Dr. Amy Acton was the Director of Health for the State of Ohio when the pandemic hit. She convinced DeWine to declare a state of emergency the first day that a case was reported in Ohio, and to lock down the state quickly. Her prediction of ten thousand cases a day was sharply criticized when it did not occur because the "curve was flattened" Now Ohio is at around ten thousand cases a day.
She became famous for her many metaphors, this article gives her newest, that of the pandemic is like the sinking of the Titanic, and we are now in lifeboats.
Months after leaving office, Dr. Amy Acton calls COVID-19 a humanitarian crisis
"So this is the Titanic at this point and you can't turn the Titanic on a dime," Acton said. "So, we're going down. It's some amount of going down, so let's minimize the amount."
"We're beyond there," Acton said of the initial predictions. "We don't have a curve to flatten right now. It's so bad … It's just like a line going up. I couldn't even say flatten it yet because it's that exponential."
"We're going to face a moment here, I think it's going to peak within the next two weeks," Acton said. "None of us is not going to know someone who's not affected. … We're going to see that we have a humanitarian crisis on our own soil."
"I really feel coming out of this Thanksgiving holiday, we're going to have more asked of us," she said. "So, we are on these lifeboats … our (lifeboats) are tethered to each other and each of us has to figure out how many people we can pull up."
She's preaching I the choir here. But I don't think the doomster language is generally helpful at this point.
ReplyDeleteFor those who are already anxious and doing their best to comply, a reiteration of the practical do's and don'ts is more useful. I thought Biden's speech, predictable as it was, hit a good note between sacrifice and optimism.
For those who don't care or don't believe covid is worse than a cold--they're beyond help.
My brother was sending me mocking photos of people in gas masks before I blocked him. I suspect that showing or expressing fear just encourages the perverse to be more and more reckless just to terrorize the fraidy cats.
Jean, I think you're right. Fear is paralyzing.
DeleteOne of my sisters found out yesterday she has Covid. So far she is doing okay. She is 51 and in good health, and has a good chance for it to stay relatively mild. However her husband has multiple health challenges, and also has symptoms.
K and I are laying low, lower than usual that is. We both have sneezy runny noses today. I think it's just a cold. I guess the usual winter stuff doesn't take a break just because Covid is around. But one thinks, what if it is Covid? One good thing, the cold will keep K from doing church duties this weekend. He won't feel guilty about staying home, because he is protecting others from possible exposure. I have been worried for some time about the degree of exposure he gets as a deacon.
I don't think shaming works to get people to use common sense, it just brings out the behaviors you were describing. Biden hit the right note by appealing to a sense that "we're in this together".
Sometimes, one does just fine despite pre-existing conditions. My cousin got it. She has asthma, enlarged aorta, scleroderma, a limited stroke two years ago. She's 71. She's just about over it with zero respiratory or other dire effects. It's a roll of the dice.
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DeleteAmy is not just concerned about people that get Covid-19, she is concerned about all the healthcare and front line people who are suffering from exhaustion because of the situation.
ReplyDeleteMy friend Betty who is staying with me was a medical technician who worked for the local hospital for 30 years. She understands how stressful hospital work is in normal times under normal work loads, and finds it unimaginable how people are coping with the present situation. I think that is what Amy was talking about with the lifeboat imagery.
For sure, the healthcare people have my sympathy and prayers.
DeleteThe Titanic metaphor makes more sense with health care workers. It is hellish for them, especially for ICU nurses. I saw how they worked their tails off to stabilize Mom after valve replacement and then after she arrested. The patient-to-nurse ratio was about 3-1.
DeleteNow that ratio is higher, and the patients all need constant care and monitoring for an unpredictable disease. Close to 80 percent of those who have died are over 65, so they are monitoring patients with everything from diabetes to cancer.
I am surprised they haven't started setting up off-site units long before this to separate and provide "comfort care" for those least likely to make it.
Fareed Zakariah was briefly on Washington Week explaining that Taiwan's aggressive quarantine policy prevented hospitals from being overrun.
