As states prepare to reopen, those that never really shut down are already seeing a spike in cases

[FONT=&quot]As states prepare to reopen, those that never really shut down are already seeing a spike in cases [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] [/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Mark Sumner [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Daily Kos Staff [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Tuesday April 28, 2020 · 12:30 PM PDT [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Spotting a spike in new cases in the midst of an epidemic isn’t as simple as looking at the numbers for the day. For example, Louisiana reported 295 new cases on Monday, but with over 27,000 cases already reported, this was both a significant decrease over previous days and a fairly low value overall—just a 1% increase in known cases. Those new cases were also backed up by 4,000 new tests. Meaning that the testing on that day resulting in 7% positive cases. That’s not great, but it’s definitely an improvement.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]On the other hand, Nebraska reported 330 new cases on Monday. On the surface, that seems like a very similar number. Only that number came on top of just 2,732 previous cases, making the new cases an 11% increase for the day. Also, Nebraska only performed 1,100 new tests on that day. So positive tests were 26% of the total. That’s an absolute sign that the testing was grossly inadequate, likely restricted to people entering the hospital, and was sure to miss a great number of cases. That day wasn’t the only such day in Nebraska. It followed a whole series of days just like it: rapidly rising cases, woefully inadequate testing. Cases in Nebraska have doubled in a week, and it’s not the only state showing this kind of spike.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]When cases in New York state first began explosive growth, the answer was straightforward: They were already there, but no one was looking. It was clear even then, and definitely established now, that cases had been expanding across New York throughout February, even as the CDC fumbled and failed to produce tests. It wasn’t until March 4 that the first tests—44 of them—were available in New York. As late as March 14, the number of tests being conducted in New York in a single day was just 103. Whole generations of virus had expanded across the city at that point. Testing wasn’t describing an outbreak, it was searching for the boundaries of an epidemic already underway. Even as testing became a priority and the rate increase enormously (hitting a peak rate of 46,000 tests last Saturday) the already massive size of the outbreak still defied description. On Monday, the rate of positive tests in New York City was 19%. Horrible … but down from 45% two weeks ago.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The problem with states like Nebraska is that testing has never become a priority. The state has just reached 1,000 tests a day in the last four days, and across those days the rate of positive tests has been 25%, 22%, 25%, and 26%. There is COVID-19 in Nebraska. It is expanding rapidly. No one in the state government headed by Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts seems particularly interested in finding it. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Neighboring Iowa has a similar problem. Though the state made it fairly deep into the crisis without reporting a significant number of cases, in part that was because it barely conducted any testing before mid-March, and when those tests were 10%-20% positive, Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds apparently took this as permission to continue snoozing. This resulted in darkly amusing situations like the one on March 26 where Iowa conducted just 34 tests. All positive. This is not exactly the best indicator that everything is under control.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]In the last week, Iowa has increased its rate of testing, hitting 2,000 tests a day for three days out of the last four. But it’s clearly done so in response to a sharp increase in confirmed cases. The rate of positives over that period has been over 20%, showing that like Nebraska, Iowa isn’t testing at a rate sufficient to describe the outbreak that already exists, much less get ahead of it and halt it short of disaster.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]There are other states that stand out for low levels of testing. Arizona has tested at barely half the national average. Despite the high number of elderly residents, the state seems to have largely gotten away with this so far. But then, unlike the governors of Iowa and Nebraska, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey did order a fairly comprehensive shutdown—which expires on April 30. Which means that Arizona is about to get an answer to whether it has tested sufficiently to support relaxing those guidelines. (It hasn’t.)[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Of course, there is a state under a Democratic governor that’s testing at a genuinely shocking rate. Under Gov. Jay Inslee, Washington state conducted only 37 tests on Monday and fewer than 700 over the last three days. But then, the rate of positives on those tests was 0%. COVID-19 is far from defeated in Washington. Over the last week, the state has uncovered 1,100 new cases while carrying out 21,000 new tests, and that 5% positive rate is still way too high. (Washington also had at least 165 cases on Tuesday, but the number of total tests conducted on that date hasn’t yet been made available.)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Across the country, there are states that are doing fairly well with testing, but not well on distancing guidelines (see Utah), states that are doing well on guidelines, but under testing (check out Virginia), and states that are really not doing well at either (Kansas is a stand out and not standing out). None of these states is ready to step back to anything approaching “normal.” Some of them, like Iowa and Nebraska, aren’t just facing possible spikes in cases if they reopen—they’re already in the middle of spikes. Others have tested at such low levels that opening wide to save the economy is only going to raise the stock price of companies that rent refrigerated trucks. Too many of them are about to discover that the virus may be too small to see, but its effects are not.[/FONT]

And that is how you get this to move along quickly, need to expose people to it so everyone is exposed.

Locking them down just prolongs it and makes it last much longer and actually is detrimental in the long term

There has never been a similar situation where the healthy have been locked down.

Do some research instead of reading DailyKos you might learn something

T Hawk said:

And that is how you get this to move along quickly, need to expose people to it so everyone is exposed.

Locking them down just prolongs it and makes it last much longer and actually is detrimental in the long term

There has never been a similar situation where the healthy have been locked down.

Do some research instead of reading DailyKos you might learn something

Click to expand...

