 Okay, we're back. We're live. This is Think Tech and this is Corona Watch, which we do every Wednesday at noon with Stephanie Dalton and Winston Welch. And it's real active. Everything changes day by day. You know, I get mail that's, you know, that's old already by the time I get it. The numbers change. So welcome to the show, Stephanie and Winston. Thanks for having me. You know, Winston, there's been there's been issues about leadership in the state of Hawaii. There was a very serious article combination of articles about a contention between David E. Gay, the governor and she was the lieutenant governor, Josh Green. What do you make of that? How was that happening? And what effect does it have on, you know, the public understanding and awareness of what to do? Well, it's it's a good question. But at the end of the day, we did get a quarantine for the island a lot of weeks. It's what we've needed for a while now. And I had called for it a couple of weeks ago saying Hawaii won't do this because it will kill tourism. But of course, tourism was already killed. Airlines, people voting with their feet, they don't want to be on a plane coming over here. They don't want to be in a hotel room where they don't know if they're going to get any service. So it was it was a done deal. And it was smart of the entire industry to come together as well as government and say, we need a breather here. It was going to happen anyway. Let's just be proactive about it and take the pain now so that when we come back, we're going to be better positioned. As far as the squabble between the governor and the lieutenant governor, you know, the lieutenant governor is an emergency room physician. So he is critically important in his understanding of what what happens in outbreaks. But at the end of the day, you know, I did, this is a good start when he called for that, but we need we needed more. And I think we've gotten more. I hope that that the lieutenant governor's opinions are deeply integrated in anything that that our governor is doing at this time. But I'm happy that Hawaii does have and as time goes by when the virus lets up, I was like I was saying we could have all of a QR. Band like a hospital before you come to Hawaii, you get tested a day beforehand, show that you're clear, you get tested upon arrival, you're clear, go and enjoy your vacation. So we will be well set for afterwards and the economy will come back and tourism, of course, will come back. It's just a matter of we're going to take the pain now or later. So but we're also able to protect the people in our islands. We have 100 cases, probably really have 1000. So at this point, everyone stay in home for two weeks, we'll see hopefully who presents with some symptoms and they can be managed much more effectively than tourism was still. And that's pretty rosy, actually. I tend to be a little Pollyanna. Had the governor done this at the outset. You know, when people first started calling for it when other places were doing it. Those 100 cases would be way, way less. And it goes to this whole thing about how our world is changing every day, every minute, which I would like to cover on this discussion. And you kind of get dragged into the future kicking and screaming. You resist the changes. He resisted the changes. You know, the reality we are in a crisis and you have to look ahead. So if the hotels lost a little money for a week or two, they could have saved lives. And this could have been should have been earlier. And the lesson is that we have to we have to apply that same kind of mindset that is, you know, figuring out what's going to happen and acting in advance proactively in order to deal with a crisis like this going forward. It's a sharp lesson that we didn't do it before. What do you think Stephanie? Oh, absolutely agree with you 100% Jay such a good point and said well and we have 90 cases and it's climbing every day. And why is it going to stop climbing. We just started that the actual shelter in place today what yesterday. The ships are still letting people off so I think there's some irresponsible policies in place if they're or if they were probably not even policies they're just in a tentative nest. So, I think that we're probably going to have a way to go because, for instance, New York is still climbing they've got 30,000 plus cases, but Governor Cuomo reported that he thinks that this important point might be ahead of them and it's called the apex point. So as the as the virus climbs and exponentially it'll give a little bit of a flattening and then maybe go a little higher and then then start to apex and then come down. So he sees that happening in about 21 days for New York, but you know they're they're up in big numbers. And of course, Italy's having something like that happen now. They've got 7500 plus cases one third of the viruses global infestation. So they have evidently also begun to think they're going to apex, but you don't know for sure until it happens. So here we are in Hawaii with 90 and all it has done is accelerate since you know for weeks and because of not taking that those serious steps to to separate ourselves and also to to use the math and take our temperatures. And one of the criticisms I've heard is that we're looking to Italy instead