'The virus doesn't care about excuses': US faces terrifying autumn as Covid-19 surges

[nitpicker]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/18/us-coronavirus-fall-second-wave-autumn

'The virus doesn't care about excuses': US faces terrifying autumn as Covid-19 surges

by Tom McCarthy in New York

Sat 18 Jul 2020 06.00 BSTLast modified on Sat 18 Jul 2020 13.55 BST

In early June, the United States awoke from a months-long nightmare. Coronavirus had brutalized the north-east, with New York City alone recording more than 20,000 deaths, the bodies piling up in refrigerated trucks. Thousands sheltered at home. Rice, flour and toilet paper ran out. Millions of jobs disappeared.

But then the national curve flattened, governors declared success and patrons returned to restaurants, bars and beaches. “We are winning the fight against the invisible enemy,” vice-president Mike Pence wrote in a 16 June op-ed, titled, “There isn’t a coronavirus ‘second wave’.”

Except, in truth, the nightmare was not over – the country was not awake – and a new wave of cases was gathering with terrifying force.

As Pence was writing, the virus was spreading across the American south and interior, finding thousands of untouched communities and infecting millions of new bodies. Except for the precipitous drop in New York cases, the curve was not flat at all. It was surging, in line with epidemiological predictions.

Now, four months into the pandemic, with test results delayed, contact tracing scarce, protective equipment dwindling and emergency rooms once again filling, the United States finds itself in a fight for its life: swamped by partisanship, mistrustful of science, engulfed in mask wars and led by a president whose incompetence is rivaled only by his indifference to Americans’ suffering.
(snip)

The problem facing the United States is plain. New cases nationally are up a remarkable 50% over the last two weeks and the daily death toll is up 42% over the same period. Cases are on the rise in 40 out of 50 states, Washington DC and Puerto Rico. Last week America recorded more than 75,000 new cases daily – five times the rate of all Europe.
(snip)

The mayor of Houston, Texas, proposed a “two-week shutdown” last week after cases in the state climbed by tens of thousands. The governor of California reclosed restaurants, churches and bars, while the governors of Louisiana, Alabama and Montana made mask-wearing in public compulsory.
(snip)

As dire as the current position seems, the months ahead look even worse. The country anticipates hundred of thousands of hospitalizations, if the annual averages hold, during the upcoming flu season. Those hospitalizations will further strain the capacity of overstretched clinics.

But a flu outbreak could also hamper the country’s ability to fight coronavirus in other ways. Because the two viruses have similar symptoms – fever, chills, diarrhea, fatigue – mistaken diagnoses could delay care for some patients until it’s too late, and make outbreaks harder to catch, one of the country’s top health officials has warned.
(snip)

Other factors will be in play. A precipitous reopening of schools in the fall, as demanded by Trump and the education secretary, Betsy DeVos, without safety measures recommended by the CDC, could create new superspreader events, with unknown consequences for children.
(snip)

The list of aggravating circumstances goes on and on. A federal unemployment assistance program that gave each claimant an extra $600 a month is set to expire at the end of July. A new coronavirus relief package is being held up in Congress by Republicans’ accusations that states are wasting money, and their insistence that any new legislation include liability protections for businesses that reopen during the pandemic.
(snip)

[louis-t]

1. So much winning.

He was right about one thing-I am REALLY sick of it.

[stopbush]

2. "Liability protections for businesses that reopen during the pandemic"

=

1. Businesses call workers back, even though it isn’t safe

2. Workers get sick, can’t sue their employer

3. Workers that refuse to go back to work lose their unemployment benefits and are no longer counted among the unemployed

4. tRumpco declares victory

[CrispyQ]

3. I thought it was $600 per week, not per month, that expires at the end of July.

I have friends collecting & they are making more on unemployment, than if they worked.

All of that economic fallout from the initial closing is now for naught. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

[Newest Reality]

4. Apocalypse Now! I don't know what else to call it.