After a record 178 COVID19 cases were reported in Oregon on Thursday and nearly 800 in past week, Gov. Brown announced late yesterday a one-week statewide pause in the State’s pending county reopening requests. Testing, tracing can help them isolate the focus of the outbreak. https://t.co/gbgBaKUKZR
— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) June 12, 2020
All states have relaxed at least some of their social and economic distancing measures.
Some states are still seeing significant downward trends on case count and positivity rate in the face of rising testing counts.
Other states are seeing upticks as more movement leads to more infection opportunities.
The big question that I have is how do states and regions respond to new information? Are we on an open above all else glide path, or will state and local officials respond to new information that is presented through testing and positivity rates to course correct? I think state and local officials will respond to overflowing emergency rooms and ICUs that are over capacity. But those are lagging indicators. Individuals in the hospital right now are likely to have been infected sometime in May. A person newly diagnosed yesterday is highly unlikely to be in the hospital today.
Will state and local leaders respond to localized information flows early enough to keep the hospitals from getting crushed? Can they pause re-openings and more importantly, will their citizens follow pause orders?
Sab
Dr Acton resigned. I am very sad. But she did a lot while she was in place. I think my family is very much safer thanks to her, Also too I am glad she is out of the maelstrom. She has earned some peace and quiet for her family.
Anonymous At Work
Florida, so gods help me.
DeSantis will never ever go against Trump and we’ll open up progressively despite evidence.
donnah
Here in Ohio, we will see relaxation of more restrictions. Other than outbreaks in three of the prisons and some nursing homes, the pandemic numbers here were relatively low. Governor DeWine and Health Director Amy Acton set strict restrictions early in March and stuck to them. We seemed to be doing well.
But Amy Acton was attacked by people who refused to quarantine and she was hounded by Conservatives like Rep. Nino Vitale, who called repeatedly for her to resign. He cheered yesterday when she announced it. She didn’t give a specific reason for leaving her post, but the “I’ll have more time to spend with my family” line was used. I can’t help believe that she was harassed and threatened so much that it was impossible for her to stay.
So we are in limbo as we face the next phase. People are fed up with restrictions even though the restrictions kept us safe. Personally, I’ll stay home and continue to take care of the two elderly moms here in town. I’m not convinced that our numbers will stay down once everything opens up again.
Raven
Balls to the wall in Georgia. . .
Calouste
Republicans will react to new information about COVID-19 the same way they react to new information about anything: they won’t change anything unless it directly impacts them personally.
HinTN
Rachel Maddow had a guest on last night whose prognostication was truly frightening: In the absence of unified national guidance and strategy, as states previously hard hit and recovering begin to see other states NOT following strict recovery/prevention protocols, there may be interstate conflict to restrict travel from “bad behaviour” states/ regions. This would be Putin’s dream scenario.
Eunicecycle
@Sab: Dr. Acton did a great job. The region of the state I live in (NE) has a R0 of around .6. The highest in the state is 1.01. I don’t go too many places, but most people are wearing masks; there is a higher compliance than I thought there would be. I give her much of the credit with her clear, calm leadership from the beginning. She even predicted the backlash, saying if we did a good job bending the curve, there would be people saying none of the extreme measures were necessary. She will be missed.
frosty
In my corner of the woods PA and MD are both doing better, based on covidexitstrategy.org.* I see MD friends on FB outdoors at bars, no distancing, no masks. Haven’t seen that in PA yet. Masks in stores are required and it’s been 100%. So far.
* I’ve passed your link on to friends with very good reactions. Good work from all of you!
Wyrm
Enough Americans have gotten bored by this that they are willing to accept 1,000 or so deaths a day as the cost of doing business. I think that short of having people dying in the streets, you are not going to see any local governments attempting to close down again, and if they do they will be ignored by a significant minority of the population.
At least in my neck of the woods (DC suburbs in Maryland) people seem to be wearing masks indoors for the most part, but there is a lot of desire to “get back to normal”. As of now we are opening theaters and casinos next week.
davecb
In Ontario, our capital-C conservative government has backed away from earlier plans to open up. They have kept the Toronto-through-Niagara and Windsor regions under tighter restrictions like “drive-through or curbside pickup only”. Those are the areas with the highest rates of infection.
