My first blog post on the pandemic was five months ago, when there were 204,700 cases and 8,270 deaths world-wide. We are now approaching twenty-three million cases and eight hundred thousand deaths, so the totals are up one hundred fold.
The above maps from the New York Times make it quite clear that the pandemic in the US has settled into the Old South – both in terms of the seven-day average (per 100K population) and per-capita totals. Georgia is in the middle of that red-speckled region.
With these tragic totals, a few recent essays have aligned with my gloomy mood:
- America's Death March, Chris Hedges, Consortium News
- American Passports Are Useless Now, Yascha Mounk, The Atlantic
- The Unravelling of America, Wade Davis, Rolling Stone
Georgia reports 246,741 total cases today; that's now four and a half times as many cases as Portugal. Georgia also reports 4,904 deaths; they are on track, by the end of next week, to have three times the number in Portugal.
Currently, Georgia's seven-day average for new cases is, thankfully, dropping and now stands at 2,581.9 per day; that's still more that twelve times the average in Portugal (206.3). Georgia's seven-day average for deaths went as high as 73.1 on August 13th, but is now at 52.3 per day. That's still more than twenty times the rate in Portugal (2.6).
Four months ago, I began graphing the divergence between Georgia and Portugal with an idea that the difference would illustrate something about competent government. Within the first two months, the difference had grown increasingly stark. But during the last two months, the counts have multiplied in a way that is dazzling and demoralizing.
The situation in Georgia underscores the contrast modest moves can make to an exponential function: lockdown a week earlier, re-open a week later, and implement basic health-safety strategies. When things peak, the suffering from hundreds of thousands of cases may have been avoided, and thousands of lives may have been saved.
The IMHE is projecting 11,288 deaths in Georgia by December 1st; 2,675 deaths in Portugal.
In terms of the big world totals, Japan passed Portugal a few days ago, and Portugal is down to forty-seventh place. In welcome 'local' news, Portugal is back on the UK's safe travel list.
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