We could stop the pandemic by July 4 if the government took these steps

[Mikey 16,575]

On 5/22/2020 at 6:16 PM, alexava said:

Negative! 23 hours. 

You didn't also get the antibody test? We are planning on going next week, hoping we both test positive for the antibodies. We're thinking there is a good possibility that the minor discomfort we each experienced for a few days back in mid-March was our bout with the bug. The routine in this part of Alabama is to get both the nasal and blood tests at the same time. It's free, all you have to do is call from the parking lot. You don't have to be sick or think you were exposed.

[creed 1,635]

3 hours ago, alexava said:

The clinic I went to said you must either have symptoms or been exposed 5-14 days before. Of course they have to trust your honesty on exposure. 

Interesting. I was tested at the health department and they asked me if I had symptoms, which I didn't, and got tested without issue. I will say this if all testing is via the drive-thru method it will take years before everyone could be tested. Also, if the vaccine is given via druve-thru then it will take a lot of time to get everyone vaccinated. The CDC needs to be the planning delivery method now.

[wdefromtx 3,159]

1 hour ago, creed said:

Interesting. I was tested at the health department and they asked me if I had symptoms, which I didn't, and got tested without issue. I will say this if all testing is via the drive-thru method it will take years before everyone could be tested. Also, if the vaccine is given via druve-thru then it will take a lot of time to get everyone vaccinated. The CDC needs to be the planning delivery method now.

Hire Chick-Fil-a to run the drive thrus. 

[Mikey 16,575]

About that vaccine: We have a flu vaccine and 45 to 65 million Americans still die from the flu every year. Having a vaccine can help but apparently it's not going to totally stop anything.

PS: Yes, I get a flu shot every October. I caught the flu about 12 years ago, haven't missed an annual shot since and I won't miss one if I can help it.

[alexava 6,973]

6 hours ago, creed said:

Interesting. I was tested at the health department and they asked me if I had symptoms, which I didn't, and got tested without issue. I will say this if all testing is via the drive-thru method it will take years before everyone could be tested. Also, if the vaccine is given via druve-thru then it will take a lot of time to get everyone vaccinated. The CDC needs to be the planning delivery method now.

Several clinics in this area won’t test you unless you have symptoms. 

[alexava 6,973]

8 hours ago, Mikey said:

You didn't also get the antibody test? We are planning on going next week, hoping we both test positive for the antibodies. We're thinking there is a good possibility that the minor discomfort we each experienced for a few days back in mid-March was our bout with the bug. The routine in this part of Alabama is to get both the nasal and blood tests at the same time. It's free, all you have to do is call from the parking lot. You don't have to be sick or think you were exposed.

I didn’t think anything about an antibody test. I don’t know how available they are. 

[homersapien 11,362]

4 hours ago, Mikey said:

About that vaccine: We have a flu vaccine and 45 to 65 million Americans still die from the flu every year. Having a vaccine can help but apparently it's not going to totally stop anything.

PS: Yes, I get a flu shot every October. I caught the flu about 12 years ago, haven't missed an annual shot since and I won't miss one if I can help it.

All I want from a covid-19 vaccine is to keep me off a ventilator.

I also always get a flu shot for very similar reasons as you.  Even so, I acquired a case of the flu last February but with fairly mild systems.  (I was surprised when I tested for the flu as I thought I had some bronchitis.)

Even if my flu shot only helped keep it mild, it was very much worth it.

[Mikey 16,575]

6 hours ago, alexava said:

I didn’t think anything about an antibody test. I don’t know how available they are. 

Apparently they are as available as the nasal test in these parts. I thought it was automatic that they tested for both at the same time. That's what they are doing at the testing places in East Alabama.

[McLoofus 35,182]

Um, 34,200 Americans died from the flu last year. It was 61,000 the year before that. That was the most since 2010. One year there were 12,000. And who knows how many of those had flu shots. 

As for what test you can get and where and under what conditions, a nationally-coordinated response and reliable information from a central, trustworthy authority sure would be nice. 

 

[homersapien 11,362]

Trump’s war on reality just got a lot more dangerous

Coronavirus deaths in the United States are rapidly closing in on 100,000. The economic depression is stretching out ahead of us as far as the eye can see. Joe Biden is holding a steady lead in polls.

