Major cruise lines (including Carnival ones like Holland America and Princess) stopped new departures on March 12. Note that the Zaandam departed March 7.
Just heard that Cuomo is closing down playground.
Unbelievable! Did NY not close down the playground yet? Are they out of their minds? Ours closed down weeks ago when they closed schools. Another example of Cuomo was doing as little as possible of what he can do while making every else do as much as possible for them. No wonder he is popular in NY. I heard Mafia boss is very popular with its members.
But . . . I’ve stayed home for three weeks. Then it’s time to get food for my husband (who works in a medical setting) and me, and my 89-year-old mother. And the “idiot beach goers” stopped by the same supermarket on their way home from the beach. You’re asking me to accept their risk as my own. I socially distanced, but they touched and put back some of the things I bought, used the keypad at checkout, whatever – they can’t hurt me unless I let them?
Are you telling me my skirt’s too short?
According to McKinsey predictions, the apex in NYS will occur at the end of April.
The difference between two scenarios, one with minimal social distancing and one with high compliance is staggering:
110,000 Covid beds vs 75,000 Covid beds
37,000 ventilators vs 25,000 ventilators
We are not talking just numbers. We are talking HUMAN LIVES here. Stay home!!!
Andrew Cuomo
@NYGovCuomo
·
47m
How many people have to die before the people ignoring social distancing get that they have a responsibility?
One person sneezes — another person gets intubated.
We all have to look out for each other.
STAY HOME. SAVE LIVES.
Andrew Cuomo
@NYGovCuomo
·
1h
How bad will this pandemic be?
One of the main variables is how effective social distancing is.
That means YOU can influence the outcome.
Stay Home. Save Lives.
While I appreciated the anti-racism sentiment at the time people were doing the ‘eat in a Chinese restaurant, you aren’t going to get Coronavirus’ campaign, I didn’t agree that doing so was a wise thing and neither did my husband, who is Chinese. We had our son stop eating at the local Chinese place that he liked to go to because of this. That restaurant is near a university with a lot of Chinese nationals as students. Those students travel to China on break and when they are here, they eat at that very restaurant in particular. Compared to eating at other places, that restaurant had a much higher chance to expose a person to the virus early on in this spread than other restaurants around here. We soon after stopped going to all restaurants. I agree with you that the logic wasn’t quite all connecting there, however, the early spread of anti-Asian racism, which continues now, was and is a concern as well and it was important to address it in some way. It was true that not all Asian restaurants would have put people at any more risk than eating elsewhere even though the one near me in my opinion would have at least theoretically. Thankfully Trump finally did address the issue of anti-Asian racism.
As for others who did or didn’t do things, the mainstream press, not including Fox, consistently pointed out Trump’s inaccuracies, the dangers in what he did and didn’t do, etc from at least February to mid-March and some were doing so in January. None of the people such as Pelosi are the current president and none were setting our policy on how we responded. I would treat anyone the same if they did the same things Trump did/didn’t do. His response to this situation has been very poor overall and will result in many deaths that could have been avoided. I’m thankful he is finally seeing the situation more clearly.
It is not true that experts did not call the situation very serious early on. the fact that the WHO didn’t call it a pandemic sooner seems to have been one of semantics and how widely the virus had spread and if they thought the window of opportunity was still open to stop the spread. The WHO consistently warned the world and warned our country in particular many times as the virus spread and we were not doing what was necessary. They said straight out that the US was not doing what was needed and that the window of opportunity was closing but that it wasn’t yet too late multiple times. I will post separately a lot of links that show that the experts in fact were pretty darn united in calling the situation accurately.
The fact that people who Trump himself chose to head the CDC, FDA, NIH, etc who I feel were not qualified for these positions did not do a good job with the response doesn’t not prove that experts didn’t know but that Trump appointed people to key positions who should not have been in those positions.
China reported community transmission pretty early on.
The lack of N95 masks in our national stockpile goes back to 2009!
The national shortage of N95 respirator masks can be traced back to 2009 after the H1N1 swine flu pandemic, when the Obama administration was advised to replenish a national stockpile but did not, according to reports from Bloomberg News and the Los Angeles Times.
The Trump administration is scrambling to replenish a stockpile of protective medical gear for healthcare workers and patients as the coronavirus sweeps across the nation. N95 respirator masks are one of the most needed medical supplies amid the outbreak.