of to China for the examples and that the medical doctors now that the US is over 60,000 that the men MDS and medical people are turning to China for advice because it's not again flattening or getting to apex yet. And the problem is especially acute now as we know because it's not just the the the clothing and the protective gear, but 60% of US hospitals can't handle the the corona infection. They don't there's just not enough resource for them and what what's been reported for Hawaii from the health professionals is that our hospitals have here a total of 3069 beds. 340 of those are for ICU and 219 are critical beds. So and there's 700 spaces for for and there's 700 ventilators. So we have a limit as to how far we can go and if everyone else is having problem getting more capacity. I don't see how Hawaii is going to get it in time or even find a source for it but the health people I talked with have two scenarios and the first scenario given an estimate of a million people in Hawaii and the first scenario is that about 10% of those people are going to be sick. And that means 100,000 people are sick. Now of 100,000 people, 10% of those need hospitalization that gets us all the way up to 10,000 and 20% of those need ventilators and that's 200 people. So that first scenario we can't probably handle very well and it's going to be a crisis if we don't apex before that. So the second scenario is what the one that everybody's aiming for and working towards is that the 1% of the population sick means 10,000 and 1010 that means 10% will need hospitalization which gets it down much lower and then 20% will need ventilation. And those numbers are much smaller or have you know much one-tenth of the other numbers and that that possibly could be managed here. But this isn't all a matter of equipment because you can flatten the curve if you have equipment and then you don't reach the apex. And when you get to the apex, it means you don't have enough hospital beds and equipment to handle the people who are sick. So the idea is to flatten the curve and you do that, you do that with equipment until you do that with masks, of course you do it with containment. So that's one of the problems in the squabble that we talked about is that Josh Green would like to see more masks and David E. Gay and Bruce Anderson's Department of Health feel that containment is okay. And in fact we don't have as many masks as we need and we don't have the testing. Now that's Josh Green's big contention. I'm sorry it's testing. He thinks you can't navigate on this until you find, until you test. So it's equipment. It's all about equipment and the federal government is really not providing enough equipment for Hawaii and we are at risk because of that. And I know just to say that the bill that was passed gave, I want to say was it 400 billion to the states so they could buy such equipment. Fact is that some of this equipment is not even on the market. You can't buy it. Trump is not activated, really activated the defense production bill. So, you know, it's catches catch canons. So it's a free market society that free market market. And the result is we're not going to see this equipment, which means we're going to reach the apex sooner, which means we're not going to, you know, we don't have enough beds as you said Stephanie. So, you know, do you agree Winston that this is an equipment issue that we'd be better off if we had the equipment. And do you have any ideas about how the state can get the equipment it needs testing enough enough masks and gowns and ventilators we don't have enough. What do we do. All good questions. It is equipment but it's also policy and policy that goes currently at like restricting folks from entering and keeping it home for a couple weeks while we sort out okay is anyone going to get sick here. The interesting thing is when they tested folks on Diamond Princess cruise ship half the people that had coronavirus had no symptoms. So, even if we're quarantining people for two weeks, we still don't know, maybe half of those people won't even present with it with symptoms. So then what do we do, then you got to have tests that says, Okay, I am. I don't have it and I can go out like they're doing in China now, which is good news from China that they're in two weeks. They're opening up transport they're opening up back to a more regular life there so there is light at the end of the tunnel. But our policy decisions go back a long time ago. Why do we not have a strategic stockpile of masks and gloves and visa and just that you rotate out every six months you you you replace those and that just like every individual should have three months of food and water and ever all the emergency supplies we're supposed to have batteries. The state should have it to every state every city there should be redundancies everywhere. We're dealing with infrastructure that is insufficient. There is not enough redundancies and it's not just in the medical field. It's all across the board because we just haven't been reinvesting in our society and and who we are. But we saw this with the all the way a few years ago when the when the pumps broke down. You know, it's important that we learn from this finally and say, enough is enough, let's build in redundancy. Let's