Quote: @purplefaithful said:
Who will be first in line to get COVID-19 vaccine?By LAURAN NEERGAARD Associated PressAugust 3, 2020 — 8:56am
U.S. health authorities hope by late next month to have some draft guidance on how to ration initial doses, but it’s a vexing decision.
“Not everybody’s going to like the answer,” Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, recently told one of the advisory groups the government asked to help decide. “There will be many people who feel that they should have been at the top of the list.”
Traditionally, first in line for a scarce vaccine are health workers and the people most vulnerable to the targeted infection.
But Collins tossed new ideas into the mix: Consider geography and give priority to people where an outbreak is hitting hardest.
And don’t forget volunteers in the final stage of vaccine testing who get dummy shots, the comparison group needed to tell if the real shots truly work.
“We owe them ... some special priority,” Collins said.
Huge studies this summer aim to prove which of several experimental COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective. Moderna Inc. and Pfizer Inc. began tests last week that eventually will include 30,000 volunteers each; in the next few months, equally large calls for volunteers will go out to test shots made by AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Novavax. And some vaccines made in China are in smaller late-stage studies in other countries.
For all the promises of the U.S. stockpiling millions of doses, the hard truth: Even if a vaccine is declared safe and effective by year's end, there won’t be enough for everyone who wants it right away -- especially as most potential vaccines require two doses.
It’s a global dilemma. The World Health Organization is grappling with the same who-goes-first question as it tries to ensure vaccines are fairly distributed to poor countries -- decisions made even harder as wealthy nations corner the market for the first doses.
In the U.S., the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a group established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is supposed to recommend who to vaccinate and when -- advice that the government almost always follows.
But a COVID-19 vaccine decision is so tricky that this time around, ethicists and vaccine experts from the National Academy of Medicine, chartered by Congress to advise the government, are being asked to weigh in, too.
Setting priorities will require “creative, moral common sense,” said Bill Foege, who devised the vaccination strategy that led to global eradication of smallpox. Foege is co-leading the academy’s deliberations, calling it “both this opportunity and this burden.”
With vaccine misinformation abounding and fears that politics might intrude, CDC Director Robert Redfield said the public must see vaccine allocation as “equitable, fair and transparent.”
How to decide? The CDC’s opening suggestion: First vaccinate 12 million of the most critical health, national security and other essential workers. Next would be 110 million people at high risk from the coronavirus -- those over 65 who live in long-term care facilities, or those of any age who are in poor health -- or who also are deemed essential workers. The general population would come later.
CDC’s vaccine advisers wanted to know who’s really essential. “I wouldn’t consider myself a critical health care worker,” admitted Dr. Peter Szilagyi, a pediatrician at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Indeed, the risks for health workers today are far different than in the pandemic’s early days. Now, health workers in COVID-19 treatment units often are the best protected; others may be more at risk, committee members noted.
Beyond the health and security fields, does “essential” mean poultry plant workers or schoolteachers? And what if the vaccine doesn’t work as well among vulnerable populations as among younger, healthier people? It’s a real worry, given that older people’s immune systems don’t rev up as well to flu vaccine.
With Black, Latino and Native American populations disproportionately hit by the coronavirus, failing to address that diversity means “whatever comes out of our group will be looked at very suspiciously,” said ACIP chairman Dr. Jose Romero, Arkansas’ interim health secretary.
Consider the urban poor who live in crowded conditions, have less access to health care and can’t work from home like more privileged Americans, added Dr. Sharon Frey of St. Louis University.
And it may be worth vaccinating entire families rather than trying to single out just one high-risk person in a household, said Dr. Henry Bernstein of Northwell Health.
Whoever gets to go first, a mass vaccination campaign while people are supposed to be keeping their distance is a tall order. During the 2009 swine flu pandemic, families waited in long lines in parking lots and at health departments when their turn came up, crowding that authorities know they must avoid this time around.
Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s effort to speed vaccine manufacturing and distribution, is working out how to rapidly transport the right number of doses to wherever vaccinations are set to occur.
Drive-through vaccinations, pop-up clinics and other innovative ideas are all on the table, said CDC’s Dr. Nancy Messonnier.
