COVID-19 Thread

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

So what? One county...or ten. If you are a problem stay shut down.

 

It shouldn’t just be Milwaukee County though. Racine is bad, Kenosha is bad, and a good part of SE WI is a problem.

 

That's what I'm getting it. That would be regional. Split the state up into six regions or so, and open up those areas where the virus isn't as prevalent. Keep those areas where it's bad, and those directly surrounding where it's bad, shut down. Don't piecemail it by county, though.

[nate82]

As long as Waukesha opens up so my Aunt Karen can finally get her haircut!!

 

Is she getting the "Karen" haircut?

[igor67]

Whatever you do has to be understandable and enforceable. For example if you went by census tracts too many people would have no idea if they were locked down. If you just do some combination of counties that can also lead to issues. I had mentioned Marshfield and the Dells as 2 places that cross county borders. I'm not sure about SE Wisconsin, but the general density along the coast could lead to some issues. They might be solvable, but it would take some work.

[RobertR]

At this point, I'm guessing the Supreme Court is going to punt. Especially as the gating criteria are close to being met.

 

As they should. It's pretty brazen for the legislature to want to use the courts to overturn a law passed by the legislature. The legislature has the power to pass legislation and enact a new law if they don't like it.

[FVBrewerFan]

However, a regional approach, and segregating one county amongst the whole state, are much different situations.

 

Why? That's exactly what FL is doing, what NY will do, etc. If WI is going to be segregated, leaving Milw County on an island is the most logical way of doing it. That's regional enough, the surrounding counties are doing just fine.

 

Uhh ... no. No state is locking down one county in the state while allowing the rest to reopen.

 

Florida, well two counties to be exact. But hey, throw in Racine and Kenosha and we have a deal.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

 

Florida, well two counties to be exact. But hey, throw in Racine and Kenosha and we have a deal.

 

Three counties - Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach. An area of 1,116 square miles. Milwaukee County is 248 square miles. To do it regionally, you'd need a buffer area around the hot zones. That means Ozaukee, Washington and Waukesha counties would also likely need to stay in lockdown, along with Racine and Kenosha.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

I live in Washington County and at least in my area the lockdown was never taken seriously and it feels like 4/5 people were actively against it. The skate park was slammed last weekend, every open retailer has been slammed and people were gathering at playgrounds before they roped them off. Anything the state didn't force to close was more or less normal.

 

I went into a restaurant for curbside pickup at one point and when I called the place the owner just said "Just come on in, we're not really doing that." There were like 10 people inside picking up.

[FVBrewerFan]

 

Florida, well two counties to be exact. But hey, throw in Racine and Kenosha and we have a deal.

 

Three counties - Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach. An area of 1,116 square miles. Milwaukee County is 248 square miles. To do it regionally, you'd need a buffer area around the hot zones. That means Ozaukee, Washington and Waukesha counties would also likely need to stay in lockdown, along with Racine and Kenosha.

 

Palm Beach is open. MKE's surrounding counties won't "need" to stay in lockdown.

 

Here's what I think will happen. Supreme Court is telling Governor Evers and the legislature to figure something out, and go to phase 1 or they will be forced to make a ruling. They don't really want to be in the middle of it. We're already seeing the results. Metrics behind the criteria are subjective, and they're all magically turning green. I would expect phase 1 by Monday, and it will apply to the entire state. Mayor Barrett has said Milw will remain in lockdown, but by the time this goes through he may chane his mind on that.

[bucks2281]

The gating criteria has nearly been met now and we approaching a “Phase 1” reopening, but what happens if cases jump at some point? Maybe another safer at home order would be necessary? I think the court will make a decision soon anticipating that a second wave could necessitate additional action.

[Outlander]

Don't really see this discussed but I honestly don't know when phase 1 will be met because the one still open will be difficult to turn green. There are between 40-60 emergency department visits every day with influenza related concerns. Not sure how there will be a significant downward trend in this category, certainly don't see it until the May 26th date out there right now. Unless they punt on that one category and say it is fine.

[PeaveyFury]

Don't really see this discussed but I honestly don't know when phase 1 will be met because the one still open will be difficult to turn green. There are between 40-60 emergency department visits every day with influenza related concerns. Not sure how there will be a significant downward trend in this category, certainly don't see it until the May 26th date out there right now. Unless they punt on that one category and say it is fine.

 

The downward trend is actually already there. They just need the p value to be less than .05% to show that the trend isn't a statistical anomaly (at 0.21% now).

[Outlander]

Exactly, statistically how will it ever achieve significant downward trend (.05)? I don't see it happening anytime soon.

[stoutdude04]

Question for everyone. Say a vaccine is developed within 6 months. How long until you are willing to take it? Have your kids take it? I am not an anti-vaxx person, but it makes me nervous taking a rushed vaccine. Am I overthinking it?

[FVBrewerFan]

Question for everyone. Say a vaccine is developed within 6 months. How long until you are willing to take it? Have your kids take it? I am not an anti-vaxx person, but it makes me nervous taking a rushed vaccine. Am I overthinking it?

