Quote of the day: “To put it bluntly, the U.S. economy went from full speed to full stop — and millions of workers were not wearing seat belts.” – Josh Lipsky, director of global business and economics policy at the Atlantic Council, a nonpartisan think tank.
Keeping up with all things CoVid 19 is like swimming through Semolina. It takes a lot of fortitude and stamina. But here goes, anyway.
The states versus the nation
Examining the national response to CoVid 19….no, wait, we don’t have a national response. We have close to 60 responses, one for each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and the other US territories. If you don’t think they’re all on their own, just ask Andrew Cuomo. He said yesterday that none of the governors were currently screaming for states rights. They all want help, they all want national leadership, and they want it yesterday, maybe last week. Look at Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida. For weeks, under withering criticism and through the debacle of Spring Break on the beaches, he refused to issue a Stay At Home order. Said the state didn’t need it. His excuse? The White House hadn’t told him to do it. But yesterday it did, so he did. Well, actually, the White House “recommended” it. DeSantis made a point of saying he “cleared it with the President.”
Contrast DeSantis’s actions with those of Mario Cuomo, Jay Inslee, Gavin Newsom, JB Pritzker, Gretchen Whitmer, Janet Mills, Charley Baker, and Mike DeWine. They’ve all been on their own, but they’ve been decisively responsible, and their constituents will one day thank them.
Every governor is reacting, and reacting is the right word, differently. It’s like watching an Athenian Trireme in the Mediterranean with all 170 oarsmen rowing at different speeds.
Don’t believe me? Let’s look at Stay At Home orders. Here’s a New York Times map showing state Stay At Home orders from 30 March, four days ago:
And here’s the same map as of yesterday, four days later:
The nation’s Governors are all having to act like European Prime Ministers, many of whom have issued travel restrictions and sealed borders. A week ago, Rhode Island’s Governor Gina Raimondo began letting New Yorkers into her state only if they would self-quarantine for 14 days, and she had the National Guard at the border to enforce the order.
All Governors would like their constituents to view them as Horatius At The Bridge, but Covid 19 is likely not the particular bridge they would have in mind. They need national leadership, not national cheerleading. Absent that, they’ve been forced to step into the void, some, like DeSantis, very reluctantly.
Trouble coming for the southeast
Vann R, Newkirk, II, has a terrific piece in this week’s The Atlantic looking at the public health difficulties facing young people, made even more severe by CoVid 19, in America’s southeastern states. Newkirk says:
So far, about one in 10 deaths in the United States from COVID-19 has occurred in the four-state arc of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, according to data assembled by the COVID Tracking Project, a volunteer collaboration incubated at The Atlantic….The coronavirus is advancing quickly across the American South. And in the American South, significant numbers of younger people are battling health conditions that make coronavirus outbreaks more perilous.
Some context is needed. A new study by the World Health Organization (WHO), endorsed and published by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine ranks America at or near the worst in just about every mortality rate category you can think of when compared with the other 16 wealthiest countries. U.S. Health in International Perspectives: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health paints a grim picture that should concern us all.
Now, look at the health of people in the deep south, particularly young people, who, according to a new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, have more comorbidities than young people anywhere else in the country. Those comorbidities put them at much greater risk of becoming seriously ill if they contract CoVid 19.
According to Newkirk:
If you define Oklahoma as part of the South, southern states fill out the entirety of the top 10 states in percentage of population diagnosed with hypertension by a doctor. Southerners are more likely to suffer from chronic diseases than other Americans—even as Americans are more likely to suffer from chronic diseases than citizens of other countries with comparable wealth.
Imagine you have a big barrel full of apples. Inside that barrel is a smaller barrel with apples your farm stand might label “seconds.” Inside that “seconds” barrel is a third and smaller barrel with apples your farm stand wouldn’t ever sell. The third barrel is health in the deep south.
The USNS Comfort
Remember this photo?
That’s the USNS Comfort, the 1,000 bed ship Donald Trump, to great fanfare, sent to New York to help with the serious hospital bed shortage, getting worse every day.
I’m guessing not too many people knew that the Comfort’s orders prohibit treating CoVid 19 patients. As President Trump said when he sent her on her way, “By treating non-infected people remotely on the ship, it will help to halt very strongly the transmission of the virus.” Note the words, “non-infected.”
So far, the Comfort has taken in three of New York’s patients. It’s kind of a Catch 22 thing. The ship can only take patients not infected with CoVid 19, but without sufficient testing, the ship’s clinicians won’t know if anyone actually has the disease, or not. Result: three patients. “If I’m blunt about it, it’s a joke,” said Michael Dowling, the head of Northwell Health, New York’s largest hospital system.
And finally – Getting back to the deep south
The American Association of Medical Colleges is out with its 2019 State Physician Data Workforce Report,
This annual report examines the supply of physicians in the United States. It documents the number of physicians per 100,000 inhabitants of every state. I’m proud, (I think) to report my home state, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, takes the Gold Medal with 449.5 doctors per 100,000 people. On the other end of the scale, coming in at Number 50, is Mississippi with 191.3. I would love to know what goes on in Mississippi. It seems to be at or near the bottom of anything you can name.
Here are how all the southern states rank:
State MDs/100K Rank
Mississippi 191.3 50
Oklahoma 206.7 48
Arkansas 207.6 47
Alabama 217.1 43
Texas 224.8 41
Georgia 228.7 39
South Carolina 229.5 38
Kentucky 230.9 36
Tennessee 253.1 29
North Carolina 255.0 28
Louisiana 260.3 27
Florida 265.2 23
Given that New York, which is begging for retired clinicians and clinicians from other states to come and help with its CoVid 19 fight, and given that New York, with 375.1 doctors per 100,000 people, ranks Number 3 on the list, just behind Massachusetts and Maryland, how do you think a state like poor Mississippi is going to fair when the full weight of this virus lands on it with a loud thud?
I hope all of you hermits have a safe weekend!
