Category Archives: Public Opinion

Op-Ed: American Exceptionalism or American Insanity?

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Coronavirus, Coronavirus Treatment, False Hope, False Narrative, Hydroxychloroquine, Judgement, Misinformation, Misinterpret, Mislead, Misleading, Mistake, Mistrust, Mixed Message, Pandemic, Panic, Panic Mindset, Physician, Public Health, Public Opinion, Public Perception, Public Safety, Scientists, Unnecessary Care, Wishful Thinking • Leave a comment

https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/88163?xid=nl_popmed_2020-08-20&eun=g885344d0r&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=PopMedicine_082020&utm_content=Final&utm_term=NL_Gen_Int_PopMedicine_Active

We don’t have all of the answers, but that’s not our biggest problem.

Thirty years ago, in preparation for hunting season, I went to a shooting range to practice with my bow. I felt fine. When I finished, I got in my truck and began to back out. When I pressed on the brake, I felt a sharp pain in my foot. My first instinct was to go over what I did walking back and forth to pull arrows from the target. Had I twisted my foot, did I trip on something? No, I had not injured my foot in any way.

When I got home, I took off my shoe and looked. My big toe was slightly swollen and slightly red. It looked like gout. I took ibuprofen. I was better by the next day. I never had another attack until this week.

I was at a friend’s house drinking wine. My knee suddenly began to hurt. I walk or jog 6-8 miles per day, so my first thought was that all the exercise was catching up to me. I took ibuprofen. It got better. But the next day my ankle suddenly became very painful; then my wrist hurt a bit. I remembered my experience with gout. I treated myself for gout, and got better.

I feel very fortunate to live in a time when gout can be easily treated. One hundred years ago, I would have been in big trouble. Which is not to say that I would not have taken medicine in an attempt to get relief. I would have tried a variety of products that claimed to help but did no good.

Today, we can treat so many illnesses that were brutal and deadly in the past. A long time ago, all children with type 1 diabetes died. Today, we have effective therapy — insulin. When I was a resident in the early 1980s, we had no specific way of treating a heart attack. Today, we can place a stent and reverse the pathological process.

In the past, something as simple as poison ivy could make a person’s life miserable. Today, we can knock it out in a short time. Modern medicine can do amazing things. To a large extent, it can do these amazing things because of effective biomedical science.

However, it can’t cure everything. Nor can it beat death. The amazing accomplishments of the medical profession in the last 100 years seem to have led some to believe, or want to believe, that doctors can solve all medical problems. This belief system came to bear with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Many expected the medical profession to step up and solve the problem. When it didn’t, disappointment arose. Then accusations began to fly. Some claimed that there were conspiracies involving Big Pharma and doctors. Others claimed there were cures that were being suppressed by the government.

Some doctors and scientists responded to this by trying to appease. They turned to in vitro data — such as the zinc/hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) interaction — to claim that zinc and HCQ would work wonders. When other doctors and scientists pointed out flaws in that data, they were attacked. It was another conspiracy. I even heard accusations that this was a plot by Bill Gates for population control.

Some doctors also turned to poor, anecdotal trials with HCQ that supposedly showed benefit in a few patients. This led quite a few to believe that HCQ was a wonder drug. Once the exaggerations about HCQ came out, it could no longer be found in pharmacies. The panic was just that strong.

Everyone seemed to get caught up in the panic mindset, and then work under the notion that a lack of clear medical success just can’t be possible in the 21st century. Many patients in intensive care units across the country were being put on HCQ, steroids, remdesivir, anti-IL-6 medication, vitamin C, and whatever else seemed like it might do something.

Many patients who were put on that medication cocktail died, because there was no legitimate science behind this approach — whether it helped was unclear.

However, over time, it became more clear that steroids helped. It became more clear that HCQ did not help. Such revelations led to more reasonable, though not entirely proven, therapeutic approaches. But because the less scientific approaches had so much hype in the beginning, and because the panic was so strong, getting away from them has been fraught with problems and accusations, and even physical threats.

