Weekly coronavirus-related chat, questions, and minor updates - week of July 13

So I work at a pretty big scientific research facility in the US. Big enough to have its own medical staff, security force, etc. It's more or less a self contained and governed area.

Anyway, while work was good about quickly moving everyone it could to work from home (which I still mostly am), they failed to implement good policies on site IMO, particularly with mask usage. It's been all 'stay distanced' or 'stay home' or 'wear a mask if you want to' with more hand sanitizer stations around. Internally I've been voicing my concerns over the lack of masks and the need for better policy, which, to their credit, my immediate managers agree, support, and have carried those concerns up the chain, but the top level leadership has failed to act on it.

That finally changed this week. They've been doing their own on site testing since late March. For anyone who leaves the immediate area, they are required to either wait 2 weeks or come in for nose swab testing to return on site, and they implemented random testing of the remaining workers on site. Friday, they reported that they have tripled the number of positive tests (!) just in the last week alone, and are finally implementing mask requirements on site. I'm glad they're finally doing what they should have, but man do I wish they had done it sooner.

Other than that I'm seeing the same anti-mask bullshit I have from the beginning from the usual crowd of toxic individualists. At this point I have no idea what will get through to them other than getting sick themselves or actually knowing someone with it.

Effective immediately, California is re-closing many indoor business operations state-wide, and even more in particularly bad counties. The stricter closures currently apply to 30 counties, covering about 80% of the population:

Effective July 13, 2020, ALL counties must close indoor operations in these sectors:

• Dine-in restaurants
• Wineries and tasting rooms
• Movie theaters 
• Family entertainment centers (for example: bowling alleys, miniature golf, batting cages and arcades)
• Zoos and museums
• Cardrooms

Additionally, bars, brewpubs, breweries, and pubs must close all operations both indoor and outdoor statewide.

Counties that have remained on the County Monitoring List for 3 consecutive days will be required to shut down the following industries or activities unless they can be modified to operate outside or by pick-up.

• Fitness centers
• Worship services
• Protests
• Offices for non-essential sectors
• Personal care services, like nail salons, body waxing and tattoo parlors
• Hair salons and barbershops
• Malls

Trump administration drops plan to bar international students from US

So now international students are allowed to stay in the US, even if all their classes this fall turn out to be online-only.

Found out from a co-worker on my team -- someone whom I've worked very closely with for years -- that she tested positive after being exposed to it on her summer job (no risk to me, by the way; I haven't interacted with her in person in months). She's currently experiencing strong fatigue and has lost smell and taste. I'm deeply worried for her.

Up to this point I've been pretty insulated from the disease, as the confirmed cases I know have all had degrees of separation from me -- friends of friends and whatnot. This is the first one for someone I know and care about personally. She's an amazing, wonderful person; the most kind, giving soul you could possibly hope to meet. Her and her husband were planning for their upcoming retirements. I am hoping with every fiber of my being that she has a mild case and recovers. It pains me to consider any other outcome.

30-year-old dies after attending 'Covid party' in Texas - Links to The Guardian

Teachers are so worried about returning to school that they're preparing wills

Four former CDC directors published this op-ed in The Washington Post today about the recent attempts to undermine and politicize CDC guidelines: We ran the CDC. No president ever politicized its science the way Trump has.

Trump Administration Plants 137,000 Corpses In Fauci’s Bed To Frame Him For Coronavirus Deaths

Walmart, Kroger will start requiring customers in US stores to wear masks

Most California school classrooms cannot reopen while coronavirus numbers spike, governor says

Private and public schools in counties on California's coronavirus monitoring list must stay closed under the governor's new guidance.
Thirty-three of California's 58 counties, representing more than 80% of the state's population, are on the watch list.
Once a county has been off the list for 14 consecutive days, schools may reopen.
There is one exception. Local health officers can allow elementary schools to reopen for in-person instruction if the district superintendent requests a waiver.

As announced on Friday the masks required order went into effect today in Michigan, and was broadcast using the EBS. Of special note is the directive in the executive order specifically requiring all businesses to refuse any customers who do not comply.

Content of EBS alert

The struggle to keep India's Covid-19 patients breathing

With more than 800,000 reported infections and rising, demand for oxygen has also risen in India. Hospitals and care centres are consuming up to 1,300 tonnes of oxygen every day, compared to 900 tonnes before the pandemic.