As soon as a vaccine is declared effective, “we want to be able the next day, frankly, to start these programs,” Messonnier said. “It’s a long road.”
this is going to be a shit show IMO. there will be so many that want it right away and cant get it, so many that want nothing to do with it, but will have it shoved on them.... I dont see this going well at all. They mention lower class and minorities, which IMO makes sense, but in 10 years when they find out the antivirus is linked to finger nail fungus the story line will be how they were used as lab rats. I just doubt this rolls out as smooth as some are hoping.
Quote: @JimmyinSD said:
@ purplefaithful said:
Who will be first in line to get COVID-19 vaccine? By LAURAN NEERGAARD Associated PressAugust 3, 2020 — 8:56am
U.S. health authorities hope by late next month to have some draft guidance on how to ration initial doses, but it’s a vexing decision.
“Not everybody’s going to like the answer,” Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, recently told one of the advisory groups the government asked to help decide. “There will be many people who feel that they should have been at the top of the list.”
Traditionally, first in line for a scarce vaccine are health workers and the people most vulnerable to the targeted infection.
But Collins tossed new ideas into the mix: Consider geography and give priority to people where an outbreak is hitting hardest.
And don’t forget volunteers in the final stage of vaccine testing who get dummy shots, the comparison group needed to tell if the real shots truly work.
“We owe them ... some special priority,” Collins said.
Huge studies this summer aim to prove which of several experimental COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective. Moderna Inc. and Pfizer Inc. began tests last week that eventually will include 30,000 volunteers each; in the next few months, equally large calls for volunteers will go out to test shots made by AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Novavax. And some vaccines made in China are in smaller late-stage studies in other countries.
For all the promises of the U.S. stockpiling millions of doses, the hard truth: Even if a vaccine is declared safe and effective by year's end, there won’t be enough for everyone who wants it right away -- especially as most potential vaccines require two doses.
It’s a global dilemma. The World Health Organization is grappling with the same who-goes-first question as it tries to ensure vaccines are fairly distributed to poor countries -- decisions made even harder as wealthy nations corner the market for the first doses.
In the U.S., the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a group established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is supposed to recommend who to vaccinate and when -- advice that the government almost always follows.
But a COVID-19 vaccine decision is so tricky that this time around, ethicists and vaccine experts from the National Academy of Medicine, chartered by Congress to advise the government, are being asked to weigh in, too.
Setting priorities will require “creative, moral common sense,” said Bill Foege, who devised the vaccination strategy that led to global eradication of smallpox. Foege is co-leading the academy’s deliberations, calling it “both this opportunity and this burden.”
With vaccine misinformation abounding and fears that politics might intrude, CDC Director Robert Redfield said the public must see vaccine allocation as “equitable, fair and transparent.”
How to decide? The CDC’s opening suggestion: First vaccinate 12 million of the most critical health, national security and other essential workers. Next would be 110 million people at high risk from the coronavirus -- those over 65 who live in long-term care facilities, or those of any age who are in poor health -- or who also are deemed essential workers. The general population would come later.
CDC’s vaccine advisers wanted to know who’s really essential. “I wouldn’t consider myself a critical health care worker,” admitted Dr. Peter Szilagyi, a pediatrician at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Indeed, the risks for health workers today are far different than in the pandemic’s early days. Now, health workers in COVID-19 treatment units often are the best protected; others may be more at risk, committee members noted.
Beyond the health and security fields, does “essential” mean poultry plant workers or schoolteachers? And what if the vaccine doesn’t work as well among vulnerable populations as among younger, healthier people? It’s a real worry, given that older people’s immune systems don’t rev up as well to flu vaccine.
With Black, Latino and Native American populations disproportionately hit by the coronavirus, failing to address that diversity means “whatever comes out of our group will be looked at very suspiciously,” said ACIP chairman Dr. Jose Romero, Arkansas’ interim health secretary.
Consider the urban poor who live in crowded conditions, have less access to health care and can’t work from home like more privileged Americans, added Dr. Sharon Frey of St. Louis University.
And it may be worth vaccinating entire families rather than trying to single out just one high-risk person in a household, said Dr. Henry Bernstein of Northwell Health.
