Exactly! That’s why so much of the national resources for hurricanes go to places like Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Montana and Illinois!
Oh, wait, they don’t? Because we send resources to places where they are needed? Imagine that.
New York believes it has the greatest need because they’re having to bring refrigerated trucks up to the hospital to serve as extra morgues. The bodies are literally piling up. Deaths don’t lie.
The blame is real, and it does feel very personal. NY is in a horrible situation. We need facts, we need help, and we need compassion. There is enough drama in our lives right now, we don’t need more. I am honestly surprised that moderators let it go this far.
A few days ago, I considered walking away from this thread. Instead of that, I went to the user profile of many of the anti-NY and pressed the ignore button. It has been a smooth sailing ever since. It’s again a thread where I get information without feeling under attack for being a New Yorker. I strongly recommend doing just this.
The situation is tough in NY. It will only get worse. Like it or not, it will get worse for everybody, New Yorker or not. A little bit of compassion can go long way.
People may think NY is getting a disproportional share of resources because Gov Cuomo has been in the news so much. He has a great TV presence, and shows great leadership skills, he speaks well, and he has clearly worked hard to get his message out and it is working.
No other governor comes close.
It is probably getting him a disproportionate share of resources, but that doesn’t mean other states aren’t getting a lot of what they need and ask for.
Elections matter. If other states aren’t being properly represented by their leaders, the voters should take note for the next election. And for now, they should be contacting their elected representatives at the state level.
But really, most of the articles excerpted are from NBC, CNN, and the Guardian. I have zero confidence that they are deeply sourced with inside information on what is going on in FEMA meetings or at the state and local level. I’ll see what I can find on my state if anyone cares, but the articles so far look a lot more like scorekeeping than analysis. That is probably the fault of the journalism profession rather than the poster.
I think there is little doubt that New York is by far the most affected by the coronavirus crisis to date in the United States.
I do not think numbers of cases in any given state are particularly relevant in determining where in the curve of the infection it is. Case numbers largely reflect the level of testing being done, rather than underlying infection rates across the broad population of the state.
The numbers of deaths, on the other hand, have to be well correlated with actual infection rates, of course with a lag. On that tally, Florida has seen about 30 deaths total, New York over 500. And Florida has more people. Clearly, New York - despite its high tax infrastructure and plethora of experts - has made an absolute mess of this.
It is not reasonable to excuse New York because of its density and mass transportation in the southern counties. These are exogenous variables that should have been accounted for by New York planners. They are closest to the ground, and failed their people.
One of my brothers works in New York City for a company, deemed an essential business, that has more than 700 employees in India and only a “skeleton crew” in NYC. B said that the lockdown in India has made his work very difficult. (He actually used a different term but I won’t repeat that here.) He has been working at home and that also is difficult; the work is of a type that requires constant communication with NYC colleagues, and having those communications come by Skype (versus called out by someone at the next desk) at about 10 per minute makes it hard to stay focused and get things done.
Not sure I have seen such a post on this thread, but perhaps I missed it. (OTOH, I have seen plenty of the opposite.)
Wow!!! Just Wow!!!
Great example of civil discussion and open mindedness and inclusion and everything that is good here. (NOT)
Cuomo (and diBlasio) have one huge advantage: all of the major news orgs are based in their backyard. So, when either calls a presser, the national press is down the street. When the Governor of Louisiana calls a presser, 'wait, what, you want me to go beyond the Hudson?" 
(I always get a chuckle during the winter when the national news folks all get excited about a 2" snow forecast in NYC: Stormtracker talk for days.)
NYC may be 9th largest city in the world by area, which seems irrelevant. 9th largest by population would be something like Dhaka, Bangladesh, which has over 19,000,000, not a mere 9,000,000.
Cbreeze - it would be more meaningful if you posted your comment not just to me, but also to the person to whom I was responding. The person who accused us of “groupthink.” That would have shown a lack of bias.
Not valid, IMO. All major news agencies have people around the country, around the world, either employees or independent journalists working for them. With technology these days, it’s easy to be anywhere. This thread has included news from around the world including news reported from Louisiana/New Orleans. That’s just how news works these days.
