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2020-03-18

 Covid-19 Info on ProvGardener

Date: 
Wednesday, March 18, 2020
# RI Confirmed Cases: 
33
Italy Total Cases: 
31506
Italy New Cases: 
3526
Italy Deaths: 
2503
Italy New Deaths: 
345
US Total Cases: 
3536
US New Cases: 
1822
US Deaths: 
58
US New Deaths: 
17

10 more cases for a total of 33; 7 females, 3 males, between the ages of 20s-70s. Several had traveled to Europe and Iceland; some had contact with infected people. Four are in the hospital, 6 are at home. One person who had been hospitalized was released today. Other developments include two-week trial of online education for K-12; telemedicine regulations relaxed; medical professionals licensed in other states have streamlined process for RI  90-day licenses; gyms should close; dentists should only do emergency procedures; Cox providing computers and wi-fi; food trucks can continue to operate.
https://www.ri.gov/press/view/37961

Fed Notes: 

Navy ships Comfort and Mercy to be deployed. Activating the Defense Production Act (but it's not clear if it's being used). FEMA is now involved.

Links:

 

From the president's press conference:

We’re sending, upon request, the two hospital ships; they’re being prepared right now.  They’re massive ships.  They’re the big white ships with the red cross on the sides.  One is called the Mercy and the other is called the Comfort.  And they are in tip-top shape.  They soon will be.  They’re getting ready to come up to New York.  I spoke with Governor Cuomo about it.  He’s excited about it.

And I also — we haven’t made the final determination as to where it’s going to go on the West Coast.  The Comfort is located now in San Diego, and it’s going to be — we’ll be picking the destination fairly shortly.  So those two ships are being prepared to go, and they can be launched over the next week or so, depending on need.....

 

Today I can announce further steps to expand testing capacity.  We’re working with several groups to determine if the self-swab — a much easier process than the current process that’s not very nice to do, I can tell you, because I did it.  But we have a current process that’s a little bit difficult.

If you haven’t done — the groups are working on determining if a self-swab by an individual is as effective as the other.  The other is very effective, very accurate.  But we’re going to see if we can do a self-swab, which is — would be a lot more popular, I can tell you that.  So — and that would be administered also by a health official, but it would be a lot easier to do.

The — the fact is that the health professionals would — it would free — it would free up a lot.  Let me just say, the self-swab is what it is: It’s a self-swab; you do it yourself.  The other has to be issued by a health professional, and it’s something that is quite difficult.  And we think it’s working out for the self-swab.  And if it would test positive, the people would go and they would do what they have to do.  But we think that’s probably working out.