The George W. Bush administration published the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza plan in 2005, which called on the federal government to distribute medical supplies from the Strategic National Stockpile governed by the Health and Human Services Department in the event of an outbreak.
In 2009, the H1N1 outbreak hit the United States, leading to 274,304 hospitalizations, 12,469 deaths, and a depletion of N95 respirator masks.
A federally backed task force and a safety equipment organization both recommended to the Obama administration that the stockpile be replenished with the 100 million masks used after the H1N1 outbreak.
Charles Johnson, president of the International Safety Equipment Association, said that advice was never heeded.
“Our association is unaware of any major effort to restore the stockpile to cover that drawdown,” he said.
HHS Secretary Alex Azar reported last month that only 12 million N95 masks were available in the stockpile, “a tiny fraction of the 3.5 billion masks one of Azar’s deputies later testified the nation’s healthcare system would need,” the Los Angeles Times noted.
Bloomberg News reported similar findings last week, noting, "After the H1N1 influenza outbreak in 2009, which triggered a nationwide shortage of masks and caused a 2- to 3-year backlog [of] orders for the N95 variety, the stockpile distributed about three-quarters of its inventory and didn’t build back the supply.”
Bloomberg reported that the Trump administration had asked construction companies to "donate their inventory of N95 masks to your local hospital and forgo additional orders of those industrial masks” and the Defense Department would provide 5 million N95 masks and 2,000 ventilators to help bridge the gap.
Not if you work in health care. Or law enforcement. Or food services. Or…
FIL (in 70’s) is a customs agent at JFK international terminal and came down with a high fever two days ago. Waiting for CV test results…fingers crossed…
Unfortunately, they may even you yourself don’t catch the virus. Imagine that you need to go to the hospital for a non Covid related medical emergency in the middle of the crises. You may suffer not because you yourself have covid but because you may not be able to access the medical resources you desperately need.
@socaldad2002 - I am not only thinking about myself. I used the word “our” - meaning all fellow citizens. The science of this is clear - we are in this together.
That’s good to hear. Would you mind sharing the general area of Florida where you are seeing this? There is another Floridian poster on this thread who seems very cavalier about the whole situation and constantly talks about how he doesn’t see much social distancing in his area. Nice to hear there are Floridians who take this seriously.
”Supermarket chain Kroger announces $2 “hero bonus” for staff members working during epidemic“
Albertsons Corp. (Albertsons, Safeway, Jewel and some others) is doing the same. Announced a couple of weeks ago.
$2? I hope that means $2/hr.
I agree we are in this together, but if we are diligent in hygiene, this virus really can’t hurt us individually. For example, one of these idiots goes into the local supermarket and leaves the virus on a shopping cart, even if you and I touch the cart, if we wash our hands and don’t touch our face, it’s highly unlikely the virus will have spread to us.
The video that someone posted with David Price MD (Weill Cornell Medicine) was enlightening to me. The message, don’t panic and be in control of your own health and safety by practicing diligent hygiene and social distancing and you will be safe.
Considering that previous travel bans or attempts had the strong stench of xenophobia, it is not surprising that many people would think that a new travel ban was mainly motivated by similar reasons.
Ack, can it be true that Abbot’s Executive Order allowing church services supersedes stricter local ordinances??
Looks like it’s true. From the Executive Order: “This executive order shall supersede any conflicting order issued by local officials in
response to the COVD-19 disaster, but only to the extent that such a local order restricts essential services allowed by this executive order or allows gatherings prohibited by this executive order. I hereby suspend Sections 418.1015(b) and 418.108 of the Texas Government Code, Chapter 81, Subchapter E of the Texas Health and Safety Code, and any other relevant statutes, to the extent necessary to ensure that local officials do not impose restrictions inconsistent with this executive order, provided that local officials may enforce this executive order as well as local restrictions that are consistent with this executive order.”
That’s horrifying. 
My parents’ church will probably start meeting again. They didn’t last week because of Travis County’s strict rules.
If it wasn’t racism and xenophobia, why didn’t we ban travel from Italy until it was way too late?
Unfortunately, that’s not the case. If the uncareful bozos take all the hospital beds, it affects lots of innocent victims. (Suppose I distance 100% but then go into unrelated allergic anaphylaxis and need to go to the hospital? Or a diabetic person needs care because of a sudden issue? Or other things like that?)
