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COVID 19
Jun 15, 2020 12:45:34 GMT -5
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Post by TKennedy on Jun 15, 2020 12:45:34 GMT -5
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COVID 19
Jun 15, 2020 12:53:55 GMT -5
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Post by TKennedy on Jun 15, 2020 12:53:55 GMT -5
New Rules for Covid Summer: Be Flexible and Vigilant The public is divided. Authorities need to build confidence without wearing out goodwill. By Scott Gottlieb and Yuval Levin June 14, 2020 4:49 pm ET America is entering a complicated new phase of the Covid-19 pandemic. The remainder of 2020 warrants flexibility and tolerance, trying different ways to adapt to new evidence. In a country with such fractured politics, this will be no small challenge. That challenge is a function of a complicated public-health picture combined with contradictory public attitudes. Even as economic activity is resuming, Covid cases are rising in about a dozen states. This isn’t a second wave; it’s a series of spikes off the first surge. In the coming months, some states will see infections rise while others fall. The trick will be to manage the constant risk of Covid while restarting normal life. Policy makers are inclined to react to this challenge by looking for exactly the right set of rules to impose. But that overestimates how much of the country’s response to the virus has been a matter of policy, in the traditional sense. A lot of the hand-wringing about whether the shutdowns were justified makes the same mistake. It is clear in retrospect that there wasn’t much of a choice about whether to shut down. Public fear of the virus drove the closures. Travel and consumer activity collapsed well before governors intervened. If the country hadn’t shut down in March, we would have surely shut down by April when Covid deaths reached 3,000 a day. This is what happened in the U.K., where policy makers tried to avoid shutdowns but soon discovered the public wouldn’t let them. Officials reacted to public fears, formalizing what people had started doing on their own. That inevitably led to some needlessly crude and arbitrary enforcement measures, which rubbed some people the wrong way. But it essentially involved turning the public’s revealed preferences into a policy framework. The same is happening now around reopening. Only a small number of states met the criteria set by the White House and public-health groups for starting to reopen. But as summer approached, Americans got fed up with isolation. They started to go out again, creating informal new norms, and officials adapted policies to try to conform safely. Mass political protests, however justified, made that process more complex. As befits a free society, mayors and governors have mostly followed the public’s inclinations. Yet public attitudes are now as mixed and contradictory as the epidemiology data. A forthcoming survey of 3,500 Americans conducted this month by our American Enterprise Institute colleague Daniel Cox found that 58% of Americans want public officials to “take all necessary steps to ensure the public is safe even if it means keeping businesses closed longer and hurting the economy.” But that is down from 78% in late March. Some 41% supported allowing businesses to open “even if it means putting some people at risk,” nearly double the 22% in March. That explains what’s happening around the country, and also why so many people are uneasy. And it suggests that, along with ramping up testing and tracing, public officials need to focus on building public confidence and minimizing weariness. That means, for example, encouraging (and practicing) sensible behavior that can reduce the spread. Wearing face masks is the simplest and most effective, along with efforts to practice hygiene and distancing when possible. Officials from the president down must avoid politicizing these measures. They are neither conspiracies against your dignity nor proof of your enlightenment. They are sensible ways of reducing infection and fear. When local hot spots arise, mayors and governors must trace the outbreaks to their origin and be ready to curtail specific activities that are sources of spread. The public is clearly willing to follow focused guidance. But broad shutdowns are unlikely to be tolerated this summer—and therefore are unlikely to be proposed, regardless of what the epidemiology shows. This new phase of the pandemic doesn’t pose a binary choice for the country. It requires leaders to respond to both scientific evidence and public opinion in measured, flexible ways—to help build the patience to get through what could be a hard fall and winter. The ability to trace the infected and treat the sick is improving, and there is hope that a vaccine will come next year. But for now, no one has a policy formula for fully beating the virus. Different places will confront different circumstances and follow different courses, and the public will need to tolerate that and to learn from the evidence it provides. Such forbearance is a lot to ask of an often dysfunctional polity. But the first step to achieving it must be to see that vigilant flexibility, rather than merely the right set of rules, is what the summer will require. Dr. Gottlieb is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and was commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, 2017-19. He serves on health-care boards and is a partner at the venture-capital firm New Enterprise Associates. Mr. Levin is director of social, cultural and constitutional studies at the American Enterprise Institute and editor of National Affairs.
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Post by Cornflake on Jun 15, 2020 13:21:29 GMT -5
I think the piece is excellent (and not only because it says what I've always said about the cause of the shutdowns). Both the virus and the economy are real problems. It would be very unwise to ignore either one. This may be a situation where we'll need to avoid extremes and muddle through the best we can.
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Post by Cosmic Wonder on Jun 15, 2020 13:38:47 GMT -5
“I got a good feeling about this.” Mike
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Post by epaul on Jun 15, 2020 18:00:51 GMT -5
Minnesota's Covid 19 deaths continue to drop significantly. 6 were reported today . (MN's highest daily death total was around 35 with a long stretch of upper twenties with some 30s as the norm). (Minnesota's average mortality per day, all causes, is 126)
North Dakota's Covid Risk meter is sitting on the line between low risk and normal.
Covid 19 cases dropping in the North and rising in the South. What gives? Time will tell. But while listening to an NPR segment this morning on all things Covid, a caller raised an interesting thought... and the on-board infectious disease authority said, "That could be a factor. Great comment!"
