Mountain Views News, Combined Edition Saturday, March 14, 2020

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Mountain Views-News Saturday, March 14, 2020 

HOW CANCELED EVENTS AND 
SELF-QUARANTINES SAVE 
LIVES, IN ONE CHART

This is how we all help slow the spread of coronavirus. 
By Eliza Barclay and Dylan Scott

The main uncertainty in the coronavirus outbreak in 
the United States now is how big it will get, and how 
fast. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 
Nancy Messonnier toldreporters on March 9, “many 
people in the US will at some point, either this year or 
next, get exposed to this virus.”

According to infectious disease epidemiologist Marc 
Lipsitch at Harvard, it’s “plausible” that 20 to 60 percent 
of adults will be infected with Covid-19 disease. So 
far, 80 percent of cases globally have been mild, but if 
the case fatality rate is around 1 percent (which several 
experts say it may be), a scenario is possible of tens or 
hundreds of thousands of deaths in the US alone.

Yet the speed at which the outbreak plays out matters 
hugely for its consequences. What epidemiologists fear 
most is the health care system becoming overwhelmed 
by a sudden explosion of illness that requires more people 
to be hospitalized than it can handle. In that scenario, 
more people will die because there won’t be enough 
hospital beds or ventilators to keep them alive.

A disastrous inundation of hospitals can likely be averted 
with protective measures we’re now seeing more of 
— closing schools, canceling mass gatherings, working 
from home, self-quarantine, self-isolation, avoiding 
crowds — to keep the virus from spreading fast.

Epidemiologists call this strategy of preventing a huge 
spike in cases “flattening the curve,” and it looks like 
this:

“Even if you don’t reduce total cases, slowing down 
the rate of an epidemic can be critical,” wrote Carl 
Bergstrom, a biologist at the University of Washington 
in a Twitter thread praising the graphic, which 
was first created by the CDC, adapted by consultant 
Drew Harris, and popularized by the Economist. The 
chart has since gone viral with the help of the hashtag 
#FlattenTheCurve.

Flattening the curve means that all the social distancing 
measures now being deployed in places like Italy and 
South Korea, and on a smaller scale in places like Seattle 
and Santa Clara County, California, aren’t so much 
about preventing illness but rather slowing down the 
rate at which people get sick.

The CDC advises that people over age 60 and people 
with chronic medical conditions — the two groups considered 
most vulnerable to severe pneumonia from Covid-
19 — to “avoid crowds as much as possible.”

“If more of us do that, we will slow the spread of the 
disease,” Emily Landon, an infectious disease specialist 
and hospital epidemiologist at the University of Chicago 
Medicine, told Vox. “That means my mom and your 
mom will have a hospital bed if they need it.”

So even if you’re young and healthy, it’s your job to follow 
social distancing measures to avoid spreading it to 
others, and keep the epidemic in slow motion. “The 
more young and healthy people are sick at the same 
time, the more old people will be sick, and the more 
pressure there will be on the health care system,” Landon 
explained.

Hospitals filled with Covid-19 patients won’t just strain 
to care for those patients — doctors may also have to 
prioritize them over others. “Right now there’s always 
a doctor available when you need one, but that may not 
be the case if we’re not careful,” Landon said.

Staying home helps prevent the US health system from 
being overloaded

At this point, with the virus spreading in America, the 
top priority is making sure the health care system avoids 
being flooded with very sick patients who need ventilators 
and intensive care.

“From a US standpoint, you want to prevent any place 
from becoming the next Wuhan,” said Tom Frieden, 
who led the CDC under President Barack Obama. 
“What that means is even if we’re not able to prevent 
widespread transmission, we want to prevent explosive 
transmission and anything that overwhelms the health 
care system.”

Remember, America’s hospitals and doctors are already 
dealing with their usual caseloads during a pretty bad 
flu season. Now they have to be ready to handle any Covid-
19 patients who come their way.

There are serious concerns about the US system’s capacity 
to handle a severe outbreak. Covid-19 is a respiratory 
illness and in its most serious stages can require 
patients with pneumonia to be put on a ventilator. But 
there might not be enough ventilators to meet that need 
if the outbreak becomes too widespread.

The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security reported 
in 2018 that, according to US government estimates, 
about 65,000 people in the United States would require 
ventilation in an outbreak similar to the flu pandemics 
of 1957-1958 (which killed 116,000 people in the US) 
and 1968 (which killed 100,000 Americans).

