[www.cnn.com]

Census Bureau estimates for the last week of December place the US population at around 330,750,000. On Saturday afternoon, the national death toll from Covid-19 reached 331,116, according to data from Johns Hopkins University...

Covid-19 infections in the US have reached more than 18.7 million.

Since November, death rates have accelerated. Instead of a similar incline that took four months to reach 200,000, the next leap to 300,000 deaths took just 11 weeks. The mark was announced December 14.

Health officials are beseeching the American public for continued vigilance with coronavirus protocols, including quarantining, social distancing and wearing masks.


Went shopping today. Young guy in front of me dropped his mask down to talk to his girlfriend. At the register. While running his credit card.

While I used a contactless payment method, I still had to touch the screen that he just spit onto (talking with his mask down while running his card) in order to select the method of payment.*

I might be leaning towards taking that Pfizer vaccine if it's offered.






*Of course, I cleaned my hands with sanitizer before getting back into my car.

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News reports here in Cali mentioned that in L.A., 1 in 80 is infected and that was a week ago.

[deadline.com]

Quote

Ghaly went on to drop some startling statistics, including that one in every 80 people in L.A. County is infected. California’s top health official said Tuesday that 40% of those infected at any one time are asymptomatic. The R Effective — or the rate at which each infected person spreads the virus to another — is now 1.2, said Ghaly. That’s close to an all-time high. The potential for massive spread over the winter holidays was clear.

Dr. Christina Ghaly is the Los Angeles County Director of Health Services…



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/26/2020 10:13PM by bfd.

BTW: We're fast approaching double the number of cases and double the number of deaths from COVID as the next countries behind us. (India and Brazil, respectively.)

[thehill.com]

And the new fast-spreading variant from the UK has been detected in Canada. Toronto.

[www.mprnews.org]

Since folks from the U.S. refuse to stay put and stop spreading infection across the world, it's very likely that it's here, too. Except that we're not really looking for it.

[www.cnbc.com]

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And now, to distract you from all that...










KITTENS!

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/26/2020 10:24PM by Blankity Blank.

Good news, bad news... deaths didn't hit my guess of double the number from Thanksgiving and are actually tapering off a bit in some states. Estimated 400,000 deaths won't happen until about January 6th. Bad news (besides some hospitals being at 240% capacity) is non-virus related deaths are going to climb higher in 2021 because people are avoiding hospital and doctor's visits to get diagnosed/treated for things like cancer or heart disease.

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In tha 360. MRF User Map

Quote
Filliam H. Muffman
Good news, bad news... deaths didn't hit my guess of double the number from Thanksgiving and are actually tapering off a bit in some states. Estimated 400,000 deaths won't happen until about January 6th. Bad news (besides some hospitals being at 240% capacity) is non-virus related deaths are going to climb higher in 2021 because people are avoiding hospital and doctor's visits to get diagnosed/treated for things like cancer or heart disease.

Not only postponed diagnosis but delayed or postponed surgeries, procedures that are deemed elective on the current triage scale could well turn deadly if not dealt with soon.