You'll pardon me if I take the opinions of a vast number of medical professionals over that of a moron-that would be YOU.

Bedtime fairytale stories by the Daily Kos.

It’s bullshit folks. But you already knew that.

HamGlaze said:

Bedtime fairytale stories by the Daily Kos.

It’s bullshit folks. But you already knew that.

Click to expand...

Glaze dem balls with honey and army ants, scumbag. And, HOW, exactly, is it bullshit, you lying turd?.^^:madasshol:bigfinger:trx-smly0:fckmad:

Here ya go By the way I just skull fucked your wife next week I will skull fuck your sister Moron

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/f...he-us-economy-stanford-doctor-says-2020-04-27

Key Words
Enough with the ‘hypothetical models,’ it’s time to reopen the U.S. economy, Stanford doctor says
Published: April 27, 2020 at 4:22 p.m. ET
By Shawn Langlois
234

Reopen New York? Getty
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‘Let’s stop underemphasizing empirical evidence while instead doubling down on hypothetical models. Facts matter.’
That’s Scott Atlas, former chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University, making his case for ending coronavirus lockdowns in favor of a targeted approach to getting the U.S. back on its feet.

“Americans are now desperate for sensible policy makers who have the courage to ignore the panic and rely on facts,” Atlas wrote in a widely read piece for The Hill last week. “Leaders must examine accumulated data to see what has actually happened, rather than keep emphasizing hypothetical projections; combine that empirical evidence with fundamental principles of biology established for decades; and then thoughtfully restore the country to function.”

Since that article published, Atlas has been bringing his message of ending lockdowns to several other media outlets in recent days, including an interview on the “Conservative Review with Daniel Horowitz” podcast, a chat with The Blaze, and an op-ed in the NY Post.

Atlas explained how the death rate in New York, where almost a third of all U.S. deaths have taken place, shouldn’t be a cause for panic for most. He said that more than 99% of those who have died had an underlying condition and that the rate of death for all people 18-45 is 0.01%.

“We know children and young adults in good health have almost no risk of any serious illness from COVID-19, so logic means opening most schools,” he wrote in The Post. “With sensible precautions and sanitization standards, most workplaces and businesses should reopen. This would save lives, prevent overcrowding of hospitals, restore vital health care for everyone and allow the socializing essential to generate immunity among those with little risk of serious consequences.”

In addition, Atlas says that, because of such “hypothetical projections,” patients in need of other medical care, such as those suffering from cancer and heart conditions, are being ignored.

“People are dying to accommodate ‘potential’ COVID-19 patients and for fear of spreading the disease,” he wrote. “Most states and many hospitals abruptly stopped ‘nonessential’ procedures and surgery. That prevented diagnoses of life-threatening diseases, like cancer screening, biopsies of tumors now undiscovered and potentially deadly brain aneurysms.”

Also, by continuing the lockdowns, he says, the powers-that-be are actively delaying the process that must take place for things to get back to normal. Herd immunity, according to Atlas, is the only way to move forward without a proven treatment or vaccine.

“Infected people without severe illness are the immediately available vehicle for establishing widespread immunity,” he wrote in The Hill. “By transmitting the virus to others in the low-risk group who then generate antibodies, they block the network of pathways toward the most vulnerable people, ultimately ending the threat. Extending whole-population isolation would directly prevent that widespread immunity from developing.”

Meanwhile, governors continue to set their own timelines on when parts of their economies can reopen. In Georgia, gyms, hair salons, bowling alleys and tattoo parlors were allowed to reopen on April 24. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said a limited reopening in his state could begin on May 15, while New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is also expected to reveal a plan.

T Hawk said:

Here ya go By the way I just skull fucked your wife next week I will skull fuck your sister Moron

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/f...he-us-economy-stanford-doctor-says-2020-04-27

Key Words
Enough with the ‘hypothetical models,’ it’s time to reopen the U.S. economy, Stanford doctor says
Published: April 27, 2020 at 4:22 p.m. ET
By Shawn Langlois
234

Reopen New York? Getty
Email icon
Facebook icon
Twitter icon
Linkedin icon
Flipboard icon
Print icon
Resize icon
‘Let’s stop underemphasizing empirical evidence while instead doubling down on hypothetical models. Facts matter.’
That’s Scott Atlas, former chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University, making his case for ending coronavirus lockdowns in favor of a targeted approach to getting the U.S. back on its feet.

“Americans are now desperate for sensible policy makers who have the courage to ignore the panic and rely on facts,” Atlas wrote in a widely read piece for The Hill last week. “Leaders must examine accumulated data to see what has actually happened, rather than keep emphasizing hypothetical projections; combine that empirical evidence with fundamental principles of biology established for decades; and then thoughtfully restore the country to function.”

Since that article published, Atlas has been bringing his message of ending lockdowns to several other media outlets in recent days, including an interview on the “Conservative Review with Daniel Horowitz” podcast, a chat with The Blaze, and an op-ed in the NY Post.

Atlas explained how the death rate in New York, where almost a third of all U.S. deaths have taken place, shouldn’t be a cause for panic for most. He said that more than 99% of those who have died had an underlying condition and that the rate of death for all people 18-45 is 0.01%.