Sadly, some of these accusations and threats were fueled by irresponsible doctors in academic medical centers. Misinformation was fed to the public, and the public, being not well-versed in biomedical research, latched onto the credentials of these doctors rather than seeing through their hysterical and misguided arguments about HCQ and such.

The internet and the free flow of information allows many who don’t really understand the ins and outs of biomedical research and clinical medicine to read something that sounds good and believe it because it satisfies psychological needs. This is a clear pattern of behavior when it comes to HCQ.

But it is not just irresponsible people in academic medical centers who contribute to this process. Doctors, many of whom post on medical blogs, accuse anyone who says we should slow down and evaluate our therapy of “wanting to do nothing” or “not caring about the thousands who are dying.” Even well-intentioned doctors get caught up in this need to seem like something is being done, and so they order all sorts of useless tests.

One such useless test being ordered more commonly in COVID patients is an MRI of the heart. One study in a few patients comes out that shows that COVID can affect the heart, and the next thing you know everybody with COVID needs a heart MRI. Whether the MRI is a reliable test for this is unclear. What we do with the information from the MRI is unclear. It just makes some doctors and some patients feel good to engage in such useless practices.

This pattern of behavior, the pattern of engaging in useless practices to give the appearance of care, is quite common in the profession of medicine. I find it interesting that it has not been challenged by progressives, like those so interested in the Green New Deal. The environmental harm done along these lines by misguided doctors might do as much or more environmental harm than fracking — but at least with fracking you get something to show for your efforts.

With out-of-control doctors, ordering useless tests, running MRI machines and CT scans, etc., day in and day out, without valid justifications, produces nothing useful — unless one believes that feeding hypochondriasis and feeding poor medical judgment is useful.

The profession of medicine accomplished great things in the 21st century. These great things came through American exceptionalism. They came through valid biomedical science. These amazing accomplishments led many to believe that the profession of medicine has all the answers.

But it doesn’t. The COVID pandemic has shown us that. I’m sorry that we can’t save everyone. It is tragic. But it will be more tragic if we let our limitations along these lines lead us into a dark place of anger, lack of reason, lack of valid science, and then on to invalid conspiracy theories.

American exceptionalism does not need to die because of COVID. Instead, what needs to die is a type of insanity that makes us think we have all the answers. What needs to die is a type of insanity that makes us think that if we don’t have all the answers, we have to turn to useless testing, unproven therapies, and futile care.

What needs to die is the turning to false prophets and conspiracy theories. The profession of medicine has proven that it can do a very good job combating illness.

Good doctors are trying hard to deal with and solve this pandemic. When a type of insanity gets in the way, it is a problem.

W. Robert Graham, MD, completed medical school and residency at UTHSC-Dallas (Parkland Hospital) and served as chief resident. Graham received a National Institutes of Health fellowship at the Salk Institute for oncogene research in 1985. He was a professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine from 1998 through 2016. In retirement, he enjoys writing and ranching.

 

 

 

 

New unemployment claims top 1 million. Again.

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economic Stimulus, Employee Furlough, Employee Hiring Freeze, Employee Layoffs, Employee Pay Cuts, Employer-Based Health Insurance, Essential Health Benefits, 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, Mixed Message, Mortality, National Strategy, Pandemic, Public Health, Public Opinion, Public Perception, Public Safety, Public Schools, Quarantine, School Reopening, Scientists, Social Distancing, Underinsured, Unemployment, Unemployment Insurance, Uninsured, Wishful Thinking • Leave a comment

