The Virus
As of July 6, 2020:
Total Americans:
Recovered/Recovering: 2,756,456
Cases: 2,886,267
Fatalities: 129,811
Washington State:
35,898 cases, 1,359 fatalities
Lewis County.:
75 cases, 3 fatalities
Yakima County:
7,489 cases, 160 fatalities
Yakima County’s daily new infections number finally has been below 100 many days recently after being above 100 for many weeks but continues to be higher than the entire rest of Washington State combined. The governor is requiring masks in public and prohibiting businesses from serving unmasked customers but has allowed Yakima County to proceed to Phase 1.5, a relief to many.
Our vulnerable people must continue to Stay at Home!
Our frontline workers and nursing home workers and patients must be perfectly protected!
We all must continue masks, separation, sanitation and slow-ing its spread so that we keep the hospitalizations curve flattened and protect our most vulnerable!
Tough guys wear masks! Pretty girls wear masks! Trump supporters like me wear masks!
Although infections have risen inevitably as we’ve reopened, very happily hospitalizations have NOT RISEN but continue to decline! Infections will soon subside to a flat permanent (though regrettably high) level as we re-understand the importance of and return to masks, separation and hand washing.
We’re learning to live with this virus as we must and as we have learned to live with influenza- it’s not going away.
Our flat level of infections will continue until we reach herd immunity requiring 65% of Americans becoming immune either by having recovered from it or by the hoped-for vaccine.
The rest of us must get back to work! We’re not dummies; we will protect ourselves by masks, separation and sanitation, thereby preventing any large increase in hospitalizations.
Total American household expenditures, the foundation of our nation, are $30 trillion. We pay these dollars for goods and services made by other workers who then spend their paychecks, another $30 trillion, paying them to others for products and services, and so on up through the nation.
Taxes along the way pay for our health care, education, peace, security and everything.
The once or twice paltry $3 trillion (borrowed) government stimulus is miniscule compared to this power of we consumers spending our paychecks up through our nation.
-Dave Bunting