What are your thoughts on how government is handling COVID-19

[Calliecake]

I’m afraid if we rush reopening the consequences will be dire.

Trump’s administration needs to communicate a clear concise detailed plan on how testing will take place. A clear plan is not saying we are doing lots of testing, more than anyone has ever seen. Everyone but the president seems to understand what an important role testing plays in reopening. Yet Trump refuses to address testing.

 

[Tekate]

Her request was ridiculous and disingenuous as if she doesn't know there is a Navy hospital ship in the harbor and requires evidence to back it up. Come on...is there anyone who doesn't know that the national stockpile didn't have enough ventilators or PPE? This is common knowledge and she should look it up herself if she isn't certain. I haven't defended trump or how he's handled any of this. Not once. There is plenty of blame to go around, Trump is not excluded from that. I have never said otherwise. Yet still she follows me around this topic arguing about things I never said and asking me to prove things which she already knows are true.

You spout off all kinds of unbacked claims (tll just recently btw now I see you actually post 2 pointers). I ask you to post pointers of the things you say because I don't believe all that you say, you spout only Fox news type information, since I read Fox and NYTimes and WaPo and the Washington Times etc I read what both sides are stating. If you can say the same you might have a leg to stand on, but you don't. I am never sure what read anywhere is total fact anymore and always check out several sites.

You haven't defended Trump? now YOU are being disingenuous.

 

[missy]

So Greg and I now have a difference of opinion. He says that people have to get back to work to restart the economy or we are going to be in a Global Great Depression. So now he is 100% on board with getting the states reopened and businesses back to work.

I remain of the thought that if we are dead nothing matters so I am willing to hold on for a while longer and we still do not have a clear plan of action as a country as I see it. And that concerns me greatly. Tests and treatments and supplies are all still in short supply. And I feel if we reopen too soon without a smart plan in place we are going to relapse and start all over again. More people dying and we will get even deeper in that proverbial hole. JMO.

 

[Dancing Fire]

So Greg and I now have a difference of opinion. He says that people have to get back to work to restart the economy or we are going to be in a Global Great Depression. So now he is 100% on board with getting the states reopened and businesses back to work.

Greg is correct. If people don't go back to work soon how are they gonna pay their mortgage and auto payments ?.

 

[redwood66]

You spout off all kinds of unbacked claims (tll just recently btw now I see you actually post 2 pointers). I ask you to post pointers of the things you say because I don't believe all that you say, you spout only Fox news type information, since I read Fox and NYTimes and WaPo and the Washington Times etc I read what both sides are stating. If you can say the same you might have a leg to stand on, but you don't. I am never sure what read anywhere is total fact anymore and always check out several sites.

You haven't defended Trump? now YOU are being disingenuous.

Oh my gosh are you argumentative. Calm down.

 

[voce]

Greg is correct. If people don't go back to work soon how are they gonna pay their mortgage and auto payments ?.

Obviously you haven't heard of this proposal or deny the possibility it will pass.

Proposal: You Get A $2,000 Stimulus Check Every Month

Yes, $2,000 a month.

www.forbes.com

 

[redwood66]

Obviously you haven't heard of this proposal or deny the possibility it will pass.

Proposal: You Get A $2,000 Stimulus Check Every Month

Yes, $2,000 a month.

www.forbes.com

Well I guess that's one way to get UBI passed.

 

[Babyblue033]

So Greg and I now have a difference of opinion. He says that people have to get back to work to restart the economy or we are going to be in a Global Great Depression. So now he is 100% on board with getting the states reopened and businesses back to work.

I can see both sides. On one hand I want to stay home as long as possible until things are truly safe. But how long can general population survive, pay rents, mortgages, bills, put food on the table, with everything shut down? I don't know what the breaking point would be, and where the line would be where many people cannot bounce back and they're impacted long beyond this virus.