“We know children and young adults in good health have almost no risk of any serious illness from COVID-19, so logic means opening most schools,” he wrote in The Post. “With sensible precautions and sanitization standards, most workplaces and businesses should reopen. This would save lives, prevent overcrowding of hospitals, restore vital health care for everyone and allow the socializing essential to generate immunity among those with little risk of serious consequences.”

In addition, Atlas says that, because of such “hypothetical projections,” patients in need of other medical care, such as those suffering from cancer and heart conditions, are being ignored.

“People are dying to accommodate ‘potential’ COVID-19 patients and for fear of spreading the disease,” he wrote. “Most states and many hospitals abruptly stopped ‘nonessential’ procedures and surgery. That prevented diagnoses of life-threatening diseases, like cancer screening, biopsies of tumors now undiscovered and potentially deadly brain aneurysms.”

Also, by continuing the lockdowns, he says, the powers-that-be are actively delaying the process that must take place for things to get back to normal. Herd immunity, according to Atlas, is the only way to move forward without a proven treatment or vaccine.

“Infected people without severe illness are the immediately available vehicle for establishing widespread immunity,” he wrote in The Hill. “By transmitting the virus to others in the low-risk group who then generate antibodies, they block the network of pathways toward the most vulnerable people, ultimately ending the threat. Extending whole-population isolation would directly prevent that widespread immunity from developing.”

Meanwhile, governors continue to set their own timelines on when parts of their economies can reopen. In Georgia, gyms, hair salons, bowling alleys and tattoo parlors were allowed to reopen on April 24. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said a limited reopening in his state could begin on May 15, while New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is also expected to reveal a plan.

Click to expand...

You are one brain dead dickwad: you managed to scrounge up one moron-ONE-and, from the sound of things, you shot a molten, white hot BOILING load all over your computer monitor doing a victory lap in your own fantasy world Sorry, Scumbag, the following was written over a month ago, when, obviously, things weren't NEARLY as bad as they are now, but the key phrase "public health experts widely agree it's time for a drastic step: Every state in the nation should now issue the kind of stay-at-home orders first adopted by the hardest-hit places." That doesn't even include the governors, who know a wee bit more about running their respective states thatn that schmuck YOU dug up. You're too dumb to breath, run along for a family outing consisting of you blowing Daddy while laying the wood to Mommy.




The Coronavirus Crisis
Experts Say The U.S. Needs A National Shutdown ASAP — But Differ On What Comes Next
··· March 27, 20209:31 AM ET

Nurith Aizenman

Pedestrians cross South Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles even after California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a statewide stay-at-home order on March 19.
Apu Gomes/AFP via Getty Images
As coronavirus infections rise across the United States, public health experts widely agree it's time for a drastic step: Every state in the nation should now issue the kind of stay-at-home orders first adopted by the hardest-hit places. And while most states will probably not need to keep the rules in place for months upon months, many health specialists say the lockdowns will need to be kept up for several weeks.

Yet among these same experts, there is debate when it comes to the natural next question: What strategy can be deployed after the lockdowns are lifted?
Here's the breakdown of what health experts are saying about each issue.
The arguments for enacting a lockdown
We'll start with the call for a nationwide lockdown. On this point, "there is no question about it," says Juliette Kayyem, a former assistant secretary of homeland security who is now faculty chair of the homeland security program at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "We are seeing community spread in every state. You need the nation to shut down."
In fact, state officials should have taken this action at least 10 days ago, argues Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, one of a number of public health professionals who for weeks have been urging states to be more aggressive.
"At this point, there's really no good excuse for any state official not to have these policies in effect," says Jha.
He notes that when the virus is left unchecked, it infects people at an exponential rate. Each sick person passes it on to something like two to three others — who then spread it to the next two to three people, and so on, such that a single case quickly leads to thousands.

Social distancing dramatically slows this process by reducing opportunities for people to interact face-to-face and infect each other. Evidence from China, northern Italy and, most recently, New York — the U.S.'s current hot spot — suggests that even after the virus has spread widely, strict social distancing can eventually bring the number of new infections down.
But, says Jha, "if you wait until the disease is out of control in your community you're going to have to implement those social distancing policies for much, much longer," to stop the upward spiral of new infections.
Moreover, adds Jha, "you're still going to have to deal with the fallout of all the people who got very sick and ended up overwhelming the health care system. Many of them will end up dying because of that delay."
So far 13 states have enacted the strictest combination of restrictions — closures of all nonessential business as well as a prohibition on all gatherings — according to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Many other states have opted for measures that are weaker — for instance, declining to shut businesses, and limiting their prohibitions on gatherings to groups of more than 10 or even 50 people. Some states have no statewide limitations whatsoever on either gatherings or business operations other than restaurants. These states include Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, North Dakota and Utah.
In several of them, the number of people with positive tests for the coronavirus is relatively low: no more than several hundred, compared with the tens of thousands now infected in New York.

