OT: Coronavirus

@"bigbone62" said:

@"Hidalgo" said: This is from a co-worker that tested positive: Words from the IDPH. The organization that is supposed to care about our health, is also the same organization that is telling my fiancé that he can go back to work tomorrow.... as a CNA... at a NURSING HOME!!! Because the “health care workers are exceptions to the Health department’s rules” “As long as he doesn’t have a fever, he’s fine” (even though I never had a temp over 99.7) Even though he is a household contact with a positive COVID-19 case (me) and my symptoms aren’t gone, and the health department recommended he stayed in quarantine. Is the state really protecting the vulnerable? The at risk? Shouldn’t health care workers be isolated LONGER, not shorter? Especially when they’re around ELDERLY PEOPLE! The symptoms, the regulations, the “numbers” and predictions have been contradicting this whole time.

If healthcare workers were not the exceptions to these rules far more than just people who catch COVID-19 would be dying off. If everyone of my co-workers or myself stayed home and quarantined because we were exposed to someone with it there wouldn't be anyone running the hospitals or clinics.  Company policy dictates a specific department reaches out to employees to inform them they have been exposed to someone with COVID-19. People now send those calls direct to VM and delete messages without listening because there isn't enough time to do the job and waste time talking to HR.

@"JimmyinSD" said:

@"purplefaithful" said: A VERY GOOD interview with Michael Osterholm Infectious Disease Expert. This is just a part of it (link below)

=============================

BERGEN: What should that long-term strategy look like?

OSTERHOLM: The first step is to acknowledge the need for a long-term strategy. We're so focused on "the here and now" of this issue -- the idea of just getting over this wave and flattening this curve. And I agree with that. It's an immediate issue, particularly if you are in one of the places that's on fire right now like New York, Detroit, Chicago, New Orleans. But people have handled these local hot spots almost like they were faced with a hurricane that has now made landfall. Now we can get into remediation and recovery from this first round of crisis. 

So, the first thing we need is a plan. That's critical.

The second thing we need to address is: What is our long-term strategy? I believe we have really two choices at the edges and some additional options in between. One choice is to try to lock down our society and economy like Wuhan did. Most of us understand that adopting that approach means we're not only destroying the economy but also destroying society as we know it.

The other alternative is to let viral transmission go willy-nilly until it burns through the population. I am strongly against that approach for two reasons. First, that would mean we could potentially experience millions of deaths just in the United States. It would bring down our health care system as we know it; it would mean severely compromised care for Covid-19 patients and fewer care options for anyone else with other serious health issue such as a heart attack, acute asthma attack, cancer or an injury from an accident. So, that is not a viable alternative.

There's got to be an approach in the middle. I call it "threading the rope through the needle," where we open our economy and everyday life in a way that is capable of rapidly detecting the emergence of new waves of infection. Then we do whatever we can again with physical distancing to limit the new infection's spread.

By the way, I find the term "social distancing" unfortunate. It is physical distancing that we need in order to stop the virus transmission.

Let's never social distance. Let's try in our modern age of the Internet, to do a better job with staying social.So how do we get the younger, otherwise healthy demographic back to work, a group we know will be at much lower risk of serious disease and death if they get infected? How do we bring a substantial number of these individuals back into society and at the same time try to protect those who have the highest risk of a severe outcome?

 Remember we have to get them through the next 16 to 20 months, or until we get a safe and effective vaccine. 

For those who are vulnerable, it is imperative that we minimize the risk of infection and the likelihood of ending up in a hospital and dying. And please know this approach will never be perfect; some younger people will get sick and even die. But the rate of serious illness and deaths will be many times lower for the young than for older individuals or those with underlying health risk factors. 

Our strategy can't be the outcomes of day-to-day press conferences. It can't be 30-day plans to "social" or "physically" distance. It's got to address how we're going to incorporate day-to-day prevention actions, and what we ask the public to do must be realistic. 

For example, everybody wants to do widescale coronavirus testing today. Talking heads without any experience in testing declare, "We'll test millions of people each week, and then we'll know who is infected and can follow up." Very few people realize that the testing community in this country can't do that. We don't have adequate international manufacturing capacity and supply chains for reagents, the chemicals needed to run these tests.

