny nose, feeling gross. No fever though. Even though I was around them and could have caught it, my job wanted me to come to work anyway instead of stay at home just in case. They are lucky I didn't catch it and spread it to others. I would have stayed home if I could, but that's not an option for me (and lots of other people.) And nobody in my family is having Thanksgiving this year. Lots of other people are though and that is scary.
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