 

For me, it depends on what treatment(s) are available by then. If they have effective treatments that are readily available, I will likely put off getting vaccinated. For how long, I do not know.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

Question for everyone. Say a vaccine is developed within 6 months. How long until you are willing to take it? Have your kids take it? I am not an anti-vaxx person, but it makes me nervous taking a rushed vaccine. Am I overthinking it?

 

I have faith that if a vaccine comes to market, it will be effective. Some of the greatest medical and biological minds in the world are working on this right now. This is affecting the whole world.

 

Once available, I'll definitely have my family get it. Vaccines are never 100% effective, but they have proven moreso than any other treatment with most viral illnesses.

[igor67]

I haven't worked directly with any vaccine development, so I maybe unaware of side effects that have scuttled more recent vaccines, but generally the issue is efficacy and strength of the immune response not safety. Vaccines are very well understood in terms of additives and extraordinarily safe. The typical 'bad reaction' is swelling pain and a mild fever. There are some exceedingly rare more severe reactions that can happen, but they are on par with the exceedingly small goofy chance of having a serious complication from any kind of disease (even a cold!). So I would be pretty confident that even a rushed vaccine will be safe as they would catch any noteworthy complications in the early safety trials in all likelihood. I would be slightly less confident if it was a vaccine based on some of the newer technologies, just since they are newer. I doubt it would change my willingness to get vaccinated. The more likely issues would be how long does the immunity last and how effective is it at generating an immune response. Many vaccines only generate a good response 80-90% of the time, which is why you get multiple shots.

[Fear The Chorizo]

I'm sure I'd have my family, including my kids get the vaccine eventually - however I'd wait until I was certain it was already supplied and distributed widely to the elderly/vulnerable populations that should be prioritized for it. It would probably be like my sense of urgency in getting a flu shot every year - meaning it won't be something I'm waiting in long lines to get.

 

To each their own though...I don't see a publicly available vaccine having adverse health effects/risks - I can however easily see its initial deployment have varying effectiveness, or having an inconsistent effect of how long different people are totally immune after getting vaccinated. When such a large portion of people who first contract a novel virus essentially are asymptomatic and their immune systems deal with it without any medical treatments/help, the initial success rate of a vaccine to provide immunity to the minority of people who are likely to suffer more adverse symptoms if they contract the virus isn't great.

[MrTPlush]

They will prioritize the vulnerable and elderly.

 

I would get it as soon as I can for that reason...the elderly and vulnerable will have already tested it for me.

[RobertR]

Well, I was wrong about the Supreme Court. I'm of the opinion that the legislature shouldn't be running to the courts but passing their own laws if they don't like the results, but we'll see what next actions are.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

I was hoping it would at least be a 5-2 vote so we could at least pretend someone listened to an argument.

[FVBrewerFan]

Well, I was wrong about the Supreme Court. I'm of the opinion that the legislature shouldn't be running to the courts but passing their own laws if they don't like the results, but we'll see what next actions are.

 

That's why they took it to court, so they CAN passtheir own laws.

[igor67]

Nothing was stopping them from designing and passing bills. Even the court rejected extending the order a few days saying they had plenty of time to work on alternatives.

[burnzy24]

So the court ruled that DHS needed to use the administratIve rules process instead of an administative order. For those not familiar, it takes at minimum three to four months to put new emergency rules in place. So had DHS started the process back in March they would still be working through the process at this point. Likewise, the legislature has the ability to indefinitely stall all admistrative rules if thwy don't like them. This makes the state very vulnerable during the next public health emergency.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Nothing was stopping them from designing and passing bills. Even the court rejected extending the order a few days saying they had plenty of time to work on alternatives.

 

We all know that's not how it would have worked...any legislation they would have worked on over the past 2 months related to a covid reopening plan would have been poo-pooed as being pointless due to the order in place, and the governor would have vetoed anything that didnt exactly match the order he had enacted and extended. It doesnt matter if there's an R or a D after the governor's name, either...that's just how it is if the legislature is controlled by the opposite party.

 

My guess is Gov Walz here in MN got wind of this ruling coming down and adjusted his announcement tonight so he didnt face a rapidly growing list of lawsuits himself...apparently mn's stay at home order is still expiring this weekend but anything that wasn't already partially open won't be allowed to resume for a few more weeks. Other than calling it something different I dont see much change - they even ginned up an updated model earlier today trying to show that stay at home through end of may would produce the lowest death estimate as a way of supporting another 2 week extension they were probably expecting to announce. To get close to that model's death estimate through end of May, the state would need to average 40+ deaths per day starting tomorrow. There hasn't been a day yet where 40+ deaths were reported. MN did just indicate today that they are going to start adding "likely covid deaths" to the daily tally instead of just deaths where there was at least a confirmed case of covid 19 for the person who died (who cares if the person was 98 with cancer, if they had a confirmed covid test they died from covid) - so expect to see the death totals jump a bit to try and fit their curve.

[MrTPlush]

Maybe it is just me, but legislation should have been working on something so the court ruling was irrelevant. It was kind of a given the court would rule in favor of dumping the order and Evers said he was willing to work with legislation if it got thrown out.

 

Legislation likely comes to agreement on something, but now there is is a lapse of time between the order being shot down and whatever they decide taking into effect. They shouldn’t be scrambling now to figure something out. They have had weeks to prepare for this moment.

 

Now all the idiots are piling into bars tonight.