The Path to Recovery: How to Re-Open America

Discussion in 'Politics' started by gwb-trading, Apr 22, 2020.

  1. gwb-trading

    gwb-trading

    There Are Sensible Ways to Reopen a Country. Then There's America's Approach
    https://time.com/5836607/reopening-risks-coronavirus/

    This brutal spring, the U.S. faces two great crises. Over the past 14 weeks, 84,000 Americans have died of COVID-19.

    That’s 28 times the death toll of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, more than the U.S. combat deaths in the Vietnam War, and one-quarter of the total global casualties from the coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, the national lockdown designed to halt the spread of the disease has pushed 33 million Americans out of work, forced hundreds of thousands of small-business owners to board up their shops and left 1 in 5 children uncertain where they’ll find their next meal. It’s the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and with some economists forecasting unemployment to soar past 20%, a second one is a real concern.

    As the death toll has rung out against a crescendo of economic despair, Americans have had no time to mourn. Instead, we have been pulled into an increasingly heated debate that pits those twin tragedies against each other. In exchange for our jobs, our livelihoods, the ability to pay our rent, how much death are we willing to bear? How many tens of thousands of lives are we willing to sacrifice so that the rest of us can work and live outside our homes? Eager to juice the economy before the November election, President Donald Trump is pushing hard for businesses to reopen. But public-health officials are raising the alarm. On May 12, infectious-disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, a key member of Trump’s own coronavirus task force, told a Senate panel that easing social-distancing restrictions too swiftly risks “multiple outbreaks throughout the country” that will “result in needless suffering and death.”

    It didn’t have to be this way. There’s no reason the wealthiest country in the world—the nation that re-built Europe, that went to the moon, that claims exceptionalism as its birthright—should have to choose between economic resilience and protecting the lives of its most vulnerable citizens. Countries that acted more quickly to curb the spread of the virus have limited the damage on both fronts. In the early days of their fight against COVID-19, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland tested their populations at nearly 40 times the U.S. rate, per capita, and now have one-fifth the death rate.

    The Case for Early Testing
    Countries that quickly ramped up COVID-19 testing as a containment strategy have lower death rates today than many other countries that were slower to test
    (see article for graphic)


    Having failed in its initial response, the U.S. now risks risks making matters worse. Despite roughly 1,800 deaths per day of late, and rising infection rates in parts of the country, at least 41 states are easing restrictions or preparing to do so. In many cases, governors are plunging ahead with reopening despite failing to meet key benchmarks established by public-health officials. As a result, draft projections provided to the Federal Emergency Management Agency included a revised forecast for the virus’s toll, estimating some 3,000 Americans could be dying per day by June 1—a 9/11 every day.

    To avoid these shocking death rates, Americans should look at what has worked elsewhere. Industrialized nations in Europe and Asia have begun opening up their economies by relying on continued social distancing, widespread testing, and a network of contact tracing to identify and contain new outbreaks. South Korea built an innovative digital infrastructure to identify and track every new coronavirus case within its borders. Germany set the standard for preventative testing and an incremental, staged plan for reopening.

    Experts at the American Enterprise Institute, Johns Hopkins University and elsewhere have laid out detailed steps like these. Together, they would help the U.S. track the spread of the disease in our communities; clamp down on new outbreaks; and arrive at data-driven decisions to facilitate a safe reopening. For now, our leaders are following their recommendations haphazardly at best. If we can’t identify our missteps and learn from other countries’ successes and setbacks, we risk an even more catastrophic fall.

    We are making progress on some fronts. On May 11, Trump declared that America has “prevailed” on testing. That’s not yet clear. But the U.S. is now conducting some 390,000 tests a day—a major jump after a sluggish start. Admiral Brett Giroir, the federal official overseeing coronavirus-testing efforts, told lawmakers in May that the U.S. should be conducting 40 million to 50 million tests every month to provide basic surveillance on the spread of the disease in this country, but it will take us at least until September to reach those numbers. So we are months behind. But still, the results of ramped-up testing bring cause for cautious optimism. Usually, the more people you test, the more confirmed cases you see, since you catch people who wouldn’t normally be tested, including those who are asymptomatic or have just mild symptoms. But in recent weeks, we’ve seen the opposite: the number of confirmed cases nationwide is declining.

