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100,000 deaths in the US from Covid-19. What comes
next?
By mickielynn on 2020-05-29 08:23:04
[caption id="attachment_ 14084" align="alignnone" width="600"]
La
Map illustration by Lauren
Tierney and Tim Meko The Washington Post. The US death toll has reached 100,000 people.[/caption]
The U.S. death toll has reached 100,000.
Each of those deaths is represented as a ray of light.
The pandemic has exposed the nation’s vulnerabilities and dangerous divide.
One hundred thousand Americans dead in less than four months.
Thus began the brilliant photo essay about the milestone of one hundred thousand deaths reached on Wednesday, May 27,
2020 (of which the first three sentences are part of the Map illustration above.) I suggest that you read this amazingly
written and illustrated piece by Marc Fisher because there is no way that I could equal its eloquence and descriptive power.
But I'll just add a couple of things here. The first is that because of the confused reporting system the actual number of
deaths is probably quite a bit higher ( New York Times estimates over 125,000 deaths.) The second is that our president, who
is supposed to be the one who consoles the nation in times of tragedy and loss has thus far offered "no written statement
honoring those who have died, no condolences offered to families, and not even a tweet acknowledging the six-figure death
toll."
About the question of where do we go from here? To determine that: first we need to look at where we've come from during
the past four months so that we can remedy some of the conditions holding us back from reducing the national threats to
human lives. One figure out of the hundred thousand deaths that stands out is the confirmed deaths of at east 300 front line
health care workers. Again, the occupations of the dead are not accurately reported. One of the largest nurses' unions
estimates that it is more like 580 deaths. [caption id="attachment_ 14085" align="alignright" width="600"]
: Health care workers protest
hospital understaffing and insufficient personal protective equipment last week outside Providence St. Joseph Medical
Center in Burbank, Calif. Ronen Tivony/Echoes Wire/Barcroft Media via Getty Images[/caption] [caption
id="attachment_14087" align="alignnone" width="600"]
Registered nurses and
healthcare workers at UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica, Calif., protested in April what they said was a lack of
personal protective equipment for the pandemic's front line workers. Mario Tama/Getty Images[/caption]
More than 60,000 health care workers have been infected and close to 300 have died from COVID-19,
according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The numbers mark a staggering
increase from six weeks ago when the CDC first released data on coronavirus infections and deaths among
nurses, doctors, pharmacists, EMTs, technicians and other medical employees. On April 15, the agency reported
27 deaths, and more than 9,000 cases of infection in health care workers.
One thing that we do know about why health care providers are falling ill and dying is that they have lacked Personal
Protective Equipment that is appropriate, or in sufficient quantities to prevent damaging re-use. And that is still the case in
many healthcare situations right now! [caption id="attachment_ 14086" align="alignnone" width="600"]
ara
A medical worker is helped
into personal protective equipment on May 8, 2020 before stepping into a patients room in the Covid-19 ICU at Harborview
Medical Center, Seattle. Photo credit: Elaine Thompson/AP[/caption] Here's one vital reason why there weren't sufficient
stockpiles in preparation for this pandemic. It falls squarely on the shoulders of the Trump administration, because of
actions that were taken in 2017. The story is much more detailed but I've included a quote that describes the results. Trump
Team Killed Rule Designed To Protect Health Workers From Pandemic Like COVID-19
When President Trump took office in 2017, his team stopped work on new federal regulations that would have
forced the health care industry to prepare for an airborne infectious disease pandemic such as COVID-19. That
decision is documented in federal records reviewed by NPR. "If that rule had gone into effect, then every
hospital, every nursing home would essentially have to have a plan where they made sure they had enough
respirators and they were prepared for this sort of pandemic," said David Michaels, who was head of the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration until January 2017.
