It has the potential to be a serious pandemic, but with a strong medical infrastructure, robust public health response, and a sensible, informed public, we can minimize…wait. What the heck…PANIC! Not over the virus, but over the ongoing dismantling of those very things vital to keep the citizenry as safe as possible.
Trump is making massive cuts in biomedical research.
Multiple organizations expressed shock and disappointment at Trump’s budget proposal, which adds $54 billion in defense spending but would slash nearly $6 billion from the National Institutes of Health, which funds most basic medical research in the country, as well as eliminate entirely dozens of other agencies and programs.
It would cut the overall Health and Human Services department budget by 18 percent, including the 20 percent budget reduction at NIH, and reassign money from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to states.
In response to concerns that we might not have enough doctors if a crisis arises, he has said that we’d just hire more doctors in that case. Doctors are not fungible. They require years of training, and their expertise requires constant maintenance.
Trump seems to think creating a task force and appointing a “czar” is a smart response. We already have experts in infectious disease at the NIH and CDC…you know, those agencies he is defunding. Appointing an ignoramus like Mike Pence, who has no qualification and has a history of botched public health management does not inspire confidence. Nor does having Ken Cuccinelli, Steven Mnuchin, and Larry Kudlow on the task force.
Also, this:
Patient zero behavior from the coronavirus czar pic.twitter.com/IXcBWMIyK5
— John Heilemann (@jheil) February 27, 2020
As for our informed public, Corona, the Mexican beer, has taken a substantial hit to their revenues because people are associating it with the virus.
Please note that the beer and the virus have nothing to do with each other.
We’re gonna die.
Yup.
Well, that’s what happens in a society with stupidity is not only legal, but constitutionally protected.
Edit: …a society where stupidity…
Yes, I know. Way to undercut my own point.
I’m working as a dentist in Australia. I’m following Dr Ian MacKay by twitter and his blog virology down under.
HAND HYGIENE and cough etiquette are the most useful factors in protection from COVID-19, seasonal influenza, and other respiratory viruses.
Although the majority of us wont have permanent health issues from this latest viral threat, I’d have thought that Trump and his minions would be listening to the ECONOMIC risks from losing workers, having goods shortages . COVID-19 isn’t easily able to be treated as a (foreign/ Chinese) illness now.
Take a look:
https://virologydownunder.com/so-you-think-youve-about-to-be-in-a-pandemic/
Why Pence? I find it truly baffling that what little is done isn’t done by the Health Secretary.
Take Germany: of course it was the Health Minister, together with the Interior Minister (who happened to be Minister of Health in the past) who organize the COVID-19 response.
Oh. And i’ve heard that the beer brand has come up with a way to deal with the confusion: A new name: “Ebola”. 🤪😀https://www.the-postillon.com/2020/01/Corona-Ebola.html
Apparently Trump doesn’t realise that if the US needs to hire a bunch of doctors at short notice they’ll come from places he thinks are “shithole” countries, like India and Nigeria.
HAHA ,i had thought us Brits had it bad with bojo at the controls ,the country is flooded ,and the Environment agency which deals with such things has had it’s budget cut for the past two years .
Don’t know how all this right wing fuckwiterlly will end ,cretin in the WH ,cretin in No10 ,cretin in Brazil ,cretin in Australia .
It’s a good thing there aren’t two of Mike Pence. Because then you’d have…a pair of Pence!
Can we get rid of the whole “insert problem”, add Czar to it thing? This goes back to the first Bush years when he declared a “Drug Czar”. Really a term from the first lady, Barbra Bush, because of her weird obsession with drug abuse. Since then we have tons of Czars. It’s stupid and meaningless. So we have a Coronavirus Czar now, who cares? Another meaningless figurehead “assigned” to address a problem with no actual skill or power to do anything.
@5
Most of the armchair political analysts I’ve read suspect that Trump doesn’t want Pence as his VP for his next hypothetical term. So Trump’s setting Pence for failure so he can replace him with someone more acceptable. If not that’s not the case, then I can’t think of a damn reason why either.
In addition to Corona beer, Chinatowns across the US have been hit with massive decreases in the number of people going to restaurants and shops well before any cases of the virus being recorded in the US.
People are so stupid.
