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"Look at those countries that have ZERO current cases. Social distancing, testing, and contact tracing."
More like surveillance, harsh penalties, and no chance for "herd" immunity. That last point is the most important - because it means nearly no one in those countries is immune. One of us go there = hot spot.
Although it's doing the Slow Burn here -and across Europe - it will, in the long run, let "normal" relationship happens between here and there - while "normal" with Asia will be a while - if ever.
Flip side of that is - whatever your politics - as long as our response is "X" - those countries using "Y" will continue to forbid travel in either direction - and this could be years. Our economy depends on international commerce - and so does theirs - and our economy depends on theirs, too...it's a complex puzzle, but we've chosen "Europe" and not Asia.
The prolonged shelter-in-place orders here in Michigan (now mostly lifted) appear to have done the trick. It was unusual, most of the people realized the benefit, a few were loud-mouthed social media haters for the whole duration. BUT, new cases in Michigan are dwindling significantly! Michigan, New York, and New Jersey now have the lowest rates of new infection. Ironic as these same states were the primary hot spots only three months ago.
Hate to burst your bubble but the problem with your paragraph is that Michigan is not cut off from the rest of the country and you are not at zero cases. People are flying more and with businesses opening up in Michigan the virus will spread much more quickly again.
In fact if you look at the Michigan numbers the past 7 days appear to be way up from the previous 7 days. On 6/20 you had the highest number that you have had for weeks.
States that did similar strict shelter in place orders who seemed to have it under control like Washington and Oregon now have quickly rising cases. Look at California. Also very strict rules and just yesterday they hit over 5,000 new cases for the first time. Its a highly contagious disease and just getting the numbers lower for a while does seem to keep them that way. Seems inevitable until we get a vaccine, herd immunity or it burns itself out. And none of those possibilities seem close to happening. Add to it the protests that will also likely spike the numbers.
The cases are now are rising fastest in states that opened up first and are the new hot spots. But as long as you have some cases and every one is not fully contact traced and people can freely travel into Michigan you are probably going to be right where you were in March or April soon. All Michigan did was postpone what was going to happen.
Last edited by Oklazona Bound; 06-23-2020 at 06:43 AM..
One massive testing day. Obviously you would need a huge amount of volunteers to test people and run the tests. Hire those who have recovered to do this. Even pay people to be tested.
Quarantine all the positive cases for 2 weeks or until they are no longer positive. Do this again in 2 weeks. Keep doing this until we get the numbers down to zero. And quarantine all incoming people into the country.
Seems to me getting all the positive cases out of being able to infect new people is the best way to fight this pandemic. I know its a massive undertaking just to test everyone, plus the quarantining . But if there was a will to do this we could find a way.
Am I missing something?
You're missing a lot. Namely, the lack of manufacturing capacity and lab capacity to do it.
Asymptomatic or not. These people are sick with a disease that is contagious and deadly for some. There is no constitutional right to make other people sick with an infectious disease. Mandatory quarantines have been upheld by the United States Supreme Court.
Which is irrelevant without the means to enforce for the millions of positive test results.
Look at those countries that have ZERO current cases. Social distancing, testing, and contact tracing. On a mega scale. Maybe the most important part is that you have to have most everybody on board and cooperating. We are so polarized here and have politicized it to such an extent, that it would be like herding cats. If half population including the president, is in denial then it wont work.
They're also very small, both geographically and in terms of population.
It has not been established that any covid19 test is accurate. There have been many false positives. In addition, just because you had contact with the virus, it doesnt mean you are any danger if your body made antibodies and you recovered. Its like testing people for the flu......ok, you had the flu So what. The death stats are not accurate either since it was discovered that the stats were altered due to some financial kick backs provided to doctors for altering death certificates. If somebody was old and in poor health and the person came in contact with covid, it was said to be death by covid even if that person had copd or emphesema or cancer or anything. On USA Today it reported that hospitals get paid more from medicare if they write covid.
They had a massive free testing drive through day in our town. They tested just over 2000 people. It was all done by volunteers. They have some additional testing days since I think. I am not interested in having a stick rammed way up my nose until I cry out in pain just so I can learn whether I have covid at that second. If I do not have it then, I might have it by the time I get the results back, I also may have had it last week and the test will not tell me. Without symptoms, it is pretty pointless unless you are going to get tested every week. BTW of the first 2000 plus they found 7 people tested positive. On a retest many or all of them tested negative (I was told about 4 of them testing negative later at a hospital, but not sure about the other three. I do know that none of them got sick).
Last I heard, you are not contagious if you do not have symptoms. I have not had time or interest to confirm this, but if true, then testing is not necessary. Just take your temp daily and pay attention to how you feel and whether you cough. Someone will likely know and post whether the non-symptoms thing (from last week) is valid or just another BS junk science opinion. I do know the experts said you can be contagious without symptoms a while ago, but that was based on a guess that this acts the same as some other viruses, not on actual data based science. Supposedly a week or so ago Who or CDC or someone announced you are not contagious if you are asymptomatic so now some companies allow people who test positive to continue working if they do not have symptoms, but i have not been able to personally verify this.
One massive testing day. Obviously you would need a huge amount of volunteers to test people and run the tests. Hire those who have recovered to do this. Even pay people to be tested.
Quarantine all the positive cases for 2 weeks or until they are no longer positive. Do this again in 2 weeks. Keep doing this until we get the numbers down to zero. And quarantine all incoming people into the country.
Seems to me getting all the positive cases out of being able to infect new people is the best way to fight this pandemic. I know its a massive undertaking just to test everyone, plus the quarantining . But if there was a will to do this we could find a way.
Am I missing something?
Yes - The Constitution of the United States of America.
You are violating 3 or 4 amendments that I can think of off the bat, even in times of emergency.
But more importantly - to call it a "massive undertaking" for a spread out population of 350 million over almost an entire continent in one day is an understatement. It would simply be logistically impossible for so many reason it would take me several paragraphs to explain. .
Even countries where they have near 100% cooperation from the people there cannot get to zero cases. China and S Korea come to mind. Perhaps a small country can.
NZ, Vietnam, Iceland, Taiwan have. SK close but they started to open up and some idiots wouldnt voluntarily follow rules so.... It takes incredible amount effort to keep on top of this. And for sure its more difficult in large countries. But look at Vietnam in particular. This is not a wealthy country and they dont have resources to do kind of extensive frequent testing SK did, yet they got it under control and to where zero community cases, they still have to deal with outsiders and making them quarantine so no community instances dont develop.
But when you have corrupt leaders that only go around shouting "political hoax" with no grasp of reality, nothing good is going to result. [Moderator cut]
Last edited by Rachel NewYork; 06-23-2020 at 11:06 AM..
Which is irrelevant without the means to enforce for the millions of positive test results.
I can think of lots of ways to enforce it that wouldn't involve a huge police force.
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