shoshin

Guess he's decided to ignore Trump's phasing plan.

Sweden has a lot of differences with the US that work to its advantage (homogeneity, few big urban centers, compliant and educated population, organized centrally planned healthcare), so that it's now level with the US is not a winning moment. Plus, they are still rising. Sweden is no longer the darling of the NY Times crowd it once was.

Lots of people have been wrong about lots of things with respect to this virus. I thought it was no big deal until about the night the NBA shut down. Even after that night, I would have guessed we were going to see 60 thousand dead maximum in this initial wave, which now will be low. And I thought schools would reopen 4-5 weeks after they closed. I am sure we can go back through this thread and find lots of people down-playing the impact of this even after that night. Beating the dead horse of people who have been wrong in this thread (remember the mini movement that masks were going to generate lots of armed robberies?!?!) would be a full time job. If there's something very clear about this pandemic, it's that none of us have predicted what will happen next, especially any forecast of deaths.

I see crowds of people mashed together calling for reopening. I don’t see much adherence to the phasing according to Trump’s plan and especially not the tracking. I agree that it bought us some valuable time especially for health care workers. But if we end up shut down because we don’t stick to the plan, we need to hold politicians accountable. And same if we swamp the healthcare system more than it is now. I’ve mentioned it a few times but I’m in a city that is by all accounts doing well and has lots of beds available. I just had to comfort my wife who is in tears for how brutal her caseload is right now and that’s *with* the lower counts of the shutdown. I’m all for reopening but we need to do it eyes wide open about how bombed our healthcare system will be if we tick along at about this pace for an extended period. NYC is its own thing for sure. That Santa Clara study is getting a lot of crap now. See Hapless’s posts on OTW. It’s not working for Sweden any more. They recently passed us on deaths per capita and they are close on cases, and their numbers are on the rise. The early PR about how they were living smartly and well was just that. Early PR.

According to the guidelines, you move forwards or backwards through the phases based on trends in data (cases increasing/decreasing), so it's not a number of deaths, but how your state is doing. Again, this makes sense. If you can make it out pf phase 0 (now most places) to phase 1, you've achieved 2 weeks of good trends. Then you open a little and watch the data. If that works out, you move to phase 2. If it stays level, stay at phase 1. If it regresses, back to phase 0. It's a sensible approach, one that I hear very few people talking about. And the Trump plan also requires contact tracing. You don't hear anything about this.

Without NYC, 9-11 was just a plane crashing in a field and another short of the Pentagon. NYC = USA. And those stats are with distancing in place. I want to reopen but if we do it casually, we should all expect a lot more deaths and a healthcare system that is swamped.

I am sure that is true but with more infected, I will be surprised if it matters that some people stay home. The Open Up America guidelines are really good. We should follow them. They are pretty much set up not to fail.

I want us to reopen as soon as we can, and am happy if we follow Trump's reopening plan. But if we race to reopen and just end up either shutting down again or lack the backbone to reopen following the guidelines, the shutdown will have been for nothing, and WE ALL should be upset of that happens. At governors and at Trump/the administration. The Trump plan is a pretty clear path for threading the needle of reopening and keeping deaths down. I'm 100% for it.

There's no lives "saved" if you reopen too soon and the numbers just ramp back up again. All that shows is we moved the deaths out a few months.

If that's true, and I think it is because we appear to be reopening without adequate test and trace in place, this shutdown was almost a total waste of time and *that* should be what we hold our politicians accountable for. Opening too early would be worse than not closing at all. It will be a concession that we tanked the economy for no reason. I have some optimism that what we will see an early opening giving us 1000-3000 deaths per day for 5-6 months starting in August/September and that our healthcare system can barely keep up with that. Those numbers are based on the 2000/day that came with the shutdown deaths, some of which are the result of pre-Covid precautions. The 1-3K (or more) numbers seem likely. Whether our healthcare system can keep up...I don't know. But we need to be open so I hope so.

It seems pretty obvious doesn’t it? And it’s not a big ask.

