1/ Covid (@UCSF) Chronicles, Day 188
Let’s keep things simple today.
200,000 deaths. We’ll hit that number in the next few hours.
Let’s keep things simple today.
200,000 deaths. We’ll hit that number in the next few hours.
2/ That’s the entire population of Salt Lake City…
3/ … and of Montgomery, Alabama...
4/ … and of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
5/ Over the 6 months since the virus first began to hammer the United States, it means 45 deaths an hour – nearly one death every minute.
6/ 200,000 people is the number of people in a packed Darrell Royal/University of Texas Memorial Stadium… twice over.
7/ It’s 83 Pearl Harbors…
8/ … and sixty-seven 9/11’s…
9/ And more than all the deaths from influenza in the United States... over 5 years.
10/ The deaths have included young and old, famous and unsung, rich and poor. They hailed from states Red and Blue. Men and women, black, brown, and white, straight and gay. They were our relatives, friends, and neighbors. Our shopkeepers, farmers, teachers, and nurses.
11/ On top of the deaths, we now know that the virus can cause long-term harm. And there’s also the impact on kids and their education, on jobs, and on at-risk groups forced to foreswear nearly all human contact. Fear, loneliness, depression, overdoses, & suicides are pervasive.
12/ It’s important to acknowledge that even had leaders and citizens acted flawlessly, the toll – in the U.S. and worldwide – was destined to be high. This virus is nasty, and the threat was bound to leave misery in its wake. Some of our rage should be directed at the fates.
13/ But it didn’t have to be 200,000 deaths.
14/ If the U.S. had Canada’s death rate, we’d be at 82,000 deaths, not 200,000. That’s 118,000 Americans who would still be alive.
15/ If the U.S. had Germany’s death rate, we’d be at 37,106 deaths, not 200,000. That’s 162,894 Americans who would still be alive.
16/ Not fair, you say. Those are very different countries, with different laws, cultures, economies, and history.
OK, if the U.S. had San Francisco’s death rate, we’d be at 36,101 deaths, not 200,000. That’s 163,899 Americans who would still be alive.
OK, if the U.S. had San Francisco’s death rate, we’d be at 36,101 deaths, not 200,000. That’s 163,899 Americans who would still be alive.
17/ The successes in places like Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Taiwan & yes, San Francisco, owe to both what leaders did AND what citizens did. In SF, people are wearing masks, keeping 6 ft away, and avoiding crowds. Folks in the Bay Area generally follow the public health recs.
18/ As @edyong209 describes in a great interview with @ASlavitt tinyurl.com/yy2dd5eo, our abysmal performance in the U.S. is partly due to pathetic leadership. Today’s kerfuffle @CDCgov over the role of aerosol transmission is just the latest illustration of the chaos.
19/ But Yong also cites a “failure of empathy.” He's not simply referring to caring – though partly he is. He also means an inability to act until we ourselves feel threatened. It allows folks to think ‘I’m safe. Covid only hits blue states (or black or poor people or cities)…’
20/ Because the virus is invisible, says Yong, it “exploits our inability to look at what is going on outside our personal experience and learn from it.” To do that, you need both empathy and information you trust. And both have been lacking.
“We’re being gaslighted every day."
“We’re being gaslighted every day."
21/ Yong’s new article in @TheAtlantic describes nine conceptual errors that contributed to America's Covid failure tinyurl.com/yxrpoulh As with all Yong’s Covid pieces, it’s a magnificent tapestry of science, history, sociology, psychology and politics. I hope you'll read it.
22/ The U.S. loves easy fixes for hard problems, & we’ve done that w/ Covid, alighting on them like fruit flies (this month’s: ventilation). But, says Yong, “We’re not thinking about [Covid] at the scale & scope that it demands.” How to turn this around? “Radical introspection.”
23/ The scariest part, adds @ASlavitt, is that Covid is “a starter pandemic.” One can easily imagine a bug that is more contagious, more deadly, or both. And what about even harder problems, like climate change? Nothing in 2020 would lead one to predict an enviable U.S. response.
24/ I’ll end w/ this video tinyurl.com/yxv8gsun of the Washington National Cathedral tolling for our 200,000 lost souls. (And next week we’ll hit 1 million deaths globally.) One can only hope that the sadness of this moment will inspire us to do better.
Or at least to vote.
Or at least to vote.
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