Has your state been handling the COVID pandemic well?

I voted”

My state has handled the COVID pandemic in a pretty reasonable way

I almost voted other since we live in South Dakota and I would like to say our state has handled in an excellent way. We have had one of the lowest rates of death and hospitalizations and our economy was not shut down and churches were given the liberty to make their own decisions about holding services.

It is interesting to hear your perspective that PA is doing well in response. I would tend to think the opposite is true.

Pennsylvania has more deaths than Texas and Florida COMBINED - and their combined population is over 4 times that of Pennsylvania. (Of course, most of the deaths in the U.S. have come from Blue states - the 22 states that have Democrat governors account for over 70% of the deaths).

I believe we should take precautions and I am not saying that this is nothing, but I have a few particular issues with the way it has been handled in PA.

1. Governor Wolf has devastated the economy of Pennsylvania with arbitrary and overboard shut-downs.

2. Governor Wolf has contributed to the high death rates by allowing positive cases back in the nursing homes - not as big of a problem in PA as in NY where Cuomo has a lot of blood on his hands. Of course, this plays particularly poorly with Dr. Levine (head of the PA Dept. of Health) removing his/her mother from the nursing homes during this crises when many others could not do so.

3. When the shut-downs caused about 1/3 of the entire PA workforce to file for unemployment, the unemployment system was discovered to be a mess and only made the problem worse (https://www.ydr.com/story/opinion/2020/06/01/how-did-pa-unemployment-fa…)

4. While medical services like cancer screenings, colonoscopies, etc. were considered “non-essential”, Planned Parenthood was considered “essential.”

5. His message on masks and church services have been inconsistent (at best).

6. He has responded pettily to his disputes with the Legislature - and, in particular, with Lebanon County - he made Lebanon County stay in the “yellow” phase with its total (at the time) of 40 deaths throughout the whole time (now 45) , while he allowed Philadelphia to move to green even though it had had over 40 deaths that very week. The obvious reason being that Lebanon officials had moved against his earlier draconian shut-downs to try to open up sooner.

I have mainly tried to stay out of this and I have actually taken some pretty good heat for my cautiousness and perhaps extreme care in re-opening our church, but I was suprised to see a “Wolf is doing a good job” answer.

Not sure what the reason is for all the YELLING, but I find your response very telling. (If you were a newbie, I might assume you do not realize that ALL CAPS is considered yelling, but since you have been on here as long as you have, I believe it is reasonable to conclude you are yelling intentionally.)

[QUOTE=Joeb] Also FRANK I detect a political slant to your opinion to. Plus you don’t live in PA I do.

First of all, I actually DO LIVE in PA ( This is the first time i have posted on Sharpiron in a long time - and I have been quickly reminded of why - but I moved to PA in 2015.) I have been following this thing pretty closely. I was in Wayne county the day when the first confirmed COVID cases were reported in PA on March 6 - and Wayne county was the site of one of those first confirmed cases, with Delaware county being the other. I work in the Lehigh Valley area and frequently drive by the hospital (St. Luke’s Fountain Hill campus) where the first Covid death in PA occurred on March 18. I live in Lebanon county and have seen the back-and-forth between the county leadership and the governor first hand and I am aware of the fact that over 10% of the Democrat state legislature joined the Republicans in passing HR 836 in attempting to end the emergency orders of the governors (which the PA Supreme Court ruled against on strictly partisan grounds - the 5 Democrats voting to overturn HR 836 and the 2 Republicans voting to let HR 836 stand). so you don’t get to play the “I live here, you don’t” card. (By the way, that should not matter, since the discussion should be about facts and facts don’t care if I live in PA or not, but since you brought it up, I thought I would clarify that for you.)

I noticed you did not deal with any of the actual factual reasons I presented regarding why I was suprised to see your initial post saying that you thought Wolf was doing a good job and instead just attacked me on my “political slant”, which you clearly do not know, since you then try to lump me in with “Trumpeters” despite the fact that I had already commented that I have been taking heat for being very cautious in the re-opening of our church, etc.

Also FRANK I detect a political slant to your opinion to [sic].

Thank you for detecting that - and then going off on a political diatribe for the rest of your post. :)

Just a couple of quick comments.

You commented:

PA NY an NJ were hit earlier and are very urban states and even the rural areas of PA are heavily populated. PA Rural areas are the most densely populated in the Country. So exposure first and density of populations has its effects. Oh yeah let’s see how Texas Arizona and Florida do now FRANK.

Facts are stubborn things - and they do not support your comments. While the perception would be that PA was hit earlier, the reality is that Florida (March 1) had confirmed cases before PA (March 6) and Texas had its first confirmed case on March 6 - the same day as PA. Also both states experienced their first official Covid deaths before PA - Florida (March 14), Texas (March 17), whereas PA’s first was March 18. I realize these dates are close, but the narrative that PA has only done worse than these two states because PA was hit earlier is demonstrably false.

You are correct that density has an impact. However, since the vast majority of deaths in PA are in the 5 county Philly area and then Lancaster and Pittsburgh area, the density of the rural areas really has little bearing on this discussion. And considering the bigger urban areas in Texas (Houston, San Antonio, Dallas/Ft. Worth, etc.) are bigger than the urban areas in PA (Philly, Pittsburgh, Allentown) it seems that this argument does not actually work in your favor either.

