Handling the coronavirus crisis

[Admin]

The travel ban exempted Americans and some other authorized travelers. Nearly 40,000 people arrived in the U.S. on direct flights from China in the two months after Trump imposed the restrictions, The New York Times reported earlier this month..

Pelosi says Trump's China travel ban wasn't 'this great moment' | TheHill

• Trump's touted travel ban from China wasn't all that it's trumped up to be, and the monitoring of these arrivals was as good as absent, let alone 14-day quarantine obligations.
  
• And Trump simply likes closing borders, if he was really concerned about Covid-19 he would have taken a host of additional measures at the time (end of January), instead of downplaying the pandemic for the next six weeks. 
  

[Admin]

President Trump is binging even more TV than usual, watching up to seven hours of cable news in the morning before arriving in the Oval Office as late as noon, when he finally gets his daily briefing, The New York Times reported. Trump spends his days in front of the TV, reviewing his coronavirus-news-conference performances and watching more TV back in the White House residence area – only occasionally making time to have dinner with his wife, Melania, and youngest son, Barron – according to The Times. He’s reportedly more irritable, taking shorter phone calls from outside advisers, and frustrated over the media coverage on his coronavirus response.

Trump reportedly watches up to 7 hours of cable news every morning before getting to the Oval Office as late as noon

• Really the best way to deal with a pandemic..
  
• He's waay more concerned with his ratings and ego..
  

[Admin]

• You have to watch this video from Republicans for the Rule of Law..
  
• SNL cold open: Brad Pitt plays an unusually candid Dr. Anthony Fauci - Vox
  

Some light entertainment, although the issue is really serious, and absurd at the same time..

[Admin]

Some realities:

• China informed the WHO about Covid-19 on December 31 2019
  
• WHO informed the world on January 30 of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC)
  
• The Lancet published a series of articles spelling out in detail what the dangers were and how countries needed to prepare (see here, here, here, here and here).
  
• There were US Intelligence briefings detailing the dangers in January
  
• Alex Azar warned the President in January
  
• Peter Navarro wrote a report spelling out the dangers in January.
  

So:

• Yes, mistakes were made, yes China at the local level tried to suppress the initial info, but from early January at the national level, the Chinese were very open and warned the world and so did the WHO. 
  
• From the end of January when the US government did know what was going to happen (and some Congress members who got the same Intelligence Briefing and then sold their shares), but they did nothing.
  
• Yes, Trump "closed" flights from China, after which 40K people still managed to get through, untested and without any requirement for 14 day quarantine. 
  

[Admin]

Senior figures in the Trump administration have put pressure on US intelligence agencies to provide evidence supporting claims that the coronavirus outbreak originated in state-run laboratories in China, a report in the New York Times claims. Intelligence analysts fear Donald Trump is looking for propaganda to be used in the escalating blame game over whether China covered up the crisis or even generated the virus in its laboratories – .

Trump has claimed that China’s handling of the pandemic is proof that Beijing “will do anything they can” to make him lose his re-election bid in November and told Reuters he was considering different forms of retaliation. The Washington Post reported that high-level meetings were underway in the White House to discuss options, including suing for compensation, which would involve stripping China of “sovereign immunity” or cancelling debt obligations to China..

The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has repeatedly suggested that the coronavirus could have come from a virology laboratory in Wuhan, after cables surfaced from early 2018, in which US diplomats expressed concern about safety standards at the facility. The office of the director of national intelligence said in a statement on Thursday that it had concluded that the virus was “not manmade or genetically modified”, but said that officials were still examining whether the origins of the pandemic could be traced to contact with infected animals or an accident at a Chinese lab. “The intelligence community [IC] also concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the Covid-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified,” said the statement. 

US intelligence agencies under pressure to link coronavirus to Chinese labs | US news | The Guardian

• Evidence be damned..
  

And lets not forget this:
   

[Admin]

People across the United States who are unable to work because of coronavirus have begun to receive their stimulus cheques from the government. In addition, they will also receive a letter from Donald Trump, not about the cheques, but in praise of his own administration's economic response to the pandemic. This comes just a few weeks after it was reported that distribution of the cheques would be delayed by a few days because Trump's signature was to be printed on them, the first time in history a stimulus cheque had featured the president's name.

Trump sends letter to millions praising his economic response to coronavirus | indy100

[Admin]

As the number of coronavirus cases in New York reached 4,000, Trump continued to fume about impeachment while dismissing concerns about the outbreak, a Republican in frequent contact with the administration told Sherman.

“Trump was obsessed with Pelosi, Schiff, the media — just obsessed,” the source said of the president. “He would say, ‘They’re using it against me!’ It was unhinged.” When Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar tried to warn Trump about the virus, the president repeatedly interrupted him to lament his decision to ban certain vaping products, according to the report. Kushner also dismissed concerns from Azar and other officials.

“Jared kept saying the stock market would go down, and Trump wouldn’t get re-elected,” a Republican familiar with the situation told Sherman. A source close to Kushner denied the claim.

And as the outbreak grew, so did Kushner’s influence. “Jared is running everything,” one former White House official told Sherman. “He’s the de facto president of the United States.” While former chief of staff John Kelly “marginalized” Kushner, former acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who has since been replaced with former Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., had no such power. “Jared treats Mick like the help,” one prominent Republican told Vanity Fair..

