Latest on COVID – It isn’t Good

Here’s the latest COVID news, and none of it is good.

Hospitals are starting to run out of one of the few drugs known to help critically ill patients, remdesivir. Emergency rooms in many parts of the country are overrun with COVID patients, much like the scenes we saw in NYC two months ago. https://www.yahoo.com/news/coronavirus-patients-swamp-emergency-rooms-154219025.html

Hard to believe, but the Trump Administration is trying to actually undermine what we know is necessary to gain control of the pandemic. They are trying to cut funding for tests,tracing, and the CDC. They are trying to block hospitals from reporting critical data to the CDC, apparently because the career scientists are painting a picture of the pandemic that the Administration doesn’t like. https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/07/18/white-house-testing-budget-cdc-coronavirus/?hpid=hp_hp-banner-main_bailouthill-310pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans

They are even blocking the CDC from providing guidelines on what schools would need to know to reopen as safely as possible. https://www.yahoo.com/gma/white-house-blocks-cdc-director-testifying-schools-reopening-224031220.html

Last week, non-scientists in the Trump Administration attempted to smear the nation’s premier, world renown infectious disease specialist, Dr. Anthony Fauci, because his sticking to the science doesn’t tell the story they want told.

Dr. Fauci explains why the death rate has dropped, but as we have seen the last week, that is starting to climb again. https://www.doximity.com/collections/f7ca9e9b-361e-4039-adaf-9b02ae8ece65?_eda_link_uuid=a14640d7-e2e6-4d80-b172-9caecab97db8&featured_item=reactions%2F978630&utm_campaign=nue%3A%3Av5%3A%3Anetwork_update&utm_source=doximity-eda&utm_medium=email

Cases are still very high in Utah, and the new hot spot is Utah County, where the crowded, indoor, anti-mask protest took place several days ago that made national news. Teens and young adults are now the biggest source of community spread of the virus in Utah, with similar trends in other states. Utahns ages 15 to 44 who have been sickened have a hospitalization rate of about 3% and a fatality rate below 1%. https://www.sltrib.com/news/2020/07/19/millennials-teens-are/

Do your part. Wear a mask, listen to the scientists, save lives. This is no where near over.