Handling the coronavirus crisis

[Admin]

Covid-19 testing in the US improved dramatically over the first half of 2020, but things now appear to be breaking down once more as coronavirus cases rise and outstrip capacity — to the point that the mayor of a major American city can’t get testing quickly enough to potentially avoid spreading the virus. “We FINALLY received our test results taken 8 days before,” Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms tweeted on July 8. “One person in my house was positive then. By the time we tested again, 1 week later, 3 of us had COVID. If we had known sooner, we would have immediately quarantined. Perhaps the National Guard can help with testing too.”

Anecdotally, I’ve heard of similar delays across the country — people waiting days or even weeks for their Covid-19 test results after standing in lines for hours to get tested. Labs have warned about problems: Quest Diagnostics, one of the biggest lab companies in the US, said wait times for test results are now averaging between four and six days for most people.

“Basically, two things are happening,” Ashish Jha, faculty director of the Harvard Global Health Institute (HGHI), told me. “One is the outbreaks are getting much bigger, so the amount of testing we need to get our arms around the outbreak is going up. And second, what we did [before] was some tweaking on capacity issues to get ourselves up to 500,000 to 600,000 tests a day, but didn’t fundamentally address the supply chain problems.” He added, “This was supposed to be the job of the White House. … But they just never have prioritized really building up a robust testing infrastructure for the country.””

Coronavirus testing in the US is abysmal. Again. - Vox

• 5 Months into the pandemic, and still not enough testing, amazing..
  

[Admin]

Richard Rose, a 37-year-old man from Port Clinton, Ohio, recently died from coronavirus after slamming “hype” about the pandemic on Facebook. Rose’s family told Cleveland CBS affiliate 19 News the US Army veteran died at home on July 3, just three days after testing positive for COVID-19. Rose’s death has attracted attention online due to his public Facebook posts, in which he voiced support for President Donald Trump, criticized Black Lives Matter protesters, made jokes about rape, and accused Democrats of spreading false information about the pandemic in order to “rig the elections in their favor.” A tweet compiling a slideshow of Rose’s posts, asking people to “watch how this unfolds,” has garnered nearly 150,000 likes. “Let make this clear. I’m not buying a f—ing mask. I’ve made it this far by not buying into that damn hype,” Rose posted on April 28..

A 37-year-old Ohio man died from coronavirus after slamming 'hype' over pandemic on Facebook

• Horrible story but illustrates what can happen if you buy into the nonsense the President utters..
  

[Admin]

Donald Trump has been accused of "trying to bury" expert guidelines that said fully reopening schools and universities posed the highest risk of spreading coronavirus compared to partial or virtual openings. American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten said the president suppressed the report while pressuring the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to weaken safety recommendations in an effort to reopen schools faster... 

Ms Weingarten's tweet came after The New York Times revealed a 69-page CDC document that said "full-sized, in-person classes, activities and events" present the highest risk compared to entirely virtual or small classes with distancing..

Trump accused of 'trying to bury' CDC warning that full school reopenings pose highest risk of coronavirus spread | The Independent

[Admin]

Former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney penned an op-ed Monday calling for the next stimulus package passed by lawmakers to focus on combatting the novel coronavirus, swiping at U.S. testing efforts. "Any stimulus should be directed at the root cause of our recession: dealing with Covid," Mulvaney wrote in the CNBC op-ed. "I know it isn’t popular to talk about in some Republican circles, but we still have a testing problem in this country. My son was tested recently; we had to wait 5 to 7 days for results. My daughter wanted to get tested before visiting her grandparents, but was told she didn’t qualify. That is simply inexcusable at this point in the pandemic." The swipe at testing comes as President Trump has repeatedly praised testing efforts, attributing a spike in cases nationally to more testing. .

Trump's former chief of staff hits coronavirus efforts: 'We still have a testing problem' | TheHill

• This is the same Mick Mulvaney that decried the media in February as scaring the public with the pandemic in order to delegitimize Trump. Apparently one needs personal experience to come out of the information bubble (leaving the White House also helps..).
  

[Admin]

Yes, emergency relief costs a lot of money, but we can afford it: The federal government has been borrowing huge sums, but interest rates have remained near historical lows.

Put it this way: At its most severe, the lockdown seems to have reduced G.D.P. by a little over 10 percent. During World War II, America spent more than 30 percent of G.D.P. on defense, for more than three years. Why couldn’t we absorb a much smaller cost for a few months?

