- Jun 6, 2007
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Pennsylvania's Governor Wolf this past Thursday reinstituted many Covid 19 business shutdowns like for indoor seating for bars and restaurants and on-site gym utilization. it's heartbreaking to consider the ensuing ramifications on the affected small business owners and their employees and their patrons. My interest isn't in singling out Governor Wolf for this latest dropping of disproportionate weight of fighting the pandemic on the small business community he is just one of an abundance of America's leaders acting this way and in so doing giving America less than top level leadership; truthfully these officials are taking the easy way out with their response, the infection numbers are skyrocketing so they have a strong case for their shutdowns. These officials say I have to do the shutdowns because our healthcare system is approaching or breaching capacity. But this easy road action is not doing what is optimally good considering the avalanche of harm that will come from these shutdowns. Doing what is optimally good would involve things like the following.
Asking hospitals to expand their capacity and committing to them that they won't lose one penny in the effort that the state will financially back stop them. Any prudent well informed assessment of the rescue package negotiations in Washington knows the negotiators are not going to get a full package prior to the Georgia Senate Run-Off elections January 5 because Republicans ain't going to vote for any state aid going to Democrat states that have overly generous public pensions which will upset a significant portion of their base and jeopardize the Republican Party winning those races; but afterwards states will be seeing $150 to $300 billion pandemic aid coming from Washington so states will have plenty of money to financially backstop their hospitals. Why don't Governors fight the pandemic demand for hospitals from a demographic standpoint, the vast vast majority of people dying from Covid 19 are older Americans fifty years of age and older. The American public should be blasted with commercials on TV and radio advertising this fact and emphatically telling this demographic group the public needs you to cooperate in avoiding landing in the Intensive Care Units of hospitals; we need you to not only wear masks but N95 masks, these cotton masks people are wearing offer too many paths for respiratory particles containing a SARS-COV-2virus to enter into your respiratory pathways. We need you to take action quickly if you show symptoms of Covid 19; we need you to get tested that day and if you receive a positive result we need you to speak to a Doctor within 24 hours about treatment for that disease. States should be delivering a handful of these N95 masks to the elderly that need them (and these masks can be cleaned so one can stretch out use to a week per mask -this writer uses ammonia and water). States should deliver to any elderly citizen that tests positive for Covid 19 under an antigen test a molecular PCR test (which is more accurate) within twenty-four hours of being contacted by that citizen. When one gets a PCR tests one has to provide identifying information so states can know the PCR tests that are from the elderly so they should get priority in the processing labs all such tests should be processed in twenty-four hours. This point is critically important for all PCR tests of the elderly in a state that comeback positive for Covid 19 they should be assigned a case worker. And within twenty-four hours that case worker should have telephoned the elderly person that tested positive to see if they have seen or are scheduled to see a Doctor about the disease and for those that haven't the caseworker should arrange for them to see a doctor even if it is a video consultation. The caseworker should find out if the elderly person needs help getting the pharmaceuticals the doctor prescribed or getting the tests the Doctor has ordered and make arrangements to bring that about. Elderly people need to get put on pharmaceuticals to fight this virus very quickly from the onslaught of the disease because older people because of their age have weakened immune systems so their immune system doesn't stop and reverse the progression of this disease very well and as has been extensively reported in the media once this disease progresses to a certain level the sick person has to deal with very serious complications such as cytokine storms (overreactions of the immune system) and the person's body producing dangerous blood clots to name a few.
State governments should be finding out if these elderly people dying of Covid 19 have been receiving best practices medical care for these diseases. The identifying information from these deceased patients files should be redacted and the files turned over to investigative panels. The public doesn't even need a doctor to review every file doctors can specify generally what are best practices they know the pharmaceutical and treatment regimens and the testing regimens and the timelines that should have been followed for best practices care. Once these best practices general guidelines are established you could have non-doctor medical professionals reviewing all the files and pulling out and flagging the files that show major deviation from the guidelines for a doctor's review. If the reviewing doctors are finding certain hospitals are providing care that has significant shortcomings these hospitals need to be notified of this problem and if they don't rectify it the respective oversight agencies have to contact their board of directors and fix the problem and if such a hospital is recalcitrant in these shortcomings pull their license. There is so many pharmaceuticals and treatments that have value in fighting this disease are they being used in a responsible effort for these two to thousand people dying per day from this disease. Are the antivirals, blood thinners, corticosteroids, monoclonal antibodies and convalescent plasma pharmaceuticals available to fight this disease being tapped for use appropriately?
Governors and Mayors implementing these latest clampdowns say they feel for the small business community hurt by their actions but do they really if they aren't doing everything to avoid such drastic action. Many of these small business owners essentially have their whole life wrapped up in their business if it fails they are left broke and many of the workers in these small business largely live paycheck to paycheck these shutdowns cause these people terrible pain. These restaurants and bars offer members of the public a release from the stress that exists in their lives and they continually carry holed-up in their home. Officials from their shutdowns may be reducing the total number of deaths from the Pandemic, but how many deaths are they causing with these shutdowns from drug and alcohol use, from stress caused heart attacks and strokes; how many divorces, acts of violence and permanent breakdown of relationships in families with their actions? To a significant degree these officials are playing God and they have no business doing such; yes, they stopped people from going to restaurants, bars and gyms but how many of these people will instead to get out of their house go shopping at a department or other large scale retailer store and how many younger people instead will go over a friends home who lives in a small apartment where because of the small space respiratory particles are passed easily and they become spreaders of the virus. Sure with the spiking Covid 19 cases officials should call for closure of these businesses at 10:00 pm because at that time people become tired and let their guard down and do things which causes virus spread and limit occupancy of these establishments to fifty percent so social distancing standards are respected but it is an extremely, extremely bad decision to reinstitute these shutdowns. I'll tell you if I was a Judge hearing a case charging these shutdown restrictions as unlawful, I would find for the petitioners and order them lifted; for these restrictions are arbitrary and capricious actions of public officials and there is plenty of other actions these officials can take, as outline above, to stop the hospital capacity in the respective community from being overwhelmed!
Asking hospitals to expand their capacity and committing to them that they won't lose one penny in the effort that the state will financially back stop them. Any prudent well informed assessment of the rescue package negotiations in Washington knows the negotiators are not going to get a full package prior to the Georgia Senate Run-Off elections January 5 because Republicans ain't going to vote for any state aid going to Democrat states that have overly generous public pensions which will upset a significant portion of their base and jeopardize the Republican Party winning those races; but afterwards states will be seeing $150 to $300 billion pandemic aid coming from Washington so states will have plenty of money to financially backstop their hospitals. Why don't Governors fight the pandemic demand for hospitals from a demographic standpoint, the vast vast majority of people dying from Covid 19 are older Americans fifty years of age and older. The American public should be blasted with commercials on TV and radio advertising this fact and emphatically telling this demographic group the public needs you to cooperate in avoiding landing in the Intensive Care Units of hospitals; we need you to not only wear masks but N95 masks, these cotton masks people are wearing offer too many paths for respiratory particles containing a SARS-COV-2virus to enter into your respiratory pathways. We need you to take action quickly if you show symptoms of Covid 19; we need you to get tested that day and if you receive a positive result we need you to speak to a Doctor within 24 hours about treatment for that disease. States should be delivering a handful of these N95 masks to the elderly that need them (and these masks can be cleaned so one can stretch out use to a week per mask -this writer uses ammonia and water). States should deliver to any elderly citizen that tests positive for Covid 19 under an antigen test a molecular PCR test (which is more accurate) within twenty-four hours of being contacted by that citizen. When one gets a PCR tests one has to provide identifying information so states can know the PCR tests that are from the elderly so they should get priority in the processing labs all such tests should be processed in twenty-four hours. This point is critically important for all PCR tests of the elderly in a state that comeback positive for Covid 19 they should be assigned a case worker. And within twenty-four hours that case worker should have telephoned the elderly person that tested positive to see if they have seen or are scheduled to see a Doctor about the disease and for those that haven't the caseworker should arrange for them to see a doctor even if it is a video consultation. The caseworker should find out if the elderly person needs help getting the pharmaceuticals the doctor prescribed or getting the tests the Doctor has ordered and make arrangements to bring that about. Elderly people need to get put on pharmaceuticals to fight this virus very quickly from the onslaught of the disease because older people because of their age have weakened immune systems so their immune system doesn't stop and reverse the progression of this disease very well and as has been extensively reported in the media once this disease progresses to a certain level the sick person has to deal with very serious complications such as cytokine storms (overreactions of the immune system) and the person's body producing dangerous blood clots to name a few.
State governments should be finding out if these elderly people dying of Covid 19 have been receiving best practices medical care for these diseases. The identifying information from these deceased patients files should be redacted and the files turned over to investigative panels. The public doesn't even need a doctor to review every file doctors can specify generally what are best practices they know the pharmaceutical and treatment regimens and the testing regimens and the timelines that should have been followed for best practices care. Once these best practices general guidelines are established you could have non-doctor medical professionals reviewing all the files and pulling out and flagging the files that show major deviation from the guidelines for a doctor's review. If the reviewing doctors are finding certain hospitals are providing care that has significant shortcomings these hospitals need to be notified of this problem and if they don't rectify it the respective oversight agencies have to contact their board of directors and fix the problem and if such a hospital is recalcitrant in these shortcomings pull their license. There is so many pharmaceuticals and treatments that have value in fighting this disease are they being used in a responsible effort for these two to thousand people dying per day from this disease. Are the antivirals, blood thinners, corticosteroids, monoclonal antibodies and convalescent plasma pharmaceuticals available to fight this disease being tapped for use appropriately?
Governors and Mayors implementing these latest clampdowns say they feel for the small business community hurt by their actions but do they really if they aren't doing everything to avoid such drastic action. Many of these small business owners essentially have their whole life wrapped up in their business if it fails they are left broke and many of the workers in these small business largely live paycheck to paycheck these shutdowns cause these people terrible pain. These restaurants and bars offer members of the public a release from the stress that exists in their lives and they continually carry holed-up in their home. Officials from their shutdowns may be reducing the total number of deaths from the Pandemic, but how many deaths are they causing with these shutdowns from drug and alcohol use, from stress caused heart attacks and strokes; how many divorces, acts of violence and permanent breakdown of relationships in families with their actions? To a significant degree these officials are playing God and they have no business doing such; yes, they stopped people from going to restaurants, bars and gyms but how many of these people will instead to get out of their house go shopping at a department or other large scale retailer store and how many younger people instead will go over a friends home who lives in a small apartment where because of the small space respiratory particles are passed easily and they become spreaders of the virus. Sure with the spiking Covid 19 cases officials should call for closure of these businesses at 10:00 pm because at that time people become tired and let their guard down and do things which causes virus spread and limit occupancy of these establishments to fifty percent so social distancing standards are respected but it is an extremely, extremely bad decision to reinstitute these shutdowns. I'll tell you if I was a Judge hearing a case charging these shutdown restrictions as unlawful, I would find for the petitioners and order them lifted; for these restrictions are arbitrary and capricious actions of public officials and there is plenty of other actions these officials can take, as outline above, to stop the hospital capacity in the respective community from being overwhelmed!
