At the moment, there are 80 coronavirus cases in the U.S. in 13 states.
Los Angeles just declared an emergency over the virus.
“I have signed a declaration of local emergency for the City of Los Angeles,” said Mayor Eric Garcetti, as quoted by NPR. “While there are only a few known active COVID-19 cases in the region, the declaration helps us access state and federal funding to strengthen and support our efforts to prepare our region and keep our communities safe.”
Other states reporting cases are New York, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.
However, according to Yale professor, Howard Forman, a radiologist and expert in healthcare management, as quoted by Business Insider, “”It is well within the realm of possibility that there are 100,000 people infected with this right now in the United States. Healthcare providers may be being exposed, other patients may be being exposed, and until you can give confidence to people about those answers, we are in a crisis here.”
He added that, “There is absolutely going to be an explosion in the number of identified cases. But how fast that number increases is highly dependent on how fast we can test.” Unfortunately, because of flawed tests, and poor funding, wider testing has been impossible.
Financial Help May be on the Way
U.S. lawmakers just unveiled $7 billion in emergency funding to address the virus.
The bulk of that will reportedly be spent domestically. “We worked together to craft an aggressive and comprehensive response that provides the resources the experts say they need to combat this crisis. I thank my colleagues for their cooperation and appreciate President Trump’s eagerness to sign this legislation and get the funding out the door without delay,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby.
In addition, Vice President Mike Pence recently noted the Administration is ordering face masks. “We’ve contracted now with 3M. Thirty-five million more masks per month will be produced, and we’re also going to be working with other manufacturers,” he said. “We’re going to make sure and protect the health of our healthcare providers. As the President said, we have more than 40 million masks available today.”
In short, things could get interesting. Also, panicking isn’t going to be helpful.