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/08/20/august-unemployment-claims/?wpmk=1&wpisrc=al_business__alert-economy&utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=wp_news_alert_revere&location=alert&pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJjb29raWVuYW1lIjoid3BfY3J0aWQiLCJpc3MiOiJDYXJ0YSIsImNvb2tpZXZhbHVlIjoiNWI2M2EzNDJhZGU0ZTI3Nzk1NTBjYTFiIiwidGFnIjoid3BfbmV3c19hbGVydF9yZXZlcmUiLCJ1cmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy53YXNoaW5ndG9ucG9zdC5jb20vYnVzaW5lc3MvMjAyMC8wOC8yMC9hdWd1c3QtdW5lbXBsb3ltZW50LWNsYWltcy8_d3Btaz0xJndwaXNyYz1hbF9idXNpbmVzc19fYWxlcnQtZWNvbm9teSZ1dG1fc291cmNlPWFsZXJ0JnV0bV9tZWRpdW09ZW1haWwmdXRtX2NhbXBhaWduPXdwX25ld3NfYWxlcnRfcmV2ZXJlJmxvY2F0aW9uPWFsZXJ0In0.ns8VggWJk95qb-c_2926acWIaHxyFIBXSRn76O7Lrf0

The number of people applying for the first time for unemployment insurance ticked up last week to 1.1 million, from 970,000 the week before, a sign that job losses continue to plague the labor market five months into the coronavirus pandemic.

The weekly jobless claims had sunk slowly in recent months but have remained well above historical highs, averaging about 1.18 million a week for the last four weeks. Economists had predicted last week’s figure to approach the numbers from the previous week, which had fallen below 1 million for the first time in about five months.

Instead, the initial claims and new claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, the program available to gig and self-employed workers, both went up. About 543,000 new claims were filed for PUA for the week that ended on Aug. 15, up from 488,000 the week before.

“The fact that the claims are so high this far into the crisis is concerning,” said AnnElizabeth Konkel, an economist at the job site Indeed. “Yet the depths of the damage remain to be seen. I would definitely call it a canary raising alarms in the economic coal mine.”

Data shows the number of job postings slowly recovering in recent weeks, compared with postings from the year prior. However, last week, postings took a turn for the worse. They had been running about 18 percent below normal and fell to 20.3 percent below normal last week.

“The longer we go into this crisis, the longer people that have been temporarily laid off may not get called back,” Konkel said. “Businesses can only ride out this crisis for so long.”

More than 28 million people were receiving some form of unemployment benefits as of Aug. 1, the most recent week for that statistic, about equal to the previous week.

Job loss from the pandemic remains a singular crisis, without comparison in modern times. The country’s unemployment rate, last calculated in July, was 10.2 percent, and economists have warned that it could go up in August as the virus continues to alter life around the country.

The extra $600 in unemployment benefits that many workers credit with keeping them afloat expired at the end of July. And funds from the $660 billion PPP program, which gave grants and loans to companies to keep workers on payroll, have been running out for many recipients.

Companies announcing layoffs in recent days include Wieland Copper Products, in North Carolina, a Mohegan Sun casino in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Amsterdam Printing & Litho, a printing company in Upstate, N.Y., and Ohio sales and marketing company Maritz. School districts and local governments are also beginning to experience deep cuts: New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) warned last week that as many as 22,000 city workers faced possible layoffs in the fall.

 

 

 

 

School reopenings with COVID-19 offer preview of chaotic fall

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Asymptomatic Transmission, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Expert, Expert Opinion, False Hope, False Narrative, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Leadership Decentralized, Misinformation, Misinterpret, Mislead, Misleading, Mistake, Mistrust, Mixed Message, Mortality, National Strategy, Pandemic, Positivity Rate, Public Health, Public Opinion, Public Perception, Public Safety, Public Schools, Public Trust, Quarantine, School Reopening, Scientists, Social Distancing • Leave a comment

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/public-global-health/512824-school-reopenings-with-covid-19-offer-preview-of

When Texas schools reopen, officials planning few required safety ...

Thousands of students and teachers across the country are quarantining just days into the new school year, highlighting the challenges of resuming in-person instruction during a pandemic.

While many schools aren’t scheduled to reopen until later this month or September, those that have are offering a preview of the chaos that awaits districts this fall, particularly in hot spots in the South and Midwest where the virus is spreading uncontrollably.

In Georgia’s Cherokee County School District, where students are not required to wear masks, nearly 2,200 students — mostly high schoolers — are quarantining after coming into contact with one of 116 students or 25 teachers and staff members with COVID-19. Another 53 teachers and staff members are also quarantining.