So President Trump has decided he has only one real chance at reelection: to bet mostly on his magical ability to create the illusion that we’re rapidly returning to normalcy, rather than taking the difficult concrete steps that would make that more likely to happen.

The signs of this are everywhere: in a new federal testing blueprint that largely casts responsibility on the states. In Trump’s new rage-tweets at the North Carolina governor over whether a full convention will be held under coronavirus conditions. And in demands for liability protections for companies so sickened workers can’t sue.

All these things, in one way or another, show that Trump’s war on reality has veered into a new place. Trump is responding to our most dire public health and economic crises in modern times with a concerted, far-reaching effort to concoct the mirage that we’re racing past both.

A deceptive strategy

First, the testing blueprint. The administration just released to Congress a “plan” for testing, in keeping with a requirement in a recently passed rescue package.

The plan does contain some good news: The feds say they’ll distribute to states 100 million swabs for testing, along with tubes for transporting tests.

But overall, the plan is quite deceptive and insufficient. It largely transfers responsibility to states to implement their own testing and contact-tracing plans. But as public health experts point out, it does not include a massive federal mobilization to redirect supply chains to enable states to do that successfully.

“You can’t leave it up to the states to do it for themselves,” one expert told the New York Times. “This is not the Hunger Games.”

Remember, a large federal mobilization of supply chains — via full deployment of the Defense Production Act — is something experts and many states have urged for months.

Meanwhile, experts also dispute the new strategy’s claim that 300,000 tests per day are enough to mitigate spread. We’re currently at around 400,000 per day, but even that’s far short.

If we sufficiently tested all people admitted to hospitals and all residents of nursing homes and their workers — and workers at meatpacking plants, where new spread is erupting — we would already likely far outpace those numbers.

Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, told me the suggestion that we have enough testing “endangers people’s lives.”

“We’re not close,” Konyndyk told me. “A big part of the reason we’re not close is that rather than trying to keep scaling up testing and personal protective equipment, the administration keeps claiming we already have enough.”

The bottom line is that this document attempts to create the impression that the coronavirus is largely under control — even though it isn’t — without the government undertaking the full range of steps necessary to make that actually happen.

The crucial point here is that far more robust testing and tracing is required to accomplish what Trump himself says he wants to accomplish — a return to economic normalcy — because people will feel far more safe about resuming activity.

But Trump won’t do this. Among other things, it would expose those efforts to scrutiny and accountability to new benchmarks.

So creating the illusion of a return to normalcy is the go-to plan.

Nothing but illusions

On another front, Trump is threatening to pull the GOP convention out of North Carolina, because Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper has yet to guarantee it can proceed at fully packed capacity. But as the governor’s office responded, this decision will be made in keeping with what state health officials recommend.

Note that Trump is explicitly demanding that state officials prioritize his reelection needs — he views massive crowds as central to energizing base turnout — over the health of their own constituents. Here again, what matters most is marshaling the appearance of returning to normalcy, even if health officials conclude it will imperil lives.

On a third front, Trump and Republicans have been demanding protections for companies to reopen without fear of lawsuits from sickened workers. This may be a condition for GOP support for the next rescue package.

In a new piece, political theorist Will Wilkinson gets to the depraved core of this idea: Trump and Republicans are implicitly conceding that returning to work now actually does put workers in great danger — hence the need for protections.

But they are proceeding anyway. As Wilkinson notes, these protections for companies — when combined with financial aid to people that’s insufficient and puts them in desperate straits — will have the effect of coercing untold numbers to go back to work despite these dangers.

If some of them do, Wilkinson notes, it will help “conjure the illusion of a successfully managed return to normality well before the election in November.”

What makes this even more depraved, however, is that this is the Trump/GOP substitute for taking steps that would enable workers to actually return to work safely in genuinely normalizing conditions. Just as with Trump’s new testing “strategy,” this requires far more robust testing than Trump is willing to marshal.

In so many ways, Trump is prioritizing the weaving of an illusory return to normalcy over taking steps within his power to make that actually happen. That’s actively dangerous. It could lead to substantially more lost lives.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/26/trumps-war-reality-just-got-lot-more-dangerous/

 

[autigeremt 6,598]

On 5/26/2020 at 7:17 AM, McLoofus said:

Um, 34,200 Americans died from the flu last year. It was 61,000 the year before that. That was the most since 2010. One year there were 12,000. And who knows how many of those had flu shots. 

