Your thoughts on the steps being taken to reduce the spread of the virus in the United States?
Here’s a March 5th article about a man returning from China, dismayed at the lack of screening at the San Francisco airport (he said he felt safer in China).
Here’s an article about how Americans are divided along partisan lines over the virus (yep, folks, even with something like this).
The partisan dysfunction is especially concerning. ISTM there’s quite a conflict of interest with this administration in light of the upcoming elections, and a desire to downplay the economic risks. The potential mistake here is not taking strong enough steps soon enough, because of untoward sensitivity to how it looks for the leadership re the economic picture, creating a larger disease spread problem down the road. If there’s any silver lining, I suppose some optimism is warranted in light of the warmer weather potentially slowing the spread, but that’s far from certain.
And here’s a March 5th article from the Independent, which is critical of the administration’s response–to summarize, words from the administration are not necessarily in sync with the CDC et al. (Be warned, The Independent has a left-center bias.)
This is intended as a debate thread on public health measures, not economic policy.
Aside from funding research, and perhaps some stockpiling of medical supplies, too much is being done.
At the beginning, travel restrictions were worth trying on the grounds that maybe they would work. Now that it’s reasonably clear people can’t contain it (due to too many mild cases, so you’ll never know who to quarantine), and while it remains an uncommon disease compared to seasonal flu, there is no point in quarantine.
If, in some particular U.S.city, it gets close to the point where the hospitals are overwhelmed, the local health department should try to slow down the spread by asking many businesses to close. But shutting down economic activity, at a national or even state level, to slow down transmission by an unknown degree, for unknown benefit, doesn’t make sense to me.
Politicians can’t follow my advice and expect to the re-elected. But if you ask what SHOULD be done – take only those steps for which scientific evidence of benefit is strong.
Research is mostly needed on details of spread, and any seasonality, and treatment. Vaccine development is worthwhile, but, it may have the best chance of helping those not yet born.
If it gets to the point where hospitals are overwhelmed, it’s too late to try to control the spread.
You’re correct that keeping it contained is out of the question at this point, it’s here and will grow exponentially. The goal at this point is to keep the exponent as small as possible.
Let’s say 20% of the population is going to end up infected at some point. If this infections happen over the course of 6-8 months, that’s a whole lot more manageable than if they occur over the course of 6-8 weeks.
Those numbers are completely made up, but the point is that it’s well worth attempting to slow the spread, even if the totals are the same in the end.
>> Is the US doing enough to slow the spread of Covid-19? (public health)
No. The White House is in denial, responding with propaganda. I’m tempted to say the US isn’t amenable to the level of control necessary for such a pandemic but that’s not true; political courage and unsuppressed science are needed, not faith-healers* and spin.
A fundamentalist who thinks prayer is the best treatment for AIDS is not a suitable health-crisis czar.
For a view into Trump’s priorities go to 8:50 in the below video. I’m shocked this isn’t bigger news. He’s such a psychopath he doesn’t even realize how this comes off.
But there’s a lot of fieldspace between economy-crushing measures and what’s being done now: actions such as getting people prepared for what to expect, coordinating state and local level responses with some kind of federal level oversight, and mass increases in testing (see South Korea with some potential good news on the death rate). The article in the OP on the San Francisco man does raise concerns over how we’re handling our borders (eg isolating people with obvious symptoms), as well as what we might need to do at local levels (eg temperature guns, social distancing, and, yes, facemasks). Also, anticipating / preventing price gouging, runs on stores, and other selfish behavior.
From an article in The Hill (note The Hill has a slight right-of-center bias):
And I’m no public health official, but I kind of agree with this (from the same The Hill article):
It seems this is SOP for the governmental machinery: at the state, local, and corporate levels, entities are trying to do what needs to get done, while POTUS sends messages woven between keeping everyone calm (good), tossing out a few hunches (which may or may not pan out; let’s do hope the death rate is lower as more are tested), and finds ways to get hisself in the media spotlight by striking partisan nerves (bad for the American immune system).
It is only worth attempting if there is some good reason to think that the attempt will do some good.
Suppose schools are closed. Then children go visit their friends. Or, if in poverty, perhaps they go to a church for a free lunch. The politicians attempted something, yes. But maybe they made it worse.
If it gets bad enough, the politicians will feel they have no choice but to take unsupported measures like closing the schools. Residents will demand it. But I support those leaders brave enough to, for as long as possible, do little when they have no evidence but a gut feeling as to what to do.
At one time, it seemed obvious that bleeding would help almost any illness by getting rid of the bad blood. It seemed just as obvious as stopping travel might seem today. Doesn’t mean either one helps.
Yes, but in reality a lot of the ignorance on how many are infected does not lead anyone to do what it should be the proper thing. And this situation also painfully demonstrates why not having access to care means that a lot will be missed thanks to many being uninsured or not being able to afford care.
