To me the one intervention that would have made the most difference is to get outside test kids and use them rather than wait 6 weeks for the CDC to get testing going, and meanwhile, make sure we had all the ingredients ready or ramp up production sooner. I would also have done full screening at airports by people trained and in full gear, I would have used the defense production act to ramp up production of PPE. i would have encouraged mask usage by the public asap. There is a lot more but the one most important thing would have been to catch the spread early. Even shutting things down a week early could have cut the spread by quite a lot. Hopefully we will be ready for the fall if we get hit badly again.
We still don’t have testing for airports and haven’t heard of any plans to implement this nationally, tho some nations are doing so. Have read reports of Japan and Israel.
Regardless of what went into the President’s decision process, this doesn’t change the fact some of the WHO’s recommendations were asinine, and to the extent they were followed, contributed to the spread of the virus.
You mean the one intervention the US could have done. Because the one intervention that would have made the most difference would have been if China addressed the virus at the start when reports started rather than first concealing it then lying about it as it spread…
But yes, the CDC didn’t shine here in America.
‘Regardless of what went into the President’s decision process, this doesn’t change the fact some of the WHO’s recommendations were asinine, and to the extent they were followed, contributed to the spread of the virus.’
In my view, when I look around the world at the countries that took the WHO’s warnings seriously very early, they all have done much better than countries that did not. it is true that some of the things the WHO said I do not agree with such as their stand on masks.
I have to read more about this topic but regarding the travel ban with Europe, I just read yesterday that the way it was done actually brought in a lot of people from infected areas to the USA.
Overall, looking at the rest of the world, taking the WHO’s advice seems to have had much greater benefit than not to countries that did. (Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, etc).
I agree that China could have done more, however, at first it was local officials making very bad choices, not “China.” If some health official in Boston makes a decision, that’s not “America” making the decision but that one health office. Wuhan officials covered things up at first.
I think that China continued to lie about the number of cases. However, anyone who watched what China was doing (and the US was watching closely–we pulled people out of Wuhan on several huge planes in January just before China closed the area down), saw that China instituted extremely strict restrictions on the movement of people, preventing people from leaving their homes, preventing people from entering Wuhan, from travel within other parts of the country, etc to contain the virus. They shut down huge segments of their country to control the virus. China wasn’t doing that for no reason. they were doing so (and not hiding this fact) to stop the spread. In spite of this, the numbers continued to rise at a scary rate for a long time. They reported these rising numbers (although I think the numbers were lower by some factor of 10 than reality) daily and the numbers themselves indicated cases were going up rapidly despite the stay home laws and all else china was doing.
Watching that, it was easy to see this was not an easy to control virus. Our country knew that. It was on TV, not hidden. It was in the newspaper and on nightly news. On the internet, etc.
After a late start, China did and is doing what it takes to control the spread and open their economy and is far ahead of most of the world as a result. We could be there, too, if we do the right things.
In China, unlike the US, there is no such entity as an independent local government. Everyone and everything is under the control of the Politburo.
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We cannot control China. The WHO cannot be held accountable for the lack of US leadership, the CDC testing issues were/are un effing believable. I suggest (as was suggested here before) that anyone with a fuzzy recollection of the timeline of this start listening to the TWIV episodes starting in January. Actually, it will put you off bothering arguing over any of this. There is such a failure of basic literacy in the general populous that all it will do is make you feel abject shame over engaging.
I disagree. If you listened to what the WHO actually said,you knew it was a major problem. They beat that drum every day. If you think they weren’t taking it seriously, you weren’t listening to what they were saying on a daily basis.
The declaration has to be made cautiously - for this and any future declarations. Crying wolf and all that.
From their statement on March 11th.
"Pandemic is not a word to use lightly or carelessly. It is a word that, if misused, can cause unreasonable fear, or unjustified acceptance that the fight is over, leading to unnecessary suffering and death.
Describing the situation as a pandemic does not change WHO’s assessment of the threat posed by this virus. It doesn’t change what WHO is doing, and it doesn’t change what countries should do.
We have never before seen a pandemic sparked by a coronavirus. This is the first pandemic caused by a coronavirus.
And we have never before seen a pandemic that can be controlled, at the same time.
WHO has been in full response mode since we were notified of the first cases.
And we have called every day for countries to take urgent and aggressive action.
We have rung the alarm bell loud and clear. "
I’m not posting this just because they said it but because it correlates with my perception listening to their daily briefings for many weeks at the time. They had been actively and repeatedly sounding the alarm.
