Reality of Coronavirus Not Allowed To Rain on Donald Trump's Parade

[bodysong]

Reality of Coronavirus Not Allowed To Rain on Donald Trump's Parade

Trump Show Must Go On, and Reality Must Be Denied At All Costs

According to Trump, all that bad stuff never happened.

Dow plunges 1,190 points as analysts say virus could
inflict as much damage as 2008 crisis

https://www.theguardian.com/busines...ge-on-scale-of-2008-financial-crisis-covid-19

Silent Mike Pence is Making Everything Nice For Trump

Everyone Shut The Fuck Up About Coronavirus Deaths:

Scientists and Doctors Under Gag Order In America

Reality- the coronavirus cat has already escaped the bag.

Shit level-quality response to coronavirus emergency at the start.

February 27, 2020

Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services-
sent more than a dozen workers to receive the first Americans
evacuated from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the coronavirus
outbreak, without proper training for infection control or
appropriate protective gear, according to a whistleblower
complaint.

The complaint alleges HHS staffers were “improperly deployed”
and were “not properly trained or equipped to operate in a public
health emergency situation.” The complaint also alleges the workers
were potentially exposed to coronavirus because appropriate steps
were not taken to protect them and staffers were not trained in
wearing personal protective equipment, even though they had
face-to-face contact with returning passengers. The workers
were in contact with passengers in an airplane hangar where
evacuees were received and on two other occasions:
when they helped distribute keys for room assignments
and hand out colored ribbons for identification purposes.

The whistleblower, in her complaint, states that “appropriate steps
were not taken to quarantine, monitor, or test [the workers] during
their deployment and upon their return home.” The repatriated
Americans were among those evacuated from Wuhan and
quarantined on military bases in California and Texas
because they were considered at high risk for contracting
the flu-like illness.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/heal...-coronavirus-evacuees-hhs-whistleblower-says/

NYT: White House to censor, limit coronavirus

The Trump administration is clamping down on interviews
discussing the coronavirus, even directing cabinet officials
to go through US vice president Mike Pence.

From the NY Times:

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, one of the country’s leading experts on
viruses and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and
Infections Diseases, told associates that the White House had
instructed him not to say anything else without clearance.”
Pence is one of three people designated as the administration’s
primary coronavirus official. Government workers, including
health experts and scientists, must coordinate their statements
with the vice president’s office.

President Donald Trump garnered immediate backlash for tapping
Pence to lead crisis re draw criticism nearly immediately after the
press conference.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...ronavirus-donald-trump-democrats-live-updates

We do not have a scientist, doctor, or World Health Leader
in charge of coronavirus outbreak, that has independence,
authority, and immediate ability to command resources.

Our testing is shit-level, too. Inconclusive is not a good result.

Ambassador Debbie Birx

https://www.npr.org/2020/02/27/8099...debbie-birx-to-help-lead-coronavirus-response

Ronald Klain ✓
Twitter › RonaldKlain

Amb. Brix is great. But who, exactly, is in charge? Her? Pence? Azar?

15 hours ago

Mike Pence Is Your New Czar Of Finding Out
If Coronavirus Is Gay, Praying It Away

@wonkette @DoktorZoom

7 hours ago

Pence seizes control of coronavirus response
amid criticism of his qualifications

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...f2357a-597e-11ea-ab68-101ecfec2532_story.html

Azar Refuses To Assure Congress That Coronavirus Vaccine Will Be Affordable

Crooks and Liars

@crooksandliars

Crooks and Liars ✓
Twitter › crooksandliars

The Men Leading Trump's Coronavirus Response Should Terrify You

Mother Jones

 

[Leather_Lesbian]

Everyone Shut The Fuck Up About Coronavirus Deaths:

Scientists and Doctors Under Gag Order In America


The Trump administration is clamping down on interviews
discussing the coronavirus, even directing cabinet officials
to go through US vice president Mike Pence.

From the NY Times:

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, one of the country’s leading experts on
viruses and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and
Infections Diseases, told associates that the White House had
instructed him not to say anything else without clearance.”
Pence is one of three people designated as the administration’s
primary coronavirus official. Government workers, including
health experts and scientists, must coordinate their statements
with the vice president’s office.