Nevertheless, the recent Gallup poll showing 60% approval now for his handling of the crisis is relevant in determining the slant of this forum. Seriously, do we see 60% approval on here? Even 20% if judging by posts?
Why has this post turned so political? I thought that wasn’t allowed on CC? I really appreciate the CV information but every time I read it’s a political stance, slam, agenda etc. Would the administrators please put a stop to this?
When Tropical Storm Sandy (it was not a hurricane by the time it made landfall) damaged the NY area the nation took care of NY.
Hurricanes and tropical storms are horrific but tend to just impact one area at a time. That’s the problem here - Covid 19 is impacting the entire US. There are only so many ventilators to go around. Until we have real data to understand where the infections and shortfalls are, it would be irresponsible to give most of the scarce resources to only one area. It’s not bashing an area to want real data before making a decision.
I’m on team “science”, too. We need data to make this decision with scarce federal resources. When we get the data, it might point to giving 100% of the resources to NY and I’d support that. But right now, we don’t have accurate data and it would be irresponsible to direct disproportionate federal resources to any area before we have that data.
Test, test, test, test, test. In areas outside NY.
Anthony Fauci addressed @milee30’s question about New York’s numbers in an interview with Trevor Noah.
Noah: “Is New York City really harder hit or is New York’s testing making the numbers spike up and is this something we’re going to see start trending throughout America?”
Fauci: "New York is more hardly hit for sure. The nature of the city, the crowding of the city. The fact that you get the beginning of your outbreak when you get influx from other countries. China was the index country that came in. New York is a travel hub of the country, so clearly we had a lot of cases come in.
By the time they realized what they were dealing with they has already gotten a sucker punch and they really were playing catch-up. They didn’t do anything wrong. They’re not very different except that they’re a big robust city, and because of that they’re getting hit hard."
Article on how much people and the government value a life saved as: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-should-the-government-spend-to-save-a-life/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life suggests that government agencies (EPA, FDA, DOT) use a value of $7.9 to $9.6 million per life saved. That suggests that saving 2 million people from COVID-19 (or something else) could be “worth it” at a cost of about $15.8 to $19.2 trillion (or any amount less than that). For comparison, https://www.bea.gov/news/2020/gross-domestic-product-fourth-quarter-and-year-2019-third-estimate-corporate-profits lists US GDP in fourth quarter 2019 at $21.73 trillion.
That same Wikipedia article also suggests, using a “dialysis standard”, that people tend to value a year of quality life at $50,000 to $129,000, suggesting that those with less remaining life expectancy may have lower value of statistical life. However, the 538 article notes that the time that the government considered reducing the value of statistical life for those over age 70, that was met with considerable backlash.
Hmmmmm, I don’t recall ANYONE back in January calling for an all out travel ban. I guess it’s easy to put all the blame on one person.
The reality is this pandemic was going to come to this country. One way or another, the world is just too connected for any other outcome. No country is as island into itself, even the islands of the world are affected.
A Heart Attack? No, It Was the Coronavirus
Cardiologists are seeing infected patients whose worst symptoms are not respiratory, but cardiac.
The 64-year-old patient arrived at a hospital in Brooklyn with symptoms looking like those seen in patients having a serious heart attack.
An electrocardiogram revealed an ominous heart rhythm. The patient had high blood levels of a protein called troponin, a sign of damaged heart muscle. Doctors rushed to open the patient’s blocked arteries — but found that no arteries were blocked.
The patient was not having a heart attack. The culprit was the coronavirus.
The Brooklyn patient recovered after 12 days in the hospital and is now at home. But there have been reports of similar patients in the United States and abroad, and the cases have raised troubling questions for doctors.
What should doctors do these days when they see patients with apparent heart attacks? Should they first rule out coronavirus infection — or is that a waste of valuable time for the majority of patients who are actually having heart attacks?
Should every coronavirus patient be tested for high blood levels of troponin to see if the virus has attacked the heart?