The reagent capability -- meaning securing those chemicals that are key for running many of these tests, whether you're testing for virus or antibody -- before the pandemic was more or less, adequately supported by a "garden hose of production." Then Covid-19 came along and the Asian countries, specifically China, demanded a major increase in reagent supplies.

No matter how you slice it, on the most basic back-of-the-envelope estimate, this is a really bad situation.

Finally, the whole world caught the pandemic, and now there are billions of people who need to be tested. We need a firehose to meet that demand but we can't build reagent manufacturing facilities overnight. I urge that whatever we do going forward has to be based on reality. We're not going to test your way out of this thing when we don't have tests. 

I paraphrase a quote from former US Secretary of Defense (Donald) Rumsfeld who said, "When you go to war, you don't get to go with what you want. You have to go with what you have." 

So, we're going to have this reagent issue for some time to come, and we must understand that and come up with a plan based on reality. 

Entire Interview Here:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/21/opinions/bergen-osterholm-interview-two-opinion/index.html

pretty much echos what I have read and what needs to be understood by all.

1. Controlled reopening of economy with a plan in place for rapid responses and re-closures of the micro breakouts (like in Sioux Falls or similar situations)
2. Law of average testing,  the tests need to be done randomly and use math to calculate out from there the potential for any given area or demographic.
3. Most imporantly,  this thing isnt going away until an anti virus is discovered, developed, and mass distributed,  we are going to live with this thing for at a minimum of another 12 months and most likely more.  Start to return to life but a new normal must be established to maintain the safe spacing and other practices we are currently doing.

@"bigbone62" said:

@"JimmyinSD" said:

@"bigbone62" said:

@"Hidalgo" said: This is from a co-worker that tested positive: Words from the IDPH. The organization that is supposed to care about our health, is also the same organization that is telling my fiancé that he can go back to work tomorrow.... as a CNA... at a NURSING HOME!!! Because the “health care workers are exceptions to the Health department’s rules” “As long as he doesn’t have a fever, he’s fine” (even though I never had a temp over 99.7) Even though he is a household contact with a positive COVID-19 case (me) and my symptoms aren’t gone, and the health department recommended he stayed in quarantine. Is the state really protecting the vulnerable? The at risk? Shouldn’t health care workers be isolated LONGER, not shorter? Especially when they’re around ELDERLY PEOPLE! The symptoms, the regulations, the “numbers” and predictions have been contradicting this whole time.

If healthcare workers were not the exceptions to these rules far more than just people who catch COVID-19 would be dying off. If everyone of my co-workers or myself stayed home and quarantined because we were exposed to someone with it there wouldn't be anyone running the hospitals or clinics.  Company policy dictates a specific department reaches out to employees to inform them they have been exposed to someone with COVID-19. People now send those calls direct to VM and delete messages without listening because there isn't enough time to do the job and waste time talking to HR.

valid point,   I would wonder if nursing home workers should be the exception though.  most all NHs have been on lock down for a while now and have taken extreme precautions to keep their employees clear and their inmates safe (I cant remember what people that live there are called)  I can see in hospital or clinical settings telling the staff to keep coming to work as long as they are able because that is where everybody is pretty much exposed,  but I would still think staff at dedicated nursing homes would be self reporting and be told to quarantine if they know they have been exposed.

I think people would be floored if they knew how many nursing homes and RCF's are essentially hiding outbreaks (3 or more clients or staff is an outbreak). A local RCF announced several weeks ago there was an outbreak. Announcement was on a Thursday, that following Monday it was given the all clear because the impacted patients and one staff had been been quarantined for 2 plus weeks at that point and were either symptom free or moved. So that means they sat on it for 1.5 weeks before telling the public. Same thing happened at 2 nursing homes near us.

That said same thing applies for nursing homes as hospitals and clinics, if people didn't come in due to exposure there wouldn't be the people to do the work. Its hard enough to staff nursing homes that are county run or for low income clients. Which is were a lot of these national outbreaks are happening. Now try and find staff when there are rampant reports of nationwide outbreaks in nursing homes and you are hiring them because you have a staff storage due to COVID-19 quarantining. Obviously in nursing homes as with hospitals and clinics there are none essential employees that self reporting and staying home can work with.  