President Donald Trump garnered immediate backlash for tapping
Pence to lead crisis re draw criticism nearly immediately after the
press conference.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...ronavirus-donald-trump-democrats-live-updates

We do not have a scientist, doctor, or World Health Leader
in charge of coronavirus outbreak, that has independence,
authority, and immediate ability to command resources.


Mike Pence Is Your New Czar Of Finding Out
If Coronavirus Is Gay, Praying It Away


Pence seizes control of coronavirus response
amid criticism of his qualifications

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...f2357a-597e-11ea-ab68-101ecfec2532_story.html


The Men Leading Trump's Coronavirus Response Should Terrify You

Mother Jones

Public health officials are warning that it is only a matter of time before the coronavirus begins to spread in the United States.

“Ultimately, we expect we will see community spread in this country,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, a director with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters on Tuesday. “It’s not so much a question of if this will happen anymore, but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illness.”

And with a public health crisis on our hands, Trump has appointed Mr. Anti-science, Mike Pence to oversee the effort to protect Americans from the coronavirus.

Pence’s record on handling health crisis’s in the past has been abysmal. As governor in 2014, he was in charge during Indiana’s worst HIV outbreak in state history and refused to implement clean needle exchanges until the virus had already spread widely in one Indiana county.


Democrats have rightly criticized the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus, pointing to White House efforts to slash the budgets for the CDC and the National Institutes of Health. The president’s budget proposal earlier this year — which came before the coronavirus response kicked into high gear — included $3 billion in cuts to global health programs, including a 53% reduction in funding for the World Health Organization.

 

[bodysong]

bodysong comment-

This virus can kill people at a horrible rapid rate.

Yet, the scientific and medical community are not
allowed to take it deadly serious.

FFS, there have been a number of deadly viruses.

We have learned what to do, through trial and error.

Yet, the work is not getting done.

Time is not on our side.

FFS- Where is our American government medical research ?

Oh, yeah- Trump dismantled the laboratories, and pocketed the funds.

During testimony before the House Energy and Commerce
Committee Wednesday, Azar was pressed multiple times
to vow that vaccines and treatments for the coronavirus
will be priced fairly and made affordable for all U.S.
households.

"We would want to ensure that we'd work to make it affordable,"
Azar told Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), "but we can't control
that price because we need the private sector to invest."

Here's the clip of Azar not assuring Rep. Schakowsky
a covid-19 vaccine will be affordable to all.

— Michael McAuliff (@mmcauliff) February 26, 2020

Mega Pharma wants to cash in on the opportunity and make obscene
profits ? It is a national emergency.


After each expeience with a deadly virus outbreak-

Information, knowledge, experience, and strategy was gained.
Action was taken and a team was formed. Viruses were tracked
and information was kept current. Communication lines between
countries were kept open- the scientific and medical communities
were connected.

Trump dismantled the team and pirated the funds.

No one in our government is powerful enough to deal with Trump's incompetence ?

Mike Pence made the decision to suppress the truth.

What do we know ? Not enough.

"After more than 82,000 cases of Covid-19, the unknowns still outnumber the knowns."

27 Feb 2020


Reports that a woman in Japan has tested positive for the Covid-19 disease for a second time, after seemingly recovering, will alarm scientists and public health experts trying to control the spreading epidemic, and underlines how much we still do not know.

There are a number of possible explanations for the second positive test of the woman, in her late 40s, a resident of Osaka who worked as a tourbus guide. She first tested positive for coronavirus in late January and was discharged from hospital on 1 February after recovering. She tested negative again on 6 February.
Coronavirus map: how Covid-19 is spreading across the world
Read more

It is possible, say experts, that when the woman was released, she had not cleared the virus. But if so, that means it lingered dormant in her body longer than the 14-day quarantine period. She will have been in contact with more people than have been traced, which poses worrying questions about the length of time people should be isolated after a positive test.

Alternatively, she may have been wrongly diagnosed with Covid-19 the first time round. But nobody is ruling out the possibility of reinfection. Once the immune system has fought off viral or bacterial infections, it generally recognises them and can block them the next time they are encountered – but not always and the protection may not last.