Those numbers are expected to increase with more test results. In the meantime, three of the district’s six high schools have moved classes online, at least until September.

Experts have warned for weeks that it will be extremely difficult to safely reopen schools in hot spots, but some districts are still charging ahead — some willingly, others after some prodding from state and national leaders.

The results, health officials say, are not surprising, though they are preventable.

“You go in, people get infected — boom, you close them down. So it’s better to ease in, perhaps with virtual, until you see what’s going on when you’re in a really hot zone,” Anthony Fauci said during a livestreamed event Tuesday, referring to schools that have already closed after reopening this year.

“When you’re in a red zone … you really better think twice before you do that because what might happen, is what you’ve seen,” Fauci added.

Schools in states like Indiana, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Tennessee have shut down, at least temporarily, after finding COVID-19 in their hallways and classrooms.

The question of when and how to open schools has moved from a public health debate to a political one, with President Trump and his administration strongly advocating for full-time, in-person instruction, hoping in part that parents can then return to work and revamp an economy that’s been ravaged by the coronavirus recession.

Health experts and administration officials note that the consequences of missing in-person learning can be severe, especially for younger students. Finding a solution that minimizes harm to students while protecting public health has proven difficult.

Annette Anderson, a professor in the school of education at Johns Hopkins University, said there is no proven or agreed-upon approach to holding classes during a pandemic, no set protocols around when to return to in-person instruction or how to conduct testing and contact tracing.

“There’s a wild, wild west approach with all the different types of plans in reopening and because of that, a gold standard would just mean clarity around what schools should do. But we don’t have a tacit agreement about what that actually means,” she said.

Most states are deferring school opening decisions to local school districts. For example, while the Cherokee County School District is offering in-person learning five days a week, Atlanta Public Schools, just one county over, is beginning the year online.

Many school districts are opting for online instruction or pursuing hybrid models in which students alternate which days they are in class to limit the number of people in school buildings at one time.

Others, like some districts in Georgia, Arkansas, Florida and Texas, are moving full speed ahead with in-person learning, despite the challenges posed by cramped buildings and classrooms. Some of those districts also offer online options.

While in-person instruction might work for some states where transmission is relatively low, like New York, which gave districts the green light to fully reopen this year, it will be much harder in hot spots.

Fauci classified hot spots as areas with test positivity rates that exceed 10 percent.

While he didn’t specify any states, several across the country have positivity rates over 10 percent, according to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University, and have districts pursuing in-person instruction. The list includes Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi and Texas.

“There’s one opportunity to do this well, because once you open you want the schools to stay open as much as possible, given how disruptive isolating schools and teachers can be,” said Thomas Tsai, assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

He recommended schools consider shutting down if the virus appears to be widespread. If cases appear to be isolated to one cluster in a classroom, the rest of the school can probably remain open, while exposed students isolate at home.

That’s why it’s especially important for students to wear masks and keep their desks at least 6 feet apart, and avoid gatherings outside of classrooms, he said, otherwise the number of contacts per case can quickly grow, resulting in more students and teachers needing to be quarantined.

If there are clusters in multiple classrooms and hundreds of students and teachers need to quarantine, schools might need to consider shutting down, Tsai added.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says in “most instances” a single case of COVID-19 should not warrant a school closure.

But if the spread of COVID-19 at a school is higher than within the community, or if the school is becoming the source of an outbreak, administrators should work with local health officials to determine whether temporary closures are needed.

Mississippi State Health Officer Thomas Dobbs said Monday that 245 teachers and 199 students have tested positive for the coronavirus in 71 of the state’s 82 counties. Almost 600 teachers and more than 2,000 students are now in quarantine, but none of the schools have closed.

Dobbs said many of the teachers and students likely contracted the virus outside of school but unknowingly “brought it with them” to class.

Classes are canceled indefinitely at a school district in Pinal County, Ariz., after more than 100 teachers and staff members refused to come to work, citing a concern with the spread of COVID-19 in the community.

The school district planned to resume in-person learning Monday, despite the county not meeting metrics recommended by the state’s health department for safely reopening, including a drop in the number of new cases, new COVID-19 hospitalizations and the percentage of people testing positive.

