Worried Californians Call 911 On Neighbors With Cough

Police departments in Southern California were still busy in the past few days because of the citizens’ paranoia. They said that they had been receiving a lot of calls from concerned residents. Most of these residents have complained that they might have a neighbor who’s sick with the dreaded disease.

These people have been calling that their neighbors are coughing—if it is more than usual, the report did not say. According to Fox News, these phone calls grew in frequency as cases arose in Riverside and San Bernardino County. Sgt. Mike Casavan from the Palm Spring Police Department said that they have received these types of calls five times during the past week alone. In neighboring Cathedral City, Police Cmdr. Paul Herrera said that they have received similar calls.

During the earlier part of the week, dispatchers were given instructions to ask each caller about the person’s travels—including if they were coming back from abroad. When the outbreak started, the script was revised to ask whether the person had been in close contact with someone suspected of having COVID-19.

That’s not the only concern of California, however, as economists from UCLA had been looking at this pandemic’s effect on the economy. USA Today reported that this will create a recession in the US, leading to the loss of jobs—as as 2 million people could be jobless when this rolls over.

The Anderson Forecast, which was originally released last week, revised its quarterly estimates to include this period, the first time since it started to measure the economy. The forecast showed 0.4% economic growth during the first quarter, a slowdown of 6.5% during the second quarter, and a further 1.9% drop in the third.

Meanwhile, with millions of movie theaters closing down, Californians could choose to watch “The Hunt,” “The Invisible Man,” and “Emma” from home as early as Friday. There are a lot of things to do from the Web that are being introduced as social distancing is being encouraged.

The police department and city officials are both in agreement that they don’t want a worst-case scenario. This is a scenario where first responders fall prey to infection from a patient, and then become a carrier themselves.