I don’t work in the high school and am not sure what their plans are but I’m pretty sure they will try to reduce student movement by grouping students as much as possible for more than one class and having teachers move rather than students when possible. It can’t happen as easily as in middle school but it can happen some of the time.
One big North Texas school district has committed to hybrid instruction for fall. Parents can choose but teachers will be in the building all day even if supplying online lessons.
More on fast tests. There are academic labs that have been chipping at this problem for years. Yet before Covid, there was no real burning need for truly fast tests. A patient can wait for a few days to get the verdict whether their abnormal growth is cancerous or benign. Flu? No need to test. Other than Tamiflu or chicken soup, what else can the doc recommend? Other bugs? Prescribe the most common drug used for the suspected cause (a Z pack or such) and wait a few days while the culture is growing… then if the bug is not responding, change the med. And so on! So… VCs were not exactly pouring money into diagnostics. And Theranos fiasco dampened the enthusiasm towards diagnostic testing. So… back to academia… without any promises of licensing and future VC funding of the licensed tech, academia is very reluctant to even file patent applications on any new tech - it is an expensive process. Then when the PI publishes a paper, the tech becomes completely unpatentable (in some countries, inventor is given a year to make up their mind, and in others the right to patent is lost as soon as the publication is released). A VC will not touch anything biotech that is not covered by a strong portfolio of intellectual property. It is a vicious cycle. Universities innovate but they do not have $$ to commercialize. Big companies have the $$ but they are laser-focused and don’t usually step out of their comfort zone. VCs generally avoid anything that is not software-driven.
Which is where waste water testing could potentially be helpful.
Wastewater testing is for detecting new outbreaks in areas that didn’t have cases. North Carolina is well beyond that now. Wastewater testing is not going to be helpful to NC now.
Wastewater testing is for surveillance, so that public health authorities can see that an area that today has very few cases will, in the next week, see a surge. But if you’ve already got the surge, it’s too late for wastewater testing.
I’m a big fan of wastewater testing as a surveillance tool.
But can’t they do that location by location? Like on a college campus? Or a large office park?
From today’s Kankakee Journal:
Capitol News Illinois and Daily Journal staff report
Gov. J.B. Pritzker is saying that Illinois is “one of the best states in the nation in terms of the rates of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, ICU beds and deaths going down,” and said he does not anticipate moving backward in the Restore Illinois reopening plan.
The state announced another 546 new confirmed cases of the virus Wednesday, along with 86 more deaths. That brought the number of confirmed cases since the pandemic began to 134,185, including 6,485 total deaths.
Hospitalizations from the virus fell below 1,900 as of midnight Tuesday for the first time since the state began reporting the data on April 12. There remained fewer than 600 COVID-19 patients in intensive care beds and fewer than 350 on ventilators as of midnight, signifying a continued downward trend in the metrics.
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Not posting to brag about Illinois. I’m still scratching my head on how cases can be going down when more people than ever are leaving their homes and going out & about?
Does it go back to the idea of an inevitable first wave?
Can we get a guest epidemiologist on this thread?
Snippet:
Clinical vigilance, adequate PPE and testing
The authors noted that their results mimic those from an outbreak at a nursing home in Seattle, where over half of infected residents had no symptoms. “Given the increasingly apparent importance of asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic transmission of SARS-CoV-2, testing based on symptom screening alone will likely fail to identify all persons contributing to transmission in these facilities,” they wrote.
One third of all US COVID-19 deaths by early May were among nursing home residents or employees, and the personal protective equipment (PPE) and testing that allows for cohorting continue to be insufficient, the researchers said.
They called for prioritization of PPE for nursing homes, monitoring of infection-control protocols, regular testing of asymptomatic residents and staff, and expansion of regional staffing capacity.
“Enhanced clinical monitoring and extensive, strategic testing will be vital to reduce COVID-19 morbidity and mortality,” they said. “Long-term care facilities are particularly vulnerable given older patients with multiple comorbidities that are cared for in this setting.”
Germany is an interesting case, and it extends beyond their borders. The German speaking population of Switzerland has significantly better results than the Italian and French populations. Is it cultural (They are better/more willing to social distance) or genetic?
One of many questions we are still searching for the answers.
Way too late to wait until exceeding capacity in hospitals is imminent. It’s already spreading uncontrollably at that point and a state will then have to go through what NYS did to bring the numbers down - which took about 2 months from our peak.
It goes up much more quickly than it takes to get down.
The time to act is when the percent positive is on the rise. Easy to see just this by looking at 7 day rolling average. That is when you need to shot down or at the very least roll back reopening.
