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

[JPie]

All the best people at the protests. Anyone thinks these are genuinely hard-up, working poor who are just desperate to get back to work, look me up on Loupe Troop ‘cause I got a bridge to sell.



More good people, screaming at medical personnel counter-protestors:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1251975162926227457

 

[NonieMarie]

These are the type of people that listen to Trump.

 

[Dancing Fire]

@Dancing Fire,

We are in the depths of this crisis. We don’t even have adequate testing and this President is still trying to create chaos.

First the NY governor complain that there aren't enough ventilators, then not enough hospital beds and now not enough test kits. What's next? not enough condoms?. You think they can just click the switch and produce a million test kits in one minutes? Tell the governors to make their own test kits.

 

[Calliecake]

First the NY governor complain that there aren't enough ventilators, then not enough hospital beds and now not enough test kits. What's next? not enough condoms?. You think they can just click the switch and produce a million test kits in one minutes? Tell the governors to make their own test kits.

I feel everyone should have access to testing at this point. The President and Vice President were telling the American people they could get tested back in mid-March. Trump didn’t want people to be tested because he didn’t want the number to show what a problem this was. He said repeatedly that Covid-19 wasn’t a big problem from January to mid a March.

 

[1ofakind]

At the time I took that to mean that if you needed a test you could get one not that testing was available to everyone or even everyone who wanted it. It had to be requested by DR and meet CDC guidelines for testing. I know some people wanted them but even being sick didn't get them. They didn't have likely exposure, or didn't have the right symptoms or they actually had the flu or something else that was making them sick.

 

[1ofakind]

First the NY governor complain that there aren't enough ventilators, then not enough hospital beds and now not enough test kits. What's next? not enough condoms?. You think they can just click the switch and produce a million test kits in one minutes? Tell the governors to make their own test kits.

He was clear why he can't do his own testing... NY state is broker than broke. Someone should ask who has been running the budget in his state.

 

[mellowyellowgirl]

Our PM in relation to racist attacks against Asian Australians:

Stop it.

He said more and it was all very good but I do enjoy the simplicity of his very conscise admonishment of anyone who is a turd.

***

The Aussie government would like us to opt in for an app which will track who we've been near. This will then allow them (only the state health authorities) to track down anyone who has been in contact with someone infected.

I'm all for it. I'm as dull as a doornail. They can track me all day. Will never find anything interesting.

 

[Dancing Fire]

Read the above and check FACTS.

Here are some FACTS...

 

[missy]

Today should be an interesting day. Our governor is meeting with Trump.

Trump, Cuomo to meet at White House on Tuesday

The president and the New York governor have had a hot-and-cold relationship throughout the pandemic.

www.politico.com

 

[missy]

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

 

[NonieMarie]

First the NY governor complain that there aren't enough ventilators, then not enough hospital beds and now not enough test kits. What's next? not enough condoms?. You think they can just click the switch and produce a million test kits in one minutes? Tell the governors to make their own test kits.

Buddy, why do you think FEMA was started. The federal government is there to help states in a crisis. Did you say that the states needed to respond to natural disasters with no help from the federal government? Katrina, Hurricane Sandy and the fires throughout the country. What is wrong with you?

 

[arkieb1]

Behind Enemy Lines What it's like to be a Health Worker or a Policeman in New York right now;

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=2586016544950280

What I found interesting was that doctors and nurses will lose their jobs if they speak freely to the media....

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

OMG - you might loose all the Aussie coffee shops and baristas - that would mean you only have Starbucks - what a disaster that would be!!!!!

 

[Dancing Fire]

Buddy, why do you think FEMA was started. The federal government is there to help states in a crisis. Did you say that the states needed to respond to natural disasters with no help from the federal government? Katrina, Hurricane Sandy and the fires throughout the country. What is wrong with you?

So the state governor bears no responsibility at all?

 

[missy]

OMG - you might loose all the Aussie coffee shops and baristas - that would mean you only have Starbucks - what a disaster that would be!!!!!

Gosh I am missing out as I have never had the pleasure of enjoying an Australian coffee shop here...
guess maybe one day I can visit Australia (if they allow us in that is) and enjoy authentic Aussie coffee. I already know I like the people.
@mellowyellowgirl @arkieb1 @jordyonbass and anyone else I left out...

 

[missy]

Buddy, why do you think FEMA was started. The federal government is there to help states in a crisis. Did you say that the states needed to respond to natural disasters with no help from the federal government? Katrina, Hurricane Sandy and the fires throughout the country. What is wrong with you?

