The Coronavirus question that must be answered before Ohio reopens

If you watched the HBO series, sometimes it was hard to remember who was a vampire and who wasn’t. I never watched the kiddy version- Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but, at least you knew that if you saw them in daylight, they weren’t a bloodsucking threat.

Yesterday, Ohio Governor, under pressure from the flip-flopping-fool in the White House, has announced May 1st as the day to “reopen America again”- which is good enough reason to NOT reopen anything. Anyone who says “reopen again” is foreshadowing what’s going to happen over and over, if we jump the gun. Columbus Restaurant Impresario Cameron Mitchell said that he can reopen one time, not twice.

If you want to “reopen America” the word “Again” should never be included, but Trump is in love with his “Make America Great Again” fictional brand and can’t let go.

Without enough PPE, without rapid and accurate testing for all, and without a proven and tested care regimen, opening too soon, is a huge risk. Need proof? Look to what the Navy has discovered when they did what we haven’t- test everyone in a control group:

The Navy’s testing of the entire 4,800-member crew of the aircraft carrier – which is about 94% complete – was an extraordinary move in a headline-grabbing case that has already led to the firing of the carrier’s captain and the resignation of the Navy’s top civilian official.

Roughly 60 percent of the over 600 sailors who tested positive so far have not shown symptoms of COVID-19, the potentially lethal respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus, the Navy says. The service did not speculate about how many might later develop symptoms or remain asymptomatic.

“With regard to COVID-19, we’re learning that stealth in the form of asymptomatic transmission is this adversary’s secret power,” said Rear Admiral Bruce Gillingham, surgeon general of the Navy….

“It has revealed a new dynamic of this virus: that it can be carried by normal, healthy people who have no idea whatsoever that they are carrying it,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper told NBC’s “Today” morning show.

Source: Coronavirus clue? Most cases aboard U.S. aircraft carrier are symptom-free – Reuters

The unanswered question can be answered in 2 weeks, the “incubation period” we’ve been working with as fact so far. What happens to the 600 who tested positive who’ve been quarantined. In 2 weeks, will they still test positive? Can they spread it? Even after 2 weeks? Are there people who are no longer safe to walk among us who never come down with it- but continue to spread it? Vampires- who can walk in daylight in the world of True Blood.

Since we’re not even testing everyone who is suspected to have it, or had it (like my employee who went home on Friday Mar 13 and was down for the count for almost a month), we don’t know who could be spreading it.

If you send kids back to school, and they all become carriers, and don’t show symptoms, we will effectively kill off every senior taking care of their grandbabies in short order.

The biggest risk we take is killing off our medical professionals, who are already in short supply to manage another surge. Without instant testing for all, we can’t risk a second wave until we have separate hospitals for managing covid cases only, staffed by those who have already had it, or have tested positive and not developed symptoms. We’re not there yet.

This is why who you elect is important. The ability to analyze real data and make informed decisions is crucial and in this case, life and death. We’ve already seen that Trump can’t be trusted to screw in a light bulb, but for Dewine and Acton to consider this early open date is reckless.

The economy can never come before life itself.  As to how we pay for this all, well, that’s a topic for another post. But, maybe, you might want to consider that we start by consolidating governments and reducing administrative overhead, before we cut safety forces. I’m also going to suggest that the idiots in Huber Heights, who already bought into the public entertainment industry with the Rose center, should be removed from office for wasting 2.8 million by buying a shopping mall with tax dollars in the middle of a pandemic. Place a bet they didn’t have a “Pandemic” rider on their Rose center income stream, which will more than likely lose two entire seasons of revenue- or at least be half of what it was thanks to social distancing requirements.

In the meantime, be smart, stay in as much as possible, and wait until everyone can get an N95 mask, testing is cheap, quick and available, and that we have proof that people can’t be superspreaders forever.

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