Hoosier

Yeah, I wouldn't be on board with starting to reopen (which still doesn't mean flipping the switch like everything is ok) until testing and tracing gets a lot better than it is now, and preferably with rapid result testing. No more of this wait 5 days or 7 days for your test result, and EVERYBODY who is symptomatic should have access to testing.

87 inmates test positive at Westville, IN correctional facility https://wsbt.com/amp/news/coronavirus/positive-coronavirus-cases-jump-to-87-at-westville-correctional-facility

Are you really gonna lecture Powerball about race? Dude, he is a black man. I don't think he was saying that everybody at the protest was racist, but we can probably assume the people who showed up with the confederate flag are as well as an unknowable number of others. People are hurting and scared about their future, that is for sure. And there are good arguments to make about the negative consequences of a quasi lockdown, which is why some kind of balance will be need to be struck at some point to be able to start to gradually reopen.

7 Midwest states to partner on reopening the economy amid COVID-19 pandemic LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Seven Midwestern governors announced Thursday that they will coordinate on reopening their state economies amid the coronavirus pandemic, after similar pacts were made in the Northeast and on the West Coast. The latest agreement includes Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Kentucky. “We look forward to working with experts and taking a fact-based, data-driven approach to reopening our economy in a way that protects families from the spread of COVID-19,” the governors said. “Our No. 1 priority when analyzing when (is) best to reopen our economy is the health and safety of our citizens.” The Midwestern alliance joins pacts on the West Coast and in the Northeast that were announced this week. All together, the 17 states covered by the pacts are home to nearly half of the country’s population. “Phasing in sectors of our economy will be most effective when we work together as a region,” said the governors, who include five Democrats — Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer, Wisconsin’s Tony Evers, Illinois’ J.B. Pritzker, Kentucky’s Andy Beshear — and two Republicans, Mike DeWine of Ohio and Erick Holcomb of Indiana. They stressed it does not mean every state will take the same steps at the same time. Ohio’s role in the agreement was unclear. A spokesman for DeWine said his comments from Wednesday still stand. “We have no formal agreements or compacts at this time,” Dan Tierney said Wednesday. But he said DeWine is in regular communication with governors of surrounding states to share information, strategy and resources. https://fox59.com/news/7-midwest-states-including-indiana-to-partner-on-reopening-the-economy-amid-covid-19-pandemic/

They should have protested less than 10 at a time.

Looks like a decent sized protest in Michigan. Streets are clogged. Hopefully the people out there will be understanding whenever the next protest occurs for a cause they may not agree with.

My construction buddy hooked me up with an N95. Only one, but better than nothing.

Some of this is probably a lag in reporting from the weekend but over 2300 new US deaths. Averaging the 12th-14th comes out to about 1800/day.

This is true of course, but I think the dropoff maybe has not been as precipitous as hoped. Italy is running above the top end of the IHME projection. At some point this becomes a question of what level of death are various countries willing to tolerate.

Getting a little too political here. Yes, I know it is the elephant in the room and hard to divorce it from this situation, but overall we have been doing a pretty good job keeping things focused on what the virus is doing. So on that note, some good news and bad news from a country that has gotten a lot of attention -- Italy. New case numbers are trending down but unfortunately the deaths are staying over 500 per day.

My sincere condolences to you

Indiana governor suggested that he may be making tweaks to the stay at home order by the end of this week (order is set to expire April 20). Perhaps some kind of adjustment (loosening?) to the restrictions but we'll see. He did say he has been in contact with the governors in Illinois and Michigan on how to move forward but idk if that necessarily means that all the states will do things at the same time.

Nursing home outbreak in northwest IN: NEWTON COUNTY, Ind. (WLFI) — The Newton County Health Department says 21 people in a long-term care facility have been infected with COVID-19. https://www.wlfi.com/templates/AMP?contentID=569596371

Lightfoot taking a pic with the woman who cut her hair was definitely a mistake on her part. I don't know what the circumstances were (did the person come to Lightfoot's house, did Lightfoot go there, etc) but it just gives people ammo. Next time maybe get your hair cut in secret Lori.

A lot of cars down the street from here, presumably an Easter gathering. Sure hope nobody is carrying the virus.

Italy's lockdown was extended to May 3, and the US is generally running behind them in terms of the progression of the virus. Obviously it's a different situation in this country with the governors having the say. I think May (at least a good part of it) is probably going to look a lot like April as far as what is going to be open/closed, especially in the harder hit states.

A bad milestone has been reached in Indiana. Covid has been confirmed in all 92 counties.

In a twist on the late Jimmy V... don't go out. Don't ever go out. Charlotte woman hasn't left her house in three weeks but tested positive for COVID-19 https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/charlotte-woman-hasnt-left-her-house-in-three-weeks-but-tested-positive-for-covid-19/ar-BB12sjy4?ocid=st

The Indiana State Department of Health has confirmed what many African-Americans have suspected and feared for weeks: Blacks in the state appear to be contracting and dying of the novel coronavirus at a much higher rate than the general population, following a trend in some other states. Despite African-Americans making up 9.8% of the state’s population, they make up 18.5% of positive cases and 19.2% of the state’s 300 deaths. In Indianapolis, the city’s black population is 28.9%. Whites – who make up 85.1% of the population – make up 50% of positive cases and 69% of deaths. The race of 19.1% of positive cases and 7.3% of deaths remain unknown, per the state data provided Friday. https://www.southbendtribune.com/news/local/indiana-releases-demographic-data-on-coronavirus-cases/article_5638bb26-7c04-11ea-a8c7-93baee7db2c3.html

Well now there are 15 cases where my uncle works. He showed up to work at 6 am today and they wouldn't let anybody in the building until a cleaning crew comes to disinfect. So my uncle had to sit in his car until his shift ended at 2 pm. Wasn't allowed to leave.

State health commissioner now says there have been 24 deaths at that nursing home.

Population density is a huge factor, no doubt about it. I don't have a link but I caught some of the chatter on tv about how blacks are dying at a disproportionate rate from this virus compared to whites (in areas that have released a racial breakdown of deaths). I think Michigan was one of the places mentioned as far as the racial disparity. It would be interesting to see a comparison of rural white death rate compared to rural black death rate, because that takes population density out of the picture. The area to get plentiful data on that would probably be in the south since rural black is more common than in the north.

City of Gary, IN has been releasing death and infection numbers (one of the only towns in Lake county to do so I think) and based on what they have provided, they have a disproportionately high number of cases and fatalities compared to the rest of the county. It can be dangerous to make assumptions but with Gary being 85% African American, we can make a good guess about which segment of the community is being hit the most. Unfortunately African Americans are being disproportionately affected by this virus as they are in other ways. It's just on a much bigger scale in large urban centers like Chicago and Detroit.

55 newly confirmed deaths in Indiana since yesterday. As of today, all private labs in the state have to report negative test results and not just the positive ones. It had been optional for the private labs and there's probably no way to know how many negative test results weren't reported.

Regarding warm weather and the virus: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-warm-weather-will-not-slow-covid-19-transmission Even if it does help reduce transmission to some extent, we are vulnerable due to how contagious it is and any potential warm weather benefit could be undone if we aren't careful.