Well onto current issues…
There doesn’t seem to be any great negative effect in the states that are choosing to loosen restrictions on people. Many are going to beaches, eating at restaurants, playing tennis, hiking on trails, going into retail stores, etc.
Obviously some states and localities are in a better position to do this but even many of the hardest hit areas are opening up in steps.
We cannot stay in lockdown forever. If you’re vulnerable you’re more than welcome to self isolate to the extent you feel necessary. Vulnerable people should probably rejoice at others going out and exposing themselves as the more people that get this means the less likely it will be able to transmit later to them, herd immunity.
An effective vaccine, if even remotely coming, is not coming anytime soon. It’s time to open up more things as long as hospitals aren’t overwhelmed. I know in my area, Maryland, they are far from capacity.
Maryland’s hospitalizations are steadily going down even though many counties loosened their restrictions a week and a half ago. Some neighboring states are going even further in opening up. People should not have to stay locked in forever. It’s time to get more things going now in MOST of this country.
The virus isn’t going away. There will be more deaths. Staying on permanent lockdown at this point doesn’t stop that. The cats been out of the bag. Data isn’t showing opening things up is catastrophic. I’m not saying go full bore but it’s time to do much more. And again, obviously some can and will chose to stay locked down which is fine and is their right.
I’ve also watched the WHO daily briefings. They sounded the alarm about the virus long before they officially declared it a “pandemic”. Unlike the cavalier attitude and messages coming from the White House, WHO’s messages were much more serious and their warnings (yes, WARNINGS) were alarming. If we had listened to their advice, we’d have been better prepared and much better off today.
That can be the choice you make. But it is the grandparents you are talking about, so if they aren’t seeing them now they can just extend that policy. If you want the student to quarantine again if they come home, you have the right to set that as a rule.
If you picture a big thanksgiving dinner with kids and grandparents, and those kids have been at school, I think you’ll have a decision to make. I would not expect the kids to come home germ free.
It’s really pathetic that some people flaunt their “right” to act in a selfish or even illegal way. Shows their true colors.
The jerk(the customer) at Costco whose video went viral is a great example. The clerk was great, and got the accolades he deserved.
https://youtu.be/O8fkVqEZGRA
D20 worked her first shift at a boardwalk counter service place yesterday. The crowds weren’t too big, as it was definitely not beach weather. I was happy to learn that her employer installed a “sneeze guard” (D20’s term) and that all but two customers in a five hour shift were wearing masks. Definitely brought my anxiety level down quite a bit.
For those of us watching numbers to see what happens, remember it takes 3-12 days for the virus to show itself in those who will be symptomatic, then a few days to get tested + get results - probably another week or so - then for those who will get it “bad” it generally comes in the 2nd week after getting symptoms. Deaths can be another week to 4 or 6 weeks afterward.
I’ve written down infected numbers in all the zip codes around us as of yesterday. We don’t get “bad” or death numbers by zip code. I’m curious as to what they will be by July 4th. If all seems well I’ll be quite pleased. If not, we’ll figure out where we go from there.
This won’t work for those of you living in states that aren’t testing much deflating their numbers (like my lad in NC), but it will work for here where anyone can get tested. For sure, some who are infected will just stay home because they want to and won’t be added, but if the virus spreads I think enough will get tested to give those of us watching decent data.
I’ll also be getting numbers from med school lad’s area.
Crossing fingers for good news - not going out to be a data point though!
The COVID 19 data site by UW says they are testing 8k per day in NC and have fewer than 2k estimated infections (with fewer confirmed). Are you saying that is inaccurate @Creekland ?
When my son had symptoms and went to be tested he was told they wouldn’t test anyone who wasn’t at high risk. Instead, they took him in for an expensive chest x-ray and told him he had a lower respiratory infection that was “likely Covid.” They told him everything to expect (correctly) and sent him home. The bill to help their coffers (vs the free test he called about and went in for) came a couple weeks later.
I doubt he was the only one this was done to. Yes, NC is undercounting, though maybe he wasn’t positive. We’ll only know when we can get a decent antibody test.
We went to a large PA park yesterday. Beautiful weather. Dog walkers, bikes, picnicking etc. We were there to play frisbee golf, which is an excellent game to play when social distancing. A few masks,but not necessary since people stayed distanced.
It was really just like a normal day out which was very nice.
Oh, if it was weeks ago that makes sense. The chart shows a dramatic increase in testing ability recently. For all states, actually.