The caller's comment: In the North, the summer weather is pleasant and people are out and about instead huddling inside (outdoors good). But, in states such as Arizona and Texas, it is the opposite. The summer weather is oppressively hot and people are huddling inside around the AC (shared air? Indoors bad?).
Could this be a factor in the seemingly diametric trends the two regions are currently experiencing?
Another interesting bit brought up during the segment: The show's infectious disease authority said (in reference to eating at restaurants) that while it is possible to become Covid-infected through contact with a viral-bearing surface, surface contact transmission of Covid 19 is proving to be slight in practice. The virus is most successfully spread as an aerosol.
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Post by james on Jun 16, 2020 8:04:53 GMT -5
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Post by epaul on Jun 16, 2020 9:45:16 GMT -5
Another treatment regime is showing great promise in limited trials. In a study I have monitored very closely, a double shot of whiskey combined with a double handful of peanuts has kept the participant, me, completely healthy in all regards viral since the program was initiated last March. Twice a week has proven to be an effective and safe minimum dose. Seven times a week proved to be a tad excessive and interfered with trombone practice.
With the bourbon and peanut study now readying for publication, a new study substituting gin and tonic for bourbon is about to be initiated. I will be following this study with great interest as well. I love studies. The "Will pizza ward off garden trolls" study was one of my very favorites. During its 12-year run, only one garden troll showed up, and it was a small one.
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Post by majorminor on Jun 16, 2020 10:13:39 GMT -5
Another treatment regime is showing great promise in limited trials. In a study I have monitored very closely, a double shot of whiskey combined with a double handful of peanuts has kept the participant, me, completely healthy in all regards viral since the program was initiated last March. Twice a week has proven to be an effective and safe minimum dose. Seven times a week proved to be a tad excessive and interfered with trombone practice. With the bourbon and peanut study now readying for publication, a new study substituting gin and tonic for bourbon is about to be initiated. I will be following this study with great interest as well. I love studies. The "Will pizza ward off garden trolls" study was one of my very favorites. During its 12-year run, only one garden troll showed up, and it was a small one. Have you considered the possibility that it's not what goes in you but what comes out of you that is really the thing keeping every thing at bay?
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Post by jdd2 on Jun 17, 2020 5:10:45 GMT -5
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Post by aquaduct on Jun 17, 2020 7:45:15 GMT -5
You've already rioted. The lock down horseshit is effectively done.
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Post by TKennedy on Jun 18, 2020 9:09:13 GMT -5
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Post by epaul on Jun 18, 2020 11:31:31 GMT -5
That article does seem to reinforce his point, that for the general population, Covid19 isn't a serious enough disease to warrant shutting down the country (he didn't even know he had it). Repeat, his point .
So far, the statistics do seem to indicate that Covid19 is a serious health threat for elderly people in congregant living conditions with pre-existing serious health conditions but is not so in any extraordinary way for the general population. Repeat, the statistics seem to indicate ... I have nothing to do with them, they aren't mine.
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Post by Cornflake on Jun 18, 2020 17:04:21 GMT -5
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Post by epaul on Jun 18, 2020 18:13:15 GMT -5
I think there is an opportunity for an enterprising fellow to organize several bus loads of retired AZ folks to enjoy a Covid-free summer vacation in Montana enjoying the cool mountain air and investigating real estate investment opportunities. You could bring some real estate folks and condo reps into the deal to cover your expenses and pick up a nice little bit of pocket change.
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Post by billhammond on Jun 18, 2020 18:18:27 GMT -5
I think there is an opportunity for an enterprising fellow to organize several bus loads of retired AZ folks to enjoy a Covid-free summer vacation in Montana enjoying the cool mountain air and investigating real estate investment opportunities. You could bring some real estate folks and condo reps into the deal to cover your expenses and pick up a nice little bit of pocket change. And as we have seen, the bears are of no risk, as they stay in the woods, eat hikers, and leave behind their turds redolent of blueberries and woodworkers.
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Post by Cornflake on Jun 18, 2020 18:28:34 GMT -5
They'd probably make us all stay in quarantine for two weeks, though.
The only bears up there hang out around Steve's game cameras.
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COVID 19
Jun 19, 2020 6:37:03 GMT -5
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Post by TKennedy on Jun 19, 2020 6:37:03 GMT -5
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Post by brucemacneill on Jun 19, 2020 6:59:44 GMT -5
Guess we need more protests and less sitting at home.
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Post by TKennedy on Jun 19, 2020 8:02:42 GMT -5
Guess we need more protests and less sitting at home. I am assuming that more time spent indoors in air conditioned buildings that probably mimic packing plants to some degree, is probably responsible for the surges in AZ and other southern states like Florida. Outdoors in warm weather is looking safer and safer all the time. A large group of unmasked screaming people packed in a closed air conditioned arena seems like a packing house on steroids. If it happens we’ll find out. Will be interesting to see how many default to masks. Go for it lab rats!!
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Post by epaul on Jun 19, 2020 10:33:21 GMT -5
Just a thought on Covid and meat packing plants. The majority of the workers arrive at the plant via car pooling or company supplied buses (the logistics are ideal, the economics significant, and sometimes the need great). A full car, van, or bus means close proximity and moist circulated unfiltered air in a small enclosed space. Perfect conditions for the virus to hop host to host.
Just another damn issue.
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