Of course masks help. 100% effective no. But they help you stop spreading. If you think you know better than the CDC, Don’t wear a mask and shop somewhere else.

I want to get back to work. If we follow the federal guidelines in an exacting way, let's do it.

People are allowed to be outside for exercise. I expect he will not treat the state uniformly.

First there’s no evidence the photo is from April 6...the story from April 6 says people were “recently seen,” and I’m not sure People is the best source for exacting language. It’s just at least that old. And masks were barely on people’s minds two weeks ago. Hard to keep in mind how fast the changes have happened. heck there is some guy here who is adamant he will not wear masks and another who says they are useless. And there are other photos in that article of people with masks. I wonder why when he chose a two week old photo to misrepresent things, he didn’t pick those. But if you want to defend a guy who represented that a photo from —-People—- from two weeks ago was taken yesterday to foment the “outrage” machine, have at it. I just wanted to point out it was crap.

I'm not buying that photo TBH. I can't go to a single park in my area and see 10% of the people not in masks as long as they are walking. I see none of those people in masks so I highly doubt that's real. Edit: Didn't take long to dig up that the photo is at least 12 days old. Nice handle of the guy sharing it, a purveyor of crap info. https://people.com/travel/central-park-still-crowded-with-people-despite-stay-at-home-and-social-distancing-orders-in-nyc/

Total deaths include nursing home deaths. Some deaths are undercounted. Some overcounted. Political spectrum determines which side of that you will fall. I don’t know which one is right and both sides make compelling arguments and have compelling data and policy decisions to support their position. Either way, the current number is definitely in the ballpark.

That Boston study was cited upstream. I want that, the Santa Clara study, and the Iceland one to be true. But it wouldn’t explain the massive case spike (half the deaths and half the cases) only in NYC. Same for Lombardy and other areas that got bombed while others didn’t. So something about extrapolating those studies doesn’t add up. Watching delayed. He had some good conferences this week but he was back to chief narcissist and not commander in chief of the UNITED States today. Just the usual though. No decisions made.

Sounds good to me but Bill is doing better for the world than sitting atop a quasi govt agency like that.

It is interesting that his conclusion is “based on this, we really need to social distance,” and mine would be, let’s protect the vulnerable, make good decisions, and get back to work because it isn’t as bad as we thought, though it sure is contagious!

The second of my quotes is DIRECTLY from the Open Up America guides and...the issue of capacity vs capability had already been discussed above. No one is responding to the asymptomatic testing or surveillance.

You guys keep arguing capacity. That’s not capability. And contact tracing? And asymptomatic testing sites? I am extremely skeptical those have been set up or are nearly ready to go.

I didn’t say you need to test 350M in one day. You need the ability to test every symptomatic person AND need antibody tests for all healthcare workers. You’ll have a hard time convincing me that level of testing is ready now, though I think it’s close (2-3 weeks if Abbot can really roll out its tests as they forecast). And contact tracing? And asymptomatic testing sites? I am extremely skeptical those have been set up or are nearly ready to go.

You’re arguing with me. I’m arguing that “we have enough tests for Phase 1” Does not mean “we have enough tests and testing capacity to identify most of the cases.” And yes I do think it’s a careful spin being out on that. We are a long way from having capability and capacity to identify all the positives as they happen so we can (a) quickly identify and contact trace (contact tracing is part of the plan, remember), and (b) measure mortality. In any event, I am sure Fauci and Birx will talk a lot about testing in the days to come so we will hear more and their thoughts will become clearer.

The problem is that the people running things aren’t very bright, and often have hidden agendas. The more you make those things clear, the less authority you have. Remember the posts here about how Cuomo was killing WNYers by asking for ventilators? How he was choosing NYC residents lives over those of Buffalo? Classic! Fauci and Birx have said there is adequate capacity but as noted have NOT said there is adequate testing being done and that is a bigger issue. You get my point and I’m pretty sure you agree with it but for reason don’t acknowledge it. I’ll consider this closed and if we see cases decline, you’ll be right and I’ll be happy to be wrong.