Yesterday, Thursday 12 March 2020, the Governor of New York State Andrew Cuomo declared statewide restrictions on public gatherings in the effort to limit the spreading of the coronavirus (COVID-19) In the late afternoon Mayor Bill de Blasio also declared state of emergency in New York City. Events involving gathering more than 500 people are banned, including sport and cultural events, concert halls, museums and Broadway theaters. This ban effects multi-billion dollar industries and arrives late considering the worldwide pandemic. It is puzzling how disclosure of cases and measures arrives only in the past few days—in a cosmopolitan city like New York, with perhaps the greatest density and opportunity of human contacts. The recent call for hygiene provoked by this extreme crisis also makes us wonder why these simple easy measures, which helps to prevent many other diseases, have been previously ignored and only now promoted.
According to
today update there are 139,018 cases with 5,116 deaths, 70,727 recovered, 80,815 cases China and 15,113 in Italy. More statistics are
here
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| Illustration of ultrastructural morphology exhibited by coronaviruses. By CDC/ Alissa Eckert, MS; Dan Higgins, MAM - This media comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Public Health Image Library (PHIL), with identification number #23312. |
However, even in this pandemic which has been unprecedented in modern history politics seems dominated the channels of information. A few examples of information not disclosed.
- Several severe cases successfully treated by Tocilizumab, a drug commonly used to treat rheumatoid arthritis. The oncologist Paolo Ascierto of the Italian Naples' Pascale Hospital stated the drug has been effective to treat pneumonia caused by COVID-19. The drug is also in clinical trials in Wuhan.
In this worldwide health and financial crisis reaffirms the importance of individual agency and critical thinking. It is the only way to survival not only from the objective pandemic but also from fears.
