Posted on 04/02/2020 6:44:15 AM PDT by RideForever
In early March, Gov. Jay Inslee and Oregon Gov. Kate Brown ramped up COVID-19 precautions.
Each day it seemed a like a new order was put into place in Washington or Oregon. On March 12, Inslee closed schools in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties. The same day, even with significantly fewer confirmed cases, Brown closed schools across Oregon — only hours after saying she would keep them open. The next day Inslee closed schools statewide.
On March 15, Inslee announced restrictions on eating at restaurants. The following day Brown announced a similar order. Then on March 23, Inslee took the biggest step yet — announcing a stay-at-home order for Washingtonians. Brown took the same action on the same day, after Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and other leaders and health care officials pressured Brown to make the decision.
Watching the orders fly back and forth between the governors, who lead neighboring states, was like watching “policy pingpong,” said Jim Moore, an assistant professor at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Ore. Moore said the back-and-forth provided insight on the political psychology at play.
“You are getting a lot of pressure from your constituents, and other people in government,” Moore said. “Are you doing the right thing, and soon enough to make a difference? Having a neighboring state just adds pressure.”
Making matters more difficult for the governors has been the response, or lack of response at times, at the federal level. President Donald Trump initially did not seem to take the pandemic seriously. For example, he said on Feb. 27 that “It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.”
Legislators have been disappointed in Trump’s delayed order of the Defense Production Act, which helps boost personal protection equipment and ventilator supplies.
Christopher Adolph, an associate professor with the University of Washington’s Department of Political Science, said it would be wrong to call the governors’ back-and-forth a version of political one-upping. Instead it shows state and local officials are doing the best they can to manage a situation that has, at times, been hindered by the federal government.
“In the absence of leadership from the president and federal government, governors, mayors and public health authorities at the state and local level had no choice but to lead on containing and managing the coronavirus epidemic,” Adolph said in a March 19 email. “Because of another federal failure — slow and flawed testing for the virus — states are operating under extreme uncertainty about how many cases are present in their communities. This has led to rapid but uncertain innovation at the state level, where each day brings new warnings and new imperatives.”
Adolph said states where leaders delay social distancing measures could see greater caseloads and more hospital system strain than states where officials act early and decisively. Washington and Oregon have generally been among the first states to issue restrictions, Adolph said.
If some states don’t take the response as seriously, that could lead to a re-emergence of outbreaks, given how hyper-mobile the U.S. population is, said Ken Thorpe, the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Health Policy at Emory University in Atlanta.
Thorpe, who served as deputy assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services from 1993 to 1995, said that bordering states should be coordinating with each other to distribute resources, especially for hospital beds.
But Thorpe also said the federal government should lead the way when it comes to virus mitigation measures, such as social distancing. After President Trump said he wanted to relax social distancing rules by Easter, April 12, his coronavirus task force convinced him to keep the guidance in place until at least April 30.
“You want some uniform federal rules,” Thorpe said. “Several states have done stay-at-home rules, and from what we can tell, it looks like the social distancing measures can have an effect. There’s some early data that shows these measures may be providing some assistance.”
So far, the biggest missteps from the federal government have been tied to a slow, botched rollout of COVID-19 testing, Thorpe said. That rollout, which included faulty lab kits and issues in getting labs certified for testing, “really cost a lot of time,” Thorpe said.
Now, supply-chain issues have started to trickle down, and counties have encountered problems procuring testing supplies such as swabs and protective gear for medical workers. States are now competing for important resources, and this has created a “Darwinian approach to federalism,” as former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley told Politico.
Some of Trump’s aides see the pandemic as a great test of local leadership, as Politico reported, but it also gives the administration an opportunity to remove itself from the response — and from criticism of the response.
Recently, Trump has feuded with Inslee, a former presidential candidate and critic of the president, and told governors they should be “appreciative” to him if they want aid. On Sunday, Trump called Inslee a “nasty person.” Inslee responded that he won’t let the personal attacks get in the way of Washington’s response effort.
According to The Associated Press, Inslee pushed back against Trump on a phone call with governors last week, when Trump said the federal government would serve as “backup,” while Washington struggles to find critical supplies to contain the virus.
