While Trump lies about his actions and intent, now saying he never really meant we’d ease off special distancing in 15 days, and never meant he’d quarantine the tri-state area of NY, NJ and CT, (he claimed yesterday he stopped public health from doing it) the public simply is not buying the bullshit.
Sam Stein/Daily Beast:
Trump’s Coronavirus Disinformation Campaign Isn’t Working: Poll
The president has presented an overly rosy picture about how the fight against the virus is going. A new poll suggests the public isn’t buying it.
- A full 73 percent of respondents, including 75 percent of Republicans, said that it was not true that “anyone who wants to get tested [for the virus] can get tested.” Just 17 percent said it was true.
- Only 20 percent of the public, and just 25 percent of Republicans, said that they believed a vaccine will be available soon. Forty-two percent said that was false and 38 percent said they did not know.
- Fifty-one percent of respondents, including a plurality or Republicans (46 percent), said it was false that the virus would go away on its own in warm weather, while just 13 percent said that was true.
- And 61 percent of respondents said that they believed COVID-19 was more deadly than the flu; with 22 percent saying it was about the same and 11 percent saying they believed it was less deadly.
Vivek Murthy:
THREAD: Five tried and true principles for communication during a public health crisis (these literally save lives): (1/x)
#1 Be transparent and truthful - this creates trust, accountability, and allows people to get valuable information. There is tremendous pressure in the middle of a crisis to over promise while also glossing over tough news. You must resist that urge. (2/x)
#2 Be consistent - lurching from one position to another is confusing and plants seeds of doubt. It's ok to change your position if circumstances change, but explain why with clear logic and scientific evidence. (3/x)
#3 Over communicate - err on the side of sharing too much information rather than too little. Information is empowering in a crisis. When people feel they don't have enough information, it creates anxiety and impacts their decision-making. (4/x)
#4: Lead with scientists and science - science must triumph over politics when guiding a nation through a pandemic. The price of not doing so is measured in human suffering and lives lost. Communication must be led by scientists and policies must be grounded in science. (5/x)
#5 Be compassionate - public health crises are scary and stressful times. Leaders must strive to be empathic and understanding, especially during disagreements. This applies not only to the public and the press but also toward members of their own team. (6/x)
Knvul Sheikh/NY Times:
More Americans Should Probably Wear Masks for Protection
Experts have started to question whether masks may offer at least some protection to healthy individuals and essential workers.
The official guidance continues to recommend that masks should be reserved for people who are already sick, as well as for the health workers and caregivers who must interact with infected individuals on a regular basis. Everyone else, they say, should stick to frequent hand-washing and maintaining a distance of at least 6 feet from other people to protect themselves.
But the recent surge in infections in the United States, which has put the country at the center of the epidemic, with more confirmed cases than China, Italy or any other country, means that more Americans are now at risk of getting sick. And healthy individuals, especially those with essential jobs who cannot avoid public transportation or close interaction with others, may need to start wearing masks more regularly.
Kelly Servik/Science:
Would everyone wearing face masks help us slow the pandemic?
Randomized controlled trials focused on other viruses haven’t proved that masking the public decreases infections, though these studies have tended to have small sample sizes, and in many, participants didn’t wear the masks as much as they were instructed to.
Despite messages from some health officials to the contrary, it’s likely that a mask can help protect a healthy wearer from infection, says Benjamin Cowling, an epidemiologist at the University of Hong Kong. Both surgical masks and the more protective N95 respirators have been shown to prevent various respiratory infections in health care workers; there’s been some debate about which of the two is appropriate for different kinds of respiratory infection patient care. “It doesn’t make sense to imagine that … surgical masks are really important for health care workers but then not useful at all for the general public,” Cowling says.
Masks might work better at preventing infection in hospitals than in public, he says, in part because health care workers receive training on how to wear them and because they take other important safety measures such as thorough hand-washing. “I think the average person, if they were taught how to wear a mask properly … would have some protection against infection in the community.”
Well, here’s your quick training.
So there aren’t enough masks? Well, I made this thread for you. How to make them, how to wear them, what materials to use.
WaPo:
Simple DIY masks could help flatten the curve. We should all wear them in public.
Got a T-shirt? You can make a mask at home.
When historians tally up the many missteps policymakers have made in response to the coronavirus pandemic, the senseless and unscientific push for the general public to avoid wearing masks should be near the top.
The evidence not only fails to support the push, it also contradicts it. It can take a while for official recommendations to catch up with scientific thinking. In this case, such delays might be deadly and economically disastrous. It’s time to make masks a key part of our fight to contain, then defeat, this pandemic. Masks effective at “flattening the curve” can be made at home with nothing more than a T-shirt and a pair of scissors. We should all wear masks — store-bought or homemade — whenever we’re out in public.
Michael T. Osterholm and Mark Olshaker/NY Times:
It’s Too Late to Avoid Disaster, but There Are Still Things We Can Do
Our leaders need to speak some hard truths and then develop a strategy to prevent the worst.
Let’s get one thing straight: From an epidemiological perspective, the current debate, which pits human life against long-term economics, presents a false choice. Just as a return to even a new normal is unthinkable for the foreseeable future — and well past Easter, Mr. Trump — a complete shutdown and shelter-in-place strategy cannot last for months. There are just too many essential workers in our intertwined lives beyond the health care field — sanitation workers; grocery clerks, and food handlers, preparers and deliverers; elevator mechanics; postal workers — who must be out and about if society is to continue to function.
A middle-ground approach is the only realistic one — and defining what that looks like means doing our best to keep all such workers safe. It also means leadership. Above all, it means being realistic about what is possible and what is not, and communicating that clearly to the American public.
When leaders tell the truth about even near-desperate situations, when they lay out a clear and understandable vision, the public might remain frightened, but it will act rationally and actively participate in the preservation of its safety and security.
ProPublica:
What We Know — and Don’t Know — About Possible Coronavirus Treatments Promoted by Trump
There isn’t enough evidence that decades-old anti-malarial drugs work for the treatment or prevention of coronavirus, but here’s what we do know so far.
Many experts say there isn’t enough evidence that the drugs work for the coronavirus, but at least a few say there’s little to lose in giving hydroxychloroquine to patients who are severely ill with coronavirus.
“It’s unlikely to worsen COVID-19, and given that it might help ... we have literally nothing else to offer these patients other than supportive care,” said Dr. David Juurlink, an internist and head of the division of clinical pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Toronto in Canada.
Here’s what we know and don’t know about the drugs, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, also known by the brand name Plaquenil.
Colin McEnroe/Register Citizen:
Governor Ned’s rise in the power rankings
So what has happened?
First, in times of trouble, people like to like to their leaders. The approval ratings of Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte have gone through the roof lately even though there’s a lot to be sad and angry about. In your darkest hour, you’d rather think you’re being led by Winston Churchill instead of Bozo the Clown.
Second, Lamont, who for all of 2019 appeared to lack a decisive streak, has suddenly discovered his inner Gen. George S. Patton. He has, with a minimum of dithering, taken swift actions that demonstrated a grasp of the pandemic and, almost as important, met the mood of his citizens.