I took a drive from the Western burbs of Chicago to Lake Geneva Wisconsin yesterday. Maybe 1% of people with masks. It was a bit unsettling to see. Lots of IL plates in town, I didn’t stop.
Wisconsin’s numbers still seem to be staying low even though they appear to be completely open, although to be honest I couldn’t tell if it was just outside seating. I didn’t see any masks on the few servers I saw waiting on people outside.
I’m glad for them.
Lots of experiments going on in the country!
Unfortunately this is 100% what I observed. Students and teachers begged for more opportunities to assign, do, and assess work, but were hamstrung by exactly this problem. I think ideally we could have put more resources (or excused work? or something) for kids who needed it, but not had to cancel everyone’s grades, for instance.
I ended up breaking up my classes into small groups so I could meet with them online more effectively. I don’t know of many colleagues who did that, though.
I requested this; we’ll see if it gets approved.
I continue to appreciate this forum. The quantity of information and variety of viewpoints are very helpful.
Maybe it is too hot in these places this time of year and more people are now congregating inside than they were a couple of months ago?
I wish that some of the states which are now seeing increased cases, hospitalizations and ICU use would be more forthcoming about what their numbers mean, what the situation on the ground is, what they expect, what they’re willing to tolerate and what the plan is.
For example, on March 26th, in Arizona, before there was much covid but during the flu season, there were 741 ICU beds in use, and 458 free, for a total of 1198 ICU beds, according to the state website.
Now, in Arizona, there are 1313 ICU beds in use, and 344 free, as of today. So ICU use in Arizona is at 110% of their pre-covid ICU maximum, and still rising. What is the plan here? What is the expectation?
Leaders should explain to their states what’s going on.
In the desert parts of Arizona (Phoenix, Tucson, Yuma) the heat certainly does drive people inside into air conditioned spaces.
More buses - yes, probably, or some creativity regarding how buses will work.
More staff - not necessarily if people are reassigned to other things. Math specialists, reading specialists, librarian, etc could all teach classes to make smaller class sizes. Don’t have to necessarily add staff.
More cleaning - this has been in place in our district since February.
Other than the buses, so far this isn’t a lot more cost. They reduced cost of bussing and cleaning by going with an outside private organization to provide those things. I feel for the staff who were in those positions. They are all getting their jobs back but maybe with less or worse or no insurance or something. 
they are encouraging retirement.
They are probably going to balance the district budget by cutting some positions, too.
They can’t spend more than they have and the budget has to be passed by each town for each district.
What I think schools will see are staff cuts and maybe some program cuts. Once programs are cut they rarely come back so I’d fight hard to keep programs in schools when Board of Ed and Board of Finance meetings happen.
@“Cardinal Fang” where do you find this information for each state? I think that information is exactly what is needed. This site has some of the info but the numbers appear quite different than those you cited:
https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america/arizona
Wisconsin today:
The percentage of coronavirus tests coming back positive rose slightly to 2.61 percent, up from yesterday’s 2.41%, while a total of 240 new cases were reported. This brings the statewide total to 22,758 — of which fewer than 5,507 remain active as of today.
Green County reported its first death to coronavirus in the past 24 hours the Department of Health Services reported today. This brings the state’s total to 692 deaths.
The largest local increase in new cases today comes from Milwaukee County, with 93 new cases and 2.96 percent of tests coming back positive.
Today’s new cases were spread throughout the state, with a number of counties reporting double-digit increases, including:
Brown County: 11
Dane County: 23
Kenosha County: 13
Sheboygan County: 10
Waukesha County: 10
Winnebago County: 12
Hospitalizations statewide rose as well today with 6 more people hospitalized – bringing the total to 291. Of those, DHS reported 101 require intensive care while 181 people are currently hospitalized and awaiting test results.
The rate of disparity in Latino populations remained steady at 33.2 percent of total cases and 25 percent of today’s new cases. Latinos make up just seven percent of the state’s overall population.
Similarly, 19 percent of all cases are Black people, with 11.25 percent of today’s new cases and 25 percent of total COVID-19 related deaths in the state. Black people make up just six percent of the state’s population.
DHS also reports that 72.8 percent of those confirmed to have been infected have recovered and 3.04 percent have died.
R
I remember the governor here saying something like there are a lot of hospitals in our state which would be flooded if they get even 13 Covid patients. They don’t have capacity for more than that easily, so one nursing home getting a problem would be a big, big problem for hospitals. I could have that a bit wrong but I remember something like that in one of the governor’s talks.
AZ, TX, FL & NC numbers have been going up since May 20 or around end of May, so probably not due to protests. We probably won’t see the effect of protests for another week.
Protests began in Minneapolis on May 26, spreading to other cities starting May 27. With 5 days being the median time to showing covid-19 symptoms post infection, it’s likely that if protestors have been getting tested that some are included in these numbers.
Please continue to encourage anyone you know who has gone to protests to get tested, even if they aren’t showing symptoms.
A number of my husband’s coworkers have been at protests. They have gotten tested and so far all are negative. There was a newspaper article about someone who has been protesting and did test positive, although there’s plenty of community spread that they can’t trace around here.
I don’t know the answer to that. I know we are not going to have sports almost certainly (not officially decided but if PE isn’t safe they won’t have sports, either).
@greenwitch , I’m not sure why you would say this about Florida. The Florida data is readily available, including data on cases and deaths in long term care facilities. For instance, review page 2 (for testing) and page 4 (for long term care facilities) of the following report which is released daily:
http://ww11.doh.state.fl.us/comm/_partners/action/report_archive/state/state_reports_latest.pdf
Here are other Florida reports regarding long term care facilities:
http://ww11.doh.state.fl.us/comm/_partners/action/report_archive/ltcf_death/ltcf_deaths_latest.pdf
http://ww11.doh.state.fl.us/comm/_partners/action/report_archive/ltcf/ltcf_latest.pdf
Here is the weekly Florida report on serology (antibody testing):
http://ww11.doh.state.fl.us/comm/_partners/action/report_archive/serology/serology_latest.pdf
All of these reports and more can be readily accessed from this Florida DOH page:
https://floridahealthcovid19.gov/#latest-stats
Florida presents their data in a misleading format, to make their % positive look lower than it actually is. They add the antibody tests and the PCR tests together, which is unforgivable. If someone tests negative four times that counts as four negatives. If someone tests negative and then positive, that counts as a negative and and a positive.
I want to know how many people a state tested for infection, and how many of them tested positive. Florida does not give me that information.
@“Cardinal Fang” , Source for Florida mixing antibody tests and PCR tests?
And, did you look at page 2 of this report for the information you want:
http://ww11.doh.state.fl.us/comm/_partners/action/report_archive/state/state_reports_latest.pdf
OK, Florida’s not including antibody testing any more. But they’re still wrongly double-counting people who test negative.
I like the pdf you linked, @cmfl11. Very informative. But I shouldn’t have to find some pdf and dig into it to get topline information.
Some recent (yesterday) numbers for Florida: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article243513417.html