Day 1204 – We Are Being Stalked
Wednesday May 6, 2020
179 Days until the election on November 3rd
259 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021
There was that really bad movie about some creature that would kill you if you made a sound. So the couple decides to have a baby. Really stupid. Who knew, in a weird way, that it would be a harbinger of what we are now to experience?
The virus is out there. Waiting. Lurking. And our government is going to pretend it’s all over.
Last night’s Rachel Maddow Show and Laurence O’Donnell’s “Last Word” Show were jam-packed with facts and warnings. I could call it overwhelming, but I won’t. Instead I’ll try to list what Rachel brought up and some of what Laurence brought up. At first viewing I didn’t understand the reasoning, but in reviewing The Last Word, I got it. I understood the motivation behind what Trump is doing in one area. In the other areas he and his administration are doing nothing to help. If anything disparaging is getting out, like factual information that they believe reflects badly on them, they squash it if they can.
Let’s start at the beginning with Rachel’s Show. I’m not going to comment much, just present the facts, Sergeant Joe Friday style. (Look him up.)
1. Ruth Ginsburg hospitalized with infection
2. NYT headline “Coronavirus in the U.S.: An Unrelenting Crush of Cases and Deaths”
3. Almost 25,000 new cases of coronavirus are identified, that the U.S. has the highest number of cases in the world with more than a million – is expanding at 2% – 4% daily.
4. Trump goes to Arizona to visit a mask making facility. Doesn’t wear a mask. This on the day that Arizona reports the highest number of cases it has ever had in a day.
5. The nationwide graph of cases looks like the U.S. Is doing well. However, if you drop out New York it shows that the cases are rising in the rest of the country. (Probably if you drop out California and Ohio it would be even worse.)
6. Trousdale, Tennessee has a prison. In ten day this county of 11,000 saw its number of cases rise from 27 to 1,344.
7. What is Trousdale, Tennessee going to do? They are opening up their businesses.
8. Trump cheers on governors that are opening up their states. While none of those states have met the White House guidelines on coronavirus.
9. White House guidelines – don’t open up until you’ve seen a two week decline in new cases. This is being ignored. (The result is obvious.)
10. The Smithfield plant in South Dakota opened up on Monday.11. The Governor of South Dakota said all businesses had to wear masks except Smithfield.
11. The Governor of South Dakota said one of the most effective things they could do was to test employees at the Smithfield plant. She then said that this was “optional” and “not a requirement to return back to work.”
12. When the Governor of South Dakota was asked why she turned the question over to her health person who said Smithfield decided not to do it.
(It should be noted that the Governor went on Fox in mid April when Rachel first pointed out the plant’s problems and told Fox that the believed in “freedom and liberty” and therefore wouldn’t issue stay-at-home orders.
I have to wonder, “If you are dead how much do you care about freedom and liberty?”)
13. A judge ruled that they can’t overrule the presidential executive order forcing worker to go back to work at meat packing plants despite not following OSHA guidelines.
14. The FDA reversed itself and now says that the 100 antibody tests it allowed onto the open market without testing their effectiveness, must now must meet emergency guidelines. (Apparently, there was a hew and cry that maybe the FDA should take a look and see if the tests actually worked.)
15. Pork supply may be down 50%.
16. Perry, Iowa’s Tyson’s plant has a 58% infection rate.
17. Rachel – There aren’t that many meat packing plants in the U.S. Fix the problem. If you don’t you’ll have to shut down because the workers will all be sick.
18. Trump replaced the HHS acting deputy who reported that there were severe shortages of PPE.
19. Jared Kushner’s team of volunteers to help get needed supplies to hospitals had “little success” due to the fact that “none of the team members had significant experience in health care, procurement or supply chain operations.”
“Additionally, none of the volunteers had relationships with manufacturers or a clear understanding of customs requirements or Food and Drug Administration rules.”
