Riverbrian

It did warm my heart a little to see Ohio and Indiana join Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Kentucky. The Governors have no choice but to fill the void. The people inside everyone of those states though. Not so much.

Those 53 foot reefer units used to carry food. The protests are Right Wing Led. This crisis should be something that unites but what it has done is... perhaps... shine a light on just how enormous the canyon of political division that exists, and its getting wider by the second.

I gotta admit that I'm scratching my head a little bit over Operation Gridlock. The protesters are protesting strict social distancing guidelines imposed by Governors. I can understand that, I don't agree with it but I can at least understand their concern. The thing that makes me scratch my head is this: They decided to execute this particular protest from the relative safety of their VEHICLES! Those who got out of their cars to walk around while waving flags and carrying their guns, you can see in the photos that a bunch of them were wearing masks. In other words: It's basically a protest using social distancing by staying in their VEHICLES to protest actual social distancing measures. Gotta admit... this makes me scratch my head in wonder.

Like turning a tanker around. Laws, Ordinances, Regulations that have been in place for decades for use under normal circumstances become hurdles and roadblocks in times of extraordinary circumstance.

I'm a little late to comment but I never go into this forum so being late is understandable. Greatest lyricist ever according to me in no particular order. Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, Neil Peart, Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, Gord Downie and John Prine. Paul Simon for example among many others are in the next tier looking up at these 8.

We are talking past each other. I'm not comfortable with the free market system solving this. I'm not comfortable with states making individual uncoordintaded decisions. I agree with Sconnie and just want to say that extroidanary events takes extroidanary action. All the hurdles that need to be cleared will require elbow grease, bending of rules, a change from how things typically work and most importantly coordination with razor sharp focus. Yes... we should have started earlier.

Ok. So take the lack of actions from the very top that you reference and add the infrastructure problems that Sconnie referenced and that's the hill that needs to be climbed. If 3M needs to work with Ford or GM or whoever. That might take some time sensitive coordination from a leader outside of 3M and GM. Abbott laboratories created a 15 minute test. They can crank out X amount. Is that enough or does the production need to be shared with someone else to produce enough. I assume there are Patents involved and compensation for the sharing of proprietary information for the greater good of society to get someone else involved to ramp up production to suit the needs. Forget my mention of Unions if it doesn't belong. But a unionized workforce has rules and regulations in place that could need to be addressed to maximize production from facilities producing. Sconnie is right. This doesn't happen with a snap of the fingers. It takes complete focus on the task at hand, it takes sacrifice from a team pulling together and you are right... the team needs a QB. But if we are placing all our hope in 3M and asking 3M to solve their infrastructure problems to help us survive without helping them by clearing obstacles that Sconnie mentioned. Yeah... it's going to take awhile. This is what I mean by complete focus on the task at hand and what I mean by Its April.

So you are saying there wasn't complete focus to the task at hand.

Valid points I often wish that a snap of the fingers would get the job done. I also know that complete focus to the task at hand can accelerate things greatly. We don't have time for union concerns, we don't have time for price negotiation. We don't have time for red tape. Who, what, where and how. Go. Work as hard as the Doctors and nurses are.

https://www.inforum.com/newsmd/coronavirus/5027481-North-Dakota-has-a-higher-rate-of-positive-coronavirus-cases-than-Minnesota.-Does-that-teach-us-anything I agree that the usefulness of this type of data is certainly questionable with individual states making up their own standards and practices. However, here is an example of a difference of opinion between a Professor of Social Statistics/City Council Woman and a Professor/hospital director of infection prevention at the local level. One quoting cases per resident and the other quoting tests per resident. I have no opinion. I don't know what is useful. Other than more data and make sure the data is accurate.

As recently as Monday. Mike Ryan of the World Health Organization did not recommend the wearing of Masks and the CDC has followed these same guidelines. Using my limited common sense, I've never understood this directive from the WHO and the countries following the guideline because if they didn't (at least) help. The medical workers wouldn't be asking for them and constantly fighting for supply... so of course they would have helped all along despite the previous recommendations from the WHO and CDC stating that they were not necessary. Of course, this recommendation has now been reversed. The WHO and CDC has now recommended facial coverings when social distancing is not possible. https://newatlas.com/health-wellbeing/cdc-guidance-cloth-face-masks-coronavirus-us-government/ The CDC is not recommending the Surgical or the N-95 Mask. They want them reserved for our Health Care workers on the front lines. Things change.

49 more states to go. Or... 1 Country to go.

This may sound like I'm making light of the situation. I'm not but a lighter thought did occur to me. We are going to have a lot of people in need of hair cuts when this is over.

I'm personally tired of the public fighting with Governors and it's tough to listen to Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia talk about new information turning on his personal light switch belatedly. Times like these is what we elect our leaders for. When times are good its 6 for one and half dozen for the other. When times are bad, this is when who leads matters. If this event cant unite both sides of the aisle... nothing can. Those who want to save lives and those who want the economy going yesterday should both know by know that the answer to solving both problems is the same. Get this under control as quickly as possible. If this can't unite both sides of the aisle... nothing can. I'm under the personal impression that both sides will never come together. Gerry Rafferty once sang. Clowns to left of me. Jokers to the right.

Another great post. Although, the issues that you link to. Are issues that can be overcome with leadership. The testing supplies and supply chain: Testing Kits, PPE, Ventilators. It's April and this has been a constant unyielding refrain. Yet, we can produce 15 million Snickers bars a day. Something is broken and it is something that leadership can fix. The question of why, what, where, who and how should have already been addressed so the leaders can get ready for the next question that needs to be answered. Supply Chain? It's April. Fix it. Public Health Staff: We are setting unemployment records as we speak. We have never had a larger talent pool to choose from. Start training. We have many people who can conduct contact tracing to choose from. We have many people available for whatever needs to be done. Start training and get some people back to work in the process.

