re: OT: Alabama Coronavirus Thread (see link in OP for case numbers and death totals in AL)

quote:

---

I think part of our different views likely come from the different levels of impact based on where we live. You're in NY. I completely agree that you guys have a very big problem, but here we don't

---

Yeah, this is definitely true. The past two days here in Brooklyn have been the first in two weeks without constant ambulance sirens most of the day. Most of us not only knows someone who has it but 30 or 40 people. On the other hand, my brother in Alabama's main experience is simply having to shutdown 3 of the 4 truck routes for his refrigerated trucking company.

quote:

---

While I agree with pretty much every word of this, some things are worth mentioning. First is how ineffective our intel network is in China.

---

quote:

---

Second, as someone else has said, our biggest mistake wasn't trusting China. It was trusting the WHO. Even if we don't expect them to actively call out China, I don't think anyone in the world expected that the WHO would intentionally be deceptive about a worldwide pandemic.

---

100%

The article in The Dispatch today about the WHO is must read.

I haven't seen the article yet but I imagine WHO to be a bunch of executive to office staff types with health field background that have no more power to get information from a rogue government like China's than NCAA investigators seem to from Will Wade.


Maybe that's a good reason to replace them.

However, I still can't believe anyone would actually believe China was giving them good information.

LINK ]The Coronavirus in America: The Year Ahead (NY Times)

quote:

---

There will be no quick return to our previous lives, according to nearly two dozen experts. But there is hope for managing the scourge now and in the long term. . .

---

quote:

---

many w/o insurance to cover it or though there would be an out of pocket expense didn't get tested

---

Except the last legislation that passed made the test free. Now to pay for treating it not all can afford it but many insurers are also now covering that costs as well removing the copay and deductible for it.

Now the problem with testing though as many have mentioned like yourself is the concern for how effective the test is. Especially those being retested and found to be positive again.

quote:

---

In South Korea, health officials are trying to solve a mystery: why 163 people who recovered from coronavirus have retested positive, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).

The same has been recorded in China, where some coronavirus patients tested positive after seeming to recover, although there are no official figures.

That raises the question: can you get reinfected with coronavirus?

In South Korea, the proportion of cases that retest positive is low -- of the 7,829 people who have recovered from coronavirus there, 2.1% retested positive, the KCDC said Friday. It is not clear how many of the people who have recovered have been tested again.

---

Federal judge in Kansas issues a temporary restraining order blocking Kansas Governor’s executive order limiting church services to 10 or fewer people.

I’ve probably missed some but this is the first federal action I’ve seen on a first amendment claim.

I didn't read the case, but based on the news story the crux of his reasoning for issuing the TRO was that if it is OK to go lots of other public places as long as social distancing is maintained, then the gov has no right to single out a church for special restrictions. Not particularly illogical reasoning.

It's also just a TRO, not a final ruling so there's no idea how the case will turn out. Odds are high it will get mooted because the outbreak will run its course faster than the federal court system docket.

quote:

---

To answer your question, the "method" that is most effective in stopping a plague would always be preferable in my case.

---

We don’t even know if China’s numbers are correct

quote:

---

To answer your question, the "method" that is most effective in stopping a plague would always be preferable in my case.

---

No. Just no.

quote:

---

They don’t need to. Some of those states have really low numbers

---

Low numbers of what? Population? Low numbers of cases? South Dakota governor was one of the 8 states that resisted the isolation edict. It really doesn't take much of a spark to start a coronavirus fire. For example, this is why SD spiked 205% in the last few days:


Now South Dakota is home to one of the largest single coronavirus clusters anywhere in the United States, with more than 300 workers at a giant ­pork-processing plant falling ill. With the case numbers continuing to spike, the company was forced to announce the indefinite closure of the facility Sunday, threatening the U.S. food supply.

A car with a sign calling for a safe and healthy workplace drives past Smithfield Foods during a protest on behalf of employees after many workers complained of unsafe working conditions due to the coronavirus outbreak in Sioux Falls, S.D., on April 9.
A car with a sign calling for a safe and healthy workplace drives past Smithfield Foods during a protest on behalf of employees after many workers complained of unsafe working conditions due to the coronavirus outbreak in Sioux Falls, S.D., on April 9. (Erin Bormett/The Argus Leade/AP)
“A shelter-in-place order is needed now. It is needed today,” said Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken, whose city is at the center of South Dakota’s outbreak and who has had to improvise with voluntary recommendations in the absence of statewide action.