Jared Kushner’s ‘princely arrogance’ set back the coronavirus response by weeks: report – Alternet.org

[Admin]

During the pandemic’s early stages, the government and most commentators proudly embraced this “Swedish model,” claiming that it was built on Swedes’ uniquely high levels of “trust” in institutions and in one another. Prime Minister Stefan Löfven made a point of appealing to Swedes’ self-discipline, expecting them to act responsibly without requiring orders from authorities. According to the World Values Survey, Swedes do tend to display a unique combination of trust in public institutions and extreme individualism. As sociologist Lars Trägårdh has put it, every Swede carries his own policeman on his shoulder..

It is too soon for a full reckoning of the effects of the “Swedish model.” The COVID-19 death rate is nine times higher than in Finland, nearly five times higher than in Norway, and more than twice as high as in Denmark. To some degree, the numbers might reflect Sweden’s much larger immigrant population, but the stark disparities with its Nordic neighbors are nonetheless striking. Denmark, Norway, and Finland all imposed rigid lockdown policies early on, with strong, active political leadership.

The Grim Truth About the “Swedish Model” by Hans Bergstrom - Project Syndicate

[Admin]

Thousands of workers stream in single file, at dawn and mid-afternoon, to suit up in masks and chain gloves and put their lives on the line so you can put heap sausage on your biscuit. They are accustomed to living in fear – of starvation from drought in Guatemala, or death squads in El Salvador or drug cartels in Mexico. Of being hunted and caged, whether documented or not. And now, of meeting their fate over a pork chop.
[/url]
“It’s genocide against the working class. It’s hard to visualize it and articulate it for what it is,” Jesse Case, the leader of Teamsters Local 238, the largest private-sector union in [url=https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/iowa]Iowa, told me. Donald Trump, invoking the Defense Production Act, has ordered meatpacking plants to stay open no matter the cost. Plants won’t even close for a deep cleaning when a deadly pathogen is found. The president said he is protecting companies from liability – you know, in case somebody keels over because of someone else’s negligence.

Across America, packing plants for beef, pork, chicken and turkey have been closing as workers fall ill with Covid-19 or die. The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) has said that at least 72 of its members have died from coronavirus, and thousands more may be infected; because of the lack of tests, no one knows the true number. Despite repeated warnings in the presidential briefing books months ago, nobody instructed industry to gear up or how.

Tyson says that its workers are documented. But Trump and the likes of the Iowa congressman Steve King, the race-baiting Republican, have Latino workers shaking in their boots. The governor warns that if a plant reopens and you don’t show up, unemployment benefits cease. And then the president orders that the plants shall reopen come hell or a virus. The leaders of the big meatpackers are warning of spot meat shortages – plant capacity has dropped 40% in recent weeks from worker shortages. You just can’t let this Storm Lake plant shut down. But what happens if it explodes? The anxiety cuts to our quick.

Remember, too, that Smithfield Foods is owned by a Chinese conglomerate. Prestage Farms, in Eagle Grove, Iowa, has taken to sending whole hog carcasses to China for lack of further processing help amid our cornfields. This is not really an American food shortage. Somebody has to process the hogs and birds that keep coming no matter a virus. Mike Pence called our neighbors heroes. The secretary of agriculture, Sonny Perdue, called them patriots. Trump stopped legal residency permitting for immigrants. Nobody is talking about amnesty or even hearing the refugees. In fact, Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa told Bloomberg Law nobody is talking about providing undocumented workers healthcare.

The state and federal governments did not order slower line speeds or provide protective gear for the packinghouse. Tyson asked for imposed guidance and resources, and got a promise of liability protection from worker claims. But there is this sticky thing called the 10th amendment that does not allow the president to waive corporate liabilities in state courts or workers’ compensation processes, says Storm Lake attorney Willis Hamilton, who has been advocating for food processing employees for nearly 50 years. The order was about instilling fear, Hamilton said. He says his clients are afraid of sick leave and afraid of filing for workers’ comp or unemployment.

“They have to threaten people. These ‘don’t even think about it’ orders fit into a system that marches workers to their deaths,” Case said. “Fear is turning to anger, and that’s when people organize.”

Why is Trump insisting that meat-packing plants stay open despite risks? | Art Cullen | Opinion | The Guardian

[Admin]

Donald Trump’s musing over whether cleaning people’s lungs with disinfectant might treat the coronavirus caused a furore but it may be the US president’s pushing of anti-malarial drugs that does far more lasting damage to his administration. Trump stops hyping hydroxychloroquine after study shows no benefit Read more There is building anticipation over the content of an upcoming whistleblower complaint by Dr Rick Bright, who last week was abruptly removed as the head of the federal government office working on a vaccine for Covid-19. It is understood that Bright is still working on the details of the complaint before lodging it with the Department of Health and Human Services’ inspector general. Bright, a vaccines expert, has claimed he was removed as head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (Barda) because he resisted an effort to expand the use of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to treat Covid-19. The drugs, approved to treat malaria, have yet to be proven effective for this new use but have been repeatedly promoted by Trump, who has called them a “game-changer”.

Whistleblower complaint set to lift lid on Trump pressure to push untried drug | World news | The Guardian