Suppose everyone last year called their health care provider as soon as they developed any flu-like symptoms. And then they were tested for flu. Would flu have been contained, preventing this tragic loss of life? Why are people so in favor of mass testing for the one but not the other? At least, if caught with a very early test, you can take Tamiflu. There is no COVID-19 equivalent reason to test.
COVID-19, like the flu, sheds virus even though the patient is hardly ill yet, and maybe never will get very ill. This is why neither one is rationally subject to quarantine measures.
I don’t totally disagree.
But we don’t know what to expect. I support public libraries lending medical history books. I’m not a doctor, but I do read history. In large measure, those books tell us to expect the unexpected.
As far as the death rate good news, comparison is to the People’s Republic of China, whose government-released statistics have long had big issues.
Treatment of people seriously ill with COVID-19 is vital. But that only addresses symptoms. The disease itself can’t yet be treated. Testing may help society, but it won’t help the sick person.
Testing does help with research, and therefore should be free.
Sorry, but this is just like demanding that being ignorant is better than knowing. Finding why a lot of the infections are not reported (and that goes BTW to the flu too) is just remarking about the inefiencies of the current system that we have.
I have no idea if I ever had the flu. It’s because when I have cold-like symptoms, I never call my family doctor’s office to ask if I should be tested.
And I have good insurance that usually has zero co-pay for tests (although I would have to pay an office visit co-pay if the doc wanted to see me first). And I have a good continuing relationship with my doctor.
The government probably has some way to make the tests free. The government conceivably has a way to make testing locations nearby for most Americans (any pharmacy?), But the government has no way to get people with typical mild cold-like disease stand in line for testing that benefits society but not themselves personally. Now, if a big sample of people were tested, that would lead to good research papers. But it is not in nature of this that most people who get it will be tested.
Our youngest son lived for years in Taiwan under their single-payer system. Despite trivial co-pays he could pay with zero financial stress, he didn’t go to the doc for a cold either. Now, Taiwanese are known for going to the doctor a lot, but we Americans are not Taiwanese, and even they don’t to go every time cold symptoms hit.
There is a panic going on here that is leading to unrealistic expectations as to what is possible.
That is not fine, Taiwan has no access to a vaccine either, and what are they doing? This is what I look at when I point at the inadequate response we have, based on your mentioning of Taiwan:
As for this bit:
You are really then depending on an argument from ignorance, made worse by the reality that what the current administration did was to set us up into avoiding preventive measures like other developed nations are doing.
You’d probably know if you’d had the flu. It’s not like a bad cold, but more like praying for a quick death.
People mocking others for buying water in bottles in other threads should consider that with a flu-like illness, lifting a gallon water jug to pour a glass might be beyond one’s ability, and going to the store for more food or toilet paper completely impossible (quite aside from any considerations about contagion).
My mother tells a story about both of my parents having the flu at around age 27 and being unable to get out of bed, and of me (3-4 years old) bringing them cups of water and saving my little sister by throwing handfuls of Cheerios into her crib. I vividly remember that the first time I had the flu, it would take several hours to work up the strength to get to a toilet that was 10’ away because I wasn’t sure I could crawl there, and having to rest on the floor for at least an hour on the way back to bed. I hallucinated for several days. In terms of infrastructure, I have seen a local flu outbreak jeopardize the staffing of our water treatment plant.
For natural disasters, I’ve been trapped in the house without electricity for days because the road up my hill doesn’t get plowed. I’ve bundled up and hiked to the only nearby grocery to find it empty because no trucks were getting through. My local earthquake recommendations call for weeks of supplies because if the bridges across the rivers fall, the estimate for repairing them is over two years.
While it’s not useful to panic, I’d argue that it’s very useful to be prepared to shelter in place for a few weeks no matter what the reason. If nothing else, the cat litter is going to smell terrible if it can’t be replaced, and you’re going to be really sick of cold canned pinto beans after a few days.
It would be one thing if the “downplaying” crowd were coming from a place of expertise and learnedness. But the “evidence” they have is the cold comfort kind.
“It’s just a flu!” OK, but the flu is scary. Like susan, I know what the flu is like and I’m really NOT comforted knowing that I might get some weird, untreatable version of it. I get the flu shot every year for a reason. At any rate, there is plenty of evidence that this isn’t like the flu. There are estimates that some 20% of people who get the infection require hospitalization. This is much higher than what we find with the flu.
“It only kills old people!” OK, but “old people” are still people. My parents are old. My grandmother is old. Some of my coworkers are old. And many of these old people that I like and respect have chronic illnesses. My mother has asthma. I have a coworker in his 60s who is a heavy smoker and is still in a fragile state after the heart attack and testicular cancer he had a few years back. If just 1% of all these “old people” die, most of us will be mourning multiple loved ones.
