Coronavirus thread for June

Parent Cafe
3541

@emilybee the CDC did issue guidelines and continues to update them. How would an EO make a difference? There were executive orders in every state requiring people to stay home and that did nothing to stop any of the protests, rioting or looting.

EOs need to have some legal or constitutional basis. You can’t write a brand new law using an EO. And EOs don’t fall within the Supremacy Clause. That applies to laws passed by Congress.

The idea that Governors need the feds to tell them what to do and that they can’t think for themselves, have discussions with the CDC and their own public health officials is ridiculous and amounts to simply passing the buck because they don’t want to take any responsibility for making decisions. For example, after New Orleans held Mardi Gras (because they wanted the money) the mayor and governor complained that the CDC didn’t tell them not to … seriously they couldn’t figure that out? The same thing is happening with colleges. They’re going to open (because they want the money) and it’s going to be a hot mess and they’re going to complain that no one told them not to open.

I want our state Governors to assess what’s happening in their state and the country at large and make informed decisions. They are free to discuss issues with whomever can help them make those decisions. But they don’t get a pass and whine that the federal government isn’t telling them what to do. For example, the Governors of PA, NY, NJ and CT all worked in unison to craft the stay at home orders for those states because of the amount of interstate travel and commerce. They didn’t need the feds to tell them to do it.

3542

I’d like that too. The governors of Arizona, and Florida and Texas should have learned from the places that were hit before they were. And they should have looked at the aggressive response. They didn’t.

3543

Source isn’t CNN, the NYT, or even the Guardian, but NYC may very well have Italy’ed their way towards a limit on spread.

https://nypost.com/2020/06/25/getting-realistic-about-the-coronavirus-death-rate/

Redfield says it may be 10 times higher, the bolded says it may be better than 20.

211, 000 reported cases (per a city website) X 20 = 4,220,00 possible infections among 8 million people. Close enough to 50%, that NYC might be done.

3544

Masks are mandatory in Philly so I’m not surprised by a very high rate of mask wearing. Hence, the discussion with my kid re: masks and running as kiddo is newer to running and finds it challenging to wear a mask all the time, especially in the heat and humidity. It led to a conversation re: observances of which the two individuals are very tuned into.

3545

Since my H actually works for the Gov of NY and has been working on CV19 from the very beginning 24/7, I can tell you that they were begging for any guidance from the administration and all they got was - things are going great - every thing is great. Meanwhile, they couldn’t even get tests and had to beg to be allowed to use their own tests and labs.

Once it dawned on them that the administration was less than useless, did they realize that they were completely on their own.

Even yesterday, Texas has to beg the administration not to close the testing sites they run in Texas when the state is being overwhelmed with a surge of infections.

No state has the means to do what the whole of the Federal govt can do. None.

3546

What do you mean by outcome? Overall cases? Cases per capita? Overall deaths? Deaths per capita? New cases today? Per capita? New cases rolling over 7 days? Per capita?

3547

(Missed the edit window for the above.)

On second thought - 50% percent might not do it for as high a density environment as NYC is. Seems it would slow infections but NYC will likely need a much higher percentage immune, compared to the hinterlands, to stop spread.

Question: I’ve seen the stats by nation but does anyone know whether or not mortality from the last pandemics… Asian Flu, Hong Kong, and Spanish… was higher in urban areas than rural?

3548

I think folks in these states thought they’d be ok due to heat and humidity. They hadn’t seen the problems the northern states did from spring break, etc, and thought they wouldn’t - that everyone would get better with better weather akin to the flu. Hence, focus on the economy.

It’s turning out to be more of an indoor/outdoor thing so it seems (not 100%, but for a lot of spreading). Southern states did better when many people were outside in the good weather while the northern states did worse with people inside for the heat. Now it’s going the other direction. It’s too early to tell, but it could be why PA is seeing an uptick now. Warmer weather is driving more people inside for AC.

