8,000 cases is not “half the cases” in the US, according to the Johns Hopkins tracker. As of this morning, Saturday, March 21, we’re closing in on 20,000 cases. And that’s just the “confirmed” cases. The “true” cases are probably ten times that number.
If the US doesn’t do what China did: 1) close everything; 2) test everyone at government expense; and 3) track and isolate everyone the infected have been in contact with, the US is looking at a potential infection count of millions, with at least 200,000 deaths.
China went so far as to lock down families to the point where only one family member was allowed out of the house every three days for food. And when they identified an infected person, they assigned a five-person team to track down everyone that person had contact with and isolated them, too.
According to articles I’ve read in the last couple days, if the US doesn’t get on the stick with testing and a full lockdown, this is going to get much worse than it is now. Even a matter of delays of a few days or a week could make the difference in the end count of cases and deaths.
If Washington is the epicenter, does that make California the hypocenter?
Or is applying earthquake terminology to a non-earthquake situation a poor metaphor in general?
Edit: It’s also too late for the US to do what China did. We’ve probably got 200,000 infected. To stop that from getting worse, we’d have to implement a lockdown NOW. But who would police the lockdown? A large number of peace officers who haven’t yet been tested.
If we were to implement a lockdown, the people in charge of the lockdown would become the disease vectors. If, however, we mandated that the police had to be tested (& retested every few days) before they could enforce the lockdown, we’d lose precious time to a disease that is spreading rapidly.
Yes. Eastern Long Island. With our beaches, farms and nearly 100 miles of land mass between Mulberry Street and the water. Is technically in Little Italy.
It means Cuomo doesn’t want to say “shelter in place” as of Monday that’s what we’re doing.
Oh, I misunderstood your post. When you said “out there” I thought you were talking about NYC (which I thought was the last location mentioned, but now I see you were talking about the summer homes).
New York State on PAUSE: In New York we know that Policies Assure Uniform Safety for Everyone
Attempts at humor aside, here’s wishing everyone in NYC strength and courage and the benefits of mutual kindnesses. And, of course, wishing the same for everyone everywhere else too.
Using earthquake terminology is appaling. Epicenter means ‘the place on the surface of the earth directly above the event’. Does not mean the place with the worst damage, and has no application to events that don’t happen inside the body of the earth.
Languages evolve and words aren’t always confined to their original etymology.
For example, I doubt that you literally grew pale with horror when reading the term “epicenter,” yet you used the term “appalling” to describe that choice of terminology.
I can’t speak for Bambusa, but I’m not appalled, just pointing out that the term is imprecise when applied in this context.
Like Jim & Hilda Bloggs, we’ve never seen anything quite like the current situation & we try to make analogies to things we do know to try & make sense. Sometimes it works, but sometimes it just doesn’t.
Labour militancy? That’s colorful. Hoping that I could find the original source for that, I consulted the OED. No mention of the spectre haunting Europe, though.