Also, I hope that I am reading this wrong, but I detect (see, two can play that game) a seeming gleefulness to your comment of “Oh yeah let’s see how Texas Arizona and Florida do now FRANK.” I hope that is not really what you are feeling, as there are real people hurting over this pandemic and the idea that in order to score political points against “Trumpeters” you are wishing for these states to start having serious problems is disconcerting.

As far as your other comments, WOW! I am not sure how any of those things fit into a discussion about PA’s response to the Pandemic - “Trumpeter” Pastors, crime reporting, Paige Patterson, Tony Compolo, etc. I surely have not espoused anything that you are wailing against in those paragraphs.

Frank, thank you for posting. When it comes to politics things can get emotional. I like to look at facts and data as well as specific policy that is implimented rather than emotion and character attacks. That is why I am expecting we are not going to be too far apart in our political beliefs. Even if we disagree I am confident we could calmly discuss our differences. At the same time we should not totally ignore character when it comes to political discussions. I am glad for Joeb’s posts on this thread because it has revealed part of his character. I hope many read those posts to know where he is coming from and thus read his comments in a more informed manner (his feelings about the Christian right etc).

[Joeb] If you are now in PA your bio does not reflect that. I went by the info you provided.

Regarding Florida and Spring Break. You are correct that it is possible that some of the Spring Breakers became Super Spreaders. It is also possible (like some believe) that Florida got an uptick in cases from people fleeing New York to their second homes in Florida. I’m not sure how we would be able to verify and quantify either one of those, however.

[Joeb] Also comparing PA to TX is like apple and oranges. PA probably has the highest percentage of elderly people in the country per capita.

Actually Maine has the highest percentage of elderly people, followed closely by Florida (https://www.prb.org/which-us-states-are-the-oldest/). Pennsylvania actually has the 8th highest, so you are correct that it does have a high percentage. However, it is interesting that of the 10 states that have the highest percentage of folks over 65, most of them have surprisingly low deaths per million (DPM) from COVID - except for PA and Delaware. In fact, all of the other 8 states among the 10 states with the highest percentage of residents over 65 except PA and Delaware actually are BELOW the U.S. average for DPM (the current DPM for the U.S. is 413).

Here are the current numbers. In order from highest % of folks over 65, these are the Deaths Per Million. (By the way, I was surprised at this, but I like to look at actual numbers on these kind of things.) If I knew how to put it in a nice table, I would.

1. Maine - 83

2. Florida - 191

3. West Virginia - 53

4. Vermont - 90

5. Delaware - 531

6. Montana - 26

7. Hawaii - 13

8. Pennsylvania - 542

9. New Hampshire - 287

10. South Carolina - 180

[joeb] Plus Trump purposely shorted NY compared to Florida on Supplies. The Governor of FL got everything he needed the quickest and when his numbers were lower. Trump even said he did it that way because Como didn’t speak nice to him.

[joeb] The ship Trump sent to NY was almost meaningless because it was not set up to handle COVID 19. By the time NYC got the capacity it needed it was to late. Most of the damage was done.

According to CNBC (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/17/nearly-90percent-of-the-us-navy-hospita…), that is not true.

[CNBC Article] “Shortly after arriving from its home port in Norfolk, Virginia, the military’s floating lifesaver was adjusted to receive coronavirus patients, halving its 1,000-bed capacity. As of Friday, 71 of the USNS Comfort’s 500 beds were occupied.”

Anyway, this is getting pretty far away from the original topic, which was regarding how Wolf was performing amidst the pandemic. You thought he was doing well. I disagree and gave a list of reasons why I disagree. As far as I can tell, none of those reasons have been addressed, let alone refuted. I have neither the time nor inclination to continue to pursue this, as I am sure I am not going to convince you and I am equally sure I am not going to be convinced by you.

If you wish to help me figure out how to update my profile to reflect that I now live in Pennsylvania, I am open to your help. :)

Have a good night.

[fsansone]

If you wish to help me figure out how to update my profile to reflect that I now live in Pennsylvania, I am open to your help.

I think he’s probably referring to your “About” page on A Thinking Man’s Thoughts here.

Anyway, love to read you, Frank, you need to write more! Bring back the blog!

[Don Johnson]

fsansone wrote:

If you wish to help me figure out how to update my profile to reflect that I now live in Pennsylvania, I am open to your help.

I think he’s probably referring to your “About” page on A Thinking Man’s Thoughts here.

Anyway, love to read you, Frank, you need to write more! Bring back the blog!

Thanks. I have been thinking about it.

Has been doing a poor job, in my view, because they never really did much about the most likely paths of dangerous infection—nursing homes and public transit—but they shut down huge portions of the rest of the state. I really don’t see it as excusable to allow COVID patients back into nursing homes when they’re not yet cleared of the virus—all the precautions in the world can be circumvented by that “clever” virus.

It’s getting better, but a lot of people have suffered who never needed to.

Side note; if we will only learn, there are any number of things we can do in the future to reduce the likelihood of this blowing up again. Reduce our dependence on public transit, develop new HVAC strategies to enhance laminar flow and reduce turbulence, reduce our dependence on huge buildings, etc.. I don’t see it happening, but we do have the opportunity.