Interesting article on the BBC about Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine:
Coronavirus: The US governor who saw it coming early - BBC News
It looks like he has done a remarkably good job.
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He certainly was decisive early. Huge contrast with DeSantis in FL.
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Or Ducey in AZ who’s order that took
effect on 3/31 defines hair and nail salons as essential businesses and does not close golf courses or driving ranges. Also, his order, I believe does not allow cities or counties to impose stricter rules …
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I’ve never been a fan of Inslee in WA but he has done a good job here. He was a little late but he took a good approach by gradually ratchetting things up and clearly communicating next steps as they were implemented. His early sniping at Trump was unseemly but he seems to have toned it down.
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To me, FL looks like a train wreck.
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I think Gavin Newsom In CA has done a fairly decent job. But he did not anticipate as well as DeWine in OH.
Our local 7 counties went to SIP a day or two before the state (CA).
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Yeah, I have been pleasantly surprised that Newsom took action sooner than I expected, though not as soon as us in the Bay Area of course. I’ve always thought of him as a pretty face but not a super strong manager, but so far he’s seemed fairly competent. Although he needed to push harder to get more testing done, and to get on Quest to actually process that 59,000 samples they have sitting around. Our true per capita testing rate is really abysmal. Cuomo did a bad job when it counted, but to his credit he’s been good at getting lots of testing done.
I think you can see the effect of a few extra days of stay at home in the Bay Area though; the NYT has a visualization of where cases are doubling quickly, and you can see that we’re doubling every 6 to 7 days, whereas the LA area and most of California is doubling every 3 to 5 days.
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@TiaG et al:
Yes, the daily New York Times data … particularly the county-by-County map showing how quickly cases are doubling is VERY illuminating. In particular, it shows that effective shelter-in-place rules are really beginning to show real results where they were applied early. Conversely, many areas that have been slow in this regard … particularly if they were slow to roll out testing … are seeing their number of cases double every 2-3 days.
Kudos to the NYT for collecting and presenting massive amounts of data in an easily understandable way … particularly as they are working very close to the epicenter of this pandemic.
John
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Question—is there a reason this isn’t a politics thread? Someone else and I made a comments on a non-Politics thread critiquing the federal government response to the crisis (but not mentioning political parties or even individual politicians at any point) and without checking with us, that was then spun off into a politics thread, where then people were derogatory in responses, and I was told that moderators were not planning on enforcing forum norms because the forum doesn’t moderate Politics threads the same way, and if you don’t like that, don’t participate in the Politics section (which for the record, I had not chosen to do). I don’t know that the content of my comment was any different than the content here, so it would be helpful to have clarity on what exactly is considered political content or not, so people don’t risk replying and then inadvertently ending up in areas of the forum where it’s ok to be disrespected.
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This is the critical factor that is now limiting us, country-wide. I don’t think we will be able to go to the next step without that.
But the situation with testing is getting better. Just not where it should be yet.
To the people who work in those salons, and rely on that income to feed their children, they could make a good argument that they are essential.
I wish there was no need for a politics area. To me, the right thing would be for us to be able to rationally discuss of issues that we should be able to discuss in a friendly manner and without rank partisanship. The key concept for us is --in a friendly manner.
I started this thread because I badly want to encourage this type of behavior: a rational discussion that looks at issues and not politics. There is no reason why we should not be able to discuss them rationally and without passion, between the friends that we all are. I hope that we can all learn to get there: possibly we can all train ourselves thread by thread!
I also feel, btw, that we should be able to look at the federal response in the same manner. But this has shown to be difficult.
As for our moderation practices: since we are all volunteers, and not 100% of the time on the site, there are bound to be differences in what happens at one time or another. We move threads in the politics subcat if they are proving divisive or partisan, or if we fear they will. I am sure we make mistakes, and I am really sorry when that happens 
So far, this thread is developing exactly as I hoped. But it may devolve at any time, in which case the whole thread or a subset of it may need to go there.
I hope this makes sense, and, again, I am quite sorry for any mistakes we may have been making or will be making (because I know we will).
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this argument does not hold ad absurdum: in that case, every business would be essential, and there would be no way to Shelter In Place.
I’m not advocating the salons stay open.
I’m just trying to give a rationale for why these are not simple decisions for governors to make.
It is also possible to eliminate 99.9% of all traffic fatalities. Make it so the top speed of any car is 1 mph. But how much would it cost?
There is a tradeoff in every decision.
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@shott, can you surface the link?
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I apologize for not including The NY Times link. Here it is:
In particular, I like the county-by-County color coded map of how quickly the number of Coronavirus cases are doubling in every county in the US. Less that 3 days to double: you’ve got problems ahead. More than 5 days to double: your shelter-in-place policies are beginning to get traction.
To me, it’s particularly impressive that the folks that are producing this information (that is updated 4-6 times a day) are literally at the epicenter of this Coronavirus mess.
We are all likely all drowning in too much Coronavirus information (and misinformation …), but, to me, if you only look at one site per day, this is the one to look at.
Stay safe out there!
John
P.S. I think that this should be visible to everyone even if you don’t subscribe to the N.Y. Times!
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Ooooh. @shott, outstanding! I think we should display it as prominently as Chris’s infographic. This is great!
What would you say of starting a new thread with that link? I know I will come back to it every day, like @Chris’s.
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These are very telling graphics. What it looks like to me is that there are a handful of hot spots, while large portions of the country are relatively not too affected. Then there is New York which is off the charts.
This begs the question, why is the entire country shut down? I understand the need for proper precautions, but these are no more precaution than we would take in a bad flu season.
Obviously, New York has to stay quarantined, but America is more than New York.
Now, at the end of April, it looks like that “train wreck” in Florida was pretty successful containment. 1.2% nursing home death rate (New York was 18%), and people were not even locked up.
Pretty prescient and well handled if you ask me.
In retrospect, what may be ad absurdum is SIP. Look at South Dakota.
The bottom line is that America is a very large country, and not everywhere is New York.
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