Day 62: Friends in High Places

The Wall Street Journal reports (sans paywall here) that 1.2 million N95 masks are on their way from Shenzhen to Massachusetts aboard the Patriots' 767.

Massachusetts’ quest to acquire these masks was a tense, weeks long saga that began with the state’s governor and winded through embassies, private partners and the U.S.’s most successful football franchise. After a layover in Alaska and an anxious process to win approval from Chinese officials, the plane was given permission to land in China to collect the masks.

“I’ve never seen so much red tape in so many ways and obstacles that we had to overcome,” said Robert Kraft, the Patriots’ owner.

The article notes that 300,000 of the masks will be sent on to New York, and half a million are still in China waiting for transport "on another shipment."

The Governor also spoke about it at his press conference this afternoon, referring to a previous shipment of 3 million masks that the state had bought from BJ's but that the feds confiscated in the Port of New York back on March 18th. The Boston Globe reported last week on that and several smaller incidents.

Bloomberg reports on our record unemployment, 6.65 million last week for a total of about 10 million in the past two weeks. They're hedgily predicting 15% unemployment in April and a possibly high of 20% if staying-at-home goes on longer than that.

P.S. The Governor also mentioned we will be giving an unspecified number of masks to Rhode Island as well. It's still open season down there, so PlagueBlog recommends not shooting the delivery folk if you want your masks.

P.P.S. The world has surpassed a million cases of coronavirus, with over 52,000 deaths. In Massachusetts, we went up 1,228 cases (16%) to nearly 9,000 cases. There were 32 deaths added, with one of a woman in her 30's in Suffolk County who had pre-existing conditions, but most over 60. Dukes (5 cases) and Nantucket (7) counties have finally been broken out. The state is also reporting some numbers regarding long-term healthcare facilities, where there are 197 individual cases and 85 different facilities reporting infections.

The Governor also mentioned at the presser that we're getting a Battelle N95 mask sterilizing setup at the empty K-Mart in Somerville, which should be sterilizing 80,000 masks a day by next week.

PlagueBlog neglected to mention that a 44-year old crazy man tried to ram a Navy hospital ship with a train in the Port of Los Angeles yesterday. PlagueBlog notes that psychosis is not a common symptom of COVID-19.