Prison guards, unfortunately, are at enormously high risk for covid. So it looks like a dangerous choice, for that and other reasons, to use them as substitute police in Washington DC, Miami and other cities. Why haul them across the country to infect people? What’s wrong with using the real police, with real badges with real identifications on them, instead of these anonymous little green men who turn out to be prison guards?
@dietz199 - good. Giving access to the beach to able bodies only is indeed discriminatory. Our city leaders at least had the decency to mark some benches for folks who can’t keep on walking when the beach was closed.
Well, we’re already seeing a spike so that’s too soon to blame the protests.
The protests are happening at the same time many states are at least beginning to open up. If there is a new wave or spike in 2-3 weeks we won’t be able to evaluate whether safe opening up, with continued masks and distancing, works. This is very unfortunate timing.
I had especially hoped we could make better judgments about opening up schools and colleges.
The media is fickle and has seemed to almost forget about the virus this week. The protests and anguish get better viewership and ratings.
Agreed. Keeping beaches closed after information came out that the virus doesn’t spread easily out-of-doors is an abuse of local leaders power and they should be sued. It IS discriminatory only allowing active people on the beach.
I cannot agree more. Control just got the sake of control.
At this point it will certainly be difficult to tell where future increases came from. All we’ll know is if it doesn’t get worse it’s a big indicator most of life can continue on relatively safely.
Some states have been open (with guidelines) for weeks now, with no uptick in hospitalizations. States that are just beginning to open up would have plenty of data to assure them that opening up is safe if they just looked at these other states’ results.
That’s not true. Some states are seeing upticks over the last two weeks and cases are up in many. Some states are not seeing falling rates - the rate is static. Also, hospitalizations rates are a lagging indicator.
And some states don’t report hospitalizations rates at all.
The overall hospitalization rate for the US is falling because in the states that had the worst outbreaks have brought the number of cases down significantly (even though testing more people) and their hospitalization rate has dropped significantly.
“The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 continues to decline, particularly in New York and other northeastern states that were among the hardest hit by the virus.”
“Yes, but: Some states are still recording stagnant or rising amounts of hospitalizations.”
“By the numbers: Roughly 34,000 people diagnosed or being evaluated for COVID-19 were in the hospital at the beginning of June — down from 40,000 in the middle of May, according to state data compiled by the COVID Tracking Project.”
“Seven states — Alabama, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska and Tennessee — still don’t report the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19.
Between the lines: Hospitalizations help show where coronavirus outbreaks have been severe, but they are a lagging indicator of an area’s actual infection rate and could underestimate the spread if people die in their homes or before making it to the hospital.”
“The good news: Hospitalizations have steadily decreased in the biggest coronavirus hotspots: New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Illinois and Louisiana.”
“The bad news: Plenty of states — including Washington, Arizona, North Carolina and Arkansas — still are reporting upticks in the number of hospital beds filled by seriously ill people.”
“Hospitalization rates in 14 states being tracked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention don’t appear to be decreasing, either.
“The bottom line: Public health experts are worried that states reopening businesses and people easing up on social distancing guidelines — now paired with nationwide protests over racism and police brutality — will make it harder to temper the outbreak.”
Dr. Fauci stated it was time to discuss school reopening and that different regions would have a different ability to reopen based on their infection experience (like states do now).
I think we can all agree COVID-19 is yet another risk society is facing because of systemic racism. May peace and justice come to our nation.
Fixed it.
I don’t think one state can base assumptions on what is happening in another state, especially if demographics and timing of the first wave are different.
I should have stated more clearly that in the Northeast, things are starting to open up at the same time as protests are occurring.
Currently things have been improving with restrictions on activities. We’ll see what happens. I really don’t think, in states like NY, CT, NJ , RI or MA, that we will be able to tell whether the protests or the reopening efforts were the cause of an uptick, if that happens.
Trying to think positively and hoping for no increase in cases/hospitalizations, but have many doubts.
Well in NJ, we had very peaceful, positive, socially distant, masked, protests almost entirely. And we are opening up at this time, to some extent. I hope we don’t see any uptick for sure, but I think here it would be less likely to be because of protests.
The incompetent criminals looted a hair salon in Ferguson a couple of nights ago. And further, the protesters throwing bottles and rocks at police seem to be pretty packed.
The daylight protests seem socially distanced, after dark no holds are barred. We’ll see what that does to the infection rates.
No, we can’t. Good try though.
We are facing the Covid-19 risk because pandemics are part of the world we live in. All of us all races, throughout history.
eta- obviously most of us agree on the peace and justice part, but clearly many don’t want peace.
Ohio started opening a month ago and we are seeing a increase in hospitalizations this week. I hope it is due to careless people over the Memorial Day weekend. I’d venture to say we’ll see another increase from protests.
So, on the antibodies front: we had suspected strongly that my father had COVID after he got the “flu” shortly after a lunch with a friend who was diagnosed; he didn’t question the diagnosis until I was diagnosed two weeks later, by which time he was feeling somewhat better, and so didn’t qualify for testing.
Well, as expected, he has antibodies - as does my mother, brother, another friend at the lunch, and his wife. None of them were tested, so that’s five undiagnosed cases in New Jersey right there. My brother actually isn’t sure if he got it from my father, or if he had it back in January, when a nasty flu-like bug was going around his office.
In any case, while the one friend who was diagnosed barely survived (he’s improving quickly, thank goodness, but still quite weak after two weeks on a ventilator), all of the other five ranged from slightly under the weather to “I felt terrible, but not much worse than when I had bronchitis/the flu/pneumonia.” None of them (or, thankfully, me) have experienced any lasting effects. My brother, who had the mildest case, is thirty; the rest are in their 60s.
I’d be really curious to know if any of my father’s students have antibodies. The morning before he started feeling ill, he taught a small AP class. As far as he knows, there were no cases traced to his school, but he was teaching in what we presume was his peak infectious period. I wonder if some of the students had mild cases and never realized it - and I wonder how many families like ours are out there.
Whoosh! @MomofJandL – clearly what I was saying was in opposition to the idea that protests would be the reason that Covid spreads, when that’s a facile understanding of the actuality which is that racism necessitates protests, so in that case, racism is the source.
I worked another carry out shift last night at the restaurant (Illinois)
Only 2 reservations for dining on the patio. Manager said both were regulars.
Both tables were urging staff to take off their masks. “You don’t need to wear masks around us!”
In contrast, we have guests who request we do not touch the hatch/trunk door after we have loaded the carry out order into their vehicle.
So far, we are seeing a wide range of expectations and we’ve just been asking. Trunk? Back seat? Passenger? You want me to close it?
As I have been saying - we are still very behind on testing. We can’t move forward to acceptable phases of reopening without lots of testing. What’s the hold up? This is extremely frustrating in the supposed most advanced country in the world.