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Social Distancing and stay at home orders

By Bill Petros – May 6th, 2020

Will Covid-19 along with social distancing cause a increase in crime?

As more and more people have been staying home, more and more issues have arisen due to stay at home orders from the White House and city Mayors

And State Governors, asking us to stay home to help keep us safe and others as well. But this may have kept us safe from the Virus but not from the toll

Social distancing effects on the Human Psyche.

Domestic violence and violent crimes are on the rise, including -

Depression
Domestic abuse
Due to the Economic impact, Divorce and separations are on the rise.
Suicide cases are increasing in many cities
Drug abuse and Alcoholism is on the rise
Fraud and Grand Larceny
Robberies
Burglary
Motor vehicle theft

In the state of Texas, April has had an increase in aggravated assaults by 35% over March.

It does make sense, in desperate times people will do whatever it takes to put food on the table and to take care of their families, including going from

Legitimate ways of making money to illegal ways of making it. In the recession of 2008, many police agencies reported a rise in all the above crimes.

Many will dispute the connection between unemployment and a rise in crime, but with more than 10 years of data sense out last recession in the US, it is clear

there is a connection between unemployment rates and crime.

We know that social distancing can help reduce some crime, like gang activity and home burglaries, but will increase domestic violence as well as drug and alcohol use

And could increase online hacker activities and the Dark Web’s Black Market operations.

While its true over all crime in the United States from the 1990s to 2020 is down over all, law enforcement and the justice system have been working overtime to

Put a stop to cyber crimes as well as domestic violence, and first degree felonies such as Robbery, Murder, and Rape with heavier penalties and fines and longer

Incarceration times for criminals who chose to do these despicable things. But with more than 20,000,000 people out of work and a stock market that has been in a

Bull- bubble for more then ten years, it was bound to burst. Experts say it will take 6 years for our economy to recover from this. Most Stock brokers believe we were

headed for a market crash even without Covid-19.

Only time will tell and with our cities starting to open back up, but with limited capacities, our new normal is about to get interesting. Restaurants at 50%, movie theaters

Social spacing its movie goers, I speculate it will be hard for these operations to stay afloat in all this. Cutting back overhead will be the first steps for these businesses, if you

can only serve half your customers, you only need half your staff. So whether they are alternating shifts of employees or letting half their staff go, it still equals to less money

and or higher unemployment rates, which in turn will lead to higher crime rates.

Our country is in need of help, and the Federal Government has not really been there for us from the beginning. But now its May and the point of testing is almost moot

At this point. We are starting to open back up the country and with 40 to 50% of infected being A-symptomatic, is it realistic to assume we can really do effective

contact tracing at this point, I feel its almost impossible to do effective tracing. Will it help, sure it will get some cases off the streets and out of our grocery

stores and keep us a little safer. I don’t know about you, but at the time of this writing May 6^th, 2020, I’m not willing to go back to life as normal knowing the

Virus is still out there spreading from person the person, and with no vaccine in our near future I’m taking no chances. What if I was to infect others, what if I’m

a carrier and do not know it? And lets be realistic, at this point the only way I’m going to get tested is if I was to get very sick and go to the hospital. I’m sure

a lot of you also feel the same way! What if I was to infect my loved ones, and God forbid, what if someone was to pass away, its way to risky to take the chance for me.

Let’s people lets talk about the numbers -

As of May 5th, 2020 total case in the U.S: ( Info Via the CDC )

Total known infected – 1,171,510 with (*19,138 new cases)

Total Known Deaths -- 68,279 with (*823 New Deaths)

(* Compared to yesterday’s data )

Numbers by State: ( hardest hit – in order of most cases to least cases )

( All percentages are rounded to nearest 2 decimal places. They are calculated from

Known infected cases and known number of deaths )

Numbers from CDC website as of the date posted – May 5th, 2020

Ref link= https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/cases-in-us.html

