I cannot wait for cheap seats in concerts, low cost airfare and ride as much as my kids and I want at theme parks because of people afraid to return to life.
As fear of COVID-19 surge subsides, NC hospitals resume non-urgent surgeries https://www.newsobserver.com/article242322451.html In a sign of how well the fight against coronavirus has gone in North Carolina, hospitals in the state are rescheduling surgeries and other procedures they began postponing in March to prepare for a surge in COVID-19 patients. That surge never arrived, and hospitals say they now have the equipment, staff and bed space to resume some non-emergency procedures. As of Tuesday morning, 463 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 statewide, with more than 6,600 hospital beds available, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services. Duke Health, UNC Health and Charlotte-based Atrium Health began expanding the number and type of services they provide on Monday, while Novant Health and WakeMed say they’ll resume some non-urgent surgeries and procedures next week. Hospitals say patients need this care, especially if it has been delayed for a month or more. But hospitals, clinics and physician practices also need the money these procedures generate. Hospitals, particularly small rural ones, make most of their revenue from non-emergency procedures, and delaying them is the main reason North Carolina hospitals have lost an estimated $1 billion in the last month, says Cody Hand, senior vice president of the N.C. Healthcare Association, the trade group that represents all 130 hospitals in the state. “That’s not a sustainable financing model,” Hand said. Many hospitals began voluntarily postponing so-called elective procedures in mid-March. The aim was to preserve gloves, masks and other personal protective equipment as well as staff and beds for what many expected would be a wave of COVID-19 patients. State Secretary of Health and Human Services Mandy Cohen requested that starting March 23 hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers suspend all procedures and surgeries that could be delayed four weeks without causing harm to the patient. A few days later, Gov. Roy Cooper ordered residents to stay home except to visit essential businesses, to exercise outdoors or to help a family member. People in the hospital industry credit the governor’s order, and the public’s willingness to comply, with controlling the coronavirus outbreak in North Carolina. “It resulted in what we wanted, which was not a lot of hospitalizations of COVID patients,” Hand said. Dr. Joseph Rogers, chief medical officer for Duke Health, said the system’s three hospitals have seen hundreds fewer COVID-19 patients than it once expected. “I give great credit to the public and the community for really heeding the warnings put out around shelter-in-place and social distancing,” Rogers said. “They’ve really bent the curve.” But it has come at a cost to the economy and to hospitals themselves. Johnston UNC Health Care in Smithfield and Clayton has postponed more than 300 non-urgent procedures because of coronavirus, said Tommy Williams, the interim CEO. “It is a significant financial hit,” Williams said. “We ... are looking at when we can start ramping up those cases. Certainly for the financial implications but also more importantly for those patients. You figure those 300 plus patients, they need that care, they need those procedures, even if they are elective.” COOPER SUPPORTS LIMITED EXPANSION These first steps toward normalcy at hospitals come as the state remains under Cooper’s stay-at-home order at least through May 8. On the day last week that he and Cohen outlined the benchmarks that would have to be met before the state lifts its restrictions, Cooper spoke about the importance of the health care system getting back to treating patients. “We need an overall strategy while we fight this battle of COVID-19 that we can keep people healthy in other ways,” Cooper said. “Because when we’re staying at home and we’re trying not to catch the virus or give it to other people, sometimes other illnesses are ignored, and we don’t want that to happen.” Cohen said she wants to make sure hospitals can resume non-urgent procedures without depleting their supplies of personal protective equipment, or PPE. The N.C. Healthcare Association developed guidelines for hospitals as they consider performing non-urgent procedures again that include making sure they can test patients and staff for coronavirus and have enough PPE not only for now but for a potential uptick in COVID-19 patients. After reviewing the guidelines, the state DHHS offered some suggestions but overall found them “thoughtful and constructive,” according to a spokeswoman. NOT LIKE IT WAS BEFORE JUST YET Hospitals say they are being cautious about resuming non-emergency procedures and won’t immediately return to offering the services they did before the outbreak. The number of coronavirus cases continues to rise, and hospitals still need to be ready for an influx of COVID-19 patients, said Chuck Harr, chief medical officer for WakeMed Raleigh Campus. “We still don’t know where our peak is going to be,” Harr said. “There could be a flareup in a nursing home or at a meatpacking plant or a prison. And we don’t want to get our hospital so full that we can’t respond to that.” WakeMed is performing about 20% as many surgeries at its flagship hospital in Raleigh as it did before March, Harr said; starting next week it aims to increase that to about 50%. That means, for example, that patients with certain types of cancers or back injuries that were not considered critical before will now be able to receive surgery, he said. UNC Rex has been doing less than half its usual volume of procedures and will probably increase it to 65% to 75%, said Linda Butler, the chief medical officer. Butler said even relatively minor health problems, such as a torn rotator cuff, can’t be put off forever without causing long-term damage. “We’re more than a month out, and people’s conditions have changed or now there may be a long-term impact to the patient of delaying the procedure further,” Butler said. “We put off what we could safely put off to comply with the recommendations, but now we have to revisit those cases.” Duke Health, which cut its surgical work in half in recent weeks, will give priority to people who need care most urgently, including some cancer and cardiac surgeries that had been postponed, said Rogers. Next week, Duke expects to reopen its ambulatory surgical centers to resume performing orthopedic and other outpatient procedures. “We’ve begun to carefully and slowly increase our surgical volumes and make sure there are no unintended consequences,” he said. Each hospital’s ability to expand its services will vary, depending on local situations. Janie Jaberg, president and CEO of Wayne UNC Health Care in Goldsboro, said her hospital wants to slowly bring back non-urgent procedures but remains cautious. Hundreds of inmates at Neuse Correctional Institution in Goldsboro have tested positive for coronavirus. “We’re watching that every hour,” Jaberg said. “So we’re managing that and using that as one of the guidelines of when we can at least consider ramping back up.” Hospitals say the cutback in services to focus on coronavirus gave them time to stockpile PPE and other equipment but also to develop the procedures to safely manage COVID-19 patients and to screen and test patients and staff. They say even when the number of new infections subsides, coronavirus will be something hospitals must guard against for the foreseeable future.
