Category Archives: False Hope

Trump said more Covid-19 testing ‘creates more cases.’ We did the math

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Evidence-based Leadership, Evidence-Based Plan, Evidence-Based Policy, False Hope, False Narrative, Mistake, Mistrust, Mixed Message, Mortality, Pandemic, Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Scientists, Social Distancing, Trust, Truth • Leave a comment

Trump said more Covid-19 testing ‘creates more cases.’ We did the math

Testing silhouette

The counter-narrative began almost instantly. After the U.S. count of Covid-19 cases began an inexorable rise in June, the White House sought to assure Americans that the increase was, basically, an illusion, created by an increase in testing for the novel coronavirus.

In a June 15 tweet, President Trump said testing “makes us look bad.” At his campaign rally in Tulsa five days later, he said he had asked his “people” to “slow the testing down, please.” At a White House press conference last week, he told reporters, “When you test, you create cases.”

And in an interview with Fox News that aired Sunday, Trump could not have been clearer: “Cases are up because we have the best testing in the world and we have the most testing.” Basically, the president was arguing that the U.S. had just as many new cases in June and July as it did in May but, with fewer tests being done in May, they weren’t being detected; with more testing now, they are.

A new STAT analysis of testing data for all 50 states and the District of Columbia, however, shows with simple-to-understand numbers why Trump’s claim is wrong. In only seven states was the rise in reported cases from mid-May to mid-July driven primarily by increased testing. In the other 26 states — among the 33 that saw cases increase during that period — the case count rose because there was actually more disease.

May had brought signs of hope that the U.S. had gotten its Covid-19 outbreak under control, with about 20,000 new cases reported per day after April highs closer to 30,000. But by late June, the daily count climbed to about 40,000, and now it’s at about 70,000. The STAT analysis shows that spread of the virus, far more than testing, explains that increase.

Epidemiologists and infectious disease experts have disputed the White House claims for weeks, citing rising hospitalization numbers and deaths. It’s hard to argue that extremely sick people, let alone dead people, had been obscured by low levels of testing but suddenly revealed by higher levels.

Without a doubt, many cases of Covid-19 in March, April, and May weren’t picked up. In late June, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield told reporters that as many as 90% of cases had been missed; that is, although there were 2.3 million confirmed cases in the U.S. then, some 20 million people had probably been infected. But that reasoning applies today, too: Despite months of government claims to the contrary, not everyone who wants, or should have, a test is getting one.

Simple math belies the “it’s just because of more testing” claim — with some fascinating exceptions.

Using data from Covid Tracking, STAT looked at the number of people tested and the number who tested positive for the disease (cases) in every state and Washington, D.C. We did that for three dates: in mid-May, mid-June, and mid-July. (Due to reporting anomalies, the dates selected sometimes differed by a day or two between states.)

For each date, we calculated the number of cases found per 1,000 tests — a measure of the disease’s prevalence. For example, in Florida on May 13, that rate was 32. On June 13 it was 75. On July 13 it was 193. On May 13, Florida tested 15,159 people; on July 13, it tested 65,567. So indeed, the number of tests has increased.

But the number of cases per thousand, which is independent of the number of tests, has skyrocketed. On May 13, Florida recorded 479 cases; on July 13, it found 12,624. If the prevalence of Covid-19 were the same in July as in May, Florida would have found only 2,098 cases. In other words, 10,526 of the July 13 cases are not due to increased testing, but, instead, to the increased prevalence of disease.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, however, echoes Trump’s explanation, telling a Saturday press briefing that his state’s soaring caseload is largely the result of more testing of people with no or minimal symptoms. “We’re now capturing a lot of those folks,” he said.

In fact, Florida has seen a sevenfold increase in cases in the past month, said Youyang Gu, who developed a well-respected, machine-learning-based model of Covid-19 whose projections have been quite accurate. “In the same time span, the number of tests only increased by a factor of two,” he said. “Obviously, if you double the testing but the number of cases increased sevenfold, then the virus is clearly spreading.”

Testing/cases graphic

The complete data for all 50 states can be found here.

 

Other states with soaring cases tell the same story as Florida.

In Arizona, the case-finding rate rose from 90 in May to 140 in June to 208 in July. Of its 2,537 cases on July 12, 1,441 were due to increased prevalence.

South Carolina has also experienced a steep rise in prevalence as its case count quintupled: Of the 2,280 cases on July 9, 1,869 were due to rising prevalence, not more testing. Texas and Georgia are similar: rising case counts well beyond increases in testing. In all, 26 states that did more testing in July than in May found more cases because Covid-19 was more prevalent. In 15 of them, the number of cases per 1,000 people tested had more than doubled.

