U.S. Death Toll Passes Grim Milestone, a Mail-Only Election in Kansas, Two Different Responses to the Global Ventilator Shortage, and Orban Consolidates Power in Hungary
The Butcher’s Bill
786,291 confirmed cases worldwide
166,088 recovered worldwide
37,820 deaths worldwide
Data is current as of 11:00 p.m. Pacific time on Monday, March 30, 2020.
Sources: Johns Hopkins, U.S. data is from the New York Times, Italian data is from the Dipartimento della Protezione Civile, Spanish data is from the Ministerio de Sanidad.
NOTE: Some of the Johns Hopkins data is broken down to the state or provincial level, rather than a figure for the entire country. In these cases, the data is marked in the column as N/A.
To see the full list of data, go to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center. I also recommend checking out the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 Situation Dashboard. Italy’s Department of Civil Protection has its own Italian-centric version of the Johns Hopkins website which you can view here.
Fauci Predicts 100-200K Death Toll in United States, Trump Backs Off Easter Deadline
Anthony Fauci made a few headlines on the Sunday shows last weekend when he estimated that between 100-200,000 Americans could die during the COVID-19 pandemic. To put these numbers into perspective: If you go by the lower end of the estimate, imagine if every person attending a University of Texas home football game died. If you go by the higher end of the estimate, then you’re looking at a body count roughly 3.5 times the number of U.S. casualties during the entire Vietnam War.
Meanwhile, the U.S. death toll passed the 3,000 mark today (Monday). That means that since the first U.S. case was reported on January 20, the coronavirus pandemic has killed more people than al Qaeda did on 9/11. Mathematically, that averages to roughly 43 deaths per day over the course of 70 days since the first case.
Meanwhile, the pessimistic outlook from top government doctors Fauci and Deborah Birx helped convince Trump to back off his idea of reopening the economy in time for the Easter holiday two weeks away. Read this detailed account by Bloomberg to get the sense of what was going on behind the scenes.
Maryland and Virginia Governors Issue Stay-At-Home Orders
Larry Hogan (R-Md.) and Ralph Northam (D-Va.) became the latest governors to order their residents to stay home as part of the effort to contain the spread of the coronavirus. This makes a total of 30 out of 50 states that have issued these orders since the start of the crisis, affecting almost 250 million Americans according to Axios.
Kansas Democratic Party Changes Primary Election to Mail-Only
The Kansas Democratic Party announced that the state’s upcoming primary on May 2 will be mail-only, explicitly citing the coronavirus pandemic as the reason. There will be no in-person voting. Other states have postponed their scheduled primary for later in the spring or summer, but Kansas is the first to change to a mail-only system.
According to the party’s press release, “Over ten percent of the polling locations originally secured as in-person sites have independently cancelled their contract with the KDP due to safety concerns about in-person voting and the novel coronavirus. The KDP recognizes that this is a significant change to the electoral process but remains confident that the mail-in ballot process will ensure all Kansas Democrats have the ability to make their voices heard during this important election.”
Under the new mail-only system, all registered Democrats in the state will automatically be mailed a Democratic primary ballot on March 30, along with a secrecy sleeve and a pre-paid return envelope. Anyone who has not yet registered with the state party has until April 7 to do so, when the state party will send a supplemental ballot for people who weren’t registered in time for the March 30 mailing.
The changes to the state primary election were approved by the Democratic National Committee.
MIT Posts Free Plans Online for an Emergency Ventilator That Can Be Built for $100
A team of Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists, engineers and physicians unveiled their design for a cheaply produced ventilator as a means to cope with the nationwide shortage in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. The group – called MIT E-Vent (short for emergency ventilator) – made the design public sixteen days after it formed on March 12. A standard ventilator costs an estimated $30,000 each. The MIT team designed theirs for $100 worth of parts. Read the document in full here.
On a related note, Ford and GE plan to produce 50,000 ventilators at a facility in Michigan over the next 100 days. The first 1,500 would be finished by the end of April, the rest by July 4.