Two more failures to organize and provide vital testing equipment even though needs were well documented in February
have set back the level of testing that would help provide metrics to guide the reopening of economic and interactive
opportunities based on science and facts rather than on specific dates, political expediency, and wishful thinking. Testing is
not just a unified machine or reagent, or swabs, or protective gear. All of the components are necessary. And it doesn't help
that the administration keeps saying that there are adequate supplies when there clearly are not. [caption
id="attachment_ 14089" align="alignnone" width="600"]
ll commie tates
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
Adm. Brett Giroir, assistant
secretary of Health and Human Services, speaks about the coronavirus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White
House on April 17. The Trump administration has released a plan to ramp up testing and Giroir, says that plan is working.
Alex Brandon/AP[/caption] Coronavirus Testing Machines Are Latest Bottleneck In Troubled Supply Chain
..Jha and other public health experts say that may be enough tests in some places — but only because not
enough people are getting tested. "It is not nearly enough, certainly not enough to open up safely and remain
open," Jha said. At a minimum, Jha says the U.S. needs to be testing twice as many people — 7 million per
week. That means the country is going to need more swabs, more testing kits, and more testing machines to run
them. Four months into the pandemic, Jha says, the nation still isn't ready. Heather Pierce, senior director for
science policy for the Association of American Medical Colleges, says labs at teaching hospitals have reported
difficulties in getting testing machines. She says that has exacerbated supply chain problems. "Those machines
have been part of the bottleneck," she said. "In fact, even institutions that had ordered those machines prior to
the pandemic found their orders were cancelled or delayed, and some still haven't been shipped."
[caption id="attachment_ 14088" align="alignnone" width="600"]
Medical personnel test people
in vehicles for COVID-19, at Annandale High School, in Annandale, Va., on May 23. There's a new bottleneck emerging in
coronavirus testing: A shortage of the machines that process the tests and give results. Jacquelyn Martin/AP[/caption] And
although the President claimed that it would be very easy to manufacture the swabs needed for the various kinds of tests that
still hasn't happened either.
Even though health experts and governors were warning of swab shortages as early as February, the federal
government took until late April to increase domestic production. That means that now, months into this crisis,
we still need more of them. [Follow the link to a 4 minute video that explains the history of the swab shortage
and what is needed for a complete test] In this video, we zero in on the swab, detailing what the federal
government and private industry did and didn't do, and we break down why testing is so complicated in the first
place.
To summarize: If we want to re-open our economy safely
We will need to have the leadership and financial backing of the US government to reinstate the laws that call on the
healthcare system to provide adequate PPE to all front line workers, especially healthcare providers. We will need a
coordinated and transparent effort to manufacture or otherwise acquire the components needed for high levels of testing.
We will need to remove the corruption and political favoritism currently sabotaging the national efforts to avoid a second
wave of the pandemic. We will need to depend on scientific expertise and not on misinformation for political gain. We will
need to cooperate with the international community to develop a vaccine and effective treatments that can be available to
all people worldwide. [caption id="attachment_14119" align="alignnone" width="600"]
The granddaughter of Yok
Yen Lee, a Walmart employee who died after contracting the coronavirus walks near her gravesite in early May. Photo
Credit: Hannah Reyes Morales for the Washington Post[/caption]
Update on Sunday, May 31, 2020
[caption id="attachment_ 14121" align="alignnone" width="600"]
les
Graphic from the Covid
Racial Data Tracker that records disproportional deaths among some people of color.
Website:https://covidtracking.com/race[/caption]
The COVID Tracking Project exists because every person, newsroom, and government agency in the United
States deserves access to the most complete picture of COVID-19 testing data that can be assembled. When we
started the project, building on two independently created reporting spreadsheets, we expected to be updating
the data for a few days or maybe a week until complete federal data emerged. It never did, so we’re still here.
We also recognize that part of our work is the creation and maintenance of a historical record of the US
government’s response. As the pandemic imprints itself on the country, we are building an accurate record of
what actually happened, day by day, state by state. Until that gets done elsewhere, we’ll keep doing the counts.
For further information about how this project came about check out this blog article on their website: Tracking Race
and Ethnicity in the COVID-19 Pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic isn't affecting all communities the same way. That's
why we're partnering with American University’s Antiracist Research & Policy Center to launch a new project: the COVID
Racial Data Tracker.
