“I don’t like to be authoritarian from the federal government, but at the local level, if governors and others essentially mandate the use of masks when you have an outbreak, I think that would be very important,” Fauci told Alabama Sen. Doug Jones during a Facebook live event in July.
Until now.
“Well, if people are not wearing masks, then maybe we should be mandating it,” Fauci told CNN’s Erin Burnett Friday.
The US has around 330 million residents across 50 states and more than a dozen territories. The population is very diverse, with many large communities being majority non-white.
The US is the most generous country by dollar amount in terms of charitable donations, and top 3 in terms of how many people donate money and time to charitable causes.
Right now, a reported 40 percent of COVID-19 tests in South Dakota come back positive. The advised maximum is just five percent, so it’s likely that the outbreak is even worse than figures state. Last week, South Dakota reported the second-highest COVID-19 death rate out of all states, as well as Washington DC and US territories. Only North Dakota was worse. There, Gov. Doug Burgum finally called for reducing business capacity as cases spiked in October, but while he’s running around locking barn doors, he still won’t actively recommend or enforce closures.
South Dakota has at least 40,730 confirmed cases with 989 new ones on Tuesday. There’s been a 41 percent increase over the past 14 days.
You should ask how many hospital beds are available.
The state is battling through a shortage of available hospital beds as COVID hospitalizations converge with strains on health care staffing and high noncoronavirus admissions. There are 25 available intensive care beds and 268 regular, inpatient beds in the whole state, according to the state’s latest figures.
The situation is especially urgent in Bismarck, where the two hospitals have just one available ICU bed and six inpatient beds between them. Grand Forks has just one ICU bed and 15 inpatient beds, while Dickinson has two ICU beds and seven inpatient beds, and Minot has three ICU beds and 16 inpatient beds.
Fargo’s three hospitals have carved out some breathing room following strained capacity in recent weeks, noting 14 open ICU beds and 41 inpatient beds in their latest report.
Of the 173 North Dakotans currently hospitalized with the virus, 29 are in intensive care, according to the department. North Dakotans who are transferred out of state for medical care are not tracked by the health department, spokeswoman Nicole Peske said.
North Dakota was 15 deaths on Tuesday. South Dakota was zero deaths. I assume the ICU’s are going to get overwhelmed chaps will be chipping in shortly.
Available hospital beds is an issue, obviously. However, I’ve yet to see the threat of hospitals becoming overwhelmed actually happening. Possibly in New York, and some developing countries.
There was, of course, a few months window of opportunity to increase capacity in ICUs, but politicians seem to prefer the lockdown approach.