Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

The Atlantic has just posted a must read on USA's failures with COVID-19. I think it's a testament to this thread that many of the observations have been discussed here. We should encourage our friends and families to read it.

Normally, I try to quote a provocative paragraph or two to encourage clicks on an article. I won't here because for fear of minimizing the breathtaking scope of our errors.



Linky:
How the Pandemic Defeated America

 

I’ll read it, only because it hasn’t defeated me.

 

From the article:

The Chinese government downplayed the possibility that SARS‑CoV‑2 was spreading among humans, and only confirmed as much on January 20, after millions had traveled around the country for the lunar new year. Doctors who tried to raise the alarm were censured and threatened. One, Li Wenliang, later died of COVID‑19. The World Health Organization initially parroted China’s line and did not declare a public-health emergency of international concern until January 30. By then, an estimated 10,000 people in 20 countries had been infected, and the virus was spreading fast.

 

"Travel bans make intuitive sense, because travel obviously enables the spread of a virus. But in practice, travel bans are woefully inefficient at restricting either travel or viruses. They prompt people to seek indirect routes via third-party countries, or to deliberately hide their symptoms. They are often porous: Trump’s included numerous exceptions, and allowed tens of thousands of people to enter from China. Ironically, they create travel: When Trump later announced a ban on flights from continental Europe, a surge of travelers packed America’s airports in a rush to beat the incoming restrictions. Travel bans may sometimes work for remote island nations, but in general they can only delay the spread of an epidemic—not stop it. And they can create a harmful false confidence, so countries “rely on bans to the exclusion of the things they actually need to do—testing, tracing, building up the health system,” says Thomas Bollyky, a global-health expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. “That sounds an awful lot like what happened in the U.S.”"

 

"The indoor spaces in which Americans spend 87 percent of their time became staging grounds for super-spreading events. One study showed that the odds of catching the virus from an infected person are roughly 19 times higher indoors than in open air. Shielded from the elements and among crowds clustered in prolonged proximity, the coronavirus ran rampant in the conference rooms of a Boston hotel, the cabins of the Diamond Princess cruise ship, and a church hall in Washington State where a choir practiced for just a few hours."

 

I'm not sure what to make of you choosing the paragraph about China's culpability from an article itemizing many of the USA's failings. It really wasn't one of the takeaways I was expecting folks to have from the article.

 

If they don't track the numbers, there won't be any evidence that students are getting sick. Brilliant!

Tennessee won't collect, release data on coronavirus cases in schools

 

Likewise

 

New around here?

 

Yes they are complicit. If we could build a coalition to punish them for it that would be great. Unfortunately we have alienated most, if not all, or our allies.

At the same time, if we are dependent upon our enemies or even WHO to keep us informed of biological threats we have failed.

Read this story. these two generals had less info and authority than POTUS but made hard and good decisions without having to rely on China or WHO

'Protective bubbles': How 2 Army generals stopped the spread of coronavirus among their soldiers

 

and in the customs queues that followed in the int'l airports around the country when we told everybody to come home and made no preparations on how to handle them when they returned. Like DeSantis setting up checkpoints on the interstate and then having to remove them because they didn't anticipate the traffic delays they would cause..always tell my kids to "think it through". It seems to be a skill set lost on our leaders from both groups.

 

WOW!!!! not in a good way.

 

Good read on the impact to historically black schools.

Pandemic ushers in a 'new normal' for historically underfunded HBCUs

 

Looks like those nationwide new cases a fallin'.

 

From the link...

This continues to be one of the most ridiculous aspects of the pandemic, in my opinion. Our fixation with ridiculous levels of "patient privacy" inhibits our ability to inform the public about the data that has been collected. There's a way to provide information without disrespectfully calling out any individual, but in our country, we have collectively chosen privacy over being better informed. We reap what we sow.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

The most annoying thing is that this is just an excuse. There is nothing in HIPAA that would prevent the reporting of cases. It would be a violation to include the patients name or personally identifying information, but no one is asking for that. We just want numbers. Two students at XYZ school, a teacher and a student at ABC school. Totally fine under HIPAA and useful information to dealing with the pandemic.

All the junk about patient privacy is lies used to excuse bad behavior.

 

Logically, you are correct, but that is not how many administrators see the world. They often choose the path of perceived lower liability regardless of the utility of actually understanding what constitutes crossing the line. They are "safer;" they say they are "protecting our information for us," and all the while, we are less informed of things we should be better informed of.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS