No political answers. Not sure that is possible.. question - what role did PPE’s

[section907]

What role did the lack of PPE’s and adequate testing have in flaming this pandemic? Without casting blame on anyone.

id say it had everything to do with it. Especially not being able to test appropriately ( really - even coming up with a test) was big . Lots of people coming off of planes, etc could have been tested and real time data would be available .

The fear set in with shortages of PPE . Especially when the “charts” showed woes case was horrific numbers. Rightfully so.

In my opinion that is what got us here today. House arrest and shut down.

looking forward. - in 30 days we should have enough PPE - more then enough to cover all 1st line of defense workers in every category. And that supply will will double or more every 30 days. This should be an issue going forward .

If you’re still with me. Here’s my 2nd question :
Why shouldn’t the economy open back up? With still staying cautious. Washing up, staying a distance from others , I think if we had ALL the tools in place that we have now, then we could have carried on as usual. Sure, people would have gotten sick but I don’t see it being unmanageable .

I’m not sure big events are ready to open and prob will not be until they get a vaccine or some type of self testing .

To me - this 6-18 more months just doesn’t make sense. I guess it would if I was a pandemic dr and looked at it as 1 death is too many. I don’t think that is reality.

 

[Rollerdude123]

Not sure anyone can blame anyone for it.

my sister is an RN at a hospital. She said they had adequate supplies for all normal situations, even plenty for routine supply delays (missed shipments, holidays with no delivery). But this was way out of the ordinary.

she actually had an extra box of respirators for her staff and she kept it locked in her desk until it was needed because other people were raiding supplies.

 

[JohnnySolo]

Short answer is there are too many irresponsible people in the world. All ages. You give people enough rope and they will hang themselves and anyone close by. Oh no. Can i not talk about rope?

 

[Conway Gamecock]

What role did the lack of PPE’s and adequate testing have in flaming this pandemic? Without casting blame on anyone.

id say it had everything to do with it. Especially not being able to test appropriately ( really - even coming up with a test) was big . Lots of people coming off of planes, etc could have been tested and real time data would be available .

The fear set in with shortages of PPE . Especially when the “charts” showed woes case was horrific numbers. Rightfully so.

In my opinion that is what got us here today. House arrest and shut down.

looking forward. - in 30 days we should have enough PPE - more then enough to cover all 1st line of defense workers in every category. And that supply will will double or more every 30 days. This should be an issue going forward .

If you’re still with me. Here’s my 2nd question :
Why shouldn’t the economy open back up? With still staying cautious. Washing up, staying a distance from others , I think if we had ALL the tools in place that we have now, then we could have carried on as usual. Sure, people would have gotten sick but I don’t see it being unmanageable .

I’m not sure big events are ready to open and prob will not be until they get a vaccine or some type of self testing .

To me - this 6-18 more months just doesn’t make sense. I guess it would if I was a pandemic dr and looked at it as 1 death is too many. I don’t think that is reality.

I look at two things - South Korea and February.

South Korea showed how wide-swath testing in infected areas can provide information on who is infected, and how it is moving/spreading throughout a region. That information is very useful - especially early on in the spread of the virus - in containing or mitigating - a word used very often by both Dr.s Fauci and Birx - the spread of the virus.

By quarantining those areas like how entire states are doing right now, it could help keep the virus in localized areas until it dies out. Without a proper vaccine or medicinal treatment to attack the disease with, that's all pretty much anyone can do at that stage to prevent spread.

But for several reasons the U.S. was not able to ever conduct that kind of preventative testing early on - like for California, Washington, or New York. We've mostly only just tested symptomatic persons - and persons who are substantially ill - and then just targeted those who are ill with medical assistance, and dismissed trying to learn how it was spreading.

In other words, what South Korea did with testing was more proactive, and how we handled testing was more reactive.

Secondly, the Federal government and White House had ample knowledge of 1) we were very poorly prepared to handle such a pandemic, and 2) at least in January, there was a very possible pandemic on the way.

Had the federal government took seriously the COVID-19 threat to the U.S., and had they taken their own HHS's reports of poor preparation and took proactive measures to correct that, we could have been much
better prepared to again, attack the intrusion of the virus into the U.S., and mitigated its spread even more.

