Salem Political Snark

Marion County not allowed to reopen. Who's to blame?

Frustrating. Not good. Irritating.

There's a lot of words I could use to describe my feeling about Marion and Polk being the only counties in Oregon whose applications to start reopening were rejected by Governor Brown and the Oregon Health Authority. 

Of Oregon's 36 counties, 31 were given the OK to reopen. Three haven't applied yet (Multnomah, Clackamas, Washington). And two, Marion and Polk, have the dubious distinction of not passing the re-opening criteria, apparently mostly because of continued high numbers of new COVID-19 cases.

On the sort-of bright side, today's OHA Coronavirus Update said, "The applications for Marion and Polk counties were not approved, and those counties will be monitored for seven days to see if conditions in those counties have improved." But the update also showed that, once again, Marion County had the highest number of new cases in Oregon.

Oregon Health Authority reported 67 new confirmed cases and no new presumptive cases of COVID-19 as of 8 a.m. today, bringing the state total to 3,479. The new confirmed cases reported today are in the following counties: Deschutes (2), Linn (2), Malheur (1), Marion (33), Multnomah (19), Polk (1), Umatilla (2), Washington (2), Yamhill (5).

Here's a map that tells the reopening tale, courtesy of the Oregon Health Authority.

So how is it that Marion County, along with our neighbor Polk County, is going to continue being shutdown tomorrow, while all of the uncolored counties in the map have been approved for a Phase 1 reopening? Which, according to a State of Oregon summary, consists of:

First reopening stage, allowed in specific counties that qualify. Includes limited reopening of restaurants and bars, personal services, gyms, and malls. Gatherings of up to 25 people allowed for recreational, social, cultural, civic or faith events – with physical distancing requirements.

When I first heard today that Marion County's reopen application had been turned down, my snap reaction was to blame the three Republican county commissioners.

After all, one of them, Sam Brentano, is a notorious global warming denier. So it was easy for me to envision he and the other two commissioners ignoring public health scientists, being big on Trump-style "let's get the economy open again and not worry much about whether this causes more deaths and disease." 

There could be some truth to this. The Marion County Health Department has been notably silent on our local coronavirus crisis. I'm a news junkie and haven't seen any meaningful public utterances about the unusually high number of COVID-19 cases here. 

In fact, I've read news stories where staff from the Health Department declined to comment on the high rate of infections in Marion County. That got me to thinking that department employees were being stifled by the County Commissioners in the same way Trump has been preventing federal scientists from releasing coronavirus guidelines and other information.

But an excellent Salem Reporter story by Rachel Alexander, Saphara Harrell and Jake Thomas caught my eye a little while ago. The timing was great to publish today's "WATCHDOG: In Marion County, high concentrations of coronavirus blamed on inequality of care."

Along with other news outlets, Salem Reporter is making coronavirus-related stories free to everybody. So you should be able to read the link above without a subscription -- which i highly recommend that you do, as it is by far the best analysis I've seen of the situation in Marion County.

It's a detailed, nuanced, well-researched story.

Notwithstanding the headline citing inequality of care as the culprit in Marion County, the story shows that there's plenty of blame to go around. Read it to get the full picture.

Here's my summary of the blamees, with excerpts from the Salem Reporter piece -- which focuses on the heavily Latinx Woodburn area that has by far the most coronavirus cases in Marion County.

Marion County Health Department 
Days passed before the Marion County Health Department approached the groups to ask their help to slow the rapidly escalating number of infected individuals."

"But an investigation by Salem Reporter found that state and Marion County health officials were slow to get timely, accurate information about COVID-19 to agricultural workers and non-English speaking residents in the north county. 

Constrained by limited testing capacity, limited staffing and sometimes days-long delays in getting results back, health officials reacted as new cases were reported, but did little to proactively ensure some of the county’s most vulnerable residents were armed with information to protect themselves and their families.

Inequality/Inequity

Community leaders and state health officials said Marion County’s outbreak is exposing longstanding inequities for Latinos and non-English speaking residents who are more likely employed in agriculture, manufacturing and other fields where work has continued despite the pandemic.

The leaders described as slow or inadequate the outreach early on that could have helped people still working in essential jobs better protect themselves and their families.

“The gaps that are already in our community, the gaps that have already been there between our Latinx community and our county, they’ve been magnified in a really big way,” said Lopez, the PCUN director.

Bad business practices

Employers in grocery stores, agriculture, manufacturing and construction weren’t required to follow all of the state’s guidelines about social distancing at work, though they still had an obligation to protect employees from COVID-19 under general workplace safety rules, according to Oregon OSHA spokesman Aaron Colvin.

