It is a national scandal that Tony Fauci needed to figure out how to say this without being censored:
And with 64 squares, the solution to the rice chessboard puzzle is here. If you’re still trying to keep coronavirus out of the country, or “stop” its spread, youre falling behind where we are (and you don’t know where we are without testing).
This is a serious situation which will get worse this week. Read on for more.
NY Times:
U.S. Health Experts Say Stricter Measures Are Required to Limit Coronavirus’s Spread
It’s a concept in public health known as shifting from containment of an outbreak to “mitigation,” which means acknowledging that the tried-and-true public health measures of isolating the sick and quarantining their contacts are no longer enough. So steps must be taken to minimize deaths from the disease and to slow its spread so that hospitals are not overwhelmed.
“You don’t want to alarm people, but given the spread we see, you know, anything is possible,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told Fox News on Sunday. “And that’s the reason why we’ve got to be prepared to take whatever action is appropriate to contain and mitigate the outbreak.”
No one in the United States wants to use the word “lockdown,” in the manner of what Italy is doing in its northern regions to try to control the spread of the disease.
But the specter of isolation — of telling people in affected areas not to go out — is hovering in big cities where the infection has taken hold.
In an interview, Dr. Fauci said, “I don’t think you want to have folks shutting down cities like in northern Italy. We are not at that level. That is a hot spot. Social distancing like in Seattle is the way to go. I’m not talking about locking down anything. There’s a big difference between voluntary social distancing and locking anything down.
Mistakes are still being made. This is an Oregon screw-up:
In midst of Oregon coronavirus outbreak, tweet shows crowded concert with advice: ‘feel free to go out and have a good time’
By 10:30 a.m. Sunday, the county had taken down the tweet, saying it “regrets” that it was sent out.
That’s about the time state public health officials announced seven new diagnosed cases of novel coronavirus in Oregon for a total of 14 so far and Gov. Kate Brown declared a state of emergency.
We really need to sharpen up and be on our A game.
One common response to an unwanted event is called an adjustment reaction. You’ll see a bit of anxiety and depression, perfectly normal. Whether it’s because your candidate lost (“if my choice doesn’t win, Trump does! Happy now?)” or because you realize the implication of the rice-chessboard problem pictured above, be kind. You can’t expect everyone to be at the same mental meet-up place all at once. So, let’s try to get ahead of this a bit:
For example, where we are, and already out of date:
And why travel is fraught if you are over 65:
And where we *might* need to move to (see Seattle and NY respond differently):
The Atlantic:
What Could Happen if the Coronavirus Closed Schools for Days, Weeks, or Even Months
We can get a sense of what to expect from Hong Kong, where students have already been out of school for more than a month.
THREE DAYS IN
When American schools have closed for a few days due to the coronavirus, logistical hassles have ensued—but, for the most part, educators and administrators have been adequately equipped to handle them. After a few days of canceled classes, the Colville School District was treating its lost days like snow days: Students would not have to make up for lost class time, Lewis explained, unless the school closure lasted long enough that Colville would not meet the state-mandated minimum number of days in the school year. (In that case, the district would plan to push back the last day of school further into the summer.) The start of the spring sports season, however, was delayed as a result of the closures. On Thursday the district’s website announced that the board of directors would be meeting on Friday to approve a special Sunday makeup practice for March 8.
TWO WEEKS IN
After two weeks away from school, kids in the United States would be considerably behind schedule in their learning curricula—and many parents in the U.S. would be acutely inconvenienced without the daily meal service and child care that school inherently provides.
Think it through early.
NY Times:
Coronavirus in N.Y.C.: Why Closing Public Schools Is a ‘Last Resort’
The city’s schools will probably stay open because they double as social service centers for hundreds of thousands of poor students.
New York City has the largest public school system in the United States, a vast district with about 750,000 children who are poor, including around 114,000 who are homeless.
For such students, school may be the only place they can get three hot meals a day and medical care, and even wash their dirty laundry.
Vox:
The CDC’s rocky effort to get Americans tested for coronavirus, explained
The US has done 2,000 coronavirus tests. South Korea has done more than 140,000. What gives?
Better testing, paired with aggressive public health actions — like social distancing, isolation of those who are sick, and tracing those who sick people made contact with — can still help save lives in the United States.
But it starts with testing. To date, per an investigation in the Atlantic, fewer than 2,000 people have been tested for Covid-19 in the US — a number far behind other developed countries. South Korea, for example, has tested more than 140,000 people and has even set up drive-though testing stations for people to access.
Evidence is mounting that early in the outbreak, in January and February, China bought the world time with its aggressive action to contain the viral outbreak in its borders. The testing fiasco in the US indicates we didn’t use that time well.
See also Joanne Kenen/Politico: How testing failures allowed coronavirus to sweep the U.S.
Problem is, we might be beyond that in some areas? Read this thoughtful twitter thread:
As to the Trump handling of this…
Wired:
Trump’s Coronavirus Press Event Was Even Worse Than It Looked
His remarks at the CDC on Friday were misguided, misleading, and show how misinformation could hamper Covid-19 containment efforts.
As a reporter, in general I’m not supposed to say something like this, but: The president’s statements to the press were terrifying. That press availability was a repudiation of good science and good crisis management from inside one of the world’s most respected scientific institutions. It was full of Dear Leader-ish compliments, non-sequitorial defenses of unrelated matters, attacks on an American governor, and—most importantly—misinformation about the virus and the US response. That’s particularly painful coming from inside the CDC, a longtime powerhouse in global public health now reduced to being a backdrop for grubby politics. During a public health crisis, clear and true information from leaders is the only way to avoid dangerous panic. Yet here we are.
Politico:
Trump's mismanagement helped fuel coronavirus crisis
Current and former administration officials blame the president for creating a no-bad-news atmosphere that stifled attempts to combat the outbreak.
For six weeks behind the scenes, and now increasingly in public, Trump has undermined his administration’s own efforts to fight the coronavirus outbreak — resisting attempts to plan for worst-case scenarios, overturning a public-health plan upon request from political allies and repeating only the warnings that he chose to hear. Members of Congress have grilled top officials like Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Centers for Disease Control Director Robert Redfield over the government’s biggest mistake: failing to secure enough testing to head off a coronavirus outbreak in the United States. But many current and former Trump administration officials say the true management failure was Trump’s.
It’s about time the media called it like it is. They still don’t do it enough.
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In non-Coronavirus news, we got major primary elections tomorrow. Keep in mind what I said about adjustment reaction (for example, the most innocuous comment will rub the wrong way; posting pundit opinion *because it predominates* doesn’t mean endorsing it), and be kind. To most voters, it’s about winning in November and that’s all it is.
Robert Samuels/WaPo:
The doubt of a ‘Bernie Bro’: A hard-charging Sanders supporter questions whether his tactics help or hurt
Twitter might not be real life, but politics was, and dogma had its limitations. Sitting out of the election was a black pill he did not want to take.
Me, I prefer “Bernie brethren” but your mileage may vary.
AP: Suburbanites are voting and that’s good news for Joe Biden
Turnout in the Democratic presidential primary has been strong across suburban counties, from northern Virginia to Southern California, that fueled the 2018 wave. In several key counties, turnout has exceeded that of four years ago. In some cases, it has bested the party’s recent high water marks reached during the 2008 primary battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
That has been particularly good news now for Joe Biden.
You don’t need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows. ~ Richard Nixon, humming to himself in the shower.
Kamala Harris has endorsed, so has Jesse Jackson, and MI is tomorrow. After that (Wednesday), we’ll talk.