build in surplus. Let's be protected. Let's save ourselves because the federal government may not be coming and we saw that all the way back to Katrina we saw in Puerto Rico. You're basically on your own Hawaii is a little bit different because we're so isolated and we have such a large military presence that I think we'd have a quicker response and many others. But hey, it depends. Have you paid homage to the leader? Are you going to get things has Cuomo bow deeply enough to get respirators. These are bad questions to be asking. So, you know, I think it's incumbent upon each of us and as our state to be prepared and each state needs to be prepared as should the federal government. The federal government should be there to help as always as it can and that's what Americans expect, but it's not happening right now. And so we got to deal with the reality. Yeah, it's too bad that, you know, this is the way it's worked. And there'll be a complacency later to, you know, hopefully we're through this soon and then we'll go back to the same state of complacency. And that's tragic because we'll have the same experience we don't seem to learn in the in the process of dealing with crises all the crises you mentioned. But I like to I like to get to the question which I'm sure all three of us have experienced is how you how you lead your life in a crisis. You don't want to get the disease. They tell you to do this and that and you follow the rules to the extent you can because you don't want to get the disease. Although the reality is, following all the rules doesn't guarantee you not getting disease. At the end of the day, Stephanie, as you mentioned a certain percentage of people, a high percentage will, whatever we do, we'll get the disease and and then it breaks down as who gets sicker than others and who dies. This is not a good situation. In the meanwhile, the economy is failing. We can talk about that too. But I'd like to know from you guys, Stephanie, I'd like to know how your life has changed at being a hermit. Well, I think all of our lives have gone that way and we're trying to follow the directions. Hopefully that's a common practice that everybody's following the directions. I have been out to the grocery store and there were others there, but people were distancing themselves physically the six feet and and being careful. Some were wearing the good mask. Some people have obviously managed to get a hold of those and I guess off the internet somewhere I thought to look for them that they come designer type to so we might all need to just get a stockpile of that. But speaking of the policy, remember at the top that the president took away our planning committee for this kind of a desperate situation and here now with the medical people talking about their two scenarios, hoping for the one that's only 1% of the population sick. Now just imagine if we have here in Hawaii, 1% of the population sick. We have gone from 90, which are the cases we have today the diagnosis cases to 10,000 10,000 cases diagnosed. So that's that exponential path we could be on now of 10% of the sick need the hospitalization. That's 1000. So that's 1000 beds. And if 20% which is the algorithm is the 10% of those who get it are going to be sick needing hospitalization 20% need the ventilators that's 200. We have 700 ventilators. So it looks like if the second scenario of 1% of the population is sick, that we're going to be able to manage that here in our little poll. But you're assuming it's not going to go logarithmic from this point. There are others who feel that that whatever we do, it will go logarithmic and we'll have a lot more than 100 cases and soon. Yeah, because we're on the trajectory. Yeah, we're on the trajectory just like the mainland because we went so fast this past week from 40 it to 90 it's more than doubled. So we just want to what what what my point is that if we, if we have policy after this is over, why can't we the states have a policy that they will be prepared for a 1% of the population sick there's no reason not to have that. It should be a campaign platform point for anybody running from office this this this at this point in time. So what about you Winston how is your life changed what is it like can you tell us how how life is being you know isolated. You know, we're all in the same boat so it's a shared experience that helps but you don't realize how often we touch people pat on the shoulder shaking hands just normal social interaction. And now we're kind of all leery of each other and afraid is she coughing in my direction type of thing and and where's your mask. Oh, you don't have a mask because you weren't prepared and you don't have toilet paper so you know it's it's weird for a lot of people I think going to store who I'm of an age when I could remember the gas lines in the 70s that was really and then there was probably the war World War two for the young ins out there that there was actual caps on buying things. We're not talking about, you know, a great sale at Best Buy at Christmas time we're talking just about one thing of eggs one gallon of milk. That is an unusual thing for people to see and Americans are not used to probation like this. So, for me, I have been just making sure that the people that I know