Staying far apart from other workers is possible in some field jobs, but Lopez said PCUN received reports from workers that they were working “shoulder to shoulder” in farms and food processing plants and didn’t have hand washing stations or sanitizing supplies. PCUN encouraged people to file complaints with state agencies, she said.

Workers have filed 29 complaints with Oregon OSHA alleging Woodburn businesses failed to follow social distancing guidelines or provide protective equipment. Six relate to grocery stores and three to nursery and meat packing businesses. Most are still being investigated.

Culture

Close contact at work wasn’t the only concern. Workers often shared van rides to jobs, providing another way for the virus to spread. Many live in large households, making it easier for the virus to spread to a larger group if a working adult unwittingly brings home the disease.

Large households have been a common factor for people seeking COVID-19 testing at Woodburn’s Salud Medical Center.

“Family is the center. You may be interdependent on other portions of your family. Maybe your cousin is your babysitter. Maybe your grandparents live with you or your parents,” said Lori Kelley, director of quality for Yakima Valley Farmworkers Clinic, which operates Salud.

Health care access

Access to health care also plays a role, according to Latino health providers and community leaders. State data shows that Latinos are less likely to have health insurance, meaning it’s more difficult to get testing.

That means those testing positive in official counts likely reflect a small portion of the true number with COVID-19. Kelley said the percentage of patients testing positive at Salud has been higher than at Yakima Valley’s other Marion County clinics, suggesting those coming in are more sick.

Lack of testing

Lopez said she’s heard reports of Latinos with COVID-19 symptoms turned away from testing sites in the county, sometimes because they didn’t have insurance. 

Without widespread testing, it’s more likely for people with no or very mild symptoms to spread the virus, especially if they’re still going to work. Public health workers are also challenged to identify where the virus is spreading when they can’t track all those who are infected, something that can revealed by extensive testing.

Inadequate information 

Lopez said government health authorities should have worked with rural radio stations, Spanish language media or other similar outlets. Even when social distancing guidelines did get out, she said they often failed to address the realities of daily life for people who carpool to work or live in large households with a single bathroom.

“What I mostly heard was confusion from our Latinx community, especially our elders, saying ‘Hey, am I going to get arrested if I go out to work?’” Lopez said.

In case you're wondering why the Salem Reporter story focused so much on the Woodburn area, that's the biggest "hot spot" in Marion County. Here's a chart from the story.

With so many COVID-19 cases, Marion County shouldn't reopen soon

I'm as eager as anyone to have Marion County get back to a semblance of normality in these coronavirus times. i miss my Tai Chi classes. I miss going to the Courthouse Athletic Club. I miss having my hair cut (though I'm looking more like Willy Nelson every day, which can't be a bad thing).

But I'm also an avid reader of the daily Oregon Coronavirus Update that gets emailed to me by the Oregon Health Authority (OHA). Disturbingly often, Marion County has an outsized number of new cases, frequently outpacing Multnomah County which has a much larger population.

According to the most recent OHA data, May 8, Oregon as a whole has had 3,068 confirmed coronavirus cases. Marion County has had 626, 20% of the state total. Yet in 2019 Marion County comprised only 8% of the Oregon population (347,818 out of 4.218 million). 

Nonetheless, a few days ago the Salem Reporter ran a story by Saphara Harrell and Rachel Alexander, "With highest COVID-19 rate in the state, Marion County wants to start reopening businesses."

Marion County says it is ready to start lifting restrictions intended to slow the spread of COVID-19. But the county’s plan, released Wednesday, will face its first test when it’s sent to the governor’s office to determine if the area has met key measures needed to reopen.

The proposal by the Marion County Board of Commissioners comes as the county is experiencing the highest rate of the coronavirus infections in the state and lags behind other urban counties in testing.

Marion County hasn’t met many of the state’s requirements for reopening, including adequate testing, adequate contact tracers or a downward trajectory of cases over a 14-day period. But on Wednesday, materials were presented at the board meeting making the case that the county is making progress on key measures.

OK. But progress is one thing. Meeting the state's requirements is a whole other thing. It seems to me that Marion County should be one of the last counties in Oregon to start reopening businesses, churches, and such, not one of the first.

Today I looked over Marion County's application to the state to begin reopening. As the Salem Reporter story says, Marion County isn't meeting some of the criteria that the state says are needed to ensure the safety of people as Governor Brown's Stay Home, Save Lives orders are gradually relaxed.

Notably, the number of new coronavirus cases in Marion County isn't on a two-week downward trend. A chart in the Marion County application shows this.

Two weeks from May 1 was April 17, which is just past the legend on the horizontal axis. I didn't do any sophisticated statistical analysis of that two-week trend, or even an unsophisticated analysis. But it seems obvious that the Marion County application to start reopening on May 15 doesn't demonstrate a two-week downward trend in new coronavirus cases.

