What’s all this talk about a “second wave” of U.S. coronavirus cases?
In The Wall Street Journal last week, Vice President Mike Pence wrote in a piece headlined “There Isn’t a Coronavirus ‘Second Wave'” that the nation is winning the fight against the virus.
In The Wall Street Journal last week, Vice President Mike Pence wrote in a piece headlined “There Isn’t a Coronavirus ‘Second Wave’” that the nation is winning the fight against the virus.
First wave…second wave, I’d be happy if red state denizens (and the current Administration) would even acknowledge there’s a wave, and that it’s a serious problem.
At this point, I think the smart move is to be pessimistic: We should assume that COVID cases will get worse all summer long, and that our fight against the virus will get worse when the northern US retreats indoors and turns on and the heat.
“It’s very difficult to make a prediction,” Rivers said. “We don’t know the degree to which this virus is seasonal, if at all.”
uhm given that the places where the virus has been spreading the most in the last month are about the warmest in the country (Arizona, Texas, Florida), I think its safe to say that the virus is not “seasonal” – unless by “seasonal” you mean “really bad in cool weather, and horrible in hot weather”
Agreed, but it’s not just a Red state problem. A huge part of the problem is young people in every state thinking they’re invulnerable. Or if they catch it, it will be mild. Interviews like this one from CNN with young folks at a bar in Arizona are infuriating. They make me want to throw things:
“The oleaginous Mike Pence, with his talent for toadyism and appetite for obsequiousness, could, Trump knew, become America’s most repulsive public figure.” — George Will, The Washington Post , 9 May 2018
Let’s say we were watching what’s happening in another industrial democracy — if they had 2.2 million cases of covid-19 and almost 120,000 deaths, more than twice as much as any other country on both counts.
There would congressional resolutions and an appeal to the U.N.
Groups like Doctors Without Borders and other NGO’s would get involved.
We wouldn’t welcome their visitors or elected officials to the U.S.
The wing nut base of the Republican Party and its media arms would be calling them a S***hole country and threaten sanctions.
With the New York peak, there was a single place with a sentient governor and it was turned around rather quickly as new data about the disease came in. The problem with the surges in Miami, Phoenix, and Houston is these are multiple cities, with GOP governors now sabotaging testing, and enough Trumpsters that public health measures will be resisted.
And then there will be Trump, not wanting to be outdone by Bolsinaro, racing to throw more wrenches in the works to make President Biden look bad…
The reality is we are basically where we were at the end of March. We have cases exploding into the mid 20k to low 30k range and deaths in the mid hundreds. In April, that abruptly turned to deaths in the thousands. We may not get to the average of 1700 per day that we were in April, but 900 - 1200 per day is very possible in July given the sheer caseload we are adding to the system today. [The reason for this is the bulk of the newly infected are younger people. The fatality rate varies by age and is lower for younger folks. Older/more vulnerable folks are trying to shelter in place, but with little social distancing that will be hard to maintain].
I would also add that deaths are underestimated by about 15%-20%. That reclassification process will add to the July/August totals as happened in April for certain states like NY/NJ etc.
The worst case scenario is that former hot spots heat up during these last 10 days of June and into the first 2 weeks of July. That would mean 35-40 of 50 states showing upward spikes. That would put daily case counts consistently over 30k and perhaps into the 40k range, which would be an unmitigated disaster within a disaster within a disaster.