to the best of my ability and it's hard because there's so many things we're having to do to normalize life as much as we can that the people I that I know that are provisioned that they are prepared because Stephanie says if it's if it's a thousand people and that that get need hospitalization that means 9000 are going to stay at home and pretty much just feeling like hell for a while and this disease from what I've read it runs its course might be two to six weeks until you feel better. So each of us needs to if you're not still prepared the stores are open the stores have goods they're going to have goods by talking about hoarding are you. I'm talking about preparation which is not hoarding preparation means that you number one you should have already been prepared and if you weren't then. Okay, learn from this but number two when you go next time make sure that you're prepared which means having electrolytes which means enough you know your needs and your families needs. And if you don't then shame on you because you're putting the whole burden then back on society and every trip you have to take out to the supermarket not only exposes others it exposes. Well you but it exposes others exposes the whole community so from my perspective you know the personal and personal care and personal health. Is directly connected to the public well being and so I view myself as a potential carrier as we all should which means that we take care. Not to spread this if we were to have it and to protect ourselves if others have it because we may all get it we may 50% of the population 40 to 70% is what I've heard. We just want to be able to respond appropriately if people get sick so that there are the ventilators available at the last resort as well as hospital beds so my as far as life changing. You know I'm just trying to be supportive and kind of people more than than I normally am. But to get out the message that okay do you need anything because I can go to the store for you right now especially if you're not feeling well or you're or you may be more frail or more vulnerable. I can do that and I think a lot of us can step up right now and and do that and we're going we call I call my friends and I tell them hey, you know what if you have a need. You can come to me. Go to the store for you and I checked with people and say, going. There's two points you've covered and I would like to explore two points, looking forward because this, this is a time to look forward. So we, we have really in is for like for a week. In terms of the containment and staying home really you know less than a week. And thank goodness. The stores still have things on the shelves, but the supply line is not guaranteed. You know, would you worry about that going forward because you need things you need things on an ongoing basis you can't, you can't really buy everything you need for like a month or six weeks that's hard. And it would be kind of rushed everybody go and do that. The same time that's one one part of my question what do you see going forward. Isn't there a threat there. The next one is you talk about people caring about each other and indeed, that's the happy message we should all be thinking about and, and giving that's the message of think tech you know let's care for each other. But you know query is that going to continue. You can be kind but you know you have confidence that everybody will be kind Winston don't you worry a little about this breaking down and when times get tougher. And I think that society could collapse, but it's not going to. Right now. Well the new is being born out of the old and right now we're in that time of chaos and people are afraid so we've all just kind of take a breath. The supply lines aren't going to be cut if they're cut and our economy collapses we can have another show about that but we probably won't have electricity so it won't matter but until that time. Society is going to continue the civilization is going to continue people are responding appropriately. They are looking out for each other. No I'm not worried about chaos and destruction this is not the end of the war when the Russians are entering Berlin. This is a health crisis but our stores are stuck they will continue to be stocked. They may not have every single product that you want but that's okay. And as far as buying for two weeks I don't know when I go to Costco I'm not going every day when you buy a thing of toilet paper Costco. Hopefully that's going to last you longer than a week that should last you a month so a lot of the times when we go out there and we're buying things and you can split that thing of toilet paper with your neighbor or your sister whatever. If you need to but no we are we are social creatures we're here to look out for each other. It's in our DNA that's not going to change and we need to look out for each other as well just not because it's in our DNA because it's in our best interest. So you don't know when the person you've been taking care of is going to take care of you. It's just how it goes so I'm not worried as long as we all keep faith in each other because that is the human story. Well this is yeah that's fine Winston it's a very positive take on it and we all know what is going to make the difference leadership