Wednesday, March 25th. It’s International Waffle Day. (Talk about bad timing.)
New York is now the coronavirus epicenter and things are getting worse. People who have been in the city recently are being encouraged to self quarantine for 14 days. (I’m in that boat, unfortunately. My sentence will be up on Saturday.) There are more than 15,000 cases in the city. The NYPD has 200 cases. For a sense of what’s going on in the hospitals check out this Twitter thread by an ER doctor at Columbia.
New Orleans is also blowing up with cases. How could that have happened? Seems pretty obvious in hindsight.
Covid-19 fatality rates are beginning to come into focus. New Zealand researchers estimate the real-world range to be between 0.25%–3.0%. The actual disease fatality rate may be closer to the low end, but that assumes testing and treatment are readily available and are of high quality. With shortages of equipment and an overburdened health care system, the number will tend to be at the higher end of the range.
We might want to keep an eye on Brazil. It sounds like Bolsonaro is playing Russian roulette with the virus. Sweden also seems to be going it’s own way.
And at least one person who went to a coronavirus party received a surprise parting gift.