September 22, 2020

COVID-19 Cases Are Surging All Over the World

My usual daily look at COVID-19 deaths was posted a few minutes ago, but I thought it might be worthwhile to also give you a quick look at COVID-19 cases. As you can see, they’re going up all over the place. Spain, France, and the Netherlands are skyrocketing. The United States skyrocketed back in July and looks like it’s now turning upward for a third time. The UK is going up, and so was Switzerland until a week ago, when it suddenly slammed the brakes on. Even Germany is rising a bit.

I’m not quite sure what conclusion to draw from this, but it sure looks as if even a modest re-opening quickly causes cases to boil over. On the brighter side, a combination of better care for COVID-19 cases and fewer cases among the elderly means that an increase in cases probably won’t translate into a gigantic increase in deaths. That’s been our experience, and it appears (so far) to be the experience in Spain and France too.

Still, it’s obvious that we shouldn’t let up. The only way to keep cases and deaths down is to rigorously maintain social distancing precautions. If only we could get our president to agree.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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