There have been reports of a few cases of reinfection in China, but doctors will hope it occurs in just a very few individuals, if at all.

At the very least, the media are collecting information-

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...symptoms-wuhan-china-pandemic-spread-covid-19

 

[KeithD]

How much of a threat the coronavirus is to the United States will be directly observable and either close to home or not to everyone, including the Trumpettes. No number of self-serving Trump lies will cover it up in the direct observation and experiencing, in multiple ways from the physical to the mental to the financial to the access to goods and services, by Trumpettes as well as anyone else--up close and personal. No number of lies will change that the preventative programs were gutted, key positions left unfilled, and the science of this ignored and denigrated by Trump and his minions, supported by the board Trumpettes.

It either will be there or it won't and the Trumpettes will know whether or not it is, because it will affect their lives directly, one way or the other.

 

[bodysong]

Coronovirus threatens America, and the most important event
to attend to, is Conservative Political Action Conference

Next up, a Trump rally

The president is on his way to an eve-of-primary rally in North Charleston,
South Carolina. Trump is scheduled to appear in a 13,000-seat-capacity
arena in North Charleston for his latest “Keep America Great” rally

At CPAC the Trump loyalists got their stories coordinated.
The standard party line given, to provide a unified voice for
the media.

Propaganda video that used, altered, and manipulated
video of speech of former President Obama

This unauthorized use of President Obama’s name, image,
likeness, voice and book passage is clearly intended to mislead
the target audience of the ad into believing that the passage
from the audiobook is a statement that was made by President
Barack Obama during his presidency, when it was in fact made
by a barber in a completely different context more than 20
years ago.

February 28, 2020

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...ates?page=with:block-5e57c5cb8f08e1332474b4a4

A telling visual cue- Someone exhibited a bust of Trump.
It featured Trump's unbuttoned suit coat and shirt to expose
a costume underneath- No S for Superman, but a sterotypical
lowercase t, that represents the Christian cross.

The Mirror

Strange habit of Donald Trump, is that he accuses others of
things that he, himself does.

Or has members of his cult members accuse others.

Members of Trump's cult take part in a criminal activity,
and accuse Democrats of doing something criminal.

Today's mirror-

Minion of his father's cult, Donald Trump Jr. claims that-
Democrats want the coronavirus to kill “millions of people”
so Democrats can end President Donald Trump’s “streak of winning.”


Trump Jr. had appeared on Fox News earlier on Friday and said,
“Anything that they can use to try to hurt Trump, they will.
Anything he does in a positive sense, like you heard from the
reporter that was just suspended from ABC, they will not give
him credit for. The playbook is old at this point.”

“But for them to to try to take a pandemic and seemingly hope
that it comes here and kills millions of people so that they could
end Donald Trump’s streak of winning is a new level of sickness,”
he continued.

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/congress...s-altercation/

Trump's coronavirus task force full of Trump loyalists

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin

National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow

Surgeon General Jerome Adams

Evangelical Christians Pushing for Sexual Abstinence

Ambassador Debbie Birx

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...18dd18-a15e-11e8-8e87-c869fe70a721_story.html

02/26/2020

Robert Redfield

Redfield’s actions are now under intense scrutiny — both inside and outside the administration.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/26/trump-cdc-chief-harsh-scrutiny-117792

 

[bodysong]

Daniel Dale ✓
Twitter › ddale8

The first three sentences of Trump's rally in South Carolina:
"All I can say is that the fake news just doesn't get it, do they?
They don't get it. They just don't get it."

20 minutes ago

 

[RelentlessOnanism]

It would be ironic if a virus from China ended up derailing the global economy, crashing the US stock market and endangering Trump's chances of getting re-elected. Apart from the 'hate the libs' crowd, his main calling card is the economy he keeps bragging about. If that economy went south, you'd have to assume Trump's chances might go with it.

I've always thought he took way too much credit for the state of the economy, but it would be poetic justice if he ended up being blamed for a downturn that may well not be his fault.

