by File photo taken on March 6, 2020 showing the outbreak map dashboard created by Dr. Lauren Gardner, … (+)
The Johns Hopkins online COVID-19 tracker, a resource that has provided invaluable global information during the pandemic, will shut down on March 10. New York Timesfar more than most other causes of death in the US, such as the flu or stroke.
The Johns Hopkins tracker launched on March 3, 2020, costing around $13 million to maintain over the last three years. The site has received over 2.5 billion views in its lifetime, according to a new report from NPR.
The tracker provided information at a time when the US federal government under President Donald Trump found itself unable to provide basic information on case and death numbers, despite many warnings that things could get worse as hospitals were overwhelmed. in China, Italy and Spain. If you recall, Disney theme parks in Hong Kong and Shanghai were closed at the end of January 2020, a signal to health authorities around the world that they should prepare for something big. You have to assume it’s going to be bad when they close Disneyland.
Millions of people around the world relied on Johns Hopkins data in the early days of the pandemic to make decisions about schools, work and entertainment choices. And the news of the shutdown is a clear sign that most Americans don’t think much about the pandemic in their daily lives, despite the high daily death count. Only heart disease and cancer surpassed Covid-19 in causes of death in 2022, according to the latest CDC figures.
Many states no longer release daily data on the number of cases and deaths from covid-19. But the US has recorded at least 1.12 million deaths from covid-19, the worst death toll of any country in the world. Experts point to the abysmal delivery of covid-19 boosters to seniors for the outrageously high death toll in the US, but there seems to have been a sort of surrender on the part of health officials that if you weren’t going to get a vaccine by now, you probably never would. will get one.
But what is the CDC doing to help people during this ongoing pandemic? Not much, it seems. You are alone, especially if you are elderly.
“I know the CDC has the ability to do this and has done so many times in the past,” said Dr. Ali Khan, a former CDC official told NPR. “So it was unusual that at the beginning of this COVID pandemic they didn’t collect this data and release it in a timely manner. Extremely unusual and very surprising.”
Despite a constant bashing from news outlets like Fox News that Covid-19 vaccines are unsafe, this is simply not the case. Vaccines have been shown to be safe and help prevent people from becoming seriously ill and dying. And if you’re still on the fence about taking the photo, I highly recommend it. I actually got the bivalent booster and didn’t see any side effects. You really won’t regret it.