Instead, the application says, "There has been a decline of cases from a peak on April 19, 2020." Well, yes. April 19 was the high point so far in new Marion County cases. But cherry-picking one day doesn't make a trend. My eyeballs don't see any sort of overall trend -- just a steady increase in cases with ups and downs in the daily count.

County-level data from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center confirms that Marion County isn't experiencing a recent downturn in confirmed coronavirus cases. Here's the graph for Marion County. Sure doesn't look like any "bending the curve" is going on in Marion County so far. The last data point is May 7, yesterday.

Here's the graph for Multnomah County, which has the most cases in Oregon. A small bit of bending seems to be occurring. 

I readily admit that part of my skepticism about Marion County being ready to start reopening stems from the deeply conservative bent of the three Republican county commissioners. I don't trust that they're committed to using the best science to base reopening plans on. Rather, I strongly suspect that their Trumpian brand of politics is at play.

Namely, wrongly believing that the Marion County economy can start getting back to normal even though the coronavirus crisis hasn't abated. If people are afraid to go to work, shop, eat at a restaurant, visit a gym, or whatever, it doesn't matter if those places are reopened. Probably they will be largely empty until the COVID-19 outbreak is on a decided downturn in Marion County.

Which, right now, it isn't. 

Any what's up with the director of the Marion County Public Health Department refusing to comment on the Salem Reporter story? That also seems Trump-like.

The Health Authority this week released case numbers by ZIP code, showing the Gervais and Woodburn areas were leading the state in the number of cases per capita.

Two weeks ago, Katrina Rothenberger, director of the Marion County Public Health Department, said the numbers concerned her that the county was headed in the wrong direction.

On Wednesday, Rothenberger declined an interview through a county spokeswoman.

Survey shows Oregonians strongly support stay at home orders

Facts matter. And it's a fact that a recent DHM Research survey found that 82% of Oregonians support Governor Brown's Stay Home, Save Lives orders. Here's the graphic from the first survey release.

You can read about the findings in this DHM Research PDF file.
Download COVID Survey--Annotated--March 2020

Below is an excerpt from the report about the overwhelming support for stay at home orders, and how this undercuts the claim of right-wing activists that people want Oregon opened up for business as soon as possible.

Oregonians overwhelmingly support the state’s stay at home orders.

82% of Oregonians support the state’s stay at home orders, including a whopping 60% who “strongly” support them. Support is wide and deep.

It cuts across geography, political party, and among those most financially harmed by the lockdowns. By area, the orders are supported by 84% in the Portland metro, 85% in the Willamette Valley and 75% in the rest of the state.

By party, the orders are supported by 95% of Democrats, 72% of Republicans, and 77% of NAV/others. And 83% of those with a job or income loss also support the orders.

Protests advocating against stay at home orders have popped up nationally and in Oregon. This data gives insight into how representative, or not, they are.

The protests have a definite partisan make up, with Republicans and supporters of President Trump clearly visible. And recently, President Trump seemed to be encouraging the protests with a Tweet saying that some states should be “liberated.”

However, the views of the protestors are a distinctly minority view, not only of Oregonians generally, but Republicans specifically.

As noted above, 72% of Republicans support the stay at home order. However, that does leave 28% of Republicans who oppose the orders (as do 20% of NAV/other voters) which is a sufficient number to organize protests.

I've heard that a protest is planned at the Capitol building in early May. After searching Facebook for mentions of "reopen Oregon," I found several groups espousing this goal. But I didn't find any mention of a protest here in Salem.

The Open Oregon Facebook group has many posts about the stay at home orders. Scrolling through them, this image caught my eye.

I found this offensive for several reasons:

(1) My daughter has been furloughed from her job because of the COVID-19 crisis. For 13 years she was the sales manager for a small designer eyewear company in Orange County. They've gotten a federal small business loan, so she might be back in work in May, probably at a reduced salary. 

Losing her job disrupted her family immensely. But she supports California's stay at home order because she knows that money is much less important than staying alive. So in no way would she equate a COVID-19 speed bump that slows her career with someone dying from the virus.

(2) I'm 71. My wife is 70. She has asthma. Thus both of us are in a high-risk category because of age, with my wife also having an underlying medical condition that could increase her risk if she got the virus. We have been staying home as much as possible. We wear a mask and gloves when we go grocery shopping or to the pharmacy.

Young people may think that people our age are fine with dying because we've lived 70-some years. News flash: when you get to be 70, that age doesn't seem all that old. Now we want to live to be 80. And 80 year olds want to live to be 90. So long as life is worth living, life is precious. 

