21 replies to this topic

[Waver]

Allegedly all the schools in HK had to close down after re-opening.

Edited by Waver, 16 July 2020 - 03:44 AM.

[claire]

Before offering opinions about what could happen or speculating about what may be the best-case scenario and playing Russian-roulette, my suggestion is to read what leading epidemiologists say about what is and isn't known and their conclusions. 

 

Here's an excerpt from an interview with Dr. Ali Khan, the former Directors of the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response with a very impressive career in emergency preparedness who has written extensively on pandemics and whose professional career has focused on bioterrorism preparedness and international health emergencies.  His bio is extensive.

 

 

 

DR. ALI KHAN:  An issue from day one of this outbreak has been the importance timely data and transparency of data. Countries that have managed this outbreak well — South Korea, for example, Singapore — all of their data is completely available to the public, and they’re very timely in getting that data, and they use good metrics for how their response is going. And the U.S. has never adopted that strategy to the current day.

 

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And speaking about other countries, what’s your concern about the U.S. response to the pandemic compared to some other countries, like South Korea or New Zealand?

DR. ALI KHAN: That’s an excellent question. So, this, without a doubt, is the greatest public health failure in our nation’s history, and it just continues to be in freefall. So, we peaked at about 30,000 cases in mid-April, and then we squandered two months of lockdown and economic collapse by failing to get our disease contained, and now we’re up to 60,000 cases a day. I mean, that’s completely out of step with the rest of Europe, with Oceania and East Asia.

So, many — all those countries have not only just contained their outbreaks, resumed their economies, started back schools, but some countries have just gone all out and said, “We’re going to zero.” So, New Zealand has eliminated disease. Right? A number of other countries have eliminated disease. China, with 1.4 billion people, has gone nine days without a domestic case. So China is going for elimination, too. So, we are clearly the outlier with this uncontrolled response here in the United States — failed response here in the United States.

 

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Ali Khan, what is the U.S. doing wrong?

DR. ALI KHAN: So, it starts — goes right back. So, you know, in the early days, I said it was lack of imagination. So, you know, the U.S. had sort of been sucker-punched by this outbreak. But at this point, it’s very clear: We don’t have a national strategy based on the four principles that everybody else has used to get rid of this outbreak. Simple four principles, right?

So, the first principle to contain this outbreak is leadership. So that’s integrated, whole-of-government leadership from the local, state to national level. We still don’t have that. We can’t agree on so many things that are important.

The second part is, get down community transmission. And this is the role of government, to make sure we’re testing and tracing. Nobody is talking about that anymore — isolating cases quickly, finding those contacts — nor does anybody talk about the metrics around that.

The third thing is community engagement. And that’s our role, right? Wear a mask. Please, wear a mask. Wash your hands. Social distance.

And the fourth thing is, do what you can to make sure that people who are hospitalized are more likely to survive. And the one drug we know that does that right now is dexamethasone.

So, those are four simple principles, a national strategy, four principles. We can get our disease contained like so many other countries all over the world.

 

DR. ALI KHAN:  So, we talk about 60,000 cases a day. So that’s basically we’re minting 600 to a thousand new death certificates every day. Right? We can’t wait for a vaccine. And other countries have gotten their diseases contained and eliminated without a vaccine. So, yes, I would love a vaccine. There’s lots of data that makes it problematic. Immunity may be short-lived. We’ve never had vaccines based on these technologies. So, as anybody else, I’m optimistic. I hope there’s a vaccine. We don’t need a vaccine today so that we don’t kill another 600 to a thousand people tomorrow. We have the tools.

 

DR. ALI KHAN: I believe all of government has blood on their hands — 136,000 deaths, preventable deaths, a tragedy. There’s a lot of blood to go around here, Amy, let’s be very honest, you know, if you look at the rest of the world, that’s contained their disease, and some even eliminated. So there’s a lot of blood to go around.

But what you saw in countries that were successful was that each and every politician, regardless of their party, followed the science. So, everybody said, “Wear masks.” No controversy. Everybody wore a mask. They got their disease under control. And we need to see that again right now at every political level — local, state, national. Wear a mask. That’s one of the four strategies that will get us out of this mess. So we need everybody to be wearing a mask at this point.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you about some of the recent studies out of China, Germany and Britain, suggesting that people who have had COVID-19 begin losing their antibodies in just a few months. So, even if there was a vaccine, the significance of this, Dr. Khan, and also of the younger people that we are seeing get sick and die all over the country?

 

DR. ALI KHAN: So, Amy, two great questions. So, yes, if your immunity is short-lived, that makes this — makes finding a vaccine, we’re chasing rainbows, right? So, again, a reminder: We don’t need a vaccine to get out of this mess. Even today, I’m very hopeful. Public health still works today the way it worked at the end of January. We can get this outbreak under control.

As far as young people are involved, without a doubt, we see less severe disease. However, young people also can get sick. Right? They can also get hospitalized. They also die. We are now learning that about 50% of all people who get infected with this disease have some sort of heart abnormality. So, even if you don’t die, there may be long-term — there are long-term complications of this disease. So we don’t want our young people to get infected, either.

DR. ALI KHAN: So, I will be very honest with you. As a pediatrician, as a father, as a public health professional, we need kids back in school. Right? Without a doubt. We need to get kids back in school for numerous reasons.

But we have to get them back safely. And we know we can do this. You know, I just did a review of over 15 countries that were able to safely get kids back in school. But that’s based on not just the safety measures we take and wearing masks and everything else that the kids need to do. It’s based on dropping community transmission. So, I say that unless you have approximately 25 cases per million population per day, you can’t resume schools. Right?

So, if people want to go back to schools, please put on your mask. Right? Drop your community transmission. Work with the local health department. Make sure they have the support they need to test and trace everybody. You know, this is what we all need to do to get our kids back in school. Let’s not put them at risk.