Muh Muh Muh My Corona (virus)

Yes, they would.

Also, big tobacco bought Pence's soul a long time go.

 

Deluxe casket seating available on return flight.

 

Texas governor ordered bars closed ... at noon today. No last blast for you, Tex!

 

Believe it or not, these two states share a border near “Pensacola Beach.”

 

Noticing a lot more people wearing asks as the “oh, fuck” reports roll in from other states.

 

That movie is a hoot!

 

Where do you even start with this pull quote?

 

Oregon is bigger than the UK and it has 202 deaths.

If it were its own country, it’d be the nation the US should have been on the coronavirus, but wasn’t.

 

Long ago I feared the worst in southern states. It has come, in terms of positive tests. The death rate lags so far behind the NY/NJ/CT that either the virus has mutated, our health care system is awesome and already adjusted treatment, or far far more folks had the disease in Norrheast that it almost makes you shudder.

Maybe it’s all three.

 

Anecdotally, I have heard stories of people in NY and Mass., including my son and his fiancee, who were quite ill with what they were told was the flu in January, but which they now believe was the virus. Could be. It originated in China, but it came to the US from Europe, too. I know the first recorded case in Mass. was a high school kid who caught it on a school trip to Italy in early February. But it should also be noted that deaths do not rise in accordance with the rise in cases. They come later. We'll have to see.

 

No, no, the death rate is way behind.

NJ deaths-to-cases is 8.57%
TX deaths-to-cases is 1.67%

TX is at 141,526 cases right now and 2,366 deaths. By the time TX is at 200,000 positive tests - and it will be by mid-July - it'd have to accumulate another 15,000 deaths to be 8.57%.

New Hampshire has a higher rate than Louisiana.

Either a virus bomb went off and we just had no clue how many people had it or the treatment is much better. I lean toward the latter.

So I know a guy, hospital admin, in my church group. We bond over football. He tells me last week this: The hardest part at the beginning was the fear of the unknown, and it was hard, really hard, on everyone, the beginning. But - he's not a doctor, he's a CEO type - these people, the doctors, are brilliant people. He's close to tears saying this, and we all kind of were, because he's explaining how, over time, they've figured out a consistent, good course of treatment - doesn't save everyone but it works - and a doctor says to him "there are way scarier things we deal with, now that we know what we're dealing with" and medicine, the practice of it, the dedication, these doctors, it's pretty amazing. Because it's not magic, and obviously it's bad, and more will die, and I'm not in the worst-hit place. (I'm also not in Oregon, which has barely been smudged.) But it's a different thing than it was 3 months ago, and a lot of it is because doctors are doctors, very-good-and-they-damn-well-know-it doctors who don't quit, and are maybe arrogant enough to save more lives than they have any business saving, and then they do.