Other parts of the province can open parks and stores, starting today.
mrmoshpotato
@Raven: Udo!
WereBear
Governor Cuomo has been outspoken about everyone “keeping their hand on the valves” as we re-open. We test and have stats released every day.
He’s going to be stubborn about the Christopher Columbus statue :) He shouldn’t be.
E.
My extremely rural, extremely red county went from zero to fourteen cases once reopening began. Under the CA guidelines we are supposed to readjust based on the new information but the County has informed people who complain about this to contact the Sheriff’s Department. The County has basically thrown out the reopening guidelines. Everything is basically at normal here except restaurants are making some feeble gestures at closing some tables. We wear masks in my shop and people ridicule or harangue us about falling for the “plandemic.” One of my employees has been nearly reduced to tears over what she calls “mask shaming” while she is at work (helping the customers who are shaming her). I realize I live in a place full of racist idiots and uneducated freedom lovers (synonymous with gun hoarder in these parts) but I really do believe that if Trump wins this election, there will be unaffiliated militias enforcing their idea of right living in my county, and our country and democracy will be lost for a very long time. I am quite frightened by what I am seeing outside, the brazen attacks (verbal at this point, although I was physically assaulted by one of these cretins a few years ago for my radical (i.e. “Democrat”) political views) and the truly vicious and racist comments about George Floyd and the protesters.
Dupe1970
Well in Texas, we are full speed ahead except for tours of the Governor’s Mansion. For some bizarre reason that is still closed down……
gov.texas.gov/first-lady/tours
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I think there’s a lot of variability on what “reopen” means to people. Here in PA we are in the “yellow” phase of the reopen plan. Officially that means there are lots of restrictions and guidelines still in place. And polls I’ve seen nationwide show that a majority of Americans are still smart enough to remain cautious.
But a lot of people hear “reopen” and say, yay, back to the bars and restaurants!
jonas
NY is reopening in a measured, methodical way and from what I can see, we don’t have many yahoos running around w/o masks or cramming clubs and bars in violation of distancing rules. Cuomo has made it clear that anyone who thinks they can be a wise guy is going to have their liquor license and other permits yanked so fast it will make their heads spin.
What I often don’t see in reporting on cases in various states is whether we know a spike in cases is due to, say, two-dozen migrant farm workers in a tomato processing facility in Florida suddenly all catching it, versus a bunch of people who had been out partying at beach bars over Memorial Day? The former can probably be contained pretty readily by contact-and-trace methods. The latter, not so much, I’m presuming. Do states know what they’re dealing with?
Robert Sneddon
Over here in the UK the various nations are setting their own rules and requirements for relaxation of the general lockdown. Here in Scotland the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon is being very cautious while being under a lot of pressure from major industries like tourism to relax things like the 2 metre social distancing rule for pubs and restaurants even though indoor transmission seems to be a much greater hazard than outdoors. We may, and it’s still to be confirmed, open pubs and restaurants some time next week. Today’s status report from the FM on the BBC said three more people died with COVID-19 yesterday, taking Scotland’s total to 2,442 — that is measured as anyone who died where COVID-19 was mentioned on the death certificate even if it was not necessarily the prime cause of death. The infection rate, R is estimated to be between 0.6 and 0.8, down slightly over the week.
We don’t have a “masks are required” rule and they’re not commonly seen on the streets of Edinburgh where I live. A lot of shops do request people wear masks, some shop workers wear masks and visors, most don’t. There may be a requirement for masks to be worn on public transport brought in.
artem1s
in addition to Dr. Acton stepping down the GOP dominated legislature is going out of their way to rescind any consequences for the businesses that defied lockdown protocols prior to the June 1 easing and expect the new director to continue to speed up the easing this month and next. I have no doubt she was forced out and the harassment she and her family has had to endure was aided and abetted by elected GOPers. Nursing homes have been where 70%+ of the deaths have occurred here in Ohio. Lots of those are located in nice, white, xtian, rural bedroom communities.
Ohio GOP dominated legislature also felt it was ABSOLUTELY critical for elementary school kids to have ‘right to prayer’ law passed. I imagine the opening up of religious schools will be OK’d no matter what is happening in those communities. I’m not feeling confident about our continued good luck.
mrmoshpotato
@Dupe1970: Haha. It’s a mystery!
