John MuesVerified account

I've been asked by several people to comment on the recent Phase One reopening of Montana: Because of the bifurcation of American politics into pro and anti-science camps, the Democratic Party need not outperform to appear outperforming. The bar is so low with today's

Republican Party - beholden to Trumpism - that any randomly picked person off the street corner is likely to outperform our #stevedaines, our #greggianforte. I am thankful neither person was Montana's Governor during this global pandemic; the needed social distancing orders

would have been delayed and partisan-driven, the reopening of our state premature. The Governor's team certainly has information that the lay person does not, which should humble, to an extent, external criticism. It's also true that a dismal federal response is driving states

to make decisions that they might otherwise not. For instance, pressure to reopen the economy would be far less if the federal commitment to small businesses and their employees had been greater. I'm also not a typical politician. I dislike blatant opportunism. (For example,

jumping in a U.S. Senate race only after the stock market has crashed, a global pandemic has set in, the incumbent's approval numbers have weakened, and a "palatable" moderate has been confirmed as the presumptive presidential nominee.) But one gap is clear, based on the

Governor's own COVID-19 dashboard (see attached): the number of tests administered in Montana has been less than 12,000, equating to a roughly 1% test rate in our state. Moreover, the tests have apparently been limited to virus testing - versus antibodies testing, which can

identify those previously infected. (By some estimates, 30% of virus tests yield erroneous results, false negatives or false positives.) In turn, we know the scope of tested symptomatic virus carriers in Montana, while having little to no grasp of asymptomatic virus carriers,