It has a bunch of gas companies that extract and purify oxygen from the air at 500 factories spread across the country. Oxygen for medical use typically accounts for some 15% of overall supplies. The rest - industrial oxygen - is mainly supplied to steel and automobile industries for running blast furnaces and welding.

[...]

Sometime in early April, officials sat down with gas companies. They found that the state of Jammu and Kashmir did not have a single liquid oxygen factory, and there were no medical oxygen makers on the island of Andamans, where cylinders were shipped from the mainland. In remote north-eastern states, supplies were scarce.

The government swiftly decided to use industrial oxygen for medical use - there is little difference between the two, but medical oxygen is purer, supplied under stricter regulations and has to be properly dispensed. The gas makers also moved to set up a control room where they could receive calls from hospitals and care centres around the country and make sure supplies reached them in time.

[...]

As the pandemic spreads to small towns and villages with creaky public health infrastructure, lack of enough high-flow piped oxygen supplies can lead to a lot of avoidable deaths, doctors fear. "We don't need more ventilators really. We need more oxygen access in rural areas," says Dr Atul Varma, who runs a 20-bed hospital in Bihar, one of India's poorest states.

Americans Increasingly Dislike How Republican Governors Are Handling The Coronavirus Outbreak (A look at the polling of COVID related surveys)

Gallup recently found that Americans in the 26 states governed by Republicans are souring on their leaders’ approach to the public health crisis, while sentiment remains steadily positive among residents of the 24 states governed by Democrats. In fact, over the past month, the share of respondents who agreed that their governor cared about the safety and health of their community fell by 8 points, from 61 percent to 53 percent, in states where a Republican is governor; opinion in Democratic-run states hovered around 65 percent, despite some movement week to week.

And on the question of how clearly governors were communicating their plans to address the coronavirus, the GOP also got low marks. Among respondents in Republican-run states, just 43 percent said their governor offered a clear plan, down from 54 percent about a month ago. Meanwhile, 58 percent of respondents in Democratic-run states said that their governor was communicating clearly, which was nearly identical to the share who said so in early June.

Not every Republican governor’s pandemic-response ratings are underwater, however. A survey from the University of New Hampshire found Gov. Chris Sununu had a 78 percent approval rating for his handling of the virus. In Ohio, 77 percent of respondents in a late-June Quinnipiac University poll approved of Gov. Mike DeWine’s. In Massachusetts, another late-June survey from Suffolk University found 81 percent approved of Gov. Charlie Baker’s.

Of course, as president, Trump’s response to the coronavirus has continued to garner the most attention, but unfortunately for him, public opinion of his efforts has only worsened. About 58 percent now disapprove of his handling of the pandemic while just 38 percent approve, according to FiveThirtyEight’s coronavirus polling tracker.

Nonwhite Americans are more worried about the coronavirus than white Americans. The survey found that 79 percent of people of color and 65 percent of white people were either very or somewhat worried about exposure to the coronavirus. Additionally, 56 percent of nonwhite Americans said they’re very worried that the outbreak will negatively affect their household finances compared to only a third of white Americans.

Three Arizona teachers who shared a classroom got coronavirus. One of them died - Links to CNN

The coronavirus disaster in California's hardest-hit – and poorest – county

It’s the sound of coronavirus patients being airlifted out – 15 to 17 a day, on average.

Latinos in California are already disproportionately affected by the virus, making up 39% of the population but 55% of coronavirus cases and 42% of deaths. But near the border, the trends are even more pronounced. Latinos in Imperial County make up 85% of the population and a startling 95% of deaths.

The strange campaign of attacking Dr. Fauci continues, with White House economic adviser Peter Navarro publishing this op-ed in USA Today last night: Anthony Fauci has been wrong about everything I have interacted with him on

Dr. Fauci responded a little in an article in The Atlantic today: Fauci: ‘Bizarre’ White House Behavior Only Hurts the President

Even the White House seems to think that this might have been too far, with the Strategic Communications Director saying the op-ed wasn't approved, and Trump himself saying Navarro "shouldn't be doing that."

Amusing little video - Solving the Mask Shortage in Huntington Beach

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt says he has tested positive for COVID-19

White House blocks CDC from testifying on reopening schools next week