NY extended the stay home order for another month, simultaneously my work started throwing around May 11th as tentative date to reopen the offices. I admit, the prospect of opening things up in a short month scares me and honestly, I don't know if I would personally feel ok to go to work even if company decides to open things up. But longer the company is affected, higher the risk of people losing their jobs too.

I don't know, there doesn't seem to be a "good" way to come out of this with most of our lives intact...

 

[arkieb1]

So Greg and I now have a difference of opinion. He says that people have to get back to work to restart the economy or we are going to be in a Global Great Depression. So now he is 100% on board with getting the states reopened and businesses back to work.

I remain of the thought that if we are dead nothing matters so I am willing to hold on for a while longer and we still do not have a clear plan of action as a country as I see it. And that concerns me greatly. Tests and treatments and supplies are all still in short supply. And I feel if we reopen too soon without a smart plan in place we are going to relapse and start all over again. More people dying and we will get even deeper in that proverbial hole. JMO.

Ask him nicely to watch the ScoMo Interview I posted a page ago from about the middle onwards, or all of it if he's willing to watch it - even he says it's a fine balancing act between saving as many people's lives as possible and not completely ruining the economy.

The problem with just allowing everything to reopen in the US is that you will have a second wave of infection, and a third and so on until most of your population is protected because they have had the infection already. Anyone that doesn't survive what is termed the "herd immunity" strategy is simply deemed collateral damage. In a population as large as the US that's a lot of dead people.

@Dancing Fire - the banks in Australia have agreed to put most home loan repayments on hold for 6 months.

 

[missy]

Ask him nicely to watch the ScoMo Interview I posted a page ago from about the middle onwards, or all of it if he's willing to watch it - even he says it's a fine balancing act between saving as many people's lives as possible and not completely ruining the economy.

The problem with just allowing everything to reopen in the US is that you will have a second wave of infection, and a third and so on until most of your population is protected because they have had the infection already. Anyone that doesn't survive what is termed the "herd immunity" strategy is simply deemed collateral damage. In a population as large as the US that's a lot of dead people.

@Dancing Fire - the banks in Australia have agreed to put most home loan repayments on hold for 6 months.

Greg is well aware of the pros and cons and he certainly doesn't think that things should be opened bam just like that. No there has to be a methodical way to go about it being as safe as possible. No matter what though there is no competely safe way to reopen without 1. a treatment or 2. a vaccine and I guess there is no way we can wait that long and have the global economy survive.

I can see both sides. On one hand I want to stay home as long as possible until things are truly safe. But how long can general population survive, pay rents, mortgages, bills, put food on the table, with everything shut down? I don't know what the breaking point would be, and where the line would be where many people cannot bounce back and they're impacted long beyond this virus.

NY extended the stay home order for another month, simultaneously my work started throwing around May 11th as tentative date to reopen the offices. I admit, the prospect of opening things up in a short month scares me and honestly, I don't know if I would personally feel ok to go to work even if company decides to open things up. But longer the company is affected, higher the risk of people losing their jobs too.

I don't know, there doesn't seem to be a "good" way to come out of this with most of our lives intact...

Yes I think all of us see both sides. The extended stay at home order for NY is only 2 weeks beyond what it was previously as the stay at home was through April. So they extended it for another 2 weeks. So far.

It is scary either way.

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

Ask him nicely to watch the ScoMo Interview I posted a page ago from about the middle onwards, or all of it if he's willing to watch it - even he says it's a fine balancing act between saving as many people's lives as possible and not completely ruining the economy.

The problem with just allowing everything to reopen in the US is that you will have a second wave of infection, and a third and so on until most of your population is protected because they have had the infection already. Anyone that doesn't survive what is termed the "herd immunity" strategy is simply deemed collateral damage. In a population as large as the US that's a lot of dead people.

@Dancing Fire - the banks in Australia have agreed to put most home loan repayments on hold for 6 months.

Scott Morison was the best I have ever seen him with an interviewer who is usually very aggressive toward conservative politicians.
He never once made a negative comment or reply.