Whoever gets to go first, a mass vaccination campaign while people are supposed to be keeping their distance is a tall order. During the 2009 swine flu pandemic, families waited in long lines in parking lots and at health departments when their turn came up, crowding that authorities know they must avoid this time around.
Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s effort to speed vaccine manufacturing and distribution, is working out how to rapidly transport the right number of doses to wherever vaccinations are set to occur.
Drive-through vaccinations, pop-up clinics and other innovative ideas are all on the table, said CDC’s Dr. Nancy Messonnier.
As soon as a vaccine is declared effective, “we want to be able the next day, frankly, to start these programs,” Messonnier said. “It’s a long road.”
this is going to be a shit show IMO. there will be so many that want it right away and cant get it, so many that want nothing to do with it, but will have it shoved on them.... I dont see this going well at all. They mention lower class and minorities, which IMO makes sense, but in 10 years when they find out the antivirus is linked to finger nail fungus the story line will be how they were used as lab rats. I just doubt this rolls out as smooth as some are hoping.
Now, now that's awfully pessimistic...
I have complete faith in the citizens of this great country to act like adults & keep politics out of it :p
Quote: @purplefaithful said:
@ JimmyinSD said:
@ purplefaithful said:
Who will be first in line to get COVID-19 vaccine? By LAURAN NEERGAARD Associated PressAugust 3, 2020 — 8:56am
U.S. health authorities hope by late next month to have some draft guidance on how to ration initial doses, but it’s a vexing decision.
“Not everybody’s going to like the answer,” Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, recently told one of the advisory groups the government asked to help decide. “There will be many people who feel that they should have been at the top of the list.”
Traditionally, first in line for a scarce vaccine are health workers and the people most vulnerable to the targeted infection.
But Collins tossed new ideas into the mix: Consider geography and give priority to people where an outbreak is hitting hardest.
And don’t forget volunteers in the final stage of vaccine testing who get dummy shots, the comparison group needed to tell if the real shots truly work.
“We owe them ... some special priority,” Collins said.
Huge studies this summer aim to prove which of several experimental COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective. Moderna Inc. and Pfizer Inc. began tests last week that eventually will include 30,000 volunteers each; in the next few months, equally large calls for volunteers will go out to test shots made by AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Novavax. And some vaccines made in China are in smaller late-stage studies in other countries.
For all the promises of the U.S. stockpiling millions of doses, the hard truth: Even if a vaccine is declared safe and effective by year's end, there won’t be enough for everyone who wants it right away -- especially as most potential vaccines require two doses.
It’s a global dilemma. The World Health Organization is grappling with the same who-goes-first question as it tries to ensure vaccines are fairly distributed to poor countries -- decisions made even harder as wealthy nations corner the market for the first doses.
In the U.S., the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a group established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is supposed to recommend who to vaccinate and when -- advice that the government almost always follows.
But a COVID-19 vaccine decision is so tricky that this time around, ethicists and vaccine experts from the National Academy of Medicine, chartered by Congress to advise the government, are being asked to weigh in, too.
Setting priorities will require “creative, moral common sense,” said Bill Foege, who devised the vaccination strategy that led to global eradication of smallpox. Foege is co-leading the academy’s deliberations, calling it “both this opportunity and this burden.”
With vaccine misinformation abounding and fears that politics might intrude, CDC Director Robert Redfield said the public must see vaccine allocation as “equitable, fair and transparent.”
How to decide? The CDC’s opening suggestion: First vaccinate 12 million of the most critical health, national security and other essential workers. Next would be 110 million people at high risk from the coronavirus -- those over 65 who live in long-term care facilities, or those of any age who are in poor health -- or who also are deemed essential workers. The general population would come later.
CDC’s vaccine advisers wanted to know who’s really essential. “I wouldn’t consider myself a critical health care worker,” admitted Dr. Peter Szilagyi, a pediatrician at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Indeed, the risks for health workers today are far different than in the pandemic’s early days. Now, health workers in COVID-19 treatment units often are the best protected; others may be more at risk, committee members noted.
