Muh Muh Muh My Corona (virus)

Some of North Texas is open for business.

 

10 Things This ICU Doctor Learned While Treating COVID Patients

 

This should be infuriating, and yet not surprising, to anyone

 

I had to go to three big box stores today for varying reasons. Must have passed or waited in line behind a total of about 75 people. 74 wore masks. And I live in a MAGA county in a virus hot spot state where people bitched and moaned about masks. Yet, the percentage that I've seen, where I go, has been close to 100 percent. At some point, this helps drive down the numbers, doesn't it?

 

Does the big box store in question require masks as a condition of entry? That's the key.

 

If nothing else, looks like the infection rate has plateaued in a number of areas and it's no longer rising geometrically. So yes, absolutely.

 

SARS and Stripes

How the Pandemic Defeated America

 

You’ll get no pushback from me re: Trump here. But one doesn’t have to play the counterfactual game too vigorously to imagine a worse reaction had he acted in a similar manner with respect to “the test.”

Let’s suppose he had, and let’s further stipulate that as a result the US and Germany followed exactly the same Covid-19 trajectory. By now 35,000 in the US would be dead from the virus. What would the New Yorker cover look like?

 

So we've saved 115,000 lives and have a national testing structure in place? He's Man of the Year.

Of course we couldn't know any of that for certain because the only totals we'd have to measure against would be the models. As is the case now, and has him saying he's saved 2 million lives.

I'm just not convinced every imaginary scenario for a competent executive response in the US drags us back to some version of where we are now.

Is there a series of hypothetical moves that saves 100000 lives? Sure. Is there one that costs 100000 lives? Of course.

But it's August, and in reality not only do we have no national testing apparatus in place, but no national tracing structure, either. And no plan for one. And no plan for re-opening schools or businesses.

No national leadership on any of this in any way. In fact the national messaging is so garbled at this point it's creating more risk rather than less. Worse yet, it undercuts the very thing we need most right now, which is optimism, and some hope we can all get through this.

Is a half-assed patchwork of local responses the best we can do?

I don't think so, but here we are.

 

Knocking down myths, one at a time.

People in the olden days could be just as selfish and inconsiderate and obstinate as today.

Mask Resistance During a Pandemic Isn’t New — in 1918 Many Americans Were 'Slackers'

And nobody likes a Slacker.

 

But let’s reopen the schools.

260 employees in Gwinnett County, Ga., school district have tested positive for COVID-19 or been exposed