West Virginia prohibits all elective surgery, including abortions, attorney general says
From CNN’s Joe Youorski
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice’s order Tuesday prohibiting elective surgeries state-wide includes abortions, according to West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey.
“Yes, it also applies to abortion facilities as well, but it’s a broad-based prohibition,” Morrissey said in a news conference with the governor.
Morrissey added that the state is doing this in order to conserve supplies, protective equipment and access to ventilators.
Nearly 300 Homeland Security employees test positive for coronavirus
From CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez
Nearly 300 US Department of Homeland Security employees have tested positive for coronavirus and more than 8,500 are self-quarantining and self-monitoring, according to data provided by the department to congressional staff and obtained by CNN.
As of March 30, the agencies within DHS with the most positive cases are US Customs and Border Protection and the Transportation Security Administration, with 64 and 129 cases respectively, according to the data, which is broken down by component.
CBP and TSA also have hundreds of employees self-quarantining and self-monitoring: 640 in CBP and 4,084 in TSA.
Some context: In early March, DHS announced that an employee in Seattle, Washington tested positive for the coronavirus.
The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Seattle District office, where the employee worked, was temporarily closed as a result. The number of cases within the department have since grown, as has been the case across the country. USCIS has 25 positive cases as of March 30.
Most US hotel rooms are empty, new data shows
From CNN’s Aaron Cooper
More than three-quarters of hotel rooms across the US were empty last week, according to new data from analytics and research group STR.
The national occupancy rate for the week of March 22 was 22.6%, down 67.5% from the same time last year.
It’s the worst week yet for national occupancy since the coronavirus crisis started. The week of March 15 posted 30.3% occupancy, while the week before was at 53%.
STR projects 2020 will be the worst year on record for hotel occupancy, even with an anticipated rebound after the crisis passes.
Oahu Island in Hawaii posted the steepest drop in occupancy last week, down 86.4% from last year with just 10.5% of the rooms rented.
In other hard hit areas, occupied hotel rooms in New Orleans fell nearly 85%, New York dropped nearly 82%, while Seattle plummeted more than 76% from last year.
Coronavirus surge is beginning in northern New Jersey, health commissioner says
The Covid-19 surge is beginning in northern New Jersey, Department of Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said.
Some hospitals in the northern part of the state have asked ambulances to not bring patients to the hospital. Two hospitals called to say they needed ventilators, Persichilli said.
Officials are looking at possible alternative sites, Persichilli said.
The field hospital will begin being staffed next week, she said.
At least 93 of the long-term facilities across New Jersey are reporting at least one positive Covid-19 case, she said.
About 5,200 healthcare professionals have volunteered to assist with the fight against the pandemic.
New Jersey currently has 22,255 coronavirus cases and 355 deaths, according to CNN’s tally.
Nevada governor issues stay-at-home order
CNN
Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak issued a formal stay-at-home directive for Nevadans and extended the non-essential business, gaming and school closures today, according to a statement from his office.
The stay-at-home order goes into effect at midnight Wednesday, according to the statement.
The closure of non-essential business, gaming establishments and schools is extended to April 30, according to the statement.
There are 2,900 New York City Fire Department members currently out sick
From CNN’s Mark Morales
There are 2,900 New York City Fire Department members currently out sick, Jim Long, a spokesperson for the department, told CNN.
The 2,900 number is an overall count and it includes members who do not have illnesses or symptoms related to Covid-19, Long said.
So far, 282 members of the FDNY have tested positive for Covid-19. This figure includes firefighters, EMS personnel and civilians.
On Tuesday, FDNY EMS responded to 6,010 medical calls, Long said.
Madrid is using its hotels to treat more than 700 coronavirus patients
From CNN’s Laura-Perez Maestro in Madrid and Mia Alberti in Lisbon.
Eleven hotels in the Spanish capital of Madrid are being used to treat 704 coronavirus patients, the regional government said in a statement on Wednesday.
“The main purpose of these hotels is to house patients that present a positive evolution of the illness, but cannot continue the quarantine in their houses, for family or social reasons”, the statement said.
The city’s health department is working alongside Madrid’s Hotel Owners Association and a 12th hotel is set to start receiving patients from local hospitals by the end of Wednesday.
Around 4,400 graduate doctors are responsible for the care of these patients.
“With this measure, the Health Department can free rooms in the hospitals, which can be used by other patients that need treatment for other illnesses,” the regional government said.