NY-NJ-CT expand travel advisory to 16 states; Goldman Sachs endorses masks for the economy; AZ hospital triage management called “death panels”; two wildly divergent bills for tests in TX
It’s day 162 since the first case of coronavirus disease was announced in the United States. And the pandemic becomes more politicized each day.
In late April, the pandemic dominated the national news. Despite the fact that the outbreak was then concentrated in “blue” states like California, New York and Washington, less than half (47%) of Republicans surveyed by Pew thought COVID-19 thought it had “been made a bigger deal than it really is.” In other words, exaggerated. Only 14% of Democrats shared that view.
Flash forward to June (survey was 04-15 June), when the outbreak was getting a second wind in states with Republican governors (Arizona, Georgia, South Carolina, Texas and Florida). The number of Republicans who said COVID-19 was overhyped jumped to almost two-thirds (63%). Democrats chimed in at 18%, effectively no change (within sampling margin of error).
Not surprisingly, those surveyed who think COVID-19 has been exaggerated “rely most on Donald Trump and the White House task force for relevant news and information…. Republicans who rely on the president for COVID-19 news are 11 percentage points more likely than Republicans who turn mostly to other sources to say the outbreak has been exaggerated (71% vs. 60%)… 54% of Republicans say the White House gets the facts right at least most of the time, compared with only about one-in-ten Democrats (9%).”
Roughly one-third of Americans who have heard about it see truth in the conspiracy theory that the COVID-19 outbreak was intentionally planned by people in power
NOTE: most Americans cannot differentiate between “facts” and “opinion”.
🦠 Tuesday, Johns Hopkins reported 2,634,432 (2,590,552) cases and 127,410 (126,140) deaths, an increase of 1.69% (1.63%) and 1.01% (0.27%), respectively, since Monday (Sunday). A week ago, the daily numbers increased by 1.50% and 0.69%, respectively.
- The seven-day average: 40,266 ⬆️ (38,705) cases and 876 ⬆️(771) deaths
- Percent of cases leading to death: 4.84% ⬇️(4.87%)
- Today’s case rate is 758.35 per 100,000; the death rate, 37.93 per 100,000.
- One week ago, the case rate was 709.06 per 100,000; the death rate, 36.62 per 100,000.
Note: numbers in (.) are from the prior day and are provided for context. I include the seven-day average because dailies vary so much in the course of a week, particularly over a weekend.
More > COVID-19 Memo from a Newshound, Day 162: 📈 2,634,432 cases; 127,410 deaths : 30 June 2020