and that's what what we go to we're human we organize and we have leaders and for instance we all have leaders and we have policies that derive from from their guidance for instance all of the condos as far as I know all of the hot tubs and and areas and the and the pools and all of these fantastic pleasures that are built into these buildings are closed. And the other thing that's closed are the parks. So I was out at how Alamoana Park trying to a new I knew I couldn't take my car in so I walked down there and I get in there and the next thing the police are after me because the park is also closed. So that was the mayor. So here we're back to the governor his policies again it's the mayor who's closed all of the parks and the beaches. And although you can be in the water I don't know how you're supposed to get there but as long as you're the water you're fine. And then, evidently, Teresa were taking her visitors were being taken to the parks and even though the parks were in some ways closed or they were supposed to be closed and they were letting all these people out and they were congregating in those areas. So I mean actually what they had to do in Alamoana Park because I got pretty far in there is they had to come after me to get me out. And then as they're getting me out here come other people through there on walks or with the intentions of getting to the water but they were told they couldn't do that because they can be on the land the Greenland or the sand, but they could get in the water somehow if they had a way to make that happen. But anyway, so I think that we have to have that kind of support for our society, so that it's not devolving on the individual to have the wherewithal to know what to do, or the moral responsibility ingrained enough to stay out of Alamoana. If that's what the guidance is okay. And of course, you know, so that that's where we are. And here we're right back to leadership and policymaking. And how, how are we going to make it through this. That's the way we're going to make it through this. They will guide us to be our best selves. That's the point. I want to follow on what your remarks are a little while ago and ask you this, you know, food, let's assume for this discussion that food keeps coming in. But in the service industry, there are a lot of things we rely on in the service industry that they may be, you know, they may not be as critical as eating, eating your next meal. But there are things that are important to our lives. And they are not available right now they've stopped being available and they're going to continue to be unavailable for the next several weeks, at least. I mean, I mean, everybody comes up with these numbers about when when the coast will be clear. I mean, to me, it's anybody's guess and it's not soon. But I just wonder your thoughts about the service and things you've got to have. I suppose you are driving your car and suppose, you know, the right wheel falls off, you know, because it hit a panel that hasn't been repaired and won't be repaired. And you got to get your car repaired and it's going to sit there in the street. What about the service industry. How do you feel about that. What's what's your, you know, your kind of approach to that. That's a great question. And when you go to the Honlulu.gov, there's the red bar on the top that says, Mayor's Proclamation, you can read through that. You can see what are essential services and media is an essential service. Toeing companies aren't an essential service. The dentists, they not getting your teeth cleaned for your normal cleaning, but if you upset, you can go because they don't want to go into the hospital. Your normal exam. Nope, don't go right now. So it breaks it down into is this really essential and then you're not so essential. But that means also that your risk is a little bit lower. People that go work in a safe way, they deserve hazard pay. Everybody who's working now deserves a little hazard pay if they're working with the public in my opinion. But folks that are providing essential services, the ones that we can't function without as a society, they're going to be up and running. I have full faith that that is going to happen and we will be okay. We're going to get through this on the other side. We're going to make better choices in the future. But people in Hawaii are resilient. We're a resilient species. And we're going to get through this having with a lot of loha with each other and just, you know, sharing that on many different levels. So I'm not worried about it at this time. Come back in three months and when there's around, maybe so. But I don't think that's going to happen. Let's give it six months before the zombie apocalypse. But I think we'll be fine. Yeah, but we'll come back. We'll come back in a week, though. We'll come back in a week, yes. And we'll see how it's going and we can make new commentaries about it. And we can see how it's going not only in Hawaii, but in the mainland and the world here on CoronaWatch. Thank you very much, Stephanie. Thank you, Winston. A great discussion, important discussion and discussion we have to continue to have going forward in these difficult and possibly increasingly difficult times. Thank you so much. Aloha. Thank you. Thank you.