US opening up the economy; very confused.

[judemom]

Hi there, I'm currently living in the United States and as everyone here probably knows, we have the most cares of covid as well as most deaths so far.

I just got news today that governors from 8 states most heavily impacted (which I'm living in one of them) will be opening up the economy very soon.

These states even include New York.

I'm here sobbing because I'm watching the U.K. and France stating that they're both extending their lockdowns until May 11.

I'm very confused, concerned, and wondering why my country is taking a rather different approach to this virus compared to France and the UK.

I have a toddler that wants to go back to school, play with his friends; and I feel so alone in that if everyone is out and about, back to school, if I don't do it, that he will be delayed or I will be harshly judged as overreacting.

I feel lost in so much contradicting information, and I just wanted advice about if I'm being unreasoned for sobbing about the news today.

Yeah a lot of people like to jump on the blame Trump bandwagon without any idea of what he can and can’t legally do...

TBF Trump doesn't seem to have any idea of what he can and can't legally do either...

TBF Trump doesn't seem to have any idea of what he can and can't legally do either...

Good point. Starting with Lincoln most presidents have been lawyers because that's a typical entry qualification to run for office in the legislative branch, but not Trump obviously.

I think that in his own little brain mind he's confused about the fact that declaring a national emergency, which he can do, doesn't give him martial law type powers or let him take authority that belongs to other branches of government.

@MissConductUSA that is really the only symptom I have presented with except fo a low grade fever. No coughing, no fatigue nothing else. And the pain didn't start until about 9 hours after diagnosis

Trump has no idea what he can and cannot do, and worse, has surrounded himself with incompetent advisors who also have no idea.

It's crazy how inconsistently this infection presents, how many people with it are asymptomatic and how rapidly a subset of patients goes downhill with it. It's a real bastard of a virus.

The UK have not stated they are extending lockdowns until May 11. We do know it won't be lifted yet but we will not know the date it will be extended to until Thursday.
That’s all you got from this post ?
It will likely be till the beginning of May though , all news reports state that so stop not picking

@MissConductUS The US is also only reporting hospital deaths, which is why they appear so low. There was an article on BBC news a few days ago with a report from a NYC paramedic. All 12 calls on his last shift were already dead when he arrived, and relatives all said the deceased had all had only covid symptoms. He said that none of them were recorded as covid deaths as they hadn't been tested.

@Sedona123 The CDC does track provisional death counts for Covid-19 based on death certificates, which are issued regardless of where a person dies.

Provisional Death Counts for Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)

Those certificates may well list the primary cause of death as pneumonia with CV involvement.

As much as I love our prehospital staff in NYC they are not in a position to determine cause of death. Someone with CV may die of an unrelated and even undiagnosed cause like heart disease or a brain tumor. Other illnesses will also present similarly to CV.

Are you saying the other countries are relying on paramedic reports of suspected CoD in their official statistics?

@MissconductUS you obviously didn't read the article. The paramedic has had countless call outs where there were no known underlying conditions, but the deceased had just had covid symptoms for a few days. As covid deaths end in heart failure, he was concerned that all of those fatalities were not being recorded as covid fatalities, and were being recorded as cardiac arrest instead. Whether this will change is another matter.

I would agree that someone with a terminal condition and covid should be recorded as dying from that condition, but covid is massively affecting people with high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity all of which are not usually terminal.

The big problem with this race to have smaller than actual covid deaths is that a lot of people are becoming unemployed/bankrupt during lockdown. If it then looks like that happened for something that hasn't caused any more deaths than seasonal flu, then there's going to be massive problems when this is all over.

I can't speak for NYC, but in my state deaths are being counted if they occur in care homes or at home, if Covid is suspected. I think it varies a fair bit by state.

@MissconductUS you obviously didn't read the article.

You didn't provide a link to the article and anecdotal concerns of a paramedic, while interesting, are not data.

The number of reported covid deaths is perfectly understood in public health circles as a minimum, not an absolute count in which every possible case is meticulously and minutely investigated. It doesn't really matter from a public health standpoint is the under count is 10% or 20%. We can infer the impact by comparing current hot spot death rates to historical ACM (all cause mortality) rates in the same geographic area.

What's important from a public health standpoint is not the absolute numbers but the trends in admissions, intubations, attributable deaths and discharges. What's driving public policy for financial support for the unemployed and small businesses in the US is the unemployment and business failure and loan default rates. I don't think there's any chance that covid will be mistaken for the seasonal flu. Transmissablity and morbidity rates are much higher and it's hitting the health system and economy all at once. Seasonal flu is much less dangerous and more spread out, plus we have vaccines for seasonal flu. It's very obviously a different situation.