@"purplefaithful" said:

@"JimmyinSD" said:

@"purplefaithful" said: A VERY GOOD interview with Michael Osterholm Infectious Disease Expert. This is just a part of it (link below)

=============================

BERGEN: What should that long-term strategy look like?

OSTERHOLM: The first step is to acknowledge the need for a long-term strategy. We're so focused on "the here and now" of this issue -- the idea of just getting over this wave and flattening this curve. And I agree with that. It's an immediate issue, particularly if you are in one of the places that's on fire right now like New York, Detroit, Chicago, New Orleans. But people have handled these local hot spots almost like they were faced with a hurricane that has now made landfall. Now we can get into remediation and recovery from this first round of crisis. 

So, the first thing we need is a plan. That's critical.

The second thing we need to address is: What is our long-term strategy? I believe we have really two choices at the edges and some additional options in between. One choice is to try to lock down our society and economy like Wuhan did. Most of us understand that adopting that approach means we're not only destroying the economy but also destroying society as we know it.

The other alternative is to let viral transmission go willy-nilly until it burns through the population. I am strongly against that approach for two reasons. First, that would mean we could potentially experience millions of deaths just in the United States. It would bring down our health care system as we know it; it would mean severely compromised care for Covid-19 patients and fewer care options for anyone else with other serious health issue such as a heart attack, acute asthma attack, cancer or an injury from an accident. So, that is not a viable alternative.

There's got to be an approach in the middle. I call it "threading the rope through the needle," where we open our economy and everyday life in a way that is capable of rapidly detecting the emergence of new waves of infection. Then we do whatever we can again with physical distancing to limit the new infection's spread.

By the way, I find the term "social distancing" unfortunate. It is physical distancing that we need in order to stop the virus transmission.

Let's never social distance. Let's try in our modern age of the Internet, to do a better job with staying social.So how do we get the younger, otherwise healthy demographic back to work, a group we know will be at much lower risk of serious disease and death if they get infected? How do we bring a substantial number of these individuals back into society and at the same time try to protect those who have the highest risk of a severe outcome?

 Remember we have to get them through the next 16 to 20 months, or until we get a safe and effective vaccine. 

For those who are vulnerable, it is imperative that we minimize the risk of infection and the likelihood of ending up in a hospital and dying. And please know this approach will never be perfect; some younger people will get sick and even die. But the rate of serious illness and deaths will be many times lower for the young than for older individuals or those with underlying health risk factors. 

Our strategy can't be the outcomes of day-to-day press conferences. It can't be 30-day plans to "social" or "physically" distance. It's got to address how we're going to incorporate day-to-day prevention actions, and what we ask the public to do must be realistic. 

For example, everybody wants to do widescale coronavirus testing today. Talking heads without any experience in testing declare, "We'll test millions of people each week, and then we'll know who is infected and can follow up." Very few people realize that the testing community in this country can't do that. We don't have adequate international manufacturing capacity and supply chains for reagents, the chemicals needed to run these tests.

The reagent capability -- meaning securing those chemicals that are key for running many of these tests, whether you're testing for virus or antibody -- before the pandemic was more or less, adequately supported by a "garden hose of production." Then Covid-19 came along and the Asian countries, specifically China, demanded a major increase in reagent supplies.

No matter how you slice it, on the most basic back-of-the-envelope estimate, this is a really bad situation.

Finally, the whole world caught the pandemic, and now there are billions of people who need to be tested. We need a firehose to meet that demand but we can't build reagent manufacturing facilities overnight. I urge that whatever we do going forward has to be based on reality. We're not going to test your way out of this thing when we don't have tests. 

I paraphrase a quote from former US Secretary of Defense (Donald) Rumsfeld who said, "When you go to war, you don't get to go with what you want. You have to go with what you have." 

So, we're going to have this reagent issue for some time to come, and we must understand that and come up with a plan based on reality. 

Entire Interview Here:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/21/opinions/bergen-osterholm-interview-two-opinion/index.html

pretty much echos what I have read and what needs to be understood by all.

1. Controlled reopening of economy with a plan in place for rapid responses and re-closures of the micro breakouts (like in Sioux Falls or similar situations)
2. Law of average testing,  the tests need to be done randomly and use math to calculate out from there the potential for any given area or demographic.
3. Most imporantly,  this thing isnt going away until an anti virus is discovered, developed, and mass distributed,  we are going to live with this thing for at a minimum of another 12 months and most likely more.  Start to return to life but a new normal must be established to maintain the safe spacing and other practices we are currently doing.

