The Merced County Public Health Department reports that as of Friday, April 3, there were 19 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Merced County, three patients have recovered, and there are as yet no deaths from the virus in the county. The figures are broken down according to several categories that must make sense to Dr. Scarf in the White House, in constant search for granularity, but make no difference to members of the Merced County public, particularly those in high risk groups.
MERCED (BLJ) – As the lady doctor with the fabulous collection of chic silk scarves who appears with Trump daily to scold us on our failure to behave hygienically says, “Granularity” and “The Curve” are the watchwords of the day. Who knows what she means? It doesn’t matter. Her voice and manner must be reassuring to somebody. We just don’t know who. In other words, she must be there for some reason.
Or not. In the first place, causality is a very vague concept in the Trump administration. Secondly, the only cause of importance now is the course of the virus.
MERCED (BLJ) -- A positive note. Merced County Public Health Department told the Merced Sun-Star that it has opened two mobile specimen-collection sites. The specific location of the nearest site is provided "once patients secure the appointment" by being referred by a physician. At the moment the sites are only open four hours a day, and apparently they were open for some period last week, but no results are reported yet. However, the director of the department, Dr.
An excellent argument for encouraging the media to go on doing what it does even though the present president doesn't have a clue what to do and if he did he'd do the opposite anyway because of his spiteful nature. -- blj
3-30-20
Chicago Tribune (Bozeman Daily Chronicle)
The media shouldn’t muzzle Trump — no matter his lies and ineptitude
MERCED (B LJ) -- The Merced County Public Health Department reports that as of March 30, there are 10 cases of COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) in the county. One patient was infected due to “community spread;” the others were due to traveling elsewhere, the department press release said. But, on March 31 in a telephone town-hall meeting set up by Rep. Jim Costa, the Merced County Director of Public Health waffled on the other nine cases, saying they really didn't know how they contacted the virus. But what angered me as the pandemic swells around us, was this:
MERCED (BLJ) – Johns Hopkins data dashboard reports that globally there are 716,101 confirmed cases, 33,597 deaths, and 148,995 recovered patients. In the US, there are 137,294 confirmed cases, 2,414 deaths, and 2,660 recovered patients.
MERCED (BLJ) – Merced County Department of Public Health reports that there have been 61 tests for novel conronavirus and seven deaths in the county.
Clearly, with a population of 257,000, Merced County, like most of the nation, is flying blind into the teeth of this virus storm in the middle of the night without either radar or communications with the ground.
MERCED (BLJ) -- The Merced Department of Public Health announced Thursday that there were now four confirmed cases of coronavirus, and added that all the cases “were acquired outside of Merced County.”
How they can be certain of that was not explained?
The county promised to "assess risks of exposure and contact any affected individuals.”
And after a chat, send them down to Costco for some toilet paper?
Three of the four were under 40, the health department said.