Opinion | America Drank Away Its Children’s Future - The New York Times

[Admin]

Reporter: President Trump, you've said many times that the number of coronavirus cases is going up because testing is increasing.

Trump: That's right.

Reporter: Do you acknowledge that it's going up for other reasons too; for example, that it's actually spreading? And what are you going to do to stop the spread?

Trump: Well, you know that we have one of the lowest mortality rates anywhere. If you know, [former Vice President Joe] Biden and [former President Barack] Obama stopped their testing; they just stopped it. You probably know that. I'm sure you don't want to report it. But they stopped testing. Right in the middle, they just went, "No more testing," and on a much lesser problem than the problem that we have, obviously with respect to -- this is the worst thing that's happened since probably 1917. This is a very bad -- all over the world. It's 188 countries right now.

But, no, we are -- we test more than anybody, by far. And when you test, you create cases. So we've created cases. I can tell you some countries, they test when somebody walks into a hospital sick or walks into maybe a doctor's office, but usually a hospital. That's the testing they do, so they don't have cases, whereas we do -- we have all of these cases. So, you know, it's a double-edged sword..

You won't believe what Donald Trump just said about coronavirus testing - CNNPolitics

• Although it should be known that there is something wrong with this guy, even for those who doubted that this is bizarro stuff..
  

[Admin]

Here’s how it would work: Over the next few weeks, many red states abandon social-distancing policies, while many individuals, taking their cues from Trump and Fox News, begin behaving irresponsibly. This leads, briefly, to some rise in employment.

But fairly soon it becomes clear that Covid-19 is spiraling out of control. People retreat back into their homes, whatever Trump and Republican governors may say. So we’re back where we started in economic terms, and in worse shape than ever in epidemiological terms. As a result, the period of double-digit unemployment, which might have lasted only a few months, goes on and on.

In other words, Trump’s search for an easy way out, his lack of patience for the hard work of containing a pandemic, may be precisely what turns a severe but temporary slump into a full-blown depression.

Opinion | How to Create a Coronavirus Economic Depression - The New York Times

• This was Krugman on May 11
  

[Admin]

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro on Tuesday sharply criticized Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert and a key member of the administration's coronavirus task force. In an op-ed published in USA Today, Navarro asserted that Fauci was “wrong about everything I have interacted with him on.” The economic adviser pointed to Fauci's past remarks on using the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19, comments about the falling mortality rate in the country and other remarks.

Trump adviser knocks Fauci: Wrong about 'everything' | TheHill

• Navarro is an economist (and even there he sprouts nonsense at the econ101 level)
  
• And he's wrong:
  

Fauci's guidance on masks and for how Americans needed to change their daily habits shifted as experts learned more about the virus and the level of asymptomatic transmission. The doctor has been skeptical about the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug that Navarro and Trump have pushed despite the Food and Drug Administration warning of dangerous side effects.

White House distances itself from Navarro op-ed bashing Fauci | TheHill

In an extraordinary move, Navarro wrote an op-ed in USA Today, the country’s largest newspaper, cataloging his disagreements with Fauci and questioning his credibility, saying the top U.S. infectious disease official’s advice should be taken with “skepticism and caution.” The White House communications team on Wednesday sought to distance itself from the op-ed, saying that the piece did not go through normal clearance processes and represents the opinion of Navarro alone.

It is strikingly unusual for a White House adviser to publish an op-ed that would not first be reviewed by others within the White House, including on the communications team. Those skeptical of the White House claims had only to look at a recent Facebook post from deputy chief of staff and social media director Dan Scavino, who posted a cartoon mocking Fauci late Sunday. A White House official also sent media outlets over the weekend a lengthy list of “mistakes” Fauci has made since the pandemic began, prompting health experts and lawmakers to leap to Fauci’s defense.

Navarro-Fauci battle intensifies, to detriment of Trump | TheHill

• And a little fact checking..
  

Earlier this week, USA Today published an op-ed by Peter Navarro — one of Trump’s top economic advisers — that claimed that Dr. Anthony Fauci has repeatedly been wrong about the coronavirus pandemic. But Bill Sternberg, USA Today’s editorial page editor, is now saying that some of Navarro’s anti-Fauci claims don’t hold up when fact-checked. According to Sternberg, “Several of Navarro’s criticisms of Fauci — on the China travel restrictions, the risk from the coronavirus and falling mortality rates — were misleading or lacked context. As such, Navarro’s op-ed did not meet USA Today’s fact-checking standards.” USA Today’s Ledyard King cites some specific examples of things Navarro wrote that were inaccurate.