So please, protesters who want to open up Oregon immediately, exercise your compassion. Think about your parent or grandparent who will be put at greater risk. Imagine how you would feel if you knew that getting the coronavirus from someone not wearing a mask and standing too close to you could cause your death.

Wouldn't it be worth it to save your life by extending the Stay Home, Save Lives orders until public health experts say it is time to relax them? Would you be willing to die so a restaurant or bar could open up a few weeks early?

I doubt it. So don't inflict the risk of premature death onto other people. Forget protesting the stay at home orders. Remember to wash your hands often, wear a mask when you go out in public, and stay six feet away from other people.

Minto Brown dog park should be open during COVID-19 crisis

Woof, woof. That's the sound of our dog agreeing with the title of this blog post. For some unknown reason, parks in Salem are open, but the Minto Brown off-leash dog park is closed.

I took this photo today at the entrance to the parking lot that serves the dog park. My wife and I, along with Mooka, our dog, were disappointed to see this barricade and sign saying "This Area is Closed Until Further Notice." 

But it wasn't a total surprise, since I'd read this letter to the editor in the Sunday Statesman Journal.

Closure of dog park disappointing

I was stunned recently when we went to the dog park at Minto-Brown Island Park and found it barricaded.

This has been one of the few activities where we have been able to get exercise and have social interaction while maintaining social distance.

I think it is counterproductive to eliminate healthy opportunities that represent less danger than going to the store. And anyone who doesn’t see this as essential doesn’t own a dog.

John Huff
Salem

I totally agree with Huff. Especially since right next to the barricade and closed sign was this contradictory notice.

OK, but that already was being done by visitors to the dog park, as far as my wife and I could tell based on our visits to the dog park before it was closed. So again, what's the reason for closing it?

If you agree that the dog park should be open, tell this to City Manager Steve Powers, members of the City Council (including Mayor Bennett), and other city officials by sending a message to them: [email protected]

Grocery shoppers are touching items that other people may have touched, yet grocery stores are open. Sure, at the dog park dogs run up to strangers and often they get patted. But it's difficult for me to understand how this is a greater risk than touching a can of beans that someone else may have handled.

A few weeks ago the Washington Post had a story, "How to pet dogs during the coronavirus pandemic." Basic message: don't worry very much about it.

Given the unknowns about the disease, experts recommend that people infected with the coronavirus stay away from pets, as they should from people. So the most conservative approach would be to refrain from touching others’ dogs, because its owner could be asymptomatic.

But based on available evidence, there’s little reason to avoid petting, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association. (If practicing social distancing, make sure the owner is on the other end of a leash at least six feet long.)

“We’re not overly concerned about people contracting covid-19 through contact with dogs and cats,” said Gail Golab, the AVMA’s chief veterinary officer.

Environmental contamination via surfaces appears to be a secondary route of transmission, and “the virus survives best on smooth surfaces, such as countertops and doorknobs,” Golab said. “Porous materials, such as pet fur, tend to absorb and trap pathogens, making it harder to contract them through touch.”

We only encountered a few people during our late afternoon visit to the dog park, which usually is a popular place on a sunny Sunday. I did ask the couple on the right side of the photo above, who were throwing a ball for their dog, whether they thought the dog park should be open rather than closed.

"Absolutely," the man said. He told me that exercising dogs is OK under Gov. Brown's "Stay Home, Save Lives" order, so he didn't understand why the City of Salem has closed the Minto Brown dog park. 

There certainly was no problem with maintaining a 6 foot distance between unrelated people at the dog park, because the place was almost deserted. However, the rest of Minto Brown park was busy. When we took our dog for a walk on some paved trails, we passed many other people with their leashed dogs. 

And on the paved trails there isn't a whole lot of room between people going in different directions. So it makes no sense to allow people to walk their dogs on a narrow trail, but forbid them to use the dog park with much more available open space between people and their pets.

Survey finds Oregonians anxious about coronavirus crisis

Today DHM Research released the results of an online survey of 507 Oregonians aged 18+.
Download COVID Survey--Annotated--March 2020

Not surprisingly, it found that people are anxious about the coronavirus, worried about their financial situation, feel that things will get worse for at least another month, disapprove of how Trump is handling the federal response, and approve of how Governor Brown is handling the state response.

But as you can read below in the summary of findings that I copied from the survey report, there's some surprises. Young people say they're more concerned about the coronavirus than people 65+. But maybe this has more to do with the impact on jobs rather than health.

Here's the key conclusions of the survey. I've highlighted in red some findings that struck me as particularly interesting.

---------------------------------------------------

KEY FINDINGS

Many Oregonians are feeling anxious during this unprecedented public health crisis.