Seven states (Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, and Wisconsin) meet the three criteria needed to support Trump’s claim that we’re seeing more cases only, or mostly, because we’re doing more testing. The criteria are doing more tests in July than in May, finding more cases on a typical day in July than May, but seeing the number of cases per 1,000 tests decline or remain unchanged from May to July.

Take Missouri. It’s reporting more cases, but not because the virus is exploding there (despite those crowded holiday scenes at Lake of the Ozarks). Its case finding rate has been pretty stable or even declining, from 48 in mid-May to 44 in mid-July. By tripling its number of daily tests, Missouri is finding roughly triple the number of cases.

California comes close to meeting the three criteria, but doesn’t quite. Its number of daily tests more than quadrupled from May to July, from roughly 32,000 to 137,000. But the rate of cases being found has risen, though only about 10%, from 55 to 61 per 1,000 tests. So a big reason — but not the main reason, as in Missouri — more cases are being found is that more testing is being done. Washington is similar: more testing, more cases, but also slightly greater prevalence of disease in mid-July compared to mid-May; its worsening situation is real.

New York tells the opposite story: more testing found fewer cases. The state nearly doubled its daily tests from May 13 (33,794) to July 12 (62,418). But its cases fell from 2,176 to 557. If the case rate had not dropped (by 86 %), New York’s expanded testing would have found 3,995 cases on July 12.

In fact, 16 states plus the District of Columbia are like New York. They tested much more, but found fewer cases in July than May — in most, not only “fewer” in the sense of fewer cases per 1,000 but fewer in absolute terms. New Jersey reported 10,246 tests and 1,144 cases on May 14, and 20,846 tests with a mere 393 new cases on July 14. Again, the virus hasn’t disappeared, but the expansion of testing, far from “creating” cases, has brought good news: In these states, it’s much less prevalent than it was two months ago.

 

 

Mask resistance during a pandemic isn’t new – in 1918 many Americans were ‘slackers

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Change, Change Management, Changing Behavior, Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economy Reopening, Evidence-Based Care, Evidence-based Leadership, Evidence-Based Plan, Evidence-Based Policy, False Hope, False Narrative, History, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Leadership Decentralized, Misinformation, Misinterpret, Mislead, Misleading, Mistake, Mistrust, Mixed Message, Mortality, National Strategy, Pandemic, Partisanship, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Scientists, Social Distancing, Social Responsibility, Wishful Thinking • Leave a comment

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Mask resistance during a pandemic isn't new – in 1918 many ...

We have all seen the alarming headlines: Coronavirus cases are surging in 40 states, with new cases and hospitalization rates climbing at an alarming rate. Health officials have warned that the U.S. must act quickly to halt the spread – or we risk losing control over the pandemic.

There’s a clear consensus that Americans should wear masks in public and continue to practice proper social distancing. While a majority of Americans support wearing masks, widespread and consistent compliance has proven difficult to maintain in communities across the country. Demonstrators gathered outside city halls in Scottsdale, Arizona; Austin, Texas; and other cities to protest local mask mandates. Several Washington state and North Carolina sheriffs have announced they will not enforce their state’s mask order.

I’ve researched the history of the 1918 pandemic extensively. At that time, with no effective vaccine or drug therapies, communities across the country instituted a host of public health measures to slow the spread of a deadly influenza epidemic: They closed schools and businesses, banned public gatherings and isolated and quarantined those who were infected. Many communities recommended or required that citizens wear face masks in public – and this, not the onerous lockdowns, drew the most ire.

Mask resistance during a pandemic isn't new – in 1918 many ...

In mid-October of 1918, amidst a raging epidemic in the Northeast and rapidly growing outbreaks nationwide, the United States Public Health Service circulated leaflets recommending that all citizens wear a mask. The Red Cross took out newspaper ads encouraging their use and offered instructions on how to construct masks at home using gauze and cotton string. Some state health departments launched their own initiatives, most notably California, Utah and Washington.

Nationwide, posters presented mask-wearing as a civic duty – social responsibility had been embedded into the social fabric by a massive wartime federal propaganda campaign launched in early 1917 when the U.S. entered the Great War. San Francisco Mayor James Rolph announced that “conscience, patriotism and self-protection demand immediate and rigid compliance” with mask wearing. In nearby Oakland, Mayor John Davie stated that “it is sensible and patriotic, no matter what our personal beliefs may be, to safeguard our fellow citizens by joining in this practice” of wearing a mask.