“I don’t know what the right answer is,” said Dr. Nir Uriel, a cardiologist at Columbia University and Weill Cornell Medicine in New York.
Coronavirus Live Updates: U.S. Cases Top 100,000; Trump Signs $2 Trillion Relief Bill
March 27, 2020
The Brooklyn patient had myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart that has been seen in patients with other viral infections, such as MERS — also caused by a coronavirus — and the H1N1 swine flu.
But the new coronavirus, called SARS-CoV-2, mostly infects the lungs, causing pneumonia in severe cases. Believing it caused respiratory disease, many cardiologists thought the coronavirus was outside their specialty.
“We were thinking lungs, lungs, lungs — with us in a supportive role,” said Dr. John Rumsfeld, chief science and quality officer at the American College of Cardiology. “Then all of a sudden we began to hear about potential direct impact on the heart.”
A report on heart problems among coronavirus patients in Wuhan, China, was published in JAMA Cardiology on Friday.
The study, led by Dr. Zhibing Lu at Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, found that 20 percent of patients hospitalized with Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, had some evidence of heart damage.
Many were not known to have underlying heart disease. But they often had abnormal electrocardiograms, like the patient in Brooklyn, in addition to elevated troponin levels, which sometimes soared to levels seen in patients with heart attacks.
The risk of death was more than four times higher among these patients, compared with patients without heart complications.
It is possible — but not yet established — that myocarditis results from an immune system that lurches out of control while trying to turn back the coronavirus, pumping out such excessive levels of chemicals called cytokines that cause inflammation that they damage the lungs and the heart alike.
The condition, called a cytokine storm, is more serious in older people and in people with underlying chronic diseases, Dr. Solomon said. It is the primary reason for the severe respiratory complications that can lead to death in patients with the coronavirus.
Cytokines also promote blood coagulation and interfere with the body’s clot-busting system, said Dr. Peter Libby, a cardiologist at Harvard Medical School. Blood clots in coronary arteries can block blood flow and cause heart attacks.
Another possibility, Dr. Libby said, is that some coronavirus patients develop heart problems as a consequence of infections in their lungs.
“The lungs are not working, so there is not enough oxygen,” he said. “That increases the risk for arrhythmias.”
At the same time, fever caused by the virus increases the body’s metabolism and the heart’s output of blood. The result is that the patient’s heart must struggle with an increased demand for oxygen but a reduced supply, an imbalance that may lead to heart damage.
But doctors cannot rule out the possibility that the coronavirus directly damages the heart, several experts said.
In Seattle, a patient infected with the virus recently died after experiencing so-called heart block: The electrical signals originating in the top of the organ, which sets the heart’s normal rhythm, were not reaching the bottom of the heart.
When that happens, the heart goes into an emergency mode with so-called escape rhythm, which causes it to beat very slowly. The man had underlying lung disease, which worsened his prognosis.
Dr. April S. Stempien-Otero, a cardiologist at the University of Washington, hopes an autopsy will show whether the virus attacked the man’s heart.
“We thought it was older-person heart block,” she said. “Then all of a sudden Covid raises its head.”
From now on, she said, “we have to think, maybe that is what is going on.”
The issue is that nowhere - other than possibly NY - has had enough tests done to know which area has the greatest need.
True… there are still no community tests in upstate NY. The Capital District and beyond has no idea how much CV is present. Testing keeps people home and allows those who are essential workers to say, “I’ve been exposed by a family member” so they get the paid time off. Otherwise they go to work spreading the virus. The numbers posted for outside of NYC/Westchester are unreliable.
“How about mandating large corporations that get tax breaks that they have to hire and train a segment of the unemployed or /and homeless…”
Most homeless are patients with addiction or psychiatric problems. Kind of hard to “train” them, first you have to cure/treat them.
Now about the “facts”, most journalists have more of less an agenda, so frankly I stoped believing them long time ago. It does not mean I do not take this very seriously, it just means that I did not form a final opinion about who’s right and who’s wrong. Call me a cynical.
Based on previous numbers with similar respiratory viruses, I think we diagnose one in ten infected. Time will tell.