Wed April 15 2020/ 56/ 161,135/ 632,656/ 2,610,099
The number 632,656 is from
US Historical Data | The COVID Tracking Project
and it represents the number of positive tests yesterday
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Only the successful ones. All credit no blame. Always
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Generally right, though I think some of these problems are fixable, especially given time and resources. For one, public health departments already have the ability to punch through HIPAA for emergencies. At the state and local level, a bunch of this stuff is in motion, for example both the state of MA and San Francisco are ramping up contact tracing programs.
At the federal level, things are much more of a clusterfuck. The CDC should be doing a lot more (especially re testing capacity), but they’re basically AWOL.
So a big question is whether these criteria will be seen as gating (in which case there will be a clear push to surge resources to make it happen), or if they’re just fancy words to justify a May 1 date while sounding like a sensible public health policy. Too early to tell.
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It won’t work. For example, this from the WaPo link above about “Phase One” for states that meet the opening criteria:
LARGE VENUES (e.g., sit-down dining, movie theaters, sporting venues, places of worship) can operate under strict physical distancing protocols.
Restaurants can’t survive with tables spaced so far apart that they’re only getting half the traffic. Same thing with movie theaters. The economics won’t work – they can’t suddenly charge twice or three times as much per meal, or per movie ticket.
Sports arenas and teams aren’t going to be satisfied with filling just 25% of the seats, which is what it would require to maintain distancing, especially with every other row empty to maintain front-to-back spacing. And churches? Don’t make me laugh. They aren’t going to draw a lottery to see which 25% of their flock will be allowed to worship.
It won’t work. The guidelines will either be ignored, or those venues won’t open at all.
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expected to outline his guidance for parts of the country to reopen
Just when we least expected it, we’re saved!
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Again, around here, the restaurants are doing land office business with curbside service. Order on line, drive up, pick up, eat at home.
The main street in town is pretty busy particularly on the weekends. Easter, they went crazy here with full Easter dinners and brunches that were enormous.
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Only 30 minutes to Wapner. Wapner from hell.
False negatives, not false positives. The false negatives are due to needing to shove a qtip swab really far up into the sinuses and rummage around with it. The patient tends not to cooperate so you don’t get a reliable swab.
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The readjustment of the death numbers is an important step in grasping the extent of what is now the leading cause of death in the US. We now need testing to determine some realistic number of infections. Back of the napkin, it is probably around 25 million at this point or 7-8% of the population. That is not enough for herd immunity, but also makes it unlikely that the virus will just “go away” as Trump promised. Since this is essentially a kind of cold virus, immunity may not be as important ultimately as the condition of our immune systems. It may be that you are looking something equivalent to the Apollo moon shot program aimed at human health. In other words, the main work of the Defense Department in the future may be within the human body, rather than in development of external weapons systems.
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I’m just saying it’s not a plan.
I have a phased plan to fly to the Moon, for example. But is it really a plan, because my first bullet is “build a rocket”.
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Either way, this needs to be reliable. It’s apparently not with the kits we have. We need to do better and we can’t rely on the Feds to be at all helpful.
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There isa map on this page that shows the counties that don’t have any cases — although its not completely up to date apparently, there are 4 or 5 WI counties showing zero cases.
But the cool thing is that you can move back and forth in time with the map, and watch how the map gets filled in…
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and it will be the coastal states’ fault when his glorious plan doesn’t work.
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Supposedly he had a video conference with some governors today. His “schedule” didn’t say who they were and there were no reporters. Wonder how this will add to the spewing?
I’d rather pull my fingernails out with pliers than listen to the imbecile and I’m a big coward regarding pain.
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Some of the restaurants in my town are doing that too. I don’t think it’s the same volume as their regular eat-in traffic though, and most restaurants run on thin margins. I know of a few restaurants that have closed for the duration, or possibly for good, because the food doesn’t fit a take-out format.
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Well, that’s not happening…
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Re-post from another thread
["All this is Trump’s Last Month of the kind of relevancy which would make a “Task Force COVID Press Conference” anything within a galaxy of making sense.
Too many things piling up."]
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President Trump is scheduled to hold a press briefing at 6 p.m. ET at the White House,
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But for what day?
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