Health officials understood that radically changing public behavior was a difficult undertaking, especially since many found masks uncomfortable to wear. Appeals to patriotism could go only so far. As one Sacramento official noted, people “must be forced to do the things that are for their best interests.” The Red Cross bluntly stated that “the man or woman or child who will not wear a mask now is a dangerous slacker.” Numerous communities, particularly across the West, imposed mandatory ordinances. Some sentenced scofflaws to short jail terms, and fines ranged from US$5 to $200.

Mask resistance during a pandemic isn't new – in 1918 many ...

Passing these ordinances was frequently a contentious affair. For example, it took several attempts for Sacramento’s health officer to convince city officials to enact the order. In Los Angeles, it was scuttled. A draft resolution in Portland, Oregon led to heated city council debate, with one official declaring the measure “autocratic and unconstitutional,” adding that “under no circumstances will I be muzzled like a hydrophobic dog.” It was voted down.

Utah’s board of health considered issuing a mandatory statewide mask order but decided against it, arguing that citizens would take false security in the effectiveness of masks and relax their vigilance. As the epidemic resurged, Oakland tabled its debate over a second mask order after the mayor angrily recounted his arrest in Sacramento for not wearing a mask. A prominent physician in attendance commented that “if a cave man should appear…he would think the masked citizens all lunatics.”

In places where mask orders were successfully implemented, noncompliance and outright defiance quickly became a problem. Many businesses, unwilling to turn away shoppers, wouldn’t bar unmasked customers from their stores. Workers complained that masks were too uncomfortable to wear all day. One Denver salesperson refused because she said her “nose went to sleep” every time she put one on. Another said she believed that “an authority higher than the Denver Department of Health was looking after her well-being.” As one local newspaper put it, the order to wear masks “was almost totally ignored by the people; in fact, the order was cause of mirth.” The rule was amended to apply only to streetcar conductors – who then threatened to strike. A walkout was averted when the city watered down the order yet again. Denver endured the remainder of the epidemic without any measures protecting public health.

Mask resistance during a pandemic isn't new – in 1918 many ...

In Seattle, streetcar conductors refused to turn away unmasked passengers. Noncompliance was so widespread in Oakland that officials deputized 300 War Service civilian volunteers to secure the names and addresses of violators so they could be charged. When a mask order went into effect in Sacramento, the police chief instructed officers to “Go out on the streets, and whenever you see a man without a mask, bring him in or send for the wagon.” Within 20 minutes, police stations were flooded with offenders. In San Francisco, there were so many arrests that the police chief warned city officials he was running out of jail cells. Judges and officers were forced to work late nights and weekends to clear the backlog of cases.

Many who were caught without masks thought they might get away with running an errand or commuting to work without being nabbed. In San Francisco, however, initial noncompliance turned to large-scale defiance when the city enacted a second mask ordinance in January 1919 as the epidemic spiked anew.

Many decried what they viewed as an unconstitutional infringement of their civil liberties. On January 25, 1919, approximately 2,000 members of the “Anti-Mask League” packed the city’s old Dreamland Rink for a rally denouncing the mask ordinance and proposing ways to defeat it. Attendees included several prominent physicians and a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

It is difficult to ascertain the effectiveness of the masks used in 1918. Today, we have a growing body of evidence that well-constructed cloth face coverings are an effective tool in slowing the spread of COVID-19. It remains to be seen, however, whether Americans will maintain the widespread use of face masks as our current pandemic continues to unfold.

Deeply entrenched ideals of individual freedom, the lack of cohesive messaging and leadership on mask wearing, and pervasive misinformation have proven to be major hindrances thus far, precisely when the crisis demands consensus and widespread compliance.

This was certainly the case in many communities during the fall of 1918. That pandemic ultimately killed about 675,000 people in the U.S. Hopefully, history is not in the process of repeating itself today.