 

[mellowyellowgirl]

What is the situation with test availability on the US? Are there no tests or are you guys worried about asymptomatic people?

The media is giving the impression that you guys have limited availability of tests. Is that true?

We keep getting told to go and get a test if we have symptoms or live in a hotspot. Our Premier was congratulating us on 5000 people showing up for testing in the last few days.

 

[missy]

What is the situation with test availability on the US? Are there no tests or are you guys worried about asymptomatic people?

The media is giving the impression that you guys have limited availability of tests. Is that true?

We keep getting told to go and get a test if we have symptoms or live in a hotspot. Our Premier was congratulating us on 5000 people showing up for testing in the last few days.

There aren’t enough tests here.

 

[mellowyellowgirl]

There aren’t enough tests here.

Are they not buying them????

Is there no supply?

Sorry for the incessant questions. I'm trying to learn more (and not just learn from the media) hence all the questions.

Bear with me!

 

[AGBF]

What is the situation with test availability on the US? Are there no tests

Whether there are tests or not depends on whom one queries. I have never spoken to anyone who was able to get a test except for my daughter's fiancé's grandmother who at the time was hospitalized at Mt Sinai in New York City (and actually did not request it) in mid-March. (It came out positive.)

If one queries Donald Trump tests are available to everyone. We have the best testing. We have beautiful tests.

 

[missy]

Are they not buying them????

Is there no supply?

Sorry for the incessant questions. I'm trying to learn more (and not just learn from the media) hence all the questions.

Bear with me!

No worries! I don't mind your questions. I just don't have the answers, I wish I did. We just don't have them. We are in short supply of everything! Not enough PPEs (despite what the politicians say-I have friends on the front lines who are pulmonologists and ER physicians etc)-not enough masks, gowns and definitely a big shortage of tests. We don't even have enough meds for the patients! It is true, People are dying because we just don't have enough supplies.

 

[missy]

Whether there are tests or not depends on whom one queries. I have never spoken to anyone who was able to get a test except for my daughter's fiancé's grandmother who at the time was hospitalized at Mt Sinai in New York City (and actually did not request it) in mid-March. (It came out positive.)

If one queries Donald Trump tests are available to everyone. We have the best testing. We have beautiful tests.

Yes, this.

How is your DD's FI's grandmother doing Deb?

 

[AGBF]

The problem here is that Donald Trump wants everyone to go back to work to make the economy hum and the stock market sing. He is a trifle less interested in getting anyone tested for Covid-19 and saving the lives of any Americans. If Americans thought he cared about their welfare, they might be willing to go back to work. But they know he sees them only as cannon fodder.

 

[mellowyellowgirl]

I'm not sure if it's true but I'm envisaging a situation like the Spanish flu where people just died until only the ones who could survive were left.

I was reading up on it (Spanish flu) and it ended in a year. People just died in droves and then it went away.

Please note I'm not condoning this, it's just the impression I'm getting from the situation.

 

[Dancing Fire]

Obviously you haven't heard of this proposal or deny the possibility it will pass.

Proposal: You Get A $2,000 Stimulus Check Every Month

Yes, $2,000 a month.

www.forbes.com

What a stupid proposal it'll never work.. Why stop at $2k per month? why not $10k per month?. Like I have said many times here... if the US government prints $1 trillion per month then a loaf of bread or a dozen eggs will cost $50 soon.

 

[AGBF]

How is your DD's FI's grandmother doing Deb?

She was one of the lucky ones. She was discharged within a week of being admitted. She was never in the ICU and never on a ventilator and she is in her late 70's. She is, however, very fit. She had had a sore throat and only went to the hospital because she passed out and hit her head. They did a scan or two and were about to discharge her when they decided to test for Covid-19 because of her age. Then she had to stay there for three days to wait for the results. She wanted to go home! But she was positive. They sent her home soon after her diagnosis and she lives alone.

All this was early, before New York City hit its big spike in cases.

 

[missy]

I'm not sure if it's true but I'm envisaging a situation like the Spanish flu where people just died until only the ones who could survive were left.