    Yet different areas are at different stages in the pandemic. New York and New Jersey are seeing declining numbers, but states in every part of the country, from California to Maine, have watched their infection rates climb. What’s more, the main reason the U.S. has begun to slow the spread of the virus is that most of the country has been under stay-at-home orders for nearly two months. Rolling back precisely those policies could usher in a second wave of disease.

    As states reopen, public-health officials insist that the only way to contain future outbreaks is through dogged disease surveillance. Officials must identify not only people who have been infected but also who they’ve come in contact with. Yet the U.S. has so far failed to develop a comprehensive contact-tracing program. Despite congressional funding of $23 million per year since 2016 for biosurveillance and authorization last June of 30 positions for disease surveillance, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has yet to even hire for those roles. The pandemic “went beyond the capacity” of the agency’s contact-tracing program, CDC director Robert Redfield told lawmakers May 11.

    In the absence of a meaningful federal effort, state governments—in partnership with universities, researchers and the National Guard—have taken up the slack. California is now conducting contact tracing in 22 counties and plans eventually to deploy a force of 10,000 state employees. Maryland is partnering with the University of Chicago and a research organization to quadruple its contact-tracing capacity. States like Washington, West Virginia and Rhode Island are leaning on their National Guards to help with similar efforts.

    Still, these efforts are meager compared with those of other advanced nations. South Korea’s tech-powered contact-tracing program involves GPS-tracking of all new positive cases and wristbands for scofflaws. As a result, South Korean officials were able not only to immediately notice a new outbreak this month in Seoul, but to rapidly identify its source (a 29-year-old man with COVID-19 had visited a series of nightclubs), determine the number of newly infected (102) and deduce the total number of possible new cases that had been in contact with the infected individuals (5,500). The cluster was a setback for the nation of over 51 million, which is preparing to reopen its economy and schools. But it also marked something of a success story: officials demonstrated they can react rapidly to contain the virus and limit new outbreaks.

    Germany, which has earned praise for its ambitious surveillance testing program, likewise offers a potentially useful road map. In recent weeks, German states have slowly lifted stay-at-home orders, allowing certain types of shops and restaurants to reopen with additional hygiene measures, like installing protection screens for staff and removing salt and pepper shakers from tables. “We can afford a little audacity,” Chancellor Angela Merkel dryly observed on May 6. Limits on social contact will remain in place nationwide until June 5, and even then citizens must wear face coverings and maintain roughly 5 ft. between one another. Meanwhile, public-health officials are randomly testing households and tracing new infections.

    So if the way forward is clear, can the U.S. simply copy what’s working elsewhere? The straightforward answer is no. Unlike in places like South Korea, there’s no national reopening plan in the U.S. Instead, 50 governors are charting their own paths. The White House and the CDC have released bare-bones guidance for reopening, but neither entity can dictate what states do; they can only hope that governors choose the right course.

    As of early May, that wasn’t happening. More than a dozen governors’ reopening plans appeared to either outright ignore, or interpret very loosely, the Trump Administration’s nonbinding reopening guidelines, according to an Associated Press analysis. At least 17 states that are in the process of reopening, including Georgia, California, Florida, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Texas, failed to meet the White House’s key metric for reopening: a downward trajectory of new cases or positive test rates for at least 14 days.

    Much of the blame for that disarray falls on Trump himself. The President has repeatedly undermined the guidance of his own public-health officials, fomented antiquarantine protests on Twitter and politicized cautious positions taken by some governors. On May 7, the AP reported that the Administration had “buried” more detailed CDC advice to states on how to safely reopen.

    Trump’s erratic political response to the public-health crisis reflects his own leadership style, but also the larger challenge of America’s cultural idiosyncrasies. Americans are uniquely attached to our civil liberties. It’s difficult to imagine South Korea’s contact-tracing program—a massive, state-run surveillance system that tracks and records the movements of every citizen—flying on U.S. soil. The same is true of Chinese officials’ reopening of Shanghai Disneyland. While the first day back at the Happiest Place on Earth was successful, attendees willingly scanned QR codes on their phones, allowing the government to monitor their exact where-abouts in case of future outbreaks.

    It’s equally difficult to imagine Trump, with his disregard for science, embracing an incremental, data-driven approach to reopening. As Germany’s Merkel, a trained scientist, drew praise for her clear-eyed explanations for social distancing, Trump was publicly suggesting Americans might inject disinfectant. Merkel’s government has repeatedly urged wearing a mask in public; Trump has refused to wear one at all, even during an outbreak in his own White House. Asked on May 6 whether reopening rapidly could lead to an explosion of new infections, the President was sanguine. “Hopefully that won’t be the case,” Trump said, adding, “It could very well be the case.”

