Virus notes: April 18, 2020, Testing
MERCED (BLJ) – Merced County Public Health Department on April 18 reported 85 cases of Covid-19 (three new) and three deaths.
California reported 28,963 cases (64 new cases) and 1,072 deaths (51 new).
New York reported 236,732 cases (7,090 new) and 17,671 deaths (3,035 new).
The United States reported 739,988 cases (33,679 new) and 38,928 deaths (2,321 new).
Mexico reported 7,497 cases (622 new) and 650 deaths (104 new).
The global report for the day was 2,310,572 cases (94,344 new) and 158,691 deaths (7,685 new).
It would be most helpful, particularly for purposes of “reopening the economy,” to have a considerably better idea of how many people are actually infected and even of those who had been infected, But that would require a competent testing regime nationwide, which might have been an early requisite of a national plan of defense against the coronavirus.
Regretfully, it is reasonably supposed that that won’t happen until a national election removes President Trump and his corrupted cronies. Regarding that fine book by Rick Wilson, a former Republican professional campaign politician, Everything Trump Touches Dies, it is sounding more and more likely that the president has dragged down his two star MDs by making them a daily act in his squalid dog-and-pony show. I mean The Briefing, which never stars on time but hangs over the afternoon cable news shows like imperial coitus interruptus.
Trump won’t allow enough testing to give scientists and adequate sample from which to make important assumptions for further testing. This is because every positive test revealed by a test is another tiny nail in Trump’s political coffin. And after his political demise, other consequences await him from a Democratic Party controlled government whose motto will be as always, “Don’t get mad. Get even.”
Testing might even resolve the issue of the separation of COVID-19 from other forms of flu, which greatly exercises rightwing instant physicians and surgeons.
Today, what should be correctly seen as a medical crisis has been captured by contending political campaigns and is beginning to look like a football field after a long, pro game in the rain. Trump’s campaign is about stirring up resentment and division; as usual. What is new is a growing campaign of compassion and unification in the face of the absurd menace of the virus. And this latter campaign is leading rather than being led by the Democratic Party although the party has some articulate, compassionate leaders.