AD
But the governor continued to resist. Instead, she used a media briefing Monday to announce trials of a drug that President Trump has repeatedly touted as a potential breakthrough in the fight against the coronavirus, despite a lack of scientific evidence.

Sign up for our Coronavirus Updates newsletter to track the outbreak. All stories linked in the newsletter are free to access.

“It’s an exciting day,” she boasted, repeatedly citing her conversations with presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner.

The piecemeal approach to combating the coronavirus in South Dakota offers a throwback to America’s not-so-distant past, the period around a month ago when governors were still leery of using their powers to shut down restaurants and bars or to order people, for the greater good, to stay at home.

It also may offer a glimpse of the country’s near-term future, as pressure builds — not least from the president — to reopen after a weeks-long shutdown. Trump has been eager to get the economy on its feet again by the beginning of May after record rises in unemployment claims and dramatic falls in the stock market.

AD
Yet as South Dakota’s experience shows, no part of the country is immune to being ravaged by the virus. And rescinding orders that people stay at home — or declining to issue them, as in the case of South Dakota and four other states — offers plenty of peril.

Reopening the country by May is “not even remotely achievable,” said TenHaken, who, like Trump and Noem, is a Republican. “We’re in the early innings of this thing in Sioux Falls.”

Already, the experience has been harrowing: As of early April, the city had relatively few cases. But over the course of last week, the numbers surged as the virus ripped through the city’s Smithfield Foods production plant, a colossus that employs 3,700 people — many of them immigrants — and churns out 18 million servings of pork product per day.

On Monday alone, 57 more workers were confirmed to have positive diagnoses, bringing the total well above 300 — and making it one of the country’s largest clusters. Other major clusters include Cook County Jail in Chicago and the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier.

AD
The Smithfield cases amount to more than a third of the state’s overall total, which stood at 868 on Monday, including six deaths, in a state of nearly 900,000 people.

Over the weekend, Smithfield bowed to growing pressure and said it would shutter the facility indefinitely in a bid to contain the spread — though Smithfield leaders cautioned that the action could severely disrupt the nation’s food supplies. The factory, like other food production facilities, had earlier been deemed essential by the federal government.

The shutdown of the Sioux Falls plant, coupled with other closures, “is pushing our country perilously close to the edge in terms of our meat supply,” Kenneth Sullivan, Smithfield president and chief executive, said in a statement. “It is impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our plants are not running.”

Before the closure, workers had complained that they were not given sufficient access to protective gear, such as masks. The company said Thursday that it had taken steps to reduce the spread, including “adding extra hand sanitizing stations, boosting personal protective equipment, continuing to stress the importance of personal hygiene.” But workers said they were required to work so closely together that it was impossible to stay healthy.

AD
“There is no social distance,” said Lily, a 30-year-old Mexican immigrant who had worked at the plant for nearly 13 years but quit because she feared bringing the coronavirus home to her husband and young daughter.

Lily, who spoke on the condition that her last name not be published for fear of retribution, said it is not only at work where she feared the virus. “Many people are sick. Not only in the plant — in the whole city,” she said.

Sioux Falls, home to nearly 200,000 people, is the state’s largest city. TenHaken, the mayor, said in an interview that he has done everything within his power to enforce social distancing, including using a “no lingering” ordinance to confine restaurants to takeout and delivery service and strongly recommending that all nonessential businesses close.

He has little power of enforcement, however, and no ability to control what happens in nearby jurisdictions. Restaurants within Sioux Falls may have shut down for in-person dining, but the rules don’t apply outside city limits.

Without a more assertive response from state government — including stay-at-home orders in at least the surrounding counties and a declaration of a statewide public health emergency — TenHaken said he fears the spread will continue.

AD
“The virus doesn’t know boundaries. The virus doesn’t know city limits,” he said. “We’re responding the best we can at the local level but quite honestly with a limited tool set.”

TenHaken’s plea for state action has also been made by public health professionals.

The South Dakota State Medical Association wrote Noem a letter April 3 warning the governor that the state “may soon face the challenges and hardships currently being seen in New York and other large cities across the country if a shelter in place order is not issued immediately.”

LINK