Day 196: The Mask on the Soapbox

Opinions seem mixed on whether New Zealand has traced its outbreak to a new strain (to them) or has yet to do so because many of their previous samples have yet to be sequenced. It's still up in the air whether COVID came in on cold freight, on people (through the not-entirely-sealed borders or a failure of quarantine), or had been percolating undetected for their 102 case-free days.

At a presser in Wilmington, Virginia, Democrat Presidential candidate Joe Biden called for a nationwide mask mandate:

“Every single American should be wearing a mask when they’re outside for the next three months at a minimum — every governor should mandate mandatory mask wearing,” Biden declared.

PlagueBlog doubts this is going to win him many swing voters, and reminds readers that in the vast majority of situations there is no reason or evidence for wearing a mask outdoors.

Though there's no new germ boat today, the Washington Post reports that the plague ships of Italy are getting ready to sail again. (Tourism is 13% of the Italian economy.) In passing they mention the Hurtigruten cruise line apologizing for "fail[ing] to follow its own procedures" to prevent the cases aboard Germ Boat #30, the MS Roald Amundsen.

Locally, the Commonwealth's deadline for school districts to figure out what they're doing about coronavirus is today. NBC reports that 31 districts have already decided to go all-online. (There are 292 regular school districts in Massachusetts, plus some vocational and charter districts that may or may not be treated separately for this purpose.)

Aside from some strangeness involving fewer than five people in Hancock (at the far west of the state), the old case map is looking pretty plateaued as usual. The newer, two-week positivity map has some hot-looking spots, including the cities involved in the Stop the Spread testing effort. A daily rate map is in the works but not ready yet.

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P.S. Massachusetts' cases were up a quarter of a percentage point today.