{"id":93,"date":"2020-08-03T21:18:15","date_gmt":"2020-08-03T21:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barnetthsu.com\/blog\/?p=93"},"modified":"2025-02-03T17:25:03","modified_gmt":"2025-02-03T17:25:03","slug":"best-wishes-for-happy-end-to-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/barnetthsu.com\/blog\/2020\/08\/03\/best-wishes-for-happy-end-to-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Wishes For Happy End to 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"

A lot has happened since my last post in February.\u00a0 There have been protests in the streets across the US.\u00a0 Even worse, COVID-19 has become a world-wide pandemic.\u00a0 The COVID-19 Dashboard at Johns Hopkins University<\/a> shows that as of this writing, the US has the most cases at over four and a half million cases and over 150,000 deaths. Just under a million and a half people have recovered from COVID-19.\u00a0 Some hospitals have run out of ICU beds.<\/p>\n

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Now is the time for all Americans to come together and cooperate with epidemic control measures so that we can “flatten the curve”and bring COVID-19 under control so that we can make it a non-issue when a vaccine has been developed and most Americans have taken the vaccine.\u00a0 However, it seems that some Americans are fighting back against epidemic control measures.\u00a0 Masks are an example.\u00a0 Surgeons have used face masks for a long time.\u00a0 People in some other countries have worn face masks since the SARS epidemic of 2003 if not even further back.\u00a0 Here in the US, people have been spit on for asking someone to wear a mask:\u00a0 Fort Worth 7-Eleven<\/a>, gas station store in Colorado<\/a>, Pennsylvania Walmart<\/a>, Michigan store<\/a>, New Jersey mall<\/a>, etc.\u00a0 Other people have been coughed on<\/a> for asking someone to wear a mask.\u00a0 In other cases, it was physical or verbal assaults:\u00a0 New York Trader Joe’s<\/a>, Washington DC area restaurants<\/a>,\u00a0 many McDonald’s<\/a>, etc.\u00a0 In San Francisco, bus passengers assaulted the driver with a bat<\/a>.\u00a0 In Fullerton, California, a customer reportedly set a restaurant on fire<\/a> due to the mask policy.\u00a0 Considering that it has been found people infected with COVID-19 do not always show symptoms, if Americans do not wear masks, how else do we mitigate or prevent the spread of the virus?<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the country practically ran out of cleaning supplies early in the pandemic.\u00a0 Even toilet paper and paper towels were sold out in stores.\u00a0 Toilet paper and paper towels seem to be returning to store shelves now.\u00a0 However, it seems like other cleaning supplies, such as, but not limited to, disinfectant wipes, disinfectant sprays, Windex, 409, etc., are still practically sold out.\u00a0 Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is also in short supply, even for medical professionals.\u00a0 The US seems to lack manufacturing capacity.\u00a0 We can’t make cleaning supplies or PPE fast enough to meet the demand by Americans.\u00a0 We’re relying on other countries.\u00a0 For example, do a Google search for “Taiwan mask donations.”<\/a>\u00a0 You will get millions of search results.\u00a0 Taiwan has donated several million surgical face masks to American medical professionals, US military, US veterans, etc. since March, and they continue to donate more almost every week.\u00a0 In July, Taiwan donated 400,000 to Los Angeles County<\/a>, 3,000 masks to Native Americans in Washington state<\/a>, 92,000 to South Carolina<\/a>, 50,000 to Queens, New York<\/a>, 220,000 to Florida<\/a>, 250,000 to the American Legion<\/a>, 10,000 N95 masks to Arkansas<\/a>, 2,000 face shields to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Florida<\/a>, 300,000 surgical face masks to the US Dept of Veterans Affairs<\/a>, 114,000 masks to Iowa<\/a>, 25,000 to a medical center in North Dakota<\/a>, etc.\u00a0 Business Wire says Taiwan has donated over 51 million masks to countries around the world<\/a> and they make 20 million surgical face masks per day.\u00a0 By the way, did you know that it was a Taiwanese-American that invented the N95 respirator mask<\/a>?\u00a0 So if we are the world’s superpower, how come we’re on the receiving end of donated PPE and not the giving end?\u00a0 Based on Google search results, Taiwan is a fifth of the size of Florida with slightly more population.\u00a0 Yet Taiwan has a total of fewer than 480 cases and there has only been seven deaths.\u00a0 That’s fewer cases and deaths than any one state in the US.\u00a0 And Taiwan did not do a general lockdown like many states in the US did.<\/p>\n

In conclusion, I hope you are doing well during the pandemic and that you stay well for the rest of the pandemic and hopefully it will be over before the end of the year.\u00a0 If at all possible, don’t forget to do the epidemic control measures:\u00a0 wear a mask whenever you’re away from home and less than six feet from others, social distance by staying at least six feet from others, wash your hands often, etc.<\/p>\n

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A lot has happened since my last post in February.\u00a0 There have been protests in the streets across the US.\u00a0 Even worse, COVID-19 has become a world-wide pandemic.\u00a0 The COVID-19 Dashboard at Johns Hopkins University shows that as of this writing, the US has the most cases at over four and a half million cases … Continue reading “Best Wishes For Happy End to 2020”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-administrative"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barnetthsu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barnetthsu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barnetthsu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barnetthsu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barnetthsu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/barnetthsu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94,"href":"https:\/\/barnetthsu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93\/revisions\/94"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barnetthsu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barnetthsu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barnetthsu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}