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Likely, barring a spike of Florida COVID-19 cases and fatalities, the biggest implication of the emergency is a rapid increase in testing as test kits become available.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar reiterated this morning that 1 million test kits will be available this weekend, and 4 million by next week (I heard his comments this morning after President Trump signed the $8 billion emergency funding passed by Congress this week).
I heard an NPR report this morning that said that teenagers, and, by implication, young children, may be carriers of the OVID-19 virus but show few if any symptoms. One speculation is that school children are exposed to a plethora of various coronaviruses (such as common cold viruses) and have developed antibodies to resist OVID-19. The story said that these asymptomatic carriers pose a great risk of passing OVID-19 to grandparents and the elderly. I haven't seen any public warnings about limiting elderly contact with school children for the duration of this epidemic.
This is an earlier NPR story about OVID-19 and children in China.
I wonder if Florida health officials have considered issuing such a warning given the state's significant elderly population. E.g., should schoolchildren, even university students, all vulnerable to community spread given their great exposure to human contact, be barred from nursing homes for the duration of the epidemic?
Globally, 300 million children are missing school due to OVID-19 closures. Italy has closed all schools and universities, and spectators are barred from major sporting events until April. Will similar steps occur in Florida if the OVID-19 death toll mounts quickly?
Two Florida residents die from COVID-19 infections
Florida has reported two COVID-19 deaths, reportedly the first in the U.S. outside of the West Coast. Only 188 Florida residents have been tested for COVID-19 as of Friday, but that number may ramp up this coming week with the reported much increased availability of test kits. Florida reported 19 persons who have tested positive for COVID-19.
Florida is #49 among the states in health care access.
My guess (check this) is that more tourists come to Florida in these coming weeks...by airplane....and crowd together (Disney World, cruises, spring break, etc.) than anywhere else in the USA.
People here may die or be in the hospital long before they are tested. It can't be any other way - even the doctors and nurses in the hospitals with patients can't get tested themselves.
We will only know things in about 3+ weeks. That's not propaganda - it's basic science, math and common sense. It will take approx until March 15 for enough tests to be here and properly distributed...then it takes time for patients to get tested or request such. Then the results...then the reporting of the results and the additions to the data on maps and web sites.
We will know a LOT more by the end of the month. The smart people are saying carry on general normal BUT go into "limited social exposure" mode. That means fewer hugs, kisses, handshakes, packed airliners, etc.
It's up to each person...but it's pretty obvious that an airliner is not a really safe place to be. I read up on the current situation and it basically says what is evident - nothing the airline can do will prevent you from getting it if the people sitting next to you (or behind you if they cough or sneeze) from getting it.
Heck, neither the airlines nor the FAA have even started with disinfecting planes between flights or stepped up cleaning.
All you young people are probably fine. But those of age and with other conditions have a 10X more chances of bad results. Sometimes (over 80) even much higher than that.
"Did Trump Fire the US Pandemic Response Team?"
TRUE
"It’s thus true that the Trump administration axed the executive branch team responsible for coordinating a response to a pandemic and did not replace it, eliminating Ziemer’s position and reassigning others, although Bolton was the executive at the top of the National Security Council chain of command at the time."
And, of course, he did a lot more than that. Took 7 Million off the health insurance rolls for starters...and, BTW, didn't save one dime by doing it. We are spending more for less.
I could go on but that should be enough to at least illustrate where his priorities lie.
Trumps 2018 Budget never came to fruition so there were no cuts.
Try again.
Did you notice your article was from 2011? This article says nothing about what preparedness funding took place subsequently in the Obama administration and what the Trump administration did when it took office, especially for the couple of years that the Republicans controlled both the White House and both Houses of Congress. I haven't researched the Trump administration cutbacks, but they've been widely reported. As discussed below and in post 17, the U.S. and Trump administration's level of preparedness and level of response is far from the best in the world as I've heard repeatedly implied by Trump administration officials.
However, thanks for the link to the ProPublica website. This is one of the nation's very best sources of objective, in-depth news reporting.
This is an excellent ProPublica article written by an author experienced in virus testing procedures. It details how testing of actual patients for COVID-19 will be slower and less available than currently represented by the Trump administration, particularly VP Mike Pence and HHS secretary Alex Azar, due to both lab labor shortages and the effective number of tests that can be performed per test kit.
<<It doesn’t matter if boxes upon boxes of kits are available if labs are struggling to set up the tests or are short on staff to run them. At the end of the day, what I want to know (and I imagine, what everyone wants to know) is how many people can be tested. That’s the unit that I am pressing public health officials and lab directors for when I interview them....
As of Wednesday, the Association of Public Health Laboratories, which represents public health labs across the United States, told me that each CDC test kit can run about 700 specimens. Note the “about” — you might have heard that each CDC test kit can run 1,000 specimens. That’s also true, but labs use up a certain amount of material in the process of setting up the kit and also to ensure that all the results from actual patient samples are accurate. So that’s where the “about 700” number is coming from.
None of those numbers, so far, are in units of what I care about — patients. We’re still talking about samples and specimens. APHL says the labs are running two specimens per patient, to double-check the result. So that means you actually can only test 350 people [not 1,000 or even 750 people] per kit….
APHL told me on Wednesday that each public health lab can run about 100 samples per day. One hundred public labs received test kits from the CDC. When they’re all up and running, they’ll have a cumulative capacity of 10,000 samples a day. Remember, since we care about patients and not samples, divide by two. That’s 5,000 patients a day. (As of Thursday morning, 67 labs were taking patient samples, so that would come out to 3,350 patients a day.) >>
None of the above information is being communicated to the public to my knowledge despite watching the national news, cable programs, reading news stories, etc. What everyone needs to know is the EFFECTIVE DAILY PATIENT TESTING CAPACITY for both the nation and of individual states, not the number of patient tests being shipped. That obviously is the statistic that would be the focus of actual epidemic containment professionals.
