Bram Stoker’s Coronavirus

California enacted a coronavirus curfew for a majority of the state’s 40 million residents. I get that they want people to avoid getting drunk, yelling, hugging, and being up to no good, but these curfews are a little weird. We’re fighting a virus, not a vampire. Maintain distance, mask the eff up. Here’s a stat to convince you (and to explain that this is all less about personal responsibility and more about political failures): “Crazy to look at San Francisco (pop. 880k) versus North Dakota (pop. 760k) right now. San Francisco county, an urban area where most people wear masks, has reported 14k Covid cases. North Dakota, which resisted mask mandates for months, has 60k cases.”

+ “We’ve never had to do anything like this. We are on an absolutely catastrophic path.” Ed Yong in The Atlantic on what’s happening at America’s most well-prepared hospital. “In the past two weeks, the hospital had to convert an entire building into a COVID-19 tower, from the top down. It now has 10 COVID-19 units, each taking up an entire hospital floor. Three of the units provide intensive care to the very sickest people, several of whom die every day. One unit solely provides ‘comfort care’ to COVID-19 patients who are certain to die.”

+ “Patty Schachtner took masks to funeral homes and installed showers for sheriff’s deputies. No amount of preparation could ready her for what followed.” Great NYT piece: A Wisconsin Medical Examiner Fought to Prepare Her County for the Virus. Then It Struck.