As it was, testing never rose above anything beyond token measures until middle to late March, and we're playing catch-up today.

As for PPE equipment, it is vital for medical staff who are attending to those ill with COVID-19. The Government can shut down the economy, close the schools and tell everyone to stay home and practice social distancing, but the medical personnel don't get that option when they have to look after the sick.

No N95 masks, no shields, no gloves puts them into harm's way. No swabs or vials for them to take samples to send to the labs to do the testing for COVID-19 further delays results. There's already dismal forecasts of hospitals getting over-swamped with sick patients and there being no available beds, but the Government can at least provide makeshift M.A.S.H. units and military hospital boats to help with that, but it's a lot harder to provide trained medical staff should they all get sick.

As to the 2nd question, it's just a very hard decision to make when you truly do not know the extent of infection and mortality of a novel virus. If we already had a vaccine or other proven medical treatment, then I would say go for it. If we were able to be proactive and catch the virus early on and held down its spread, then we might have never had to shutdown.

But I feel the primary reason why we blew up like we did so quickly to become far and away the most infected nation on Earth, was due to our resistance as a people to anything that represents a restriction of our freedom to do anything.

The 3 most infected countries per worldometer - Spain, Italy, and Germany - combine for 405,164 cases of COVID-19. The U.S. alone has 435,167 cases as of this morning. We may very well pass Spain and Italy today for the most deaths of all nations.

And that's with the shutdown taking place. So try to imagine what might be happening, if people were going to work in the same buildings with each other 5 days a week, and schools were full of kids and faculty/staff....

 

[fowl_mood]

The only preparation for a pandemic is having been through a pandemic.

 

[Wiles2]

The 3 most infected countries per worldometer - Spain, Italy, and Germany - combine for 405,164 cases of COVID-19. The U.S. alone has 435,167 cases as of this morning. We may very well pass Spain and Italy today for the most deaths of all nations.

And that's with the shutdown taking place. So try to imagine what might be happening, if people were going to work in the same buildings with each other 5 days a week, and schools were full of kids and faculty/staff....

Absolutely....As well as business air travel b/t US cities, countries, etc. which would also dramatically impact spread.

New Rochelle's outbreak was lit by one superspreader, an attorney, who infected at least 50 people.

Below is an interesting graphic of C19's impact vs. other forms of death. Highlights exponential growth...Only in a 4-week span and the last 2 nights (highest #'s yet) are not included:

COVID-19 Daily Deaths vs. Top 15 Causes of Death (Average/Day) in the US
https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/1727839/

 

[BattleshipTexas]

I look at two things - South Korea and February.

South Korea showed how wide-swath testing in infected areas can provide information on who is infected, and how it is moving/spreading throughout a region. That information is very useful - especially early on in the spread of the virus - in containing or mitigating - a word used very often by both Dr.s Fauci and Birx - the spread of the virus.

The tests used early by South Korea are now shown to have a 10% error rate, both false positives and false negatives. I am not sure how useful that really is.

 

[world famous 3rd base hecklers]

What role did the lack of PPE’s and adequate testing have in flaming this pandemic? Without casting blame on anyone.

id say it had everything to do with it. Especially not being able to test appropriately ( really - even coming up with a test) was big . Lots of people coming off of planes, etc could have been tested and real time data would be available .

The fear set in with shortages of PPE . Especially when the “charts” showed woes case was horrific numbers. Rightfully so.

In my opinion that is what got us here today. House arrest and shut down.

looking forward. - in 30 days we should have enough PPE - more then enough to cover all 1st line of defense workers in every category. And that supply will will double or more every 30 days. This should be an issue going forward .

If you’re still with me. Here’s my 2nd question :
Why shouldn’t the economy open back up? With still staying cautious. Washing up, staying a distance from others , I think if we had ALL the tools in place that we have now, then we could have carried on as usual. Sure, people would have gotten sick but I don’t see it being unmanageable .

I’m not sure big events are ready to open and prob will not be until they get a vaccine or some type of self testing .

To me - this 6-18 more months just doesn’t make sense. I guess it would if I was a pandemic dr and looked at it as 1 death is too many. I don’t think that is reality.

Seeing people wear gloves and mask isn't doing anyone good.... Too many people keep touching their phones in the grocery stores, touching their face...