Beyond the health and security fields, does “essential” mean poultry plant workers or schoolteachers? And what if the vaccine doesn’t work as well among vulnerable populations as among younger, healthier people? It’s a real worry, given that older people’s immune systems don’t rev up as well to flu vaccine.
With Black, Latino and Native American populations disproportionately hit by the coronavirus, failing to address that diversity means “whatever comes out of our group will be looked at very suspiciously,” said ACIP chairman Dr. Jose Romero, Arkansas’ interim health secretary.
Consider the urban poor who live in crowded conditions, have less access to health care and can’t work from home like more privileged Americans, added Dr. Sharon Frey of St. Louis University.
And it may be worth vaccinating entire families rather than trying to single out just one high-risk person in a household, said Dr. Henry Bernstein of Northwell Health.
Whoever gets to go first, a mass vaccination campaign while people are supposed to be keeping their distance is a tall order. During the 2009 swine flu pandemic, families waited in long lines in parking lots and at health departments when their turn came up, crowding that authorities know they must avoid this time around.
Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s effort to speed vaccine manufacturing and distribution, is working out how to rapidly transport the right number of doses to wherever vaccinations are set to occur.
Drive-through vaccinations, pop-up clinics and other innovative ideas are all on the table, said CDC’s Dr. Nancy Messonnier.
As soon as a vaccine is declared effective, “we want to be able the next day, frankly, to start these programs,” Messonnier said. “It’s a long road.”
this is going to be a shit show IMO. there will be so many that want it right away and cant get it, so many that want nothing to do with it, but will have it shoved on them.... I dont see this going well at all. They mention lower class and minorities, which IMO makes sense, but in 10 years when they find out the antivirus is linked to finger nail fungus the story line will be how they were used as lab rats. I just doubt this rolls out as smooth as some are hoping.
Now, now that's awfully pessimistic...
I have complete faith in the citizens of this great country to act like adults & keep politics out of it :p
me? pessimistic? how dare you... oh wait, we've actually met havent we?
Quote: @purplefaithful said:
Who will be first in line to get COVID-19 vaccine?By LAURAN NEERGAARD Associated PressAugust 3, 2020 — 8:56am
U.S. health authorities hope by late next month to have some draft guidance on how to ration initial doses, but it’s a vexing decision.
“Not everybody’s going to like the answer,” Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, recently told one of the advisory groups the government asked to help decide. “There will be many people who feel that they should have been at the top of the list.”
Traditionally, first in line for a scarce vaccine are health workers and the people most vulnerable to the targeted infection.
But Collins tossed new ideas into the mix: Consider geography and give priority to people where an outbreak is hitting hardest.
And don’t forget volunteers in the final stage of vaccine testing who get dummy shots, the comparison group needed to tell if the real shots truly work.
“We owe them ... some special priority,” Collins said.
Huge studies this summer aim to prove which of several experimental COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective. Moderna Inc. and Pfizer Inc. began tests last week that eventually will include 30,000 volunteers each; in the next few months, equally large calls for volunteers will go out to test shots made by AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Novavax. And some vaccines made in China are in smaller late-stage studies in other countries.
For all the promises of the U.S. stockpiling millions of doses, the hard truth: Even if a vaccine is declared safe and effective by year's end, there won’t be enough for everyone who wants it right away -- especially as most potential vaccines require two doses.
It’s a global dilemma. The World Health Organization is grappling with the same who-goes-first question as it tries to ensure vaccines are fairly distributed to poor countries -- decisions made even harder as wealthy nations corner the market for the first doses.
In the U.S., the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a group established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is supposed to recommend who to vaccinate and when -- advice that the government almost always follows.
But a COVID-19 vaccine decision is so tricky that this time around, ethicists and vaccine experts from the National Academy of Medicine, chartered by Congress to advise the government, are being asked to weigh in, too.
Setting priorities will require “creative, moral common sense,” said Bill Foege, who devised the vaccination strategy that led to global eradication of smallpox. Foege is co-leading the academy’s deliberations, calling it “both this opportunity and this burden.”
With vaccine misinformation abounding and fears that politics might intrude, CDC Director Robert Redfield said the public must see vaccine allocation as “equitable, fair and transparent.”