I'll give Trump some credit for vaccine development, but he essentially took the tack (not to add to the doomsday analogies) that we could let the covid fires burn unrestricted because we'd be getting rain in the form of vax in 6, no, 8, no, 18 months.
His own experience with covid certainly did not teach him anything.
Well it taught him that with the best care available in the nation it's only a few days of not feeling great, so easy peasy, right?
DeleteThe priest I was telling about who collapsed from Covid a few weeks ago has recovered. I saw him on a livestreamed Mass yesterday. He looked ashen, and sounded out of breath, like you would if you had just climbed three flights of stairs. He hadn't been in the hospital, just recovered at home. He spoke a little about his experience, saying that there had been a couple of days when he wasn't sure he wanted to recover, but there were still things he wanted to do. He joked that he had been afraid he had left things a mess for his survivors, that they would just have to back a trash truck up to the rectory and pitch everything, because none of it had value, except to him, and now he wondered even about that. I could definitely identify with that, having saved too much worthless stuff, and having had to sort through my mother-in-law's stuff.
As Stanley said, it's a roll of the dice. Older people with health issues are more likely not to survive, but some do, and some younger, healthier people don't.
The poor man. I hope he has some help and is being checked on frequently.
DeleteHow is your husband?
I have been engaged in "death cleaning" since my mother died. Last week I read all my old grad school papers. At age 29, I was an eager and engaged student with second-rate intellectual capabilities. More love for the topics than actual talent. I also realized I could probably happily spend the rest of my days studying the Voyage of St. Brendan. I saved one or two papers I liked and burned the rest with prayers of thanks to the wonderful professors who taught me. It was a quite satisfying week!
Thanks, Jean. K is doing fine, except he is probably going to catch my cold, which is already getting better, and doesn't appear to be anything worse.
DeleteFr. Joe does have lots of people checking on him. Probably more than he wants, since he is an independent type of guy.
I need to Marie Kondo the heck out of this place. You talking about your college paper makes me think of the 1970 edition of the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics which is sitting around here. Neither of us have looked anything up in it since college days. What it has been used for is a booster seat for toddlers, and to press wildflowers. If anyone actually did want facts related to chemistry and physics the internet would be a much better source than a 50 years outdated reference volume.
I went through some of our bookshelves a few days ago and got rid of every college textbook I had saved - sold them to Half Price Books for pennies on the dollar. Restoration poetry, Victorian poetry, Shakespeare. I assume all that stuff is on line now if I want to read it. It did feel good.
DeleteThe New York Times had an interesting story the other day. Remember the great ventilator shortage? Solved. We have plenty now. But, guess what: We don't have enough people trained to use them.
ReplyDeleteQuote from the story: “We can’t manufacture doctors and nurses in the same way we can manufacture ventilators,” said Dr. Eric Toner, an emergency room doctor and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “And you can’t teach someone overnight the right settings and buttons to push on a ventilator for patients who have a disease they’ve never seen before. The most realistic thing we can do in the short run is to reduce the impact on hospitals, and that means wearing masks and avoiding crowded spaces so we can flatten the curve of new infections.”
So even the expert on sophisticated medicine ends up where they all do, with Wash your hands, Wear your mask, Avoid crowds.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/22/health/Covid-ventilators-stockpile.html
If we had had a coronavirus task force instead of a series of photo ops, shortages like this would at least have been planned for.
My friend tells me that you need respiratory therapists who are in short supply. Typically only a few on staff because they usually spend just a short time assessing people and giving them advice and things to do to aid in their recovery.
DeleteThe Covid-19 people who are on ventilators need constant monitoring and intervention because things can go downhill quickly. And many others are being monitored and treated for respiratory problems so they do not have to go on ventilators.
Yes you don't just put people on a machine, push some buttons and monitor them remotely.