Agreed, I hope you read the whole thing and everyone else does too - in spite of all of our Covid burn-out.

One of the better informative and strategic perspectives - from a very learned man.

We're at the end of the first baseball inning, long ways to go.  

@"BigAl99" said:

@"bigbone62" said:

@"Hidalgo" said: This is from a co-worker that tested positive: Words from the IDPH. The organization that is supposed to care about our health, is also the same organization that is telling my fiancé that he can go back to work tomorrow.... as a CNA... at a NURSING HOME!!! Because the “health care workers are exceptions to the Health department’s rules” “As long as he doesn’t have a fever, he’s fine” (even though I never had a temp over 99.7) Even though he is a household contact with a positive COVID-19 case (me) and my symptoms aren’t gone, and the health department recommended he stayed in quarantine. Is the state really protecting the vulnerable? The at risk? Shouldn’t health care workers be isolated LONGER, not shorter? Especially when they’re around ELDERLY PEOPLE! The symptoms, the regulations, the “numbers” and predictions have been contradicting this whole time.

If healthcare workers were not the exceptions to these rules far more than just people who catch COVID-19 would be dying off. If everyone of my co-workers or myself stayed home and quarantined because we were exposed to someone with it there wouldn't be anyone running the hospitals or clinics.  Company policy dictates a specific department reaches out to employees to inform them they have been exposed to someone with COVID-19. People now send those calls direct to VM and delete messages without listening because there isn't enough time to do the job and waste time talking to HR.

I don't know being in that position is the result of being reactive and falling behind the curve.   Managing the situation has to be better than that.

@"JimmyinSD" said:

@"bigbone62" said:

@"JimmyinSD" said:

@"bigbone62" said:

@"Hidalgo" said: This is from a co-worker that tested positive: Words from the IDPH. The organization that is supposed to care about our health, is also the same organization that is telling my fiancé that he can go back to work tomorrow.... as a CNA... at a NURSING HOME!!! Because the “health care workers are exceptions to the Health department’s rules” “As long as he doesn’t have a fever, he’s fine” (even though I never had a temp over 99.7) Even though he is a household contact with a positive COVID-19 case (me) and my symptoms aren’t gone, and the health department recommended he stayed in quarantine. Is the state really protecting the vulnerable? The at risk? Shouldn’t health care workers be isolated LONGER, not shorter? Especially when they’re around ELDERLY PEOPLE! The symptoms, the regulations, the “numbers” and predictions have been contradicting this whole time.

If healthcare workers were not the exceptions to these rules far more than just people who catch COVID-19 would be dying off. If everyone of my co-workers or myself stayed home and quarantined because we were exposed to someone with it there wouldn't be anyone running the hospitals or clinics.  Company policy dictates a specific department reaches out to employees to inform them they have been exposed to someone with COVID-19. People now send those calls direct to VM and delete messages without listening because there isn't enough time to do the job and waste time talking to HR.

valid point,   I would wonder if nursing home workers should be the exception though.  most all NHs have been on lock down for a while now and have taken extreme precautions to keep their employees clear and their inmates safe (I cant remember what people that live there are called)  I can see in hospital or clinical settings telling the staff to keep coming to work as long as they are able because that is where everybody is pretty much exposed,  but I would still think staff at dedicated nursing homes would be self reporting and be told to quarantine if they know they have been exposed.

I think people would be floored if they knew how many nursing homes and RCF's are essentially hiding outbreaks (3 or more clients or staff is an outbreak). A local RCF announced several weeks ago there was an outbreak. Announcement was on a Thursday, that following Monday it was given the all clear because the impacted patients and one staff had been been quarantined for 2 plus weeks at that point and were either symptom free or moved. So that means they sat on it for 1.5 weeks before telling the public. Same thing happened at 2 nursing homes near us.

That said same thing applies for nursing homes as hospitals and clinics, if people didn't come in due to exposure there wouldn't be the people to do the work. Its hard enough to staff nursing homes that are county run or for low income clients. Which is were a lot of these national outbreaks are happening. Now try and find staff when there are rampant reports of nationwide outbreaks in nursing homes and you are hiring them because you have a staff storage due to COVID-19 quarantining. Obviously in nursing homes as with hospitals and clinics there are none essential employees that self reporting and staying home can work with.  

