Coronavirus: a tale of two states

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Added 4/24/2020.  The Guardian reported that, as of Wednesday, Kentucky had 185 confirmed deaths from COVID-19 and Tennessee had only 161.  We don’t know the full story yet.

Stephanie Jolly of Lexington, Kentucky, created this chart and posted it on her Facebook page, where it quickly became viral.

It shows that Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) acted more quickly on the coronavirus emergency than did Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) and that the disease has not spread as fast in Kentucky as it has in Tennessee.

Added 3/27/2020:  But even though Kentuckians are better off than Tennesseans, thanks to Gov. Beshear’s prompt action, the number of new cases in Kentucky is still doubling every four days or so.

LINKS

Social Distancing to Fight Coronavirus: A Strategy That Is Working and Must Continue by Maura Caslyn, Emily Gee, Thomas Waldrop and Nicole Rapfogel for the Center for American Progress.

Graph comparing Ky. and Tenn. virus responses goes viral by David Mattingly for WAVE3 News in Lexington, Kentucky.

Two states, one Democrat, one Republican – two very different outcomes by Josh Wood for The Guardian.  [Added 4/24/2020]  The writer praises Kentucky, but also says that the higher number of confirmed cases in Tennessee may reflect that state’s larger population and also more testing—presumably in April, since the Jolly graph shows less testing in March.

Oldest mountain chain ‘turned into rubble’

Hat tip to Lambert Strether.

“We took the oldest mountain chain in the world and turned it into rubble.”

Tarence Ray and Tom Sexton, known as The Trillbillies, or the Trillbilly Workers Party, are musicians and activists based in Whitesburg, Kentucky.

They talk about how mountaintop removal, a method of extracting coal in use since strip mining was outlawed about 30 years ago, completely destroys the land and makes it useless for any other purpose.

It has gone on under Democratic and Republican administrations alike, they said.

They said that since the coal industry started using mountaintop removal, coal production has increased 400 percent, but coal industry jobs have continued to decline.

LINKS

Whitesburg-based Trillbilly Workers’s Party podcast takes a left-wing view of Appalachian life by Cheryl Truman for the Lexington (KY) Herald-Leader.

The Trillbilly Workers Party by Lia Russell for Scalawag.  Free Listening on SoundCloud.

Get Real: What liberals like Paul Krugman still don’t understand about rural America by the Trillbillies’ Tarence Ray for The Baffler.