Leaving the grocery stores, you see idiots take off their gloves and mask and drop them on the ground... We are now becoming a trashy nation...

When I worked with blood and body fluids back in the late 70's, early 80's we didn't wear gloves.. We washed our hands all the time...

Wearing Level A or B, you'll need a clean and dirty area to take off the suits, same as Level C & D...

 

[BobbyFoosball]

What happened with our "pandemic response team" that Obama created?

 

[Conway Gamecock]

The tests used early by South Korea are now shown to have a 10% error rate, both false positives and false negatives. I am not sure how useful that really is.

First off, I would like to see a link to some other source than yourself, because you have made a number of 100% false comments here about this pandemic. No offense.

Second, if you are saying that out of 100 tests 10 are giving a false result (90% accuracy rate), that's actually around the efficiency rate that CDC demands of their own tests, but which they didn't get anywhere close to for much of early March.

Finally, in peak testing months of February and March, South Korea tested 4,000 per every million citizens with their test. Today, the best the United States has gotten to, is testing just five (5) tests per million — despite the fact that they both reported their first cases at essentially the same time (on January 21 and 20). So with such a wide saturation blanket policy of testing, the impact of any error % of test results is watered down to potable levels. In fact, down to next to nothing.

The discrepancy is surprising and for the federal government a bit damning, because the genome of the virus has been available since January and scientists had figured out the diagnostics shortly thereafter, using proven molecular methods first discovered in the 1970s....

 

[BobbyFoosball]

Meh.

Asian culture is very different. Almost everybody was wearing masks in public in late January before it was even confirmed that this could be transmitted from human to human.

 

[BobbyFoosball]

From Jan 28th

https://apnews.com/22ced8ee2990681df8d0cf5dbaab5267

 

[Conway Gamecock]

The only preparation for a pandemic is having been through a pandemic.

Again, its such a shame that we have been through several recent pandemics, and yet we were so totally unprepared for this one - we still haven't gotten in front of it: the passing of time has been our most effective weapon to date - and there are so many posting here that are totally fine with that fact.

In previous administrations, they would have been taking to the streets with lit torches and ropes....

 

[BobbyFoosball]

Again, its such a shame that we have been through several recent pandemics, and yet we were so totally unprepared for this one - we still haven't gotten in front of it: the passing of time has been our most effective weapon to date - and there are so many posting here that are totally fine with that fact.

In previous administrations, they would have been taking to the streets with lit torches and ropes....

Well, what was that "pandemic response team" doing all those years?

 

[Conway Gamecock]

Meh.

Asian culture is very different. Almost everybody was wearing masks in public in late January before it was even confirmed that this could be transmitted from human to human.

Yep. And it's hilarious to the point of pain from laughter, how the American culture of democracy, of rights and liberty, of Human Life, is always propped up by our citizens as being above and beyond that of other nations. The Chinese have for generations been accused of human rights abuses by its government by us: they kill babies at birth if those babies are female, in an attempt to stem the over-population of their people. They torture and imprison political dissidents who speak out.

But they at least attempt to save themselves as a nation of people with much more seriousness, and we write it off to "cultural differences".....

 

[Conway Gamecock]

Well, what was that "pandemic response team" doing all those years?

Doing the exact same thing the HHS did with this one, or don't you know how to read? They informed the federal government, headed by the Presidential Administration of the time. Those administrations either acted on the information, or they didn't.

We know now, that this one didn't, going back to October 2019 at the latest, or August 2019 at the earliest....

 

[BobbyFoosball]

Doing the exact same thing the HHS did with this one, or don't you know how to read? They informed the federal government, headed by the Presidential Administration of the time. Those administrations either acted on the information, or they didn't.

We know now, that this one didn't, going back to October 2019 at the latest, or August 2019 at the earliest....

Everyone claims there was no plan. Where were the plans that these folks created all those years?

 

[Conway Gamecock]

I will say this however: the data coming back appear to me to be possibly - POSSIBLY - indicating a true flattening of the curve, finally. Of both new cases and deaths - not a decline, but a plateau-ing of the rates.

We've seen other flattening or even drops for 2-3 days, but then it always ramped up again. Most of those drops have been across weekends, where official reporting of new cases/deaths seem to get erratic. But then it always fixed itself come the next weekday, to negative results.