@Dancing Fire you do realize FEMA has helped California often re wildfires and other disasters? Where would you be without them?

 

[Calliecake]

At the time I took that to mean that if you needed a test you could get one not that testing was available to everyone or even everyone who wanted it. It had to be requested by DR and meet CDC guidelines for testing. I know some people wanted them but even being sick didn't get them. They didn't have likely exposure, or didn't have the right symptoms or they actually had the flu or something else that was making them sick.

I am not trying to be argumentative at all in my post. This is the reason I asked @Queenie60 if she was watching news conferences on Covid-D. The CDC has been telling us for the past month that there are people who test positive to Covid-19 and have shown no symptoms at all. They are walking around spreading the virus with no knowledge that they are doing so. This is the reason testing is crucial for all. Would you feel comfortable having someone cutting your hair knowing that you are putting yourself at risk? Would you be comfortable with your family members doing so. This virus kills. We have no idea how our bodies will react to the virus.

Your comment above tells me that you are not up to date on the facts.

 

[missy]

For those who may want more info regarding the critical importance of testing as many people as possible:

COVID-19 science: Why testing is so important

When a communicable disease outbreak begins, the ideal response is for public health officials to begin testing for it early. American Heart Association Chief Medical Officer for Prevention Dr. Eduardo Sanchez explains why.

www.heart.org

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2007637

When a communicable disease outbreak begins, the ideal response is for public health officials to begin testing for it early.

That leads to quick identification of cases, quick treatment for those people and immediate isolation to prevent spread. Early testing also helps to identify anyone who came into contact with infected people so they too can be quickly treated.

While we are obviously not in that ideal situation with COVID-19, testing remains critical.

It's crucial of course to help treat, isolate or hospitalize people who are infected. Testing also is important in the bigger public health picture on mitigation efforts, helping investigators characterize the prevalence, spread and contagiousness of the disease.

In comparison to China and South Korea, testing in the United States appears to have been insufficient for optimal early containment. And now we're seeing a rapid rise in hospitalizations that is overwhelming public health systems and clinical care systems.

These systems, lacking vital equipment to test and provide timely results and staff to address "positives," are now bracing for more and more critically ill patients in the coming days and weeks.

A big part of the problem is the inability to conduct "contact investigations." These investigations involve figuring out everyone an infected person may have been in contact with. This requires a lot of time and labor – two resources that just aren't available in a strained system. It's easy to see how quickly cases can spread without information from contact investigations.

Another important kind of test is one that determines if a person has already had COVID-19. When a person is infected with a novel virus such as SARS-CoV-2 (the scientific name for this specific coronavirus), the person's immune system has never "seen" that virus before. As the virus reproduces, it causes manifestations of disease – fever, cough and so on – and triggers an immune response.

The immune response is how the body fights the virus and protects itself. The immune system activates, produces and mobilizes a variety of protective cells and molecules that attack the "foreign" virus. The immune system will recognize the virus after that and protect the person by destroying it if it returns.

The key to that protection is the work of molecules called antibodies. When tests turn up the presence of disease-specific antibodies, it's considered evidence of past exposure and infection. While the no-longer-infected person is out of danger, the information about past infection status is extremely valuable.

Confirming that someone has had the disease and is now immune helps public health officials and others understand the level of immunity in a population. A high percentage of people with immunity adds to "herd immunity," which protects the larger community.

Knowing who has been infected also is important because people with immunity from COVID-19 can safely work in essential settings such as health care, public safety and the service industry. They also can work in "non-essential" settings with less need for extreme personal protection.

Furthermore, for clinical care, testing for seroconversion – the technical name for the process of going from non-infected to infected to immune – can identify people whose plasma contains COVID-19-specific antibodies.

This plasma could, theoretically, be used for infusions to treat the disease and prevent its severe complications. Use of such plasma, called convalescent plasma, is not new. In fact, it was a treatment approach during the 1918 flu pandemic.

The Food and Drug Administration is currently accepting requests from researchers who want to study the use of COVID-19 convalescent plasma.

When we look back at what will be the first wave of COVID-19 in the United States, testing data will help us develop a full picture of the epidemiology and course of this disease. The data can provide important puzzle pieces for stopping or slowing the disease in the future.

Editor's note: Because of the rapidly evolving events surrounding the coronavirus, the facts and advice presented in this story may have changed since publication. Visit Heart.org for the latest coverage, and check with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local health officials for the most recent guidance.

If you have questions or comments about this story, please email [email protected].