Connecticut's legislature is suspended until at least April 12 to follow the state's social distancing guidelines. Day porter Luis Almenas disinfected all the microphones during a deep clean in the Senate chambers on March 12.
Joe Amon/Connecticut Public/NENC
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a key leader of the administration's COVID-19 response, said, in an interview with NPR on Thursday, that a "uniform" nationwide shutdown is not warranted because of the variation in rates of infection across states.
"I mean, obviously, you always keep an open mind that you might have to revert to something like that," said Fauci. "But there are regions of the country where rather than shut down, we should be doing ... containment."
Fauci then described a strategy of seeking out and identifying people with symptoms, testing them, isolating those who have the virus and tracing their contacts. Later Thursday, President Trump released a letter to U.S. governors stating that his administration would soon be issuing guidelines to determine which states could ease up on social distancing and follow such a containment approach.
This is also essentially the strategy that many public health experts hope the U.S. can ultimately pivot to in areas where the number of infections is low.
But Jha and others maintain that right now, the U.S. lacks the testing capacity to do containment this way. In fact, says Jha, the U.S. is still so behind on testing that it's impossible to know whether a low number of official cases in a particular city or state isn't actually masking a brewing hotspot.
In the interview with NPR Fauci conceded that, "to be honest, we don't have all that data now uniformly throughout the country to make those determinations."
In the meantime, health experts such as Jha argue that even places with low numbers of confirmed coronavirus cases should operate on the assumption that there may be a substantial amount of transmission in their midst that is going undetected.
In Arizona, for example, more than half of those who have been tested have been found to have the coronavirus. That's a troubling sign, says Jha. "One thing we know is that if more than 10 to 15% of your tests are positive, you are probably not testing enough. You want to be testing a lot of people because that's how you capture all the positive cases."

Tremaine Fredericks rides a nearly empty Staten Island Ferry to Manhattan in New York City. Gov. Andrew Cuomo's "New York State on PAUSE" executive order went into effect on March 22.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Arizona's status is particularly concerning to Jha because the state has a larger-than-average share of older residents – and the virus kills older people at vastly higher rates.
Two other states with less stringent social distancing rules where the trend also seems worrisome, he says, are Florida and Texas. "These are places that are likely going to end up seeing big increases in their numbers of very, very sick people. And we'll have wished that they had taken a pause much earlier," says Jha.
In Florida more than 300 people have already been hospitalized with COVID-19 – one of the highest totals in the country, according to data compiled by the COVID tracking project, a volunteer group of journalists, scientists, and other data specialists. Yet Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has resisted calls to issue a statewide shelter-in-place order even as several counties have adopted their own versions.
People continued to gather on Florida beaches such as Clearwater Beach after the coronavirus had already started to spread in the U.S. On March 20, the city of Clearwater ordered all its public beaches to close. As of Friday, Florida has more than 2,400 confirmed coronavirus cases and 29 deaths.
Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images
Florida's ratio of confirmed coronavirus cases to its overall population also now appears to be at a level similar to that of New York's barely 10 days ago. And this is the case in nearly 20 other states as well.
So why aren't all states rushing to put their residents under effective lockdown? One reason may be mixed signals coming from the Trump administration about how necessary or urgent these measures are.
Fauci's comments to NPR are only the latest example. On March 16, the president issued guidelines urging all Americans to work from home if possible and to avoid gatherings of more than 10 people as well as discretionary travel and eating out. But the guidelines were proposed for a period of just 15 days — which means they expire on March 31.
In recent press conferences, the president has also repeatedly decried the economic and social cost of extreme social distancing and said he remains hopeful that by Easter — which is April 12 — the measures may no longer be needed in many locations.
Technically, the power to enact social distancing rules lies with state authorities. But they often take their cues from the federal government.
Jha, who has been fielding calls from a number of governors weighing tighter restrictions, says another reason for their hesitancy is uncertainty over the end game. "They want to know when can they un-pause. What are the criteria they're going to be able to use to go back to normal?"
In other words, what is the strategy post-lockdown?
On this point, there is a wider range of views among public health experts. Here's a sampling.
Test, trace and isolate
Both Kayyem, the former homeland security official, and Jha stress that extreme social distancing is a temporary measure. The aim is to keep the number of infections across the United States low while authorities ramp up sufficient hospital beds and testing capacity to pivot to a stage two strategy that sounds a lot like the "containment" effort Fauci spoke of. There would be widespread testing to identify and isolate positive cases and their contacts. South Korea has demonstrated some success with this model.