Such selfish assholes.
Elizabelle
@Sab: Just found that out. From NBC4 in Columbus, OH:
Ohioans react to Dr. Acton resigning
terraformer
I’m not sanguine about this. As noted by someone above, absent a national policy that is enforced, we’re set for wildly varying positions on this that are largely at the whim of local tinpots. I live in the reddest part of Wisconsin, and it continues to amaze me the number of people who don’t wear masks at various places.
It’s personal psychology: either you’re the type who is dogmatic about most things, or you’re the type who is able to adjust based on new information. This reminds me of the great Bertrand Russel quote (that I often use when describing R vs. D politics):
West of the Cascades
I’m pleased with Governor Brown’s pause — maybe it can be a model for other sensible governors around the country. Portland’s county (Multnomah) hasn’t met the guidelines for even the “Phase I” reopening, which was planned for today. About the only thing I was hoping for was a haircut one of these days, but instead I’ll try to see if I can grow my hair longer than Prime Minister Trudeau. And if it’s not clear that we can do haircuts without risk of infection transmission, I’ll have to get out a scissors and do my best with a mirror.
joel hanes
Israel re-opened its schools almost a month ago.
Now over a hundred have been closed again because of coronavirus outbreaks.
This next year in the US is going to be hairy.
PHIL: And hey. Hey! Let’s be careful out there.
Odie Hugh Manatee
My wife works in big box retail here in rural Oregon and had yet another old conservative fuckwit ask her how she could breathe with “that diaper on your face”. Damn did she wish she could have unloaded on the asshole.
I want people like that asshole to get Covid-19 because they deserve it. Fuck that selfish piece of shit.
jonas
@terraformer: I also like the quip attributed to John Maynard Keynes: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?”
Cameron
@WereBear: Everybody keep their hands on the valves? I don’t want to overthink that, but…..
Jager
Our dry cleaner is open 3 days a week from 12 noon to 6 pm, last Friday I stopped just before 6 to pick up my wife’s stuff. A couple of doors down from the cleaners is a bar that has flaunted every rule we’ve had in SoCal. A couple was walking to the bar (it was rockin’) the guy was a big, neckbeard type, no mask, of course, his wife had a mask on. As they were walking towards the bar, Mr. Neckbeard said, “Take that fucking mask off you look like an asshole.” Nice guy.
TaMara (HFG)
In Colorado I was surprised and pleased that so far, slow roll opening has kept our cases low. It has to help that everywhere we go (including protests) the majority are wearing masks.
denverpost.com/2020/06/11/colorado-covid-19-coronavirus-cases-june-11/
Mary G
Absolutely disgusted with the right politicizing public health issues. Our county health director, a female MD, was also harassed into quitting and the curve, though still pretty shallow, is going in the wrong direction.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
There is no stomach on the part of most local officials to order another round of closures, and as for the public and business world, we’ve all come to realize that our government’s response was absolutely worthless in simply creating a liveable pause, and that we’re all on our own. I think that economic survival is going to dictate that the distancing practices will rapidly collapse.
Had the national economic response been appropriate, the pressure wouldn’t be there – at this point, people are mentally exhausted.
Comrade Scrutinizer
No, we can’t. This is the Spanish Flu pandemic redux. Media (Sinclair, of course) around here are already talking about the pandemic in the past tense, despite that the infection rates have never fallen, and are now on the rise again. All that was accomplished was a brief respite for the hospitals and a $500T giveaway to Fat Bastard’s pals.
Now it’s all “But daddy, I’m b-o-o-r-r-r-e-d!”
Joe Falco
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
I wish someone else could have been there to ask them how they can breathe being so full of shit. Work during these times is stressful as it is, and these spiteful ghouls have to lord their power over someone, knowing one righteous word to challenge their fragile worldview would make them howl for that worker’s head. F them.
Dupe1970
@mrmoshpotato: what makes me angrier/sadder is no one in the Texas media will hold Abbott accountable.
Brachiator
This is the crux of the problem. I get the feeling that a consensus is emerging from the average person that it is time to ignore governments and health officials and just get on with life. The lockdowns are all the inconvenience that people are going to undertake.
