August 14: Living with the Threat of COVID-19

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Coronavirus and DNA strand
Coronavirus and DNA strand

The number of new cases in the U.S. continues to hover around 54,000 per day as the overall count jumped to 5.26 million. There were 1,219 deaths reported yesterday and the total reported U.S. death toll is now 167,165.

The slope of the downward curve seems to be flattening, although it will take another week to see if this is indeed the case.  Deaths remain below their second peak, but are not trailing off as quickly as we might hope.  Again, we’ll know more with another week of data under our belts.

Johns Hopkins reports that the world is just 4,000 cases shy of 21 million, a number it will exceed once today’s reports start flowing in.  The international death toll raised to 760,318.

Europe is introducing a variety of travel bans and quarantine orders which is mucking with many summer holiday plans.  Yesterday, we mentioned Spain, France and Germany were seeing an uptick in infections.  Today, we can report that Romania and Poland are as well. Greece and Croatia fear that their new cases have been carried in by tourists, but their economy is so tourist dependent, that puts them in a bind.

COVID-19 is Here to Stay

I saw a tweet yesterday stating that we were on day 150 of a 15-day lockdown to stop the spread of COVID-19.  How true.

It should be evident to one that there is no simple solution.  We will have to live with the threat of COVID-19 for some time to come.  It will come and go in waves, and you may have to change your behaviors and your expectations accordingly.