Of course, those of us who were always Trump-phobic, were consistently worried about an external disaster coming along, since our estimation of his intelligence and capabilities are very low. If his poorly-staffed administration ends up making a complete and utter horlicks of the Coronavirus outbreak, he would get everything he deserved (although the American people may end up getting a lot of things they don’t deserve).

 

[KeithD]

Health-wise Trump is a walking time bomb. Leaders in Iran, Mongolia, and, I think, Italy already have it. Cambodia's president has been exposed to it by personally welcoming cruise ship passengers who have it (Trump praised him for meeting them before it was known he was exposing himself to carriers). Trump can't stay away from a petting rally, rallies where he's convinced his idiots that it's a hoax, so they won't be taking precautions. Karma is on the move.

In that vein, it would be fun to watch how big the crowds will be at Trump's rallies now. How many of them will swallow his Kool-aid and how many will give it lip service but not risk exposing themselves?

 

[RelentlessOnanism]

Health-wise Trump is a walking time bomb. Leaders in Iran, Mongolia, and, I think, Italy already have it. Cambodia's president has been exposed to it by personally welcoming cruise ship passengers who have it (Trump praised him for meeting them before it was known he was exposing himself to carriers). Trump can't stay away from a petting rally, rallies where he's convinced his idiots that it's a hoax, so they won't be taking precautions. Karma is on the move.

In that vein, it would be fun to watch how big the crowds will be at Trump's rallies now. How many of them will swallow his Kool-aid and how many will give it lip service but not risk exposing themselves?

I would have thought Trump would be amongst the first people to stay away from those rallies, since he's such a self-confessed germophobe. He doesn’t strike me as a particularly calm, resolute or phlegmatic sort of character. Quite the opposite, he seems like an hysterical, panicky cry-baby. If this turns out to be a major epidemic (which, for now, seems a little premature), I am NOT confident the Trump administration will handle it well.

 

[bodysong]

What a week, across the pond

https://www.theguardian.com/busines...rkets-ftse-dow-global-recession-business-live

Dow falling 3,500 points, worst week

Violent Image from the America's Coronavirus Czar

Mike Pence declared that the Democratic primary contest will end when
“a monster truck with a big T on the hood drives into the infield and runs
right over them.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts...nference-previews-trumps-reelection-strategy/

Trump accused Democrats of “politicizing” the coronavirus threat.



Appointing only Trump loyalists to the coronavirus team is not political ?

“They tried the impeachment hoax. ... This is their new hoax,”
Trump said of Democratic denunciations of his administration’s
coronavirus response.



Poiting out the obvious, is taking part in a hoax ?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...c9582c-5a92-11ea-8efd-0f904bdd8057_story.html

 

[KeithD]

" If this turns out to be a major epidemic (which, for now, seems a little premature), I am NOT confident the Trump administration will handle it well."

They already are not handling it well, starting some time ago by gutting the preventative medicine programs, leaving key positions either empty or filled by unqualified party hacks, denigrating science, completely screwing up bringing exposed cruise passengers back to the States, and lying through their teeth about what is happening.

This isn't something that "might" happen. It's happening. The Trump administration's Keystone Cops performance is real and now--both totally inadequate and destructive. Trump has found yet another way to kill people to make himself feel like a stable genius. The board Trumpettes are still supporting him in this--but those he's killing is going to get a lot closer to his supporters themselves. Karma that.

 

[bodysong]

Oregon coronavirus infection becomes third case of unknown origin in U.S.

Earlier Friday, health officials in Santa Clara County, Calif.,
said a 65-year-old resident also had a case of coronavirus with
unknown origin — becoming the second U.S. case of community
transmission.

The nation’s first community-transmission patient was a woman
in Solano County, about 90 miles away.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/02/28/coronavirus-live-updates/

Department of Homeland Security has become a bit jaded about following
directives, after the imprisonment of immigrants in private prisons

February 28, 2020

A Department of Homeland Security employee who returned
from travel to China was told by her supervisor to report to
her workplace in early February in apparent violation of a
mandatory 14-day coronavirus quarantine period, according
to complaints filed Friday by the union that represents the
woman’s co-workers.

