Monday, March 30, 7:41pm EDT
I actually visited my company office today to grab some equipment for shipment. Was interesting being on the interstate and passing under emergency alert signs which read, “STATEWIDE ORDER STAY AT HOME ESSENTIAL TRIPS ONLY.” Traffic was more prevalent than expected, but there were definitely much less drivers on the road than normal. We were at the nearby park again yesterday, and happy to witness the majority of visitors following social distance best practices, but unfortunately not everyone. Still amazed at how many vehicles may be found in grocery store parking lots even now… Upon leaving the park, both of us were craving a Coke Zero, but there’s no way we’re entering any place of business, let alone a convenience mart, so we thought why not hunt down an external vending machine and pick a few up there? Never in my life did I expect it 1) be that difficult to find a Coke machine, nor 2) that they would be powered-off. After twenty minutes and three unsuccessful machine attempts, we decided it wasn’t meant to be, and instead added a case to our pending Amazon order for the week.
It’s concerning to read that the US Surgeon General named Indianapolis as an “emerging hotspot” for coronavirus yesterday. The Vice President of Medical Affairs at Franciscan Health Network also noted, “in central Indiana, we are currently entering week 4 - the current models project the pandemic to span over a 12-week period, with the peak hitting at weeks 5-7”. In other words, April will surely be a difficult month for our state. This must be why over the weekend Monroe County’s coroner opted to prepare a makeshift morgue to better prepare for a large number of deaths in the Bloomington area…
Important headlines / updates over the past 48 hours.
New York has now experienced more than 1,000 coronavirus related deaths. There were so many bodies at one hospital they actually used a forklift to load them into the back of a refrigerated truck for transport.
Many cities, including Washington DC, have announced criminal penalties for those violating stay-at-home orders. Example: “Individuals who willfully violate the order may be guilty of a misdemeanor and subject to imprisonment, a $5,000 fine, or both”.
Fortunately over the weekend Trump extended the federal guidelines for social distance recommendations through April 30. That being said, several stays have already extended their own home order until dates beyond May 1 - Virginia earlier today extended their stay-at-home order until June 10. Currently three out of four Americans are under such orders.
The idea of “immunity passports” for “key workers” is being floated around in the EU - “Those who are immune could be issued with a kind of vaccination pass that would for example allow them to be exempted from restrictions on their activity”.
The NAVY hospital ship USNS Comfort docked in New York earlier today. The ship will offer 1,000 beds and 12 operating rooms to the area.
There are now over 750,000 coronavirus infections globally.
France has now reported over 3,000 virus related deaths.
As always, the current numbers.
Per the Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) latest update on 3/30/2020 @ 6:58:55pm EDT there are as follows:
782,365 total confirmed cases globally
161,807 of these are in the US
37,582 deaths globally
2,978 of these are from the US
