Coronavirus: Pandemic and Panic

[Alcuin]

Here in Middle Tennessee there is no toilet paper, no alcohol (well, beer, wine, and whiskey), no sanitizer, few household cleaners. People are in a panic. There were 32 cases of coronavirus as of last night in this part of Tennessee, 17 in Davidson County (Nashville), 14 in Williamson County (Franklin), and 1 in Rutherford County (Murfreesboro). The mayor of Nashville has asked all the honky-tonks (the word has lost its meaning: these are expensive, upscale bars and eateries, not the sometimes-dangerous dives they were when I was young) in Nashville to close: one of the owners (he owns several bars downtown) has already announced his defiance and intention to remain open.

I do not know the severity of the virus. There is a website, https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/, that tracks daily updates: these are official numbers, mind you, not unofficial figures. Of closed cases today, mortality is 8%, with the rest recovered or discharged. According to the site, there were 7,131 fatalities as of yesterday worldwide. According to the US Centers for Disease Control, there were in 2017 in the United States 2,813,503 deaths, or 863.8 deaths per 100,000 people. The leading causes of deaths for Americans were:

• Heart disease: 647,457
• Cancer: 599,108
• Accidents (unintentional injuries): 169,936
• Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 160,201
• Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 146,383
• Alzheimer’s disease: 121,404
• Diabetes: 83,564
• Influenza and Pneumonia: 55,672
• Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis: 50,633
• Intentional self-harm (suicide): 47,173

Laying aside attempts by the Chinese to blame the Americans for what appears to be a categorical case of China’s ill-fated efforts first to conceal the disease and then to hide its severity from everyone else including their own citizens, not to mention that they arrested the doctor who courageously tried to warn the world the rest of the world and later died of the illness himself, it still isn’t clear how many people are actually ill, how many have died, and how many are seriously ill.

CDC screwed up the first testing kits – a remarkably unusual error. Then the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) blocked independent laboratories from testing for the virus, though they are certainly capable and competent to do that. At least the US is not in the same situation as Italy, the worst-hit nation in Europe. But matters look rather grim.

New Rochelle, New York, is now in a “containment zone”, though officials there said 12 March that

contrary to false rumors, there is no change in daily life. Except for individuals subject to quarantine, residents are free to come and go, and businesses are open

How is the rest of Entmoot experiencing this event?