Sunday, March 29th, 2020
The Butcher’s Bill 10:30 AM, PDT (only a momentary snapshot)
World
Cases: 691,867 Deaths: 32,988
United States
Cases: 130,478 Deaths: 2,314
Misleading Stats
Most mornings I get up, put on the coffee and look at the numbers. Nationwide they still go from bad to worse. I try to take some solace in our own county numbers but when I realize that they’re faulty any semblance of consolation disappears. Most of the time I’m in a no man’s land between hopeful fantasy and heavy reality.
Contra Costa County runs along the shoreline of San Pablo Bay on the west and north. It’s about 65 miles from Richmond in the west to Discovery Bay on the eastern edge where Contra Costa opens up to San Joaquin County and the swath of farmland that helps feed the nation. From the shore of San Pablo Bay and the C&H Sugar Refinery in picturesque Crockett in the north to the upscale homes of Danville at the southern border it’s roughly 30 miles.
The population of 1.5 million runs the spectrum from the rich and famous such as celebrities like baseball star Buster Posey, money ball’s Billy Beane and Vince Neil of Motley Crue in Danville and the southwest corner of the county to society’s forgotten ones or the ones much of society would like to forget. Those are the ones who live in the shadow of the refinery, downwind from the landfill and astride the big railyards; the rundown neighborhoods served by mom and pop shops because any supermarkets pulled out long ago.
Out in the Danville area you’re probably more likely to get tested for coronavirus than if you live within sight of the refinery stacks. That might be a mechanism of the fact that as Bob Dylan once said “money doesn’t talk it swears,” and if your money swears loudly enough you’ll get your test. It might also be a mechanism of the relative lack of medical services out on the west side. That’s all despite the claim made by Trump a little over 3 weeks ago that, “Anybody that wants a test can get a test. That’s what the bottom line is,”
The president’s bottom line is just another fabrication. The real bottom line is that my nephew and his wife returned from the Philippines and found out that they may have been exposed to someone with the virus while there. They asked for a test and were refused because they didn’t yet have symptoms. Trump’s tall tale of testing continues today with the assertion, “We have more cases because we’re doing far more testing than anybody in the world.” It’s a fabrication of course if you take into account the more important per capita statistic. The U.S is testing 1 in 366 people compared to Italy where 1 in 133 people are being tested. That the county has 168 confirmed cases of the virus and 3 deaths should give some solace. Truth is that there’s no comfort in those numbers, particularly if you’re one of the 168. The dearth of testing makes the numbers just another administration shell game. Continue reading
The Life in My Years 