There is some hand-wringing over the fact that the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are two dose, and that people won't follow up with the second one, and that it will complicate record keeping. Many of us remember when the Salk polio vaccine, and later on, the Sabin one came out. They were three doses. Parents all over the country took their kids to be vaccinated and adults were also vaccinated. They were just glad that finally there was something to fight polio. I'm not remembering that there was any reminder sent out for the next dose, it was something that people felt that it was important to do, and they did it. We need to channel something of that attitude when the vaccines are finally released.
ReplyDeleteI'll get a vaccine when I can. I'd rather take my chances with the vaccine than the virus, which I'd probably contract eventually.
DeleteKatherine, I am wondering how you and your husband caught colds - after all, colds are a virus and it would seem that taking all the Covid precautions should also protect us from cold viruses.
ReplyDeleteThoughts?
That's a good question, I was wondering that myself.i haven't been anywhere without a mask, and not many places at all. I have been re-using masks though. The KN95 ones are expensive. Just got a new pack of 10 from Amazon. Maybe I'll pitch the old ones.
DeleteI'm hoping this mild cold isn't just a strange manifestation of Covid. Or mayne I should hope that it is, and I've built up some immunity?
Could it be allergies?
DeleteI always get a blast of sinus drainage when the weather turns cold and we are cooped up with the furnace running, even with the various filters, humidifiers, and anti-dust measures.
Also, we sat around the outdoor fireplace on Thanksgiving. I felt fine at the time, but I must have gotten chilled, as I was trying to warm up all of yesterday and had to use my inhaler for wheezing.
I suppose it could be allergies, though my usual time to have them is spring, when the tree pollen is out.
DeleteSo sitting around the fireplace, did you get to see your son on Thanksgiving?
Yes, we did! He was here for a few hours, and we had a nice time despite the chilly weather. He said sitting around the fire reminded him of our family camping trips. He is such a cheerful soul.
DeleteFor his birthday/Christmas, we will likely take cookies and lasagne down to his apartment, leave it in a sack outside the door, and wave at him and his cats through the window. One takes what one can get in these times.
Jean, I'm very glad that you were able to be with your son for Thanksgiving.
ReplyDeleteKatherine, I usually only have spring allergies. This year, I have had allergies on and off since spring. I had a few weeks during the summer without symptoms, but they came back in the fall (maybe ragweed). Our seasons are off - the spring was very cold, so the foliage came late, the pollen came late, many spring flowers, like daffodils, never bloomed or were nipped by frost. But there were still lilacs blooming in October - and iris! Unheard of. I think there might have been a second round of spring pollen here. The allergies got my sinuses to act up, leading to what I think is bronchitis. I defeated it a week or two ago - I thought - but declared victory too soon. It's back. So I will have to try another few days of mucinex (which worked, but causes unpleasant side effects for me and so I stopped taking it after two days). Your weather patterns may have been different, but maybe there is a possibility it's a second round of allergies?
We are getting ready to drive across country to California (long story) where we will probably stay for at least a couple of months. I've been watching the covid red creep over the map - it's impossible to drive from Maryland to California without dealing with Covid states. So, wish us luck. We are taking many precautions, even to the point of finding hotels with windows that open and bringing our own food (we will be sick of PBJs by the time we hit LA), and a foldable camping toilet so that we can avoid gas station restrooms!
Probably leaving Wednesday or Thursday and will decide our final route after we have the latest covid information. This will be my 5th cross-country drive, but I am not looking forward to it. No stopping to go sight seeing this time, just driving.
Others have mentioned allergy problems as well, and that is what it seems like rather than a virus.
ReplyDeleteGood luck and safe travels with your journey. Sounds like you have made good preparations. Will you be staying with family?
I am into my January allergy which, in the past couple of years, has begun in December. It doesn't last as long as it used to, though. Sniffles and a productive cough. Yesterday he cough switched to "dry,' which worried me a bit, but today it is wet again. My doctor says I can get rid of it by moving back up north. Big help.
DeleteJack, I see there is a move to impeach Gov. DeWine for his covid efforts. Does this look like it will get much traction? There has been an effort by a couple of rural counties to impeach Gov Whitmer, but the GOP legislative leaders have panned it.
ReplyDelete