    Health experts say the U.S. will have a better outcome if its reopening is careful. The American mass testing program is just now getting off the ground, and many states’ contact-tracing programs are still in their infancy. We need time to get those programs up and running so that we can find new infections and halt outbreaks.

    Taking it slow won’t be easy. Americans will have to watch as the Germans and Australians and Japanese enjoy many of the freedoms this summer that we’re desperate to reclaim. And an incremental approach will come at an economic cost: the rosiest market projections require that Americans flee their houses the moment stay-at-home orders are lifted.

    But that seems to be O.K. with most of us. Three out of four Americans say the U.S. should continue trying to slow the spread of the coronavirus, even if it means keeping many businesses closed, a recent Washington Post/Ipsos poll found. Even as America’s leaders call for an economic revival, there are signs citizens won’t rush back to public life.

    Which may be best for keeping new infections under wrap. As we grapple with the twin tragedies before us, perhaps America can, as it always has, forge its own path.
     
    #341     May 14, 2020
  2. Little too much it's all Trumps fault to be taken as much more than a political hit piece. That said there is this point of jobs vs. lives. It's not that simple to answer if one is just going to dimss the lives of those losing jobs as so sad, too bad. If I'm a guy lost his job a month ago, a good job, and now looking at my wife and kids wondering what comes next for them, I think it a fair discussion to have whem he asks, depends on what lives we're talking about. Since it seems that most of those lives appear to be very old people who have lived their lives and are on their way out regardless of Covid, then I can't really condemn or judge that man too harshly if he says, yes my family is worth that life and I need my job to take care of them. We desperately need to see if the yet unfounded claims of a mass reinfection and death rate are actually going to happen when we reopen. If it does then it's a tough road ahead for all as we shutdown again, but too extend this with no real goal other than the very subjective, when it's safe, just isn't responsible or the moral thing to do.
     
    #342     May 14, 2020
  3. gwb-trading

    gwb-trading

    Coronavirus divide: Battle over reopenings across the U.S. is increasingly partisan and bitter
    https://www.latimes.com/world-natio...-democratic-republican-battle-over-reopenings

    Urged on by President Trump, Republican officials in several battleground states, including Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, are ramping up pressure on Democratic governors to move faster on reopening their economies, despite experts’ warnings of a surge in infections and deaths.

    The mounting pressure comes as the number of jobless Americans continues to grow across the nation. Nearly 3 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, according to new figures released Thursday by the Labor Department, bringing the total number of claims to 36 million since the economic shutdowns in response to the coronavirus outbreak began.

    Meanwhile, the death toll from COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, continues to climb. More than 85,000 people in the U.S. have died of COVID-19, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. And more than 1.4 million people have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, the university reports.

    The battle over stay-at-home orders and the pace of allowing businesses to reopen have taken an increasingly partisan bent.

    In Pennsylvania, the Democratic governor has called out Republican leaders flouting his restrictions as cowards. In Wisconsin, the state Supreme Court took Republicans’ side in throwing out the Democratic governor’s stay-at-home order. In Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer faced armed protesters again Thursday at the state Capitol; the Democrat — who is on the list of potential vice presidential picks for Joe Biden — has faced sharp criticism from GOP legislators as well as Trump. And in Texas, the attorney general has threatened Democratic officials whose cities’ restrictions are more stringent than those put in place by the Republican governor.

    Health experts have warned that it’s dangerous to fully reopen before widespread testing and contract tracing are in place.

    Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, whose state had more than 4,200 people die of COVID-19, has faced growing resistance from Republican legislators as well as county commissioners in the central and eastern parts of the state.

    “We’re trying to get things moving in a safe and responsible manner because this thing is turning into a pressure cooker,” said state Rep. Dan Moul, a Republican from conservative Adams County. “This thing is going to blow up if [Wolf] doesn’t make a move soon.”

    Some counties have threatened to defy Wolf’s directives. The governor’s plan reopens the state in phases. More than half of the counties in the state have already started to reopen, Wolf said in a phone interview with NBC affiliate WGAL-TV on Thursday.

