Theater director Joel Berkowitz tweets, “My 12 year-old while out on a walk: ‘At least with all the schools closed, there won’t be any school shootings for awhile.'” Enough time makes that comedy.
COVID-19 is a world changing bug. Only yesterday did Abbott Labs announce it would have a portable test for the virus available April 1. Results in as little as 5 minutes. Abbott claims they will be able to perform 50,000 test per day. Perhaps it will help slow the death rate if not end the plague. Between the fear, death, and cabin fever, this is the darkest period most of us have experienced. It will get darker. But the mass shootings have stopped.
Abbott’s announcement reminds us we are still in Act 1 of this epidemic movie. Our hero (Brad Pitt, Dustin Hoffman, whoever) is still trying to get a grip on how this beastie transmits and replicates itself so it can do its nasty work. We haven’t yet arrived at the plot point at which she/he goes from dodging the bug to finding a way to fight it. The world is still back on its heels trying to grasp the extent of the risk and the spread.
After weeks of hearing masks are not effective for avoiding contagion, the New York Times suggests it ain’t nec-es-sar-i-ly so:
When researchers conducted systematic review of a variety of interventions used during the SARS outbreak in 2003, they found that washing hands more than 10 times daily was 55 percent effective in stopping virus transmission, while wearing a mask was actually more effective — at about 68 percent. Wearing gloves offered about the same amount of protection as frequent hand-washing, and combining all measures — hand-washing, masks, gloves and a protective gown — increased the intervention effectiveness to 91 percent.
The behavior of other viruses suggests that once infected and cured, a person has immunity to reinfection. That assumption led Chinese doctors last week to hope the absence of new infections through domestic transmission meant China’s epidemic had been contained:
But some Wuhan residents who had tested positive earlier and then recovered from the disease are testing positive for the virus a second time. Based on data from several quarantine facilities in the city, which house patients for further observation after their discharge from hospitals, about 5%-10% of patients pronounced “recovered” have tested positive again.
Some of those who retested positive appear to be asymptomatic carriers — those who carry the virus and are possibly infectious but do not exhibit any of the illness’s associated symptoms — suggesting that the outbreak in Wuhan is not close to being over.
The time from cure to retest ranged from days to weeks. False negatives at release? False positives on retest? Potentially. Even so:
“In terms of those who retested positive, the official party line is that they have not been proven to be infectious. That is not the same as saying they are not infectious,” one of the Wuhan doctors who tested positive twice told NPR. He is now isolated and under medical observation. “If they really are not infectious,” the doctor said, “then there would be no need to take them back to the hospitals again.”
So, on to Act 2.
We will see the virus outstrip hospitals’ capacity to treat victims. Exhausted medical personnel face desperate choices and attempt to save as many as possible as scientists race against time to develop a vaccine. Refrigerated morgue trucks line up outside hospitals.
Meanwhile, a dithering, feckless president lacks the emotional and intellectual capacity to lead. He bloviates and blames others for the lack of coherent, national strategy. His colleagues in the provinces become desperate:
Michigan now has the fifth-largest coronavirus outbreak of any state, with nearly 3,000 confirmed cases and over 60 deaths. These numbers could mount dramatically.
By the way, Republicans in Michigan are sounding this alarm, too. In a bipartisan letter from the state’s congressional delegation to Vice President Pence that was reported by the Michigan Advance, lawmakers lamented that recent federal shipments of personal protective equipment are “inadequate.”
“Your assistance and engagement are urgently needed,” read the letter.
We’ll cut away in Act 2 to follow the stories of individual victims, under-treated, struggling to breathe. “Will I ever hug my daughter again?” one asks.
But American grit finds a way. A light bulb comes on. A new resolve rises in our heroes. They find a path to defeating the scourge. Corrupt bureaucrats, disgraced, are swept aside. Good triumphs, hope returns, the music swells, and theater-goers walk up out of darkness back into the light. Or so it goes in Hollywood.
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Note: The pandemic will upend standard field tactics in 2020. If enough promising “improvisations” come my way by June, perhaps I can issue a COVID-19 supplement.