Tag: COVID-19

Trust the science

Here’s what a year of novel coronavirus pandemia looks like in America measured by new confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths per day. In retrospect, the impact of the pandemic looks eerily like what the epidemiology experts warned us in advance that it would look like.

COVID-19 cases confirmed in the United States per day
Deaths caused by COVID-19 per day in the United States

Epidemiologists said that cases would be a leading indicator, followed by hospitalizations about a week later, and the trailing indicator, deaths, about a week after that. These graphs show the peaks in deaths following a couple of weeks or so behind those in cases.

They also said that COVID-19 cases would start climbing after people began congregating on Memorial Day, which they did. Then they said cases would spike after Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings, which they didーas high as 300,000 on one day!

So let’s let the science guide us to put an end to this pandemic as quickly as possible now that Americans are getting vaccinated against COVID-19. Until we reach herd immunity in the United States, continue to wear a mask and maintain social distance while out in public and avoid congregating in large groups for extended periods of time.

Shutting down America again

Just three weeks ago I praised the Trump administration’s guidelines for “Opening Up America Again.” I stand by that praise because I still think the guidelines make sense and are practical. Unfortunately, President Trump does not stand by his own guidelines.

Literally the day after releasing the guidelines, Trump encouraged people protesting the lockdowns in Virginia, Minnesota, and Michigan by exhorting the states to reopen in a series of tweets:

Liberate Minnesota
Liberate Michigan
Liberate Virginia

However, none of the states satisfied the gating criteria that the guidelines specified for proceeding to any of the opening phases. One gating criterion calls for a downward trajectory in coronavirus infections yet all three states were still on an upward trajectory.

The guidelines also make the states responsible for being prepared to do widespread testing and contact tracing. I see this as the linchpin to success reopening up America. However, my opinion is that the federal government is also responsible for this rather than leaving it up to the states alone. I called for the federal government to take leadership on the production and distribution of the resources needed to test and trace. But the federal government has failed to do so and, as expected, no state is yet prepared to test and trace at the level prescribed by the guidelines.

Nonetheless, states such as Texas, Indiana, Colorado, Florida, and Tennessee are beginning to reopen even though the number of confirmed cases are still increasing. Georgia began reopening businesses on April 24 even though coronavirus infections were still on an upward trajectory. But at the end of the month, Trump said of Georgia’s reopening that “I think it’s wonderful.” President Trump isn’t the only one encouraging states that are failing to follow Trump’s own guidelines for reopening. Vice President Pence also praised the thirty something states that have plans or have already begun to open up, even though none of them can pass the testing gate or have two weeks of a downward trajectory in infections.

I understand why the states want to reopen. Sheltering in place and social isolation will wreak severe economic damage not only across the United States but also around the entire planet. The only way to recover from the economic harm is by opening up businesses in all sectors of the economy and in every state. Setting aside the economy, the American people are personally wearying of social distancing for a couple of months now. We all want to begin gathering in large groups for all kinds of events again.

But that doesn’t assuage my concern at this point in the pandemic that we may be reopening society too soon. No one disagrees that opening up will cause an increase in COVID-19 hospitalizing and killing Americans. Everyone hopes that this will happen at a manageable level.

We need to reopen businesses and reduce social distancing with great caution to prevent the increases from occurring in major spikes. If other cities start experiencing overloaded health systems like New York City did (and still does) from COVID-19, they will have little choice but to begin shutting down again. And if we think the shutdowns we’ve all lived through already this year were painful, imagine how much worse it’s going to hurt if we have to shut down America again.