The US missed a chance to control outbreak. Now it's 'impossible to predict'

[brooklynite]

Source: CNN

Without a national effort to adhere to preventative measures, the nation's top infectious disease doctor said, it will be impossible to predict how much longer the Covid-19 pandemic will last in the United States.

The US is seeing a resurgence of coronavirus infections after states began reopening their economies, with the number of cases now at more than 4.4 million and the death toll at 152,070, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation increased its forecast to 219,864 total deaths by November, in part because the nation continues to debate measures like wearing masks and social distancing.

"The thing we need to do is we need to pull out all the stops to get it down to baseline and to keep it there by doing the things that we've been talking about -- that I've been talking about -- consistently," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Thursday during CNN's coronavirus town hall.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/31/health/us-coronavirus-friday/index.html

[trusty elf]

1. Nobody deals with pandemics better than Benedict Donald.

[Cha]

6. Omg... that's perfect, Trusty!

[trusty elf]

7. Thanks Cha!

[Cha]

8. Mahalo to you!

& Aloha!

[BigmanPigman]

2. Even older conservatives are getting tired of this crap.

Right now we are in limbo and will probably remain that way until there is a different admin. and POTUS. A vaccine would be nice but not likely anytime soon, unless the GOP/tRump can make money off of it. This IS our new normal until Jan 2020.

[Bayard]

17. Even older conservatives

Are tired and afraid of being at the top of the list for the group most likely to die from the virus.

[DSandra]

3. Traitor Trump sabotaged America to please Putin

What better way to sabotage America than letting it get infested with a deadly virus?

[oasis]

4. Looks like it. nt

[Cha]

5. It's trump's Virus.. months of accusing it of being

a "democrat hoax" while carting around the golf course & staging rallies led to catastrophic results.

When the so called leader finally recognized it as a thing he continued to do everything wrong. his cult wouldn't /won't wear masks because trump won't. They did drink bleach bc the Idiot rec it.

trump dismantled and fired the Pandemic Response Team in 2018 that Pres Obama put into place.

trump bad mouths Dr Fauci 'cause he a jealous idiot.. he promotes a crazy person who talks about "demon sperm" & peddles that Hydroxychloroquine or whatever.

[soothsayer]

9. Fauci surprised me yesterday by saying you don't need another shutdown

Maybe he meant you don’t need a nationwide one because not everywhere has soaring infection.

Or, perhaps masks and distancing and hygiene will get us there as he suggests — but not without fast and efficient testing/tracing/ isolating.

[DeminPennswoods]

13. It's too widespread for a shutdown to be effective

at least imho. As soon as things open back up, cases will start to increase again. There was a report in the local media that Pennsylvania is the 3rd strictest state wrt cv19 in the US right now. Yet once we opened up, even with indoor restrictions and all the other mitigations still in place, cases went from around 300/day to around 1000/day.

[soothsayer]

14. Look at ny. You have to reopen intelligently with a lot of testing and tracing

It can be done.

100 days of essential businesses only and then you can reopen with your army of testers and tracers monitoring the spread.

[DeminPennswoods]

20. We did and are doing all that

testing and contact tracing. It's just inevitable that when people starting getting out and about, cases will increase. It's not called a "novel" coronavirus for no reason.

[bucolic_frolic]

10. Mask compliance and tracing are our weak points

We're not prepared to go the extra mile. Italy used a rigid system with rules and extensive tracing. I doubt we'll ever do that. Implementing such a policy would move the needle 10% or less. So really, we're in a war of attrition that will slowly chop up anti-maskers. I'd say in 18 months it will be under control, and it will die out in 3 years.

[groundloop]

11. Not just 'anti-maskers', there will be plenty of sane people hurt by this also

Yes, wearing a mask offers you some amount of protection, but it does more to keep you from spreading the virus to others. What I've read and heard is that wearing a mask cuts your chance of infection by around 30% but cuts the risk of your spreading the virus by 90%. People who refuse to mask truly don't care about others.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

12. And testing and distancing

Adhering to medical advice is an attack on personal freedom, to some. Others just want to have fun.

When there are proven vaccines, many will avoid them.

I don't know how we got thorough compliance with smallpox and polio vaccines. Maybe some personal freedoms were trampled upon.

[MissMillie]

15. We can expect Fauci to be fired now

Surprised it didn't happen sooner.

[Marthe48]

16. Hate being negative, but

I think the experts are letting us figure out the unhappy truth that the virus is among us, and isn't going away. I expect to have limited social outings of any kind, limited visits to stores, limited travel, limited physical contact with my loved ones. I expect to wear a mask the rest of my life and go through the decontamination ritual I observe whenever anything comes in my house.

One of our old friends passed away this week, from lung cancer. He came to my husband's funeral a few years ago. His family is having graveside services, and I will go. I'm planning to stay on the fringe of the crowd, and check which way the wind is blowing. Of course, I'll wear a mask, and decontaminate when I got home.

I really hate impeached traitor for allowing this to happen to our country.

[Bayard]

18. At this point,

I'm wondering how Biden can control this huge, out-of-control wildfire. Of course, he'll get blamed for not ending it right away.

[DeminPennswoods]

21. There's this

Link: https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-07-10/injection-prevent-coronavirus-feds-manufacturers-fail-to-act

Something that could allow schools to re-open safely for one thing.

[Initech]

19. Heckuva job, Trumpy. Heckuva job.