 

[1ofakind]

@Calliecake I am also not intending to be argumentative. I was not downplaying the importance of testing. I was relating my impressions at the time...mid march. At that time it wasn't recognized how easily it might be spread by asymptomatic people. Testing was reserved for those with symptoms meeting the criteria for testing and results of contact tracing. We didn't know that asymptomatic people need testing. We didn't know who those people are...nor do we know now.

To answer your question about getting a haircut.... In our county of 70,000 we have one person in a hospital with Covid with several cases traced, tested and isolated. Very low numbers of community spread a few weeks ago...I think 30 cases total.
Wearing a mask in public, social distancing, washing hands, decreasing density of people and large groups, testing/ contact tracing/ isolation for those who are sick, keeping the most vulnerable people isolated/protected, limiting travel outside of an area ....those things are effective and realistic ways to keep the curve from spiking and may be all that is needed in some areas. Those actions slow the rate of infection and also help buy time to work on a vaccine and effective treatments. An accurate antibody test will be a big help too....if they find that the presence of antibodies indicates immunity. I don't know that there is a consensus on that yet. Will those actions slow the infection rate enough? Maybe. It seems a few states are going to test it out although I don't know if any state is mandating masks in public....which they really should, IMO

At this point, in my area, I would absolutely get a haircut but would want us both in a mask as an extra precaution. I would go to a yard sale, I would eat at a restaurant, I would go to the movies, I would go to a non-essential store and shop...again, given the other common sense precautions are in place and we don't have community spread cases. I don't think OSFA is the best approach to the shutdown but our governor does so we will probably be locked down for a while.
I also would not feel any better if the hairdresser had a -Covid test last week or 2 days ago. We know that one can have too low a viral load to be detectable. We can't all get tested everyday! The point was never to have zero risk or a test for everyone (that is not diminishing the need for more testing). The point was to slow the rate of infection so that hospitals are not overwhelmed. That has been accomplished in the vast majority of the country. The risk will not be zero unless/until there is a vaccine and that may be years away if ever.

 

[MaisOuiMadame]

This is the reason testing is crucial for all.

It's actually the reason why no one is running around at all in France atm...

At that time it wasn't recognized how easily it might be spread by asymptomatic people.

I can't speak for information available to you, but the fact that there are a lot of asymptomatic, mostly younger people, who will spread COVID 19 was known internationally from the very beginning. The first cases we had in Germany in early January were all tracked, tested, isolated and well studied in a disease station. It was reported Europe-wide that most of them had no symptoms. The hospital published a study on them 6 weeks later. If I heard about it in early January, it's impossible the appropriate officials in the Us government didn't know about it.

 

[Matata]

GOP Quietly Pushes Through Long-Sought Priorities As Pandemic Rages

Rolling back environmental regulations, imposing voter ID, banning abortion — it's all happening while the public is focused on the coronavirus.

www.huffpost.com

 

[1ofakind]

I can't speak for information available to you, but the fact that there are a lot of asymptomatic, mostly younger people, who will spread COVID 19 was known internationally from the very beginning. The first cases we had in Germany in early January were all tracked, tested, isolated and well studied in a disease station. It was reported Europe-wide that most of them had no symptoms. The hospital published a study on them 6 weeks later. If I heard about it in early January, it's impossible the appropriate officials in the Us government didn't know about it.

Just referring to the timeline. ... The WHO was saying in mid-January that Covid was NOT spread human to human so I don't see how the international community would know about asymptomatic spread in early January. China probably did know which is why they were covering it up and feeding propaganda through the WHO.
I can only find sources that say the first known case in Germany was January 27th transmitted from a Chinese woman who only entered the country on the 16th. And that your health minister was also saying around the same time that he feared panic more than the virus. Granted Germany was already checking foreign travelers and once Covid was found they acted more quickly, it seem they did not know in early January what was coming. No country did, except one.

 

[missy]

GOP Quietly Pushes Through Long-Sought Priorities As Pandemic Rages

Rolling back environmental regulations, imposing voter ID, banning abortion — it's all happening while the public is focused on the coronavirus.

www.huffpost.com

Sickening. Not surprising.

 

[MaisOuiMadame]

I'm sorry @1ofakind , I didn't even realize I typed early January. I meant February.


The Lady was tested back in China and they started testing and isolating a her contacts (they apparently had a meeting and the co- workers then infected their families). So the first case was in January, but in early February it was reported that most of the isolated patients were positive but symptom free.
So while I mistyped that, it was still known from at least February 4th (January 27, first test, still no symptoms 8 days later, but still testing positive) that that's one of the big risks of Covid.
It was presented as such in the reporting (press and scientific articles): highly contagious (they had only been in a meeting room together) and infectious without necessarily prompting symptoms in all patients.
So that info was very widely available mid march.