The economy has taken a big hit... which gets back to what will be the best government policy to get business back on track. Clearly PPP has basically been a bust for most small businesses who did not get loans. It is interesting to note that most of the GDP decline was driven by people not having elective medical procedures. America's economy just had its worst quarter since 2008 https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/29/economy/us-economy-downturn-coronavirus/index.html The US economy contracted for the first time in nearly six years between January and March, as the coronavirus crisis put the business world in a choke hold. America's first-quarter GDP, the most expansive measure of the US economy, fell at a 4.8% annualized rate, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis reported on Wednesday. It was the first contraction of the US economy since the first quarter of 2014, and the worst drop since the fourth quarter of 2008. Consumer spending, the largest contributor to US GDP, declined at a 7.6% annualized rate, as people were ordered to stay at home. Last quarter marked the deepest decline in US consumer spending since the second quarter of 1980. Much of America's GDP decline was driven by lower-than-usual healthcare spending, as people delayed elective procedures. The awful first-quarter report was alarming, considering the US economy was humming along in January and February until it came to a screeching halt in mid-March, when businesses shut and stay-at-home orders were put in place across the country. That was enough to offset the economic activity in January and February. The decline was worse than economists had predicted: The Refinitiv consensus forecast was -4%. The BEA cautioned that "the full economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic cannot be quantified in the GDP estimate" because the impact of the outbreak cannot be stripped out of that data. Ahead of the report, economists warned that this was only an advance reading of GDP growth that could be revised down as more data from the quarter trickles in. Even so, the message is clear: six years of straight quarterly growth are over.
California governor outlines state's phased reopening plan https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/28/politics/california-phased-reopening-plan/index.html California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday outlined the phased reopening plan for his state, with retail businesses and schools "weeks away" based on an apparent stabilization in both the numbers of confirmed cases of, and deaths due to, coronavirus. Newsom said on Twitter that Stage 1 is where the state is now, staying home and working on flattening the curve. The second stage involves lifting restrictions on some lower risk workplaces, such as retail, manufacturing and offices where telework is not possible. Reopening child care centers will be a part of that second stage as well, Newsom said. Workers and consumers both must be protected in order to lift restrictions and those businesses can begin reopening with adaptations like curbside pickup, according to California Health Director Sonia Angell. "We are not going back to the way things were until we get to immunity or a vaccine," Newsom said. "We will base reopening plans on facts and data, not on ideology. Not what we want. Not what we hope." The announcement from Newsom comes as a number of other governors have moved to act on or schedule reopenings of their states despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Newsom, who issued a stay-at-home order in March, said on Tuesday that his state appears to be seeing some stability in the increase of coronavirus cases, with 1,576 additions in the past day bringing the total number in California to 45,031 as of Tuesday evening. Deaths in California from the virus stand at 1,809, with 54 more fatalities reported over the past 24 hours as of Tuesday evening, according to the governor. Newsom on Tuesday floated the idea of restarting school in late July or early August, saying that "the prospects of an earlier school year are warranted considering the prospect of neglecting our next generation." Noting the need for physical activity, Angell also suggested parks and trails may reopen soon. The next phase, Stage 3, is "months, not weeks, away," Newsom said. That stage will encompass personal care businesses like gyms, spas and salons, sports without live audiences, in-person religious services and other businesses where workers come in close contact with customers. And the final phase, Stage 4, will see the end of the stay-at-home order with the reopening of the "highest risk parts of our economy" being reopened, Newsom said on Twitter. That includes concerts, convention centers and sports with live crowds. Newsom said that stage would come only "once therapeutics have been developed." Earlier this month, Newsom, outlining a framework for reopening the economy, said the dates would be determined by the ability to do six things: expand testing to identify and isolate patients, maintain vigilance to protect seniors and high risk people, be able to meet future surges in hospitals with a "myriad of protective gear," continue to collaborate with academia on therapies and treatments, redraw regulations to ensure continued physical distancing at private businesses and schools and develop new enforcement mechanisms to allow the state to pull back and reinstate stay-at-home orders. He also warned at the time that Californians should prepare to enter a radically different realm where residents continue to wear masks, and where they may be greeted at restaurants by waiters wearing masks and gloves with disposable menus in venues that have half as many tables. Local school officials would develop new protocols, he said, for physical education classes and recess at schools, as well as processes to deeply clean and sanitize schools, parks and playgrounds to keep infection rates down.
