In NYC, they are going to have to move the mitigation dial a lot more slowly and cautiously.
Posted on 04/29/2020 6:14:07 AM PDT by Kaslin
As the spread of COVID-19 begins to slow nationwide, some governors are proving to be more serious than others about what comes next.
As the coronavirus spread slows, governors are responding in different, sometimes wildly divergent ways. Many of them, recognizing their states are not likely to see an outbreak on the scale of New York or New Jersey, have in recent days announced plans to loosen lockdown orders and get their residents back to work. Others have taken the opposite tack, extending lockdown orders and keeping businesses shuttered even as jobless claims mount.
The first set of governors, generally speaking, is serious about the trade-offs and tensions between protecting public health and preventing an economic collapse. They know they have to be careful about reopening their states, that they don’t yet have enough testing or contact tracing in place, and that we don’t have an effective treatment or vaccine for COVID-19. They also know that their residents and businesses cannot go on like this for months or years, and that allowing people to get back to work and feed their families is also an urgent need—and at some point becomes a question of public health.
Hence, governors in Texas, Georgia, Oklahoma, Missouri, Florida, Ohio, Montana, Tennessee, Utah, and South Carolina have all announced substantive plans to allow some businesses to reopen this week, with varying restrictions remaining in place. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday announced perhaps the most ambitious plan, allowing retail stores, restaurants, movie theaters, and malls to open Friday, so long as they operate at 25 percent capacity. Abbott’s order will supersede all local orders, unlike Missouri Gov. Mike Parson’s announcement on Monday that Missouri businesses can reopen next week but local governments can impose stricter rules if they so choose.
Texas and Missouri’s changes follow more limited loosening of lockdown orders by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt last week, which were roundly criticized by the media. Defending his decision in an interview with Fox’s Chris Wallace on Sunday, Stitt noted that Oklahoma has had only 300 hospitalizations from COVID-19 with the statewide capacity for 4,600. “We think it’s a reasonable time to reopen,” he said.
The second set of governors, those who are extending their lockdown orders, are coming off as… not so reasonable. California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday he was still weeks away from making “measurable and meaningful changes” to his statewide stay-at-home order.
Newsom’s decision about reopening the country’s most populous state, he said, would be driven by data and “behavior”—and the behavior he saw over the weekend, with crowds of people gathering at Ventura and Orange County beaches, is just the sort of thing that will delay reopening. “We can’t see the images like we saw, particularly on Saturday in Newport Beach and elsewhere, in the state of California.”
But is it data or behavior that Newsom is relying on? Because the data show that California, a state of some 40 million people, has had fewer than 1,800 COVID-19 fatalities and currently has fewer than 3,400 hospitalizations, with Los Angeles alone accounting for about half of all fatalities and hospitalizations. Meanwhile, millions have filed jobless claims in California but the state’s overwhelmed labor agency has only been able to pay one out of every eight claims, one of the lowest rates in the country.
Other governors have even less reason to extend lockdowns. Over the weekend, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers extended his stay-at-home order until May 26 despite the relatively few numbers of coronavirus deaths in his state (less than 300 as of Tuesday) and a recent decline in the number of positive COVID-19 tests.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak said Monday they would join California, Oregon, and Washington in a Western States Pact that puts “science ahead of politics.” But politics, like science, can’t be easily ignored. Nevada has fewer than 5,000 cases and just 219 deaths, yet Sisolak has announced no plans to loosen his stay-at-home order despite protests across the state over the weekend calling on him to reopen.
Colorado has about three times as many coronavirus cases as Nevada, but Polis is allowing hair salons, dog groomers, and personal trainers to begin opening this week in some areas. Retail stores will be able to open to customers on Friday with strict social distancing rules in place, and on May 4, commercial businesses can open with up to 50 percent of employees working in-person.
In other words, the governors who are opening up their states aren’t calling for some kind of free-for-all. If anything, they’re drawing criticism for being too cautious. Abbott, for example, has provoked the ire of conservatives in Texas for moving too slowly. In Ohio, where about 1 million residents are unemployed because of the pandemic, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine has faced protests over what critics say is a reopening plan that moves too slowly, with retail stores not set to open for another two weeks and restaurant, bars, and many other businesses still closed indefinitely.