Pence the cosmically dumb and evil oogedy boogedy xian, has already imposed a gag order on all federal scientists.
This is what China did initially and what Iran is doing now.
It was a disaster and partially explains why China has 2,800 dead and an almost dead economy.
Fuck these guys.
Silence can and will kill.
Xpost from Dispatches.
The tl;dr version.
Another country that has dropped the ball big time is, the USA.
The Trump regime is way behind the curve on this epidemic coming like a freight train.
.1. The USA is way behind on testing infrastructure for the virus.
As of a day or so ago, they had maybe 8 labs in the USA capable or running these tests.
(BTW, these testing kits are simple and the technology is decades old. There is no excuse for this.)
There should be in the hundreds by now or soon.
Every hospital should have the ability to run these sorts of tests.
.2. We are short of personal protective gear.
This matters a lot because medical care people need it and need to know how to use it.
Asking docs and staff to risk their lives to treat patients is asking too much.
And if they get sick and don’t know it, hospitals can and have become focuses for the epidemic.
.3. Hospital beds are expensive infrastructure and there are never many extra.
This winter, the local hospital was sometimes full.
Every place is going to have trouble with where to put the coming patient deluge.
The years of cutting the budgets of CDC and the other alphabet agencies that deal with epidemics is on display right now.
@#9, Ray Ceeya:
I think it’s because America has grown used to the idea that politicians do not solve problems. (Not just as a Republican talking point — it has been a Democratic talking point for a decade or so that “we’d love to solve problems, but the Republicans won’t let us do anything at all unless we have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, so we’re just going to sit on our hands because we know you’ll continue to vote for us anyway”.) Since large-scale problems can’t be solved without government intervention, and we have accepted that the government can’t solve them, we accept theater instead to let us pretend that progress is being made.
Look! A new general in charge of a new “surge” in our pointless, failing war! Look! A radical new policy program to fix an issue which really boils down to “we need to spend more money but refuse to”! Look! A new czar in charge of a problem which arose as a complication of our existing problems! Look! A healthcare plan which purposely isn’t universal and doesn’t contain costs, because we want to protect private insurance!
Because god forbid we tax a few rich people, get the money, and actually pay to fix things.
Of course Corona beer is taking a hit. Remember in the early days of the Iraq war when French’s, the mustard company, had to keep telling people they’re an American company and not French? When ISIL started making the news, businesses like hair salons that named themselves after the Egyptian goddess Isis started getting vandalized and receiving death threats.
Cross posted from the Political Madness thread.
About Trump’s delusional idea that he can just rehire all the global health security experts he previously fired:
Link
From The Washington Post:
Additional info posted on the Political Madness Thread: “Whistleblower Claims Retaliation After Alleging Reckless Coronavirus Response”
from what I heard on TRMS yesterday about the evacuees from the cruse ship and how they were handled it appears that the quarantine was broken in California by actions ordered by the WH
Lets get this strait this guy is not a successful businessman nor has he ever been one he played one on the TV. He has proven his ability by heading and “managing ” a good number of business ventures that have gone bankrupt. He is a crook and a con-man and a phony rich man, if it was not for the russian mob and money laundering and crooked tax lawyers he would be brook by now. In fact we do not know now what his actual status is how much his debt exceeds his ability to pay it off. he touts the stock market but he is not himself an investor and I doubt he knows or cares much about it.
but rest assured “he learned his lesson”
uncle frogy
WHO raised the coronavirus threat assessment to a higher level.
Link
From the Washington Post:
Link
Doctors are not fungi? Ah, now I know why the administration keeps them in the dark and covers them with bullshit — it’s a simple misunderstanding that I’m sure they will fix immediately.
Technically true, but almost certainly not going to happen.
The Covid-19 virus has already broken worldwide containment.
The country that dropped the ball the most is…Iran.
They have community spread and have almost no ability to deal with a pandemic like this.
The world is about to see a theocracy in action, or rather, in inaction.
Xpost Dispatches
.1. The Covid-19 virus is out of containment worldwide now.
The country that dropped the ball the most was…Iran.
.2. As of two days ago they had maybe 20,000 cases.
.3. They have no idea where the vast majority of them are.
