April 25. More Coronavirus Data, and Openings

I watched the National Academy of Sciences panel talks with experts on the COVID-19 health crisis.  Dr. Fauci and Sanjay Gupta of CNN gave talks.  It should soon be on YouTube.  I screen captured 56 of the slides, which are on my Flickr account album.

This is the graph of US cases, and deaths.

Adding to the New York City hospital chain study reported on yesterday, of those admitted to hospitals, nearly all had at least one major chronic health condition, and 88% had at least two.  The main conditions were obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes.  Only 6% had no underlying health conditions.

Strokes in NY City from blood clots are up a factor of seven, and those people were found to have the Coronavirus.  The Coronavirus also causes kidney disease, and lumps on toes.  Raised temperatures only appeared in 30% of cases of people being hospitalized.  So screening patrons to businesses for raised temperature is necessary, but not sufficient.

As far as the public goes, in California, 75% want to continue the statewide stay-at-home order as long as needed.  Nationwide, 78% think that moving too fast is a greater threat than moving too slowly.  86% think that social distancing and stay-at-home orders are responsible policies.  That includes 82% of Republicans.

Here is the map of states with stay-at-home orders expiring by April 30, five days from now.

I’m trying to concentrate on the health aspect of the Coronavirus, and laying off of politics, but I had to find out what kind of a governor Brian Kemp of Georgia was.  As appointed and then elected Secretary of State of Georgia, he went over and above the usual Republican strategy of suppressing minority votes.  He lost many court cases with his illegal strategies.  He didn’t even resign from that oversight while running for governor.  He won that race by a mere 1.4%.  He studied agriculture in college.  He also represented the massage industry.  As governor, he fought the Affordable Care health act.  He refused to expand it to Medicaid coverage.  He has really no concern for healthcare for his state.  Even though in charge of elections, he rejected our intelligence that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election.  Which is probably why Trump backed him.  This is all described in detail in Wikipedia.  That is the background to the governor who is starting up the most viral-spreading personal contact industries in his state.  Who knows if he is keeping track of the upsurge in cases that will occur in a week, and could easily be traced to such contacts?  The patrons to the barber shops were not wearing face masks.  There are now automatic license place readers, and it wouldn’t surprise me if other states may try to ban those with Georgia license plates.  Georgians could even be placed on the do-not-fly list, if there is a breakout.

An official from Florida said that there were 16.5 times as many people infected with the Coronavirus there as had been tested positive.   Florida is going to reopen parks, marinas, and golf courses, which I agree with, but I’m not sure what kind of businesses they are opening.

It was pointed out that the W.H.O. Also covers malaria and other world diseases, which the United States has to be protected from.   The US contributes about $550 million a year to the W.H.O., which is about 25% of its budget.

About Dennis SILVERMAN

I am a retired Professor of Physics and Astronomy at U C Irvine. For two decades I have been active in learning about energy and the environment, and in reporting on those topics for a decade. For the last four years I have added science policy. Lately, I have been reporting on the Covid-19 pandemic of our times.
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