Watching Anderson Cooper talk to the mayor of Las Vegas about re-opening which is the big debate right now. First I watched Governor Cuomo explaining why we cannot safely open up shops and restaurants until we have testing and some kind of tracing to see where clusters are and contact tracing to see where it has spread and might continue to spread. He exhorted people to be patient and not be impulsive and reckless because some Southern states are doing exactly that, from Florida through Georgia they are opening beaches and sports arenas, gyms and hair and nail salons and tattoo parlors.
66,000 have died in the US so far. All the health experts have agreed that it is not safe to relax social distancing, but the local governors in the Southern states are ignoring that information.
The first death has been pinpointed to much earlier February 6th, not in Washington, but in California. The virus was moving through communities earlier than anyone thought. The earliest cases had no travel history, but in fact got the virus through community spread, so it was here. We know people have been carrying it asymptomatically.
Anderson Cooper was not polite with the mayor of Las Vegas, I think because she was an older woman and easy to get on the run, but for the most part, it has been interesting to me the way intelligent people have had to be restrained and courteous in the face of the stupidity they are confronted by.
In India, the craziness goes even further and local people have been attacking health care workers on the ignorant assumption that the health care workers are bringing the disease to them.
I think, at this point, as in so many other less intense and dangerous circumstances, the biggest challenge is for intelligence and informed decision making to defeat ignorance and impulsive reckless behavior.
Of course it is easy for me to say since I am old, and retired and have an income, at least for now, so I am not struggling to provide for children and pay bills with no income.
All I can say is that I wish our government had gotten busy to provide the testing equipment we need so people can safely go back to work and resume a more normal life. Day after day, that is the obstacle - not enough mobilization to provide widespread testing.
About 80% of carriers are now presumed to be asymptomatic but spreading the disease, we cannot go by symptoms only, we must test!
Take a walk by yourself or with your dog and enjoy the clean air and beautiful flowering of our spring! Dress warmly, though, it is nippy! I could have used gloves on my walk and I DID wear a winter coat and fleece lined walking shoes.
Happy 50th Anniversary of EARTH DAY!! Jo Ann
wrightj45@yahoo.com
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