The maximum number of ventilators that could be 
put in the field in the United States is about 160,000. 
So under those scenarios, there would theoretically be 
enough capacity to meet 
the need.

But if the coronavirus 
outbreak gets worse, we 
could quickly run out. In 
a situation more similar 
to the Spanish flu pandemic 
(675,000 dead in 
the US), about 742,500 
people in the United 
States would require 
ventilation, according to 
government estimates. 
We don’t have that many.

The health system is 
much more than ventilators, 
of course, and the 
concerns about capacity 
apply to the rest of it, too. 
As HuffPost’s Jonathan Cohn reported, US hospitals 
have about 45,000 beds in their intensive care units. In a 
moderate outbreak, about 200,000 patients may need to 
be put in the ICU, but under a more severe outbreak, it 
could be nearly 3 million.

And while all 3 million of them would likely not need 
treatment at the same time, we again need to account 
for the ICU patients hospitals already had before coronavirus 
arrived, as Cohn noted:

On the one hand, those are total numbers, for the duration 
of the epidemic. Even under the most dire scenario, 
it’s unlikely that 2.9 million people would need 
ICU beds all at once. On the other hand, ICU beds in 
the U.S. are already pretty full, thanks to the normal 
crush of patients with influenza and other major medical 
problems.

As a result, hospitals are routinely at capacity, forcing 
backups of patients “boarding” in emergency departments 
for hours or even days, waiting on the beds there 
until inpatient slots become available. And that’s before 
any influx from COVID-19.

Hospitals are already doing what they can — rationing 
surgical masks, preparing to stand up temporary facilities, 
etc. — and they will take more extreme measures if 
they can’t handle all the people with Covid-19 plus their 
more routine patients.

But one thing people can do to help is stay home 
if they are feeling unwell and especially if they received 
a formal Covid-19 diagnosis and advice to 
self-isolate. That way, the US health care system 
can focus on the patients who really need it during 
this outbreak.

WALKING SIERRA MADRE - The Social Side 

 by Deanne Davis

“St. Patrick’s Day is an enchanted time – a day to begin transforming winter’s dreams into summer’s 
magic.” Adrienne Cook

“A good friend is like a four-leaf clover – hard to find and lucky to have.”

“May your troubles be less, and your blessing be more. And nothing but happiness, come through your 
door.” An Irish Blessing

St. Patrick’s Day is next Tuesday and, speaking of Patrick, he had a pretty tough time, captured by 
Irish pirates at age 16, brought to Ireland, enslaved for six years working as a shepherd in County 
Antrim, heard a voice at age 22 telling him to go home, ran away to port, set sail for Britain, shared 
his new faith with fellow shipmates, had a vision to go back to the place where he had been held 
captive and minister to the people. After various adventures, now in his early twenties, he returned 
to his family in Britain where he continued to study Christianity and recounted a vision he had a 
few years after returning home:

“I saw a man coming, as it were from Ireland. His name was Victoricus, and he carried many letters, 
and he gave me one of them. I read the heading: “The Voice of the Irish”. As I began the letter, I 
imagined in that moment that I heard the voice of those very people who were near the wood of 
Foclut, which is beside the western sea—and they cried out, as with one voice: “We appeal to you, 
holy servant boy, to come and walk among us.” 

Needless to say, he felt a definite call to return to Ireland where his impact was vast: 100,000 baptisms, 
300 new churches, countless priests and nuns. But he was also beaten repeatedly, chained, faced 
execution… sounds a little like the Apostle Paul’s testimony.

“And he watched over me before I knew Him and before I learned sense 

or even distinguished between good and evil.”

There will be parades all over the world, everyone you see will be decked out in green, green beer will 
be readily available and more arrests than any other day of the year for...shall we call it…impaired 
driving?

St. Patrick’s Day brings to mind some lovely people John and I knew back in the days when he was 
hosting a radio program each Saturday morning from 8 a.m. to noon on KCBH-FM, which has been 
a number of other stations since then, currently KYSR-FM. They were the Galligan Family, who 
traveled the world singing Gaelic folk music. Jim Galligan, who was very tall and cadaverously thin, 
was married to a lovely petite lady, Paulina. Jim sent us a loaf of Irish soda bread which he said “Was 
made this way in County Armagh by Grandma Galligan many years ago.” This bread was delicious 
and I’m going to make some as soon as I finish writing this edition of Walking Sierra Madre…The 
Social Side.