 

 

 

How the coronavirus pandemic became Florida’s perfect storm

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, ACA, Aging Population, Asymptomatic Transmission, Chronic Care Management, Chronic Conditions, Chronic Diseases, Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economy Reopening, Evidence-based Leadership, Evidence-Based Plan, Evidence-Based Policy, False Hope, False Narrative, Income Tax - State, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Leadership Decentralized, Medicaid, Medicaid Expansion, Misinformation, Misinterpret, Mislead, Misleading, Mistake, Mistrust, Mixed Message, Mortality, Pandemic, Partisanship, Preexisting Conditions, Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, School Reopening, Scientists, Social Distancing, Tourism Industry, Transparency, Underinsured, Uninsured, Vulnerable Populations • Leave a comment

https://theconversation.com/how-the-coronavirus-pandemic-became-floridas-perfect-storm-142333

How the coronavirus pandemic became Florida's perfect storm

If there’s one state in the U.S. where you don’t want a pandemic, it’s Florida. Florida is an international crossroads, a magnet for tourists and retirees, and its population is older, sicker and more likely to be exposed to COVID-19 on the job than the country as a whole.

When the coronavirus struck, the conditions there made it a perfect storm.

Florida set a single-day record for new COVID-19 cases in early July, passing 15,000 and rivaling New York’s worst day at the height of the pandemic there. The state has become an epicenter for the spread, with over 300,000 confirmed cases. Its hospital capacity is under stress, and the death toll has been rising.

Despite these strains, Disney World reopened two theme parks on July 11, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced schools would reopen in August. The governor had shut down alcohol sales in bars in late June as case numbers skyrocketed, but he hasn’t made face masks mandatory or moved to shut down other businesses where the virus can easily spread.

As public health researchers, we have been studying how states respond to the pandemic. Florida stands out, both for its absence of statewide policies that could have stemmed the spread of COVID-19 and for some unique challenges that make those policies both more necessary and more difficult to implement than in many other states.

The challenges of economic pressures

Florida is one of nine states with no income tax on wages, so its tax base relies heavily on tourism and property in its high-density coastal areas. That puts more pressure on the government to keep businesses and social venues open longer and reopen them faster after shutdowns.

If you look closely at Florida’s economy, its vulnerabilities to the pandemic become evident.

The state depends on international trade, tourism and agriculture – sectors that rely heavily on lower-wage, often seasonal, workers. These workers can’t do their jobs from home, and they face financial barriers to getting tested, unless it’s provided through their employer or government testing sites. They also struggle with health care – Florida has a higher-than-average rate of people without health insurance, and it chose not to expand Medicaid.

In the tourism industry, even young, healthy employees typically at lower risk from COVID-19 can unknowingly spread the virus to visitors or vice versa. The tourism industry also encourages crowded bar and club scenes, where the governor has blamed young people for spreading the coronavirus.

The past few weeks have been emblematic of the economic battles facing a state that depends on tourism for both jobs and state revenues.

Even as the public health risks were quickly rising, businesses continued to open their doors. Major cruise lines planned to resume their itineraries in the fall. A note on the Universal Studios website read: “Exposure to COVID-19 is an inherent risk in any public location where people are present; we cannot guarantee you will not be exposed during your visit.”

Disney World reopened on July 11 with face mask requirements. Matt Stroshane via Disney

Reopening guidance has been largely ignored

The Governor’s Re-open Florida Taskforce issued guidelines in late April meant to lower the state’s coronavirus risk, but those guidelines have been largely ignored in practice.

No county in Florida has reduced cases or maintained the health care resources recommended by the task force. The data needed to fully assess progress are also questionable, given a recent scandal regarding the state data’s accuracy, availability and transparency.

Still, the coronavirus’s rapid surge in Florida is evident in the state-reported cases. Testing lines are long, and almost 1 in 5 tests have been positive for COVID-19, suggesting the prevalence of infections is still increasing.

Florida’s patchwork of local rules also makes it hard to contain the virus’s spread.

With no statewide mask rules or plans to reverse reopening, other than for bars, communities and businesses have taken their own actions to implement public health precautions. The result is varying mask ordinances and restrictions on large gatherings in some cities but not those surrounding them. Though the Florida Department of Health has issued an advisory recommending face coverings, some local areas have voted down mask mandates.

More warning signs ahead

Late summer and fall will bring new challenges for Florida in terms of the virus’s spread and the state’s response to it.

That’s when Florida’s risk of hurricanes grows, and while Floridians are well-versed in hurricane preparedness, storm shelters aren’t designed for social distancing and will need careful plans for protecting nursing home residents. Storm cleanup could mean lots of people working in close proximity while protective gear is in short supply.

If Florida’s schools reopen fully, the risk of the virus rapidly spreading to teachers, parents and children who are more vulnerable is a real concern being weighed against the costs of keeping schools closed.