.4. Which means the virus is spreading rapidly in Iran and has been exported to a dozen other nations.
.5. You don’t hear much of this outside of Iran.
Part of that is because their cleric leaders are totally lost and they don’t know what is really going on either.
Part of it is because they aren’t releasing much in the way of real information.
This is a case where silence can and will kill.
They are going to lose thousands or tens of thousands of people because of this.
Don’t worry, the God-King, Emperor Trump, long may he reign, has proclaimed that the virus will disappear forever in April.
His Head Priest, Pence, will of course, foolow the ordained path of shuttering the heretics organization down at the NIH and by extension the CDC, as prayers to the God-King are far more effective than mere mortal medicine.
Pence will do for COVID-19, realizing that it’s new and the real threat is NCOV, doing for a nation what he did for Indiana with HIV infection.
The God-King, Emperor Trump is also considering sending his newest Czar for Russian issues, naming the position the Russia Czar, who shall replace all Department of State envoys to represent the interests of Emperor Trump, which of course, are those of the Imperial States of America, with an eye for employment at half of US minimum wage in Trump Tower Lefortovo, where non-believers will be sent for reeducation and alignment with the God-King, Emperor Trump.
“I’m quite sure that Russia will love my new Russia Czar, rather than forcing me to smite them!”, said the God-King, Emperor Trump, Lord of lards of the universe and beyond.
No comment has been heard from Soviet officials, which has surprised the administration, but has not surprised anyone who knows anything about geopolitics, as Soviet anything has been long extinct, but said unsurprised officials are at a quandary over how to comment and not commit black heresy.
I’m drinking lots of Corona to intoxicate me against the virus.
Xpost Dispatches
What the US government is doing is what China first did and Iran is doing now.
Lying about an epidemic.
Iran has made it a crime to tell the truth.
It is going to kill thousands of people.
The Trump regime and Pence are now going to try the same thing.
Not smart and it won’t work in the USA.
@ Tabby Lavalamp, #15
Worse: actual human beings named after the goddess (of whom there were/are a couple of thousand in the US) were threatened and assaulted. I remember reading about a young child who had to change schools because she kept getting beaten up by older kids. She was named Isis.
The media, naturally, gave zero fucks about this and continues to use the entirely inaccurate acronym “ISIS” because mainstream journalism is nothing but a hack-infested propaganda machine. They’ll continue to call this the Coronavirus, rather than a more precise name with less splash damage, for the same reasons. This isn’t like the Swine Flu, when they changed to the more accurate H1N1 because pig flesh sales were dropping- unless it costs someone who “matters,” they’ll keep right on with this bullshit.
Unfortunately for Drumpf, the WHO is not constrained by his bullshit, so info will keep getting out.
I will refrain from Corona-bashing in the brand’s current time of need. Suffice it to say I have never been a fan. That’s not to say I would flat out refuse to drink it as a matter of common courtesy if offered by an acquaintance with no alternate choices. The goofy association with coronavirus has zero effect on my low opinion of Corona. Is it Mexico’s version of Fosters sold abroad or do Mexicans actually prefer it to other home brands?
I guess in a way I support Corona’s overarching corporate body when I drink Negra Modelo, which is IMO a pretty good dark Mexican beer. Grupo Modelo seems associated with Anheuser-Busch InBev. WTF? I can appreciate the popular trend toward microbreweries. I’d assume Mexico must have a vibrant less corporate beer culture.
I must admit the little Coronita miniature bottles are kinda cute and easily repurposed into salt and pepper shakers among other things.
@ 13 % 21 raven
could you supply some links for those statements about Iran?
Meanwhile in Australia, Chinese restaurants are losing money because people think they can get a virus from yum-cha.
Iran
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/02/hot-spots-outside-china-tied-covid-19-4-more-nations
Hot spots outside China tied to COVID-19 in 4 more nations
Filed Under: COVID-19
Lisa Schnirring | News Editor | CIDRAP News | Feb 26, 2020
Iran Can’t Hide Its Coronavirus Explosion, But It’s Trying Hard …
https://www.thedailybeast.com/iran-cant-hide-its-coronavirus-explosion-but-its-trying-hard-and-putting-the-world-in-danger?source=articles&via=rss
2 days ago – As The Daily Beast’s partner publication, IranWire, revealed in an exclusive report Thursday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has tried …
COVID-19 is likely to kill many people, and bereave many others, but also to be a severe test of systems of governance worldwide, whatever the political nature of the regime. This does not encourage optimism: we seem to have an exceptional number of incompetent – and malevolent – fools in charge of major countries.