I was reading up on it (Spanish flu) and it ended in a year. People just died in droves and then it went away.

Please note I'm not condoning this, it's just the impression I'm getting from the situation.

I don’t get this impression. Not from the NY or NJ governors. At all. As for Trump I’m not even going to try understanding what’s in his head. I don’t think he even knows.

It would be great if we could get more of the supplies we need.

 

[Dancing Fire]

I don’t get this impression. Not from the NY or NJ governors. At all. As for Trump I’m not even going to try understanding what’s in his head. I don’t think he even knows.

It would be great if we could get more of the supplies we need.

What kind of supplies your state is short of?

 

[AGBF]

The issue should not be whether the United States returns to working or not. The issue should be how can we best balance the health of the most people in the country with the most productivity they can accomplish safely.

In my opinion, the health of the people working should not be sacrificed for productivity that is greater than needed to sustain us until there is a vaccine. We do not need a booming stock market. On the other hand, the more people who can safely work, the better. Because wealth is productivity and the more we produce, the fewer people will go hungry and need food pantries that will have bare shelves.

 

[missy]

What kind of supplies your state is short of?

Tests, PPEs and meds.
This is firsthand from medical doctors and nurses who are working with Covid patients.
Oh and we are also short of dialysis machines.

And shortage of nurses and doctors. They have to draft from other specialties just to get some bodies to help.

Testing Falls Woefully Short as Trump Seeks an End to Stay-at-Home Orders (Published 2020)

Flawed tests, scarce supplies and limited access to screening have hurt the U.S.’s ability to monitor Covid-19, governors and health officials warn.

www.nytimes.com

New York hospitals face another COVID-19 equipment shortage: Dialysis machines

Facilities throughout the state may not be properly equipped to deal with ensuing kidney problems and renal failure.

www.marketwatch.com

Sick doctors, nurses and not enough equipment: NYC health care workers on the fight against the coronavirus

60 Minutes speaks to a doctor who says NYC hospitals are like hell on Earth as waves of patients suffering from COVID-19 come through their doors. And a nurse says the U.S. is treating the virus with equipment that lags behind what's being used in other countries.

www.cbsnews.com

 

[Dancing Fire]

Tests, PPEs and meds.
This is firsthand from medical doctors and nurses who are working with Covid patients.
Oh and we are also short of dialysis machines.

Testing Falls Woefully Short as Trump Seeks an End to Stay-at-Home Orders (Published 2020)

Flawed tests, scarce supplies and limited access to screening have hurt the U.S.’s ability to monitor Covid-19, governors and health officials warn.

www.nytimes.com

Then your governor should take care of it. Millions of test kits are coming out.

 

[missy]

Then your governor should take care of it. Millions of test kits are coming out.

Thanks DF. Very helpful post. I will tell him to get right on that. Did you read the last link I shared?

"
The United States has the tragic distinction of having the highest daily death toll from COVID-19 anywhere on earth. Last week saw nearly 2,000 Americans die at home or in hospitals each day. Thousands of medical workers are falling ill, pulled from the frontlines just when we need them most. So far, more than 50 have died nationwide. For doctors and nurses, a steady supply of personal protective equipment, PPE, can be a lifesaver. But there are massive shortages in those supplies. How did the wealthiest, most medically-advanced nation on earth wind up so utterly unprepared to confront this pandemic? We spoke with the combative White House official in charge of procuring PPE and doctors and nurses risking their lives without the same protective gear many of their counterparts around the world have.

Dr. Sheldon Teperman: Every hospital in New York City is teeming with this virus. Right? In my place, there are hundreds and hundreds of patients. Many, many dozens of intubated, sick COVID patients. In the average place in New York City, whether it's NYU, Cornell, Presbyterian, Northwell, Stony Brook, there are hundreds of intubated COVID patients. And a lot of people are dying.

