Safety

Are votes safe? With everything that's going on, it is good to hear from Stacey Abrams – she seems to be making a big media blitz in a possible push to be the Democratic nominee for VP. She is in the news because of the terrible problems with the recent primary election in Georgia, where she ran for governor in 2018. We get to know her better from Mark Maron's WTF podcast, and her book tour in support of Our Time Is Now.

Are small towns safe? As a hopeful sign of possibly good things to come, Ella Jones wins the mayoral election in Ferguson, MO, the town where Michael Brown was gunned down in a police shooting – one of the killings that lunched the Black Lives Matter movement. Jones is the first African-American and the first woman to hold that mayorship. Ferguson is still under the 2016 federal consent decree to reform its police department, though progress has slowed during the Trump Administration.

Are ethnic neighborhoods safe? Well, I thoroughly enjoy seeing ground level stories like this on the PBS Newhour, "A Brief But Spectacular take on keeping New York's Chinatown safe":

And it was a misconception that all Chinese carried this virus, whereas we're born with this virus or something. Restaurants experienced a 50 to 60 percent drop in business, and many were forced to close.

We do have incidents of harassment, verbal, as people pass through the neighborhood. If we witness an incident, we will record it, document it, and we will help the victim report it.

Is Portugal still safe? Locally, Portugal again ranks in third place on the Global Peace Index, published by the IEP. Last year's version of this report helped us choose Portugal as our new home. At the time of publishing, the report shows three hundred thousand COVID-19 deaths – so about the middle of May. At that time, just three weeks ago, the killing of George Floyd had not yet occurred, and the Black Live Matter movement had not yet gone global, so I think it does not impact the report. In any case, the US is shown in 121st position (out of 163 countries), about the same place it was last year, though its State of Peace does improve from Low (orange) to Medium (yellow).

Are we safe from coronavirus? The pandemic is now three months old. When the WHO announced the pandemic on March 11th, globally, there were 118,375 cases and 4,291 deaths. In the pandemic 'national standings', Portugal drops out of the top-thirty, to thirty-second, in terms of cases, having been passed by Egypt and Indonesia.

Frighteningly, there appears to be a spike in COVID-19 cases in several US states, weeks into re-opening, and after a few weeks of mass protests. For example, Arizona's ICU's are, again, nearing eight-percent capacity.

COVID-19 survivor Michael Flor is now home from the hospital, with a $1.1 million bill. Danny Westneat for the Seattle Times:

The total tab for his bout with the coronavirus: $1.1 million. $1,122,501.04, to be exact. All in one bill that’s more like a book because it runs to 181 pages.

The bill is technically an explanation of charges, and because Flor has insurance including Medicare, he won’t have to pay the vast majority of it. In fact because he had COVID-19, and not a different disease, he might not have to pay anything

It’s like we’re doing an experiment for what universal health coverage might be like, but confining it to only this one illness.

It is also fifty days since Georgia began to re-open. A reminder, Georgia and Portugal have almost exactly the same size population and reported their first COVID-19 cases on the same day (March 2nd). As recently as as April 7th, the two were tracking in parallel: Georgia's seven-day average was 719.9 cases per day and 31.9 deaths per day, while Portugal averaged 714.1 cases and 26.4 deaths.

April 7th is the 'crossing point' for the seven-day average; Georgia caught up to and passed Portugal. It is also the end of the fourteen-day window from Georgia's stay-at-home order (March 23rd). Georgia began its stay-at-home later (Portugal began on March 18th) and re-opened sooner.

Since that date, the gap has grown ever wider. On April 24th, when Georgia began to re-open, its seven-day average held at 722.7 cases, while Portugal dropped to 539.3. In other words, Georgia had not seen a fourteen-day 'downward trajectory' in case numbers prior to re-opening. Portugal began its 'Phase 1' re-opening on May 3rd.

Georgia's current seven-day averages are 777.4 cases per day and 38.3 deaths per day. Portugal's are 301.7 cases and 5.4 deaths. In the past fifty days, Georgia has reported a total of 34,310 cases and 1,547 deaths. Portugal has reported a total of 13,666 cases and 658 deaths – that's over twenty thousand additional cases and nearly a thousand additional deaths in less than two months.

cases: 7,778,242 global • 2,121,381 USA • 36,463 Portugal

deaths: 429,014 global • 116,925 USA • 1,512 Portugal