As was mentioned earlier, an increase in speeding and reckless (or new) drivers have raised the rate of fatal accidents (not the total number, that’s down - just the rate per mile driven).
Plenty of people out there are more than willing to take all sorts of risks assuming nothing bad will happen to them - it always happens to “someone else.”
If you look at early days when all of those hospitals were overwhelmed and there were 10K+ new cases, I could understand why a government agency wouldn’t be able to do everything right. At least our governor reversed and tried to fix the problem, unlike our national fearless leader who still has no clue on what he has done wrong.
There was plenty of information in NY, FL, and every other state about the virus being out there. Not sure what US residents in any state could have learned from Florida government shouting from the rooftops that we didn’t already know.
The difference is that Florida started preparing for the worst sooner than the other states. If the infections had petered out instead of mushrooming the Miami Herald would have written almost the exact same article, but would have complained about the money wasted preparing for a disaster that clearly was never going to happen.
The Herald dislikes the governor, and will strongly criticize whatever he does. In this case the body of the article mainly talks about how much was done right that saves lives, but the headline complains about not giving everyone else much warning. Political noise.
Another example of something that went right. HEB is the largest grocery chain in Texas, and renowned for its ability to respond to natural disasters. In JANUARY, it set up a pandemic response team based on early public reports out of Asia, and began stockpiling non perishables in its warehouses and contacting its supply chain. It kept the stores pretty well stocked as a result (except for toilet paper, where demand exceeded their greatest projections).
We should consider why regional groceries are able to respond so much more effectively than many political leaders.
There is more red tape with approval process. Private sectors can be more agile and decisions can be made more quickly. It is not to say the government couldn’t and shouldn’t play a major role when we have a national disaster. Private sectors could never do what the government could do when we need to mobilize different agencies to protect its citizens. It just means the government should have a well rehearsed play book when there is a disaster. In essence that’s what we pay them to do, which they failed us miserably on the pandemic. I feel like asking them for my federal income tax back.
Well, I have lived through several natural disasters here over the last 2 decades in different political administrations, and the only constant is that the federal government is never capable of helping effectively. My serious advice is to live near a Target or Wal-Mart, as they have capable crisis response teams which can provide life saving essentials. The government can not, sadly.
And I spent 10 years as a federal employee, so I am not anti government. Just sadly aware of its shortcomings.
Meanwhile, near St. Louis
Brought to us by a developer who up until this point has been more talk than action. Good luck to him.
Here on my street of aging homes, 3 of us have decided to get our driveways torn out and replaced this week. Same work crew for all three houses, I haven’t seen a mask yet. But they are, or course, outside.
People have short memories.
“On March 8, it was mostly business as usual in United States. As the Lakers faced the Clippers in a much-anticipated Los Angeles basketball matchup, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., rallied before a packed crowd in Michigan. In Miami, thousands squeezed onto the beach for a massive dance party. With 500 coronavirus infections reported nationwide at the time, the outbreak seemed like a distant threat to many Americans.
But by the following Sunday, the nation had entered a different universe: 2,000 confirmed cases, dozens of deaths, and shutdown orders in Illinois, Ohio, and New York City, among other parts of the country.”
“What if those sweeping measures imposed by March 15 - a federal warning against large gatherings, health screenings at airports, states of emergency declared by governors and mayors - had been announced a week earlier?
New research from Columbia University epidemiologists offered up one possible answer on Wednesday. If the same kind of social distancing had been in place seven days earlier, their study found, the U.S. could have prevented 36,000 deaths through early May - about 40% of fatalities reported to date.”
“Move it back even further, and the results are more dramatic. If the United States had mustered the same kind of political and public will against the virus on March 1, the researchers found, 54,000 fewer Americans would have lost their lives to the illness. By Thursday, the nationwide death toll had surpassed 92,000.”
“Trump banned travel from Europe on March 13, and told the nation to “take it easy” and “relax” two days later. It was not until the end of the month that he first used the Defense Production Act to compel factories to produce ventilators.”
Why were we told on March 13th to “take it easy” and “relax”?
Certain problems are national in scale and this is one of them. Most governments aren’t designed to be as efficient as for-profit businesses (unless it’s Singapore, maybe). For-profit businesses have more narrowly focused objectives, but governments need to, or at least should, respond to all their citizens. One can’t blame the federal system either. Germany has a federal system. It performed much better in this crisis.