Dr. Sheldon Teperman
Dr. Sheldon Teperman is chief trauma surgeon at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx. The borough has one of the highest COVID-19 death rates on earth. He runs four intensive care units full of critically-ill patients. His days, he told us, seem endless.

It's the same in hospitals all over New York City. Cross town at Brooklyn Hospital Center, overworked doctors and nurses with limited protective gear, some wearing trash bags bound with tape, race from emergency to emergency. At Wyckoff Hospital in Brooklyn, body bags line the hallway. One doctor called conditions there "catastrophic." After another 16-hour day, Jacobi Medical Center's Dr. Teperman came to us exhausted. We maintained social distance, each in a different New York City location.

Dr. Sheldon Teperman: So COVID comes in waves. It comes in waves. So, it could be manageable in the emergency room at a given moment. And then, we're hit with a terrible wave.

Bill Whitaker: When that wave washes in, what is it like in the ER?

Dr. Sheldon Teperman: So emergency medicine physicians and nurses. They've gotta stare into the faces of these very scared citizens in New York. And, at a certain point, when they can no longer breathe for themselves, they have to have a tube put down their throat, and they have to be put on the ventilator.

Bill Whitaker: You told us it was like hell on Earth.

Dr. Sheldon Teperman: Yeah. So, I'm, you know, I'm calibrating what I'm saying to here. Right? We-- People need to stay home. New York City is on fire. Our neighbors are dying. Health care workers are being affected. Right now, you know, my boss, my second in command, my nephew, my senior nurse, second senior nurse.

Bill Whitaker: The people you just mentioned have all fallen ill from COVID-19?

Dr. Sheldon Teperman: Yes. Yes. And some of them are quite sick.

Dr. Teperman and his colleagues are repeatedly exposed. He told us he "sees" the virus in hot zones around the hospital.

Dr. Sheldon Teperman: I'm speaking metaphorically that I see the virus. It's also a protective mechanism. There are moments in the hospital, you know, where the virus conceivably is pluming into the air because a procedure is being done that creates an aerosolizing of the virus. I mean that's just a fact. Those are the true N95 moments.

Kelley Cabrera
N-95's are the coin of the realm in this crisis, respirator masks that filter 95% of airborne particles. Just as important though are the gloves, gowns, goggles, face shields, surgical masks, all PPE designed to be discarded after every encounter with an infected patient.

Bill Whitaker: Do you have enough masks?

Kelley Cabrera: No.

Bill Whitaker: Do you have enough face shields?

Kelley Cabrera: No.

Bill Whitaker: Gowns?

Kelley Cabrera: No.

Kelley Cabrera is an emergency room nurse at Jacobi…

Kelley Cabrera: We want to help our patients, and we want to do it safely.

Who led a protest to draw attention to the lack of PPE at hospitals nationwide. The problem has gotten so bad there's a hashtag, "Get me PPE," on Twitter with posts like: "I'm a physician at a New York City hospital and this is the PPE I was just handed for my shift" a Yankee souvenir rain poncho.


Kelley Cabrera: Look my neck is exposed, I'm wearing a reused mask. I have another one covering it.

Cabrebra has been filming video diaries, but says she's speaking out reluctantly. We conducted the interview remotely.

Kelley Cabrera: Every healthcare worker infection, every healthcare worker death is preventable.

Bill Whitaker: How do you feel about going into work every day? Are you safe?

Kelley Cabrera: No. Absolutely not. If you do a simple Google search, look at what other countries are wearing in comparison to us. I mean, it makes, I mean, it makes sense that we're getting infected. How could we expect not to?

More than 900 doctors and nurses in Boston have tested positive for COVID-19, yet as of last week in Hong Kong, where masks are not reused, there were no reported infections of hospital workers.

Kelley Cabrera: Prior to this, prior to coronavirus, we would have been reprimanded for doing the things that we're doing now. We're walking around with medical waste from room to room, from patient to patient.

Bill Whitaker: Did I hear you say, you're walking around from room to room wearing medical waste?

