Despite President Donald Trump’s call to put the economy back to work by Easter, one Johns Hopkins physician says there may have to be “variability” in when states and cities restart their economies.
“The best time to start opening up businesses is when we see that the numbers in an area start to stabilize,” said Dr. Juan Dumois, an infectious diseases physician at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida. “What really may be a practical thing to consider is different recommendations in different areas of the country, depending upon the disease activity in those areas.”
That could mean variability at the state level or local level, as the virus peaks at different times in its steady spread across the country.
In what has become the conventional wisdom of the medical community, Dumois reiterated that a combination of social distancing and testing is still the best option for halting the disease.
“The virus is spreading. It will continue to spread, but if we can slow it, we can try to manage the cases that come into the hospitals so that the hospitals are not overloaded,” he said.
Absent these measures, the doctor said hospitals will inevitably become overwhelmed.
“Eventually, some patients won’t be able to get the care they need,” he added.
But when or if this will happen in a given area is hard to determine as official projections change.
“We’re seeing changes by the week, and even by the day,” Dumois said.
The dating app Bumble has sponsored bills and pushed lawmakers to criminalize the online practice of sending unsolicited nudes or “cyberflashing." Payton Iheme, Bumble's head of public policy for the Americas, joined Cheddar News to discuss why the app was going after the harassing behavior beyond its own platform. "Now, while we went to work internally in the company, and we created something called private detector to automatically blur those images so the user can decide if they want to see them, there's nothing for the rest of the internet," she said. "And so that's why we went to work with these laws."
Constituent service platform Indigov recently raised $25 million in a Series B funding round. Indigov bills itself as a constituent relationship management tool that helps elected officials improve the way they organize, respond to, and engage those they serve. The startup's services are being used by federal, state, and local governments across the country, including the U.S. House of Representatives. Alex Kouts, founder & CEO of Indigov, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Cheddar Politics takes a deeper look at the takeaways from the Georgia primary elections on Tuesday. Georgia Public Broadcasting's local and state politics reporter, Stephen Fowler, joins us to discuss the limits of Trump endorsements and break down what the outcome in each race means.
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Following the mass shooting at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 children and two adults dead, the debate over gun control has been reignited. While studies have shows most Americans agree on some additional regulations, there hasn't been much legislative traction even as gun violence worsens in the country. Brian Lemek, the executive director of Defend The Vote and the former executive director at Brady PAC for gun control, joined Cheddar to discuss reform efforts. "The lawmakers that we have aren't passing these at the federal level," he said. "That's the problem. We have the wrong people in charge."
The crypto industry is still reeling from Terra's recent crash. The company's blockchain was temporarily halted earlier this month after the collapse of its cryptocurrency Luna (LUNA) and its stablecoin TerraUSD (UST), which led to almost $45 billion being wiped from the tokens' market caps within a week. Now, many are left wondering what Terra's struggles mean for the broader crypto market. Reeve Collins, CEO of the NFT platform BLOCKv, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell from Davos 2022 to discuss.
