No doubt in my mind this is his motivation.
People know instinctively, and this kind of leader excels at, when threatened, the best play is to unite people against a common enemy. And it works even better because it makes liberals go crazy, so they can unite against two enemies.
Not sure if it is going to work, but that’s his play.
Thrag
5412
It’s a major part of their program, and in general containment is simply not possible if you don’t know who has it. While we are woefully behind, it is a very positive thing that capacity is finally ramping up.
The lockdowns will continue until testing improves.
ShivaX
5413
Pretty much. They also used some electronic tracking iirc that wouldn’t fly in the US to track infections, but the big thing was the testing.
Saints coach Sean Payton has COVID19.
Hey no good deed goes unpunished on QT3.
Now you know how our fearless leader feels when the fake media distort his good deeds /s
Edit: some good songs on the list.
Yep, testing ramp-up is a big part.
But South Korea also enforced quarantines on infected individuals – not even isolate at home, but actual quarantines with other infected patients. And they used their testing to run very effective contact traces for those who were positives.
There’s a lot to do.
And there’s a desperate shortage of testing compared to demand.
But things are finally moving.
jsnell
5418
Sort of. It’s not just about testing a lot, it’s also about testing the right people. I.e. intensive tracing of anyone that someone with covid came into close contact with. That’s not viable in the US at this moment.
Honestly, 30k tests per day won’t make any dent on the spread at this stage. It will give a better picture of what’s happening, and allow for more efficient use of scarce healthcare resources. But it’s still a lot less than the number of tests done by European countries in trouble, per capita.
(E.g. maybe you can finally start testing potentially exposed nurses and doctors, and actually find out whether they can return to work.)
ShivaX
5420
Now that’s good news.
But the bad news is the US and South Korea both had their first case on the same day. This is what they did and have been doing since Jan 20th. We started doing something like… this week. And we’re not doing remotely what they did.
BTW, the number of actual tests performed is likely much higher. Some states stopped reporting negative tests almost a week ago. Others have made their test reporting super robust for data aggregating nerds.
(sorry about the low-res… it says cough cough)
Ephraim
5424
Apropos of not enough ventilators, someone, somewhere recently posted a video of an emergency room physician who specializes in adapting respirators to work for multiple patients. I watched her this morning, and although I didn’t understand ¾ of what she was saying I thought the ingenuity on display was amazing. She was turning a single respirator that could help one person into one that could help four. Albeit with some limitations. Fantastic.
I mentioned it to my brother, who is also an emergency physician, who works at the one of the hospitals here in Montreal tasked with receiving COVID-19 cases, and he said he’d heard of modifying them to work for two people, but not for four. I’ve been trying to find that video to send to him, and I can’t. It’s not in my YouTube history, though I’m pretty sure it was posted on YouTube. I think I might have watched it inline here or on Reddit. Anyways, if anyone can link me to it again, I’d love to pass it along to my brother. It may actually prove helpful and save some lives if things go to hell. Can you help me Qt3 hive mind?!
Other details I can remember: she was American, the video was shot in the ER at which she worked by a phone in portrait mode. Maybe she was from Seattle? Or Colorado?
Thanks!
draxen
5425
If you viewed it using Google Chrome then you might be able to find it with this extension.
Good fast find. I’m sharing this on Facebook, since I have doctors and folks involved in medical research as FB friends.
aeneas
5429
Living in an island nation has allowed us to pull up the drawbridge.
I’m guessing only a very small minority here speak French fluently. If not, ignore me.
But if you do, this news item by a Belgian crew visiting an hospital on the front line in Italy is bleak and very much worth a watch. When you hear idiots tell you it’s overplayed and only like the flu, the despair of those doctors and nurses shows why it isn’t : https://www.rtbf.be/auvio/detail_italie-le-chaos-et-la-detresse-dans-les-hopitaux?id=2614824
Watching the news item does require a login (Google, Facebook, email) but is free. Don’t think it will get much of an audience here. But even in UK, we don’t get to see that much of what goes on in Italy.
