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)
For a discussion of what this number means – and why it’s so important – see this post.


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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