I know the home my SIL works at up here was very pro active.  once there was a confirmed case in the US they made every employee that had been out of SD quarantine for 2 weeks before returning to work,  which really amped up the work load for the rest since Feb is usually when most northerners take their winter get aways,  a lot of their staff was out.  IIRC they then had to start showering in/out of work,  their scrubs are laundered on site now, temps taken before being allowed into the building and a bunch of other shit.

on a side note,  one thing that should be thought about for all these front line people and all the extra hours they are working... the affects it is having on their marriages.  I know sometimes the irregular shifts at HC facilities puts strains on relationships,  but what has been asked of some of these providers in the last few months has been crushing for some.  especially if the spouse is at home alone and bored all day.

@"bigbone62" said:

@"BigAl99" said:

@"bigbone62" said:

@"Hidalgo" said: This is from a co-worker that tested positive: Words from the IDPH. The organization that is supposed to care about our health, is also the same organization that is telling my fiancé that he can go back to work tomorrow.... as a CNA... at a NURSING HOME!!! Because the “health care workers are exceptions to the Health department’s rules” “As long as he doesn’t have a fever, he’s fine” (even though I never had a temp over 99.7) Even though he is a household contact with a positive COVID-19 case (me) and my symptoms aren’t gone, and the health department recommended he stayed in quarantine. Is the state really protecting the vulnerable? The at risk? Shouldn’t health care workers be isolated LONGER, not shorter? Especially when they’re around ELDERLY PEOPLE! The symptoms, the regulations, the “numbers” and predictions have been contradicting this whole time.

If healthcare workers were not the exceptions to these rules far more than just people who catch COVID-19 would be dying off. If everyone of my co-workers or myself stayed home and quarantined because we were exposed to someone with it there wouldn't be anyone running the hospitals or clinics.  Company policy dictates a specific department reaches out to employees to inform them they have been exposed to someone with COVID-19. People now send those calls direct to VM and delete messages without listening because there isn't enough time to do the job and waste time talking to HR.

I don't know being in that position is the result of being reactive and falling behind the curve.   Managing the situation has to be better than that.

Nothing to do with being behind the curve. Being behind the curve isn't what caused a state wide medical professional shortage years ago. Hard to be anything but reactive when you are down manpower even before losing your first employee to quarantine or illness. 

Coronavirus: US health official warns of dangerous second wave https://t.co/hXnTWV02aW

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) April 22, 2020

@"Vikergirl" said: https://twitter.com/BBCWorld/status/1252878537444347905?s=19

@"JimmyinSD" said:

@"Vikergirl" said: https://twitter.com/BBCWorld/status/1252878537444347905?s=19

can we get through this wave before we get everybody freaked out about something that may or may not happen in 6 to 8 months?

Gov. Tim Walz announces plan to expand COVID-19 testingDeal reached with private labs.

Gov. Tim Walz announced a new statewide pandemic strategy Wednesday, using the University of Minnesota, Mayo Clinic and other state health care providers to increase COVID-19 diagnostic testing in the state to as many as 20,000 Minnesotans per day.
The increased testing, announced at a news conference at the state’s emergency operations center, is the centerpiece of Walz’s plan to boost testing and tracing to help control the pandemic and start to safely reopen businesses and other public spaces. Walz has extended his stay-at-home order until May 4.
“When Minnesota faces a challenge, we rise up — together,” Walz said in a statement. “I’m proud to partner with Minnesota’s innovative health care systems and leading research institutions to pioneer how states can begin to move forward amid COVID-19.”
State officials said the announcement means they will have the capacity to deliver 20,000 molecular and 15,000 serology tests per day, giving them the capacity to test anyone who has symptoms of COVID-19. The state will create a central lab to accommodate the expanded testing and a virtual command center to monitor testing needs and coordinate responses to potential outbreaks in the state.
The total case count of 2,721 so far is based on 49,344 tests by the state public health lab and private labs such as Mayo. But state health officials have said that is not enough to truly understand the spread of COVID-19 in Minnesota.
State epidemiologists are working under the assumption that every confirmed case could represent as many as 100 unconfirmed cases, given the high number of people who show few or no symptoms.
The testing is estimated to cost $36 million and will be paid for in part through a coronavirus response fund established by the Legislature and approved by Walz
https://www.startribune.com/gov-tim-walz-announces-increased-covid-19-testing/569860492/

