Q&A of the Day – What we’ve learned from the states that have reopened
Each day I’ll feature a listener question that’s been submitted by one of these methods.
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Today’s entry: Funny how news reporting which was so critical of Georgia’s reopening is now silent on the subject. Should I take that to mean its good news?
Bottom Line: The direct answer is yes. At least if you perceive good news to mean fewer new cases of COVID-19 along with a reopening of economies. Interesting how once again mass media outlets have seemingly aligned themselves against the interests of the average person isn’t it? The lack of news media’s coverage of the exceedingly positive stories coming out of states like Georgia, which have been open for a week, illustrates that the most pervasive form of bias in news media is omission. But you don’t even have to leave our state to find leading examples. It’s now been two weeks, longer than the longest end of the incubation curve for COVID-19 – since five north-eastern Florida counties reopened beaches. Remember the coverage? From South Florida’s news media to the national outlets? Well, two weeks into open beaches,we have the fewest new diagnosed cases in those counties that we’ve had since the first week of testing in March – despite significantly more testing taking place. Here’s what’s happened in the week since five states began to reopen:
- Alaska: Fewest new diagnosed cases since the first week of testing – March 15th
- Georgia: Fewest diagnosed cases since the first week of testing – March 15th
- Oklahoma: Fewest diagnosed cases since the week of April 5th
- South Carolina: Fewest diagnosed cases since the week of March 23rd
- Vermont: 2nd lowest week of cases since the week of March 15th
Now it’s true that the incubation period for new cases is up to 14 days, however the average incubation period monitored by the CDC and WHO is 5 days. If there was to be a spike in new diagnosed cases as a result of reopening measures – we're well into the window in which those cases would be showing up. It’s too early to make a final declaration, but given the extent of the exceedingly critical coverage of these reopening's – especially Florida’s beaches and Georgia in general – if we had an honest and objective news media this would be investigated and reported by more people than just me. The good news is regardless of what is or isn’t reported – there's lots of room for optimism as Florida heads towards phase 1 reopening Monday.