The survey started by asking a standardized index of questions that access generalized anxiety disorder (GAD-7). 19% of Oregonians have moderate-to-severe levels of anxiety and 12% have severe levels.

Anxiety levels vary by demographics and attitudes about coronavirus. Young people, those with lower income and less education are especially anxious. Anxiety levels are also higher among people worried that they will be infected with coronavirus and feel that their household is not prepared. It is impossible to say if these concerns are the cause of anxiety (or anxiety causes these concerns) but the connection is notable and strong.

Oregon’s “right track” numbers are down slightly.

For decades, DHM has asked Oregonians if the feel the state is headed in the right direction or on the wrong track. In this survey, 40% said it is on the right track, while 41% said it is on the wrong track. The right direction percentage is down only 5-points since DHM last asked in late 2019.

Consistent with past findings, there is a significant partisan divide. 58% of Democrats feel that this state is headed in the right direction compared to 32% of Republicans, and 30% of non-affiliated and other party voters.

There is a large increase in the number of Oregonians worried about their personal financial situation.

DHM has been asking Oregonians since 2011 how worried, or not, they are about their personal financial situation. The percentage who said that they are somewhat or very worried peaked at 69% in 2012. This fell slowly but steadily over the last decade, to a low of 50% in late 2019. Now, 63% say that they are worried. Given the great many people who have already lost their jobs due to coronavirus, the number of Oregonians experiencing financial distress will almost certainly increase.

Lower income Oregonians are the most worried. 73% of those with incomes below $50k are worried compared to 60% of those with incomes between $50-100k and 45% of people with incomes above $100k.

Most Oregonians are worried that they or someone close to them will be infected with coronavirus.

• 69% a family member not in the household

• 60% a household member

• 57% a close friend

• 53% you personally

• 47% someone who relies on you for medical care

40% of Oregonians say that they are not prepared to deal with a coronavirus infection in their household.

While most (59%) say that they are prepared, a significant number of Oregonians are not. The groups most likely to report that they are not prepared are younger with lower incomes. For instance, 46% of Oregonians between ages 18–29 say they are not prepared compared to 30% of those ages 65+. Similarly, 50% of Oregonians with incomes less than $50k are unprepared versus 24% with incomes above $100k.

Many Oregonians expect to need help in the coming days.

• 41% may need help paying for basics needs like food, medicine and utilities

• 36% may need help paying for their rent or mortgage

• 35% may need help getting to the store

• 29% may need help getting to medical appointments

• 28% may need help picking up prescription drugs

22% of Oregonians say that the news coverage of coronavirus has been exaggerated, while 24% think that is has been underestimated.

Views on this vary by political party. Just 10% of Democrats feel that the news coverage has been exaggerated compared to 37% of Republicans and 24% of non-affiliated and other party voters.

The vast majority of Oregonians (82%) say that they know where to find credible information about coronavirus.

While a majority of all demographic groups say that they know where to find credible information, younger Oregonians and those with less education are less confident. 69% of Oregonians between the ages 18– 29 report knowing where to find credible information versus 93% of those ages 65+. Likewise, fewer people with a high school degree or less (73%) know where to find credible information compared to 90% of those with a college degree.

Many Oregonians are changing how closely they are following the news, or turning the news off, because of coronavirus.

Nearly two-thirds (64%) of Oregonians say that they have spent more time paying attention to the news to keep up with developments about coronavirus, while 24% have stopped paying attention to the news because of anxiety about it.

Most Oregonians say that they know what key terms, like social distancing, mean. But a consequential minority are unsure.

The survey asked Oregonians if they know what the following terms mean:

• Social distancing: 88% yes; 10% maybe; 2% no

• Quarantine: 87% yes; 11% maybe; 2% no

• Self-isolation: 84% yes; 13% maybe; 3% no

• Shelter in place: 76% yes; 19% maybe; 5% no

Young people say that they are more concerned about coronavirus than others.

The survey asked Oregonians if they are concerned more about coronavirus, less or about the same as others in their life. Overall, 20% said that are more concerned, 23% less, and 51% the same. However, 29% of 18-29 years old report having a greater level of concern, while only 11% of those ages 65+ feel that way.

Democrats (22%) also report having more concern than Republicans (11%).

Oregonians believe that problems associated with coronavirus will continue to get worse for at least another month.

The survey asked Oregonians if the problems associated with coronavirus will be better, worse or about the same in one week, one month, six months, 12 months and 18 months.

• One week: 12% better; 76% worse

• One month: 39% better; 51% worse

• Six months: 74% better; 14% worse

• 12 months: 76% better; 11% worse

• 18 months: 75% better; 10% worse

President Trump and Governor Brown get mixed reviews for their handling of coronavirus, largely driven by partisan differences.

