Hear, hear!
And that’s what you got from my post? I was following this before the first death occurred. The “stop gap” as you put it is how emergencies are dealt with. This was no exception and we used the technique. Doubling up on ventilators was a short term solution while we ramped up production. We did both. It’s not up for debate. The next stop gap is to ramp up production of masks so BIPAP machines can be used as additional assets. These machines require a closed loop mask system to negate the aerosolization of the virus. If you saw the pictures of helmeted patients in Italy this is what they were doing. They were not replacements for all ventilators but they freed up a scarce resource.
If it bothers you that the medical system did these things or that we over-produced ventilators to the point we’re sending them to other countries I really don’t know what to say.
I think it might be. New York never went over their ventilator capacity. The articles I’m seeing show one New York hospital tried it to see how it worked but it wasn’t a standard procedure at all.
Thinking on it, this seems a pattern in your whole covid-19 thinking. You think you’re paying close attention but you are actually grabbing little factoids and expanding them into broad trends. The airlifts, the 10 day rolling average, the doubling ventilators are not reflective of the reality on the ground.
Nope, that is merely a measure to deal with the aftermath. Had the US been managed properly by a competent administration such measures would not be as urgent and probably not needed.
The course of the pandemic is very clear - follow both the infection rates and the death rates and you can easily see the trend - superimpose them and you can also see the future.
You can also recognise the period when the virus was almost brought under some control and when that initial success was just thrown away by the unwarranted and stupid reopening.
Around May 23rd on the worldometers site you can see what appears to be a lowest level of new infections, this moreorless corresponds to a fall in deaths at around June 27th.
We then see a relatively flat period in new infections, which takes off around June 17th and the correspoding increase in deaths July 8th.The only thing US medical practice has achieved is keeping those who were to die alive for a couple of weeks longer than the 3 weeks from diagnosis to body bag that we observed earlier - so the lag is probably nearer 5 weeks
The future for US deaths is starkly clear, a 7 week increase in deaths for certain, and that increase is highly likely to exceed 2000 per day but the rate of infection has not yet flattened - let alone declined.
Now add in the unlocking of US states, protests against the lockdowns and the BLM protests and the timing is exquisitely clear.
The point being made here is not that more medics would have solved the problem - it might prevent facilities being overwhelmed but it isn’t the answer - it would not prevent the spread of infection and it will not prevent the rise in deaths.
It’s really all down to political leadership and idiot partisan issue driven voters.It is also not even down to the majority of people, it only needed a critical mass of idiots - most folk would have abided by the rules and most did - the media gives way too much attention to the lunatic minority and makes them seem far more important than they are and this gives their stupidity more exposure than is merited - it does not help that the loudest media is run by those whose business interests lie with the Republicans.
I always said that the insistance of specialness and culture of individualism would be the achilles heel for the US in this pandemic and so it has proven, the lack of personal responsibility and lack of a feeling of collective concern for one another in the US - that dirty word ‘socialism’’ has been a real disaster that no amount of medic recruitment can possibly address.
Perfect!
If you want to drag politics into it that’s fine. Let’s look at the city and state that lead the way with deaths. New York. The State alone represents 22% of all US deaths. If you add in NJ which followed similar policies the 2 of them represent 1/3 of all US deaths.
when Trump restricted travel from China Mayor de Blasio was promoting the Chinese Lunar holiday. Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, a grand marshal of this year’s parade, said the city and country confronted the SARS outbreak nearly two decades ago, and now they will “successfully confront coronavirus.”
“I’m here to say that Chinatown is open for business and we are behind you and we will remain strong,” Velazquez said. “Last night, I was here dining in a restaurant in Chinatown. I welcome everyone to come here and celebrate the culture and beauty of this community.”
Quote from de Blasio: De Blasio said a lot the city faced a lot of hazards in the last 24 hours, including the shooting of two police officers, but the threat of coronavirus has yet to show itself in a “vigilant city.”
“This is such a joyous occasion, and there have been a lot of tough things in the world — police officers attacked, and thankfully, they will be okay,” de Blasio said.
The mayor said Feb. 26 of the city’s 1,200 hospital beds: “We’ve got a long time to ramp up if we ever had anything like that [kind of crisis]. So, the capacity we have right now is outstanding given the challenge we’re facing right now.”
He added: “We can really keep this thing contained.
Not only did the New York politicians ignore the virus their policies made it worse. de Blasio’s administration auctioned off ventilators specifically purchased for such an event.
Putting aside New York politician disregard for public safety at the start of the pandemic it was made worse by their governor who mandated that nursing homes take covid patients. He was eventually forced to rescind this order.
New Jersey, the highest death rate per capita state, also mandated nursing homes take covid patients.
I’ve posted (and cited) what actually occurred in response to the pandemic. Not only that but people gave all sorts of reasons why we couldn’t do these things despite the fact they were already being done.
The pattern here is to ignore reality and act as if we haven’t improved on containment or made advances on things such as ventilators when in fact we have done just that.
Did it not seem odd to you that your cite on medical transport was based on home air traffic hobbyists rather than an official source?
And we didn’t make advances in ventilators. It was an unfortunate misunderstanding that a shitload of ventilators were needed. The “advance” was entirely in reducing our use of them.
WTH? You’re denying we engaged industry to make more ventilators? It wasn’t an unfortunate misunderstanding of anything. It was based on model predictions.