@"Vikergirl" said: https://twitter.com/BBCWorld/status/1252878537444347905?s=19

@"Skodin" said:

@"Vikergirl" said: https://twitter.com/BBCWorld/status/1252878537444347905?s=19

Sweet, more vaccine conspiracy fuel for the fire.   ‘THEY WANT US ALL VAXXINATEEDD MANNN”

@"purplefaithful" said: Gov. Tim Walz announces plan to expand COVID-19 testingDeal reached with private labs.

Gov. Tim Walz announced a new statewide pandemic strategy Wednesday, using the University of Minnesota, Mayo Clinic and other state health care providers to increase COVID-19 diagnostic testing in the state to as many as 20,000 Minnesotans per day.
The increased testing, announced at a news conference at the state’s emergency operations center, is the centerpiece of Walz’s plan to boost testing and tracing to help control the pandemic and start to safely reopen businesses and other public spaces. Walz has extended his stay-at-home order until May 4.
“When Minnesota faces a challenge, we rise up — together,” Walz said in a statement. “I’m proud to partner with Minnesota’s innovative health care systems and leading research institutions to pioneer how states can begin to move forward amid COVID-19.”
State officials said the announcement means they will have the capacity to deliver 20,000 molecular and 15,000 serology tests per day, giving them the capacity to test anyone who has symptoms of COVID-19. The state will create a central lab to accommodate the expanded testing and a virtual command center to monitor testing needs and coordinate responses to potential outbreaks in the state.
The total case count of 2,721 so far is based on 49,344 tests by the state public health lab and private labs such as Mayo. But state health officials have said that is not enough to truly understand the spread of COVID-19 in Minnesota.
State epidemiologists are working under the assumption that every confirmed case could represent as many as 100 unconfirmed cases, given the high number of people who show few or no symptoms.
The testing is estimated to cost $36 million and will be paid for in part through a coronavirus response fund established by the Legislature and approved by Walz
https://www.startribune.com/gov-tim-walz-announces-increased-covid-19-testing/569860492/

@"RS Express" said:

@"purplefaithful" said: Gov. Tim Walz announces plan to expand COVID-19 testingDeal reached with private labs.

Gov. Tim Walz announced a new statewide pandemic strategy Wednesday, using the University of Minnesota, Mayo Clinic and other state health care providers to increase COVID-19 diagnostic testing in the state to as many as 20,000 Minnesotans per day.
The increased testing, announced at a news conference at the state’s emergency operations center, is the centerpiece of Walz’s plan to boost testing and tracing to help control the pandemic and start to safely reopen businesses and other public spaces. Walz has extended his stay-at-home order until May 4.
“When Minnesota faces a challenge, we rise up — together,” Walz said in a statement. “I’m proud to partner with Minnesota’s innovative health care systems and leading research institutions to pioneer how states can begin to move forward amid COVID-19.”
State officials said the announcement means they will have the capacity to deliver 20,000 molecular and 15,000 serology tests per day, giving them the capacity to test anyone who has symptoms of COVID-19. The state will create a central lab to accommodate the expanded testing and a virtual command center to monitor testing needs and coordinate responses to potential outbreaks in the state.
The total case count of 2,721 so far is based on 49,344 tests by the state public health lab and private labs such as Mayo. But state health officials have said that is not enough to truly understand the spread of COVID-19 in Minnesota.
State epidemiologists are working under the assumption that every confirmed case could represent as many as 100 unconfirmed cases, given the high number of people who show few or no symptoms.
The testing is estimated to cost $36 million and will be paid for in part through a coronavirus response fund established by the Legislature and approved by Walz
https://www.startribune.com/gov-tim-walz-announces-increased-covid-19-testing/569860492/

Sounds nice.  Too bad I just called the Avera clinic here in Worthington and tried to get tested. I was asked questions about symptoms and then told I didn't meet the threshold for a test because I wasn't sick yet.  This is after 2 coworkers had tested positive and the JBS plant being shut down.  