In Florida, 13 counties have reopened schools in the past week for in-person instruction; at least three districts have reported COVID-19 cases. In Martin County, more than 300 students and teachers are quarantining after coming into contact with infected classmates.

County officials said some parents are not keeping their kids at home while awaiting the results of COVID-19 tests. Instead, they’re waiting until the test is positive before notifying the school.

And in Florida’s Dade County, about 70 students and staff are quarantining after 11 people in the district tested positive. County officials have said that cases are to be expected and superintendents should call them before making any decisions about closures.

The confusion at all levels of government has frustrated both parents and school officials. In the lead-up to the new school year, Trump has offered mixed messages.

Last month, he said schools in hot spots might need to delay their reopening plans, but in August he renewed his push for a return to in-person instruction by tweeting: “OPEN THE SCHOOLS!!!”

 

 

 

 

Notre Dame cancels in-person classes after surge of COVID-19 cases

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Evidence-based Leadership, Evidence-Based Plan, Evidence-Based Policy, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Mortality, National Strategy, Pandemic, Public Health, Public Opinion, Public Perception, Public Safety, Public Trust, School Reopening, Scientists • Leave a comment

https://www.axios.com/notre-dame-cancels-classes-coronavirus-a7bd3249-f757-44a9-baf8-fb4de0bbefa3.html?stream=health-care&utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alerts_healthcare

The University of Notre Dame announced Tuesday that it is canceling in-person classes for at least two weeks following a spike in coronavirus cases.

Why it matters: Notre Dame is the second prominent university to announce this week that it would revert back to remote learning, following the the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Tuesday. The reversals underscore the challenges facing colleges and universities as more students are set return to campus.

Between the lines: As was the case with UNC, most of the COVID-19 infections at Notre Dame have been linked to off-campus parties.

  • The nearly 12,000 students that returned to Notre Dame were all tested before arriving on campus on Aug. 10, and just 33 tested positive, according to the Journal.
  • Through Monday, 147 of the 927 students who had shown symptoms tested positive for the virus — a sharp uptick in the positivity rate.

What they’re saying: “Our contact-tracing analysis indicates that most infections are coming from off-campus gatherings,” said University of Notre Dame President Rev. John Jenkins. “Students infected at those gathering passed it on to others, who in turn have passed the virus on to others, resulting in the positive cases we have seen.”

  • “For your sake and the sake of our community and for continuing our semester on campus, please observe health protocols and avoid behavior that puts yourself or others at risk,” Jenkins added.

 

 

 

 

Cartoon – What does your mask say about you?

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Cartoon, Coronavirus, Denial, Evidence-based Leadership, Evidence-Based Plan, Evidence-Based Policy, False Hope, False Narrative, Honesty, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Integrity, Leadership Decentralized, Misinformation, Misinterpret, Mislead, Misleading, Mistake, Mistrust, Mixed Message, Mortality, National Strategy, Pandemic, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Public Health, Public Opinion, Public Perception, Public Safety, Quarantine, School Reopening, Scientists, Social Distancing, Trust, Truth • Leave a comment

Jim Morrissey: What does your coronavirus mask say about you ...

Cartoon – Profile in Courage vs. Cowardice

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Cartoon, Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Courage, Cowardice, Credibility, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economic Recovery, False Hope, False Narrative, Freedom, Honesty, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Leadership Decentralized, Misinformation, Misinterpret, Mislead, Misleading, Mistake, Mistrust, Mixed Message, Mortality, National Strategy, Pandemic, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Public Health, Public Opinion, Public Perception, Public Safety, Quarantine, School Reopening, Scientists, Social Distancing, Transparency, Trust, Truth • Leave a comment

