The pandemic begins to wane – Precautions at the Capitol – CERT training – Evening statistics
More good news on the virus front: hospitalizations have dropped by half in many states since the records set in January. Only three states – Florida, New York, and Texas – have reported more than 5,000 cases yesterday. During the month of January, 29 states had over 300 people hospitalized per million residents. Now only four states – Georgia, New Jersey, New York, and D.C. – have between 200 and 300 people hospitalized per million residents, and all the others have less than 200. The 54,248 new cases reported yesterday is the lowest number of new cases reported on a Tuesday since October 13th.
Over 5,000 National Guard troops are being deployed around the Capitol. The QAnon group has claimed that Trump will return to power on March 4th, the original date for a presidential inauguration in the Constitution, prior to the ratification of the 20th Amendment in 1933 that changed it to Jan. 20th. It is only too probable that they will take action to make that prophecy become reality and attempt a second besiegement. National Guard troops will remain in DC through at least March 12th because of fears of extremist activity.
Recently I went through an online course of Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training. I got involved in this training because I contacted the Fairfax City government some months earlier to see if there was any way in which I could provide services for medical care professionals during the pandemic. There was nothing specifically for volunteers with no previous training, but eventually the CERT training was recommended to me. Tonight I attended the first live training session. Five of these in all are given, held at weekly intervals, after completion of the online course. For a subject that involves a good deal of physical activity, live classroom sessions make a great difference. The focus of tonight’s session, for example, was on the response to fires. I saw and physically handled several different fire extinguishers and put out a simulated fire with one of them. (Note: CERT responders are not fire-fighters and are not supposed to handle large-scale fires, but they can handle small ones that can be extinguished in five seconds or thereabouts.) I have not used a fire extinguisher for years until tonight; now that I’ve had some brief hands-on experience with one, I feel a good deal more confident about handling an extinguisher if a real emergency should materialize. The experience brought home forcibly to me how difficult it has been for students this past year who must rely primarily on online instruction without any live interaction with teachers or other students.
Today’s statistics as of 11:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 115,765,405; # of deaths worldwide: 2,571,756; # of cases U.S.: 29,456,377; # of deaths; U.S.: 531,652.