Honestly, I don’t think they truly meant any harm from their decision. I don’t think anyone has ever said they want more cases in their state/county/city so we’ll do what we want to. They took their best guess based upon what they thought and it turned out to be wrong. Now that they’ve seen that most are trying to change directions. Personally, I hope they’re successful. It will depend upon what enough people do. Masks and social distancing work (help), along with isolation and contact tracing.

3549

‘After Asking Americans to Sacrifice in Shutdown, Leaders Failed to Control Virus’
‘As Covid-19 cases surge, it is clear many governors underestimated the coronavirus and rushed to reopen before their states were ready.’

“The number of new U.S. cases this last week surged dangerously high, to levels not ever seen in the course of the pandemic, especially in states that had rushed to reopen their economies. The result has been a realization for many Americans that however much they have yearned for a return to normalcy, their leaders have failed to control the coronavirus pandemic. And there is little clarity on what comes next.”

“There has to be a clear coherent sustained communication, and that has absolutely not happened,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious diseases specialist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. “We’ve had just the opposite and now it’s hard to unring a whole series of bells.”

“There was “real hubris” on the part of public health officials at the very start, Dr. Schaffner said, that the United States could lock down and contain the virus as China had. That futile hope helped create an unrealistic expectation that the shutdown, while intense, would not be for long, and that when it was lifted life would return to normal.”

“That expectation was reinforced by President Trump, who has downplayed the severity of the crisis, refused to wear a mask and began calling for states to open even as the virus was surging. A lack of federal leadership also meant that states lacked a unified approach.”

“With no clear message from the top, states went their own ways. A number of them failed to use the shutdown to fully prepare to reopen in a careful manner. As Americans bought precious time trying to keep the virus at bay, experts advised that states urgently needed to establish a robust system for tracking and containing any new cases — through testing, monitoring and contact tracing. Without this, the pandemic would simply come roaring back.”

“Just as the country needed to stay shut down longer, many states — mostly with Republican governors — took their foot off the brake, and Mr. Trump cheered them on.
In early May, when more than half of U.S. states had begun reopening parts of their economies, most failed to meet the nonbinding criteria recommended by the Trump administration itself to resume business and social activities.”

“The White House’s nonbinding guidelines suggested that states should have a “downward trajectory” of either documented coronavirus cases or of the percentage of positive tests.”

“Yet most states that were reopening failed to adhere to even these ill-defined recommendations. They had case counts that were trending upward, positive test results that were rising, or both, raising concerns among public health experts.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/27/us/after-asking-americans-to-sacrifice-in-shutdown-leaders-failed-to-control-virus.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage

3550

Local Observations here (southern VA). I love our running store peeps for what they do for our community, but they have posted pics of their first group runs. Not a mask in sight and little social distancing. Once they start running, I’m sure the groups were smaller and spread out, but not a good look. And we are having two races this month. It seems way too soon for that IMO. (For the record. I don’t see me ever running with a mask. I’d rather run at 4:30am solo. I see more coyote and foxes than runners. We’ve become good friends.)

And I walk through the police station floor every morning. Very few masks, but more than before it was mandated for the public to wear them in public buildings. (It is not mandatory for public employees to wear them in public buildings.) Outside, it’s even more rare for police to wear them. Last week on a walk by my home, there were 4 stopped and chatting on the sidewalk - very close together and no masks. (For the record, I wear mine inside in common areas and in my cubbie if too many unmasked peeps are talking in the hallway of our cubbies. I take it off outside while walking to my car.)

And we are still having our fireworks and I just saw they are starting up our music concert series with a change in venue.

3551

There were things that states could do and there were things that only federal government could do. NY had no power to negotiate with China to ask them to provide more PPEs, that’s something that Fed could do. MA and NY actually ended up getting some PPEs during the height through a private donor and the PPEs were airlifted by the Patriots private plane. Our federal government should have negotiated/coordinated all of that.
We are looking forward to get the vaccines soon, but aside from manufacturing it, we will need syringes and a plan on how to administer it. It would be nice if our federal government could have a plan on mass producing the syringes instead of leaving it to each region/state to fend for itself.
As far as guidelines on how to shut down and opening up, it would have been nice if we had a national guideline on how to do it instead of leaving it to each state. If we had a more consistent guideline on how to open up (based on the infection rate, hospitalization, available ICU etc) and what to do once it’s opened up, we probably wouldn’t have so many hot spots now.