COVID-19 News - Updated Daily

Prosecuting the case against the COVID response

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, False Hope, False Narrative, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Job, Job Loss, Job Market, Job Search, Job Security, Leadership Decentralized, Misinformation, Misinterpret, Mislead, Misleading, Mistake, Mistrust, Mixed Message, Mortality, National Strategy, Pandemic, Public Health, Public Opinion, Public Perception, Public Safety, Quarantine, School Reopening, Scientists, Social Distancing • Leave a comment

https://mailchi.mp/647832f9aa9e/the-weekly-gist-august-14-2020?e=d1e747d2d8

Bruce Plante Cartoon: Corona virus denial

This week, in her debut as running mate to presidential candidate Joe Biden, California Sen. Kamala Harris gave a preview of one of the Democratic ticket’s key arguments for the fall campaign, making a full-throated, prosecutorial case against the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

“The virus has impacted almost every country,” Harris said, “but there’s a reason it has hit America worse than any other advanced nation. It’s because of Trump’s failure to take it seriously from the start.”

After receiving a briefing from public health experts on Thursday, Biden and Harris argued for a more comprehensive, aggressive national strategy to battle the virus, including major federal investment in contact tracing, a national mask mandate, and guaranteed free access to a COVID vaccine when it becomes available.

The remarks came as the US experienced the deadliest day of the summer so far, with nearly 1,500 COVID fatalities on Wednesday, and a seven-day rolling average of over 1,000 deaths per day for the last 17 days. Meanwhile, a new analysis by the New York Times, using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), indicated that the true US death toll from COVID may be as much as 35 percent higher than the reported total of 167K—a finding based on “excess deaths” above normal levels since March.

As President Trump continued to urge schools to reopen for in-person instruction nationwide, the White House released new guidance for ensuring students’ safe return to school. The guidance encouraged social distancing, frequent handwashing, better ventilation of school facilities, and the use of outdoor settings wherever possible.

Despite the President’s claim last week that children are “virtually immune” from the virus, a new analysis from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association showed that 97,000 children tested positive for COVID in the last two weeks of July alone, a 40 percent increase in the total number of known cases over that period.

About 340,000 children have tested positive so far, representing about 9 percent of all US cases. As schools face pressure to reopen, those numbers are likely to mount, and early-opening school districts in Georgia, Tennessee, Indiana, and Mississippi are already struggling to keep schools open amid rising cases.

Federal assistance to help schools deal with what seems like inevitable rounds of positive cases and closures is not forthcoming, however: after failing to reach a deal on another round of COVID relief, lawmakers have left Washington until September.

US coronavirus update: 5.2M cases; 167K deaths; 64.6M tests conducted.

 

 

 

U.S. records deadliest coronavirus day of the summer

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economic Recovery, Economic Stimulus, Economy Reopening, False Hope, False Narrative, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Leadership Decentralized, Misinformation, Mislead, Misleading, Mistake, Mistrust, Mixed Message, Mortality, National Strategy, Pandemic, Public Health, Public Opinion, Public Perception, Public Safety, Public Schools, Public Trust, Quarantine, School Reopening, Scientists, Social Distancing • Leave a comment

https://www.axios.com/1485-us-coronavirus-death-record-5ee493cc-df91-4549-8c9d-43a5fee0bd87.html

U.S. records deadliest coronavirus day of the summer - Axios

The U.S. reported 1,485 deaths due to the coronavirus on Wednesday, COVID Tracking Project data shows.

Why it matters: It’s the highest single-day COVID-19 death toll since May 15, when the country reported 1,507 deaths. The U.S. has seen a total of 157,758 deaths from the virus.

The big picture: Georgia reported 109 deaths on Wednesday — its second triple-digit day in a row.

Go deeper: 5 states set single-day coronavirus case records last week

 

 

 

 

The two sides of America’s coronavirus response

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Clinical Research, Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Coronavirus Airborne Transmission, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economic Stimulus, Emergency Preparedness, False Hope, False Narrative, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Leadership Decentralized, Life Expectancy, Misinformation, Mislead, Misleading, Mistake, Mistrust, Mixed Message, Mortality, National Strategy, Pandemic, Public Health, Public Opinion, Public Perception, Public Safety, Public Schools, Public Trust, Quarantine, School Reopening, Scientists, Social Distancing, Vaccine • Leave a comment

https://www.axios.com/us-coronavirus-vaccine-testing-science-b656e905-67d1-4836-863e-c91f739cfd1e.html

The two sides of America's coronavirus response - Axios

America’s bungled political and social response to the coronavirus exists side-by-side with a record-breaking push to create a vaccine with U.S. companies and scientists at the center.