Colleges that reopen to classes and sporting events also raise the risk of spreading the virus in Florida communities. And the possible return of retirees who spend their winters in Florida would increase the high-risk population by late fall. One in five Florida residents is over age 65, giving the state one of the nation’s oldest populations – a risk factor, along with chronic illnesses, for severe symptoms with COVID-19.

Florida is also a battleground state for the upcoming presidential election, and that’s likely to mean campaign rallies and more close contact. The Republican National Convention was moved to Jacksonville after President Donald Trump complained that North Carolina might not let the GOP fill a Charlotte arena to capacity due to coronavirus restrictions. Florida organizers recently said they were considering holding parts of the convention outdoors.

The high number of cases being reported in Florida will lead to even more hospitalizations and fatalities in coming weeks and months. Without clear public health messages and precautions implemented and enforced across the state, the coronavirus forecast for the Sunshine State will remain stormy.

 

 

 

Modeling the ominous impact of testing delays

Posted on by • Posted in Asymptomatic Transmission, Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Evidence-based Leadership, Evidence-Based Plan, Evidence-Based Policy, False Hope, False Narrative, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Leadership Decentralized, Misinformation, Misinterpret, Mislead, Misleading, Mistake, Mistrust, Mixed Message, Mortality, Pandemic, Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Social Distancing, Wishful Thinking • Leave a comment

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Sponsors Delay Trials and Shift Toward Using Remote Procedures ...

With delays in getting test results growing in many areas of the country, a new analysis in the Lancet shows just how destructive increased turnaround times for COVID tests can be.

Researchers modeled the impact of the timeliness and completeness of contact tracing, finding that minimizing testing delay—shortening the time between symptom onset and a positive test result—had the greatest impact on reducing future spread of the disease.

Digging into the details, if infected individuals who develop symptoms are isolated within one day of symptom onset, the R0 (“R-naught”) can be reduced to 1—each existing infection seeds one new case—stabilizing the level of infection in a population. With contact tracing, the R0 can be reduced to 0.8, meaning the disease will decline.

And researchers found with a testing delay of three days or more, even the most efficient isolation and contact tracing is essentially futile, powerless to bend the curve of transmission rates.

Ominous findings for many states, where average test turnaround times are again approaching one week, showing just how far we are from being able to implement the basic public health strategy of “test, trace and isolate”, which has proven effective for so many countries around the world.

 

 

U.S. Coronavirus Pandemic Status: It’s about to get a lot worse

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economy Reopening, Employee Benefits, Employee Furlough, Employee Layoffs, Employee Pay Cuts, Employee Protections, Employer-Based Health Insurance, False Hope, False Narrative, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, High Deductible Health Plans, High Drug Prices, High Premiums, High Prices, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Job, Job Loss, Job Market, Job Search, Job Security, Leadership Decentralized, Mortality, National Strategy, Out of Pocket Expenses, Pandemic, Pandemic Fatigue, Paycheck Protection Program, Preexisting Conditions, Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Social Distancing, Uncertainty, Underinsured, Unemployment, Unemployment Insurance, Uninsured • Leave a comment

https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-pain-getting-worse-cd329f4c-9962-4f40-b401-7a7ac1a393cf.html

The pain of the coronavirus is about to get a lot worse - Axios

For months now, American workers, families and small businesses have been saying they can’t keep up their socially distanced lives for much longer. We’ve now arrived at “much longer” — and the pandemic isn’t going away anytime soon.

The big picture: The relief policies and stopgap measures that we cobbled together to get us through the toughest weeks worked for a while, but they’re starting to crumble just as cases are spiking in the majority of states.

Next week, the extra $600 per week in expanded unemployment benefits will expire. And there’s no indication that Congress has reached a consensus on extending this assistance or providing anything in its place.

  • But nearly half of the U.S. population is still jobless, and millions will remain jobless for the foreseeable future. There are 14 million more unemployed people than there are jobs, per the Economic Policy Institute.
  • Nearly a third of Americans missed a housing payment in July — and that was with the additional $600. Plus, most Americans have already spent the stimulus checks they received at the beginning of the pandemic.
  • “We should be very concerned about what’s going to happen in August and beyond” — starting with a spike in evictions, Mathieu Despard, who leads the Social Policy Institute at the Washington University in St. Louis, tells Axios.

Expect more furloughs and layoffs as more small businesses are pushed off the pandemic cliff.

  • By economists’ estimates, more than 100,000 small businesses have permanently closed since the pandemic began.
  • For those that are hanging on, loans from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) have not been enough, and the back and forth between re-opening and then closing again as states deal with new case waves has been devastating. In fact, rates of closure have started increasing, the New York Times reports, citing Yelp data.
  • The big firms aren’t immune either. Just last week, behemoths like United Airlines, Wells Fargo, Walgreens and Levi’s either cut jobs or told workers their jobs were at risk, Axios’ Dion Rabouin writes.