Kelley Cabrera: That's correct. That's what it is. We're wearing stuff that is, it's dirty. The fact that we're given a mask to wear for five days, it's, it's wrong.

One of her fellow nurses, Freda Ocran, has died. Another was put on life support. And a young ER doctor was admitted to the ICU.

Bill Whitaker: And yet you go back to that hospital every single day.

Kelley Cabrera: If we don't go, who's gonna take care of these patients? I mean, I think we're getting to a spot where, where people are, are really, I mean, it's a very difficult moral question, you know? It's like, do I not show up to work and protect myself? Or do I show up with and do the best that I can with what I have to help other people? A lot of us are speaking out, because we realize that this problem is so much bigger than our individual hospitals.

Cabrera says she and her fellow nurses are skeptical about the shifting centers for disease control guidance on the use of personal protective equipment when treating patients with COVID-19.

Kelley Cabrera: We're looking to the CDC for answers, and initially they had certain recommendations for what we should wear. We watched those recommendations be scaled back, not based on science, not because miraculously coronavirus wasn't as contagious. They scaled those back, because they knew that we didn't have the proper supplies.


Peter Navarro: The biggest lesson here is make this stuff here.

Economist Peter Navarro is special assistant to President Trump for trade and manufacturing, tasked with getting PPE to America's medical workers.

Peter Navarro: We wouldn't be having this problem if we had the domestic production of essential medicines, medical countermeasures, medical supplies like masks and medical equipment like ventilators. If we made it here, we wouldn't be faced with this. That was, that was the original sin.

Navarro spoke to us from Washington, D.C. With the strategic national stockpile now depleted, he was put in charge of the defense production act, to mobilize American industry to meet the demand for medical supplies.

Bill Whitaker: I'm here in New York. And we hear daily the hospitals are running out of masks, they're running out of gowns, they're running out of gloves. My question is: how did we, the United States, the most powerful, the wealthiest country on earth, get blindsided like this?

Peter Navarro: It's the global --globalization of production through multinational corporations, who salute no flag, who love cheap sweatshop labor, and who love the massive subsidies that the Chinese government throws at production to bring it from here to there.

Navarro is an architect of the Trump administration's trade war with China and is one of the biggest proponents of its "America First" policies. Now, in the wake of the outbreak, more than 70 countries across the world are restricting the export of products U.S. doctors and nurses desperately need to treat COVID-19.

Bill Whitaker: We have a nurse that we've been speaking to. The nurse asked what has taken you so long?

Peter Navarro: What is taking…

Bill Whitaker: You're talking about ramping up and the Defense Production Act. And she's on the front lines having to reuse masks and gowns.

Peter Navarro: We're moving in Trump time, which is to say as swiftly as possible. If you look at the trajectory of events we-- we-- we-- we learn about the potential for a pandemic. We're not sure what the scope of it will be. The Trump administration starts rapidly mobilizing. But-- but it-- this-- this is the 500-year flood. And it takes time.

Bill Whitaker: I have seen reports that the intelligence community was notifying the administration back in January that this was happening.

Peter Navarro: This is, like, like, the fake news stuff. It's, like, okay, somebody said…

Bill Whitaker: It's not fake news, sir.

Peter Navarro: It's like, show me the money here. What exactly did they say? Did they say, "There's gonna be a global pandemic that's gonna shut down the entire global economy."

Well, it turns out Navarro himself said almost exactly that. A few days after our interview the news site Axios published this memo Navarro wrote in late January, in which he warned the White House National Security Council the China-born virus could cause a global pandemic, take a "half-million American souls" and cost the economy "$5.7 trillion." He told us he does not contest its authenticity.

Peter Navarro: No apologies here from this administration. We are, we are doing better and more than any other president could've done.

Bill Whitaker: Sir, this is the best you can?

Peter Navarro: You say, "This is the best you can?" It's, like, oh, somebody coulda done better. Really? Who coulda done better on this? I mean, really, think about this.

