Coronavirus update: Birx says U.S. has entered a ‘new phase’ of pandemic as cases, deaths rise
Category: News & Politics
Via: krishna • 6 years ago • 15 commentsBy: Derek Hawkins and Marisa Iati
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Deborah Birx, the physician overseeing the White House coronavirus response, warned Sunday that the United States had entered a “new phase” of the pandemic and urged people to take extreme health precautions as infections and deaths rise sharply nationwide.
“I want to be very clear: What we’re seeing today is different from March and April,” Birx told CNN’s “State of the Union,” noting that cases are increasing in rural and urban areas. “It is extraordinarily widespread.”
Birx did not rule out an estimate from former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Scott Gottlieb that virus deaths could top 300,000 by the end of the year, saying “anything is possible.”
Such an outcome would be far less likely, Birx said, if people practiced social distancing and avoided large gatherings.
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“I want to be very clear: What we’re seeing today is different from March and April,” Birx told CNN’s “State of the Union,” noting that cases are increasing in rural and urban areas. “It is extraordinarily widespread.”
“I want to be very clear: What we’re seeing today is different from March and April,” Birx told CNN’s “State of the Union,” noting that cases are increasing in rural and urban areas. “It is extraordinarily widespread.”
Texas health officials have not been publicly reporting the results of coronavirus tests that deliver results in less than 30 minutes, suggesting that the state has at least tens of thousands more confirmed cases than announced, an investigation by the Houston Chronicle found.
The stalled negotiations followed another week of grim signs for the country’s pandemic response.
The seven-day average for new coronavirus-related deaths rose in nearly half of the states over the past week, pushing the national death toll past 150,000 and prompting health experts to warn that the trend is unlikely to reverse anytime soon.
Months ago, and again a month ago, I said "You ain't seen nothin' yet", and I'll say it again. When so many Americans refuse to follow the guidelines that are NECESSARY to stop the surge, it's just not going to stop. Why did it stop, with only some cases cropping up now and then but then being contained, as happens elsewhere? Because elsewhere people are more concerned about others than they are about themselves. It's a cultural difference.
'Victoria, the epicenter of Australia’s coronavirus outbreak, declared a “state of disaster” on Sunday. Stricter lockdown protocols were announced for the city of Melbourne, where residents will be virtually banned from going outside'
Looks like things are getting bad down there.
The Australian government takes a different view in terms of scale. Australia's infection rate/100K population is 2.5, Germany's is 1.2. Both consider this to be a serious problem. Our infection rate is 18.
I got curious a while back , and decided to look up what the different definitions of what pandemics and epidemic were , oh I had a rough idea and I wasn't far off , but I soon realized that there were also levels below both those definitions , actual numbers are moot but they do matter on whether something is considered a pandemic , epidemic , endemic or an outbreak.
the issue I see here in the USA, though it would be correct to classify krona as a pandemic since it involves multiple countries ( simple explanation of a pandemic is a virus that has a passport) US people have a tendency to think of things locally and use that as their weather gauge. rightly or wrongly.
I will use where I live and my state as an example .
where I physically live , within 10 city blocks , 11 of the states recorded virus deaths have occurred , here that's an epidemic , part of the overall pandemic , but people consider the local implications .
one simply puts distance between themselves and the epicenter of the epidemic , and the area falls into endemic proportions , less cases per population. there are places that one could go that haven't even reached the outbreak status and there are even places that have had not a single reported case. and that is just within one county out of 23 in the entire state, and its the same all over the state.
I think its rather difficult to tell someone they have to or should be doing something when there is actually the kind of disparirty and distribution that exists .
To me the fact I live in an area that would be considered an epidemic area , isn't the biggest threat I think I face . my biggest threat since the state has no travel restrictions or mandatory quarantining of those coming into the state , is from those that come in from out of state from places that actually have higher levels of epidemic cases. tourists that are escaping their own epidemic areas and state imposed restrictions.