As for what test you can get and where and under what conditions, a nationally-coordinated response and reliable information from a central, trustworthy authority sure would be nice. 

 

It would be.....it's been a very long time. 

[SocialCircle 570]

On 5/26/2020 at 1:32 PM, homersapien said:

Trump’s war on reality just got a lot more dangerous

Coronavirus deaths in the United States are rapidly closing in on 100,000. The economic depression is stretching out ahead of us as far as the eye can see. Joe Biden is holding a steady lead in polls.

So President Trump has decided he has only one real chance at reelection: to bet mostly on his magical ability to create the illusion that we’re rapidly returning to normalcy, rather than taking the difficult concrete steps that would make that more likely to happen.

The signs of this are everywhere: in a new federal testing blueprint that largely casts responsibility on the states. In Trump’s new rage-tweets at the North Carolina governor over whether a full convention will be held under coronavirus conditions. And in demands for liability protections for companies so sickened workers can’t sue.

All these things, in one way or another, show that Trump’s war on reality has veered into a new place. Trump is responding to our most dire public health and economic crises in modern times with a concerted, far-reaching effort to concoct the mirage that we’re racing past both.

A deceptive strategy

First, the testing blueprint. The administration just released to Congress a “plan” for testing, in keeping with a requirement in a recently passed rescue package.

The plan does contain some good news: The feds say they’ll distribute to states 100 million swabs for testing, along with tubes for transporting tests.

But overall, the plan is quite deceptive and insufficient. It largely transfers responsibility to states to implement their own testing and contact-tracing plans. But as public health experts point out, it does not include a massive federal mobilization to redirect supply chains to enable states to do that successfully.

“You can’t leave it up to the states to do it for themselves,” one expert told the New York Times. “This is not the Hunger Games.”

Remember, a large federal mobilization of supply chains — via full deployment of the Defense Production Act — is something experts and many states have urged for months.

Meanwhile, experts also dispute the new strategy’s claim that 300,000 tests per day are enough to mitigate spread. We’re currently at around 400,000 per day, but even that’s far short.

If we sufficiently tested all people admitted to hospitals and all residents of nursing homes and their workers — and workers at meatpacking plants, where new spread is erupting — we would already likely far outpace those numbers.

Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, told me the suggestion that we have enough testing “endangers people’s lives.”

“We’re not close,” Konyndyk told me. “A big part of the reason we’re not close is that rather than trying to keep scaling up testing and personal protective equipment, the administration keeps claiming we already have enough.”

The bottom line is that this document attempts to create the impression that the coronavirus is largely under control — even though it isn’t — without the government undertaking the full range of steps necessary to make that actually happen.

The crucial point here is that far more robust testing and tracing is required to accomplish what Trump himself says he wants to accomplish — a return to economic normalcy — because people will feel far more safe about resuming activity.

But Trump won’t do this. Among other things, it would expose those efforts to scrutiny and accountability to new benchmarks.

So creating the illusion of a return to normalcy is the go-to plan.

Nothing but illusions

On another front, Trump is threatening to pull the GOP convention out of North Carolina, because Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper has yet to guarantee it can proceed at fully packed capacity. But as the governor’s office responded, this decision will be made in keeping with what state health officials recommend.

Note that Trump is explicitly demanding that state officials prioritize his reelection needs — he views massive crowds as central to energizing base turnout — over the health of their own constituents. Here again, what matters most is marshaling the appearance of returning to normalcy, even if health officials conclude it will imperil lives.

On a third front, Trump and Republicans have been demanding protections for companies to reopen without fear of lawsuits from sickened workers. This may be a condition for GOP support for the next rescue package.

In a new piece, political theorist Will Wilkinson gets to the depraved core of this idea: Trump and Republicans are implicitly conceding that returning to work now actually does put workers in great danger — hence the need for protections.

But they are proceeding anyway. As Wilkinson notes, these protections for companies — when combined with financial aid to people that’s insufficient and puts them in desperate straits — will have the effect of coercing untold numbers to go back to work despite these dangers.

If some of them do, Wilkinson notes, it will help “conjure the illusion of a successfully managed return to normality well before the election in November.”

