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In reply to the discussion: All K-12 schools in Pennsylvania shut down for 2 weeks amid coronavirus outbreak [View all]BumRushDaShow
(129,445 posts)we have the largest concentration of nursing/rehab/convalescent facilities in the state. I can't even count how many such facilities I have in my neighborhood or even within a mile of where I live.
The issue is the complete mental disconnect about the fact that the virus didn't spontaneously erupt in those facilities. It was brought there - by visitors, by the staff (both medical and services staff like those who cook the facility meals and clean the rooms), and by any "new" admissions who may have been unknowingly infected. Many of those staff go back and forth to work on public transit - another source of infection (which is why NYC is cleaning subway cars every night now).
However none of those who work at those facilities are residents and live at the place they work year-round. They leave there and go home and then come back. Day after day. Plus you have mail deliveries there as well as medical, food, and office supply deliveries, and you'll always need maintenance/repair services for the equipment and air-handling systems.
I.e., unless you require that anyone working in those facilities, stay there onsite for the duration (I read an article last month about some nurse/physician caretakers in Italy who have been doing that) and/or get yourself a Star Trek replicator to make food and supplies and completely wall off the facility from the area, then they cannot be somehow "subtracted out" from being there. That's just ridiculous.
Making working people in those institutions "invisible" won't solve the problem.
The point being that you cannot completely "isolate" such a facility from the rest of the county as long as people (even if they are not visitors) come in and out of them - assuming, with head in sand, that they don't exist and thus will never be potential vectors to spread infection when they leave and/or bring it in when they return to go to work, UNLESS strict protocols are in place to mitigate.
If you want to talk about "economically depressed", unfortunately Philadelphia has been dubbed the biggest city with the highest poverty rate in the country. But see the mentality over yonder is apparently one of - "well that's those ghetto/slum people".
This city made a mistake a century ago with dumbass rah rah bullshit (not unlike the crap that the GOP Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Gayle whined about with a childish, GOP talking points-filled rant yesterday at their presser, bemoaning the County moving the date to distribute and place flags for Memorial Day, to July 4th) and we paid the price.
Thankfully we are NOT going to make the same damn mistake.
All I can say then is just stay on that side of the Appalachians. I have always been fascinated by my state but not anymore.