Compare your county (montgomery County, MD) with the counties presented by other

Compare your county (montgomery County, MD) with the counties presented by other classmates. Information about Montgomery County, MD is attached.
Classmate’s post
In Italy, three main
geographical regions were affected by COVID-19, all with differing policy and
ICU-bed capacity (Santacroce, Bottalico, & Charitos, 2020). The Italian
government at the time had a decentralization of its healthcare system, so developing
a nationwide approach on COVID-19 management was difficult from a public health
perspective. This in comparison to the United States, which had national
mandates on masking and isolation policies, as well as vaccination policies for
certain populations. Another factor includes an older distribution of age in
the Italian population compared to the of the US (Negri & Mazzoleni, 2021).
The total cases Italy has had is 17,736,696 with 167,553 deaths, making a
mortality rate of 0.0094. The US, has had a total of 85,935,634 cases with
1,012,577 deaths, making a mortality rate of 0.0117. The current number of
cases in D.C. in the past 28 days is 7,398. The total number of cases in D.C.
is 153,436 with 1,348 deaths (ArcGIS dashboards, 2022). The holidays during colder
months where cultural traditions that I feel may have negatively impacted the
community in terms of COVID-19 numbers. During this time, more individuals were
gathering inside for longer periods of time.
Two
root causes related to the number of COVID-19 deaths in Washington D.C., could
be ‘severe housing problems’ and ‘preventable hospital stays’ (County Health
Rankings & Roadmaps, 2022). Severe housing problems may put someone more at
risk for COVID-19 if their housing situation has more individuals per a square
foot (more risk for exposure), the housing situation may expose someone to
unsafe conditions like lead, or other chemicals which may affect their health,
and inadequate housing increases risk of chronic illness (County Health
Rankings & Roadmaps, 2022). Preventable hospital stays not only potentially
place individuals in risk of acquiring hospital acquired COVID, but also serves
as a healthcare access and quality measure. Patients who present to the
hospital with preventable conditions typically do not have quality access to
healthcare, health education or other health services which puts them at
increased risk for COVID-related death.
Resources:
ArcGIS
dashboards. (n.d.). Retrieved June 15, 2022, from
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
County
Health Rankings & Roadmaps. (2022). Retrieved June 15, 2022, from
https://www.countyhealthrankings.org/app/district-of-columbia/2022/measure/factors/5/description
Negri,
I., & Mazzoleni, M. (2021). Estimation of mortality and severity of the
Covid-19 epidemic in Italy. Modern Cartography Series, 9, 65–78. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-91061-3.00019-3
Santacroce,
L., Bottalico, L., & Charitos, I. A. (2020). The Impact of COVID-19 on
Italy: A Lesson for the Future. The international journal of occupational and environmental
medicine, 11(3), 151–152.
https://doi.org/10.34172/ijoem.2020.1984