42% of Oregonians approve of how President Trump has managed coronavirus, while 52% disapprove (and 40% “strongly” disapprove). By party, 78% of Republicans approve of his job performance, while just 12% of Democrats and 45% of non-affiliated and other party voters approve.

A majority (55%) of Oregonians approve of how Governor Brown has managed coronavirus, while 38% disapprove. Opinions about Brown’s job performance are less intense than those of President Trump. Just 18% of Oregonians “strongly” disapprove of her management. By party, 75% of Democrats approve of her job performance versus 31% of Republicans and 52% of non-affiliated and other voters.

Don't fall for Trump's latest coronavirus B.S.

A bullshit detector should be mandatory equipment for everyone who watches Trump's coronavirus press conferences, which was held today in the White House Rose Garden for some reason (maybe so the roses could be fertilized by the crap that came out of Trump's mouth).

It's difficult for me to pick the most disturbing thing Trump said today, given how many candidates there are.

But I'll start with what irked me the most: Trump's repeated claim that if there are only 100,000 to 200,000 coronavirus deaths in the United States, that's a good thing, a success, because supposedly there could have been 2.2 million deaths if the United States had done nothing to stop the pandemic. 

That figure of 2.2 million came from a study conducted by the Imperial College in London. The shocking number reportedly helped lead the White House to strengthen its social distancing efforts, which was a good thing. But Dr. Birx, the White House's coronavirus coordinator, has said that data doesn't support the estimate of 2.2 million deaths from an unchecked outbreak.

Nonetheless, at today's press conference Trump seized on the 2.2 million figure as evidence that 100,000 or 200,000 deaths in this country would be a great success, because even the Idiot-in-Chief knows that 200,000 is a lot less than 2.2 million.

Well, try telling that to the families of the 200,000 dead Americans. Or to the soon-to-be dead people themselves. Are they supposed to be saying "You're doing a great job, Mr. President," as the sycophants Trump surrounds himself with at the press conferences repeat ad nauseam?

Remember, Trump is the guy who said not long ago, when there were 15 cases of coronavirus in the United States, that soon the number would be zero. Earth to Trump: the number now is 141,096 with at least 2,469 deaths. (OK, that's actually New York Times to Trump.)

So Trump isn't exactly a great public health expert. If he was, in February he wouldn't have sent 35 tons of personal protection equipment (PPE) to China even though real experts were warning that the coronavirus was coming to the United States. Now all that PPE is desperately needed by medical personnel in this country.

This Financial Times graphic shows that currently the United States (red line) is on the track where coronavirus deaths double every three days. Which means, if that trend continues, that in 18 days, the week after Easter, our country would have 160,000 deaths.

If anybody thinks that would be a success for Trump, they're like the diehard Trump supporter who I de-friended on Facebook today after she downplayed an earlier version of this chart that I shared in a Facebook post. Facts don't lie, but Trump does, and his supporters let him get away with it.

I told this person that I have zero tolerance for anyone who ignores the reality of the horrible tragedy that is unfolding both in our country and around the world. I can't stop Trump from spreading his B.S. in his press conferences, but I can do my best to stand up for public health truth in my personal life.

Yes, it's good that today Trump backed off his goal of "opening the country up for business" by Easter, now saying that it could be June before this happens. But he only did this because the coronavirus crisis is something that Trump can't lie his way out of, like he does with everything else.

People are getting sick. People are dying. Many more people are going to get sick. Many more people are going to die. 

But today Trump used his very limited brain power to insult reporters and make wild accusations about a hospital in New York City somehow not needing hundreds of thousands of masks because... he didn't say, just that someone should look into why the hospital says it needs that many now, when before they only needed 10,000 masks.

New York magazine says:

The Trump administration dithered as the coronavirus swept the planet, and because of its delay, has had to scramble to provide hospitals with the equipment they need to save lives and protect patients and health care workers, such as face masks and ventilators. State officials, doctors, and nurses have been pleading for more of both. Trump suggested on Sundaythat hospitals have been hoarding ventilators and that something more nefarious may be afoot when it comes to their mask supplies.

Trump noted suspiciously that hospitals are now asking for many more masks than they used to, before the coronavirus appeared. “How do you go from [10,000] to 20,000 masks [prior to the pandemic] — to 300,000…” he said, “Something’s going on. And you ought to look into it as reporters. Where are the masks going? Are they going out the back door? … And we have that happening in numerous places.”

“I don’t think it’s hoarding,” he later added, “I think maybe it’s worse than hoarding.”

Trump provided no evidence to support this accusation. It is true that some people have been stealing masks and other medical supplies from hospitals, but Trump’s insinuation that theft is to blame for hospital mask shortages during this pandemic, at a time when hundreds of hospitals across the country — and countries across the world — are all begging for more masks, is insane.

