So the train wreck of the coronavirus was so bad that I
stopped looking at the number of causalities.
This was easy since the kids have monopolized the t.v. All I had to do was stop looking online.
But after the French president outlined a vague plan to
re-open things after May 11th despite the lack of herd immunity or a
vaccine and hearing about how in Hokkaido they re-opened schools only to
re-close them again I had a look at France’s daily deaths. I was shocked:
It peaked at 1,438 deaths in one day two days ago.
The last number I remember seeing was that Italy was peaking
around nine-hundred. Quickly I checked the Italy numbers:
It peaked at 919 deaths on March 27th.
What is going on here I thought to myself. How could France have daily deaths higher
than Italy and people say that things have gotten better? When I do get a glimpse of the news Italy is
like the barometer of things gone bad. Or is it because it’s French news and if
I was in Italy they’d be like, look at those France numbers?
Some googling resolved the mystery. Some countries like Italy and Spain only
count hospital deaths while as France counts deaths in hospitals and care homes. So not really comparable like infection
numbers between countries (who is tested and who isn’t) reminding me of why I
stopped looking in the first place.
So where are we? Is
it getting better/worse? Apparently the
number to watch is the number of patients in intensive care which is going down
in France for the 6th consecutive day.
This gave me hope. Then
I took a deep breath of cleaner than ever Parisian air before putting my head
back in the sand.
No comments:
Post a Comment