Quickly Noted: It Begins (Continues)

Unfortunately, I can’t strike out the “begins” part of the title, so I paren’ed the replacement text. As everyone knows, today, the WHO finally came around and said that we’re in the throes of a pandemic.

The  big news? Not much. Nothing really changed from yesterday, and not much will be different tomorrow. Sort of anti-climactic, except that we’re in the news again.

Well, now that I think about it, the pandemic level 6 thing really does mean one thing. It means that responding to the pandemic is really a state and local effort now. It’s everywhere, it’s spreading like wildfire, some places are seeing some really bad outcomes, some places aren’t seeing much transmission–but basically, there is nothing the  federal government or international community can do now. Sure, they can release more of the Stockpile, or continue issuing recommendations, but truthfully? This can only be handled by state and local health departments and hospitals now. I think that’s the take-home message from all of today’s press conferences and hoopla.

After you’re all done getting interviewed, get back to work.

Special bonus post from Revere here.