All States below have reported more then 25,000 cases

New York

Cases = 313,836

Deaths = 24,717

Death rate per infected case = 7.8%

New Jersey

Cases = 128,269

Deaths = 7,910

Death rate per infected case = 6.1%

Massachusetts

Cases = 69,087

Deaths = 4,090

Death rate per infected case = 5.9%

Illinois

Cases = 63,840

Deaths = 2,662

Death rate per infected case = 4.1%

California

Cases = 54,937

Deaths = 2,254

Death rate per infected case = 4.1%

Pennsylvania

Cases = 50,092

Deaths = 2,458

Death rate per infected case = 4.9%

Michigan

Cases = 43,950

Deaths = 4,135

Death rate per infected case = 9.4%

Florida

Cases = 36,897

Deaths = 1,399

Death rate per infected case = 3.7%

Texas

Cases = 32,332

Deaths = 884

Death rate per infected case = 2.7%

Connecticut

Cases = 29,973

Deaths = 2,556

Death rate per infected case = 8.5%

Louisiana

Cases = 29,746

Deaths = 2,064

Death rate per infected case = 6.9%

Georgia

Cases = 29,196

Deaths = 1,211

Death rate per infected case = 4.1%

Maryland

Cases = 27,177

Deaths = 1,390

Death rate per infected case = 5.1%

These numbers are the reported number by the CDC ( Centers For Disease Control ) and are acquired on the federal level from Johns Hopkins University – Maryland.

These numbers are subject to change and only reflect KNOWN cases, If many people are A symptomatic running around out there, The number and percentages would

Reflect those averages and percentages of actual numbers of infected.

Are the number of reported deaths accurate?

Andare Hospitals getting paid more when patients have Covid-19 listed on their Paperwork

A Minnesota Senator Scott Jenson reported a physician from Minnesota, was interviewed by Laura Ingraham on April 8 on Fox News and claimed hospitals make more money if patients on Medicare are listed as having COVID-19, and can get up to three times the money if they need to be put on a ventilator.

This claim was first published April 9 by The Spectator, This is a conservative news group publication. Then on April 10th, 2020 another news agency -WorldNetDaily shared it and, according to Snopes, a related article was shared on social media around mid-April.

Then on April 15th Jensen wrote on his personal Facebook page , asking, "How can anyone not believe that increasing the number of COVID-19 deaths may create an avenue for states to receive a larger portion of federal dollars. Already some states are complaining that they are not getting enough of the CARES Act dollars because they are having significantly more proportional COVID-19 deaths."

Then again on April 19, Sen Jenson put out a video on his personal Facebook page saying-

"Hospital administrators might well want to see COVID-19 attached to a discharge summary or a death certificate, Because if it's a straightforward, garden-variety pneumonia that a person is admitted to the hospital for and if they're on Medicare, typically, the diagnosis, related lump payment would be $5,000. But not for COVID-19 pneumonia, then it's $13,000, and if that COVID-19 pneumonia patient need to be put on a ventilator, now the payment goes up to $39,000."

Sen Jensen made it clear in the video that he doesn't think physicians are "gaming the system" so much as other "players," such as hospital administrators, who tend to put pressure on physicians to list all diagnoses, including "probable" COVID-19, on discharge papers or death certificates to get the higher lump sum Medicare payouts allowed under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act . Jensen noted that past practices, did not include probabilities.

Noted that some states, including Minnesota, as well as California, list only laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases while others like specifically, New York, will list cases even presumed ones, which is allowed under the guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as of April and will result in a bigger lump sum payouts from Medicare and insurance companies

Sen Jensen thinks the overall number of infected COVID-19 cases have been undercounted, based on the number and limits of our nations testing capabilities and the fact that there are only limited tests available.

So, as a general rule, the numbers are not accurate and the percentage of deaths per infections are way, way off. For now, all we have are the numbers, but the future will tell just how far off those number really are.

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