Two big news outlets express regret after letting Trump officials lie – Alternet.org

• See the article for the details.
  

[Admin]

Few places represent the calamity of the Covid-19 pandemic as well as the Life Care Center of Kirkland. Starting in February and escalating into early March, the nursing home in a Seattle suburb became one of the disease’s first hot spots in the United States. By March 9, more than a week before any state had issued a stay-at-home order, the Kirkland facility already had 129 cases (81 among residents; the rest among staff and visitors) and 23 deaths from the novel coronavirus, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report.

Before long, it became clear that practices at the Kirkland facility contributed to the spread of the virus there, according to federal inspectors. A Washington Post investigation found that the problems were endemic to the Life Care Center chain of nursing homes: “Dozens of Life Care homes received below-average staffing ratings or were flagged during inspections for not having enough nurses to properly care for patients.” 

But for all the problems with the Life Care Center chain, it would soon become clear that its experience would not be unique. While the Kirkland facility may have been the first known US nursing home hit, it would not be the last. Estimates vary, but analysts Gregg Girvan and Avik Roy found that as of June 29, 50,779 of the 113,135 US deaths from Covid-19 (or 45 percent) were deaths of residents of nursing or long-term care facilities. Their numbers suggest that about 2.5 percent of all nursing home residents have been killed by the disease; in New Jersey, which is particularly hard hit, the share is over 11 percent...

An important context for these events, however, is federal policy. Since well before the coronavirus pandemic, the Trump administration has been targeting regulations in the nursing home industry, pushing a deregulatory agenda that advocates say has worsened conditions for residents and will make them worse still in the pandemic era. Covid-19 is a once-in-a-lifetime health crisis that is catching almost all institutions — and politicians, regardless of party — ill-prepared. But there is no question that the administration, at the prodding of industry, has enacted and proposed moves aimed at easing regulations on nursing homes — moves that patient advocates have said were increasing health risks for residents well before Covid-19 came to the US.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency that oversees Medicare and Medicaid, is in charge of regulating and overseeing the nursing home industry. (The large majority of funding for nursing facilities comes from Medicaid or Medicare, meaning that CMS certification is a key prerequisite for most to function.) The agency outsources the job of conducting inspections to state surveying agencies, operated by state governments. Together, CMS and its surveyors are the main system of accountability for the 15,600-odd nursing homes in the US and their 1.3 million inhabitants. The Trump CMS moved to curb fining nursing homes that were found violating regulations — in particular, regulations meant to prevent the spread of infectious disease. Infection control deficiencies are by far the most cited regulatory failing in nursing homes, and the Trump administration has acted to reduce the amount of money fined, and to move away from a system of daily fines that experts say is more effective at changing facility behaviors. (In the face of the coronavirus outbreak, the administration last month announced it would increase fines; more on this below.)

If the move to cut fines worries experts, future changes heralded by the Trump administration are even more concerning. Under the Obama administration, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued a rule requiring all facilities to employ a dedicated “infection prevention specialist” at least part time. CMS Administrator Seema Verma has proposed rolling back that rule and only requiring such specialists to serve as consultants, potentially covering many different nursing facilities. 

At the time it was proposed, trade publications and some advocates for seniors and people with disabilities took note of the new rule, but it was largely ignored. It wasn’t until March, when the pandemic hit, that the proposed rule change got attention in the mainstream press. The rule still hasn’t taken effect, but will, barring unexpected changes to administration policy, if Trump is reelected. The administration has also sought cuts to Medicaid’s budget that could negatively impact nursing homes, reduce funding for infection control, and likely worsen protections for residents. These changes, like the Obama rule rollback, have not taken effect yet but could with a second Trump term..

Trump reduced fines for nursing home violations. Then Covid-19 happened. - Vox

[Admin]

Avoidance of the virus, more so than shutdown orders, seems to be affecting consumer behavior. Places without official lockdowns have seen similar financial collapses to those with them, and a study by University of Chicago economists showed that decreases in economic activity are closely tied to “fears of infection” and are “highly influenced by the number of COVID deaths reported” in a given county.

The Terrifying Next Phase of the Coronavirus Recession - The Atlantic