People are assuming that most cases of the virus are minor, and if hospitals get jammed up, that is someone else’s problem.
That the pandemic does not kill more people is making it easier for some people to pretend that it is not a big deal.
randy khan
It seems obvious that we’ll get measured actions in some states – including pauses and temporary reversals of open-up orders – and reckless decisions to keep opening up no matter what’s happening with case counts. But in some of the places that make reckless decisions, it will get so bad (overloaded ERs and ICUs, for a start) that they will be forced to go back to square one.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Joe Falco:
I told her that it was too bad she couldn’t tell him that a face diaper would be perfect to cover the asshole that’s his mouth. She liked that one. :)
FlyingToaster
Massachusetts has a Republican governor; unfortunately for the GOP, he’s the former CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield Massachusetts. So were in Phase 2 of a 4-phase reopening; each phase has multiple stages and they don’t announce the next stage until they think they have a handle on the current one.
In addition to the state-run drive through testing locations, City of Boston has a walk-in pop-up location; municipalities can keep restrictions on based on their case counts. Here in Watertown, our barbers and hairdressers are back up, once their PPE gear passed inspection; our restaurants can re-open for outside dining if their spacing passes inspection; some of the non-essential retail has opened back up (much hasn’t).
The two biggest problems I’m seeing around the Hub are the number of restaurants/bars going out of business altogether, and our tourism industry (which is where our money comes from in the summer, plus hotels for all those parents of college kids the rest of the year) is toast for 2020. Some of the colleges are opening the dorms in September; others are saying, “first semester for undergraduates or freshmen is virtual; revisit at Thanksgiving”.
The state guidelines for reopening schools in Phase 3 are fucking bonkers. 10 kids per room, 6 feet apart, masked, no class switching, staggered entry-exit times. No school has extra classrooms, extra teachers, PPE supplies, or budgets for additional cleaning.
What we NEED is the ability to test everyone (students and staff) once a week, so that we can catch any outbreak as soon as it happens. An anticipated capacity of 75K test/day statewide is simply not sufficient.
Miss Bianca
I dunno. All I know is that our bone-headed county Board of Health – which is merely the county commissioners putting on a different hat – is considering TODAY just…lifting all restraints in my county. Because hay, we’ve only had two positive tests and neither case died, so that must mean we’re totally immune, right?
*head desk
japa21
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Or, “At least I only look like one instead of actually being one like you.”
kindness
I’m still wearing my mask everywhere I go in public. I appreciate all those stores that are requiring them. From what I see here in my neck of CA’s Central Valley anywhere from 50 – 70% of folk are wearing them. The Trump knuckle draggers are determined to prove Darwin correct. That’s OK with me even though I feel bad for the people they infect.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@FlyingToaster:
The bar/restaurant problem is acute. Margins tend to be thin even in the best of times. At partial, capped capacity and with stricter protocols perhaps mandating disposable food/drink vessels, utensils and napkins/tablecloths, they’ll fail altogether without significant financial support. Sure, we want to worry about granny, but do we also want to destroy urban livability while also destroying the business investments, aggregate skills and employment of dozens per business that fails? That balance is a personal triage, now that we’re all free to starve in a ditch.
Ohio Mom
What all my fellow Ohioans said.
We went from cautious and prudent to Whoppee! We are opening things up at a fast clip and I don’t think our relatively good numbers are going to last.
Governor DeWine couldn’t help but be a Republican; he gave acting smart a short try and then he went back to form.
And his defense of Acton lacked any passion. Maybe because in the end, Republicans are always fine with misogyny and a dash of antisemitism.
JoyceH
It occurs to me that there is one thing that would do more for the cause of mask wearing than anything else, and that is for Trump to contract the virus. Can you imagine? Weeks in which the evening news starts with, “The President is still in intensive care today…”
Kelly
Rarely go out, always masked. Went into Salem, OR to pickup paint and caulk. Salem is in Marion county with hot spots at old folks homes, food processing plants and prisons. Paint store staff was masked except for the guy that helped me. About half the dozen or so customers. Oh well it was a short visit since I was picking up paint ordered online. Caulk was curbside pickup at Home Depot. Parking lot observation of customers, a bit under half masked. All staff saw were masked.