Yes, insane. That's Trump, an unstable insane person who, sadly, is in charge of the federal government until he gets kicked out of office this November for gross incompetence. 

Trump wants people to die so he can be re-elected

I can't believe how many times I've said, "Trump can't do anything worse than what he did today." But he does. And today was the latest example of appalling worstness.

During the daily White House coronavirus briefing, where Trump hogs the microphone while other officials cower in the background, doing their best to keep a poker face as Trump rambles on semi-coherently, our Idiot-in-Chief announced that he wants to make saving lives a distant second priority to resuming business as usual by the end of March.

Why? Well, because he doesn't want the country to be in a recession, or even depression, when the 2020 presidential election happens in November. 

A Politico story about this has a right-on headline: 'Way too early': Health officials warn about perils of restarting economy. Here's how it starts out.

Rattled health officials are trying to fight off ascendant voices around Donald Trump pressing the president to restart the economy as soon as Monday to stem severe business and job losses.

The prospect of resuming typical business so soon has horrified these public health leaders, who see the debate as premature amid a crisis that the administration is just beginning to wrangle, according to eight people with knowledge of the administration's discussions about its coronavirus guidelines.

Health experts are contending the fallout will be worse if the White House declares victory now, only to have the virus resurface weeks or months from now. The government, they argue, has yet to definitively answer key questions that would dictate how to reactivate the economy: Do those who recover from coronavirus become immune? How do underlying health conditions affect the severity of the virus? And, most important, how widely has it spread?

Others have stressed the political risks facing Trump and his reelection campaign if the outbreak worsens significantly, warning that it would be catastrophic if the virus made a comeback closer to the November election — especially after Trump declared himself a “wartime” president and assured the public that his administration was in control.

“It is way too early to even consider rolling back any guidelines," said Howard Koh, a professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and former top Obama administration public health official. “With cases and deaths rising by the day, the country must double down, not lighten up, on social distancing and related measures.”

It was clear to me that what Trump wants to do is have states feel free to relax restrictions on social distancing and business closures, since he seems to believe that it is only New York, New Jersey, California, and Washington state that have large numbers of COVID-19 cases. 

But a Bloomberg map shows how untrue this is. Florida, Louisiana, and Michigan all have over a thousand confirmed cases, and that number likely is going to rise markedly over the next few weeks -- as it will in most places around the country.

Also, keep in mind that it wasn't that long ago that the United States had 15 cases, which led Trump to say that the number would go down to zero soon. As of today there are over 42,000 cases. So Trump has zero credibility as a public health prognosticator.

Here's some of the tweets that were in my Twitter feed this afternoon. I've added in a bit of commentary after each one.

I totally agree with Ari Berman. In today's White House briefing a reporter asked if any of Trump's health experts agreed with his intention to roll back social distancing recommendations in order to supposedly spur the economy. Trump side-stepped the question somewhat, but the answer clearly was "No." Which is so freaking scary.

Nice ironic tweet, Jason Gilbert. 

David Atkins gets it exactly right. The economy will be much better off if the coronavirus outbreak is brought under control by strict social distancing measures over the next few months, as compared to allowing cases and deaths to keep on rising for a much longer time.

Good point, Michelangelo Signorile. This tweet made a feel a bit better. And pleased that I live in Oregon, where Governor Brown is taking the coronavirus outbreak seriously.Wow. Thanks, Andrew Lawrence, for sharing this astounding sentiment by the Texas lieutenant governor. Actually, I'm a grandparent, and there's no way I want to die so my granddaughter can have a better economy. Plus, I'm 100% certain that my granddaughter feels the same way.

Hopefully Trump will realize that sacrificing seniors isn't a good way to win re-election, since they are a large share of his base. And the Fox News audience.

I also hope, while realizing this is unlikely to happen, that Trump will change his mind and start listening to the doctors on his team about the need to preserve social distancing and selected business shutdowns for as long as it takes to start bringing the coronavirus outbreak in this country under control.

Experts agree: Trump horribly mismanaged the U.S. COVID-19 disaster

Two days ago my daughter lost her job as sales manager for a small business in southern California. She's shocked.

Her company's financial problems arrived very suddenly because of the COVID-19 outbreak. As I described in a previous blog post, with no retail outlets being open, with the companies that owe them money being unable to pay, and with them being unable to pay their suppliers, every employee has been furloughed.

I blame Donald Trump. For good reason.

Trump is why the United States is facing a massive disaster. Lots of sickness and deaths. Economic recession, if not depression. Shortages of all kinds of stuff, including the personal protective equipment needed to keep our heroic health professionals from contacting the coronavirus themselves. 