And the question of whether schools will reopen looms.

  • Since schools sent kids home in March, and most summer camps didn’t open their doors for the summer, working parents have been dealing with a child care crisis — attempting to do their jobs, care for their kids and homeschool all at once — and hoping that the stress will be temporary.
  • The situation is more dire for low-income families with kids who rely on school lunches or for single parents who are juggling work and parenting without any help.
  • Now the public heath crisis hasn’t abated, and school districts are running out of time to figure out what the fall will look like. Some, starting with Los Angeles, have already decided to go online.

The bottom line: “It’s the uncertainty that is anxiety-inducing,” says Despard. “If you give people a time horizon and say, ‘Look you have to get through these next 8 weeks of extreme shutdown,’ they’ll do it. Now it’s like, ‘How much longer?'”

 

 

 

 

 

U.S. Coronavirus Response: We blew it

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Asymptomatic Transmission, Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economy Reopening, Essential Businesses, Essential Workers, Evidence-based Leadership, Evidence-Based Plan, Evidence-Based Policy, False Hope, False Narrative, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Job, Job Loss, Job Market, Job Search, Job Security, Leadership Decentralized, Misleading, Mistake, Mistrust, Mixed Message, Mortality, National Strategy, Pandemic, Partisanship, Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Social Distancing, The CARES Act, Underinsured, Unemployment, Unemployment Insurance, Uninsured • Leave a comment

https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-america-blew-it-b3d84ea3-78b3-4fe0-8dce-1c4ed0ec0a4c.html

We blew it: Why America still hasn't gotten the coronavirus under ...

America spent the spring building a bridge to August, spending trillions and shutting down major parts of society. The expanse was to be a bent coronavirus curve, and the other side some semblance of normal, where kids would go to school and their parents to work.

The bottom line: We blew it, building a pier instead.

There will be books written about America’s lost five months of 2020, but here’s what we know:

We blew testing. President Trump regularly brags and complains about the number of COVID-19 tests conducted in the U.S., but America hasn’t built the infrastructure necessary to process and trace the results.

  • Quest Diagnostics says its average turnaround time for a COVID-19 test has lengthened to “seven or more days” — thus decreasing the chance that asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic carriers will self-quarantine.
  • The testing delays also make it harder for public health officials to understand current conditions, let alone implement effective contact tracing.
  • Speaking of contact tracing, it remains a haphazard and uncoordinated process in many parts of the country.

We blew schools. Congress allocated $150 billion for state and local governments as part of the CARES Act, but that was aimed at maintaining status quo services in the face of plummeting tax revenue.

There was no money earmarked for schools to buy new safety equipment, nor to hire additional teachers who might be needed to staff smaller class sizes and hybrid learning days.

  • U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was not among the 27 officials included in the White House Coronavirus Task Force.
  • The administration insists that schools should reopen this fall because kids are less likely to get very sick from the virus, but it has not yet offered detailed plans to protect older teachers, at-risk family members, or students with pre-existing respiratory or immune conditions.
  • Silicon Valley provided some free services to schools, but there was no coordinated effort to create a streamlined virtual learning platform. There also continue to be millions of schoolkids without access to broadband and/or Internet-connected devices.

We blew economics. The CARES Act was bold and bipartisan, a massive stimulus to meet the moment.

  • It’s running out, without an extension plan not yet in place.
  • Expanded unemployment benefits expire in days. Many small businesses have already exhausted their Paycheck Protection Program loans, including some that reopened but have been forced to close again.
  • There has been no national effort to pause residential or commercial evictions, nor to give landlords breathing room on their mortgage payments.

We blew public health. There’s obviously a lot here, but just stick with face masks. Had we all been directed to wear them in March — and done so, even makeshift ones while manufacturing ramped up — you might not be reading this post.

We blew goodwill. Millions of Americans sheltered in place, pausing their social lives for the common good.

  • But many millions of other Americans didn’t. Some were essential workers. Some were deemed essential workers but really weren’t. Some just didn’t care, or didn’t believe the threat. Some ultimately decided that protesting centuries of racial injustice was a worthy trade-off.
  • All of this was complicated by mixed messages from federal and state leaders. Top of that list was President Trump, who claimed to adopt a wartime footing without clearly asking Americans to make sacrifices necessary to defeat the enemy.
  • Five months later, many of those who followed the “rules” are furious at what they perceive to be the selfishness of others.