How to decide? The CDC’s opening suggestion: First vaccinate 12 million of the most critical health, national security and other essential workers. Next would be 110 million people at high risk from the coronavirus -- those over 65 who live in long-term care facilities, or those of any age who are in poor health -- or who also are deemed essential workers. The general population would come later.
CDC’s vaccine advisers wanted to know who’s really essential. “I wouldn’t consider myself a critical health care worker,” admitted Dr. Peter Szilagyi, a pediatrician at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Indeed, the risks for health workers today are far different than in the pandemic’s early days. Now, health workers in COVID-19 treatment units often are the best protected; others may be more at risk, committee members noted.
Beyond the health and security fields, does “essential” mean poultry plant workers or schoolteachers? And what if the vaccine doesn’t work as well among vulnerable populations as among younger, healthier people? It’s a real worry, given that older people’s immune systems don’t rev up as well to flu vaccine.
With Black, Latino and Native American populations disproportionately hit by the coronavirus, failing to address that diversity means “whatever comes out of our group will be looked at very suspiciously,” said ACIP chairman Dr. Jose Romero, Arkansas’ interim health secretary.
Consider the urban poor who live in crowded conditions, have less access to health care and can’t work from home like more privileged Americans, added Dr. Sharon Frey of St. Louis University.
And it may be worth vaccinating entire families rather than trying to single out just one high-risk person in a household, said Dr. Henry Bernstein of Northwell Health.
Whoever gets to go first, a mass vaccination campaign while people are supposed to be keeping their distance is a tall order. During the 2009 swine flu pandemic, families waited in long lines in parking lots and at health departments when their turn came up, crowding that authorities know they must avoid this time around.
Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s effort to speed vaccine manufacturing and distribution, is working out how to rapidly transport the right number of doses to wherever vaccinations are set to occur.
Drive-through vaccinations, pop-up clinics and other innovative ideas are all on the table, said CDC’s Dr. Nancy Messonnier.
As soon as a vaccine is declared effective, “we want to be able the next day, frankly, to start these programs,” Messonnier said. “It’s a long road.”
I'm thinking Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are first in line then NBA players.
Interesting consumer behaviors from people and parents as the pandemic continues.
Minnesota parents rush to create 'learning pods' for distance learningThe groups may help some families but also raise questions about educational equity.Once she found out that Minneapolis Public Schools would be starting the year with online learning, Katy Armendariz started texting two other families about how they could get through it together.They decided to form a “learning pod” for their children and hire a part-time teacher to help.
The pod of six to seven students, the parents hope, will allow for some social- and group-learning experiences while providing the supervision and child care necessary to allow them to continue their own work.
“We needed a plan,” Armendariz said. “We wanted to try to find someone to help.”
In Minnesota and nationwide, parents are rushing to hire teachers and form such pods, similar to models that some home-schoolers use.
In addition to a growing number of Facebook groups, sites like PodUp and apps like ThankPod! are connecting parents looking to form a learning or play group during the pandemic.
Some of the families are pulling their children out of public schools in favor of a private education at home, while others are seeking hired help to support and supplement the online curriculum provided by the schools.
But the sudden rise of the student groups is raising questions about how the pandemic could widen the achievement gap and contribute to educational inequities between families who can afford more educational support and those who can’t.
That divide was quickly obvious to Heidi Fuhr, a full-time substitute teacher for Minneapolis Public Schools.
She turned to Facebook after Minneapolis’ announcement of the distance-learning plan sent her scrambling for other jobs.
When she asked if anyone was looking to hire an educator to assist with virtual lessons, she received dozens of inquiries from families forming learning pods — some of them offering $50 per hour.
“It’s heartbreaking,” she said. “I’m thinking a lot about my usual students in [north Minneapolis].
I worry they are going to be left behind. Their families maybe can’t afford tutors, and the parents might not even be home during the daytime to help if they are going to work.”
That’s something on Armendariz’s mind, too.
“I just think about the disparities that will come out of this,” she said.
In a statement, officials with Minneapolis Public Schools said they are aware families are all making decisions about how to supplement distance learning.
“Inevitably, this will lead to different outcomes between students who have access to those resources and those who don’t,” the statement read.
