Pandemic Update – New Mexico, Kansas, and Australia

The numbers and graphs in this blog are updated to 3 May 2020. Enormous changes have occurred since my first coronavirus blog was posted five weeks ago.

Bill Gates was interviewed by CNN again on Thursday evening. I wish they had put him in charge of the pandemic in the early days….a lot of lives would have been saved in the USA. For me, every comment he made was sensible, based on data and facts, and carefully thought out. Of course he knows his stuff. Been warning of a pandemic for 10 years. Spoken about it, written articles about it, funded universities who built models of the growth of the pandemic.


As one example, he was asked by CNN how best to reopen our societies and our businesses. He was perfectly clear: continue social distancing, and install enough testing and tracing to know who has the virus, even if they don’t yet show symptoms (the silent carriers). This makes sense: if I were going back to work, I’d want to know if there were any silent carriers in the next cubicle.

Guess what: this is exactly what countries like Australia (see below) and New Zealand and South Korea did. But in the USA, we dropped the ball on testing. And apparently we still don’t have enough testing kits, if you ask hospitals within states.

I know that in Australia and in South Korea (I think) people are urged to register their smartphones to carry an App that can be used for tracing of the Covid-19 virus. Maybe my readers can elaborate on this situation. This makes a lot of sense to me.

The rest of the blog contains graphs of the virus in New Mexico, Kansas, and Australia – these should be self-explanatory. The Takeaway section mentions a couple of surprises.

TAKEAWAY

There are two surprises:
• New Mexico (139) and Kansas (129) have each managed to keep the number of deaths down, to not much more than 100. BUT the total number of cases has NOT flattened, as of 3 May 2020.

• Australia (and New Zealand) have done remarkably well to contain the Covid virus. They started early, instigated testing and tracing as well as social separation. Total deaths in Australia is less than 100, and in New Zealand only 20.
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BLOG TOPICS: I write content (in-depth) blogs about a curious mix of topics: Inspiration and Hope, and Health and Hiking, and Science and Energy.
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The Gray Nomad ….. Remember folks who live in states and countries far worse off.
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Recognizing that what you perceive is never the total truth allows you to remain open, flexible, and a continual learner in life.
[Robert Wicks in Streams of Contentment].

 

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daely
3 years ago

I appreciate anything Bill Gates has his hand in.

DonM
DonM
3 years ago

Thank you for another informative Blog, The USA has a much larger population than any of the countries in the comparisons. That said, it is evident that a cavalier attitude (wait and see) was taken by some people in authority in high places of government, even before the Covid-19 virus was discovered in China. That same attitude seemed to prevail after the WHO and others warned countries that a pandemic was at hand. Of course this is no secret, and the US got behind the eight-ball early on and we have been playing catch-up ever since. The graphs are evidence of this.

Ian
Ian
3 years ago
Reply to  DonM

The clearest indicator of what you say, Don, is that the USA lines are straight up — no bending or flattening like there has been in ALL of the other countries. That’s what is scary!

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