Yesterday was election day here in Korea, which is also a national holiday so I got to have a day off to get some sun while social distancing at a large park. Here’s a look at how they managed to have a general election in the middle of a pandemic.
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Meanwhile, back in the USA…
FEMA gave a $55,000,000 no-bid contract to a bankrupt company with no employees for N95 masks – which they don’t make or have – at 7x the cost others charge.
Looking forward to how this company is specifically connected to Trump, and even more specifically how he’ll shout down anyone that asks him about it.
Reporters are looking into the companies getting these orders to see which ones are similarly paper-only companies that are passthrus for such orders and merely skimming a commission off the order on the way through. I don’t care who it is; anyone profiteering off this crisis needs to have their flesh peeled and doused in salt.
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There are normally a lot of contracting rules which prevent this sort of thing, but whenever they are relaxed you get dopes like this trying to buy masks for $4.95 and sell them for $5.00. If you know the story behind the movie ‘War Dogs’ it’s probably the same thing.
Holy Shit! They have tested all of the sailors on the USS Theodore Roosevelt. 600 of the 4800 crew tested positive; of those 600, 60% we asymptomatic.
Without comprehensive and frequent testing - combined with tracing and quarantining - how are we supposed to “open” on May 1? Trump shut down his rally yesterday when pressed on testing and the fact that we basically aren’t doing it. We’re at a 1% testing rate, and that’s once per testee. We have to be able to test everyone and repeatedly, and anyone testing positive needs to go into quarantine and anyone in contact with them needs to as well.
Lifting stay-at-home orders without testing, tracing and quarantine will create a second wave of infections.
Meanwhile, we blasted through 30,000 deaths yesterday and could top 40,000 by the end of the weekend. We’re almost certain to surpass 700,000 cases by the end of today.
To put that in perspective, the next 4 worst outbreaks are, in descending order, Spain, Italy, France and Germany. We have more cases tha all of them combined. [Admittedly, we can’t trust the low counts coming out of China and Russia.]
This highlights the testing debacle, because our outbreak is likely far worse than our numbers report. Germany is getting ready to re-open small businesses, but it also can now test 650,000/day coupled with tracing and quarantine capacity. We can’t even test health workers working in ICUs because there aren’t enough to go around (and the results still take days).
This year has seemed like a decade, so it’s important to put into perspective how bad our outbreak has become and how quickly.
Feb 17: 0 deaths
Mar 17: 110 deaths
Apr 17: 34,621 deaths
The last 4 weeks have been absolute carnage. And if you ignore all the excuses and blamstorming for the administration ignoring what was going on during December, January, February and the first half of March - the time period during which we know the President had available briefing materials on this - we are now mid-April and nothing has changed.
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At the beginning of March I thought it was going to kill at least a million people in the US. I was relieved by the 100,000+ projection that was put out a few weeks ago. We are doing about as well as anywhere that has had a big outbreak (if you look at per capita, etc) and the medical system has held up even in NYC.
I know presidential politics is the only thing that matters in the universe, but I think the solutions are going to come one community at a time.
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That’s a good point. Here in Houston we’re managing well, thanks to the social distancing measures taken by Hidalgo and Turner early on. We are about two weeks away from the peak, so if we can continue to make progress against the spread we might actually be in a position to start softening those social distancing measures hopefully as soon as the latter half of May.
The problem is that each community borders other communities, so it’s not so easy to make unilateral decisions. Even the regional state government cooperatives are going to have difficulty navigating those waters. A state like Pennsylvania’s that has one side in the mid/atlantic-northeast region and another side in the Ohio river valley/midwest region is going to especially struggle with the nuances of a roll out.
Abbott noon presser:
- Schools closed for the rest of the school year
- Loosening restrictions on medical procedures beginning 4/22
- Retailers allowed to open across state starting 4/24 (must provide curbside/to go options)
- State parks reopening 4/20
- A “Strike Force” has been assembled consisting of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, House Speaker Dennis Bonnen, Attorney General Ken Paxton and Comptroller Glenn Hegar to evaluate the reopening.
This is going to undo everything that has been accomplished.
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YTIFY
I wonder if local governments can still mandate stay home/work safe orders or if this is like the plastic grocery bags/regulating ride sharing.
As I said above, Houston’s best base scenario was hitting the peak in late April and getting over this in mid May. If social distancing ends three to five days before Houston’s peak hits, you can blow that out of the water. As Baylor College of Medicine’s president said in the chron this morning, “the peak is not a good place to be. The only safe place is when we’re going toward the valley.”
According to Abbott, local governments are allowed to be stricter, but not more lax.
I don’t know how you can get more lax than what Bench posted above. And it really doesn’t matter how strict the large local governments are, if nearby suburban/exurban mayors follow Lt. Gov “sacrifice the elderly for capitalism” Patrick’s recommendations.
it’s not that hard.
YTIFY
Thank God five rich white guys get to decide who dies for the shareholders. Whew! Dodged a bullet there.
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Houston is able to conduct only 1000 tests a day. It’s going to be a long time until there is adequate testing.
That’s a handy tip. And good for going about ones business so you don’t spread your germs. But that mask doesn’t do anything to prevent inhaling particulates which is why people administering the tests need proper PPE.
Ron Klein likes to remind people that the peak isn’t the end of it, because the day after the peak is the second worst day of the epidemic.