Why it matters: America’s two-sided response serves as an X-ray of the country itself — still capable of world-beating feats at the high end, but increasingly struggling with what should be the simple business of governing itself.

What’s happening: An index published last week by FP Analytics, an independent research division of Foreign Policy, ranked the U.S. 31st out of 36 countries in its assessment of government responses to COVID-19.

  • That puts it below developed countries like New Zealand and Denmark, and also lower than nations with fewer resources like Ghana, Kenya and South Africa.
  • The index cited America’s limited emergency health care spending, insufficient testing and hospital beds and limited debt relief.

By the numbers: As my Axios colleague Jonathan Swan pointed out in an interview with President Trump, the U.S. has one of the worst per-capita death rates from COVID-19, at 50.29 per 100,000 population.

Yes, but: Work on a COVID-19 vaccine is progressing astonishingly fast, with the Cambridge-based biotech company Moderna and the National Institutes of Health announcing at the end of July that they had begun Phase 3 of the clinical trial.

  • Their efforts are part of a global rush to a vaccine, and while companies in the U.K. and China are jockeying for the lead, U.S. companies and the NIH’s resources and expertise have been key to the effort.
  • Anthony Fauci has said he expects “tens of millions” of doses to be available by early 2021, a little over a year after the novel coronavirus was discovered.
  • If that turns out to be the case, “the Covid-19 vaccine could take a place alongside the Apollo missions as one of history’s greatest scientific achievements,” epidemiologist Michael Kinch recently wrote in STAT.

So which is the real American response to COVID-19? The bungled testing policies, the politically driven rush to reopen, the tragic racial divide seen in the sick and the dead? Or the warp-speed work to develop a vaccine in a year when most past efforts took decades?

Be smart: It’s both.

The bottom line: It can often feel as if there are two Americas, and not even a virus that has spread around the world seems capable of bridging that gap.

 

 

 

 

U.S. doing a lot less coronavirus testing

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Evidence-based Leadership, Evidence-Based Plan, Evidence-Based Policy, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Leadership Decentralized, Mortality, National Strategy, Pandemic, Public Health, Public Opinion, Public Perception, Public Safety, Public Schools, Public Trust, Quarantine, School Reopening, Scientists, Social Distancing • Leave a comment

https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-vitals-32689a40-e409-4547-8468-b03dc589c082.html

The two sides of America's coronavirus response - Axios

The U.S. is cutting back on coronavirus testing. Nationally, the number of tests performed each day is about 17% lower than it was at the end of July, and testing is also declining in hard-hit states.

Why it matters: This big reduction in testing has helped clear away delays that undermined the response to the pandemic. But doing fewer tests can also undermine the response to the pandemic.

By the numbers: At the end of July, America was doing more than 800,000 tests a day. This week, it’s hovered around 715,000.

  • Even as states with particularly bad outbreaks pull back on their testing, the proportion of tests coming back positive is still high — which would normally be an indication that they need to be doing more tests.
  • In Texas, 19% of tests are coming back positive, according to Nephron Research. In Florida, the rate of positive tests is 18%, and in Nevada, 17%.

Yes, but: Experts have said reducing the demand for testing may be the best way to alleviate long delays, which made tests all but useless. And that appears to be working.

Driving the news: The Department of Health and Human Services estimated this week that nearly 90% of all tests are being completed within three days — a big improvement from turnaround times that had been stretching well over a week.

  • Quest Diagnostics says its expected turnaround time is now 2–3 days, and less for priority patients. LabCorp announced a similar turnaround time last week.

The bottom line: The U.S. is averaging 50,000 new cases a day, and that high caseload is ultimately why the demand for testing is more than the system can handle.

  • We can’t get our caseload under control without fast, widespread testing, but we can’t achieve fast, widespread testing with such a high caseload.