Day 142

Today is July 31, 2020

 In case you are wondering what the state of Colorado looks like in regards to the COVID-19 pandemic these are the most recent numbers according to Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment :46,204 known, cumulative cases of COVID-19 and 1,822 deaths among those who tested positive.

The summer is nearly over for teachers here in Colorado and it is one of my least anticipated school years.

In summer's past I usually get feel inspired and ready to go back and take on the challenges of teaching in the urban city of Aurora.  It is the third most populous city in the state with a diverse demographic of people.  After usually having traveled and filmed and enjoyed the summer the call to teach has been there and I have always started the year with a newly innovative plan and a sense of enthusiasm to try it out.

        Alas, I find myself here.  Here is a place I, and the rest of us for that matter, have never found ourselves. 

One-hundred and forty-one days or four and a half months into a pandemic.  A pandemic. I don't even think I knew the meaning of the word until March. Here it is:(of a disease) prevalent throughout an entire country, continent, or the whole world. So says dictionary.com. An epidemic is a disease effecting a large number of people in a community or region. And for the record an endemic is a disease which effects only a particular people while an outbreak is the unexpected increase of endemic cases which if not controlled usually leads to an epidemic.  So I suppose the worst of these is a pandemic and that is where we find ourselves today.  Well friends we have come full circle. At least since the beginning of this paragraph.

The overall world numbers are an increase from yesterday and here they are according to the NY Times:

"The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 17,299,200 people, according to official counts. As of Friday morning, at least 673,900 people have died, and the virus has been detected in nearly every country"

Which countries have not reported coronavirus cases you may be asking yourself.  Well here they are:

Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, North Korea, Palua, Somoa, Tonga, Solomon Islands, Turkmenistan, Vanuatu, and Tuvalu. While experts agree these countries may be withholding information, it is possible a few may have escaped the invisible virus altogether. North Korea does border on China and does much of its importing from China so it seems unlikely for the country to have zero cases.  They are notoriously a secret country so the reports or lack of are par for the course.

Turkmenistan is another country known for its covert operations and unreliable reporting and since it borders Iran (a country with over 100,000 cases) it seems unlikely to have a zero case load. 

Lesotho, a country on the list for quite some time, has reported new cases of coronavirus.  Like many  African countries they are well versed in dealing with outbreaks.  Also, although it is surrounded by South Africa it is a mountainous region and somewhat difficult to access. The possibility exists that some or even all of these countries may be COVID free, but seems it is more likely that some unaccounted cases exist..  However it may be very few since many of them are in the situated in the pacific region on isolated islands. We do know the Asian-Pacific area shut down and closed its borders pretty quickly possibly stopping the spread to these lowly populated and rarely visited territories. 

Things are different in the United States as according to the NY Times, the "virus had torn through every state, infecting more people than the combined populations of Nebraska, Vermont and Montana. The national death toll exceeded the population of Syracuse, N.Y."

A seven day average has seen virus cases of 64,632 in the U.S. a 1% decrease from a week ago. However, it is still an increase and until the country can agree to wear a mask and stop the spread by maintaining social distance our numbers will not decrease.  In contrast New Zealand and its most recent summary report.

Indeed a stark contrast to our nation in turmoil.