Note 1: It passed 96-1.
Note 2: the Senate is Republican and pro-Trump. They'd blame a conspiracy if they could.
Note 3: By comparison, in 2018 the budget for the entire National Institutes of Health was $37 billion.
Note 4: Also by comparison, the NIH budget for Alzheimer's research was only $1.8 billion.
You might call this funding for CV-19 "significant."
https://thehill.com/.../
Also, the WHO has put the mortality rate much higher than initially thought, at 3.4%. [Added on edit: 0.4% for this season's flu, which is moderately severe.] Trump says he thinks it's a "really false number," then quotes his "hunch" as saying it's less than 1%. He says people are getting sick and never go to the hospital. Shouldn't he ask first if health researchers don't consider that before he reports his "hunches"? They're professionals, of course they have.
Ten thousand deaths from the flu this year? That's actually only moderately high for the seasonal flu, which has never been a joke, BTW. Its death rate is only 0.1%. [0.4% this year]. That's news, but not news enough to grab the front pages.
Note: At 3.4%, CV-19 mortality rate is 𝟑𝟒 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 [seasonal] 𝐟𝐥𝐮 [is normally, and [it's] about as contagious. [Note: it's 9 times as fatal as this year's flu.] Take a moment to wrap your mind around that. Unless something lucky happens, the deaths from CV-19 could be in the hundreds of thousands or millions. If 80 million people in the US catch this, a completely plausible number, 2.7 million people could die. Everybody left alive will know somebody who died of this. We are in 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 trouble.
https://a.msn.com/r/2/
Hell of a way to run a government, with a president denouncing expert data because he considers a conspiracy to wreck his own unsullied record more likely; because he presumes people must be thinking about him at all times to the dearth of all other crucial matters. Any possible "shadow government" or "fake news outlet" would also be afraid for their own lives, and therefore would want accurate news about this.
To prevent the spread: wash your hands. I would also recommend using hand-sanitizer. Do your best not to touch your face. Cough or sneeze into your shirtsleeve. If someone coughs or sneezes in your presence and doesn't cover, leave the room or the area. Use disinfecting wipes to clean surfaces other people have touched, otherwise, get some gloves and wear them. This is especially true for shopping carts.
The virus can live up to nine days on surfaces. So, if you get a box delivered, handle it with gloves. I might recommend a mask for opening the box. Otherwise, I generally wouldn't. Tearing the box open will make particles fly, so open carefully. Cutting instead of ripping will reduce airborne viruses. Clean the removed item thoroughly after its unwrapped. Then wash your hands and face.
As an alternative, you could allow the box to sit for nine days before opening.
Given the contagiousness of this disease, everybody will catch it ultimately. However, it's best that it happen later than sooner. Slowing the spread will give it a chance to mutate into less virulent form, and will allow herd immunity to eventually take hold. Or even a vaccine and treatments might come about.
This is going to be terrible. It's possible that every survivor will know somebody who dies of this, but we will get through this.
PS. I don't write these things to spread panic. And I don't think I'm a pessimist. I think there's a cult of over-optimism in this society, a social pressure toward it, that needs to be confronted. Over-optimism about Trump is what powers his support. Optimism is good for supporting hope which maintains our daily function. Pessimism is good for recognizing when caution is called for. But they're both ill-advised and disadvantages if they're kept as general rules.
I write this so people could take a sober look at Trump and what he's done, and what we might expect in the coming year. Remember this on Election Day.
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