@"JimmyinSD" said:

@"Skodin" said:

@"Vikergirl" said: https://twitter.com/BBCWorld/status/1252878537444347905?s=19

Sweet, more vaccine conspiracy fuel for the fire.   ‘THEY WANT US ALL VAXXINATEEDD MANNN”

thats been rolling around in my head for a month now... this will be the next big shit show is people refusing to get vaccinated because of some social media hoax.

AP-NORC poll: Few Americans support easing virus protections

The survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research also finds that a majority of Americans say it won’t be safe to lift social distancing guidelines anytime soon, running counter to the choice of a handful of governors who have announced plans to ease within days the public health efforts that have upended daily life and roiled the global economy.
More than a month after schoolyards fell silent, restaurant tables and bar stools emptied, and waves from a safe distance replaced hugs and handshakes, the country largely believes restrictions on social interaction to curb the spread of the virus are appropriate.
Only 12% of Americans say the measures where they live go too far. About twice as many people, 26%, believe the limits don’t go far enough. The majority of Americans — 61% — feel the steps taken by government officials to prevent infections of COVID-19 in their area are about right.
About 8 in 10 Americans say they support measures that include requiring Americans to stay in their homes and limiting gatherings to 10 people or fewer — numbers that have largely held steady over the past few weeks.
“We haven’t begun to flatten the curve yet. We’re still ramping up in the number of cases and the number of deaths,” said Laura McCullough, 47, a college physics professor from Menomonie, Wisconsin. “We’re still learning about what it can do, and if we’re still learning about what it can do, this isn’t going to be the time to let people go out and get back to their life.”
While the poll reveals that the feelings behind the protests that materialized in the past week or so in battleground states such as Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are held by only a small fraction of Americans, it does find signs that Republicans are, like President Donald Trump, becoming more bullish on reopening aspects of public life.
Just 36% of Republicans now say they strongly favor requiring Americans to stay home during the outbreak, compared with 51% who said so in late March. While majorities of Democrats and Republicans think current restrictions where they live are about right, Republicans are roughly four times as likely as Democrats to think restrictions in place go too far — 22% to 5%.
More Democrats than Republicans, meanwhile, think restrictions don’t go far enough, 33% to 19%.
“They’ll be lifted, but there are still going to be sick people running around,” said 66-year-old Lynn Sanchez, a Democrat and retired convenience store manager from Jacksonville, Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott has reopened state parks and plans to announce further relaxations next week. “And we’re going to have another pandemic.”
More than 45,000 people in the United States have died from COVID-19, while 22 million have applied for unemployment benefits since March. It’s that economic cost that has led some governors to follow Trump’s lead and start talking about allowing some shuttered businesses to reopen, including in Georgia, where many businesses — including gyms, bowling alleys and tattoo parlors — can do so starting Friday. Restaurants there can resume dine-in service next week.
Yet the survey finds that few Americans — 16% — think it’s very or extremely likely that their areas will be safe enough in a few weeks for the restrictions to be lifted. While 27% think it’s somewhat likely, a majority of Americans — 56% — say conditions are unlikely to be safe in a few weeks to start lifting the current restrictions.
“If we try too hard to restart the economy prematurely, there will be waves of reinfection,” said 70-year-old retired medical equipment salesman Goble Floyd, of Bonita Springs, Florida. “I don’t think the economy or life will get back to normal until there’s a vaccine. It just seems this is so seriously contagious.”
The emerging partisan differences are apparent. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is a Republican and unwavering Trump supporter. GOP lawmakers in Wisconsin filed suit Tuesday against the state’s Democratic governor after he ordered most nonessential businesses to remain closed until May 26.
The poll finds 59% of Republicans say it’s at least somewhat likely that their areas will be safe enough for reopening in just a few weeks, compared with 71% of Democrats who say it is unlikely. Still, even among Republicans, just 27% say that’s very likely.
“I haven’t met one person at the protests that disagrees with the fact that we need to self-quarantine until April 30,” said Matt Seely, a spokesman for the Michigan Conservative Coalition, which sponsored an automobile-based protest at the state’s capitol in Lansing last week. “Nobody wants to do the wrong thing. 
But the solution is not to stay in your home until the last case of COVID is gone."