“This already happened before distance learning when families had resources to provide tutoring or other support for their children.”
The schools alone cannot solve “a societal issue that reflects the systemic inequities facing underserved families,” the statement said.
Amanda Sullivan, a professor of education leadership and school-psychology program coordinator at the University of Minnesota, said learning pods are “inherently exclusionary” and will “further harm students who have been and will continue to be marginalized” in the education system.
Rebecca Gilgen, who is planning what she calls a microschool with a handful of other parents of first-graders in Minneapolis, said most of the families she’s connected with are in need of child care.
She wishes school districts could provide more support and advice for the learning pods that are forming and find ways to focus on students who might not have that extra support.
“I think the state needs to provide more resources so that districts can work in innovative ways to respond to child care needs,” she said.
Jeanine Hill, a mother of four in Circle Pines, is also organizing a microschool that may include up to a half-dozen families in the Centennial School District, which will start the year in a hybrid model combining distance and in-person learning.
As an African American woman with a degree in elementary education, Hill said she immediately thought of disparities when she heard about the movement toward learning pods with hired teachers.
She reached out to other moms and offered to lead the group.
“Microschooling does not have to be something that is about money,” she said.
“If moms get together, we can still experience something an affluent family can, while experiencing it with a sense of community and support.”
Emily Benson, a mother of two boys, created a Facebook group to help find a pod for her two sons, ages 3 ½ and 6. Within 24 hours, the group had 66 members.
Benson would like to connect with parents who have taken extra precautions against COVID exposure, as her own family has. She’s met up with a couple families to find the right fit.
“It honestly feels like online dating, just trying to find the right match for play dates,” she said.
“It’s such a weird time to be a parent."
https://www.startribune.com/minnesota-pa...572032192/
Sad and a reminder how you just can't let your guard down - ever...
Grieving Minnesota family overwhelmed after funeral leads to COVID-19 outbreakThirty were infected, five hospitalized after services in Becker County in July.They gathered on a summer weekend in the small northwestern Minnesota town of Lake Park to pay their respects to 78-year-old Francis Perreault and share their grief and memories of the good times.
They hugged. They cried. They held hands and prayed and honored a man who was described by his daughter as “wonderful.”
Yet despite wearing masks and taking precautions, 30 family members became infected with COVID-19 within weeks of the mid-July services at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church, and five became so sick they were hospitalized.
“We tried to do everything right, but of course when you’re grieving, you let your guard down,” said Stephanie Schindler, Perreault’s daughter. “One of my friends that got sick was wearing a mask the whole time. But of course when you’re crying, you’re going to be rubbing your face.”
Schindler said the attendees did a good job observing precautions during the services, but discipline broke down afterward as people cried, hugged and held hands to pray. Even amid a pandemic, the natural human instinct to comfort one another is strong.
“I think it’s part of the process of coming to terms with things,” Schindler said. “It’s closure for the living and support for each other.”
Painful as it may be, it’s probably a good idea not to have such family gatherings during the pandemic, said Doug Schultz, a spokesman for the Minnesota Department of Health.
“All of us at the department, from the leadership down to the individuals working the front lines, understand people’s need to have gatherings like funerals and weddings and graduation parties,” Schultz said. “As the governor has said, it pains us all to see that it’s probably not a good idea to have those gatherings. And it pains us to see Minnesotans not having these important rites of passage. But COVID-19 is still very much with us. The pandemic is still very much with us. And so gatherings like these do pose a risk.”
Perreault suffered from Parkinson’s disease and several strokes, so his death didn’t come as a shock to the family, Schindler said Thursday.
“We were at peace with that. But then this aftermath happened, and that has been harder for us to come to terms with,” she said. “I’m kind of overwhelmed.”
Schindler said several of those hospitalized have since been released, though she couldn’t give an exact update on all involved. But the illnesses have brought home the reality that COVID-19 is a threat even in sparsely populated settings in rural Minnesota, she said.
“I think in a rural area, you have to be aware that if you have people coming from out of state or even interstate — places different from your own home — you are going to share that space and the germs are gonna fly,” she said. “I just have to caution people about — please be careful. Even in this rural area, there is still COVID.”
