Wednesday, June 24, 2020

Global – 9,000,000/470,000; USA – 2,350,000/122,000 Based on my discussions last night with David Barr and the group he brought together of people in the trenches of COVID-19 in NYC, New Orleans, DC, Seattle and Chicago, it is clear that the surge is caused by people opening up and throwing caution to the wind leading to community spread. We (me) say that in orde to contain these increases in nfection that will inevitably occur when you open, we need to identify, isolate and contact trace. They are saying that this doesnot work. Contact tracing is a sham. It is done by phone, people do not trust government, there is no isolation after the tracing when tracing does occur and people go right back into multi-generational homes and infect the vulnerable. This was confirmed in 2 conversation that I had with Mak Ghaly the Secretary of California HHS. Here is his e-mailfrom today: Hi, thanks for talking this morning and including me in on this conversation. In Califronia, we have built up a statewide contact tracing platform called CALConnect and we are on our way to have nearly 10,000 contact tracers throughout the state as our phase I program. This said, contact tracing can be improved by 1) increasing the availability of disease investigators skilled at conducting the initial deep dive into an identified case 2) hiring an army of contact tracing workers who look like the community they work in and speak the same language as those they are working to contact trace and support 3) must fund and make widely available safe places for supported isolation and/or quarantine- underused hotels make sense. 4) must help fund two weeks of wage replacement so that low income individuals don’t have to make a short term choice between feeding their families or spreading coronavirus. In my view funding these ideas at the federal level is a way to do both community stimulus and response with one single investment strategy. I will report this to the TF. I am afraid that we are not equipped to handle resurgences at the community level. Did taped briefing to the US Conference of Mayors. Deb and I realize that Bob redfield is over his head and not really mounting an adequate response. He is passive. Good guy, but not fit for the job. PRESS: NPR “Morning Edition” – Rachel Martin; Front page story and picture of me in Washington Post and New York Times about the House Hearing yesterday; NPR Sacramento CapRadio – Sammie Caiola – Facebook Live