“I don’t want you to be the backup quarterback, we need you to be Tom Brady here,” Inslee said.
I talked to my Kaiser physician about it a week ago, and he pointed out the DOJ and CDC as the 'source' of the threat to arrest physicians who treat COVID19 victims with the Zelenko protocol at the first symptom and test positive.
Oddly enough, several states operated by Democrat governors used similar wording in like edicts, almost word-for-word. It seems like it came straight from the DNC, who is fast becoming an enemy of the state.
Virtue-signaling Governators all trying to one-up each other
is a YUGE problem here.
Oregon seems to have its projected peak hospitalization date [5/5] well after that of Washington [4/11].
Neighboring States in the East have very similar dates.
While we who place our trust in God will get to sit back and watch.
At this time daily data is showing signs of decreasing new cases. Too early to know if this is a trend or just a blip. There could still be a second wave of new cases.
As of yesterday morning, though, in Oregon there were 768 positive tests with 167 people ever hospitalized, with 19 deaths. Oregon has 291 adult ICU bed available and 762 available ventilators. There are currently 38 COVID-19 patients on ventilators.
These figures come from the state heath authority web site.
At this time daily data is showing signs of decreasing new cases. Too early to know if this is a trend or just a blip.
In Eastern King County Washington where this thing first took off deaths have been going down, and ICU bed availability have been going up for over a week. This started before the stay at home order could have had any effect. This is even while the rest of the state has supposedly been getting worse. After this became apperant and media outlets began picking up on it, suddenly the health department started having trouble releasing data and blamed a software glitch.
Where did you find those peak predictions for oregon and Washington?
The death/day numbers for Oregon are so low it’s going to be tough to find a peak.
The Oregon website [like many others] only gives the tested positive data for one day, no plot over time. Since the UW website doesn’t plot the new positive test number for each day to date, I’m not sure where to go to see those data.
The UW website does plot the deaths/day.
the Defense Production Act, which helps boost personal protection equipment and ventilator supplies.
= = =
PPE
That would include ammo, right?
https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections
In addition to the entire USA, one can pick the individual states.
Thx
Oregon ping
A good example of the ping pong effect can be seen in the Portland OR area, where home building is ongoing while just across the Columbia River in Washington the same work is restricted.
Construction companies that operate in both states are scratching their heads while directing Washington State work crews over to Oregon job sites.
Perhaps Gov. Inslee should spend less time kevetching about Trump and focus on keeping is own state productive. Clarifying vague restrictions on outdoor work would be a positive step.
Here’s a plot of Ore. new cases/day:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/oregon-coronavirus-cases.html
It does look like a peak, but we’ll have to see if it is a false peak.
A rabid liberal in WA and a batshit crazy bisexual in OR competing for attention— what could go wrong?
The problem with statewide data is that local conditions can vary wildly. Here in Washington the situation in East King County where we had the first deaths and earlier local spread, the conditions are much different than in other parts of the state. Actual trends are obscured by statistical noise when looking at a state and national level.
My best friend is one of the top FEMA leaders in the country. He has more access to information than the rest of us, but when I was talking to him the other night he did not realize that we have half a million Chinese people living in Eastern King County who visit home often. That is one of the primary reasons why we had problems here before the rest of the country.
My friend visits China and Southeast Asia on a regular basis; he was in Southeast Asia in January just as this was starting to take off. I was worried that he would have difficulty getting back here. But just like 10,000 Chinese who entered the country after the “travel ban” by diverting to Vancouver International when their flights to SeaTac were cancelled, he had no difficulties getting back here.
I agree. Both Wash. and Ore. have quite different situations east or west of the coastal mountains with significant distinctions even in a given County.
I was surprised to see that the Ski Resort Counties in Colo. had a high per capita infection rate early on. Same for Blaine County in Ida. [Sun Valley]. Now I see that it looks like Gallatin County, Mont. [Big Sky] has perhaps the most infections in the State.
My son is operations Mgr for good size construction company in Washington. ..had to lay off 11 employees last Friday...part of problem is getting inspectors...don’t know status of inspections in Oregon
Inslee needs to get on the same page as Oregon regarding outdoor work...remove Seattle and its suburbs from the equation and move forward.
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