In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Scott Gottlieb and Mark McClellan make some recommendations about the steps that states should take:
A patchwork of local policies won’t be potent enough. People move across borders and bring the virus. Governors and local leaders should first reinforce steps known to be effective: wearing a quality mask, avoiding gatherings and maintaining social distance, especially indoors. Halloween gatherings contributed to the current spread, and Thanksgiving will be no different without more vigilance. At least while infections are widespread and surging, governors and local leaders should mandate the use of masks and impose clear and consistent plans to restrict gatherings. They should remind people to avoid large groups at Thanksgiving and stay home if possible.
This doesn’t mean broad lockdowns.
Somebody tell the governor of Illinois. Here we’re moving towards “broad lockdowns”. I just received an email advising me that the office would be closed for the next month. They continue:
State and local leaders can tie restrictions to expected hospital strain, tailored to hot spots and not necessarily the entire state. Restrictions can focus on known sources of spread, such as bars and nightclubs.
Congress should help by supporting affected businesses with another round of paycheck protection. A priority should be helping schools that are open, especially elementary schools, where the risk of infection is lower and the benefits of in-class instruction are considerable.
Governors should also work with local leaders to use new countermeasures that have only recently become available. This includes a valuable new treatment: monoclonal antibodies, man-made versions of naturally occurring ones that neutralize the virus. But these drugs are challenging to administer, requiring special sites for infusions and public education. People in high-risk groups with symptoms should get tested and treated before their condition deteriorates. Governors need to get the message out that Covid is now a treatable condition at the early stages, and work with local leaders to ensure that access to antibodies is available, especially in underserved communities.
Rapid testing is also more widely available, which allows for better detection of outbreaks in settings where people must be together, such as assisted-living facilities, essential workplaces and schools. With so much coronavirus spread through people without symptoms, especially younger people, it’s now possible to consider using these tests routinely as one more tool. Governors can work together to develop a consistent national screening protocol for containing outbreaks.
Although I continue to think that the authority of the federal government to impose measures is actually quite limited, there is no barrier to regional collaborations among states and the Congress can encourage them, possibly even tying some money to such collaborations. Stringent measures in New York don’t do a lot of good when New Yorkers just boogie out to New Jersey, Connecticut, or Rhode Island. The same is true in northeastern Illinois. That’s where a collaboration among Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin would be most useful. Too bad we don’t have a governor interested in anything other than throwing his weight around and Lord knows he has a lot of it to throw.
Just so you know, what really happens is that the states sitting on lots of testing materials, PPE etc that aren’t being hit hard by Covid still tend to hold on to them. They dont want to be caught short. Then you have states bidding against each other. Not many individual states have the purchasing power to convince a company to open a new facility for them. The feds do have that purchasing power. Some states are working together but the federal govt could have had and should have had a role here. Again, its now probably too late.
Steve
Our local Kroger and Walmart have shortages in some items again, especially paper products. Income protection does nothing if the supply chains collapse.
Throw in the contentious election and the ramping up of anti-Chinese and anti-Russian rhetoric by both Parties, and an ugly future portends.
When the Congress appropriates the money. Or when the president acts under emergency powers (which I think is unconstitutional). I have already said I think the president has not used his emergency powers sufficiently.
And get a humidifier.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/how-humidity-may-affect-covid-19-outcome
We cant get tests again much of the time. We were planning on testing elective surgery and other procedures patients so we could delay them if Covid positive and reduce risk for everyone. Not enough tests available to do that. Also, we are finding that insurances are balking at paying for tests unless they meet very rigid criteria. We are critically short on staff with so many people out due to family exposures, plus we are growing. That means we are testing our employees sometimes a bit diifernelty than is called for under insurance guidelines. (We are staying within CDC and our own guidelines.) So our company is picking up the costs for these tests, for health care workers. Go figure.
Steve