Handling the coronavirus crisis

[Admin]

America, however, is an utter disaster. Texas, Florida, and Arizona are the newest hubs of contagion, having apparently learned nothing from the other countries and states that previously experienced surges in cases. I stared at my phone in disbelief when the musician Rosanne Cash wrote on Twitter that her daughter had been called a “liberal pussy!” in Nashville for wearing a mask to buy groceries.

That insult succinctly conveys the crux of the problem. American leadership has politicized the pandemic instead of trying to fight it. I see no preparedness, no coordinated top-down leadership of the sort we’ve enjoyed in Europe. I see only empty posturing, the sad spectacle of the president refusing to wear a mask, just to own the libs. What an astonishing self-inflicted wound.

On June 26, a day when the U.S. notched some 45,000 new cases—how’s that for “American carnage”?—the European Union announced that it would loosen some travel restrictions but extend its ban on visitors from the United States and other hot-spot nations.

Americans Don't Get How Badly They're Handling COVID-19 - The Atlantic

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Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (D) is calling on a Republican state official to remove a cartoon from his newspaper's Facebook page that compares her recent order requiring face masks in public to the Holocaust.  The cartoon was published on Friday on the Facebook page of the Anderson County Review, a newspaper owned by Anderson County Republican Party Chairman Dane Hicks. The cartoon features a woman wearing a mask with a Star of David attached to it in front of a line of people entering a cattle car.  “Lockdown Laura says: Put on your mask … and step onto the cattle car,” the caption reads.  Kelly, whose executive order requiring face masks went into effect on Friday, said in a statement to The Associated Press that Hicks's decision to "publish anti-Semitic imagery is deeply offensive and he should remove it immediately."

Kansas governor calls on GOP county chair to remove cartoon comparing mask order to Holocaust | TheHill

• This is what it has come to, comparing wearing a face mask in the midst of a pandemic, a proven and remarkably cheap way to reduce infection rates, to the holocaust..
  

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Masks — although recommended by federal and world health officials as effective in slowing the virus’s spread — have become a polarizing symbol of this dangerous phenomenon. In recent weeks, protesters have descended on government buildings and private businesses to decry face-covering requirements, calling them “muzzles” and “communist.” In one viral video, a maskless Florida man shoved a Walmart employee who tried to enforce the store’s face-covering policy. In another, a woman at a California Trader Joe’s screamed at employees and customers after others in the store criticized her for shopping without a mask. Some scofflaws have taken to brandishing sham cards from a phony “Freedom to Breathe Agency” that purportedly exempt them from mask-wearing.

Adding fuel to this fire, officials say, are the multitudes of young people determined to socialize. Some have tried to pin the problem on the Black Lives Matter protests that have continued for weeks, but preliminary research using geolocation data suggests these events had no impact on the virus’s spread. Instead, public health experts are attributing the surge in new cases to the mask-free masses flocking to reopened restaurants and bars, pool parties and lazy rivers.

“They’re conducting themselves like it’s pre-Covid, and that’s not going to work anymore,” Bruce Dart, director of the Tulsa Health Department, told the Washington Post. Younger people, he said, are “not social distancing, not wearing masks or paying attention to hand-washing.” In one stunning case shortly after Memorial Day, a group of 16 friends all tested positive for the virus after visiting a newly reopened bar in Florida..

As Covid-19 surges, officials blame young people - Vox

• Why is the US the only rich country not getting to grips with the pandemic? Because of idiots, egged on from above..
  

[Admin]

Spain's large-scale study on the coronavirus indicates just 5% of its population has developed antibodies, strengthening evidence that a so-called herd immunity to Covid-19 is "unachievable," the medical journal the Lancet reported on Monday. The findings show that 95% of Spain's population remains susceptible to the virus. Herd immunity is achieved when enough of a population has become infected with a virus or bacteria -- or vaccinated against it -- to stop its circulation..

Spain's coronavirus antibodies study adds evidence against herd immunity - CNN

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Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) found himself in hot water during an interview with Fox News host Neil Cavuto on Thursday after demanding the disbandment of the White House Coronavirus Task Force amid surging COVID-19 cases in several cities. Earlier Thursday, Biggs ripped White House Coronavirus Task Force members Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx in a statement praising the June jobs report. Biggs accused them of “causing panic” by contradicting President Trump’s “goals and actions for returning to normalcy” and called for the disbandment of the task force so that the President’s “message is not mitigated or distorted.” Biggs repeated his tirade against Fauci and Birx during an interview with Cavuto on Thursday afternoon, saying that they’ve “expired.” “Their time of usefulness has expired,” Biggs told Cavuto. “What they do is when the President comes out and makes a policy, because he is the President and he is the policymaker, when they make these statements that they make, they engender panic and hysteria and undermine what the President is doing. That’s what’s critical.”

Biggs Clashes With Cavuto | Talking Points Memo

• Amazing, especially in the light of Arizona's surge in infections..
  

[Admin]

Former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain has been hospitalized after testing positive for COVID-19, according to a statement posted to his Twitter account. The statement said that Cain “developed symptoms serious enough” that required hospitalization, and he spent Wednesday night in an Atlanta-area hospital. As of Thursday, he did not require a respirator and is “awake and alert.”

Herman Cain Tests Coronavirus Positive | Talking Points Memo

• Cain was in the Tusla rally, where they removed the stickers on seats that were put there for social distancing reasons and where also a number of campaign aides and secret service people got infected:
  

Vice President Mike Pence’s trip to Arizona earlier this week was postponed by a day reportedly after several Secret Service agents in his detail tested positive for the coronavirus. The Washington Post first reported the news on Thursday night. CNN reported the following morning that eight Secret Service agents in Pence’s detail tested positive for the coronavirus ahead of the VP’s Arizona trip..