1. Put 3 cups of flour in a bowl with 1 TB of baking powder, 1 tsp. baking soda, 1 tsp. salt.

2. Rub in 4 TB. soft butter, 1 TB of caraway seeds, 1 cup of currants, 1 cup of dark raisins, 1 cup of 
golden raisins.

3. Mix!

4. Add . cup of sugar, 1 beaten egg and 2 cups of buttermilk 

(Now, very few of us have buttermilk lounging around in our fridge so to continue with your Irish 
soda bread, pour 2 TB of white vinegar in your measuring cup and add enough milk to make 2 cups. 
Pour yourself a cup of coffee and read the Calendar section of the paper or go make your bed and by 
the time you finish, you’ll have buttermilk. Cool, huh!)

5. Pour in greased iron skillet or loaf pan. 

6. Bake 10 minutes at 400 degrees and then 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

7. Test center with a toothpick to see if it’s done, let it rest for 10 minutes, cut yourself a slice, butter 
it, and enjoy. Irish Soda Bread also makes delicious French toast.

Corned beef and cabbage is a huge favorite on St. Patrick’s Day and I expect if you look around a little, 
you’ll encounter someplace that will serve you a dish of same. I, personally, will not be searching 
hard for it.

My advice is to avoid green beer and make yourself some authentic Irish soda bread. And, just in case 
somebody wants to play a little Irish Trivia with you here are a few tidbits they might not know: C. 
S. Lewis was from Ireland, as were James Joyce, George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Jonathan Swift 
and Bram Stoker. Now there’s a mixed bag if I ever saw one! 

“May your blessings outnumber the shamrocks that grow, and may trouble avoid you wherever you 
go.”

My book page: Amazon.com: Deanne Davis – check out

“The Crown” -a great Easter story.

“Sunrises and Sunflowers Speak Hope” 

Is available on Amazon.com as are all the

Emma Gainsworth adventures, including:

“Emma’s Etouffee Café” a new Kindle story by me!

Here’s the link so you can take a look:

https://fave.co/2PItO4d

 


4TH OF JULY GRAND MARSHAL NOMINATIONS

The Volunteer Sierra Madre 
4th of July Committee is 
seeking nominations for 
the 2020 4th of July Parade 
Grand Marshal. The Parade 
will be held as always the 
morning of July 4th. 

Parade Grand Marshal Nominees should 
embody the spirit of Sierra Madre, be an 
active volunteer in any of the local nonprofit 
organizations or in some way contributed to the 
betterment of Sierra Madre. Nominees may be 
an individual or volunteers or an organization. 

Nominations must be submitted in writing 
by Thursday, April 30th and should be 
sent to the 4th of July Committee, PO Box 
1073 Sierra Madre CA 91025 or emailed to 
4thofjulysierramadre@gmail.com. 
Nominations should be no more than 1 page 
but at least a paragraph explaining why the 
honor should be given including contributions 
to the Sierra Madre community. 

Previous Grand Marshals have included 2019 
Bud Switzer, 2018 Steve Heydorff, 2017 Derek 
Podrebarac, 2016 Pete Siberell and Hometown 
Hero Kris Lowe, 2015 Clem and Nina Bartolai, 
2014 Pat & DeAlcorn & Hometown Heroes 
Sierra Madre Search and Rescue, 2013 VFW 
Post 3208 & Hometown Hero Mama Pete; 2012 
Nel and Bob Soltz (Wistaria Vine owners); 2011 
Gayle Bluemel & Hometown Hero John Shear; 
2010 Lew Wantanabe; 2009 Midge Morash; 
2008 Sierra Madre Fire Department; 2007 Ward 
Family (E. Waldo Ward & Sons); 2006 Judy 
Webb Martin & Toni Buckner & Hometown 
Hero Barbara Wamboldt; 2005 Police Chief 
Wayne Bailey; 2004 Doug Berkshire; 2003 
John Grijalva; 2002 Bob Quamstrom; 2001 Ty 
Gaffney; 2000 Dr. Bill White; and 1999 Jim & 
Barbara Heasley. 

This All-American friends and family event 
is made possible through the wonderful 
contribution of donors and sponsors. If 
you’d like to help please visit http://www.
sierramadrefourthofjuly.com/ or follow 
us on Facebook http://www.facebook.
com/4thofJulyInfo 


POSTPONED


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