In the coming days and weeks, expect to see a growing divide between governors willing to risk reopening and those who think their residents can remain jobless and out of work for weeks or months longer. That divide will expose leaders who are serious about the economic and social costs being borne by the vast majority of Americans, and those who are not.
They’ve already bought up the DNC...
In NYC, they are going to have to move the mitigation dial a lot more slowly and cautiously.
States are faced with two choices.
Open up or beg for a bailout.
Trump has signaled that he is not in favor of bailouts.
Y’know, this virus is showing us what life is really like. Men become construction workers even though they know they may die - and many do - on the job. But they need the money to LIVE the lifestyle they want and are willing to take this risk to do so.
And now states are facing that same conundrum - which is really what we’ve done since the dawn of man: Do we open up and risk people dying, to allow people to LIVE and enjoy the lifestyle they want - even though it means a tiny part of the population may die - or do we live in fear, hunkered down, risking even MORE lives.
For me, the choice has been obvious since the day this lockdown started. But then, I hold to the founding fathers view of life rather than the European viewpoint. So I’m getting banned or silenced on web sites all over the interwebs because I’m scaring the children.
In Pennsylvania, our RAT governor is trying his hardest to keep everyone under house arrest. His new scheme is to “allow” opening in several phases only when new cases are less than 50 per 100,000 over a 2 week period. It’s on a regional basis. My county is at 54 - just a bit too much to get any kind of relief from the despots.
So here’s my plan to drive the cases down - don’t get tested! If you wake up with a sniffle or fever, what good does a test do other than to ramp up the numbers? Even if you test positive, they’ll tell you to stay at home until you’re better and come to the hospital if you get a lot worse. Testing when you don’t need to be admitted to a hospital is just so that RATs can keep their boots on your neck.
Spread the word - don’t get tested and watch the numbers drop.
BTW, whoever dreamed up “contact tracing” is a moron living in fantasy land. I defy anyone to trace an individual who just stepped off a New York City subway.
Common sense isn’t common anymore.
Thinking they're going to stop every potential death from this virus at the expense of destroying our economy, people's jobs and their livelihoods, closing businesses, disrupting supply chains, etc. is absolutely insane.
They're not going to prevent people from dying by telling them to stay home. The economic engine of this country which drives the world economies, is sputtering to a stop to satisfy some politicians and bureaucrats egos that they know what they're doing. They don't.
People die all the time in this country and the world from far worse things than this virus, which the media and politicians have made to sound like the boogie man for all mankind. It is not.
In the first 4 months of 2020, we've had 57,000 deaths in this country from the virus. But the numbers of deaths from the regular flu, auto accidents, suicides, HIV/AIDS, alcohol, smoking, cancer and abortion to name a few, are much higher. Where's the outcry for containing these killers?
Open the economy back up before we sound the death knell for the country and people's lives. Take precautions in work places. Follow some of the same protocols that we were told to follow in quarantine.
People can't go months and months without a paycheck to pay their bills and buy necessities, like food. This lockdown strategy will bankrupt individuals and businesses, as well as those entities in the country that rely of people participating and buying things from them. The risks of this virus are already known. More people will recover than die from it and that is promising.
But what is a certainty is that people will die a slow death of economic starvation before most of them will ever die from this virus.
Go ahead Newsom, push for division among the states residents by blaming the coastal cities for your fascism. When people are finally pushed b past the brink here, and they are so very close, your recall will be assured and Aunt Nan won't be able to gather enough illegal votes to save your ass.
‘Indiana has a Republican Governor with no backbone. We have 92 counties in the state. There should only be about 3 counties on lockdown. Instead the RINO shut down the whole state.”
Same in Missouri with our accidental ‘Rep’ Gov - it made sense to lock down St. Louis, where it started here, a month ago; it made NO sense to lock down the whole state! But Comrade Parsons did, and is really enjoying his power .. the Mayor of Springfield is drunk on it and wants ‘more stringent restrictions’ on opening May 4th, in spite of our FEW cases and no new deaths since April 9th.
Red State my foot. Red for galloping Communism.
“Red State my foot. Red for galloping Communism.”
Well said!
The Rino Governor of Arizona refuses to let loose, probably influenced by the numbers out of Phoenix and Tucson.
Start opening up by counties. My distant county with a population of 210,000 has 105 infected and four deaths, yet we are treated like some Metro area.
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