No Lives Matter – Pandemic Nonsense

 

The novel coronavirus is a strange lurking but highly infectious agent; it absolutely affects different individuals in dramatically different ways. It can be a fearsome killer, crushing the life out of victims with intense pain and discomfort, crippling others with strained recoveries and often permanent impairments. Or nothing. No symptoms at all. As my August 16^th The COVID-19 Lottery blog makes perfectly clear, the 40% of those infected with COVID-19 who are asymptomatic are still carriers of the disease. Since identifying and isolating these secret carriers are obviously at the core of containing the virus; testing (and contact tracing) obviously need to be increased, probably exponentially. But if you believe in that GOP agenda of opening the economy wide now – damn the consequences – more testing is obviously going to identify more infections… and bad numbers make reopening the economy difficult to justify.

Think of all the college, primary and high schools that have opened up to in-person instruction, only to have accelerating new cases explode resulting in shutdowns or at least additional quarantines. Or those college students unable to resist maskless indoor partying. For states that care, a resurgence of COVID-19 infections is reason to slow down and perhaps retrench those reopenings. Like Hawaii: “Four weeks ago [end of July], Hawaii had a total of 1,688 confirmed coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic and was reporting an average of 45 new cases per day, according to an NBC News analysis. [Hawaii then lifted some of its travel restrictions.]

“Since then, the total number of COVID-19 cases has reached 6,700 and public health officials are now reporting around 200 new cases per day. During this time, the death toll has also nearly doubled, jumping from 26 to 49, the figures show… Hawaii is the latest state to see increases in cases; the Southern and the Sun Belt states have been experiencing an explosion of new cases and deaths in recent months following many reopening in May at the urging of President Donald Trump just as the pandemic was picking up steam in those areas.

“The death toll in the United States climbed to more than 180,000 Wednesday [8/26] and the number of confirmed cases was fast approaching 6 million, according to the latest NBC News figures. Both are world-leading numbers.

“While Hawaii’s numbers are low compared to the rest of the U.S., they have set off alarm bells and Gov. David Ige, a Democrat, has given the green light to a second ‘stay-at-home, work-from-home” order for the island of Oahu. It begins at 12:01 a.m. Thursday [8/27] and will remain in effect for two weeks.” NBC News, August 27^th.

It seems as if those silent carriers are indeed transmitting the virus, threatening the effort to reopen the economy to “normal,” a powerful push from Trump and the GOP who need the economy to at least look as if it were recovering before the November election. As has been the case with GOP states like Arizona and Florida, where right-wingers have reconfigured once reliable COVID-19 statistics into confusing and misleading presentations, the feds seem to have embraced that same philosophy under orders from the White House. The noble response would have been for the relevant medical experts to resign in protest, putting public health ahead of their government careers. They haven’t. Instead, they bowed to medically dangerous political pressure.

The federal government, even those trusted purportedly neutral federal medical agencies (like the Centers for Disease Control) noted above, is obviously intent on suppressing bad numbers, even if accurate numbers are the only current path to contain the pandemic. “Trump administration officials on Wednesday [8/26] defended a new recommendation that people without Covid-19 symptoms abstain from testing, even as scientists warned that the policy could hobble an already weak federal response as schools reopen and a potential fall wave looms.

“The day after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued the revised guidance, there were conflicting reports on who was responsible. [Despite denials] Two federal health officials said the shift came as a directive to the C.D.C. from higher-ups at the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services.” New York Times, August 26^th. The Republican Congress, reluctant to support workers staying home even in hot spots by providing continuing income support, has forced too many Americans back to jobs and school without remotely the necessary precautions or providing the costly support that school districts absolutely need to create any semblance of safety (if that is even possible in many venues). Standby for the second wave, even as we are watching re-escalating numbers in what’s left of the first wave.

So far, the smart play for states with higher infection and mortality rates is simply to ignore “all things Trump,” and that includes those once trustworthy federal agencies that are willing to bend to political pressure and reverse what they clearly stated earlier were necessary and prudent practices. There is no way to contain this pandemic until there is a widely available effective vaccine… without a uniform, actively enforced policy of containment, including mandatory wearing of masks where risks are present, safe distancing, exceptionally wide testing and contact tracing. The Trump administration, constantly touting unproven or even dangerous “treatments” and “cures,” opposes “all of the above.”

California, which the Trump GOP has labeled a rogue state of radical leftists, understands that to protect its residents, it must ignore this failing, Trump-mandated set of scientifically incorrect practices and guidelines. “The CDC is no longer recommending a 14-day quarantine for travelers. After the government issued a mandatory quarantine for travelers arriving in the U.S. from Wuhan, China, in February, the guidance that travelers isolate for two weeks was adopted by several states and encouraged by local officials as a key tool in mitigating the spread of the novel coronavirus — especially among people who may be asymptomatic.

“[California] Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday [8/26] said he disagrees with the CDC’s new guidance and insisted that it will not affect California… ‘I don’t agree with the new CDC guidance. Period. Full stop,’ he said. ‘We will not be influenced by that change.’

“Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said those traveling to places with high transmission rates should be mindful of the potential to contract the virus and expose others to it. She also reminded residents that L.A. County is a COVID-19 hot spot and that traveling from the community could present a risk to outsiders… ‘My message really is: Whether you’re flying or staying home, you need to be mindful that we have to reduce our transmission,’ she said. ‘The way we do that is by reducing exposure to other people.’

“The CDC also is no longer advising those without symptoms to be tested, even if they have been in contact with an infected person. Ferrer, however, said the county’s recommendation still stands: Anyone who has been exposed to someone with the virus should get tested and self-quarantine… ‘This is particularly important if a public health official or doctor tells you to get tested,’ she said.

“Newsom said Wednesday [8/26] that California had signed a contract with an East Coast medical diagnostics company to more than double the number of coronavirus tests that can be processed in the state, eventually expanding capacity to roughly a quarter of a million tests a day… Under the $1.4-billion agreement, a new Santa Clarita lab will be able to provide testing results within two days, far quicker than the average five- to seven-day processing times offered by other labs.

“The expanded testing capacity and quicker results will increase the ability of health officials to quickly isolate people who test positive for the virus and to track down and test those who came in contact with them, Newsom said, steps that are crucial to slowing the spread of COVID-19.” Los Angeles Times, August 27^th. We’re all in this together, except for that rather significant contingent of Trump believers who are not in it at all. See you in the second wave! The virus itself continues to be unimpressed with the politics of denial.

            I’m Peter Dekom, and we doomed ourselves to the worst possible COVID-19 outcome when we substituted mythology, denial and disbelief for medical reality and scientific facts.