TX has 4413 new cases today, FL: 2783, AZ: 2392, CA: 3340
I know that it is a new record daily high for AZ and TX.
In other Covid news…
I am sorry for what you and your mom has gone through. We are dealing with a similar situation with my in-laws.
I am not as familiar with for profits, but initially not-for profits were having calls twice a day to discuss best practices and trends at communities. Those with dementia are a serious concerns, as the social distancing is having a severe impact on these individuals.
The closing of dining rooms and hair salons has been close to universal in the industry. Of note, most outbreaks have been limited to nursing homes, with limited impact in independent living. While understanding that there have been negative impacts on individuals, the industry has done a good job of protecting this age group from getting the virus. Care givers should be an exception to the “no visitor” orders(be a squeaky wheel). We were successful at getting my wife designated as a care giver to go in and help her mom(who has an end of life designation).
Most communities have limited residents leaving the community. While this has been for their protection, and has largely been successful in protecting them from the virus, it is recognized that there are significant adverse impacts to this policy.
This has been difficult on the staff. Nobody had a plan for this. It is not just the health care workers at risk. I know of three CFO’s who caught the virus(one of them died).
Many communities are starting to open up as states have allowed them to.
623 new cases in NYS yesterday.
Per updated DOH epidemiological curves, WA had 1 new death, 3 new hospitalizations, and 376 new positives since yesterday. Recent samples are about 1.5-3% positive statewide. The most populous county (King) has about 1.5-2%. Not all new data have been included yet, but the numbers generally do not fluctuate that much. Sadly, Yakima county still has a very high rate of positives, but that reflects testing done in fruit processing facilities experiencing outbreaks. 
The immune specialists said when out in public nothing but N95. But I can’t possibly wear an N95 all day when at work every day. I don’t have enough of them, can’t buy them easily if at all (there are a lot of fakes), and they are not comfortable past a certain amount of time. I will have to drink water and eat sometimes. so, I can’t have it on 100% of the time.
I save the n95s for doctor’s appointment. I’m having blood taken soon and will wear an N95. I need something pretty darn good for every day, though. That’s the fuel to my obsession with finding a good mask. I see some pretty cool ones sometimes but most are not in this country.
What I think would be great is if they made surgical masks widely available for the public as they appear to be in many other countries, as I think if most wore them it would greatly slow the spread. of course medical workers are priority, especially those in jobs that expose them to a lot of covid in the air. But if we had enough, I think that would be a great thing.
Oh, also, I think I posted this before, but DH showed me a video of a guy touring a Chinese mask factory and they said that they had so much demand that they only certified some of their masks. Some masks are the exact same but they just send them out in order to fulfill orders due to the super high demand. So, while there are fake masks out there, I think there are also a number of uncertified masks that are actually the real deal as well.
Also, when the CDC and press were saying masks don’t work, the immune deficiency organization put out a video that included the idea that masks don’t work. But for years people with immune deficiency have been advised to wear things like Vogmasks in public!! And when the person said it in the video, she looked like someone who knew she wasn’t being honest. And in the later video when the same person said to wear masks, also she did not appear to be truthful to me. I think she knew all along people (especially immune deficient) should wear masks. I was disappointed in that.
There are several links in the may thread that talk about this. Surgical are substantially better.
Just for context. That number is out of approx 50,000 tests.
Percent positives range from a high of 1.4% in Central NY to 0.2% in North County and Southern tier regions.
NYC had the most positive tests 332 and a percent positive of 1,2%
Overall, pretty good numbers. Now the really hard part comes - keeping them low.
All NYS stats are here. https://forward.ny.gov/percentage-positive-results-region-dashboard
I hope I don’t offend anyone by saying that the following news (that the “competitive event” will be held at all) disappoints me:
Nathan’s Famous will still hold the 2020 Fourth of July International Hot Dog-Eating Contest in Coney Island on July 4, but there will be no crowd due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The annual contest, an American holiday tradition on the corner of Surf and Stillwell Avenues for generations, will take place in a private location with COVID-19 safety measures in place.
It will be one of the first major televised post-COVID competitive events to be held in the United States.
I find those events repulsive even in normal times.
I agree with you that science means reacting to newly discovered information, but in this case they already knew in February that this was spread through droplets - and masks protect others from being projected on. What we didn’t know is how much was being spread by invisible aerosolized droplets just from talking and breathing.
But comments like these on March 2nd were false, and they knew it by then.
“You can increase your risk of getting it by wearing a mask if you are not a health care provider,” Adams said. “Folks who don’t know how to wear them properly tend to touch their faces a lot and actually can increase the spread of coronavirus,” he added.
https://www.businessinsider.com/americans-dont-need-masks-pence-says-as-demand-increases-2020-2
And I agree (and almost forgot) how all the doctors and press all went along with this. Masks don’t work! Don’t wear a mask! Etc. I read and heard this everywhere- it was non partisan. They were focused on surfaces - fine, that ended up being less of a mode of transmission than they thought - however, looking back - and I am not a scientist- I was blown away at the time about the Italian 30 year old guy who basically infected dozens and dozens of people (waiting room patients, doctors, nurses, etc) in the hospital (where he visited 3 times before being admitted)… And they thought this was all from surfaces and not aerosols? It didn’t make sense, and that was mid- February.
Anyway, Dr Fauci today admitted that they didn’t recommend early on because of concerns of a run on masks, not because they would “hurt”.
There was a writing by Atul Gawande describing various measures taken in a hospital, including an evaluation of various kinds of masks. Both surgical masks and cloth masks were more protective of others than they were of the wearer, but surgical masks were more protective than cloth masks in both directions, according to what he wrote and the studies he cited.
https://www.newyorker.com/science/medical-dispatch/amid-the-coronavirus-crisis-a-regimen-for-reentry
Like so many other things these days, opinions on COVID-19 are increasingly divided by race and ethnicity: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/black-americans-were-hit-hard-by-state-shutdowns-but-are-worried-about-reopening-too/
'Past guidelines from the C.D.C. also cited a 1948 military study in which almost fifty young men with confirmed Streptococcus infection—strep throat—were asked to cough, sneeze (with the help of a sneezing powder), and talk. …In the most common pattern, bacteria grew only on petri dishes placed on the floor a foot and a half from the sneezer. In ten per cent of cases, bacteria were captured only by the air samplers. In twenty per cent, no streptococci were recovered anywhere. But one recruit spewed large quantities of bacteria into petri dishes and air samplers almost ten feet away. ’
So, this shows that the idea virus can travel far, can be in the air, etc wasn’t ‘new’ even before 1950!!
Also, the rest of the article is very good.
My parents live in Collier county Florida. The positivity rate as of yesterday was 10.4%.
My mom says the local news is filled with stories of migrate farm workers being infected.
A superspreader back then too… I wonder if that happens with the flu as well. (Some people spread it more than others even under equal conditions.)
I read a story about a healthcare worker who went out to a bar in Jacksonville. She went with 15 friends on June 6. Indoors, no masks. All 16 tested positive as did 7 bar employees.
I was optimistic a few weeks ago - not anymore. Why worry about the second wave when we aren’t even out of the first?
I was in my car yesterday and heard an intro clip…something about two people from the UK who were given permission to visit a dying relative in New Zealand, and both UK folks tested positive for Covid 19.
Anyone else see or hear this story? Did the NZ folks catch these folks at the airport before they actually entered their communities? What about the others on the plane?