1- You sir are always respectful, I will try and be the same.
A few points of warning.
These are my opinions and my opinions alone.
I am a member of the legislative branch, not the executive branch.
The decision how to proceed is in their court.
#StayHome
#SaveLives https://twitter.com/JamesPerryNC/status/1250367812209696768

2- I speak to First Responders, Health policy experts, DHHS Sec. & Assist, State Health Dir, County Health Directors, Folks w/ the county managers offices, Hospital Assoc., my hospital leaders, doctors, nurses, leaders from various industries, & lobbyists for various interests.

3- Science & public health should dictate when we reopen our economy & how. Not politics.

Our experts say this won’t be like a light switch with a on/off. More like a dimmer switch.

We will need to continue to protect our high risk groups like seniors when we reopen.
#ncga

4- First, we should all agree we don’t want an U curve.

We should also expect needing to pull back and tighten up depending on the numbers of cases, etc.

So first things first. Testing and PPE.
#ncpol

5- We have to get a better handle on both of these. First testing.

Now we are only testing the sick, symptomic that need treatment.

Most people with symptoms are told to stay at home and wait it out. No test is given. Because we don't have enough tests nor PPE to test all.

6- At the hospitals, we were taking 3 to 5 days to get test results back. Burning thru a lot of PPE in the meantime. Now with the rapid tests, we can get results in less than a hour in some places. That is saving a lot of PPE. We still don’t have enough. We need more of these

7- Everyday, my wife comes home from the hospital. She strips in the garage. Sprays everything. I open all the doors for her. She drops her clothes in the washer and heads straight to the shower for a scrub down. So everything is disinfected and washed. Well almost everything

8- She still is only allowed one surgical mask per 5 days of shifts at the hospital. Not a N95 mask mind you. A flimsy surgical mask. So she is washing her clothes. She is washing her hands and her body. But she has to put the same mask back on her face the next day.

9- In order to open back up, we have to fix this. Our first responders & all our health care workers need PPE. And our businesses will need masks for their employees and visitors. I’ve heard the federal government has seized shipments on PPE in several states to redirect #ncpol

10- I’ve heard NC might have been one of those states.

But we have to get up our supplies of PPE before we can reopen safely.

11- But we still don’t have the testing available to test all our health care workers and first responders.

Over the weekend, Wake County was down to having less than 200 test supplies.

More came Monday.

We have to ramp up the testing before we can reopen. We have to.

12- We have to ramp up our abilities to do contract tracing. During the first 30 or 40 cases we were doing a really good job. Then we got community spread and the numbers started to climb. We don’t have the resources to contact trace and test 5000 cases. At least not yet.

13- When we open things back up, we have to be ready to have aggressive contact tracing with isolation of identified contacts. If we don’t, we end right back on Stay at Home with more deaths. I really don't think anyone wants that, no matter your politics. #ncga #ncpol

14- Now there are apparently a lot of folks that believe the worst is over.

I am not sure that’s true.

I believe social distancing and staying at home is in fact showing promise that it is working.

That is delaying our peak. This is where modeling comes in.
#StayHome

15- Sorry for the misspellings. I type like I think and I am not a good speller.

16- A lot of folks follow the Washington State model. When I started writing down their daily numbers a few weeks ago, they had 2411 projected NC deaths and 81,114 US Deaths. Based upon our social distancing, they now have it projected at 415 NC deaths and 68,841 US Deaths.

17- Of course, this model assumes full social distancing requirements thru the end of May. Its when activated that our death projections dropped.

Will we continue. I don't think we know if that will be the case or not yet. That's the question right? #ncga #ncpol

18- Here in NC, we are lucky to have really smart people looking at it and sharing their work. There are in fact three models, with some combination into a fourth. Duke/UNC/RTI.

For weeks, folks said release the models. We want to see the scientific basis. So they did.

19- With huge numbers of cases projected. They did a press conference. They did a call with legislators and staff. They answered questions.

The numbers were very big and very concerning. I followed the media appearances, the press conference, the calls and the data closely

20- Some legislators seemed to just not believe them and just pushed them to the side and said time to reopen.

They ignored the data they had been asking for. That's their right. #ncga #ncpol

21- These models don’t focus on deaths. They focus on our in state medical resources, hospital beds, ICU beds, & ventilators.

If we maintain our current restrictions they predict approximately 20% likelihood we exceed our resources.

22- On the other hand, if we completely lift our Stay at Home Orders, the % rises to about 60% chance we exceed our capacity. That is what happened in Italy and some other countries where doctors had to decide who got a ventilator and who had to be let go. #ToughDecisions

23- The numbers were large, and I am no expert, so I wrote down one.

When looking over their materials, I picked a date in the future but not at the end.

On April 19th, they predicted approximately xxxx confirmed cases in NC. So I have followed that number since then.

24- Our actual numbers: April 8, 3426 confirmed cases in NC. April 11, 4312. April 14, 5024. April 15, 5123 cases.

Right now it appears to me we are right on track for that prediction to be right. That tells me that these folks have some idea what they are doing.

25- In order to ReOpenNC, we need to see a flattening of our curve, and then a decline in our hospitalization rates.

We need to see a reduction in the number of beds needed in our ICU’s.

26- We need adequate PPE for our hosptials, our first responders, and ultimately for our businesses and our citiziens.

We need good testing, with good turn around times. We need the ability to contact tracing as well as in Singapore and other countries.

27- When we do reduce the scope of our Stay at Home Order, it will likely be gradual I would think.

Just like the guidance was originally no group events larger than 100, then 50, then 10, it will probably be a lower number that might gradually increase.

28- Restaurants seem trickier to me. You can't eat with a mask on. But maybe, you put the tables far enough apart?

29- I apologize for this being so long. I probably should have written it all down and summarized it better.

End-
I hope we listen to Science not politics.

Declining rates of infection, beds, ICU beds, & ventilator need.

Real contract tracing. Ready to roll large scale.

Ample PPE.

Testing for workers.

A damn clean mask for my wife! (thanks to those that have contributed supplies)