I’m glad there is no national plan. Let state governments and individuals make decisions based on what is best for their situation. This isn’t the plague and we don’t have bodies lining the streets. If it wasn’t for certain segments of the press we’d be living life as usual and we’d have football. But, under this climate of panic and who cares more there is no way we’ll have a season. I don’t even think the NBA will play in their big beautiful bubble because there is no way players will follow the rules and positive tests are going to keep happening. We are at the point where we will be in the state of the world is ending until a vaccine the media likes is created. Then magically it will be over.
IMO, not having a strong national plan has been the biggest failure in the US so far on this. When you have a crisis that is affecting the whole country you need a strong national plan to attack that process. We had nothing. And what little direction was given was largely ignored by alot of the state governments and then the citizens would not take simple steps to keep things in check.
So now we have 4 states that have more cases on a daily basis than the entire European Union and many places are going to have to go into more restrictive levels that none of us like. It's frustrating to see that of all the Western civilized nations we are really the only one that is struggling with this to the degree we are.
I believe we should have had a plan like Germany. You have strong metrics that you measure (we largely already were collecting the data), you set the limits that must be reached for any local or state level to open up. When they are hit you move forward and then you stay at that level until you make the next set of metrics. If they don't get to that level you stay where you are. If you hit a tripwire where your metrics go backwards a certain amount you put more restrictions back in place. In that way you create a system where you can open up in a rational, safe way that is unlikely to cause huge spikes. So you allow the actions to occur at a local level, but based on national standards. We tried to be the hare when we probably should have been the tortoise.
Texas is in surge routines in parts of the state, AZ has over 90% ICU utilization, as of this morning FL is at 17.22% ICU availability. 12 states have rising hospitalizations. in the SW hospitalizations increased 35% in the last week and in the SE it is 38%.
I saw a report this morning from San Antonio where they were in a hospital there. They are full and it is forcing them to start making decisions that doctors don't like to make. The doctor mentioned they had 10 calls yesterday to admit patients who were in his words 'all young' who would be good candidates for ECMO (where they pump out your blood through a tube, re-oxygenate it outside your body and then run it back in) sounds like they try to do that rather than put people on a ventilator, but he only had beds with machines for 3 people. So he had to make decisions on which three people get the most advanced care. The ER doctor mentioned that patients there are often having to stay in the ER for at least 24 hours because they don't have beds for them in the rest of the hospital.
Thankfully on a national level deaths are still declining, though the rate of decline has slowed significantly, but in both the SE and the SW death rates have started to increase. in the SE the 7 day avg cases has increased 63.5% in the last week and cases are doubling every 10 days. The 7 day avg positive test percentage has increased 20% in the SE in the last week and stands at 12%.
the 7 day avg death rate in the SW has increased 12% in the last week and 4% in the SE.
Unfortunately none of this is good. We had a fantastic jobs report today - but that is for the month of May, I expect the reports for June and July are not likely to be nearly as positive because of the last 2 weeks.
My company was planning on announcing its 3 phase strategy for re-opening its offices this week. That has been shelved indefinitely because of what has occurred. My supervisor yesterday said she doesn't expect us to return to our offices now until sometime in 2021. The 2 pools in our subdivision were closed as of yesterday because one of the life guards, who worked at both pools, tested positive for the virus.
The NBA Commissioner said it well. 'We have to learn how to live with this virus'. But some people hear that and they think that means we go back to what we were doing before. That is not what that statement means. That statement means we learn how to modify our behaviors so we can have as much freedom as possible. For the NBA that meant bringing 22 teams into a bubble. it is also likely that their next season is going to be played without fans in the stands, at least to start. We have to get to a point where we can manage this without overwhelming communities and their resources. If Europe ends up doing well then that means knocking the virus down to a degree that allows you to systematically re-open and have the ability to contain outbreaks before they spread too far.
I'm sick of this stupid virus, but it isn't going away on its own. It will only go away if we take the actions to make it go away and be less a part of our lives. Right now scientists don't even know about the immunity we will receive from this. Early studies have suggested the antibodies dissapear pretty quickly, so any immunity may be relatively short lived. But how long is that immunity, is it 6 months, is it 1 yr, 2 yrs, longer? That will play into what they have to do in terms of vaccines. If past experience with Coronaviruses ends up being predictive of this one, then we will likely not have long term immunity and will have to get new vaccine doses at regular intervals like we do for the flu. Early studies also suggest those that have milder cases get fewer antibodies than those that get sicker, so their immunity may be less. None of this is conclusive yet, but because it isn't it means we need to proceed cautiously.
As Bwelbo posted yesterday, July is already baked - at least the first couple of weeks are. If we take actions now, we should see the results 2-3 weeks from now. Until then who knows what we will see. I will add that after today I would wait until about next Wednesday before trying to get a sense of what is happening as the long Government Holiday weekend means there will likely be days with reduced numbers and others with inflated numbers depending upon when people are working, so we will need to see what is happening around Wed-Thur of next week to get a sense of if it is getting better or worse.
I hope everyone on here has a Happy July 4th Weekend and is able to safely spend time with family and friends. I don't know about anyone else but i'm looking forward to cooking on the grill this weekend.