Letter from Tump to Governors, New CDC guidelines categorizing counties as "high risk, medium risk or low risk" for the virus will become effective. CDC recommendation will be made based on risk maintaining (medium), increasing (high) or relaxing (low) social distancing and other mitigation measures. My sense is that Los angles, Riverside, maybe San Diego, Santa Clara and certain other Bay Area counties, and Sacramento counties will be in the high risk category. One wonders what more restrictive conditions are that could be imposed. A China like shutdown with no access to these areas? What about NYC? Gotta be high risk. Really going to shut down Wall Street?

The other question is, how are we going to know which counties are high risk unless our testing gets a lot better?

April 12, Easter. What a surprise!

Nothing is going to happen. There is no reason to believe CDC. States will continue to do their own thing.

We know the hot spots from the number of severe cases coming down. Of course intensive testing gives you a time lead, but barring that you can get a very good picture of where the hot spots are (and were, 2-3 weeks ago...)

sycasey said:

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The other question is, how are we going to know which counties are high risk unless our testing gets a lot better?

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Obviously, Trump will make that call. You remember his fairly recent quote: "All my experts always ask me, 'How do you know so much about this?' "

sycasey said:

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The other question is, how are we going to know which counties are high risk unless our testing gets a lot better?

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I can only speak to UCLA, which now has ample testing kits to comply with the Governor's orders that only people symptomatic are tested (btw LA County now has the highest totals in California). That said, good question when a very large portion of the population that has the virus shows no symptoms, and you are not testing them. There clearly are hot sports and clearly are places that are relatively virus free, which leaves a lot of counties that may be labeled in the middle and continue under existing orders. I simply do not know how this will work, and what new measures the government will require in hot spots like LA county.

sycasey said:

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The other question is, how are we going to know which counties are high risk unless our testing gets a lot better?

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This. We cannot implement such a policy unless we test. Also, as long as people can travel freely it won't really matter. China was able to wall off Wuhan because they restricted travel.

My aunt lives in France and she said no one there can go outside without written permission.

I am not suggesting we do that, but we are still allowing sick people to easily travel across the entire country. That makes containing the epidemic very difficult!

wifeisafurd said:

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sycasey said:

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The other question is, how are we going to know which counties are high risk unless our testing gets a lot better?

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I can only speak to UCLA, which now has ample testing kits to comply with the Governor's orders that only people symptomatic are tested (btw LA County now has the highest totals in California). That said, good question when a very large portion of the population that has the virus shows no symptoms, and you are not testing them. There clearly are hot sports and clearly are places that are relatively virus free, which leaves a lot of counties that may be labeled in the middle and continue under existing orders. I simply do not know how this will work, and what new measures the government will require in hot spots like LA county.

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Tests were done in Iceland showing that only 50% of those with the virus had symptoms

Raise your hands, patriots:

From the Post

In recent days, a growing contingent of Trump supporters have pushed the narrative that health experts are part of a deep-state plot to hurt the president's reelection efforts by damaging the economy and keeping America shut down as long as possible. The president himself pushed this idea in the early days of the outbreak, calling warnings about the coronavirus a kind of "hoax" meant to undermine him.
The notion is deeply troubling, leading health experts say, because what the country does next and how many people die depends largely on what evidence U.S. leaders and the public use to inform their decisions. Epidemiologists worry their research intended to avert massive deaths in situations exactly like this pandemic will be dismissed by federal leaders when it is needed most.

Cal88 said:

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We know the hot spots from the number of severe cases coming down. Of course intensive testing gives you a time lead, but barring that you can get a very good picture of where the hot spots are (and were, 2-3 weeks ago...)

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Michigan had 2 cases 2 weeks ago and has over 2000 now and Detroit is one of the cities believed to be hardest hit in the near term. Basically at minimum 2000 people (and we know the number is a lot higher in actuality) were walking around with the virus when they thought they had 2. IMO, classifying counties as low risk because they haven't shown severe cases yet is misguided.

I really think not just healthwise, but for the economy it is a mistake not to shut everywhere down otherwise we are just going to be jumping from hot spot to hot spot all summer. New York will get through the worst phase and begin easing restrictions at a time when other communities will just be rising on the curve. We could end the worst of this everywhere by mid may or we can just see it hop from place to place for months.