We can be certain that fascists and their like worldwide will use the epidemic to direct further hatred at their favoured targets (they’ve already started); we know that governments which take emergency powers are often noticeably reluctant to abandon them after the crisis that justified them has passed. It’s a truism among the relevant experts that the global economy has remained fragile ever since the financial crash of 2007-8, and we have already seen a steep fall in share prices (and even gold prices – apparently investors are having to sell precious metals to cover their losses elsewhere). A full-scale war between Syria (backed by Russia) and Turkey (backed by NATO) looks possible, close to the very area where the virus has established a secondary centre, and where civil wars and persecutions are already entrenched; and also to the vital arteries of global capitalism. Meanwhile, increasing climate disruption causes floods, droughts and fires around the world.
And the single most powerful person on the planet, the one whose actions have more potential to influence the future, is Donald Trump. You really, really, couldn’t make it up.
@30 I suppose the next thing that will happen is that Chinese businesses are going to get torched .
I live in Queens NYC . There is a Corona in Queens next to a very very large East Asian population. I work near there and I’m starting to dread going to work . Not because of all the Chinese ( the virus isn’t in NYC) but because I’ve already seen the knuckleheads . I’m too old and fat to break up a fight over stupid especially since I never really learned how to fight because I’m a woman . ( yeah I’m dumb enough to try)
@27, as much as I loathe the taste of Corona, Simpatico is far nastier, simpatico, nunca.
@32, COVID-19 is still holding at 3%, when appropriately treated by supportive care, TCM is massively elevating the morbidity and mortality in the PRC. While that’s still unpleasantly high, SARS and MERS, it is not, so I’ll thank goodness for small favors of random mutations!
BTW, for those who have missed it, two non-travel or close contact case have arisen in the US. One in Oregon, the other in California.
At least the one in Oregon isn’t occupied in a high risk occupation, working in a school for minor children instead.
Yeah, oh shit. :(
Where I wasn’t exceptionally concerned previously, this incompetent administration, who is currently claiming that COVID-19 was invented by the Democrats to “get Trump” has successfully scared the living hell out of me. That whole sending workers without PPE to meet the cruise ship petri dish experiments, erm, passenger and random travel after meeting them, yeah, someone needs to be fired – with real fire.
Pick a long, long, long string of obscenities, yeah, that’s where I am now.
Thanks for nothing, Trump!
Don’t worry. If we need more doctors, Comrade Trumpski will just call Comrade Putin to send us a bunch of their best. Either that, or he’ll get them where he gets his own, from some crack house.
Wouldn’t it be deliciously ironic if Trumpski got COVID-19? Just sayin’.
Indeed. Do they not understand what “quarantine” means? What’s the point if you’re just going to let people walk in and out with no testing or precautions? It’s so monumentally stupid, it’s hard to know what to say, really.
Regarding that video of Pence, I noticed that he wiped his nose with his left hand, and shook hands with his right hand. Bad behavior to be sure, but not as bad as if he had wiped his nose with his right hand.
Hm. The whole Corona beer-coronavirus confusion may be itself an example of the media bollixing things up, and that bollixing going viral.
https://www.truthorfiction.com/would-38-percent-of-americans-not-buy-corona-beer-over-coronavirus-fears/
https://www.mediaite.com/news/fox-cnn-report-on-poll-claiming-coronavirus-a-disaster-for-corona-beer-conducted-by-pr-firm-repping-beverage-co-s/
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/about-corona-poll/607240/
I’ve never tried Corona beer, and my disinterest arises from something told me long ago by someone who seemed knowledgeable: The reason that most beer is sold in dark bottles is because there are chemical reactions that can occur due to light interacting with the beer, which can negatively affect the taste. Corona’s clear glass bottle for summer drinking is thus kind of perversely self-defeating.
https://vinepair.com/beer-101/what-is-skunked-beer/
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2004/PP/b316210a