What makes this even more depraved, however, is that this is the Trump/GOP substitute for taking steps that would enable workers to actually return to work safely in genuinely normalizing conditions. Just as with Trump’s new testing “strategy,” this requires far more robust testing than Trump is willing to marshal.

In so many ways, Trump is prioritizing the weaving of an illusory return to normalcy over taking steps within his power to make that actually happen. That’s actively dangerous. It could lead to substantially more lost lives.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/26/trumps-war-reality-just-got-lot-more-dangerous/

 

The elderly and/or those with underlying medical conditions would put themselves at risk of dying by attending a crowded convention if it occurred today. All others could attend with very little risk of dying. 

[homersapien 11,362]

https://www.vox.com/2020/5/28/21270939/will-schools-reopen-in-the-fall-coronavirus

The US should prioritize reopening schools, not salons and restaurants

America can (and should) save small businesses with money, but schools are what teach kids to read.

[wdefromtx 3,159]

It’s summer time now and schools are planning on reopening in the fall. Business is resuming for the most part here. 

[alexava 6,973]

1 hour ago, wdefromtx said:

It’s summer time now and schools are planning on reopening in the fall. Business is resuming for the most part here. 

We have to. Testing is where it needs to be, or getting there. We still need to use certain common sense precautions. We need to trace infections. People are still going to get sick. People are still going to die. But the curve was flattened. In the fall and winter there will probably be another surge. We’ll just have to deal with it. 

[bigbird 60,480]

On 5/28/2020 at 12:18 PM, wdefromtx said:

It’s summer time now and schools are planning on reopening in the fall. Business is resuming for the most part here. 

Schools are scrambling to figure out how. The CDC guidelines are almost impossible to implement for schools.

[wdefromtx 3,159]

2 hours ago, bigbird said:

Schools are scrambling to figure out how. The CDC guidelines are almost impossible to implement for schools.

I know the district my wife teaches in is looking at some type of alternating campus based and home virtual based teaching. But as of now all they have said is they will be back, they just don’t know how yet. 

[bigbird 60,480]

Just now, wdefromtx said:

I know the district my wife teaches in is looking at some type of alternating campus based and home virtual based teaching. But as of now all they have said is they will be back, they just don’t know how yet. 

Yeah, they've mentioned things like lunches in the classroom, students having the same teacher all day, students staying in the same class and teachers rotating, and classes half full (require more teachers and unavailable space).

[McLoofus 35,182]

Y'all stay safe in Texas. I know rising case counts can be attributed to expanded testing, but I don't know how much actual hospitalizations can be.

Quote

Texas Department of State Health Services figures show 1,935 people were admitted as hospital patients for coronavirus-related treatment. That is up from a previous record of 1,888 on May 5.

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/06/08/872660425/texas-reports-record-breaking-covid-19-hospitalizations-as-state-reopens?utm_term=nprnews&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=npr&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR0lNb27mdZd13wMkfuN80Pf8YAeRoTquaxXIX_WROA8hYEH6E4JvLwo6Yg

[wdefromtx 3,159]

12 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

Y'all stay safe in Texas. I know rising case counts can be attributed to expanded testing, but I don't know how much actual hospitalizations can be.

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/06/08/872660425/texas-reports-record-breaking-covid-19-hospitalizations-as-state-reopens?utm_term=nprnews&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=npr&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR0lNb27mdZd13wMkfuN80Pf8YAeRoTquaxXIX_WROA8hYEH6E4JvLwo6Yg

This is the exact article I mentioned yesterday. The headline is really sensationalizing it for clicks. The number of cases has remained pretty steady since the beginning of May. 

[wdefromtx 3,159]

I say give it another month and see how things look after places have gone to 50% for awhile.

[homersapien 11,362]

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/as-coronavirus-rises-in-alabama-experts-worry-over-lack-of-guardrails-in-reopening

As coronavirus rises in Alabama, experts worry over lack of ‘guardrails’ in reopening

[toddc 13,194]

Where I live in Alabama most people in church, restaurants, stores, etc. are using social distancing, lower capacity, and hand sanitizer everywhere. There are plenty of guardrails but whether or not some areas are abiding by them may be a different issue!

[Texan4Auburn 1,626]

On 6/10/2020 at 2:05 PM, McLoofus said:

Y'all stay safe in Texas. I know rising case counts can be attributed to expanded testing, but I don't know how much actual hospitalizations can be.