At first I was tempted to write a post about Trump's failure to manage the COVID-19 outbreak that was filled with profanities. That's how upset I am about the damage our Idiot-in-Chief has done to this country. 

My daughter's travails, though serious, pale in comparison to what millions of other people are going to have to endure. Her husband still has a job. Their family finances are fairly sound. Today she told me that if they stick to buying basics, they should be fine. There's a chance her company could get back in business if things improve by next September.

So my outrage at Trump is based on concerns that go way beyond how my wife and I, along with my daughter's family, have been affected. I'll never forgive Trump for making a bad pandemic situation so much worse than it needed to be.

But rather than rant more about this from my personal perspective, I'm going to quote two health experts.

First, here's some quotations from a piece dated today in The New Yorker, "The Coronavirus and Building a Better Strategy for Fighting Pandemics." I've highlighted some notable quotes in red.

I recently spoke by phone with Dr. Ashish Jha, a physician and the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, who has been tracking the coronavirus story closely over the past couple months. He has been especially outspoken about the Trump Administration’s slow response to the threat and also the scandalously slow pace of testing in the United States.

...You recently told Bloomberg News, “We’re so far behind this thing at this point. And the reason we’re so far behind is because we’ve had so little testing. This is such a rapidly moving infection that losing a few days is bad, and losing a couple of weeks is terrible. Losing 2 months is close to disastrous, and that’s what we did.” Can you explain the scenario where we have more testing starting two months ago, and what you think that would look like today?

Oh, my God, if we had got on top of this thing two months ago, America would look very, very different. So, let’s walk through that scenario. Imagine that when the W.H.O. put out its test kit [in January] we either took it or built an effective test ourselves.

We would have then ramped up those tests. The data by late January was very clear that we were going to see a lot of these infections in the United States, and, actually, we had started seeing the first cases from travellers from China. We would have started testing people who had symptoms.

Initially, it was the travellers, because that is how it got introduced. We would have isolated those people. We would have had contact tracing, which is really critical. Everyone that had been in touch with them would have been monitored, and any of them that showed symptoms would have been tested.

If we had done that extensively across the United States, I believe we would have got on top of this infection. We wouldn’t have broad community spread the way we do right now, and I don’t know that we would have a lockdown right now.

I could imagine in some communities the infection might have got a little out of control, and you would close schools and businesses for a couple of weeks, but where we are right now, with this broad, almost national—should be national—shutdown, it’s all because we let this infection get ahead of us.

And what it would have taken to be on top of it was literally what we learned in first-year public-health programs about how you deal with outbreaks. It’s what we have done for hundreds of years, which is identify people infected, trace their contacts, monitor them, test them, and isolate whichever ones are positive. It’s a little chain.

It’s a standard thing. It is what South Korea did. It is what Singapore did. It is what Taiwan did. And they are not out of the woods. But they have not had to shut down their schools or do the kinds of extreme things we have had to do because we haven’t done testing. I think what your readers need to know is that we are in this position today because we wasted two months not getting an infrastructure together for testing Americans who need to be identified with having covid-19.

And here's some passages from a WIRED piece dated yesterday, "The Doctor Who Helped Defeat Smallpox Explains Whats Coming." Again, I've highlighted in red some significant quotes.

LARRY BRILLIANT SAYS he doesn’t have a crystal ball. But 14 years ago, Brilliant, the epidemiologist who helped eradicate smallpox, spoke to a TED audience and described what the next pandemic would look like.

...People say Contagion is prescient. We just saw the science. The whole epidemiological community has been warning everybody for the past 10 or 15 years that it wasn't a question of whether we were going to have a pandemic like this. It was simply when. It's really hard to get people to listen.

I mean, Trump pushed out the admiral on the National Security Council, who was the only person at that level who's responsible for pandemic defense. With him went his entire downline of employees and staff and relationships. And then Trump removed the [early warning] funding for countries around the world.

...We are being asked to do things, certainly, that never happened in my lifetime—stay in the house, stay 6 feet away from other people, don’t go to group gatherings. Are we getting the right advice?

Well, as you reach me, I'm pretending that I'm in a meditation retreat, but I'm actually being semi-quarantined in Marin County. Yes, this is very good advice.

But did we get good advice from the president of the United States for the first 12 weeks? No. All we got were lies. Saying it’s fake, by saying this is a Democratic hoax. There are still people today who believe that, to their detriment. Speaking as a public health person, this is the most irresponsible act of an elected official that I've ever witnessed in my lifetime.

But what you're hearing now [to self-isolate, close schools, cancel events] is right. Is it going to protect us completely? Is it going to make the world safe forever? No. It's a great thing because we want to spread out the disease over time.