But this recent plateau-ing is taking place across the middle of the week, not a weekend. As always, the longer it goes, the better that data trend is. Hopefully we're seeing some through the clouds, if not outright blue skies here....

 

[Conway Gamecock]

Everyone claims there was no plan. Where were the plans that these folks created all those years?

WHat are you talking about? It doesn't matter if its coronavirus or influenza. They both are respiratory-attacking viruses that spread through similar methods, even if the degrees of contagion or mortality are different.

The plan was always there, and in fact is there right now. It was there in 2016, 2017, 2018.

So yes, everyone claims there was a plan, because there was. It was a working, effective model. There was nothing wrong with it, and no one stole it in the dark of the night.

This current U.S. Administration first, dismantled the pre-existing pandemic response team, and moved authorities of it into the HHS' purview. The HHS ran an exercise as recently as last year, and reported that the U.S. was ripe for the killing from the next such pandemic outbreak.

The current U.S. Administration did nothing about it, as a response. That's pretty well self-evident these days. They ignored the plan....

 

[BobbyFoosball]

WHat are you talking about? It doesn't matter if its coronavirus or influenza. They both are respiratory-attacking viruses that spread through similar methods, even if the degrees of contagion or mortality are different.

The plan was always there, and in fact is there right now. It was there in 2016, 2017, 2018.

So yes, everyone claims there was a plan, because there was. It was a working, effective model. There was nothing wrong with it, and no one stole it in the dark of the night.

This current U.S. Administration first, dismantled the pre-existing pandemic response team, and moved authorities of it into the HHS' purview. The HHS ran an exercise as recently as last year, and reported that the U.S. was ripe for the killing from the next such pandemic outbreak.

The current U.S. Administration did nothing about it, as a response. That's pretty well self-evident these days. They ignored the plan....

Link me up to the plan. Just for New York. Where supplies would be stored. How many supplies would be needed. Where testing locations would be set up. Where extra hospitals will be stood up. What staff would be needed. Where that staff would come from. Where to quarantine people.

Just those type things. A real plan.

 

[BobbyFoosball]

We had a comparatively harmless test run of this with the swine flu. This should have been fixed then. Then we had another warning with Ebola, still not fixed.

Obama saw this first hand TWICE and yet nothing was done.

 

[Conway Gamecock]

Everyone claims there was no plan. Where were the plans that these folks created all those years?

I didn't catch this - I thought you said people were claiming that there WAS a plan - which is in fact, true. The only people claiming that there wasn't, is coming from the White House, and giving daily press conferences.

But there in fact was a plan, and it was formed by this Administration:

The plan, which is spelled out in an April 2018 agreement between the Centers for Disease Control and three of the biggest associations involved in lab testing, called for boosting the capacity of public health labs, bringing big commercial labs into the testing process early, and making sure labs would have whatever they needed to mount a rapid, large-scale response.

But over January and February, agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services not only failed to make early use of the hundreds of labs across the United States, they enforced regulatory roadblocks that prevented non-government labs from assisting, according to documents obtained by CNN, and interviews with 14 scientists and physicians at individual laboratories and national laboratory associations.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/09/politics/coronavirus-testing-cdc-fda-red-tape-invs/index.html

 

[Conway Gamecock]

We had a comparatively harmless test run of this with the swine flu. This should have been fixed then. Then we had another warning with Ebola, still not fixed.

Obama saw this first hand TWICE and yet nothing was done.

Placing blame on a President that hasn't been in office for 4 years, while at the same time giving a pass to the President who has been there for the past 4 years, is blinded, head-in-the-sand thought process, and is probably a major reason why we've had such chaos with COVID-19. Trump said he would fix those things - it amounted to 100% of his campaign platform.

He has done nothing...

 

[BobbyFoosball]

Placing blame on a President that hasn't been in office for 4 years, while at the same time giving a pass to the President who has been there for the past 4 years, is blinded, head-in-the-sand thought process, and is probably a major reason why we've had such chaos with COVID-19. Trump said he would fix those things - it amounted to 100% of his campaign platform.

He has done nothing...

Nothing?