Why Pence Delayed AZ Trip | Talking Points Memo

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The Trump administration is waging an aggressive campaign to reopen America’s schools and the president has pressured the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to issue new, less restrictive guidelines. Public health experts say it is dangerous for schools to reopen while the virus is continuing to spread within communities at high levels. The US reported 60,000 new cases on Tuesday, the highest US single day total so far in the pandemic. While children are at a lower risk of suffering serious health consequences from Covid-19, experts warn they could act as asymptomatic super-spreaders. “The highest risks are in settings with large groups of people, in enclosed spaces, for prolonged periods, in close proximity, with a lot of vocalizing. Much like a classroom, school bus, or cafeteria,” one public health expert tweeted.

Trump is forcing the CDC to ease school reopening guidelines despite experts' warnings that kids will be super-spreaders

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This week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced new rules requiring international students to leave the United States if their colleges or universities institute online-only learning measures for the fall under the threat of Covid-19. It's another disgusting, transparent Trump administration attack on foreigners and immigrants, one that is solely about malice -- and one that further diminishes the United States' influence and reputation while putting human life at risk...

When colleges and universities take their classes online, that signals to Americans that we aren't safe yet. And this President seems to believe that's bad for his election chances in November. He tweeted in all caps Monday that schools "MUST OPEN" in the fall.

Trump administration's planned purge of international students serves a cruel purpose (opinion) - CNN

• Senseless anti-immigration stance
  
• It's all about appearance of normality
  
• Force universities to open and appear normal or lose an important source of revenue
  
• Risk spreading pandemic to other countries
  
• No, many students can't necessarily log on from abroad as they might be subject to censorship in home countries
  

More on this:

The effect may be to dramatically reduce the number of international students enrolling in the fall. Together with delays in processing visas as a result of the pandemic, immigrant advocates say the new rules, which must still be finalized this month, might discourage many overseas students from attending American universities, where they often pay full tuition.

“The financial repercussions to institutions are potentially very traumatic,” said Daniel J. Hurley, chief executive of the Michigan Association of State Universities, which represents the state’s public universities. He cited studies showing that 33,236 international students contributed $1.2 billion to Michigan’s economy in 2018.

International Students in Online Courses Face Lost F1 Visas, ICE Says - The New York Times

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One topic that was rarely mentioned during his public events was the coronavirus surge in Florida, where more than 11,000 cases were added to the state’s total on Friday. The increases recently forced Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to roll back some of the state’s reopening plans. Florida has seen the largest spike in Miami-Dade County, where Trump attended the counternarcotics briefing Friday and touted his efforts to crack down on drug traffickers, build a wall at the southern border with Mexico and offer support for police amid nationwide protests against police violence and racism.

Trump glosses over virus surge during Florida trip | TheHill

• Goes to Miami Dade, the epicenter of the pandemic resurgence, but not to address the pandemic, but for unrelated political reasons (including a fund raising event), the pandemic wasn't even mentioned. 
  
• Visits like this have to be thoroughly prepared, including checks on hospital capacity, taking resources away from fighting the pandemic (and, as we know from Tulsa, risk adding to the spread).
  
• It could have been handled by phone or video conference but the President insisted on going in person..
  
• So this is important to the President, but he hasn't been assisting the pandemic task force since April, hasn't been briefed by Fauci for two months, while these are almost next door. What does that say about his priorities?
  

[Admin]

In the early weeks of the pandemic, it was nearly impossible to buy N95 masks. These masks, unlike surgical masks or cloth masks, are tight-fitting and filter airborne particles that can carry the virus, making them a key source of protection for health care workers, some of whom have died after being exposed to Covid-19 at their medical facilities. Now, as the United States continues to reopen and the number cases and hospitalizations surge, that troubling shortage of personal protective equipment — and especially N95 masks — is once again a problem.

A survey from the National Nurses Union found that 85 percent of nurses reported being asked to reuse personal protective equipment that’s meant to be single-use. At one private clinic in Arizona, medical workers are treating Covid-19 patients without being given any N95 masks, according to the New York Times. The shortage is so dire that the inventor of the powerful filtration material in these masks has come out of retirement to look for ways to decontaminate his invention and make them safer for reuse.

But why is there still a shortage? Despite months of shutdown that were meant to reduce pressure on the health care system and give the US more time to prepare, production for personal protective equipment, which includes N95 masks, medical gowns, and medical gloves, never adjusted to meet the massive demand caused by the pandemic. At the same time, reopening in many states has meant that other businesses, like outpatient medical offices and  construction firms, are now in search of N95 masks too. Meanwhile, the recent surge in Covid-19 cases that has followed reopening is almost certainly leading to a greater need for protective equipment in hospitals, especially in the places currently experiencing massive outbreaks, like Florida and Texas.

In early April, Donald Trump invoked the Defense Production Act (DPA), which allows the federal government to order private companies to produce needed supplies, to obtain more masks produced by 3M, one of the major American mask manufacturers. Later that month, the Department of Defense announced several other contracts for N95 masks. But as it becomes increasingly evident that these measures weren’t enough, organizations like the National Nurses United, a nationwide nurses union, and the American Medical Association have in recent weeks called for the Trump administration to use the law more aggressively to address the PPE shortage..

N95 masks are still needed as America reopens and Covid-19 cases surge - Vox

• 5 Months into the pandemic, still shortages of crucial supplies, amazing..