    Thirteen more are slated to be under Wolf’s “yellow” phase by Friday, which means child-care centers can reopen and retail stores can resume operations, but under strict social distancing guidelines. Large gatherings of more than 25 people are still prohibited in those “yellow” counties, and gyms, hair salons and theaters must remain closed.

    The rest of the state, however, remains under Wolf’s “red” phase, in which stay-at-home orders are still in place, large gatherings prohibited and restaurants and bars permitted to take only carry-out or delivery orders.

    “We’re all fighting this war together. We can’t run up the white flag,” Wolf told WGAL-TV. “We have got to fight this to the end and make sure that we’re going everything we can to keep people safe. Again, I don’t think that the commonwealth has been unreasonable.”

    Wolf has threatened to punish counties that vowed to reopen despite his orders by threatening to withhold coronavirus aid, and he said business owners who reopen would risk losing their licenses to operate. Some leaders have backed down, but others appear to be moving ahead.

    “Come this Friday, we plan on opening because we’ve been getting hundreds of emails, text messages and phone calls that these business owners are on the brink of closing down,” Daniel Camp III, the Republican chairman of the Beaver County board, told a joint state Senate hearing Wednesday.

    Trump, who had tweeted Monday that Pennsylvanians “want their freedom now,” took a tour at a medical supply facility near Allentown on Thursday and spoke about ramping up production of personal protective equipment. Images showed him surrounded by people wearing masks; the president has said he will not wear one, explaining “it’s not for me.”

    “We have to get your governor of Pennsylvania to start opening up a little bit,” Trump said during the tour.

    Ahead of Trump’s visit to Pennsylvania, Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, accused the president of contributing to the politicization of the widening debate on how and when to lift coronavirus restrictions.

    “At a time when we should be uniting our country, President Trump is trying to split Pennsylvanians into dueling camps, casting Democrats as doomsayers hoping to keep America grounded and Republicans as freedom fighters trying to liberate the economy,” Biden said in a statement Thursday. “This is a false choice, and it’s just his latest tactic in his mission of dividing Americans.”

    In Michigan, a couple hundred people, many of them armed, took to the state Capitol on Thursday to protest Whitmer’s stay-at-home order.

    The governor, who was sued last week by the GOP-controlled state House and Senate last week over claims that she had overstepped her authority by extending the state’s stay-at-home orders, continues to urge people to abide by social distancing guidelines.

    “I don’t particularly want to see people congregating, period. We know that contributes to spread,” Whitmer said Wednesday. “But if people are going to come down and demonstrate, do it in a responsible way. That’s what we ask.”

    She said lives have been saved because of the state’s stay-at-home order, which is effective through May 28.

    “If we had not taken the action that we did, more people would have died and the disease would have spread much further than it did,” Whitmer said.

    In Wisconsin, Gov. Tony Evers on Thursday warned that as some cities lift restrictions and others clamp down after the state Supreme Court threw out his stay-at-home order, the patchwork of rules could lead to “massive confusion.”

    “Apparently they believe that different rules are OK,” Evers said of Republicans. “I can’t imagine another state that is in this predicament.”

    The conservative-majority state Supreme Court had sided with Republicans in a lawsuit over Evers’ restrictions, which were to last through May. The 5-4 decision means that Evers would need to work with the Republican-controlled Legislature to come up with a new plan.

    But Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos minimized Evers’ concerns and said Wisconsin doesn’t “necessarily need a statewide approach.”

    “We already know that local health departments have the ability to utilize their power, which is already there to deal with those situations if they feel it’s unsafe,” Vos said.

    Trump cheered the court ruling, calling it “a win” for Wisconsin.

    “Its Democrat Governor was forced by the courts to let the State Open,” Trump tweeted Thursday morning. “The people want to get on with their lives. The place is bustling!”

    Officials in some cities across Wisconsin, however, are choosing to continue following the state’s stay-at-home orders. Health officials in Milwaukee are still requiring residents to abide by the orders. In Dane County, home to the state capital of Madison, officials imposed a replacement order similar to Evers’ statewide one.

    Meanwhile, governors in other states announced plans to loosen restrictions in the coming days and weeks.

    Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted said gyms and public pools will be able to reopen starting May 26 if businesses meet safety protocols and hygienic measures. He added that by May 31, child-care facilities will also be allowed to reopen, albeit with fewer children in each classroom and as long as staff can ensure additional cleaning measures.

    Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo announced that children will be allowed to go to summer camp starting June 29. “For their mental and emotional and intellectual development and health, I think we need to try our best to operate summer camps this summer,” Raimondo said Thursday during a news conference.

    In Minnesota, small retail stores will be allowed to reopen starting Monday, when the state’s stay-at-home order expires. Bars, restaurants and hair salons will remain closed but could reopen as early as June 1, Gov. Tim Walz said Wednesday.

    “The stay-at-home order is expiring and the dials are turning, but that doesn’t mean we are carefree and can return to the way things were,” Walz said. “It means we have to stay safe, take care, care for our own health and care for our neighbor.”

    Among the larger businesses planning to reopen June 1: Bloomington’s Mall of America, one of the largest shopping complexes in North America with more than 500 stores and restaurants.

    “It is important to know that while Mall of America will reopen on June 1, not all retailers within our building will open immediately. We understand it may be longer before some are ready to reopen,” the mall said in a statement Thursday.

    In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday that five upstate and central regions are on track to begin a phased reopening Friday. Those regions have met the seven benchmarks suggested by public health officials. By comparison, New York City has met only four.

    Under the plan, construction and agricultural operations will resume, and retail stores will be allowed to reopen for curbside or in-store pickup only. Local officials will monitor the number of coronavirus cases and must ensure businesses and consumers comply with social distancing requirements, Cuomo said.

    He added that the state had reported 157 more COVID-19 deaths since Wednesday. That number is down from 166 the day before.

    Cuomo cautioned, however, that “phased reopening does not mean the problem has gone away.”

    “We have control of the problem because of what we did and because of our individual responsibility and our individual actions, and that has to be maintained.”
     
    #343     May 15, 2020
  4. Tsing Tao

    Tsing Tao

    Its really simple.

    The virus isn't going away. A vaccine isn't going to be coming in the immediate time frame. So that means we can either stay locked down until there is a vaccine - and hope the vaccine matches the strain that is out there, or we can open up and understand the virus is going to be out there and we are probably going to get it.

    Period, end of story.

    The lock down was not designed to keep everyone from getting sick. It was designed to flatten the curve. Once the curve is flattened, Herd Immunity is our best bet.

    People have lost their minds and are pretending this is about not getting sick, ever. Get over it.
     
    #344     May 15, 2020
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  5. wildchild

    wildchild

    The organization that you trust the most, the WHO said it is going to be 5 years. You obviously agree with this assessment because you are WHO fanboy.

    Can you explain why we should follow this guidance?
     
    #345     May 15, 2020
  6. gwb-trading

    gwb-trading

    and where is a your evidence that WHO claims it will be 5 years?
     
    #346     May 15, 2020
  7. They probably wish the flatten the curve goal would just be forgotten. The curve flattened way too fast to suit the political narrative. The new goal of safe works so much better for them. Who the hell knows what safe means from one day to the next? Perfect.
     
    #347     May 15, 2020
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  8. gwb-trading

    gwb-trading

    This is not about political narrative. This is about public health. The purposes for locking down have been very consistent over time and have not changed. Let's review the 5 points of why a lock-down period is necessary again:

    1) To prevent the overloading of hospital resources - where the number of COVID-19 patients is greater than capacity to treat them.
    2) To provide time to obtain the necessary number of COVID-19 test kits and get a testing process in place to meet the necessary capacity for re-opening.
    3) To get proper Contact Tracing in place for COVID-19 prior to re-opening. This includes getting the necessary systems in place and getting people hired for the positions.
    4) To reduce the effective infection rate (R) to below 0.8 in a community before opening.
    5) To reduce the total number of infections in the community to reduce the number of vector starting points when re-opening that must be traced and quarantined.

    We are facing a novel pandemic with no vaccine and no effective drug treatment. The steps to re-open include a 60 day lockdown period followed by a phased reopening with clear entry & exit criteria for each stage. This is the best possible balance of public health, mental health, and the economy. There is tremendous economic risk if the states re-open to early since an immediate follow-up wave of the pandemic would take the economy down for many more months than doing it right the first time.
     
    #348     May 15, 2020
  9. Cuddles

    Cuddles

    Would trying to explain why keeping the curve flat to someone who doesn't understand exponential growth be an exercise in futility?
     
    #349     May 15, 2020
  10. The curve was flattened and now falling. Would trying to explain there is no such thing as zero risk to you be an exercise in futility?
     
    Last edited: May 15, 2020
    #350     May 15, 2020
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