Killer by Nancy OhanianThe pandemic is getting frighteningly worse in Africa. Although South Africa has been steadily climbing up the daily case reports ladder-- and is now generally in the number 4 slot after the U.S., Brazil and India-- I had never seen Cameroon or Ghana among the top 30 before this week. On Tuesday Cameroon reported 2,324 new cases and Ghana reported 891. Both countries are dangerously spiking, as is Egypt (1,057 new cases on Tuesday). On Wednesday South Africa was again #4 (with 8,810 new cases), Egypt and Ghana were holding steady with, respectively, 1,025 and 854 new cases, while Ethiopia reported 928 news cases and Cameroon... didn't report at all. On Thursday, South Africa reported 13,674 new cases, Egypt +950, Ghana +641 and Cameroon continued to avoid reporting.Meanwhile in the U.S., it was all just going from bad to worse. There were 55,442 new cases on Tuesday, 61,848 new cases on Wednesday and 61,067 new cases yesterday. These were the on day new case reports among the 10 most dangerously spiking states on Thursday:
• Texas (8,312 cases per million Texans)• California (7,677 cases per million Californians)• Florida- 8,935 (10,835 cases per million Floridians)• Arizona- 4,057 (15,480 cases per million Arizonans)• Georgia- 2,837 (10,052 cases per million Georgians)• North Carolina- 2,059 (7,596 cases per million North Carolinians)• Alabama- 2,212 (10,029 cases per million Alabamans)• Louisiana- 1,843 (15,487 cases per million Louisianans)• South Carolina- 1,782 (9,845 cases per million South Carolinians)• Tennessee- 1,605 (8,433 cases per million Tennesseeans)
Dr. Fauci-- no doubt angering Trump again-- announced that this mostly Trumpist states should shut down again. "What we are seeing," he told the Wall Street Journal is exponential growth. It went from an average of about 20,000 to 40,000 and 50,000. That’s doubling. If you continue doubling, two times 50 is 100… Any state that is having a serious problem, that state should seriously look at shutting down."And if that wasn't enough to drive Trump crazy-- already flipping out over two Supreme Court rulings that went against him-- another Republican senator announced he doesn't feel safe going to the Trump convention in Jacksonville, this time Moscow Mitch. Oh, and a new poll of North Carolina voters show Biden beating Trump 50-46% and Democrat Cal Cunningham beating Republican incumbent Thom Tillis 47-39%.On Wednesday both Trump and Pence ordered the CDC to change the guidelines for opening schools next month. Just hours later the director, Dr. Robert Redfield, went on Good Morning America to publicly refuse: "Our guidelines are our guidelines, but we are going to provide additional reference documents to aid basically communities that are trying to open K-through-12s. It’s not a revision of the guidelines; it’s just to provide additional information to help schools be able to use the guidance we put forward... Right now, we’re continuing to work with the local jurisdictions to how they want to take the portfolio of guidance that we’ve given to make them practical for their schools to reopen."Louisiana was hit in the very first spike and New Orleans had a terrible time of it. But, thanks to a Democratic governor who stood up to the right-wing Death Cult neanderthals in the state legislature, they started getting it under control. Now Trumpist goons all over this very red state have decided to flaunt the rules and invited the plague back into their state. The plague has graciously accepted their invitation. Louisiana, which has a total of 71,994 cases, the 13th most in the country, is spiking terribly. On Wednesday they reported 1,888 new cases, bringing the number of cases per million residents to 15,090 (the 5th worst in the U.S.). On Thursday there were 1,843 new cases, which brought the cases per million up to 15,487. By the end of the week Louisiana will replace Massachusetts, another early hard hit state-- but one that is generally being careful about following medical protocols-- as the 4th hardest hit state. Gov. John Bel Edwards warned that the state has been "going in the wrong direction" for the last 3 weeks, losing all the gains they had made in flattening the curve since the pandemic peaked in April.
However, unlike that previous peak which had an epicenter in the New Orleans metro area, Edwards said Louisiana is facing a “statewide epidemic” in which no one region is driving case growth and hospitalizations.The Louisiana Department of Health said the top five places for COVID-19 outbreaks in the state are bars, industrial settings, restaurants, food processing, and colleges and universities.The governor said he joined a phone call Wednesday morning with 20 hospital CEOs and medical directors from around the state. He said “nearly every” one of the call participants reported sustained increases in COVID-19 hospitalizations.As of Wednesday, Louisiana reported 70,151 total cases and 3,231 deaths since the virus’ outbreak was first discovered in early March. While black people accounted for more than half of those cases, Edwards said Wednesday that newer cases tended to trend whiter and male.Total patients hospitalized with COVID-19 have rebounded, reaching 1022 Wednesday, the highest level since May 18.Those hospital health leaders also said they were having issues with staffing, testing, and access to COVID-19 treatments like Remdesivir.Edwards, along with Louisiana Office of Public Health Assistant Secretary Dr. Alexander Billioux, stressed that individuals who are exposed to the virus should be quarantined for a full 14 days, even if they receive a negative coronavirus test result in that time.
Of the 10 worst-off parishes (above), Trump won all but 3: Calcasieu (64.7%), Jefferson (55.3%), Lafayette (64.6%), Ouachita (61.4%), Rapides (64.8%), St Tammany (73.1%) and Tangipahoa (64.8%).And then there's the news about Tulsa, where Trump brought the plague with his disgusting (and failed) rally. CNN: "The city of Tulsa is experiencing a surge in coronavirus cases, a little over 2 weeks after President Donald Trump held a campaign rally in an indoor arena there. Dr. Bruce Dart, Executive Director of the Tulsa Health Department, said in a press conference on Wednesday there are high numbers being reported this week, with nearly 500 new cases in two days and trends are showing that those numbers will increase. There had been a 20% decline in new Covid-19 cases the week of June 28 through July 4. The Tulsa Health Department reported 266 new cases on Wednesday, bringing the total number in the county to 4,571. There are 17,894 cases in Oklahoma and 452 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University's tally of cases in the United States. When asked if the cases in Tulsa are going up due to the rally on June 20, Dart said that there were several large events a little over two weeks ago. 'I guess we just connect the dots,' Dart said."
In a statement to CNN, Leanne Stephens of the Tulsa Health Department said, "Our epidemiologists and contact tracers are inundated with following up with Tulsa County residents who are confirmed positive as the numbers have been extremely high in recent days. Yesterday, we set a new single day case high and you can see on our website where the trends are moving."This coronavirus has a lengthy incubation period -- the time between when someone gets infected to when they start showing symptoms (if they get symptoms at all).The incubation period is about three to 14 days, with symptoms typically appearing "within four or five days after exposure," according to Harvard Medical School.
Neither Oklahoma nor Tulsa has a mask mandate. Asked why, Mayor Byrnum, a Trumpist, said: "I think that the thing that citizens need to understand is that when we put that kind of mandate in place, we will be putting it there because we had no other choice but to do that to protect their ability to get medical care over the long term of this pandemic." On Wednesday, Oklahoma reported 673 new cases and on Thursday 603 new cases, which brought the number of cases per million Oklahomans to 4,674 and the total number of cases in the state to 18,496.