3552

People have been encountering something brand new. It’s unknown except for hindsight as we gather data points. They were trying to balance out illness vs economy. Up until recently the south was doing a lot better and theories were plausible that the weather might have played a part. No one was certain inside/outside was a major aspect (we’re still not, but it’s becoming more and more likely as we get more data points).

3553

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/russian-plane-coronavirus-medical-gear-lands-u-s-after-trump-n1174436

3554

@ClassicMom98,

I’m surprised your club is running races at all.

H is a runner, but not in a club. He is doing 2 virtual 10k (one in July and one in early Oct) plus the virtual NYC Marathon. He finally got in this year after several years of not being picked in lottery.

He runs very early in the morning (5:30am) and does not wear a mask. But he just ordered some gaiters especially made for exercising/running, because he kept hoping the NYC Marathon would be run. I told him it was going to be cancelled months ago, but he was still holding out hope. He ordered one for me so I’ll be checking out how well it works when i use my stationary bike, just for the heck of it.

3555

@oldfort. I agree the feds should have helped negotiate for PPE but then again China was hoarding PPE so maybe they wouldn’t have listened to the feds. I think 3M should have stepped up without threats from the feds. Same with Ford making ventilators. Why didn’t the states begin to buy PPE in January? Because no one was concerned then. I was, I bought masks, gloves and purell in January just from watching the news about Wuhan. Didn’t need the CDC or Trump or my Governor telling me it could be a huge problem for the US.

Governors were telling people to go out to dinner, to Chinatown, to use the subways etc… Monday quarterbacking is easy, pointing fingers is easy. All levels of government could have acted more quickly and efficiently. I wish Obama had replenished the N95 stockpile. I wish Trump had also but when you have huge deficits maybe it doesn’t seem pressing to spend money there. In hindsight it should have been a priority but that’s why hindsight is 20/20. I wish Cuomo had bought ventilators when he was advised to but again it probably didn’t seem like a priority at the time.

To your point I do hope the feds arrange for syringe production…do we know they haven’t? They’re funding vaccine production simultaneously with trials which has never been done, they’re organizing the military to distribute the vaccine. For many people the feds never do enough. Government is an easy target. I choose to appreciate what they have done and I hope they continue to improve their performance to help get this pandemic under control…whatever that really means.

3556

There were several governors who forbade cities and counties within their state to have any kind of shut down, or any kind of mask mandate, or to mandate anything stricter than what that particular governor ordained.

Very shortsighted and destructive.

3557

So back to topic-

The numbers continue to climb. The idea that the warm, humid weather would ameliorate the virus was pretty clearly challenged by seeing how the cases continues to rise in the southern hemisphere even when they were in their summer months.

This thread is about to sing its swan song in 2 days. Any thoughts or requests for what to discuss in the July thread? The recommendation for this thread was to focus on how to help each other in is time of stress.

3558

But in the beginning of the pandemic, southern states seemed to be getting a pass while the virus raged through the northeast; now, the opposite is occurring. I agree with the previous poster (actually there have been several) who pointed out that many of the states with rapidly climbing caseloads are those where hot weather is driving people indoors. I have been surprised that the tristate area has seen cases continue to decrease after reopening. This can’t be due to herd immunity; basedon estimated R0 of around 3, you would need about 60% or more of the population to be immune. I think the ability to stay outdoors for socializing, exercise, and dining has played a significant role.

3559

NY has done some randomized antibody testing to get at the real number of infections in the state. No way is it anywhere near 50%. In some regions it approaches 20%, while in others it is low single digits.

3560

Deaths per capita is the best measure.