Here’s my two cents today (not in direct response to anyone):
The problem with comparing the US to other countries is that we are actually more like 50 smaller countries than one big one. The states that have the “best” most focused response also tend to the biggest ones that had the most deaths / cases back in the early waves. Maybe part of that is that people need to see the disease first hand to be afraid of it enough to take precautions.
Americans in general and especially those in more rural states severely dislike restrictions. We are independent and freedom-loving country. Even so, we were all willing to do 2-3 months of lockdown. I honestly am shocked that we did that!
But in retrospect, the lockdown in some states was too late (NY, CT, NJ) because they likely already had hundreds if not thousands of cases by the end of February, before anyone was really looking.
On the other hand, the lockdown was too early in most other states. If people could only tolerate 2-3 months, they should have waited until cases were climbing rapidly to institute the lockdown to make it as worthwhile as possible. Now you will not convince anyone to do another lockdown. Your options to combat the spread are limited.
Both of these issues are the result of poor and delayed testing capacity. Attribute that to what you will (there’s plenty of blame to go around) but it’s at least partially bad luck. We would have had to have millions of tests available in mid-February to have stopped the spread effectively. Asymptomatic spread is a b****.
I agree, which is why I keep bringing up the EU which actually is separate countries, with borders (unlike our states).
Disliking restrictions is one thing. Actively politicizing restrictions such that wearing a mask indicates something about that person is another. Think about the restrictions we live with everyday, like seatbelts or wearing a shirt in a store for goodness sake. The only difference between those and masks is that someone is telling you wearing a mask means something other than what it does.
And as we’ve seen, there’s no such thing as a ‘too early’ lockdown. We could have prevented a lot of grief if the whole country locked down at once and continued until it was safe not to. We’re doing it now, anyway.
I don’t disagree, but I’m just describing what I seeing. And by the way, I think most people are wearing masks now in many places (AZ included) where they once resisted, which is one reason why cases and deaths are declining.
I disagree. If you’re locking down when you don’t need to, you’re building distrust and also creating fatigue with restrictions. That’s not unique to America (there are protests against lockdowns in France, Germany, etc.) but it’s especially pronounced here where we value individual freedom so highly.
I think locking down was the right decision at the time because we were flying blind, but with hindsight it would have been better to wait in some states.
I agree with some of your post (like that the NY lockdown was too late), but I disagree with this point above. The lockdown was not too early in these other states (I think it was exactly the right time before the cases spiked up). In fact, if people had done 90 day stay-at-homes in FL, AZ and TX from late March to late June (and testing and tracing were ramped up at the same time), I think those 3 states would have avoided the big June/July spikes.
Yes, and The US should have had them available. Between seeing what happened in China in January and the time bought with the travel ban, the US had about a month to get testing ramped way up and the US did next to nothing in this regard.
Way too early in most of Missouri because the state is so rural. Our third largest city has approximately 168,000 people. Spread doesn’t happen right away when St Louis is posting really scary numbers.
The majority of the state self isolated, schools closed, before the 3rd week of March. Had mask wearing been a thing, most of the folks would have been doing that as they are now.
This finally sunk in. Yes we would have needed millions of tests - which we still don’t have here - and not millions but enough.
Yet due to the sparse population in central Missouri - even counting the fourth largest city - and given the error % , the tests are virtually useless. This is from the head doctor at the University of Missouri Healthcare who knows a lot more about tests and numbers than I do.
Tho I think testing in January might have been necessary if the goal is to contain Covid-19. By March it wasn’t happening.
We still do not have enough contact tracers in central Missouri.
Positives were running 2 weeks behind during half of July at least. Only began catching up after 1 August. These are not metro area numbers of tests. It’s the same story - personnel and equipment - in a different setting.
According to the CDC re-opening guidelines, my state has enough (in the beginning we had more than we needed). I think it has given us valuable information regarding the way the virus spreads here, but it doesn’t appear to have contained the virus. We’re basically still in the bottom 5 states for cases per capita, though, so I can’t say it had no salutatory effect in that regard.
Yup. That may be why contact tracing didn’t work out like it was supposed to.
Mine is one of those states- we probably shouldn’t have had one at all, although ours was very light and brief so it may be a distinction without a difference. We’ve been re-opened for months now and done well, though had/are having a spike just like everywhere else that shut down early.
The governor has said he will not close it down again. Except for a bump in cases yesterday from a tranche of cases being updated in the state computer, there’s been a steep fall. I think this is attributable to the mask mandate and the virus taking its natural course, which seems to be an epidemic of about 75 days- longer in places with effective restrictions, and shorter in places without.
For instance, NY’s main epidemic curve was much shorter- around 65 days. As you said, their lockdown was too late. CA’s is dragging out considerably longer, which is fortunate, because they could have been overwhelmed, I think. They were among the first to begin the closures, and that was a very good idea. I really think they dodged a bullet there. Gov. Newsom’s restrictions sometimes border on the absurd but in my opinion, closing down quickly was key to their flattening the curve to a manageable level.
@PrincipalTinker. Just received some interesting information. Our school district is allowing teachers to have their children attend school in this district, even if they don’t live in the district. The teachers then don’t have to worry about their children having different schedules.
Also, my EFMLA was approved. I need to touch base with our HR for the details.
I’m sorry to hear that. I’ve been feeling kind of stressed and anxious myself, so my family is doing a short getaway to recharge before the craziness of this school year begins.
I’m so sorry to hear that. I do not envy administers at all right now. Everything is a mess.
I’ll tell you this. My kids went back to school this week and they have been on cloud nine. So very happy and so thankful to be back. I know we are so thankful for their administrators who have worked non-stop all summer. They could give us no greater gift than investing themselves so deeply in the well-being and education of our children.
Hang in there.
