March 24: “According to the current research, the virus that causes COVID-19 has a low “error rate,” meaning that its pace of mutation remains slow despite its rapid spread. Because it remains more or less stable as it travels through hundreds of thousands of patients, researchers state that it is less likely to become more dangerous (or less) as it spreads.”
March 26: “Landon Spradlin, a Virginia pastor who claimed the “mass hysteria” around the coronavirus pandemic was part of a media plot against Trump, has died from the virus.”
March 28 (NYT): “In a matter of days, [New York] city’s 911 system has been overwhelmed by calls for medical distress apparently related to the virus. Typically, the system sees about 4,000 Emergency Medical Services calls a day. On [March 27], dispatchers took more than 7,000 calls — a volume not seen since the Sept. 11 attacks. The record for amount of calls in a day was broken three times in the last week.”
March 30: “General Electric factory workers launched two separate protests demanding that the company convert its jet engine factories to make ventilators. At GE’s Lynn, Massachusetts aviation facility, workers held a silent protest, standing six feet apart. Union members at the company’s Boston headquarters also marched six feet apart, calling on the company to use its factories to help the country close its ventilator shortage amid the coronavirus pandemic.”
April 1: “It wasn’t government spending the Tea Party opposed, it was government spending on “losers,” imposed by the party that the “losers” had brought to power. That’s why a less-than-$1 trillion bill meant to stave off a depression garnered enough outrage from those on the right to start a movement, while a piece of legislation more than twice its size prompts celebration by those same people. The CARES Act, the largest spending bill in American history, sparked no Tea Party rebellions, no protesters in tricorne hats, no cries of “take our country back,” and no invocations of “Second Amendment remedies.” The illegitimacy of Democratic Party governance, not the size of the deficit, the reach of the federal government, or the fact of economic stimulus itself, was the problem.”
April 2: “The new policy states that the [period of not being eligible to donate blood] for MSM will change from 12 months to 3 months. These guidelines also apply to female donors who would have been deferred for having a sex with a man who has sex with men, as well as individuals who have recently received a tattoo or piercing. The FDA has also revised their policy in regards to people who engage in commercial sex work (CSW) and injection drug use (IDU), changing their indefinite deferrals to 3-month deferrals.” …So now we know what it takes to make that happen, huh.
April 4 (NYT): “As Dr. Rosenberg walked down the corridor, nearly every door he passed had a neon colored sticker warning that personal protective equipment must be worn inside. “COVID” was handwritten on many of them.” Notes from the dystopian landscape of NYC hospitals.
April 4 (also NYT): “…it breaks my heart that Americans who get sick enough to need them won’t know what desperate situations they face, nor will they understand what ventilators can do to help, and what they can never fix. As hard as the facts may be, knowledge will make us less afraid.” Medical information about how this lung failure works.
