Basically, it's saying that the estimated peak death rate from Coronavirus in Texas will be 100 fatalities per day, occurring in early May, As baseball legend Yogi Berra supposedly said, however, prediction is difficult, especially about the future! Hence, the margin-of-error (pink shading) is pretty large.
Another recent development was the announcement that the U.S. now has more Coronavirus cases than any other country. We do not have the largest population of any country, nor did COVID-19 start here, So why might the U.S. have the world's highest total of cases?
Discuss!
In my opinion, the U.S has the highest total of cases because people did not follow government instructions to stay inside and social distance. Many people are still not following these instructions, which will only make the amount of cases increase as many people are unknowingly spreading the disease. Additionally, I think the federal government could have acted sooner. COVID-19 was an issue in other countries months ago, but the government did not do much to prevent or prepare for the inevitable infection of the United States. I think that if the country was better prepared and the citizens were more inclined to stay inside to prevent the spread, we might not have the highest number of cases in the world.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Marlee. People in the U.S. don't want to follow the government's instructions to stay inside and utilize social distancing. Many who were out on Spring Break trips and having fun thought it was an outrage that they have to social distance and stay home for another month which seems ironic since they are the ones who aren't following instructions. These people may be carrying the virus and are unknowingly spreading the disease to other people they come in contact with. I also agree that the federal government should have prepared for this a lot sooner than expected. They knew of the arise of this new virus, but did not take preventable measures in the U.S. If the U.S. had better prepared for this situation and if the citizen did listen to the instructive decisions made by the government, we may have lessened the number of cases in the U.S.
ReplyDelete~ Tanvi Tirumala
DeleteI think the federal government has made adequate progress and efforts towards preventing the spread of Corona in the United States based on the information we had at the time. Corona was reported to be spreading late December in Wuhan, with the first death reported shortly after on January 11th. America reported the first case when a man traveled from Wuhan to Washington state on January 21st. It wasn't until January 30th that the WHO declared it a Global health emergency and that following day the US suspended travel from China. Based on the timeline of events I think the government acted in a timely fashion and in accordance with recommendations from organizations like the WHO. The Trump administration would have received backlash and hate to have shut down borders before an outside source like the WHO declared the Corona Virus a state of emergency (especially in the heated political climate of an election year). Europe didn't see an alarming surge of cases until February 28th, the same day the first US patient died of Corona. On February 29th the US issued a "do not travel warning" for highly infected areas. As you can see by the dating of events, protective measures were continuously taken shortly after new information was gained on the progression of the virus around the world. The government has taken quick action to minimize spread and risk of infection during these uncertain times. The official travel ban for European countries, however, wasn't issued until March 11th after the WHO declared Corona a pandemic, this could have been implemented by the government earlier based on rising cases to prevent additional spread. The end of March resulted in a string of counties, states, and cities issuing travel bans, closing non-essential business, and promoting social distancing as number increase. I believe by this point, however, it was too late. Not for lack of attempt by the government to mediate spread, but by lack of caution from the people. By this point spring breaks across the country were in full effect and college students traveled, partied, and disregard majority of warnings. Because of the ease of travel in today's age, its not hard to see how a week of spring break vacations could have easily infected many universities and major cities as students traveled and brought the virus home. A prime example is Lubbock, we started with zero cases and had a good chance of limiting exposure due to our isolated location, but all it took was one study abroad student to ignore the University's precaution and begin spreading the virus across town. The drastic rise in US cases comes down to inter-state traveling and the ripe timing of spring break beginning just before cities issued lock downs and closed buisnesses where people were likely to spread the virus. Had spring break not lined up so perfectly with the level seriousness granted to the spread of corona I think the US would have limited its spread and not reached such a high number of cases. Seeing as many people are asymptomatic its no surprise they were able to enjoy the beaches, feel fine, come home, and then expose more vulnerable populations to the virus and let the spread continue.
ReplyDeleteDates, policy information, and travel restrictions from: https://www.nytimes.com/article/coronavirus-timeline.html
Thanks to everyone for your comments. The following article argues the U.S. government wasted six weeks when it could have taken more effective action, particular in the area of developing diagnostic tests and the President's comment's minimizing the situation: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/28/trump-coronavirus-politics-us-health-disaster
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