Leanne Francis, first-grade teacher at Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, conducts an online class on March 20 from her living room in San Francisco.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Kayyem warns that any shift to this approach will likely take place gradually and at a different pace for different regions. "This does not happen in a day," she says. "The lights don't go on at the same time everywhere. We have to think of the recovery as much more fluid."
And she adds that even after movement restrictions are lifted, it's likely there will be flare-ups of COVID-19 infections in particular states or cities. This will require reimposition of extreme social distancing measures there, says Kayyem, likening the approach to "a game of whack-a-mole."
'We're really in a big dilemma'
Marc Lipsitch, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard, is less optimistic. He says his group's models of how the virus spreads suggest that as soon as a freeze on movement is lifted, cases would rise so rapidly that "we'll spend much more time in freeze mode."
But he recognizes that this is a problematic conclusion. It would be devastating to keep large swaths of the country in lockdown for the roughly 18 months it's expected to take until a vaccine can be developed, he says. And the pain would not just be economic. The resulting poverty would lead to widespread deprivations and even death.
On the other hand, says Lipsitch, without broad movement restrictions, tens of thousands and even potentially millions of Americans will die of COVID-19 — not to mention those with other illnesses and health emergencies who may suffer because of the breakdown of the health care system.
"I think the unfortunate fact is that the two options we know about are both essentially unacceptable," says Lipsitch. "I think we're really in a big dilemma."
Accept the inevitable and start making the hard choices
Michael Osterholm, director of University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, also worries that a phase two test-and-isolate strategy may not be feasible. But his view stems from his conviction that the U.S. will never be able to build enough testing capacity.
Osterholm notes that the chemical reagents needed to run coronavirus tests are already in short supply. Over the coming weeks and months, worldwide demand will only exacerbate the problem.
"We are literally within three to four weeks into the complete implosion of testing in this country," says Osterholm. "So don't plan an extensive national effort around testing, only to find out in a couple of weeks we can't even do it."
Instead, says Osterholm, the U.S. should face up to the likelihood that throughout the entirety of the outbreak, there will be shortages of not just testing but also of most other necessary medical supplies. By failing to acknowledge this reality now, he says, the U.S. is wasting valuable time needed to make the hard choices about how to soften the blow when the inevitable wave of cases washes over.
For instance, he says, officials will need to find less-than-ideal, but creative ways to reduce the need for supplies such as protective equipment for health workers. One option, he says, would be to place infected patients in massive wards such that doctors and nurses don't need to keep putting on and taking off the protective gear.
Osterholm says the U.S. also needs to think of ways to protect the elderly and other populations that are especially vulnerable to the virus, even as we accept that much of the rest of the population will get infected.
He does not discount the difficulty of trying to cocoon elderly people.
"Do I think that it will stop all people from getting infected in that age group? No," says Osterholm. "But I do think that's our best chance at reducing the number of cases that present to our health care systems."
As unpalatable as all this may sound, says Osterholm, compared with the test and isolate strategy that others are championing, his approach is at least realistic."I don't want the impossible becoming the enemy of the doable," he says, "and I think that that's where we're at right now."
But like so many other public health experts, Osterholm too, argues that a nationwide freeze is absolutely necessary right now.
It's the only way, he says, that the U.S. can buy enough time to put in place a plan for the onslaught that's coming.

Dafinch calling someone brain dead. Hahahaha priceless.

Dafinch said:

As states prepare to reopen, those that never really shut down are already seeing a spike in cases

Mark Sumner
Daily Kos Staff
Tuesday April 28, 2020 · 12:30 PM PDT
Spotting a spike in new cases in the midst of an epidemic isn’t as simple as looking at the numbers for the day. For example, Louisiana reported 295 new cases on Monday, but with over 27,000 cases already reported, this was both a significant decrease over previous days and a fairly low value overall—just a 1% increase in known cases. Those new cases were also backed up by 4,000 new tests. Meaning that the testing on that day resulting in 7% positive cases. That’s not great, but it’s definitely an improvement.
On the other hand, Nebraska reported 330 new cases on Monday. On the surface, that seems like a very similar number. Only that number came on top of just 2,732 previous cases, making the new cases an 11% increase for the day. Also, Nebraska only performed 1,100 new tests on that day. So positive tests were 26% of the total. That’s an absolute sign that the testing was grossly inadequate, likely restricted to people entering the hospital, and was sure to miss a great number of cases. That day wasn’t the only such day in Nebraska. It followed a whole series of days just like it: rapidly rising cases, woefully inadequate testing. Cases in Nebraska have doubled in a week, and it’s not the only state showing this kind of spike.
When cases in New York state first began explosive growth, the answer was straightforward: They were already there, but no one was looking. It was clear even then, and definitely established now, that cases had been expanding across New York throughout February, even as the CDC fumbled and failed to produce tests. It wasn’t until March 4 that the first tests—44 of them—were available in New York. As late as March 14, the number of tests being conducted in New York in a single day was just 103. Whole generations of virus had expanded across the city at that point. Testing wasn’t describing an outbreak, it was searching for the boundaries of an epidemic already underway. Even as testing became a priority and the rate increase enormously (hitting a peak rate of 46,000 tests last Saturday) the already massive size of the outbreak still defied description. On Monday, the rate of positive tests in New York City was 19%. Horrible … but down from 45% two weeks ago.
The problem with states like Nebraska is that testing has never become a priority. The state has just reached 1,000 tests a day in the last four days, and across those days the rate of positive tests has been 25%, 22%, 25%, and 26%. There is COVID-19 in Nebraska. It is expanding rapidly. No one in the state government headed by Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts seems particularly interested in finding it.
Neighboring Iowa has a similar problem. Though the state made it fairly deep into the crisis without reporting a significant number of cases, in part that was because it barely conducted any testing before mid-March, and when those tests were 10%-20% positive, Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds apparently took this as permission to continue snoozing. This resulted in darkly amusing situations like the one on March 26 where Iowa conducted just 34 tests. All positive. This is not exactly the best indicator that everything is under control.
In the last week, Iowa has increased its rate of testing, hitting 2,000 tests a day for three days out of the last four. But it’s clearly done so in response to a sharp increase in confirmed cases. The rate of positives over that period has been over 20%, showing that like Nebraska, Iowa isn’t testing at a rate sufficient to describe the outbreak that already exists, much less get ahead of it and halt it short of disaster.
There are other states that stand out for low levels of testing. Arizona has tested at barely half the national average. Despite the high number of elderly residents, the state seems to have largely gotten away with this so far. But then, unlike the governors of Iowa and Nebraska, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey did order a fairly comprehensive shutdown—which expires on April 30. Which means that Arizona is about to get an answer to whether it has tested sufficiently to support relaxing those guidelines. (It hasn’t.)