Among Minnesota’s 87 counties, Becker County is in the middle of the pack for COVID-19 infections, with a rate of 45 per 10,000 residents. The statewide rate is 109 cases per 10,000 residents, according to data released Thursday by the Health Department.
As Schindler talked about the virus, she reflected on her father.
“He was very trustworthy, constant in the family, believer in Jesus,” she said. “He was a hard worker — believed you just keep going.”
That’s what family members will have to do now as they cope with their loss and the health troubles that followed.
“What’s done is done. We have to go forward, we have to grieve,” Schindler said. “We have to pray for each other and raise each other up with support.”
https://www.startribune.com/minn-family-...572031812/
Here’s How to Crush the Virus Until Vaccines ArriveTo save lives, and save the economy, we need another lockdown.By Michael T. Osterholm and Neel Kashkari
Aug. 7, 2020
In just weeks we could almost stop the viral fire that has swept across this country over the past six months and continues to rage out of control. It will require sacrifice but save many thousands of lives.
We believe the choice is clear. We can continue to allow the coronavirus to spread rapidly throughout the country or we can commit to a more restrictive lockdown, state by state, for up to six weeks to crush the spread of the virus to less than one new case per 100,000 people per day.
That’s the point at which we will be able to limit the increase in new cases through aggressive public health measures, just as other countries have done. But we’re a long way from there right now.
The imperative for this is clear because as a nation what we have done so far hasn’t worked. Some 160,000 people have died, and in recent days, roughly a thousand have died a day. An estimated 30 million Americans are collecting unemployment.
On Jan. 30, when the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a public health emergency, there were 9,439 reported cases worldwide, most in China, and only six reported cases in the United States.
On July 30, six months later, there were 17 million cases reported worldwide, including 676,000 deaths. The United States had four million reported cases and 155,000 deaths. More than a third of all U.S. cases occurred during July alone.
And the next six months could make what we have experienced so far seem like just a warm-up to a greater catastrophe. With many schools and colleges starting, stores and businesses reopening, and the beginning of the indoor heating season, new case numbers will grow quickly.
Why did the United States’ Covid-19 containment response fail, particularly compared with the successful results of so many nations in Asia, Europe and even our neighbor Canada?
Simply, we gave up on our lockdown efforts to control virus transmission well before the virus was under control. Many other countries didn’t let up until the number of cases was greatly reduced, even in places that had extensive outbreaks in March and April. Once the number of new cases in those areas was driven to less than one per 100,000 people per day as a result of their lockdowns, limiting the increase of new cases was possible with a combination of testing, contact tracing, case isolation and extensive monitoring of positive tests.
The United States recorded its lowest seven-day average since March 31 on May 28, when it was 21,000 cases, or 6.4 new cases per 100,000 people per day. This rate was seven to 10 times higher than the rates in countries that successfully contained their new infections. While many countries are now experiencing modest flare-ups of the virus, their case loads are in the hundreds or low thousands of infections per day, not tens of thousands, and small enough that public health officials can largely control the spread.
In contrast, the United States reopened too quickly and is now experiencing around 50,000 or more new cases per day.
While cases are falling in the hard-hit areas of Arizona, California, Florida and Texas because of the imposition of some physical-distancing measures, they are rapidly increasing in a few of Midwestern states. In Minnesota, we just documented the most new cases in a one-week period since the pandemic began.
At this level of national cases — 17 new cases per 100,000 people per day — we simply don’t have the public health tools to bring the pandemic under control. Our testing capacity is overwhelmed in many areas, resulting in delays that make contact tracing and other measures to control the virus virtually impossible.
Don’t confuse short-term case reductions in some states as permanent. We made that mistake before. Some have claimed that the widespread use of masks is enough to control the pandemic, but let us face reality: Gov. Gavin Newsom of California issued a public masking mandate on June 18, a day when 3,700 cases were reported in the state. On July 25, the seven-day daily case average was 10,231. We support the wearing of masks by all Americans, but masking mandates and soft limitations on indoor crowds in places such as bars and restaurants are not enough to control this pandemic.