Economists say that by the end of June, the U.S. economy will have shrunk 12%... 'Tip Of The Iceberg': Economy Shrinks At 4.8% Pace, But Worst Is Yet To Come https://www.npr.org/sections/corona...eberg-economy-likely-shrank-but-worst-to-come The coronavirus pandemic is likely to trigger the sharpest recession in the United States since the Great Depression. An early signal of that came Wednesday, when the Commerce Department said the economy shrank at a 4.8% annual rate in the first three months of the year — the first quarterly contraction since 2014 and the largest since the Great Recession. For the first 2 1/2 of those months, the economy was chugging along at a steady, if not spectacular pace. But the plug was suddenly pulled in mid-March — when bars, restaurants and retail shops were abruptly closed and tens of millions of Americans were ordered to stay home in an effort to slow the spread of the deadly disease. The first-quarter drop was the biggest since an 8.4% dive in the fourth quarter of 2008. It marked a reversal from the 2.1% growth rate at the end of 2019. The Commerce Department said the decline in gross domestic product was "in part, due to the response to the spread of COVID-19, as governments issued 'stay-at-home' orders in March. This led to rapid changes in demand, as businesses and schools switched to remote work or canceled operations, and consumers canceled, restricted, or redirected their spending." Consumer spending — which accounts for about 70% of GDP — plummeted at a 7.6% rate in the first quarter — the most since 1980. More than 26 million people suddenly out of work have filed unemployment claims in recent weeks. Half of all Americans say they or someone in their household has either lost hours or a job because of the coronavirus, according to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll. "Prior to the coronavirus shock, the economy was doing relatively well," said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist for Oxford Economics. "The shock that we experienced in the second half of March actually has led to a sudden stop in spending on a lot of services and even spending on some goods." Analysts say even though that shock affected only the last few weeks of the quarter, it was more than enough to erase the gains of the previous 2 1/2 months. Daco said the first-quarter declineis "only the tip of the iceberg." The bulk of the pandemic's economic impact will be felt in the current quarter — April through June. By the end of June, Daco estimates the economy will be 12% smaller than it was at the beginning of the year. "To put that into perspective, that [drop] would be three times as large as what we experienced in the global financial crisis," Daco said. It would be comparable to what the economy experienced at the end of World War II, when factories abruptly stopped churning out tanks and warplanes but had not yet shifted to making civilian goods. Other forecasters also expect to see a sharp reversal in economic growth. "Whenever you have the entire country changing behavior at one time in a way that reduces spending, it's certainly enough to wipe out any of the gains that we saw earlier in the year," said Ben Herzon, an economist at IHS Markit. He noted that since the coronavirus took hold, air travel and restaurant reservations have all but completely evaporated. (More at above url)
this schedule is a nightmare. fear and agenda over science and data "We are not going back to the way things were until we get to immunity or a vaccine," Newsom said. "We will base reopening plans on facts and data, not on ideology. Not what we want. Not what we hope." how the hell are we going to get immunity if we don't let the healthy people out. how are we going to know anything if they are not testing for antibodies and sharing. our state is far behind the leading states in testing... https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/28/europe/sweden-coronavirus-lockdown-strategy-intl/index.html California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday outlined the phased reopening plan for his state, with retail businesses and schools "weeks away" based on an apparent stabilization in both the numbers of confirmed cases of, and deaths due to, coronavirus. Newsom said on Twitter that Stage 1 is where the state is now, staying home and working on flattening the curve. The second stage involves lifting restrictions on some lower risk workplaces, such as retail, manufacturing and offices where telework is not possible. Reopening child care centers will be a part of that second stage as well, Newsom said. Workers and consumers both must be protected in order to lift restrictions and those businesses can begin reopening with adaptations like curbside pickup, according to California Health Director Sonia Angell. "We are not going back to the way things were until we get to immunity or a vaccine," Newsom said. "We will base reopening plans on facts and data, not on ideology. Not what we want. Not what we hope." The announcement