No Excuses

You can realistically get to a point where the case load of the virus is brought down and any new outbreaks are caught fast enough using testing and tracing the contacts of the infected. We have the expertise to do this, but it will require a form of messaging from the Trump admin that is completely absent at the moment. Whether we will be able to pull off something like that is an open question. The only thing I'm optimistic about is that we will know more about the biology of the virus and will have better technology (anti-virals, diagnostics) to combat it as we approach end of May.

I agree, I don't think "normal" is coming back any time soon but I do think we will start relaxing social distancing guidelines come June at the earliest. And when that happens, we need the public to really modify their behavior until a vaccine is approved. Mask wearing and surface cleaning will be really, really important.

Even masks using clothing items from home can be useful in protecting yourself in public. It's understandable why CDC initially told people not to bother with homemade or surgical masks but the more we learn about this virus, the more it makes sense to wear one in public. Need to get this message out as we think about reopening in May/June.

Neither good or bad. Maybe good if it was widespread enough that some portion of the population has some level of immunity to it. It might, MIGHT, explain the high rate of asymptomatic cases, but I don’t think this is the link that explains it because there doesn’t appear to be any sort of herd immunity to this virus so it wasn’t widespread. The major ramification is really that a virus could have gone untraced in the human population and allowed to evolve for years with no one knowing. More likely if this were the case, it wasn’t highly widespread but probably infectious enough to not fizzle out over time. We don’t test for coronaviruses when people are ill with respiratory illnesses because the coronaviruses that normally infect humans only cause very mild cold symptoms. So if no one is looking, a coronavirus that causes incredibly mild to no symptoms can just hide in plain sight. But natural selection is still working and if it acquires a new variation that allows it to jump more efficiently from human to human... then we’re off to the races.

I used today to go through peer reviewed literature coming out about the virus. By far the most interesting and what looks like least reported theory/finding is in this Nature Med article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9 tl;dr: it’s entirely possible that this virus has been present in the human population for years and years and years. There’s a variation it acquired that makes it highly infectious to humans that so far hasn’t been identified in any animal reservoir of coronaviruses. Just a theory at this point, but one that has some data evidence behind it and warrants more investigation. There’s a lot we don’t understand about the biology of this virus. Where it came from and why there are so many asymptomatic cases. I wouldn’t be surprised if we find out through serological testing that the spread is actually MUCH more than we suspected. Possibly millions of cases already in the US, with a small but sizeable fraction that require medical care.

Bolsanaro has major serial killer energy.

In the least surprising development ever:

The reduction in beds happened over 20 years, and not all of it is attributable to Cuomo. The cutbacks helping fuel New York’s hospital deficit came in waves. State government budgets operate very differently than the federal government and programs or entities that are bleeding red can't just be saved by deficit spending your way out. It's also important to note that ICU capacity was not cut down in this time, which is really the important metric right now.

Ok guy. Just try thinking with the rational side of your brain, won't hurt. Don't care about political lines either. You won't find me defending Bill de Blasio. And I am fond of the Republican governor of my state and how he's handled things. It is in fact possible to not be a meat head about this whole thing and consider that you were misinformed about what the governor of your state actually did and why.

He’s releasing people in jail who are there for low-level technical parole violations. There are going to be a ton of people who have served terms previously for some bad stuff on that list. None of them are back in jail because they committed the same crime again. Not a single sex offender who was serving a term for their convicted sexual offense crimes was released. There are few good choices in the middle of pandemics. This is one of those not great choices you have to make to ensure that prisons don’t become death camps. I’m glad people like you aren’t in charge so we don’t get completely meat headed responses that only make a bad situation worse.

The virus is spreading in NY prisons at a much higher rate than the general population. Reducing its spread in the prison pop is part of any sensible national mitigation strategy. I know it’s a foreign concept to some in this country, but even prisoners deserve something resembling humane treatment.

Newsom and Breed did an excellent job in CA. It’s too bad NYC has a dunce for mayor. Cuomo had to do two peoples work.

A complete domestic ban on non-essential interstate travel is probably warranted. Isolating just the NY area is political posturing and dumb policy.

The harm done in Florida by not closing the beaches and bars at the height of spring break....

Every approval/disapproval poll on this right now is utterly meaningless. We are still in the warm up act of what is coming our way and I don’t think a vast majority of the public has internalized this. This country will look and feel very different six weeks from now.

The change in mask policy is good. It was another botched message at the beginning of this. Once the supply issues are resolved, everyone needs to be wearing one in public for the next year.

Need to get antibody tests going ASAP and then need to open blood banks for everyone who recovered.

No one deserves this. And even if the stupidity of some people brings intentional harm to them, their behavior will have far more drastic consequences on poor people and poor minorities.

Just pure insanity.

We’ve seen social distancing enacted and followed upon in a lot of coastal areas but the numbers coming from the South and Middle are not encouraging. I’m very concerned about the current state of affairs in a lot of Trumpy states. Numbers are rising faster than anywhere else in the country and surveys keep indicating the majority of Republicans are not social distancing or restricting social behavior.

Some good news. This needs to keep scaling up to the point where “anyone who needs it gets tested” is actually true and not just gov fluff.

Long-term yes, but in the short term, if things slowly return to normal after the lockdown, chances are quite high that another large spike in cases takes place if test and tracing isn't in place. We should also probably start serological testing ASAP too if the asymptomatic case #s are as high as some studies suggest. --- Which on a side note, I've been wondering if my wife and I were exposed in early March. We went to the ER at 3 AM one night because she spiked a low grade fever, developed a viral rash and had been complaining of headaches the three days prior. Tested negative for strep and flu. Her fever went away in ~24 hours. Never developed respiratory symptoms. They didn't test her that night for COVID, but I'm now wondering if at any point I was asymptomatic and she only developed really mild symptoms.

There are policies you can enact to make sure that people losing jobs right now are able to stay on their feet (like the bill passed last night). Because this isn't driven by any underlying issues in the economy itself, like 2008 was, we know that when things open up, a lot of these people will return to work. Many of them can probably find work right now with the amount of hiring happening in the home delivery sector. There is no healthy economy as long as a virus that has no anti-virals or vaccines working against it is circulating freely in the public.

Also the whole point of this lockdown is so we can get through the first wave of case spikes and be prepared to dampen a very likely second wave. But to do that we really need the whole country to be testing and tracing by the end of May. Otherwise, this a never ending cycle until a vaccine is found and distributed which is a long way off. All the data shows that testing is ramping up in some parts of the country but many others are still lagging behind.

We know its bad enough that non-essential businesses have to be shutdown.