The bottom line: America has gotten many things right since March, including the development of more effective hospital treatments for COVID-19 patients.

  • But we’re hitting daily infection records, daily deaths hover around 900, and many ICUs reports more patients than beds. It didn’t have to be this way.

 

 

 

 

The surge in coronavirus hospitalizations is severe

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economy Reopening, False Hope, False Narrative, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Leadership Decentralized, Misinformation, Misinterpret, Mislead, Misleading, Mortality, National Strategy, Pandemic, Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Social Distancing, Uncertainty, Wishful Thinking • Leave a comment

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Share of hospital beds occupied
by COVID-19 hospitalizations

States shown from first date of reported data, from March 17 to July 19, 2020

  • In the last two weeks hospitalizations are:

The coronavirus surge is real, and it's everywhere - Axios

 

Coronavirus hospitalizations are skyrocketing, even beyond the high-profile hotspots of Arizona, Florida and Texas, Axios’ Bob Herman and Andrew Witherspoon report.

Why it matters: The U.S. made it through the spring without realizing one of experts’ worst fears — overwhelming hospitals’ capacity to treat infected people. But that fear is re-emerging as the virus spreads rapidly throughout almost every region of the country.

Where things stand: Arizona remains in the worst shape; 27.1% of all hospital beds in the state are occupied by COVID-19 patients as of July 15, according to an analysis combining data from the COVID Tracking Project and the Harvard Global Health Institute. Texas is second at 18.8%.

  • Nevada is the next worst, with COVID-19 patients taking up 18.7% of all hospital beds. That’s up significantly from 11.2% at the start of July.
  • Florida just started tallying current hospitalization data, showing more than 16% of all hospital beds occupied.

It gets worse: Many other states are showing significant upticks in coronavirus hospitalizations during the first half of July, including Alabama, California, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee.

  • Many of these states, which reopened a lot of their economies in May, do not have mask mandates.

Between the lines: Intensive-care unit beds, reserved for the sickest patients, are completely full in parts of Arizona, Florida, Mississippi and Texas.

  • Hospitals can convert other areas into ICUs, but that’s not all that useful if hospitals don’t have enough staff and supplies.

The bottom line: Cases have soared over the past 45 days, and hospitalizations naturally follow many of those cases.

  • Rising hospitalizations mean the outbreaks in many areas are not close to being controlled, and some percentage of those hospitalizations will end as deaths.

 

 

U.S. blows past coronavirus record with more than 70,000 new cases in one day

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Data Governance, Data Integrity, Data Interpretation, Data Ownership, Economic Crisis, Economy Reopening, False Hope, False Narrative, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Leadership Decentralized, Misinformation, Mislead, Misleading, Mixed Message, Mortality, National Strategy, Pandemic, Partisanship, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Scientists, Social Distancing, Trust, Truth, Wishful Thinking • Leave a comment

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/17/coronavirus-live-updates-us/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most

FirstFT: Today's top stories | Financial Times

There was a time in the United States when 40,000 coronavirus cases in a day seemed like an alarming milestone. That was less than three weeks ago.

Now, the number of new infections reported each day is reaching dizzying new heights. On Thursday, the daily U.S. caseload topped 70,000 for the first time, according to data tracked by The Washington Post.

Record numbers of covid-19 fatalities were reported in Florida, Texas and South Carolina on Thursday, and officials throughout the Sun Belt are worried that hospitals could soon reach a breaking point.

Here are some significant developments:

  • Masks are now mandatory in more than half of U.S. states — with the governors of Arkansas and Colorado the latest to issue face-covering orders. Major retailers phased in new mask policies, and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R), chairman of the National Governors Association, said that masks should be mandated in states across the country.
  • Larry Fink, the chief executive of investment firm BlackRock, said that if states moving forward with reopening plans required masks, the economy would recover much sooner.
  • Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) blasted Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp (R), for suing to stop block her city’s mask ordinance, accusing him of “putting politics over people.”
  • An unpublished report from the White House Coronavirus Task Force suggests that nearly 20 hard-hit states should enact tougher public health measures.
  • Real-time coronavirus tracking data temporarily disappeared from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website, sparking an outcry.
  • President Trump faces rising disapproval and widespread distrust on coronavirus, according to a new Post-ABC poll.
  • India on Friday surpassed 1 million confirmed coronavirus cases, becoming the third country to cross that threshold, behind the United States and Brazil..