NYS percent positive yesterday (68,000 test done) was 0.9%. The lowest it has been since the beginning.
Central NY went up to 3.0%. Through contract tracing they found a cluster in an apple processing plant in Oswego, where 36 people tested positive.
Another COVID-19-related lawsuit in Wisconsin:
A Kansas-based hunting advocacy group filed a lawsuit on Wednesday seeking to force the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to restart in-person hunter-training courses.
Wisconsin law requires anyone born after Jan. 1, 1973, to complete hunter training to obtain a hunting license and hunt alone. DNR officials canceled department-sponsored in-person courses in March as the coronavirus pandemic seized the country and have refused to recognize completion certificates from other courses as part of the state’s push to slow the virus’ spread through social distancing.
“Defendants’ actions … greatly restrict or outright eliminate the options for Wisconsinites to become licensed hunters, putting our state’s proud hunting heritage — a heritage that has helped sustain our state for generations — at risk,” Hunter Nation’s lawsuit argues.
Hunter Nation is out of Mission, Kansas. Its constitution calls for promoting the right to hunt and hunting as a way of life. The group’s website states that it will work to restore hunters to “their rightful place as America’s truest conservationists.”
In my experience (not based on research or anything and just anecdotal), some cultures appear to follow rules more than others. Japanese and German society seemed to be more rule-following than Americans and Italians less so, etc. I imagine that many German people will comply with what their government recommends more so than the other countries you listed. I found that people in both Germany and Japan would actively remind others about rules (something I don’t see Americans do in the same situations). I found Chinese and Italian people seemed to ignore rules. you can probably google and find ‘don’t sit on the grass’ signs in pictures of Italy and China with loads of people ignoring the signs. Again, not scientific but there are cultural differences between people and it makes sense that some differences might lead to better Covid outcomes.
And from Nebraska:
At his regular coronavirus press conferences, Gov. Pete Ricketts makes a point of urging Nebraskans to wear a mask when they go to a store.
But when it comes to the state’s 93 courthouses and other local government offices, he doesn’t want local officials to require masks. In fact, he’s told local governments that they won’t receive any of the $100 million in federal COVID-19 money if their “customers” are required to wear masks.
How are people in Illinois doing with masking and isolation? How many people are working from home? How many older people are just staying home, as my brother and sister-in-law are doing?
California Governor Gavin Newsom has just made a rule requiring masks in public indoor spaces, and outdoor spaces where distancing is not possible. Excellent choice!
I don’t know.
Observationally, there is actual traffic on the roads in the Chicago suburbs and major Hwys 41 & 94, in contrast to April when it was weird & near empty.
The Chicago area has plenty of poor and/or working class people who do not have the option to work from home.
In addition, there is a large undocumented population that cannot collect UI and must work.
Some things truly boggle my mind. One person having such control and being able to base decisions affecting many people counter to what almost everyone in the medical field feels is best is one of them.
Want to open up safely trying to preserve both health and the economy as much as possible? Not on my watch!
I’m glad I don’t live in Nebraska. (Texas too.)
Cuomo also issued an EO to make the owners of restaurants/ bars responsible for the sidewalks in front of their businesses- so they can’t say that have no control over people eating/drinking there. So, no more excuses.
‘Cuomo: Businesses not following rules can be shut down immediately
Restaurants and bars face loss of liquor license for breaking reopening rules’
“Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Thursday said he will issue an order allowing the state to shut down any business that violates COVID-19 reopening guidelines, including immediate revocation of liquor licenses for bars and restaurants that break the rules.”
I can’t answer this either, but in my area there is mask wearing in grocery stores, target, costco, etc. Not outside, because I am in the burbs, there is lots of space.
I agree with midwest67 that traffic on all roads/expressways has been really picking up. Maybe more people are going to the office, but more people are just out because the weather is nice now too.
Lot of kids and teens out all around town with no social distancing or masks. Teens and college kids getting together with their groups now too, sometimes with social distancing, sometimes not. D19 reports some hook ups have been happening.
We go to Phase 4 on June 26, so groups of 50, both indoor and out. Youth sports can start again too, with precautions…social distancing where possible, 20% capacity on spectators (I assume that’s for indoors, people can watch a youth baseball game from many vantage points, so not even sure the concept of capacity exists).
Just over half our deaths have been in nursing homes. Some of the urban areas in Chicago were hit hard, including a predominantly Hispanic area.
We shall see how the trend continues as we open more next week, but does not seem like we have had a spike due to any protests either, which is good news.