Discombobulated

[flowerbug]

hospitalizations are increasing now after being fairly stable or declining. so the back to school infections are getting spread to the more vulnerable people who've been protected up to this point. the next few months are going to be "interesting" again. *sigh*

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

Two teachers in the Woodland elem school district near Vancouver WA were diagnosed two weeks ago. It shut down the schools. Luckily my SIL doesn't do his SLP at the elem level in that district.

 

[Zeedman]

It was pretty much assumed that Covid infections would spike again in the Fall. The return of children to school has no doubt contributed to that. IMO we will see another spike when cold weather drives everyone indoors. I'm concerned - as I was during the cold months early in the outbreak - that forced-air heating has the potential to cause super-spreader events. Social distancing is based upon the assumption of stagnant air; it offers no protection when air is forcefully circulated.

DW & I went to visit one of our sons for his birthday last month. He has children who play freely with all of the neighborhood kids at their homes, and allows them to bring their friends into his house. DW & I spent all of our time there outside. DS said that he isn't going to allow Covid to disrupt their lifestyle, and isn't afraid. I understand that attitude, and if I was younger, might feel the same way. Unfortunately, that also means we won't be spending much time together in the future.

I see signs everywhere that the young - who are least at risk - are beginning to accept that risk as part of life, and move on. To them, Covid is less dangerous than the flu, which we have already accepted culturally regardless of the fact that it kills indiscriminate of age. Such an attitude shift is inevitable, we can't just "stop the world" while waiting for a vaccine which may - or may not - put an end to this.

Wisconsin has turned into "ground zero", we have one of the largest outbreaks in the country right now. My county & the county adjacent are among the highest, with 100+ new cases per day. DW & I had reached the point where we felt comfortable doing weekly shopping, regardless of the increasing number of people we encounter there who refuse to wear masks. We are rethinking that now.

 

[digitS']

Could this country have done better? Could it do better now?

Looking at other countries with advanced technology and health care: Germany with 25% of the US population has 9,500 deaths from Covid-19.

That is less than 5% of Covid-19 deaths that Americans have experienced.

Japan has done even better. We can think that age is a deciding factor with the virus. It is but Japan's general population median age is 10 years older than the US. There are plenty of vulnerable, elderly people.

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

Could this country have done better? Could it do better now?

Looking at other countries with advanced technology and health care: Germany with 25% of the US population has 9,500 deaths from Covid-19.

That is less than 5% of Covid-19 deaths that Americans have experienced.

Japan has done even better. We can think that age is a deciding factor with the virus. It is but Japan's general population median age is 10 years older than the US. There are plenty of vulnerable, elderly people.

Steve

i don't think they have as much of the complicating factors like obesity, heart disease, etc. as we do here...


here is obesity:

"Only 3.6 percent of Japanese have a body mass index (BMI) over 30, which is the international standard for obesity, whereas 32.0 percent of Americans do. A total of 66.5 percent of Americans have a BMI over 25, making them overweight, but only 24.7 percent of Japanese.May 22, 2020"

Why Is the Obesity Rate So Low in Japan and High in the U.S.? Some Possible Economic Explanations | Request PDF

Request PDF | Why Is the Obesity Rate So Low in Japan and High in the U.S.? Some Possible Economic Explanations | More than one billion adults are overweight worldwide, and more than 300 million of them clinically obese, raising the risk of many serious... | Find, read and cite all the research...

www.researchgate.net

i'll leave the rest as an exercise for the reader...

 

[digitS']

Gonna start accusing anybody who's wearing pants

of

"virtue signaling."

 

[flowerbug]

Gonna start accusing anybody who's wearing pants

of

"virtue signaling."

the full moon is not virtue signal...

 

[digitS']

i'll leave the rest as an exercise for the reader...

The New England Journal of Medicine citing information from John Hopkins University:

"The death rate in this country is more than double that of Canada, exceeds that of Japan, a country with a vulnerable and elderly population, by a factor of almost 50..."

LINK

 

[flowerbug]

The New England Journal of Medicine citing information from John Hopkins University:

"The death rate in this country is more than double that of Canada, exceeds that of Japan, a country with a vulnerable and elderly population, by a factor of almost 50..."

LINK

i'm sad at the state of our nation, but i'm also sad that those authors really didn't even do a minor amount of digging like i already did which shows up some of the factors which affect the differences in the rates of death from this disease.

 

[digitS']

Up to 279,700 extra deaths have occurred in the U.S. so far this year

Data from the CDC (LINK) with caption from PBS (LINK)