Of course, there is a state under a Democratic governor that’s testing at a genuinely shocking rate. Under Gov. Jay Inslee, Washington state conducted only 37 tests on Monday and fewer than 700 over the last three days. But then, the rate of positives on those tests was 0%. COVID-19 is far from defeated in Washington. Over the last week, the state has uncovered 1,100 new cases while carrying out 21,000 new tests, and that 5% positive rate is still way too high. (Washington also had at least 165 cases on Tuesday, but the number of total tests conducted on that date hasn’t yet been made available.)
Across the country, there are states that are doing fairly well with testing, but not well on distancing guidelines (see Utah), states that are doing well on guidelines, but under testing (check out Virginia), and states that are really not doing well at either (Kansas is a stand out and not standing out). None of these states is ready to step back to anything approaching “normal.” Some of them, like Iowa and Nebraska, aren’t just facing possible spikes in cases if they reopen—they’re already in the middle of spikes. Others have tested at such low levels that opening wide to save the economy is only going to raise the stock price of companies that rent refrigerated trucks. Too many of them are about to discover that the virus may be too small to see, but its effects are not.

Click to expand...

:bbsmile:


California Has the Strictest Lockdown in the US—and the Most Active COVID Cases (by Far)

[FONT=Montserrat !important]Despite having the strictest lockdown in the US, California accounts for 17 percent of all active COVID-19 cases in the US.




[/FONT]California, despite having the strictest lockdown in the country, has the most active cases—by far. Sure, California is the most populous state in the US, but the 1.4 million active cases is more than double the next closest state, Florida, which has roughly 609,000 active cases. On a per capita basis, Californian’s active cases are about 30 percent higher than Florida, which has virtually no restrictions in place. (To put it another way, California currently represents nearly 17 percent of all active cases in the US.)[FONT=Montserrat !important]

[/FONT]

This dude is especially dense, just his thread titles scream BEYOND IGNORANT, somewhere in the abyss

Lol. Just another abandoned jackass thread by the most ignorant cocksucker alive.

An embarrassment.

Willie99 said:

This dude is especially dense, just his thread titles scream BEYOND IGNORANT, somewhere in the abyss

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A fucking fool drowning in his quicksand of untrustworthy and communist propaganda articles from the likes of Daily KOS, WaPo, Huffington Post.


Bitch is drowning in his own shit and no one cares to save his ignorant arrogant ass. And I’m taking personal satisfaction watching it.

HamGlaze said:

A fucking fool drowning in his quicksand of untrustworthy and communist propaganda articles from the likes of Daily KOS, WaPo, Huffington Post.


Bitch is drowning in his own shit and no one cares to save his ignorant arrogant ass. And I’m taking personal satisfaction watching it.

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Yeah, how'd that work out for ya, scumbag? Or, are you now holding out for March 4th, you fucking moron?

Over 1.2 million California residents have signed a petition to recall incumbent California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom as of Monday.


The recall effort follows growing outrage over Governor Newsom’s COVID-19 policies, specifically his decision to suspend all outdoor dining and enforce mandatory stay at home orders according to The Hill.



Hey OP

Loser!@#0

Lol

Anutter fail.

Only pussy is more undefeated than clown.

Dafinch said:

You are one brain dead dickwad: you managed to scrounge up one moron-ONE-and, from the sound of things, you shot a molten, white hot BOILING load all over your computer monitor doing a victory lap in your own fantasy world Sorry, Scumbag, the following was written over a month ago, when, obviously, things weren't NEARLY as bad as they are now, but the key phrase "public health experts widely agree it's time for a drastic step: Every state in the nation should now issue the kind of stay-at-home orders first adopted by the hardest-hit places." That doesn't even include the governors, who know a wee bit more about running their respective states thatn that schmuck YOU dug up. You're too dumb to breath, run along for a family outing consisting of you blowing Daddy while laying the wood to Mommy.




The Coronavirus Crisis
Experts Say The U.S. Needs A National Shutdown ASAP — But Differ On What Comes Next
··· March 27, 20209:31 AM ET

Nurith Aizenman

Pedestrians cross South Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles even after California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a statewide stay-at-home order on March 19.
Apu Gomes/AFP via Getty Images
As coronavirus infections rise across the United States, public health experts widely agree it's time for a drastic step: Every state in the nation should now issue the kind of stay-at-home orders first adopted by the hardest-hit places. And while most states will probably not need to keep the rules in place for months upon months, many health specialists say the lockdowns will need to be kept up for several weeks.

