Read chapter 54 here
Saturday, June 27, 2020
You’ve probably read or heard that many of the recent spikes in COVID cases is the result of 20-somethings testing positive all over the U.S. In Wisconsin, Portage County, located in the central part of the state, was the first to board this train. On or shortly after June 5, as the graph indicates. The cause of
outbreak was a graduation party attended by UW-Stevens Point students. In one week the number of new cases reported in Portage County rocketed from 14 to 86, an
increase of more than 500%.
About three weeks ago, the number of confirmed new cases in La Crosse County started to spike, going from 69 on June 7th to 397 as of yesterday. A few days before we left for Warren, the county health department announced that
community spread likely took place at 6 downtown La Crosse bars as well as a beach on the Mississippi River. Infections in the 20-29 age group led the way.
And now it’s hitting home. Dane County’s numbers of new cases started to spike this week.
- 41 on Monday
- 33 on Tuesday
- 63 on Wednesday
- 89 on Thursday
- 122 on Friday
The number dropped to 84 today, but that daily tally ranks as the 3rd highest. Yesterday the Wisconsin State Journal ran a photo of a long line of young adults, nobody wearing masks or social distancing, waiting to get into the Kollege Klub, a bar across the street from the UW-Madison Memorial Library. It’s a popular hangout for fraternity and sorority members, many of whom probably made their inside with fake IDs.
Today Florida recorded 9,585 cases, up from 8,232 yesterday. Not even two months ago – on May 3rd, to be exact, a Wall Street Journal headline asked the following question.
The answer, of course, is ‘neither’.
This was back when New York and New Jersey were the U.S. epicenter of coronavirus cases. Many GOP governors, like Florida’s Ron DeSantis, a major-league Trump toady, seemed to think their states were immune to a severe outbreak and rushed to reopen their economies. When the number of cases in their states started to spike, they attributed the rise to increased testing, a half-truth at best. Now that their numbers are exploding, DeSantis and his Texas colleague Greg Abbott, both had to walk back their repeated insistence that further restrictions would only be a last resort.
Despite the virus’s ongoing threat to U.S. public health system, our dunce is a Vice President called the current spike “a good thing” because about half of recent cases involve adults under 35 and less likely to get seriously ill.
Unfortunately, they are probably more likely to contribute to community spread due to their inability to social distance.
The lack of federal leadership and the creation of an alternative COVID universe by the GOP, dutifully amplified by Fox News, has put all of us at risk and made it impossible for the United States to get the virus under control. China did it. South Korea did it. New Zealand did it. Germany did it. But, outside of China, countries where autocrats (or, in certain case, wannabes) rule — Brazil, Russia, India, U.S. — the virus remains out of control.
And yet Trump can still achieve a 40% approval rate. Blind allegiance! The good news, though, is that his approval rating has tanked since his rally-round-the-flag bump in the polls in early April, no doubt the shortest and smallest such increase in presidential history.
Read chapter 56 here
No comments:
Post a Comment