Mixed News from Wuhan
At the risk of using a cliché, there’s good news and bad news coming out of Wuhan, China – the original epicenter for the coronavirus pandemic.
The good news: no new coronavirus cases have been reported in Wuhan (part of Hubei province) for the sixth consecutive day.
The bad news: according to journalist Eileen Guo, unofficial estimates for the death toll in Wuhan, based on the numbers of cremations and urns, range from 42-46,000 people.
Take both of these figures with a grain of salt, because the Chinese government does not have the best credibility record in handling this crisis.
Party Like It’s 1349
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem – where Jesus is said to have been buried and resurrected – was closed to the public as part of the efforts to control the spread of the virus. The last time something like this happened? 1349, when similar measures were implemented in response to the Black Death.
Orban Uses Coronavirus to Give Himself Emergency Powers in Hungary
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is living up to the axiom “Never let a crisis go to waste.” The Hungarian parliament passed a bill today that would allow Orban to rule by decree because of the coronavirus pandemic. According to CNN, the bill “has no specified end date and allows Orban to bypass a number of democratic institutions in his response to the outbreak.” It passed 138-53, clearing the required two-thirds supermajority threshold.
CNN notes, “The suspension of parliament, punishments for journalists if the government believes their coronavirus reporting is not accurate, and heavier penalties for violating quarantine regulations are all made possible by the order. No elections or referendums can be held while it is in place.” According to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, there have been 15 COVID-19 deaths in Hungary at the time of this writing.
Columnist and historian Anne Applebaum called today’s events “the European Union’s first dictatorship.” Former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi called on the European Union to force Hungary to drop the new law or face expulsion.
Foreign Policy has a good writeup on the broader trend of leaders around the world – democracies and dictatorships alike – using the pandemic as an excuse to consolidate domestic political power.
Interview with a Ventilator Manufacturer
Der Spiegel interviewed Stefan Dräger, the chairman of Drägerwerk, the German manufacturer of medical and safety technology. The whole thing is a fascinating read into the pressures and extraordinary demand for ventilators the company is coping with right now, as well as what they can and can’t do.
The German government hired the company to build 10,000 ventilators, and Dräger himself says the contract has a “detailed delivery plan” for the rest of the year. He has also taken calls from the Austrian Chancellor and the king of the Netherlands asking for more ventilators. He admits straight-up that his company won’t be able to keep up with demand, even though they already doubled production value in February to try and meet demand in China, and will ultimately wind up quadrupling it. The company is hiring as many as 500 new employees in an effort to keep up with demand. Note this exchange:
DER SPIEGEL: Have you received a call from U.S. President Donald Trump yet?
Dräger: We are waiting for it. The U.S. authorities have made a request for 100,000 ventilators. That likely exceeds the annual production capacity of all manufacturers. It is absolutely mission impossible. And even that number won’t be enough. We applied to take on part of the delivery, because we have a responsibility as the biggest manufacturer.
In Australia, a Demographic Anomaly Among Coronavirus Cases
The largest age group for confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Australia are people in their twenties, followed by people in their sixties, according to the recent data published by that country’s Department of Health. People in their twenties account for a combined 821 cases out of 3,970 reported across all age groups nationwide, roughly 20.7 percent of the total. People in their sixties account for a combined 688 cases, roughly 17.3 percent.
According to The Guardian, the reason for this is people in their twenties are the group most likely to travel or party with returned travelers, followed by the 60-to-65-year-olds, who are the most likely to go on a cruise.
More recent data on the Department of Health’s website and Johns Hopkins University put the total number of cases in the country at 4,557, of which 19 have died, out of more than 244,000 tests conducted nationwide.
Seven “Twilight Zone” Episodes to Watch During the Pandemic
A useful list compiled by the Washington Post, including embedded YouTube clips for each episode.
Contact
Send feedback, tips, commentary to covid19bulletin@gmail.com.
Twitter - @COVID19Bulletin
“What’s true of all the evils in the world is true of plague as well.
It helps men to rise above themselves.”
Albert Camus, The Plague