COVID19 Update - Day 4

US Tests: 21,954
US Cases: 2,739
US Deaths: 54
Worldwide Cases: 156,396
Worldwide Deaths: 5,833

The most important news of the day is that House Democrats worked with Republicans and the Trump White House to pass a bipartisan relief bill aimed at improving our response to the coronavirus:

The legislation includes 14 paid sick days for employees, as well as three months of paid emergency leave throughout the coronavirus crisis. Employers will be reimbursed for some of these costs through tax credits. At GOP insistence, the emergency leave provision will expire in a year. And Republicans were able to insert language exempting smaller businesses from the requirements.

The legislation helps provide free food for children whose schools are closed during the crisis, as well as other initiatives to make sure seniors and food banks get help as well.

One of the biggest provisions involves free testing — which has been one of the major shortcomings in the U.S. response to the outbreak so far.

"This legislation is about testing, testing, testing," Pelosi said in a letter to her colleagues announcing the agreement. "To stop the spread of the virus, we have secured free coronavirus testing for everyone who needs a test, including the uninsured. We cannot fight coronavirus effectively unless everyone in our country who needs to be tested can get their test free of charge."

Unfortunately, since Mitch McConnell adjourned the Senate on Thursday night, we'll have to wait until Monday night before a Senate vote.  It's not hyperbole to say that every minute counts in a pandemic, and so it's really too bad McConnell is wasting 2 days like this.

To be fair, however, some Senate Republicans were still focused on the pandemic, even though they were out of town:

Be smart; don’t panic. We will get us through this #coronavirus pic.twitter.com/SyvOAWXItK

— Senator John Cornyn (@JohnCornyn) March 14, 2020

Other people showed similar levels of concern.

Look, if you're under the age of 60, it's unlikely the coronavirus will kill you.  However, younger people stand a better chance of recovering, at least in part, because those who do get seriously sick can recover with medical assistance (going to the hospital).  However --- if we don't "flatten the curve", then our health care system will be overwhelmed, and the resulting shortage of care will result in more suffering and more deaths:

According to some experts, more than 120 million Americans eventually may be infected with COVID-19, though Rutherford believes these estimates to be high. If 2 million were in critical condition, that could easily surpass the 98,000 intensive care unit beds and 62,000 full-feature ventilators available in the U.S. “If they all came in the same week, the results could be catastrophic,” said Rutherford. “But if that can be spread out over 40 weeks, it’s more like 50,000 critical cases a week and more within our range to handle.”

And even if you never feel sick, spending a lot of time in crowds means that you can still transfer the virus to someone who IS at risk.  So, let's get with the social distancing, people!

In that spirit --- after staying out until 3:00 AM last night at a friend's birthday party --- I have decided to get serious about social distancing myself.  I have already been washing my hands regularly at work, and have recently stopped shaking hands with people.  I'm now going to take that one step further, and avoid crowded, enclosed spaces such as restaurants and bars.  And actually, the lack (until recently) of paid sick leave makes eating at a restaurant a dicey affair even if it's not crowded.

Otherwise, there have been few additional changes in my life.  The one change is that my son isn't going back to college after spring break, at least for now.  On-campus classes may start up again after April 1.

I guess we'll see.