Yet among these same experts, there is debate when it comes to the natural next question: What strategy can be deployed after the lockdowns are lifted?
Here's the breakdown of what health experts are saying about each issue.
The arguments for enacting a lockdown
We'll start with the call for a nationwide lockdown. On this point, "there is no question about it," says Juliette Kayyem, a former assistant secretary of homeland security who is now faculty chair of the homeland security program at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "We are seeing community spread in every state. You need the nation to shut down."
In fact, state officials should have taken this action at least 10 days ago, argues Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, one of a number of public health professionals who for weeks have been urging states to be more aggressive.
"At this point, there's really no good excuse for any state official not to have these policies in effect," says Jha.
He notes that when the virus is left unchecked, it infects people at an exponential rate. Each sick person passes it on to something like two to three others — who then spread it to the next two to three people, and so on, such that a single case quickly leads to thousands.

Social distancing dramatically slows this process by reducing opportunities for people to interact face-to-face and infect each other. Evidence from China, northern Italy and, most recently, New York — the U.S.'s current hot spot — suggests that even after the virus has spread widely, strict social distancing can eventually bring the number of new infections down.
But, says Jha, "if you wait until the disease is out of control in your community you're going to have to implement those social distancing policies for much, much longer," to stop the upward spiral of new infections.
Moreover, adds Jha, "you're still going to have to deal with the fallout of all the people who got very sick and ended up overwhelming the health care system. Many of them will end up dying because of that delay."
So far 13 states have enacted the strictest combination of restrictions — closures of all nonessential business as well as a prohibition on all gatherings — according to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Many other states have opted for measures that are weaker — for instance, declining to shut businesses, and limiting their prohibitions on gatherings to groups of more than 10 or even 50 people. Some states have no statewide limitations whatsoever on either gatherings or business operations other than restaurants. These states include Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, North Dakota and Utah.
In several of them, the number of people with positive tests for the coronavirus is relatively low: no more than several hundred, compared with the tens of thousands now infected in New York.

Connecticut's legislature is suspended until at least April 12 to follow the state's social distancing guidelines. Day porter Luis Almenas disinfected all the microphones during a deep clean in the Senate chambers on March 12.
Joe Amon/Connecticut Public/NENC
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a key leader of the administration's COVID-19 response, said, in an interview with NPR on Thursday, that a "uniform" nationwide shutdown is not warranted because of the variation in rates of infection across states.
"I mean, obviously, you always keep an open mind that you might have to revert to something like that," said Fauci. "But there are regions of the country where rather than shut down, we should be doing ... containment."
Fauci then described a strategy of seeking out and identifying people with symptoms, testing them, isolating those who have the virus and tracing their contacts. Later Thursday, President Trump released a letter to U.S. governors stating that his administration would soon be issuing guidelines to determine which states could ease up on social distancing and follow such a containment approach.
This is also essentially the strategy that many public health experts hope the U.S. can ultimately pivot to in areas where the number of infections is low.
But Jha and others maintain that right now, the U.S. lacks the testing capacity to do containment this way. In fact, says Jha, the U.S. is still so behind on testing that it's impossible to know whether a low number of official cases in a particular city or state isn't actually masking a brewing hotspot.
In the interview with NPR Fauci conceded that, "to be honest, we don't have all that data now uniformly throughout the country to make those determinations."
In the meantime, health experts such as Jha argue that even places with low numbers of confirmed coronavirus cases should operate on the assumption that there may be a substantial amount of transmission in their midst that is going undetected.
In Arizona, for example, more than half of those who have been tested have been found to have the coronavirus. That's a troubling sign, says Jha. "One thing we know is that if more than 10 to 15% of your tests are positive, you are probably not testing enough. You want to be testing a lot of people because that's how you capture all the positive cases."

Tremaine Fredericks rides a nearly empty Staten Island Ferry to Manhattan in New York City. Gov. Andrew Cuomo's "New York State on PAUSE" executive order went into effect on March 22.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Arizona's status is particularly concerning to Jha because the state has a larger-than-average share of older residents – and the virus kills older people at vastly higher rates.
Two other states with less stringent social distancing rules where the trend also seems worrisome, he says, are Florida and Texas. "These are places that are likely going to end up seeing big increases in their numbers of very, very sick people. And we'll have wished that they had taken a pause much earlier," says Jha.
In Florida more than 300 people have already been hospitalized with COVID-19 – one of the highest totals in the country, according to data compiled by the COVID tracking project, a volunteer group of journalists, scientists, and other data specialists. Yet Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has resisted calls to issue a statewide shelter-in-place order even as several counties have adopted their own versions.
People continued to gather on Florida beaches such as Clearwater Beach after the coronavirus had already started to spread in the U.S. On March 20, the city of Clearwater ordered all its public beaches to close. As of Friday, Florida has more than 2,400 confirmed coronavirus cases and 29 deaths.
Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images
Florida's ratio of confirmed coronavirus cases to its overall population also now appears to be at a level similar to that of New York's barely 10 days ago. And this is the case in nearly 20 other states as well.
So why aren't all states rushing to put their residents under effective lockdown? One reason may be mixed signals coming from the Trump administration about how necessary or urgent these measures are.
Fauci's comments to NPR are only the latest example. On March 16, the president issued guidelines urging all Americans to work from home if possible and to avoid gatherings of more than 10 people as well as discretionary travel and eating out. But the guidelines were proposed for a period of just 15 days — which means they expire on March 31.
In recent press conferences, the president has also repeatedly decried the economic and social cost of extreme social distancing and said he remains hopeful that by Easter — which is April 12 — the measures may no longer be needed in many locations.
Technically, the power to enact social distancing rules lies with state authorities. But they often take their cues from the federal government.
Jha, who has been fielding calls from a number of governors weighing tighter restrictions, says another reason for their hesitancy is uncertainty over the end game. "They want to know when can they un-pause. What are the criteria they're going to be able to use to go back to normal?"
In other words, what is the strategy post-lockdown?
On this point, there is a wider range of views among public health experts. Here's a sampling.
Test, trace and isolate
Both Kayyem, the former homeland security official, and Jha stress that extreme social distancing is a temporary measure. The aim is to keep the number of infections across the United States low while authorities ramp up sufficient hospital beds and testing capacity to pivot to a stage two strategy that sounds a lot like the "containment" effort Fauci spoke of. There would be widespread testing to identify and isolate positive cases and their contacts. South Korea has demonstrated some success with this model.