To successfully drive down our case rate to less than one per 100,000 people per day, we should mandate sheltering in place for everyone but the truly essential workers. By that, we mean people must stay at home and leave only for essential reasons: food shopping and visits to doctors and pharmacies while wearing masks and washing hands frequently. According to the Economic Policy Institute, 39 percent of workers in the United States are in essential categories. The problem with the March-to-May lockdown was that it was not uniformly stringent across the country. For example, Minnesota deemed 78 percent of its workers essential. To be effective, the lockdown has to be as comprehensive and strict as possible
If we aren’t willing to take this action, millions more cases with many more deaths are likely before a vaccine might be available. In addition, the economic recovery will be much slower, with far more business failures and high unemployment for the next year or two. The path of the virus will determine the path of the economy. There won’t be a robust economic recovery until we get control of the virus.
If we do this aggressively, the testing and tracing capacity we’ve built will support reopening the economy as other countries have done, allow children to go back to school and citizens to vote in person in November. All of this will lead to a stronger, faster economic recovery, moving people from unemployment to work.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/07/opini...death.html
Michael T. Osterholm is a professor and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. Neel Kashkariis president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
New Zealand marks 100 days of virus elimination By NICK PERRY Associated PressAugust 9, 2020 — 11:48pm
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealand on Sunday marked 100 days since it stamped out the spread of the coronavirus, a rare bright spot in a world that continues to be ravaged by the disease.
Life has returned to normal for many people in the South Pacific nation of 5 million, as they attend rugby games at packed stadiums and sit down in bars and restaurants without the fear of getting infected. But some worry the country may be getting complacent and not preparing well enough for any future outbreaks.
New Zealand got rid of the virus by imposing a strict lockdown in late March when only about 100 people had tested positive for the disease. That stopped its spread. For the past three months, the only new cases have been a handful of returning travelers who have been quarantined at the border.
“It was good science and great political leadership that made the difference,” said professor Michael Baker, an epidemiologist at the University of Otago. “If you look around the globe at countries that have done well, it's usually that combination.”
From early on, New Zealand pursued a bold strategy of eliminating the virus rather than just suppressing its spread. Baker said other countries are increasingly looking to New Zealand for answers.
“The whole Western World has terribly mismanaged this threat, and they're realizing this now,” Baker said
https://www.startribune.com/new-zealand-...572055772/
Not sure how this country would fare economically with another complete shutdown. And that doesn't touch how it would be handled mentally. Here's what I do know: all of these kids going back to school and college physically is going to be a shit-show. College kids are going to party, you won't stop them and they'll gather in large groups. Younger kids at school are not going to be vigilant about anything: they are kids. I've already seen the picture from the school in Georgia where the kids were crammed like sardines in the hallways.
Quote: @purplefaithful said:
New Zealand marks 100 days of virus eliminationBy NICK PERRY Associated PressAugust 9, 2020 — 11:48pm
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealand on Sunday marked 100 days since it stamped out the spread of the coronavirus, a rare bright spot in a world that continues to be ravaged by the disease.
Life has returned to normal for many people in the South Pacific nation of 5 million, as they attend rugby games at packed stadiums and sit down in bars and restaurants without the fear of getting infected. But some worry the country may be getting complacent and not preparing well enough for any future outbreaks.
New Zealand got rid of the virus by imposing a strict lockdown in late March when only about 100 people had tested positive for the disease. That stopped its spread. For the past three months, the only new cases have been a handful of returning travelers who have been quarantined at the border.
“It was good science and great political leadership that made the difference,” said professor Michael Baker, an epidemiologist at the University of Otago. “If you look around the globe at countries that have done well, it's usually that combination.”
From early on, New Zealand pursued a bold strategy of eliminating the virus rather than just suppressing its spread. Baker said other countries are increasingly looking to New Zealand for answers.
“The whole Western World has terribly mismanaged this threat, and they're realizing this now,” Baker said
https://www.startribune.com/new-zealand-...572055772/
New Zealand has 5 million people.....Los Angeles alone has 20 million. Kudos for them taking care of it, but we have state by state regulations (hell, city by city, county by county). Its not an apples for apples comparison logistically.
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