Ensuring citizens have access to water and at least minimum food supplies in the event of disaster is a governmental function. No need to debate this, but I am merely warning those who expect the government to help-it usually does not, so look to alternative arrangements for your own safety.
The percentage of deaths in long term care facilities in New York is 20% of all deaths in the state. Many states have a much higher percentages.
In addition there are still states which don’t report this number or just # of cases but not # of deaths.
“In the absence of comprehensive data from some states and the federal government, The Times has been assembling its own database of coronavirus cases and deaths at long-term care facilities for older adults. These include nursing homes, assisted-living facilities, memory care facilities, retirement and senior communities and rehabilitation facilities.
Some states, including Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey and South Carolina, regularly release cumulative data on cases and deaths at specific facilities. California, Massachusetts, Michigan and Ohio, among others, provide some details on the number of cases — but not on deaths. Others report aggregate totals for their state but provide no information on where the infections or deaths have occurred. About a dozen report very little or nothing at all.
The share of deaths tied to long-term care facilities for older adults is even more stark at the state level. In 14 states, the number of residents and workers who have died accounts for more than half of all deaths from the virus.
The Times’s numbers are based on official confirmations from states, counties and the facilities themselves. They include residents and, in cases where reporting is available, employees of the facilities. Given the wide variability in the type of information available, the totals shown here almost certainly represent an undercount of the true toll.”
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/09/us/coronavirus-cases-nursing-homes-us.html
We had a playbook. It was developed during the Ebola crisis.
It was thrown into the trash in 2017.
Thank you, very helpful. As suspected (now- not in March or April), most of the CV deaths in MA, RI, and CT came from nursing homes. This is in states that ‘shut down’ visitors to the facilities early on. So our parents and grandparents sat alone and afraid the entire month of March, in order to get the virus from unknowing (unprotected) staff in April and later die alone. A gross failure by our federal and state governments to acquire PPE and safe processes for nursing homes. Ask me how I know.
@emilybee - these are deaths IN long-term care facilities from Covid-19? Does the article take into account those who died in hospitals who have come in from some types of facilities?
I haven’t read the article.
My state (AZ) doesn’t report the number of deaths in long term care facilities but our county does. About 16% of cases but over 70% of all the deaths in our county are in these facilities. Very sad.
Oh, I remember. Every major political candidate was still on the campaign trail. Bernie, Biden and Trump. I kept thinking, *you are all in the high risk group. Please stop with the rallies. *
We do not like to acknowledge here that people will die of old age, though no one lives forever. The immediate cause of death for nursing home residents will be listed as flu, pneumonia or corona virus ( or stroke for a lucky few), but the underlying cause is that they were elderly and medically fragile and any illness or trauma would likely have pushed them over the edge. Perhaps we should focus more on a dignified and pain free end for those residents.
I predict in a few months people will say they didn’t know that reopening would cause so much more death across the country when we hit 250k or so in a few short months. Watch this space.
“A forecast from the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton Budget Model estimated that the number of cumulative deaths from the virus in the United States would rise to 157,000 from the current about 92,000 by the end of July if states maintained restrictions. A partial or full reopening could bring an additional 15,000 or 73,000 deaths, respectively”
“Researchers found that the biggest risk for negative health outcomes was probably not state regulations, but people’s own behavior. If Americans get out of the habit of social distancing — returning to their pre-pandemic behavior by not wearing masks or staying six feet apart — the forecast predicted that deaths could rise by as many as 135,000.
“Everyone wants us to talk about policy, but in fact personal behavior still matters a lot here,” said Kent Smetters, the faculty director at the Penn Wharton Budget Model.”
Hate to circle back to the FL firing of their data scientist, but something has been bothering me. Both sides have presented their case to the media. As often happens, each one blames the other. I suspect the truth is somewhere in the middle. No doubt, an independent investigation is warranted, under the circumstances.
However, something about the DeSantis’ administration’s official statement bothers me. I have worked in management at a large corporation, and served on the board of a small private school. For privacy reasons… Never would we ever (a) acknowledge publicly that someone was fired, or (b) discuss publicly the reasons for any termination.
Full statement from DiSantis administration is at the bottom of this article…
I don’t know.