from Newsom comes as a number of other governors have moved to act on or schedule reopenings of their states despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Newsom, who issued a stay-at-home order in March, said on Tuesday that his state appears to be seeing some stability in the increase of coronavirus cases, with 1,576 additions in the past day bringing the total number in California to 45,031 as of Tuesday evening. Deaths in California from the virus stand at 1,809, with 54 more fatalities reported over the past 24 hours as of Tuesday evening, according to the governor. Newsom on Tuesday floated the idea of restarting school in late July or early August, saying that "the prospects of an earlier school year are warranted considering the prospect of neglecting our next generation." Noting the need for physical activity, Angell also suggested parks and trails may reopen soon. The next phase, Stage 3, is "months, not weeks, away," Newsom said. That stage will encompass personal care businesses like gyms, spas and salons, sports without live audiences, in-person religious services and other businesses where workers come in close contact with customers. And the final phase, Stage 4, will see the end of the stay-at-home order with the reopening of the "highest risk parts of our economy" being reopened, Newsom said on Twitter. That includes concerts, convention centers and sports with live crowds. Newsom said that stage would come only "once therapeutics have been developed." Earlier this month, Newsom, outlining a framework for reopening the economy, said the dates would be determined by the ability to do six things: expand testing to identify and isolate patients, maintain vigilance to protect seniors and high risk people, be able to meet future surges in hospitals with a "myriad of protective gear," continue to collaborate with academia on therapies and treatments, redraw regulations to ensure continued physical distancing at private businesses and schools and develop new enforcement mechanisms to allow the state to pull back and reinstate stay-at-home orders. He also warned at the time that Californians should prepare to enter a radically different realm where residents continue to wear masks, and where they may be greeted at restaurants by waiters wearing masks and gloves with disposable menus in venues that have half as many tables. Local school officials would develop new protocols, he said, for physical education classes and recess at schools, as well as processes to deeply clean and sanitize schools, parks and playgrounds to keep infection rates down.[/QUOTE]
The 14-day guidelines, which President Donald Trump announced April 16, "make sense,"... Guidelines call for 14-day drop in cases to reopen. No state has met them. Diagnostic tests and contact tracing remain key to controlling the pandemic, experts say https://www.nbcnews.com/health/heal...4-day-drop-cases-reopen-no-state-has-n1194191
Poll: 72% of Americans say they will hit ‘breaking point’ if nationwide lockdown continues into summer months https://www.theblaze.com/news/americans-breaking-point-lockdown-continues-into-summer Almost three-quarters of polled Americans say that they will hit a mental "breaking point" if stay-at-home orders due to COVID-19 remain in place through the summer months. According to Newsweek, a recent survey found that the majority of respondents said they were concerned over their mental health amid the coronavirus pandemic. The survey, conducted by Kelton Global, queried 1,895 U.S. adults between April 3 and April 6. The poll found that 69% of Americans said they were "extremely worried" about traveling on airliners, and 62% were concerned about visiting restaurants. Newsweek also reported that the majority of respondents said that they were concerned over "traditional transportation and business activities" when the nation does lift its social distancing and stay-at-home measures. And 76% of adults also admitted that they were "extremely worried" about ever taking a cruise liner again, and 43% of those people said that their fear of cruise ships "will likely last forever." Seventy-two percent of respondents said that if they had to endure another 30 days of lockdown measures, it would force them to a mental or emotional "breaking point." The outlet noted that 100% of respondents said they would have "some type of mental or emotional breakdown if stay-at-home orders" ran more than six months. At least 69% of respondents reported that they would forever change at least one "everyday behavior" because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Twenty percent of adult women polled said they'd reached their breaking points in the first week of April. Twelve percent of men reported the same feeling. Of the survey, Dr. Martin Eichholz — Kelton Global's chief insights officer — said, "Our findings highlight the increasingly serious implications of stay-at-home orders, and puts some urgency on the actions of politicians and organizations who try to manage the COVID-19 fallout."