You’ve likely seen this referenced in a number of emails I’ve posted. But I wanted to draw it together in a single post because to me it is a significant piece of information.
The decision to close schools involves a complex social and epidemiological calculus. But the act of closing schools itself seems to play a decisive role in public messaging. Populations don’t move into a true crisis footing until they hear that school systems are closing. Then they do.
The Times just pushed this article reporting that the US is definitely not running out of food. That is news that is very important to amplify. We should also use common sense. Our supply lines are not remotely equipped to produce the amount of hand sanitizer that is currently being used. Food is different. People will not be eating more food. People will panic buy and some limited, responsible stocking up may be warranted to help with general social distancing. But Americans are not and will not be eating more food. This is a critical and when you think about it obvious difference from goods that are currently running low like hand sanitizer and medical supplies.
From TPM Reader BC …
I live in a rural area [in Michigan]. But, though rural, I’m close to a road that serves as a minor spoke connecting a few small towns. Typically, lots of people use this road to avoid larger traffic flows. The State of MI closed schools on Friday. The general storyline was hunker down and avoid social gatherings. So, this weekend, just about the only sounds around my house have been spring birds, a few dogs barking now and then, and an overarching silence. Virtually zero traffic on the roads around. Only thing that has ever come close to this was 9/11.
From TPM Reader XX, an emergency room doctor in the Bay Area. The email is from yesterday. The note contains a lot of sobering, scary information. I urge you to read it as one person’s rapid fire report in a chaotic situation and put it in the context of other news reports from other sources. I share it with you mainly to highlight the decisions, sacrifices and experiences of health care workers who are knowingly putting themselves in danger because it is what their professional commitments require and what they choose in a moment of crisis. I have removed a few brief asides to preserve XX’s anonymity.
From XX …
I’m a long time reader, but have rarely (if ever?) taken the time to write in. I’m an emergency physician at a hospital in the Bay Area … Perhaps this is all common knowledge and not informative – but I find the disconnect between what I see at work and in the news disconcerting so figured I’d add my two cents.
Everyone I work with seems resigned to a sense of impending doom, and an expectation that we will all be infected in the weeks ahead, and that we have no alternative course of action without abandoning our patients.
A few key notes on Gov. Cuomo’s press conference a short time ago. Again, I relay this not simply because of its relevance in New York state but as a leading indicator of what is likely to occur in other parts of the country.
Here’s an interesting artifact of information from what seems like a mounting rebellion within the New York City public system against the Department of Education. Minutes ago, I received an email from the PTA of the public school our children attend. It was a statement from the leader of the UFT (the city teachers union) basically denouncing the Mayor and the DOE for not closing the schools. A taste of the tone: “The mayor is recklessly putting the health of our students, their families and school staff in jeopardy by refusing to close public schools.”
On many levels, governmental leaders are failing us. This shouldn’t be entirely a surprise. In crises things break. Public leadership is one of them. Yet we are also seeing decisive, smart actions by governors and mayors across the country – and the countless civil servants and emergency responders who they speak for and direct. I have no doubt that people are working heroically within the federal government’s public health and emergency response bureaucracy, though their work can be obscured by the decision makers at the top. We are also seeing mass action emerge organically from citizens across the country.
Over the last 18 hours I have done my best to research the situation and decision-making for the New York City public school system. Everything I’ve seen confirms my impression that the Mayor and Chancellor of the school system are in the process of committing a grave and even historic error. It is highly notable that, to the best of my knowledge, in none of his public statements has Mayor DeBlasio shared with the public what the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has advised him with respect to schools.
We’ve updated our breaking overnight news to indicate where in Washington state the ER doc who tested positive is located: It’s Kirkland, the epicenter of the state’s outbreak.
Important new developments in a story we’ve been working since Friday: two emergency room doctors on opposite coasts are in critical condition in what could be the first U.S. cases of occupational transmission of COVID-19. Josh Kovensky has been on the story day and night. Here’s his report.
TPM Reader MG on new hospital bans on visitors …
This makes sense but is an extra strain on my family… Our adolescent daughter suffers from a chronic illness and was hospitalized last Thursday at our local children’s hospital in [REDACTED] for the second time this year. Her hospitalizations are lengthy. Her previous stay was 3 weeks long. A nurse called me from the unit this evening to tell me that a new rule requires that only one parent may ever visit. You have to pick. It needs to be the parent most in charge of the patient’s care because that person will also attend what were formerly called “family” sessions with doctors and other caregivers in lieu of both parents. It’s a tough situation. Meanwhile, Ohio has banned visitors all together.
Crying for all the parents with hospitalized kids.