“I would like to express an opinion that the CDC blew it again by watching the air ports of entry, and cargo sea ports of entry, but forgot about tourist sea ports of entry”
I think the US Government has totally botched the entire response with the exception of the early call to ban travel to/from Wuhan.
1. Travel restrictions should have been more severe, and applied to all foreign travel in/out. Especially in.
2. When quarantines would have worked, we did not employ them. Now containment is impossible.
3. We should have had 1 million effective and easy test kits distributed by Valentines day. Instead we have tested less than 2,000 people.
4. Everyone should have been able to perceive the White House looking out for their safety rather than international business. Most didn’t.
5. The best marketing team in US history has failed with mixed messages, unclear messaging and outright obfuscation/disinformation...especially on test kit availability and employment. And on real risk of US infiltration by the virus.
It’s almost as if they knew the cost of actually stopping it was higher than letting it run its course.
Maybe they are right.
If so, they should say so and quit fluffing us. At least then the American people would know where they stand.
You made a lot of points—let me address the containment one.
The virus can (and btw will!) be contained.
The problem is that now the measures will have to be so draconian that they will crash the economy and severely impinge on everyone’s daily lives.
Our host asked us not to speculate on the future, so I will let you imagine what those draconian measure might look like... :-)
There is an article that compares the Italy means of handling vs. Hong Kong. HK was much more proactive Limiting travel, meetings, closing schools, so they have had a lot less cases and deaths. Kind of like St. Louis in 1918.
Italy was reactive from the start, and their situation is out of control.
Some believe letting it spread through your population unimpeded is better, it’s like ripping off a bandaid. It inoculates you’re population for the second wave. This means HK could be in for a much worse second wave.
However, the problem with the reactive approach is that they do not account for what it does to society as a whole, especially when healthcare breaks down. Long term I think the reactive approach (like the US is doing now) will cause much deeper economic ramifications than mitigating spread.
to address item #5
reposting from last night, general FYI:
Mike Pence, Mar 6:
tests:
“We’ve been able to provide tests to all the state jurisdictions and labs that have requested it and.. all state labs have the test...State labs can actually conduct CV tests themselves. Beyond that, between Mar 2nd and 5th, we’ve distributed more than 900K tests across the country, including 200K that would allow 75,000 individual patients to be tested..By Saturday another 200K tests will be shipped and by the weekend another million tests will be shipped around the country. With the expectation by the end of next week another 4MM tests will be shipped.”
“To meet future demand this week the President brought together the leading commercial labs in America and asked them to in effect partner with the US in developing tests for the American people.
And I’m proud to say that just in the last 24 hours.. two of America’s leading commercial laboratories have announced that tests will be available by Monday of this week. The reason that’s important, the reason that meets future demand is because the enormous capacity of these commercial labs.. are precisely how we will make cv tests avail for your local doctor, available to your pharmacy and broadly available to the American public.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qyu1XG-wnw
1,721 posted on 3/7/2020, 8:20:41 PM by blueplum
to respond to item #1 -
Trump banned Chinese nationals Jan 31. This embargo worked. The proof is, until the Princess airlift, the cases in the US were limited to those airlifted from Wuhan or those in before the ban.
Take for instance, the first Santa Clara, Calif case - declared around Jan 31. This case was only the 7th case in the US on that date. By 2/2, California had four cases. All related to Wuhan. Oregon’s second case was a returnee from So. Korea.
So everything was pretty calm and collected at this point - no big outbreak of direct from china origin, and everybody focused on the Diamond Princess.
Feb 28 - State Dept issues Level 3 travel advisory for Italy and So Korea - both upgraded to Level 4. The CDC instructs travelers to call their health care provider before they visit a facility and follow instructions.
https://www.businessinsider.com/cdc-issues-travel-warning-italy-covid-19-concerns-2020-2
Mar 1 - US announces tighter restrictions on travelers from Iran, South Korea and Italy and assigns Italy a level 4 - do not travel advisory
Mar 1 - California saw another case on 3/1, this one from Egypt. The same day NY saw a case from Iran.
March 2 saw the first cases from Milan, - Georgia and New Hampshire report cases. These had to have been prior to the Level 4 advisory, given 5-7 days incubation..
Mar 2 - airlines suspend travel to Milan (Delta to cut Rome 3/11 or sooner) and travelers are put on a heightened screening and voluntary or mandatory quarantine depending on status
March 3, Berkeley, CA saw a Milan case.
now all these Milan/Italy cases had to have come in before the travel ban, given a 5-7 day incubation, likely a day or two more before reaching out for medical help.
So we have done a decent job on locking down air ports of entry. But the weak spot was and remains commercial sea ports.