A pandemic that was projected to kill millions is now projected to kill about the same number of people as the seasonal flu, despite being lied to by China and the WHO and inheriting a complete shit system from his predecessor.

There was no plan in existence to handle what happened. No plan would anticipate China lying to the world and hoarding the supplies while it deliberately allowing it to spread to unsuspecting countries.

 

[uscg1984]

Easy, everyone, let's try to keep this one from going political so it doesn't fly completely off the rails.

First, while it's fine for us to pontificate, I think it's very important that any real assessment of what worked and didn't work be done when this thing is actually over. It's pretty hard to make an assessment in the middle of the action. There's probably a lot of fog of war right now, but that doesn't stop the talking heads from racing to give us all the answers - even when they reverse themselves a couple of days later.

As for the testing, my personal opinion is that there has been an over-emphasis on the testing. I'm not a researcher, but I just look at the numbers of the two countries who have done, by far, the most per-capita testing; Switzerland and Norway. Here are the numbers.

Switzerland: tests per million of population - 20,625
cases per million of population - 2779

Norway: tests per million - 22,362
cases per million - 1147

For comparison, here are our numbers and S. Korea's numbers:

USA: tests per million - 7109
cases per million - 1415

S. Korea: tests per million - 9310
cases per million - 203

Switzerland and Norway have tested twice as many per capita as S. Korea but haven't been nearly as successful as S. Korea at containing the virus. Heck, Switzerland has the 2nd highest infection rate in the world, behind only Spain.

One more country to look at is Japan. Japan has barely done any testing, but so far, they have kept the virus in check. It should be noted Japan is still fairly early in their battle with the virus, but they haven't yet seen the exponential increase in cases that most countries have been seeing within a couple of weeks of their first case.

Japan: tests per million - 486
cases per million - 37

 

[BobbyFoosball]

Show me the pictures of everyone in Switzerland walking around with masks in January.

 

[BobbyFoosball]

Japan on Jan 31st.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/01/31/national/coronavirus-japan-surgical-masks/#.Xo_BoshKiM8

 

[BobbyFoosball]

This virus was here on US soil almost a full month before anybody, including South Korea, was doing the testing that is being so widely praised.

Containing this over before it ever began.

 

[Freddie.B.Cocky]

What role did the lack of PPE’s and adequate testing have in flaming this pandemic? Without casting blame on anyone.

id say it had everything to do with it. Especially not being able to test appropriately ( really - even coming up with a test) was big . Lots of people coming off of planes, etc could have been tested and real time data would be available .

The fear set in with shortages of PPE . Especially when the “charts” showed woes case was horrific numbers. Rightfully so.

In my opinion that is what got us here today. House arrest and shut down.

looking forward. - in 30 days we should have enough PPE - more then enough to cover all 1st line of defense workers in every category. And that supply will will double or more every 30 days. This should be an issue going forward .

If you’re still with me. Here’s my 2nd question :
Why shouldn’t the economy open back up? With still staying cautious. Washing up, staying a distance from others , I think if we had ALL the tools in place that we have now, then we could have carried on as usual. Sure, people would have gotten sick but I don’t see it being unmanageable .

I’m not sure big events are ready to open and prob will not be until they get a vaccine or some type of self testing .

To me - this 6-18 more months just doesn’t make sense. I guess it would if I was a pandemic dr and looked at it as 1 death is too many. I don’t think that is reality.

I don't think the country can fully open back up until we get testing for everyone and N95 masks. At that point the country can come close to fully opening back up. But,it won't be completely opened imo until we get a vaccine. But we can get close to normal with testing for everyone and N95 masks.

 

[uscg1984]

Show me the pictures of everyone in Switzerland walking around with masks in January.

I would assume there aren't any, unless you're talking about ski masks. I don't think the Swiss have a reputation for wearing masks. No European nations do. And, so far, no European nation has come close to replicating S. Korea's success, regardless of testing.

That's why I think it will be interesting to watch Japan over the next month (they do wear masks).

 

[BobbyFoosball]

I would assume there aren't any, unless you're talking about ski masks. I don't think the Swiss have a reputation for wearing masks. No European nations do. And, so far, no European nation has come close to replicating S. Korea's success, regardless of testing.

That's why I think it will be interesting to watch Japan over the next month (they do wear masks).