Local chain grocery stores staff are all masked, customers maybe half. Local hardware store, one clerk with a full face and filter cartridge mask everybody else unmasked.
Guv Brown is alright.
debbie
@Sab:
She’ll be working in the background on the pandemic, as well as other things like homelessness. That’ll drive the gun toters nuts!
debbie
@Ohio Mom:
It was inevitable once Householder et al. were talking about restricting the governor’s authority.
glc
No. Next question.
BruceFromOhio
@Sab @donnah @Eunicecycle @artem1s @Elizabelle @Ohio Mom @debbie:
Wow, I guess I never really counted all the Buckeyes. Hey everyone!!
What you all said. I was impressed with DeWine and Acton jumping to smart moves early in March. We are where we are because of that strategy. . At some point the fascists and their enablers irradiated everyone with stupid rays, so now COIVD19 is likely to hide for awhile and then we’ll see the second wave. MrsFromOhio and I remain barricaded, with the exception of grocery runs and the occasional take-out order. I watch this site daily for the trends. I’m cautiously optimistic, but as noted above, the Ohio Legislature is held hostage by the fascisti looking for any opportunity to fuck up a good thing.
Possibly. With Dr Acton being replaced by a fucking lawyer, I’m not really counting on the state to provide the same leadership as previously.
Around where I live, fuck no. The covidiots want their Chick-Fil-A and cheeseburgers, and by golly no libtard is gonna tell ’em they gotta wear a mask. MrsFromOhio unearthed a box of 10 N95’s she obtained during the anthrax scare back in the ‘aughts, and I wear one whenever I go into any building not my house. Some chinless mouth breathing shithead wants to sass me about it, I say, bring it. Let’s have a forthright discussion about it, too, right where everyone can hear it.
wvng
From various studies at various scales it seems clear that getting close to universal masking would be nearly a silver bullet to minimize viral spread. Inexpensive, easy to do, mildly irritating and dorky, but it won’t happen because Trump refuses to do it. So much easier than every other option, and it won’t happen. I’ve been watching less and less mask wearing in my little corner of WV and I can’t turn it around. Deeply frustrated.
LongHairedWeirdo
@Ohio Mom: For the past several days, I’ve been collecting some Covid-19 numbers, and I don’t know much, but I do see controlled rising of Ohio’s cases – on the order of 1-2% of the active cases.
That’s not great, but it’s not like, e.g., North Carolina where cases are increasing by 6-10% of current cases daily. Now, there are other metrics people look at, like, are we testing enough that the positivity rate is declining, how full are hospital and ICU beds, etc.. But as a simple math geek, I’m just looking at growth, and seeing how close it looks to exponential.
If there are 500 known cases, and the next day 50 are discovered, and the day after that 53 are discovered, and the day after that, 61 are discovered, and 51 and 75 for the next two days, that’s a situation where growth seems exponential – where new cases are coming in at a rate determined by the number of current cases. And the problem with that is, exponential growth really sneaks up on people.
Those 500 cases could easily be 1000 within a week; then 2000 the next week; and then 4000 the week after that. Well – remember, two weeks of growth are baked in; even if they shut down right then and there, you can expect 8000 the next week, and 16000 the week after that.
Obviously, this is pure math, without any knowledge from epidemiology, but it matters, because most people simply don’t comprehend the scale of growth – they think “okay, 4,000 is too many!” without realizing that 24,000 – a sixfold increase! – are already baked in, if growth continues at the same rate.
This is why epidemiologists have the truism, “you’re only doing it right, if ‘everyone’ thinks you overreacted”. Proper intervention would order a shutdown at, say, 1,500, with 9,000 baked in; no one sees the 15,000 cases averted (24,000 if you shutdown at 4,000, versus 9,000 if you shut down at 1,500, 24,000-9,000=15,000), so they think you overreacted.
This is what I fear Republican governors will miss – and why I’m really worried that this story will not have a happy ending.
Bob Hertz
The excellent comments on this thread show clearly the cultural differences between East Asia and America.
East Asia has less crime, less obesity, no private arsenals, more deferral to authority.
Those sections of America with a high proportion of government and white collar workers are more accepting of public health rules. Rural areas are obviously not so accepting.