Obviously labs were staffed to handle non-crisis levels of testing for ALL health conditions and diseases. Adding new testing requirements likely requires overtime work. Few articles have examined who is paying for these additional labor costs. Is it Medicare, Medicaid, and individual insurance plans. Are private insurance plans authorizing payment for all doctor-ordered testing?
Is the U.S. goal to set up drive-through tests as made available in South Korea, so persons can determine if they are infected, and then hopefully self-quarantine themselves to protect family and friends? Drive-through testing centers, with personnel wearing haz-mat suits and individuals being tested without ever leaving their vehicles and thereby not exposing others in waiting rooms, seems brilliant, if sufficient testing capability is available. What is the U.S. doing to allow an asymptomatic person to be tested without showing up in an outpatient waiting room after receiving a testing order over the phone from a doctor? We should not want potential OVID-19 patients going to blood testing centers where waiting rooms are populated by individuals, often elderly, with pre-existing conditions that make them vulnerable to severe OVID-19 infections.
It has been reported by Cleveland area news that independent doctors are unable to receive supplies of masks. So doctors whose offices lack needed safety supplies are clearing all appointments by phone and turning away patients with respiratory symptoms. What plans are being instituted to make needed safety equipment available to front-line personnel, including doctors, nurses, firemen, police officers, nursing home workers, etc., let alone the family members of individuals who are under self-imposed quarantine. What training is available so that persons properly use needed equipment?
First responders, and consequently their families, are being exposed to the COVID-19 virus. What is being done to eliminate this risk? Unless properly protected, first responders and health care personnel may resign or otherwise withdraw their badly needed services.
For this epidemic, and for FUTURE epidemics, we should be developing the capacity to rapidly deploy over-the-counter test kits. From the ProPublica article:
<<One last thing that’s good to know: There are commercial manufacturers at work to create off-the-shelf versions of these tests — the microwavable meal equivalent, if you will. But those companies have not given a precise timeline. Last week, Cepheid, a manufacturer based in California, told ProPublica it’s targeting the second quarter of this year for the release of its test.>>
Also in the ProPublica article is this factoid, not particularly comforting for younger persons IMO:
<<In data published last month by the Chinese CDC, out of more than 72,000 diagnosed cases, 8.1% were 20-somethings, and the fatality rate in that age bracket was 0.2%.>> That's a 2/1,000 fatality rate. The ProPublica reporter may be a little jaded and risk tolerant given her experience covering viruses and high level of personal care, but losing 2 in every 1,000 infected young adults is frightening to me. If all 44 million U.S. 20-somethings were infected, that fatality rate would result in about 80,000 deaths.
COVID-19 obviously, like the flu, is a potentially deadly disease. Unlike with the flu, we don't yet have effective vaccines, so persons likely will adjust their behavior to minimize exposure. When I was a kid, before the advent of polio vaccines, my parents avoided going to restaurants and even pools and beaches to minimize exposure to the polio virus, which terrorized the nation (remember that President Roosevelt had contracted the polio virus). I've read that there never could have been a fast food industry before the advent of polio vaccines. I still remember the long lines of persons waiting to get the polio vaccine at public health stations. I believe for free. I wonder what effort will be made to vaccinate the nation against COVID-19 as the vaccine becomes available (new recombinant vaccine manufacturing technology allows for rapid manufacture of vaccines without using egg incubation).
Capacity for the rapid development and deployment of vaccines, and effective anti-viral drugs and antibiotics, should be an essential, well-funded responsibility of the federal government IMO. Even if the COVID-19 epidemic in the U.S. is overly deadly, the economic damage inflicted likely could have been minimized by a Korean-like federal government response. And we've not yet experienced regional lockdowns, as implemented in China and now Italy. How long will Florida's theme parks remain open? Why should Americans expect transmission rates lower than in China and northern Italy, UNLESS the coming of warmer and more humid weather reduces the transmission rate, a reportedly good possibility hoped for by all persons; even if summer weather saves Americans from their own lack of preparedness, we still should be implementing policies to reduce transmission rates pending the arrival of summer weather.
I can hear motorcycles on A1A doing bike week. Volusia County has a confirmed case of coronavirus. I wonder if the virus will spread?
It is going to spread to every city and state over time. They say warmer weather will help kill it off. Well with another above normal hot March and spring coming we will see if that is true and it help kills the bug off.
I ran into a friend a few minutes ago at the checkout at the dollar store. As I walked up he started to stick his hand out to shake mine and then caught himself and pulled it back. I jokingly said "Don't you try to shake my hand." Apparently this pizzed off the cashier who immediately stuck his hand out to my friend saying "Here. I'll shake your hand." I guess he was demonstrating that he's not falling for the liberal media hoax and the BS about not shaking hands and touching your face.
I ran into a friend a few minutes ago at the checkout at the dollar store. As I walked up he started to stick his hand out to shake mine and then caught himself and pulled it back. I jokingly said "Don't you try to shake my hand." Apparently this pizzed off the cashier who immediately stuck his hand out to my friend saying "Here. I'll shake your hand." I guess he was demonstrating that he's not falling for the liberal media hoax and the BS about not shaking hands and touching your face.
Do you have any scientific basis for your lack of concern?
Please elaborate about your lack of concern.
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Two Florida residents die from COVID-19 infections
