State of Rhode Island in “critical” condition with pandemic “uncontrolled”
By
Will Collette
That’s
fortunate because all
Rhode Island’s other statistics are pretty terrible, especially the sudden
and enormous increase in the daily count of new cases, making Rhode Island
currently the worst state in the whole northeast.
We’ve
gone from daily case counts of under 100 during most of September to between
500 and a thousand new cases per day in November.
As
new cases surge past last spring’s levels, hospitalizations
and deaths rise with it. Simple math: more cases = more death.
Even
if you survive COVID or show no symptoms, research indicates you may suffer
significant long-term damage to the lungs, heart, brain and other vital organs.
There are mental health issues as well. The bottom line is that you really,
really do not want to catch the coronavirus.
Former
RI Health Department Director Dr. Michael Fine told
GoLocalProv that Rhode Island should immediately undertake a serious new
strategy to get the pandemic under control. He suggests:
- Deploy More Healthcare Workers: 4,000
additional healthcare workers immediately be deployed, working on population
management, isolation housing support, and masking compliance
- Isolate
Infected in Hotels; Isolation Housing for 7000-10000
people a night - if someone has the virus they leave their home to avoid family
spread
-
Lockdown and Pay Businesses to Close: Statewide
lockdown with full financial support for people and businesses for 2-6 weeks,
until each city is down to 2 new cases per 100,000 a day -- a standard far
lower than the Raimondo administration's failed standard of 100 new cases per
100,000 per week
- Transform Testing Strategy: Twice a
week asymptomatic PCR testing for anyone working out of their house
(likely 100,000 tests per day). Need 24-hour turn around on testing to be
most effective. Fine says state should stop symptomatic testing unless a person
needs hospitalization. Symptomatic people belong in out-of-home isolation
- hotels
-
De-Emphasis of Contact Tracing - It is too late: Use
Contact tracing for institutional outbreaks only. There is too much virus to
trace infections now
-
Regional Approach: A regional compact with Mass
and Connecticut for all openings and closings
- Keep
Schools Open, But Expand Testing: "In a first
iteration, I might keep schools open as they are," said Fine. We have good
control there. Only move testing of teachers student and staff to two
times a week.
- Masking
and Penalties: A strong public education campaign to promote masking and
citations for those who do not comply.
Like
President-Elect Joe Biden, Dr. Fine says flatly that we have to get coronavirus
under control as the only practical way to save the economy from total ruin.
Charlestown
unemployment drops, for now
According
to the RI Department of Labor and Training, Charlestown’s
unemployment rate dropped to 9.5%. That’s the "good" news because it’s half April's record high rate of 18.9% when the COVID recession began.
But the bad news is that the last time we had 9.5% unemployment in Charlestown
was April 2014. Since our state COVID rates are so high, we’re also looking at
more restrictions and possibly a shut-down that will, of course, jack up the
number of unemployed.
I
have been urging the Town Council to use our budget surplus to put unemployment
Charlestown residents to work by, for example, hiring unemployed construction
workers to carry out projects the town needs done instead of hiring an outside
contractor.
They
could be hired on a project contingent basis under our Department of Public
Works. Construction workers are used to their work being contingent on
projects. At least one recent road project had been set aside because the bids
from private contractors were too high.
Maybe
the new Town Council will take a serious look at a DIY approach to town
projects.
“Slow
spending Rhode Island”
This
money was part of a $1.25 billion allocation Rhode Island received last March
to fight the pandemic and soften its financial effects. But as Alexa
Gagosz reports in the Providence Business News, we haven’t spent but a
small fraction of it, with an Oct. 1 balance of around $900 million.
That’s
beyond unacceptable.
We
are not alone
When
COVID-19 had its first surge spring, Donald Trump directed genius son-in-law
Jared Kushner to come up with a national plan. The prevailing story is that
Jared told our Dear Leader that no national response was needed because the
virus was largely killing people in Democratic regions which they saw as a good
thing.
From
that dubious conclusion came the Trump strategy to deny the virus existed, or
if it did, it wasn’t so bad, and it will go away “very soon.” So no need for
masks, hand-washing, social distancing and especially not lock-downs. No coordination to make sure health care workers have the PPE they need.
Maskholes
and covidiots keep the pandemic going strong by refusing to mask, social
distance and, I’m sure, wash their hands.
Because
of Dear Leader, we have no national strategy – never have and never will until
he leaves the White House.
Other
countries (e.g. Britain, Germany, France) faced the new surge in COVID by
re-imposing restrictions including lockdowns and are being rewarded with
declining cases. What we are learning from our shared global experience is that
this virus cannot be stopped unless we all
follow sound anti-virus social practices.
Of
course, we are all waiting for the arrival of a safe and effective vaccine.
The
vaccine
I
share the joy of so many others at Pfizer’s news that it’s vaccine shows 90%
effectiveness and will be ready to go in the coming months. We need it.
Store at -70 C. or -94 degrees Fahrenheit
But Pfizer’s version may not be the best or the most practical.
Roughly 2/3’s of
the world will not be able to use the Pfizer vaccine because of the problematic
logistics. The vaccine must be stored at deep subzero temperatures –
impractical in any area without reliable equipment and electricity – and
requires two doses given at a precise interval.
Just
as a practical matter, there will be some unknown but large number of people
who get shot #1 but don’t get shot #2.
Fortunately,
there are several other vaccines in the pipelines that don’t carry these
challenges. They are also going through clinical trials. Ideally, we should
have several choices of vaccines, all safe and highly effective, allowing
communities and countries to choose the one that is most practical for mass
immunization.
That’s
the only way to “herd immunity” without the deaths of millions of people.
Cooking
a French quack’s goose
Finally,
Didier Raoult, the French
doctor who put the bug in Trump’s ear that hydroxychloquine was a COVID wonder
drug is being hauled before a French medical disciplinary board. He is charged
with ethics breeches for touting hydroxychloroquine despite having no evidence
that it worked on COVID.
When
I
wrote about Dr. Raoult last May, I noted the remarkable resemblance Raoult
bore to Trump’s own doctor Harold Bornstein. He’s the guy who signed Trump’s
clean bill of health report that we later learned had actually been written by
Trump.
They
both bear some resemblance to Star Trek star (Data) Brent Spinner’s mad
scientist character in the 1996 movie Independence Day. Add twenty years and
longer whiskers to Spinner’s face and, voila, they may all be the same person.
If
QAnon needs another conspiracy theory to promote, I give this to them gratis.
