Friday, April 3, 11:15am EDT
It’s been roughly three and a half days since my post earlier this week. Work has been keeping me busy, so apologies for the delay. Over the past few days, not much has changed in our regular day to day life. We had another Shipt order of produce delivered yesterday afternoon, have been to the park a few times to walk the dogs, and that’s about it. During our outing to the park yesterday, I noticed a sign on one of the playgrounds which read, “Playground CLOSURE | ATTENTION: This playground is closed to the public to help prevent spread of COVID-19. We appreciate your patience in this matter". Spring is beginning to kick into high gear, with the constant growth of greenery in our back yard and forest helping the self-isolation not feel as horrible. Yesterday I also sent some cards to a few family members and friends in hopes a pop of color will brighten their day.
Though Eli Lilly just increased their ability to test for this coronavirus, even if you’re a health care worker, first responder, essential worker, or a higher risk individual, they are still requiring eligible individuals to bring a physician’s written order requesting testing. In other words, testing is still not available to the general public in Indiana, which is completely ridiculous. Globally we’re now in month five knowing this virus exists, yet the average citizen still cannot be tested? Insane.
Though Indiana’s Governor has not yet extended the state’s current stay-at-home order set to expire on April 6th at 11:59pm, I am certain it will 1) be extended or 2) a federally mandated lock-down will be announced by then. Yesterday Governor Holcomb did sign an executive order requiring all K-12 schools in Indiana to remain “online only” for the remainder of the school year. I’ve also read reports that Indiana University will be holding online classes only for the upcoming Summer semesters as well.
As of this writing, Indiana also has two counties with travel warnings. Per Department of Homeland Security, a warning is defined as: “The highest level of local travel advisory, means that travel may be restricted to emergency management workers only. During a "warning" local travel advisory, individuals are directed to: (A) refrain from all travel; (B) comply with necessary emergency measures; (C) cooperate with public officials and disaster services forces in executing emergency operations plans; and (D) obey and comply with the lawful directions of properly identified officers.”
On March 31, the US State Department issued a Global Level 4 Health Do Not Travel Advisory in which they noted, “Consider returning to your country of residence immediately using whatever commercial means are available. If you wish to return to the United States, you should make arrangements to do so now and contact the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate for assistance as needed. There is no guarantee that the Department of State will be able to continue to provide repatriation assistance and transportation options to the United States may be unavailable in the future. If you choose to remain overseas, you should be prepared to remain where you are for the foreseeable future.”
Though we’re barely into the month of April, I can already tell our lives will be further restricted here soon. Stay tuned!
Important headlines over the past few days:
Half of humanity is now on under lock-down orders.
The US has stopped issuing passports unless in a “life or death emergency” in an effort to help stop the spread of coronavirus, along with the State Department ow asking Americans to avoid international at this time.
Spain’s coronavirus cases have now surpassed Italy’s; deaths nearing 11,000. Combined Italy, Spain, and France have over 30,000 virus related deaths. Madrid is now using a second ice-skating rink as a provisional morgue due to funeral homes being overwhelmed.
With US hospitals slowly being bombarded with virus patients, hospitals in New York stated earlier this week that patients in cardiac arrest will not be transported to a hospital if first responders cannot get a pulse on their own while administering CPR. In other words, if you’re in New York and have a heart attack at home, you’ll more than likely die there.
Unemployment rate in the US is now 4.4% according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. According to the Department of Labor, nearly 10 million Americans have filed for unemployment over the past two weeks. The week ending March 21st, 3.307 million initial claims were filed; 6.648 million filed last week. In two weeks’ time, five years of job gains have been lost. What’s scary is half of states lack funds to pay all of these unemployment claims…
Many states are beginning to enact police checkpoints to enforce out of state quarantine.
Yesterday Dr. Fauci called for a federally mandated stay-at-home order. I would expect the Trump administration to announce such a lock-down later this month.
In Vermont, Target, Walmart, and Costco have been ordered to stop in-person sales of nonessential items. This includes items such as beauty supplies, arts and crafts, clothes, and electronics. I didn’t realize clothing was a non-essential item during the pandemic
Yesterday 85% of Canadian troops were ordered into isolation to prepare for COVID-19 operations.
According to FAIR Health, though coronavirus testing is now free for all Americans, uninsured citizens could be facing nearly $75,000 in medical bills if they’re hospitalized for the virus.
The Pentagon is seeking 100,000 body bags (what FEMA refers to as “human remains pouches”) for potential civilian use as the US warns deaths could soar in the coming weeks.
Yesterday the US lost 1,209 lives in 24 hours due to the virus.
There are now more than one million confirmed cases and over 50,000 deaths globally.
Phil Murphy, Governor of New Jersey, signed an executive order yesterday authorizing the State Police to “commandeer medical supplies and equipment needed to combat the worsening coroanvirus pandemic”.
Indiana’s current numbers.
It’s been a while since I’ve included up to date numbers for our state. Numbers below are as of 10:00am this morning.
3,437 total positive cases
102 total deaths
17,835 tested
Current global and US numbers.
Per the Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) latest update on 4/3/2020 @ 10:42:30am EDT there are as follows:
1,041,126 total confirmed cases globally
245,658 of these are in the US
55,132 deaths globally
6,069 of these are from the US
