May 27, 2020
May 27, 2020
The world fundamentally changed its approach to health care after the 1918 flu pandemic. One hundred years ago, healthcare was more fragmented than it is now. Most doctors worked for themselves, or were supported by charities or religious institutions, and most people had no access to quality healthcare unless they were quite wealthy. Since ordinary people rarely could afford treatment, they were disproportionately devastated by the disease, both medically and financially.
An important lesson that societies learned from the last pandemic is that it was unreasonable to blame individuals for catching an infectious disease or to deprive them of care. Therefore, in Europe, many countries put in place the first state-run insurance schemes while the United States preferred an employer-based system.
What will be our response to the COVID-19 pandemic? Will it cause us to rethink our own healthcare system? Is it reasonable and fair to make healthcare affordable only to those who are employed at a time when the disease results in massive unemployment? The Supreme Court will hear another Republican challenge to the legality of Obamacare later this year.
The new case total in Alabama today was 382, the fifth highest daily total this month. ADPH revised its statistics for Monday (downward from 664 to 639) and Tuesday (downward from 664 to 593).The level of testing remained level over the last two weeks - 27,853 tests were performed in the week ending today compared to 29,217 for the same period last week. The daily totals for the last 14 days are as follows:
5/14 - 343
5/15 - 313
5/16 - 341
5/17 - 309
5/18 - 300
5/19 - 387
5/20 - 358
5/21 - 403
5/22 - 367
5/23 - 374
5/24 - 348
5/25 - 593
5/26 - 639
5/27 - 382
Montgomery led with 62, followed by. Mobile with 31 and Jefferson with 28.