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/06/08/872660425/texas-reports-record-breaking-covid-19-hospitalizations-as-state-reopens?utm_term=nprnews&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=npr&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR0lNb27mdZd13wMkfuN80Pf8YAeRoTquaxXIX_WROA8hYEH6E4JvLwo6Yg

I've seen double digit admits for Covid+ my last 3 days at work and I'm not even back to full shifts yet. Fortunately still getting pandemic for the missing hours.

[McLoofus 35,182]

Predictably, UAB is reporting record high hospitalizations:

Quote

Birmingham saw an all-time high in coronavirus patients this week, as the University of Alabama at Birmingham is now treating 68. The previous peak was 63 more than two months ago.

“It’s a real increase in cases that we’re finding,” said Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, director of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, during a public update on Monday afternoon. “People ask about a second wave, and I’ve been saying we never stopped having a first wave.”

UAB’s number of COVID patients has hovered between 35 and 55 for most of the last two months, before rising again in recent days. About half of UAB’s covid patients are on ventilators, said Dr. Sarah Nafziger, co-director of the UAB Hospital Emergency Management committee.

As of today, UAB Hospital has 68 COVID-positive patients, and has seen a steady increase during the last week. UAB medical experts continue to urge the public to wear a mask and practice social distancing to slow the spread of infection.

Experts on Monday said they are concerned with rising coronavirus rates throughout the state coming about two weeks after Alabama reopened its economy.

“I think that we now have just widespread sustained community spread,” said Marrazzo of the number of positive cases around the state. “There’s so much infection out there, you could go anywhere and potentially be exposed.”

Yesterday was the first day Alabama had more than 1,000 new cases reported in a single day, and the new average daily case numbers have been steadily rising. About 770 Alabamians have died from COVID-19 since March. “It’s been an unfortunate series of days of record-setting,” said Marrazzo.

The sharp uptick in cases isn’t just due to increased testing, said Marrazzo. In the past two weeks, Alabama has had about 8% of its COVID-19 tests come back as positive. That rate jumps to 13% in the last week. Marrazzo contrasted that with Seattle’s 1.5% positive rate.

In Jefferson County, the positive rate is more than 10% “and that’s the first time we’ve seen it go up that high,” said Jefferson County Health Officer Dr. Mark Wilson. “We’re concerned that several days from now could translate into more hospitalizations.”

Alabama’s rise in cases can be directly linked to the state’s reopening last month and an overall attitude that the worst is over, said Marrazzo.

“The timing of this is pretty perfect,” she said, because it’s been 15 days since the end of May when the state relaxed its rules and reopened large segments of the economy.

“People are mixing more, people are letting their guard down, people aren’t wearing masks and they’re mingling and creating more opportunity” for infection to spread, she said.

“Unfortunately, a lot of people are going out and forgetting that wearing a mask is an essential part of being able to re-enter society. So I would really plead with you, once again, if you’re going to go out, please wear a mask.”

Elsewhere around the state, nearly half of Alabama’s counties posted double-digit coronavirus case growth in the past few days. Montgomery is alarming hospitals and experts, adding more new cases than any other county. In nearby Lee and Chambers Counties, hospitalizations remain flat, but cases have started to rise again.

Marrazzo said hospitalizations “are being drawn very heavily from some of the more rural areas of the state,” said Marrazzo. That is “a huge concern, given that the people who are in the rural areas have a much higher prevalence of some of the more alarming risk factors for mortality and bad outcomes related to COVID-19. So that’s not a very good sign.”

As hospitals work to treat COVID-19 patients, there is now only one FDA-approved antiviral treatment, remdesivir, and it’s in short supply in Alabama.

“We don’t have enough remdesivir to treat everybody who’s in the hospital,” said Marrazzo. “It’s a really challenging situation.”

As for people not wearing masks, Marrazzo said it may be because many still don’t know someone who’s had COVID or has never seen anyone on a ventilator.

Mask-wearing, social distancing and hand-washing are key to reducing infection, she said.

Some activities are relatively low risk, such as a trip to the beach while keeping safe distance from other groups, or attending an outdoor protest where most people are wearing masks and keeping 6 feet apart.

A metric she recommended: “If you are within six feet of someone for more than 15 minutes, that’s when that alarm bell should be going off.”