News from the White House Coronavirus Task Force and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was grim Wednesday. No, not the fact that the U.S set two new COVID-19 records: 200,000 new infections and topping 100,000 covid-19 patients hospitalized. It was the additional urgency behind actions the public should take now.
In a Nov. 29 report to governors not made public but obtained by NBC News, the Coronavirus Task Force warned:
“It must be made clear that if you are over 65 or have significant health conditions, you should not enter any indoor public spaces where anyone is unmasked due to the immediate risk to your health; you should have groceries and medications delivered.”
Echoing what Dr. Deborah Birx and Dr. Anthony Fauci have stressed in recent days, the report also states: “If you are under 40, you need to assume you became infected during the Thanksgiving period if you gathered beyond your immediate household.”
“Most likely, you will not have symptoms; however, you are dangerous to others and you must isolate away from anyone at increased risk for severe disease and get tested immediately,” it states.
That is more bluntness than we have seen from this group all year.
On MSNBC’s “The Reidout,” Dr. Vin Gupta was composed but serious about what it means: “Cancel your travel plans…. You can’t test or mask your way out of safe travel.”
Gupta had just served a week in an intensive care ward and no COVID-19 patient there knew they had been exposed to the virus. They had not been “going out and having a grand, old time. They got it from a close contact at home who inadvertently exposed them to the virus.”
“Don’t get on a flight. Don’t get in an automobile or on a bus or on a train.” Just don’t, he said. Everyone should be using a high-quality, three-ply surgical mask or the equivalent multi-layer cloth mask. Tens of thousands might be saved if 95 percent of the country used them. Only about 68 percent do now.
For those over 55, Gupta added an “additional wrinkle.” If you must go out into the community handling basics like grocery shopping because no one else cannot do it for you, “put on an eye shield. We’re that desperate right now.”
I wasn’t sure if he meant me to sober up or pour a drink.
Then the New York Times reported on a CDC study of “excess deaths“:
Deaths nationwide were 19 percent higher than normal from March 15 to Nov. 14. Altogether, the analysis shows that 345,000 more people than normal have died in the United States during that period, a number that may be an undercount since recent death statistics are still being updated.
Compiling these numbers involves reporting lags. Many states are running behind, so final CDC estimates may be months away.
From March 15 through Nov. 14, the most recent date with reliable statistics, estimated excess deaths were 41 percent higher than the official coronavirus fatality count. If this pattern held through Dec. 2, the total death toll would be about 380,000.
Vaccines are on the way, but still months away. Britain will begin mass immunizations with the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccines to be delivered next week. Russia begins distributing its less rigorously tested vaccine next week. Here in the U.S., the CDC recommends long-term care residents and health workers get the first doses. Presidents Obama, George W. Bush, and Clinton say they will get their shots on camera to encourage skeptical Americans to do so. They’ll have to be coaxed to save their lives and those of their neighbors.
People living in poorer countries may have to wait until 2024. Let that sink in.