“The fatality rate is lower than what’s reported!” OK, but we don’t know by how much, since this would require widespread testing. Which is not happening in the US right now.
“Lookit South Korea! The fatality rate there is only 0.5%”. OK, but let’s also look at Italy, where the mortality rate is 4.25%. Now, we can surmise that the age distribution is skewed older in Italy than it is in other places. And of course SK is doing a bang-up job with testing. But there are still too many unknown variables to know for sure if we are going to be more like Italy or more like SK.
“Lookit China! The infection rate is decreasing! All is well!” OK, but China has quarantined entire towns and cities. It has also set up extra hospitals, which has no doubt prevented non-affected patients from being exposed to the virus. The US isn’t doing anything like this and probably never will.
If you point out these things to people, you risk getting labeled a “panic-monger”. Simply expressing any skepticism of the doublespeak coming from the White House means you hate Trump and thus America. This disturbs me more than anything else.
If you had MERS, you wouldn’t probably know. You could almost certainly know. That’s why MERS could be controlled (but not totally wiped out) by quarantines, and the flu cannot.
A month ago, we didn’t know how COVID-19 fell on this spectrum.
If the virus is just the right kind, a good health system can be the difference between breakout into the general population, and not. And it looks like this one isn’t the right kind.
Evidence is lacking that COVID-19 can be substantially delayed by quarantine. Just as evidence is lacking that anyone in this thread likes Donald Trump.
Trump/Pence statements on COVID-19 are sufficiently varied that everyone in this thread could charge everyone else with being a partial administration stooge. If you want to accuse me of this, that’s allowed under the Straight Dope rules. But then I could accuse back :eek:
If viruses are, by some chance, conscious and intelligent, this one has nothing to fear from world leaders, whether competent or buffoons. That’s because it frequently sheds virus before or without severe symptoms.
Outright travel bans are counterproductive because of the effect: the encourage countries to manipulate the statistics and not share information, which in turn makes the problem worse - I agree with that point.
However, closing schools, teleworking, and cancellation of public gatherings that aren’t essential is common sense. You slow the rate of transmission that way. No, you don’t completely stop the transmissions entirely, and you’re correct that some people will ignore requests to stay at home, but certain measures can slow transmission rates.
COVID-19’s fatality rate is markedly higher than that of flu, meaning anyone who tests positive is about 10-20 times more likely to die from it. And if you’re older, the fatality rate is extremely high. Moreover, even if you don’t die, a substantial number of people who present with symptoms require hospitalization, which includes mechanical ventilation, and that ain’t cheap. There’s real reason to be concerned about this virus. It’s true that flu has a lot more disease vectors, but the more time that we spend not taking this seriously, the more likely it is that this will change.
I think that the CDC is on top of this. Which doesn’t mean that it couldn’t break out and spread rapidly, because it certainly cool. But what can be done has been, IMHO and based on what I’ve read from the calmer experts in the field. I’ve also been involved in several emergency exercises and what-if scenarios at the state and local level in the past 3 weeks, and while I could wish for more (I always wish for that) I’d say we are in fair shape to weather this thing.
Basically, IF this thing was going to be contained, China and the CCP fucked that up. Perhaps even if THEY had taken it serious right from the start and not tried (and are still trying) to cover it up and cover their asses after that failed, MAYBE it could have been contained. But we have burned that bridge at this point so have to deal with reality.
:dubious: Either the man is an idiot, doesn’t know what he’s talking about concerning how things are actually transpiring in China, or he’s a paid mouthpiece. From any perspective (even if you are a CCP elite) it’s MUCH more dangerous to be in China at moment, so anyone who thinks they are safer is a fool.
Didn’t read the article, but it’s pretty apparent that both sides are trying to use this outbreak for political gain. There is so much misinformation and horseshit out about this thing that the mind boggles. For my part, the anger I feel at China not only not being called out for their continuing role in this cluster fuck but being praised and touted really highlights the divide world wide. The WHO response especially is sickening wrt China and the CCP, though most seem to be unaware and just nodding along.
In the US we have an idiotic President who is clueless and his party who seem to be handwaving away the issues and on the other side we see a party trying to fix blame on the US President and fan the flames of fear…and all for political gain. It is nearly as sickening as the China/CCP situation.
Myself, I think people should fucking take a deep breath, calm the fuck down, be watchful and wary but not panic, and listen the fuck to what the CDC is saying. They are putting out almost daily updates along with all kinds of good information about the risks and steps that can be taken to mitigate your chances of getting this thing, and what to do if you do have it. People are freaking listening to politicians and talking heads instead of the experts. :smack:
Personally, I am torn. I have always had enormous respect for the CDC. I know the vast majority of the folks who work there are excellent scientists. But I believe the CDC is under a lot of political pressure right now. It looks like the pressure is impeding them from really being on “top of this”.