No. It’s done everyday all over the country.
Yes, we ordered a bunch of ventilators. I believe the order will be fulfilled by August. Not many people would call that an “advance” in ventilators.
And yes, I’m aware medical air transports happen every day.
Once again Magiver you wilfullty and totally miss the point, again you seize on one point that suits your agenda and ignore the substance - its what you do.
So, here is you chance to read again and -perhaps actually respond to the point being made.
The point being made is this - recruiting an emergency response agency similar perhaps to the FEMA agency is failing to understand that this would not be necessary if the Covid pandemic had been handled correctly in the first place.
You can blame and blame all you want, fact is that there were huge failures at national level - that is inarguable and those failures are likely to continue.If you wish to also hold state leaders to account then that is fine is certainly does not let the President off the hook though - what is a President for if not national leadership?Yes various states have responded poorly too.
I cannot understand why you throw up a smokescreen to try hide the fact of failure by the President and his team, and you do this by pointing the finger elsewhere - the virus does not care about partisan politics, it is not interested in a November election, it is unaware of opinion polls.
I notice that you do not attempt to comment or refute any of the points I raised in relation to the data and the timeline from infection to death, nor do you comment on my forecast for the future of the US pandemic, nor do you comment on the act that I also place some of that upon protests a from both the right wing and the left wing or the unlocking of various states - all of which are intimately involved in the future spread and deaths of Americans and all of which could be identified as major priorities for administrations to control so that the pandemic can be brought under some measure of control.
Politics is the key to dealing with the pandemic and its the abject failure of US politicians that means that at least another 70k Americans are now already in the death schedule - and will likely rise substantially from that.
You could have commented on my opinion that part of the problem is the US culture of individualism and self reliance of the people is also a part of the problem.
There is plenty of responsibility to go around - smokescreens are irrelevant to the virus, if you want it brought under control then right wing exceptionalism is not important at all.
Just going to drop this here:
[quote=“casdave, post:433, topic:854191”]
Once again Magiver you wilfullty and totally miss the point, again you seize on one point that suits your agendaC
I posted exactly who were to blame for the areas that were hit hardest and I provided cites. While we were restricting travel from China on a national level there were local politicians doing the exact opposite.
The exact opposite being encouraging travel to Chinatown.
No you didn’t, you did not do that at all - there is plenty of blame to go around however you identify where some of it lies but ever so conveniently you ignore other areas of responsibility.
This is absolutely your style - to single out your own agenda areas of interest and ignore the parts of the picture that do not fit with your narrative.
It is also worth noting that we are literally less than one third and probably a lot less than that through this pandemic - you seem to assume that those places that have been hardest hit will remain the hardest hit and we have yet to see what will happen in the next 3 months - lets have it on record from my previious posts, I expect the death rate to climb for the at least next 7 weeks relentlessly and it will rise to above 2000 deaths per day and this will largely take place in southern, mid west and western states, those deaths are already programmed into the system because the infections have already been spread and have been recorded - you have identified those states that are largely Democrat and hit early on, it is true they screwed up but at least they have the small excuse of underestimating the situation - but they did indeed have warning.
How much worse preforming then are the largely republican states whose rise in infections has taken place literally months after having observed events on the East Coast? Those later states have been largely republican and argely repeating the mantra of Trump and his political incompetence - having seen how poor intervention can lead to disaster there is even more reason to decry both the southern and western states and very much the leadership that has presided over this whole mess.
…and a President who showed almost no leadership at all, in fact pressed hard to encourage states not to lockdown and also to open too early - all the while refusing to acknowledge that mask wearing might be beneficial - can you not see that his refusal to wear a mask is exactly the worst way to provide leadership - especially becuase it then made mask wearing a poltocal badge instead of a pandemic control measure.
He could have invoked national unity, he could have organised a campaign and used patriotiosm to promote social isolation - he could have oragnied teleconferences with governors he could have emphasised the seriousness of the pandemic but instead he has pretty much mishandled so badly that the position that many individuals take is based upon politics and not upon epidemiology.
He set such a poor example and has been responsible for spreading disunity right at a time when a coordinated national action plan was needed.
Had he done most of this then his personal rating would be far higher and the ratings of his poltical opponents would likely be lower - however we seem to have a president who cannot countenance any credit being reflected onto his opponents and he would rather cut his nose off to spite his face.
The virus is unaware of how it should behave in the light of politics - it does not respond to democrat or republican - it only responds to effective control measures and the politicisation of those control measures is sheer lunacy - this is the ghastly legacy ot the current administration and it could have been so much different, had the president been sensible, had he stepped up then he would have been remembered in history as something special - unfortunately he will be remembered in histry for another kind of specialness.
To further make this point: I just posted the news that Florida’s already passed New York State in total number of cases. Not going to repost the link, since it’s only a few posts back, but here’s a quote to link you to the post:
OK,
As of yesterday, the total current deaths in NY were 32,689. At peak they were losing 800 people a day.
As of yesterday, the total current deaths in FL were 5,855. Their current 7 day average is 124 people per day.
What is your predicted 7 day average in Florida a month from now?
Florida’s passed New York in total number of confirmed cases, but there are lots of indications (death count is a big one, % of positive tests is another one) that confirmed case counts vastly undercounted actual cases in NYS while they may only be modestly undercounting cases in FL. There is zero reason to believe that the actual number of cases in FL is higher than it was in NY.