Just referring to the timeline. ... The WHO was saying in mid-January that Covid was NOT spread human to human so I don't see how the international community would know about asymptomatic spread in early January. China probably did know which is why they were covering it up and feeding propaganda through the WHO.
I can only find sources that say the first known case in Germany was January 27th transmitted from a Chinese woman who only entered the country on the 16th. And that your health minister was also saying around the same time that he feared panic more than the virus. Granted Germany was already checking foreign travelers and once Covid was found they acted more quickly, it seem they did not know in early January what was coming. No country did, except one.

 

[arkieb1]

Just referring to the timeline. ... The WHO was saying in mid-January that Covid was NOT spread human to human so I don't see how the international community would know about asymptomatic spread in early January. China probably did know which is why they were covering it up and feeding propaganda through the WHO.
I can only find sources that say the first known case in Germany was January 27th transmitted from a Chinese woman who only entered the country on the 16th. And that your health minister was also saying around the same time that he feared panic more than the virus. Granted Germany was already checking foreign travelers and once Covid was found they acted more quickly, it seem they did not know in early January what was coming. No country did, except one.

Australia started locking down the country two weeks before the WHO said anything in January. So yes our community DID know about or was willing to make assumptions about people (in our case Chinese students) who arrived here seemingly well that later then developed the virus....

Our media has said widely that the infection rates in the US are several times what are currently being published.

 

[Dancing Fire]

Buddy, why do you think FEMA was started. The federal government is there to help states in a crisis. Did you say that the states needed to respond to natural disasters with no help from the federal government? Katrina, Hurricane Sandy and the fires throughout the country. What is wrong with you?

Nothing!, NY Governor Cuomo agrees with me!! ...

"quote Cuomo"

We agreed that the state government should be responsible for managing the actual tests in their own laboratories. We have about 300 laboratories in the State of New York. We regulate those laboratories. It's up to a state to determine how many tests, where those tests should be done, New York City versus Buffalo versus Long Island, et cetera, the staff to do those tests, how often you do the tests - those should all be state decisions and state responsibilities.

 

[chrono]

WTH, GA is opening up business tomorrow!

 

[Dancing Fire]

WTH, GA is opening up business tomorrow!

Nobody knows when is the right time to reopen. Do you?

 

[Matata]

WTH, GA is opening up business tomorrow!

Yeah, the virus is so deadly that tRump wants to curb immigration yet benign enough to hasten the opening of the country

 

[missy]

WTH, GA is opening up business tomorrow!

Nobody knows when is the right time to reopen. Do you?

I think tomorrow is too soon. And so do some other people who are concerned about neighboring states. In this day and age we are all a little too close for comfort.

Graham Worries Georgia’s Reopening Is ‘Going Too Fast Too Soon’

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Tuesday expressed his concerns with Georgia Gov....

talkingpointsmemo.com

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Tuesday expressed his concerns with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s (R) decision to begin reopening businesses in the Peach State at the end of the month.

After tweeting that he backs South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster’s (R) announcement on Monday to begin reopening the state’s economy with “a focus on social distancing,” Graham then said he worries that Georgia is “going too fast too soon” and that what happens there will also affect his own state.

Lindsey Graham
✔@LindseyGrahamSC
· Apr 21, 2020
I support what South Carolina Governor @henrymcmaster announced yesterday -- a small reopening of our state's economy with a focus on social distancing.

I worry that our friends and neighbors in Georgia are going too fast too soon.

Lindsey Graham
✔@LindseyGrahamSC

We respect Georgia's right to determine its own fate, but we are all in this together.

What happens in Georgia will impact us in South Carolina.
1,359
1:01 PM - Apr 21, 2020
Kemp has received backlash from fellow Georgia politicians following his announcement on Monday to begin rolling back the state’s stay-at-home orders at the end of the month.

On Tuesday morning, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Bottoms said that Kemp (R) had not given her or other state leaders a heads-up prior to his announcement the day before.

Georgia Democrat and former Kemp gubernatorial rival Stacey Abrams said that the governor’s move to reopen the state is “trying to push a false opening of the economy” and will risk putting more lives in danger.

Even TRUMP says it is too soon. Wow. Wonders never cease.

Trump reverses course, says it's 'too soon' for Georgia Gov. Kemp to reopen state

The president said he told Gov. Brian Kemp "I disagree strongly" with his decision to reopen nail salons and tattoo parlors — but he won't stop him.

www.nbcnews.com