20. Trump is winding down the pandemic task force.
21. William Barr is working to get rid of Obamacare, which will leave millions without health insurance.
22. The Federal guideline for nursing homes are having their rules on infection “relaxed.”
23. Trump’s pick to oversee the national stockpile killed off an initiative to create a machine that could make 1.5 million N95 masks a day and instead put the money into buying smallpox vaccine from a company that used to pay him. And, oh yes, sold at a significant markup. (to be fair, this was before the great need for masks.)
24. Dr. Rick Brice head of developing vaccines for the U.S. And who has trained his whole life for this job was removed from that post because he would not approve chloroquine for use without any data to backup its effectiveness.
25. Despite Dr. Brice’s objections the White House went ahead with a plan to distribute chloroquine. In their own reports there was mention that this drug could have negative consequences. (Like death.)
26. Dr. Brice has filed a whistle-blower complaint alleging among other things – incompetence and corruption at the highest levels within the administration.
27. When Dr. Brice was silenced he felt he had no other choice but to go to the press to warn of the dangers of chloroquine. For this he was relieved of his duties.
28. From the whistle-blower complaint filed by Dr. Brice:
“Dr. Brice hoped that by shining a light on HHS’s reckless and dangerous push to make this drug available, Human lives would be saved.”
“Brice was removed … because his efforts to prioritize science and safety over political expediency and to expose practices that posed a substantial risk to public health and safety, especially as it applied to chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine…”
“Time after time, I was pressured to ignore or dismiss expert and scientific recommendations…”
“I was pressured to let politics and cronyism drive decisions over the opinions of the best scientists we have…”
“Ultimately, I was removed…”
29. Detroit has 9400+ cases, 1,100+ deaths. It was one of the highest rates in the country. They were hit hard in a two week period of time, but their mayor Mike Duggan got busy with Rapid Testing. He first tested the police department and found a 26% infections rate. Quarantining those infected and putting the others back to work he then started testing nursing homes: all of them, every resident and their staffs. One quarter of those infected showed no signs. He is now testing workers that work in grocery stores, pharmacies, and gas stations. He has brought the infection rate down so that half the hospital beds are empty.
He was able to do all this because he got a private donor to give money and Quicken Loans turned over 40 people in their call center to take calls to arrange appointments to get tested.
The mayor says he spends no time on politics and all his time on tracking down tests, testing equipment, and results. He has a background in working at a large hospital (the Detroit Medical Center) for nine years. In 2009 he was working on the H1N1 crisis. Many of the people who worked with him at the hospital he brought over to the mayor’s office.
30, And in a fitting piece of irony, it was pointed out that while Trump was touring the mask manufacturer Guns ’n Roses “Live and Let Die” was blaring.
Here endeth Rachel’s show and Laurence’s begins.
31. There is a theme with two stories. The theme is “The Suppression of Information by the Trump Administration.”
32. Story 1) is the turning down of funding for a surge in medical supplies for the coming pandemic. This was in January.
33. Story 2) The pandemic task force is being disbanded.
34. A new task force is being set up to get the country back to work. Shockingly, there is no strategy. (Surprised? No? I thought so. What did you expect?)
35. Trump says Dr. Fauci can testify – once – to the Senate. Because they are Republicans, but no to the House because it is filled with “Trump Haters,” (ie Democrats?)
36. Laurence made the astute observation that the task force was really done when Trump asked Dr. Birx did not tell Trump that ingesting disinfectant would kill you but rather said she had never heard of that as a treatment.
By the next day Trump realized what a catastrophe he had created with his comment and he stopped the press briefings.
37. What I hadn’t understood, and what Laurence O’Donnell explained was that once the TV show briefings were ended, Trump no longer needed the cast. Hence, the experts are faded to the background.
Please note:
The virus hasn’t stopped.
It is still out there.
Nothing has changed.
Stay home, Wash your hands.
The death toll has passed the number killed in Vietnam and there is no end in sight.
179 Days until the election on November 3rd
259 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2020
PS It’s out there. Waiting for you.
Leave a Reply