Good Article. I've have read a few of the articles that he linked to. He lists great undeniable reasons for pause. Unless I'm reading it wrong. He is talking about what I've been talking about (Among other things of course). The number of confirmed cases are numerators and what people are reacting to, the number of deaths are numerators. What's the denominator? Tests... Right? As he says "Put another way: Doing more tests is good, and likely leads to better long-run outcomes, even if it also results in higher case counts that people will freak out about in the short run. I don’t usually like to be so didactic, but I hope you’ll be a more educated consumer of COVID-19 data instead of just looking at case counts ticking upward on cable news screens without context". However, once I absorb all of the excellent information that he provides. I'm still left with one question. What's the answer then? This is a little time sensitive. In other words Sundance... It's the fall that'll kill ya.

Sad to hear this Craig.

Disclaimer: States used in my example were pulled out of thin air.

We can't have Kansas out bidding New York for needed equipment. We need data centralized so we know where the equipment is needed, when it will be needed by and how much and what specifically. We can't have Wisconsin acting like nothing is happening while Illinois is trying to lock down. We need a QB.

I agree with everything you say. I started tracking early. I started back when only a handful of states had reported over 1,000 tests. I was staying at home with nothing better to do so I was just doing back of a napkin math. It used to make me feel better, like I was doing something. I used to think, since i'm doing this, I might as well share it, but, I saw the reporting issues so I stopped. I've picked the ball back up again because we are over a million tests in the United States now. So, I built a spreadsheet and just do data entry of the (Reported) State numbers and the spreadsheet spits out the data. I firmly believe that the number of tests taken is extremely important to the equation so I'm not giving up. I'm using March 30 numbers, as a baseline and tracking where the numbers go after that based on confirmed cases per reported test, hoping to see the eventual peaks as we go through April. I still think I will in heavily tested locations like New York. But Yeah, I see the flaws. I have also wondered about individual state testing guidelines. What is the criteria for getting a test. Do some states only test if the patient checks every single box or do some states only test NBA Basketball players or are some states testing nearly everyone who is worried they have it. I don't know the answer so I've thrown population into the mix to answer that question in a roundabout way. New York has (reported) tested 1 out of every 88 people living in the state of New York. Oklahoma has (reported) tested 1 out of 2,011. BTW - Minnesota has (reported) 1 out of 266. North Dakota has (reported) 1 out of 175 I feel a lot better about New York's numbers than I do about Oklahoma's because more tests per capita is what we need to achieve. But, I'm just doing data entry with the expectation that the increase in numbers will smooth out the Oklahoma rough edges but yeah... I wish Oklahoma would get in line. In the end, it doesn't matter. There is nothing that I can do with the information other than look at it, other than tell my Sister who lives in DeKalb county near Atlanta to stay home because it's hot. I'm going to keep doing it anyway. What I really want to do is start looking where no one else is looking. Rural communities but again, what am I going to do with the information. Keep testing for the virus and lets start testing for antibodies. At home kits, If they can crank out 15 million Snickers Bars a day, they can crank out the tests and the PPE and the Ventilators. Start cranking.

Excellent post

From a numbers standpoint, April will be (for lack of a better word) interesting. There will be a variety of things tugging and pulling at the numbers mathematically. Exponential Growth meeting social distancing, continued increase in tests resulting in either finding more confirmed cases or finding less. When will New York stop growing, level off and head the other direction? Will other locations take it's place. April should be (for lack of a better word) interesting. The R number (Reproduction number R Naught) you mention has a lag that should hopefully start to show itself soon while deaths will continue to increase with it's own lag behind the percentage of confirmed cases. I'm a big believer in the missing denominator (number of tests). Media reports have been missing the denominator consistently but then again the states were really inconsistent in reporting it for awhile. So, Media just ran with the numerators and that became everyone's reality. The number of tests are starting to get reported by individual states (still not by the media) as the numbers of tests conducted have increased. I don't blame the media though. There are journalists who drill down to things like that but you have to search to find them because, nobody reads, watches or listens to those type of journalists and we as consumers have already voted them off the island. We have already replaced them with the type of journalism that we request. I'm doing my own data entry into a spreadsheet, tracking each state. Despite the increase in testing. 40 of the 50 states still have rising percentages of positives tests per. The United States Number of positive tests per test (1 out of 5.68) is still rising. New Jersey 1 out of 2.45 Michigan is 1 out of 2.56 New York 1 out of 2.71 Oklahoma 1 out of 3.18 (Only 1794 Tests - But nobody is talking about Oklahoma) California 1 out of 3.91 Georgia 1 out of 4.12 Mississippi 1 out of 4.77 (Nobody is talking about Mississippi) Connecticut 1 out of 5.17 South Carolina 1 out of 5.26 (Nobody is talking about South Carolina) Colorado 1 out of 5.68 (Same as the National Average) On the other side 50. New Mexico 1 out of 44.58 49. Hawaii 1 out of 42.52 48. South Dakota 1 out of 34.42 47. North Dakota 1 out of 33.79 46. Minnesota 1 out of 31.45 45. Alaska 1 out of 31.20 For some reason Twins Territory (Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota) has managed to be less clustered. Walz has been aggressive regardless. April will be (for lack of a better word) interesting.

FDA approved so roll them out and crank up the drive thru's But... I'm reading that we are still short on supplies and short on people to administer the tests. Gotta keep going until the tests can be conducted at home.

I dated a girl named Hope. She took everything.

I'll take hope in whatever form it comes in.