Kelley Cabrera: And I know it's a pandemic, and we, it's just really hard for us to accept the fact that this is the best that we can do. I wouldn't wish this upon anybody. We're running out of supplies that, it's not just the PPE and ventilators. We're running out of IV pumps. We're running out of stuff that we never ran out of before. And it is unacceptable that in the United States of America, the richest country in the world, we are struggling like this.

This week was one of the worst in New York's history. COVID-19 patients filled hospitals and morgues in numbers that dwarfed 9/11. The Trump administration says it's moving heaven and earth to get medical supplies here. Heaven can wait, New York can't.

Bill Whitaker: The president did say that the problem with some people is just, no matter how much you give them, they say it's never enough.

Dr. Sheldon Teperman: Well, (LAUGH) I would say come visit. We're taking care of, just in our system, America's largest public hospital system, thousands and thousands and thousands of COVID-positive patients. So, yeah, there's never gonna be enough. Keep it comin'. Because you don't wanna go into those rooms, do you? We're gonna go into those rooms. We just need to be properly protected.

Produced by Sam Hornblower and Graham Messick. Associate producer, Jack Weingart. Broadcast associates, Mabel Kabani and Emilio Almonte. Edited by Craig Crawford."

 

[arkieb1]

Scott Morison was the best I have ever seen him with an interviewer who is usually very aggressive toward conservative politicians.
He never once made a negative comment or reply.

And they are now saying provided we can get more testing done, more tracking and tracing and general containment and things like random testing then they want to see more of a balance between saving the economy ie reopening things here and still saving as many people as possible. Which should make business owners like you happier.....

@missy - I hope he does watch the Aussie Interview not too learn what needs to be done, to highlight what the US isn't doing. We have a minuscule number of cases compared to the US and the only way we are going to reopen things and get the economy going again is by way way more testing (we already do far more testing than the US % wise) more tracking and tracing which you guys have mostly never done effectively and more and better general containment of each cluster or outbreak that occurs (this would apply in states and cities where it is still possible to do that in the US). They want to introduce as much random testing of the general population as possible to detect possible people with the Virus that they have missed. Again trying to get ahead of the illness not behind it like the US was and is.

Trump has no clear logical balanced plan for the US - that's the problem. Reopening things and getting the economy moving again isn't the issue it is that your fearless leader has no clue how to effectively respond to this health crisis on a day to day basis let alone have a carefully considered intelligent balanced (lives versus economy) long term strategy.

The US doesn't have enough PPE equipment, ventilators, enough testing kits and Trump and people like @Dancing Fire want to reopen your shops, businesses, and your economy. I'm sure that Trump has advisors that explain what that means slowly to him and that DF can actually comprehend that it will cause a hell of a lot more people to die before the US comes out of this.

 

[mellowyellowgirl]

And they are now saying provided we can get more testing done, more tracking and tracing and general containment and things like random testing then they want to see more of a balance between saving the economy ie reopening things here and still saving as many people as possible. Which should make business owners like you happier.....

We shall see how things pan out but I'm feeling very comfortable with their plan.

No point in opening up again only to close down two weeks later because it's all gone to hell.

I do hope they keep locking up the overseas travellers though. As keen as I am for things to open up (and trust me I'm a lot less conservative than the average bear in terms of going grocery shopping, take out etc) I would not feel comfortable with travellers being trusted to self isolate.

I just don't know how they're going to fix the school situation. There is talk of roster classes. My son would really enjoy 2 days at school actually.

I'm evisaging his teacher with 10 kids in class every day and they take turns going in.

I wonder what we parents can do to help. I'd be happy to help scrub down the classrooms if they need more cleaners.

 

[arkieb1]

@mellowyellowgirl - they have said they have no plans to reopen International travel or our borders any time soon.

The school situation is different in every single state. Our schools are closed to everyone except essential workers children and those at a disadvantage (ie no laptop etc) and are running online lessons (and for primary aged children lessons on a TV channel) until mid this term when they will then reassess everything.