Yes, I am. I think he's been doing a heck of a job. He speaks in complete sentences, tells it as best he can with the information he's given. Has been realistic but you can't deal with what you don't know....and there's still a whole lot to be learned about this virus. To say NY seeded the entire country is an irresponsible jab on your part. Had anyone known what they know now (20-20 hindsight) I'm sure things would have run differently. The initial focus was on China, meanwhile countless numbers passed through NY coming from Europe....who, other than you, knew that was a big mistake?
For those who can't see the article (it's a little choppy in that charts don't print but you can still get the gist):
Travel From New York City Seeded Wave of U.S. Outbreaks
The coronavirus outbreak in New York City became the primary source of infections around the United States, researchers have found.
By Benedict Carey and James Glanz
May 7, 2020
Updated 8:36 a.m. ET
662
New York City’s coronavirus outbreak grew so large by early March that the city became the primary source of new infections in the United States, new research reveals, as thousands of infected people traveled from the city and seeded outbreaks around the country.
The research indicates that a wave of infections swept from New York City through much of the country before the city began setting social distancing limits to stop the growth. That helped to fuel outbreaks in Louisiana, Texas, Arizona and as far away as the West Coast.
The findings are drawn from geneticists’ tracking signature mutations of the virus, travel histories of infected people and models of the outbreak by infectious disease experts.
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“We now have enough data to feel pretty confident that New York was the primary gateway for the rest of the country,” said Nathan Grubaugh, an epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health.
Early analysis of genetic samples indicates that more infections across the country came from a line of the virus associated with the outbreak in New York City, shown in red, than from a line associated with the outbreak in Washington State, shown in yellow.
Percent of genetic samples related to each area
Washington State
New York City
100%
50%
0%
50%
100%
States on the West Coast
Washington
53%
42%
California
32%
50%
Viruses that spread from Washington early on carry a distinct genetic signature.
But even on the West Coast, samples related to New York are common.
Oregon
30%
50%
Alaska
80%
0%
Other Western states
Wyoming
31%
69%
Texas
4%
70%
Arizona
6%
84%
Utah
9%
89%
Idaho
0%
98%
Midwestern states
Illinois
27%
45%
Minnesota
15%
72%
Wisconsin
4%
78%
Ohio
0%
88%
Iowa
0%
100%
Southern states
Georgia
0%
30%
Virginia
11%
78%
Every sample from Louisiana, a hot spot for the virus, was related to New York.
Louisiana
0%
100%
Northeastern states
Connecticut
12%
81%
New Jersey
7%
93%
Maryland
0%
92%
The genetic line associated with New York can be traced back to Europe.
New York
1%
94%
Massachusetts
0%
94%
Note: Scientists have thus far sequenced only a small fraction of total infections, so the distribution of genetic lines could change as more samples are analyzed. States with fewer than 10 samples were left off the chart. Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon and Wyoming all had fewer than 20 samples. Percentages may not add up to 100 because additional genetic lines are omitted.Source: NextstrainBy Derek Watkins
The central role of New York’s outbreak shows that decisions made by state and federal officials — including waiting to impose distancing measures and to limit international flights — helped shape the trajectory of the outbreak and allowed it to grow in the rest of the country.
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The city joins other densely populated urban hot spots around the world, starting with Wuhan, China, and then Milan, that have become vectors for the virus’s spread.
Travel from other American cities also sparked infections across the country, including from an early outbreak centered in the Seattle area that seeded infections in more than a dozen states, researchers say. Even if New York had managed to slow the virus, it probably would have continued to spread from elsewhere, they say.
But the Seattle outbreak proved to be a squall before the larger storm gathering in New York, where, at the end of February, thousands of infected people packed trains and restaurants, thronged tourist attractions and passed through its three major airports.
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During crucial weeks in March, New York’s political leaders waited to take aggressive action, even after identifying hundreds of cases, giving the virus a head start. And by mid-March, when President Trump restricted travel from Europe, the restrictions were essentially pointless, the data suggest, as the disease was already spreading widely within the country.
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