 

 

 

 

Florida And Texas Both Set Coronavirus Death Records Thursday

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economy Reopening, Evidence-based Leadership, Evidence-Based Plan, Evidence-Based Policy, Expert, False Hope, False Narrative, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Leadership Decentralized, Mortality, National Strategy, Pandemic, Partisanship, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Scientists, Social Distancing, Wishful Thinking • Leave a comment

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2020/07/16/florida-and-texas-both-set-coronavirus-death-records-thursday/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailydozen&cdlcid=5d2c97df953109375e4d8b68#226e63bb720a

Florida coronavirus: State marks Covid-19 case record as July ...

TOPLINE

Coronavirus deaths are again on the rise in the U.S., with all three of the nation’s largest states setting new highs for daily death tolls Thursday following weeks of record increases in new cases and hospitalizations, even as President Donald Trump and other conservatives have touted death statistics as a sign the U.S. is handling the pandemic well.

KEY FACTS

California, Texas and Florida all reported new record daily highs for deaths Thursday.

California reported 149 deaths, while Florida reported 120 and Texas set a new record for the third-straight day, with 105.

Deaths are rising rapidly in Texas, with the 105 deaths breaking Wednesday’s record of 98, which shattered the record of 60 that was set on Tuesday.

Coronavirus deaths in the U.S. declined from early May through mid-June, but have picked up recently, and are now pacing at just under 1,000 per day.

The rise is being driven by record new death tolls in the nation’s largest states—the same states that have in large part contributed to the U.S.’s record rise in new cases recently.

Experts have said that deaths lag behind increases in cases and hospitalizations, with former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb saying in an interview Sunday that “the total number of deaths is going to start going up again.”

KEY BACKGROUND

Coronavirus deaths reached a peak nationally in April through early May with over 2,000 a day on many days, largely driven by the severe outbreak in New York. Now the pandemic has eased in the Northeast while states in the South and West are the new national epicenters for coronavirus.

CHIEF CRITICS

Trump and Republican politicians had used the decline in deaths and a decrease in mortality rates to argue that the U.S. response to coronavirus has worked. However, there has also been a massive increase in testing, meaning that many less severe cases are now being identified.

BIG NUMBER

4.3%. According to Johns Hopkins University, that’s what the current mortality rate is among confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S., a number that’s continually dropped as testing has increased. However, health experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci said early on in the pandemic that they believe the actual mortality rate is around 1%, which is still at least 10 times the lethality of the seasonal flu. And Gottlieb noted that even if the reported death rate continues to drop, if there is an increase in infections, the amount of deaths will ultimately rise, as well.

CRITICAL QUOTE

“It’s a false narrative to take comfort in a lower rate of death,” Fauci said on Tuesday, adding “There’s so many other things that are very dangerous and bad about this virus, don’t get yourself into false complacency.”

 

 

 

Unpublished White House Coronavirus Task Force Report – 18 States in Red Zone

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Clinical Testing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Data Control, Data Interpretation, Data Management, Data Ownership, Economic Crisis, Economy Reopening, Evidence-based Leadership, Evidence-Based Plan, Evidence-Based Policy, False Hope, False Narrative, Leadership Decentralized, Leadership Intent, Leadership Trust, Mislead, Misleading, Mixed Message, Pandemic, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Public Health, Public Safety, Transparency, Trust, Truth • Leave a comment

https://mailchi.mp/publicintegrity/exclusive-white-house-docs-shows-18-states-in-coronavirus-red-zone?e=4539e77864

An unpublished document prepared for the White House Coronavirus Task Force and obtained by the Center for Public Integrity suggests more than a dozen states should revert to more stringent protective measures, limiting social gatherings to 10 people or fewer, closing bars and gyms and asking residents to wear masks at all times.

The document, dated July 14, says 18 states are in the “red zone” for COVID-19 cases, meaning they had more than 100 new cases per 100,000 population last week. Eleven states are in the “red zone” for test positivity, meaning more than 10 percent of diagnostic test results came back positive. 

It includes county-level data and reflects the insistence of the Trump administration that states and counties should take the lead in responding to the coronavirus. The document has been shared within the federal government but does not appear to be posted publicly.

It’s clear some states are not following the task force’s advice. For instance, the document recommends that Georgia, in the red zone for both cases and test positivity, “mandate statewide wearing of cloth face coverings outside the home.” But Gov. Brian Kemp signed an order Wednesday banning localities from requiring masks.