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COVID-19: key developments for Wednesday, May 6, 2020

5 Comments on COVID-19: key developments for Wednesday, May 6, 2020

There are now more than 3.8 million global cases.  The US gained more than 25,000 since yesterday, for a total of 1.26 million. There have been over 2,500 deaths in the US in the last 24 hours. There have been over 260,000 deaths around the world from the pandemic virus.

There’s more evidence that transmission occurs more often in closed spaces versus outdoor environments. This is a pre-print, and has not yet been peer reviewed, so take with a grain of salt—but it joins a growing body of evidence that supports its findings:

Officials in Sweden surprised by death toll despite lack of lockdown—says these deaths “weren’t part of the plan.” Although their pandemic response has largely spared their economy compared to Europe and America, it came at the cost of the lives of the elderly. Half of all deaths in Sweden are from nursing homes.

Administration reverses course, says Pandemic Response Team to continue work. Trump says he changed his mind after getting multiple calls from “very respected people” who told him not to shut the task force down.

Rosy news about vaccines is creating unreasonable expectations. It could still be a year or even many years before a vaccine is available at scale. Many folks may not be expecting a second wave in the fall and will expect a vaccine to be ready by then. They are likely to be both surprised and disappointed.

Ag Secretary says meat packing plants will be back up and running within 10 days. The price of meat has jumped about 20% in the last few weeks.

A large number of children are going hungry in America. Food insecurity is on the rise due to the pandemic. More job losses:

The TSA has been holding on to a huge cache of N95s even though flights have been down 95%:

Government agencies have been inept at securing orders of masks and PPE. Huge contracts have been granted with no deliverables resulting. The VA in particular has been left in the lurch.

Police report concerning threats sent to Health Department in Denver:

The battle against misinformation is wearing some clinicians down.

Stephanie Arnold | cosmicpixle

Stephanie Arnold is an advanced practice psychiatric nurse and a doctoral candidate in UA Tuscaloosa’s DNP program. Stephanie moonlights from time to time at UCLA teaching mental health nursing. She also likes making cold-process soap.

  • 5 Comments
    • Hardened May 7, 2020

      We’re struggling with viruses at multiple levels of society simultaneously.

      6 |
    • SeaBee May 7, 2020

      Back in January, in trying to make my family aware of the coming crisis, I kept landing on the phrase “it’s going to chew through our country”, hoping all the while to be wrong. Still hoping, but less so each day. I worry that our collective attention span as Americans will ensure an increasingly dire result.

      7 |
    • TraceContributor May 9, 2020

      In the last article about misinformation and clinicians, it discusses a lot of outlandish conspiracy theories. There is a known portion of the preparedness community that is susceptible to conspiracy theories. There was a good quote in the article about why people are drawn to these theories, “some people in times of crisis look to far-fetched ideas with simple answers for complex problems.”

      6 |
      • Hardened Trace May 9, 2020

        Indeed, we all have our biases.

        8 |