Leanne Francis, first-grade teacher at Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, conducts an online class on March 20 from her living room in San Francisco.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Kayyem warns that any shift to this approach will likely take place gradually and at a different pace for different regions. "This does not happen in a day," she says. "The lights don't go on at the same time everywhere. We have to think of the recovery as much more fluid."
And she adds that even after movement restrictions are lifted, it's likely there will be flare-ups of COVID-19 infections in particular states or cities. This will require reimposition of extreme social distancing measures there, says Kayyem, likening the approach to "a game of whack-a-mole."
'We're really in a big dilemma'
Marc Lipsitch, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard, is less optimistic. He says his group's models of how the virus spreads suggest that as soon as a freeze on movement is lifted, cases would rise so rapidly that "we'll spend much more time in freeze mode."
But he recognizes that this is a problematic conclusion. It would be devastating to keep large swaths of the country in lockdown for the roughly 18 months it's expected to take until a vaccine can be developed, he says. And the pain would not just be economic. The resulting poverty would lead to widespread deprivations and even death.
On the other hand, says Lipsitch, without broad movement restrictions, tens of thousands and even potentially millions of Americans will die of COVID-19 — not to mention those with other illnesses and health emergencies who may suffer because of the breakdown of the health care system.
"I think the unfortunate fact is that the two options we know about are both essentially unacceptable," says Lipsitch. "I think we're really in a big dilemma."
Accept the inevitable and start making the hard choices
Michael Osterholm, director of University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, also worries that a phase two test-and-isolate strategy may not be feasible. But his view stems from his conviction that the U.S. will never be able to build enough testing capacity.
Osterholm notes that the chemical reagents needed to run coronavirus tests are already in short supply. Over the coming weeks and months, worldwide demand will only exacerbate the problem.
"We are literally within three to four weeks into the complete implosion of testing in this country," says Osterholm. "So don't plan an extensive national effort around testing, only to find out in a couple of weeks we can't even do it."
Instead, says Osterholm, the U.S. should face up to the likelihood that throughout the entirety of the outbreak, there will be shortages of not just testing but also of most other necessary medical supplies. By failing to acknowledge this reality now, he says, the U.S. is wasting valuable time needed to make the hard choices about how to soften the blow when the inevitable wave of cases washes over.
For instance, he says, officials will need to find less-than-ideal, but creative ways to reduce the need for supplies such as protective equipment for health workers. One option, he says, would be to place infected patients in massive wards such that doctors and nurses don't need to keep putting on and taking off the protective gear.
Osterholm says the U.S. also needs to think of ways to protect the elderly and other populations that are especially vulnerable to the virus, even as we accept that much of the rest of the population will get infected.
He does not discount the difficulty of trying to cocoon elderly people.
"Do I think that it will stop all people from getting infected in that age group? No," says Osterholm. "But I do think that's our best chance at reducing the number of cases that present to our health care systems."
As unpalatable as all this may sound, says Osterholm, compared with the test and isolate strategy that others are championing, his approach is at least realistic."I don't want the impossible becoming the enemy of the doable," he says, "and I think that that's where we're at right now."
But like so many other public health experts, Osterholm too, argues that a nationwide freeze is absolutely necessary right now.
It's the only way, he says, that the U.S. can buy enough time to put in place a plan for the onslaught that's coming.

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Hey cock breath . Look what a shut down gets you .



:kissingbb




Newsom Recall Now “Unavoidable” – Newsom’s Poll Numbers Tank, More Than 1.4 Million Signatures Collected in Recall Effort

LENBO said:

Hey cock breath . Look what a shut down gets you .



:kissingbb




Newsom Recall Now “Unavoidable” – Newsom’s Poll Numbers Tank, More Than 1.4 Million Signatures Collected in Recall Effort

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Hmmm, call me when that actually happens, and, btw, did you "overlook" the Mother of All Recalls on Election Day, bitch? For the scumbag who said that we had to keep everything open and that his virus would just "magically disappear," you fucking moron?

Gas Man said:

Lol

Anutter fail.

Only pussy is more undefeated than clown.

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Bump for cock breath

Gas Man said:

Lol

Anutter fail.

Only pussy is more undefeated than clown.

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Says the brain dead, cocksucking pedo who got butt fucked on Election Day, by his incredibly wrong and stupid covid predictions, and on 1/20/21.