Sunday, August 23, 2020

Day 205: The MDPH's Day Off

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health has taken today off of coronavirus reporting, due to the ongoing data changeover that reduced our Saturday numbers. Hopefully there will be a retrospective of the true weekend numbers on Monday.

Instead of gloating over our perpetually flatlined numbers, PlagueBlog will need to gloat over the state of New York State. The New York Post reports a quarter-mile lines at a food pantry in Queens this weekend. The Buffalo-Niagara Partnership surveyed businesses in Western New York State and found about half of them unable to carry on remotely. About 20% of them reported themselves as "at risk of permanent closure." A full two-thirds having reduced staffing in some way, with over 40% having furloughed or laid off workers entirely.

This is all despite record low numbers of cases and hospitalizations in New York State.

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