To Be (Open) or NOT to Be, That IS a question

One veteran Arizona state lawmaker now seeking election to the Arizona House of Representatives has called on Gov. Ducey to open up our state's economy again, according to a press release published in a story by (disgraced) former lawmaker David Stringer.

Judy Burges (R-LD1) said, in her release,

While we have struggled with the recent virus, the economic struggle coming may prove to be far worse! The data does not confirm nor warrant five Arizona counties remaining quarantined and not open for business. It’s time to get our economy moving again, and families back to work. Governor Ducey…your stated cure of keeping people under “house arrest” is not justified. In point of fact your response and cure is worse than the virus itself. Arizona citizens are fully capable of making mature decisions as to their safety and well-being. Our founders knew fully well that surrendering freedoms in lieu of safety should never be an option. My fellow Arizonans now fear that their government has overstepped the sacred duty to serve and protect.

Governor Ducey, time is of the essence…open our Great State of Arizona for business!

Burges did NOT specify what data she was using to jump to that spurious conclusion. Nor did she give any examples of what might be worse than dying from Covid19 or losing family or friends to it.

Additionally, use of "house arrest," was clearly intended to inflame and distract. Instead, her audience should be asking crucial questions that could give them information so that they can reduce the risk of severe respiratory illness or worse. Isn't that what capable citizens would do if they wanted to make mature decisions? 

I wonder if families who will end up losing loved ones to Covid19 might regret delegating their responsibility to Judy Burges for figuring out how to keep their families safe and healthy?

Not to mention that Burges' allusion to Ben Franklin's admonition (context here) about safety verses freedom. When he said it, Franklin wasn't thinking at all about viral respiratory pandemics. Instead, he posed the dichotomy to his contemporaries about a tax dispute so that the new nation could pay for the army it needed to fight Britain.

But I digress.

According to the Yellow Sheet Report (April 27),

One of the authors of a model the Dept of Health Services relies on said Arizona is “absolutely not” ready to start reopening on May 1.

According to the model, which was developed by Arizona State University and the University of Arizona and released publicly by DHS last week, Arizona can expect anywhere between 200 and 4000 deaths from COVID-19 between April 8 and July 31, – a huge range that depends on which restrictions remain in place and how closely the public follows them.

Tim Lant, an ASU mathematical epidemiologist who’s leading the modeling team, said while it shows a lot, there’s much more it doesn’t. “It doesn’t tell us what to do,” Lant said. “It doesn’t answer questions like is there an acceptable amount of deaths, it doesn’t really say anything about vulnerable populations… specific businesses that we should prioritize in opening first… or compliance in policies and directives from the government.”

The model is one of a handful DHS Director Cara Christ said the state relies on to make decisions.

From the AZDHS director's blog (April 22) ,

Last week, our federal partners from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) shared the modeling they had built for Arizona based on projection formulas developed by the Johns Hopkins University. This federal model takes into account the current data from the state as well as the mitigation strategies Arizona has put into place. While we are still pending approval from our federal partners to publicly share this data, this model is updated regularly and is the tool the federal government is using when determining resource allocations on a national level. This model predicts our peak resource utilization to occur around June 11, assuming our mitigation strategies are lifted at the end of the current Stay Home, Stay Healthy, Stay Connected order on April 30th. Given that our goal was to reduce transmission of COVID-19, if this model holds true, this later peak would reflect the success of those mitigation strategies. Its projections, even with the mitigation strategies lifted, predict that our current resources, including inpatient beds, ICU beds, and ventilators, will meet a healthcare surge due to COVID-19. This model appears the most realistic and the predictions are reassuring.

In other words, even IF Ducey opens up Arizona's economy this week, there will STILL be increasing need for medical resources and there will STILL be an increased number of deaths in Arizona as a result of the pandemic.

Again, from the Yellow Sheet Report,

The model was originally developed to estimate resource needs and disease transmission rates, but Lant’s team ran into problems with insufficient testing data and answering the question of when the state could safely reopen became more important. Lant said he and the team also have to deal with a rabbit hole of clarifications, like the degree of the reopening, the trade offs of reopening, and what the meaning of “safe” is. But one thing is clear – if Arizona were to start a phased opening May 1, Lant said, according to the model, it wouldn’t be safe. “Absolutely not,” Lant said. While the state hasn’t asked Lant to use his model specifically to answer the question of whether it would be safe to reopen, Lant has done it himself and plans to share it with the state and fellow modelers. “I have looked at those results and the answer is no, it’s not safe to reopen,” Lant said.

News media in Arizona seems to be suggesting that Ducey's under pressure to immediately re-open the state's economy. Yet, despite the ostentatious protesting by people who clearly have no understanding of the risk or of the history of pandemics, the governor seems to be aware of the need to do the right thing -- to protect actual lives.