Good suggestions for dealing with a big problem
Leanna Wen, a physician and public
health professional, has recently written a few very insightful columns in the Washington
Post about the pandemic. The column
that appeared this morning is titled “Eight ways to reduce the pandemic’s
outsize impact on people of color”. She points out at the beginning that death
rates from Covid-19 for some age groups of African Americans and Hispanic
Americans are up to six times higher than for whites of the same age.
Since you can read the article
yourself, I won’t list all of her eight recommendations, but here are ones that
struck me as especially important:
- Targeting
testing to minority communities.
One of the big reasons why the minority death rates are so high is that
early on in the pandemic there was little testing available in minority
communities – and even now, testing is much more available in predominately
white communities. The only way to stop community spread is to make
testing readily available to people who don’t feel sick.
- Hire
contact tracers from minority communities. I hadn’t thought of this, but
it’s a great idea.
- Provide
free facilities for isolation and quarantine. This should be done for all
communities.
- Increase
health insurance coverage. This
is really critical. Treatment for Covid-19 will be covered by the Feds if the
patient doesn’t have insurance, but people still need to be treated for other
health problems – both because they can lead to more Covid infections, but
also for simple good sense. The US is the only major industrialized
country that doesn’t offer universal health care for its citizens. And people
who lose their jobs often lose their insurance at the same time. Meanwhile,
something like 14 states still haven’t extended Medicaid to the poor who
aren’t normally covered by Medicaid, yet – ironically – don’t make the
minimum amount required by Obamacare. And Trump hasn’t declared a new
enrollment period for Obamacare, so that a huge number of newly unemployed
– of all races – don’t have any insurance now. As of May 13, 27 million
unemployed had lost their health insurance.
- Institute
stronger worker protections.
Currently, whatever protections employers put in place are strictly
voluntary. So if they don’t require employees to wear masks or keep 6 feet
apart, nobody can force them to do so. This hasn’t exactly worked too well
in meat packing plants and nursing homes, and it also means that most
people won’t want to go back to work unless they’re forced to by economic
necessity. What’s Trump’s and McConnell’s solution to this problem? There
are two: 1) End the extra $600/week in unemployment insurance payments on
July 31, and 2) Remove employers’ liability for Covid-19 infections. MAGA!
The
numbers
Because my
projections have changed very little since yesterday, I’m not updating them
today. However, the actual numbers below are up-to-date.
I. Total
deaths
Total US deaths as of yesterday: 121,407
Increase in deaths since previous day: 719
Yesterday’s 7-day rate of increase in total deaths: 4% (This number
is used to project deaths in the table above; it was 4% yesterday. There is a
7-day cycle in the reported deaths numbers, caused by lack of reporting over
the weekends from closed state offices. So this is the only reliable indicator
of a trend in deaths, not the three-day percent increase I used to focus on,
and certainly not the one-day percent increase, which mainly reflects where we
are in the 7-day cycle).
II. Total
reported cases
Total US reported cases: 2,297,642
Increase in reported cases since previous day: 33,660
Percent increase in reported cases since yesterday: 1%
Percent increase in reported cases since 7 days previous: 8%
III. Deaths as a percentage of closed cases so far
in the US:
Total Recoveries in US as of yesterday: 956,077
Total Deaths as of yesterday: 121,407
Deaths so far as percentage of closed cases (=deaths + recoveries): 11%
(vs. 11% yesterday)
I would love to hear any comments or
questions you have on this post. Drop me an email at tom@tomalrich.com
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