We know what we have to do. No, it’s not overreacting. Some real time data follows (after this reminder):
That’s what we need to do. Meanwhile:
What the heck does that mean? Other than he’s trying to kill us all, starting with the Fox demographic.
Ed Yong/Atlantic with a great explainer:
Why the Coronavirus Has Been So Successful
We’ve known about SARS-CoV-2 for only three months, but scientists can make some educated guesses about where it came from and why it’s behaving in such an extreme way.
There’s another important feature. Coronavirus spikes consist of two connected halves, and the spike activates when those halves are separated; only then can the virus enter a host cell. In SARS-classic, this separation happens with some difficulty. But in SARS-CoV-2, the bridge that connects the two halves can be easily cut by an enzyme called furin, which is made by human cells and—crucially—is found across many tissues. “This is probably important for some of the really unusual things we see in this virus,” says Kristian Andersen of Scripps Research Translational Institute.
For example, most respiratory viruses tend to infect either the upper or lower airways. In general, an upper-respiratory infection spreads more easily, but tends to be milder, while a lower-respiratory infection is harder to transmit, but is more severe. SARS-CoV-2 seems to infect both upper and lower airways, perhaps because it can exploit the ubiquitous furin. This double whammy could also conceivably explain why the virus can spread between people before symptoms show up—a trait that has made it so difficult to control. Perhaps it transmits while still confined to the upper airways, before making its way deeper and causing severe symptoms. All of this is plausible but totally hypothetical; the virus was only discovered in January, and most of its biology is still a mystery.
Vogue:
“They Ignored the Warning Signs”: A New York City ER Doctor Explains What She’s Up Against
What are you seeing on the ground in the ER right now?
It’s changing every day. A point I want to emphasize, though, is that the federal government set us up for failure. They should have paid attention to what the forecasters were saying months ago, but they ignored the warning signs and stuck their heads in the sand. The underreporting and under-testing has made us fundamentally unable to combat this effectively. The New York [state] government has been remarkable; [Governor Andrew] Cuomo has been doing a great job. But the lack of federal oversight means that there will be pockets of success and pockets of failure. It makes it that much harder for us to combat this on a global level. On the ground, I’m seeing health care professionals do their best to catch up. New York has the highest number of infections of all the states in America, and we’re going to see that number increase exponentially.
Politico:
What I Learned About Coronavirus From Binge-watching 10 Hours of Virus Movies
Let the scientists do the public messaging.
In none of the virus movies I watched do we see the U.S. president. He or she is often one of the least important characters. In “Contagion,” he’s moved underground. In “Outbreak,” we only see the chief of staff, talking White House officials through the ethics of bombing a California town, executing all of its citizens in order to contain Mataba. Instead, the most important characters—the ones who do the talking—are the public health officials, virologists, researchers and frontline healthcare workers. In the movies, scientists always offer a clear explanation and as much information as they have to concerned citizens. Politicians would only get in the way.
President Donald Trump didn’t get the memo. His statements about coronavirus have been perplexing and counterproductive. He said we have it “under control.” He compared it to the flu. He told people with the virus to go to work. He suggested the virus would “disappear.” Then he declared a national emergency.
Here’s Andy Slavitt with new data on % with fever from smart thermometers 🧐 connected to the web:
Atlantic:
How the Coronavirus Became an American Catastrophe
The death and economic damage sweeping the United States could have been avoided—if only we had started testing for the virus sooner.
How many people are sick with the coronavirus in the United States, and when did they get sick?
These are crucial questions to answer, but they have never been answered well. Archived data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—illustrated in the chart below—reveal that the government dramatically misunderstood what was happening in America as the outbreak began.
On the last day of February, the CDC reported that 15 Americans had tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
Wired:
The Doctor Who Helped Defeat Smallpox Explains What's Coming
Epidemiologist Larry Brilliant, who warned of pandemic in 2006, says we can beat the novel coronavirus—but first, we need lots more testing.
We're all watching that movie now.
People say Contagion is prescient. We just saw the science. The whole epidemiological community has been warning everybody for the past 10 or 15 years that it wasn't a question of whether we were going to have a pandemic like this. It was simply when. It's really hard to get people to listen. I mean, Trump pushed out the admiral on the National Security Council, who was the only person at that level who's responsible for pandemic defense. With him went his entire downline of employees and staff and relationships. And then Trump removed the [early warning] funding for countries around the world.
NPR:
Coronavirus Threatens Rural Hospitals Already At The Financial Brink
Rural hospitals may not be able to keep their doors open as the coronavirus pandemic saps their cash, their CEOs warn, just as communities most need them.
As the coronavirus sweeps across the United States, all hospitals are facing cancellations of doctor visits and procedures by a terrified populace — profitable services that usually help fund hospitals. Meanwhile, the institutions also find themselves needing to pay higher prices for personal protective equipment such as face masks and other gear that's in short supply. Vice President Mike Pence called on hospitals nationwide Wednesday to delay elective surgeries to free up capacity and resources for future coronavirus patients.
The American Hospital Association responded Thursday by asking Congress for $100 billion for all hospitals to offset coronavirus costs, citing rural hospitals' inability to withstand huge losses for long.
CBS46:
Emory University launches site to help potential patients assess risk of coronavirus infection
Emory University and the makers of Vital software launched a new, free website Friday, C19check.com, that can help patients check their risks of being infected by the COVID-19 coronavirus before going to the hospital.
The site was designed to mitigate the expected surge of people at emergency room's and hospitals across America.
"We think it's hard for people to digest all this information," said Dr. Alex Isakov of Emory University's School of Mediince.
By answering questions on the site, people can find out if they are at low, medium, or high-risk for the COVID-19 coronavirus. According to the makers, the site's protocols were designed and tested by experts from Emory, other schools, and government using the most up-to-date data available.
Once you answer the questions on the site, it will recommend whether you should stay home, contact a doctor or other healthcare provider, or head to the emergency room to get treatment. The makers of the site said it would eventually add locations of testing facilities so patients recommended for testing can easily know where to go. Still, remember to listen to your body.
It was a terrible bill.
USA Today:
We helped jobless workers survive the Great Recession. Here's what to do on coronavirus.
We don’t have time to set up new programs for laid-off workers. The simplest, smartest way to help them is to increase current jobless benefits.
The simplest and smartest way to help laid-off workers is to increase the current unemployment insurance benefits program (UI). These programs, which operate in all 50 states, typically pay weekly unemployment benefits equal to 45% of a worker’s wages. They are funded by an assessment on employers in that state, and are intentionally designed to not be overly generous so as to not discourage workers from searching for work.