I'm going to park some more Covid-19 statistics here for future reference. The information comes from the nCoV2019.live Coronavirus dashboard and the Covid-19.direct page. I'm posting U.S. and California-centric information because that's where I reside.
The U.S. currently has 2,934,172 cases. That's right, almost 3 million cases. Brazil is in a distant second place with 1,577,004 cases. What do the U.S. and Brazil have in common? Leaders who aren't leaders.
New York still has the greatest number of cases, but California has pushed its way up through the ranks to achieve second place with 255,696 cases. Texas and Florida currently hold 3rd and 4th place.
The San Francisco Bay Area has an even 25,000 cases as of today, with Santa Clara County's share being 4849. Most of California's cases are in Southern California, with Los Angeles County being particularly hard-hit, although on a per capita basis, Imperial County is much worse off, with 39,988 per million having the virus (as opposed to L.A.'s 10980). Santa Clara is well down the list, with only 2722 per million.
According to the sites I referenced, 132,302 United States citizens have died of Covid-19 to date. That's above and beyond all of the other deaths. A quick search reveals that in 2017, 2,813,503 people died in this country. Here is a link to an article about the top 10 causes of deaths in the U.S. If we factored in the current Covid-19 death toll (keep in mind that it's only July though), it would fit snugly in at number 6 on the list, right between stroke and cerebrovascular diseases and Alzheimer's disease.
This pandemic has highlighted the stark political divide splitting the country, and sadly, the issue about whether or not face masks should be worn has been politicized.
That said, our delayed summer camp program starts on Monday, with adherence to all of the strictest Covid-19 guidelines. It's going to be a lot different from our usual routine.
I'm aware that it's the 4th of July today, and I'm even less inclined that usual to celebrate in any way. The holiday is the domain of nationalists and people just looking for excuses to drink and blow things up. Plus, fireworks are horrible for the environment. It is weird to me that the people who shout the loudest about how they love our country are almost always the ones who prove the least willing take the steps to improve it (that's kind of the definition of "conservative" anyway). If nothing else, this year has brought all of the social pus to the surface of the still-infected wound of race relations. It has also revealed that any perceived "greatness" in the way we do things is just that, a hollow perception not based on objective reality.
Change isn't often easy, but it would be nice to see a glimmer of hope that any of this will result in change for the better. Either way, we'll keep on keeping on.
Written to the tune of: Volcano the Bear "Classic Erasmus Fusion"
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