Ward Morrow, an attorney for the American Federation of
Government Employees, which represents USCIS employees-

said DHS is “supposed to play a leading role in protecting us
but isn’t able to enforce its own policies with its managers,
putting employees and the communities where they live at
severe risk.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...f6c73c-5a85-11ea-8753-73d96000faae_story.html

Justice Dept. Establishes Office to Denaturalize Immigrants -

2 days ago

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/us/politics/denaturalization-immigrants-justice-department.html

Justice Department creates team to try to revoke more citizenships

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/immigration/article240689605.html

 

[bodysong]

29 February 2020

Health officials are trying to discover how a man in England
caught coronavirus, after he became the first person to be
infected within the UK.

The man, from Surrey, had not been abroad recently -
unlike the 19 others who have tested positive in the UK.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-51684624?intlink_from_url=&link_location=live-reporting-story

 

[Schlank]

President Donald Trump has a documented record of lying or embellishing when it comes to crises that affect public safety, and this could pose major risks to Americans as his administration responds to the growing threat of coronavirus, public health experts warn.

"President Trump has a history of hyping up panic, like he did by calling for a travel ban during the West African epidemic. Or he can give a sense of false assurance like saying China and the US have [coronavirus] totally under control," Lawrence Gostin, a global health law professor at Georgetown University who has advised the World Health Organization on pandemic preparedness, told Insider.

"Overall, his reputation for telling untruths and exaggerating truths is very harmful when he has to advise a frightened public during a major outbreak," Gostin added.

Gostin said there have already been "highly conflicting messages from the Trump administration," with the president stating that coronavirus was "under control" but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stating that it's likely to "spread widely" in the US.

The CDC's warning came amid new outbreaks in Iran, Italy, and South Korea that have raised fears of a pandemic.

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-confusing-public-coronavirus-threat-experts-warn-2020-2

 

[Schlank]

"It's not so much a question of if this will happen anymore but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illness," Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC, said during a media briefing on Tuesday.


The president in the past has made numerous false statements about various crises. Trump, for example, in April falsely tweeted that Puerto Rico got $91 billion in assistance after Hurricane Maria as he complained about the cost of the recovery effort. And in September, Trump appeared to use a black Sharpie to doctor a map on the trajectory of Hurricane Dorian to bolster his false claims about where it would strike in the US.

Polls have repeatedly shown that a majority of Americans view Trump as dishonest and untrustworthy, and this presents a major problem when facing a potential pandemic.

"The fact that a large proportion of the US public does not view the president as a credible messenger is a real problem," Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development who oversaw the Obama administration's response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa as director for foreign disaster assistance at USAID, told Insider.

"He has undermined his credibility through...Sharpiegate, through some of the things he said about Puerto Rico and the Hurricane Maria response," Konyndyk added. "The more the president puts his fingerprints on the messaging and the public perception on this, that is probably counterproductive."

Konyndyk went on to say that Trump's tendency to frame situations as being about him is also highly problematic as the US braces for the spread of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus, which has already killed over 2,800 and infected over 82,000 worldwide.

"The focus here should not be the president," Konyndyk said. "The focus here should not be anyone's electoral prospects. The focus should be candor and transparency about the risks and about what people need to do to protect and prepare themselves."


Trump's attempts to sound positive about the potential effects of coronavirus in the US appear to be linked to concerns over its impact on the stock market, which has taken a hit amid rising anxiety about the disease.

The president is seeking reelection this year, and a strong economy is crucial to that effort. Trump frequently boasts about the financial markets along the campaign trail, taking credit for economic growth in the US. He is reportedly furious that the stock market is nosediving over coronavirus fears, and on Wednesday suggested the media was to blame by unnecessarily spreading alarm.

"Low Ratings Fake News MSDNC (Comcast) & @CNN are doing everything possible to make the Caronavirus look as bad as possible, including panicking markets, if possible," Trump tweeted.

Trump's focus on the stock market in relation to coronavirus is a "huge concern," Konyndyk said.
The president is sending "inaccurate risk-messaging" by telling people "this is not a big deal...and he's doing that to keep the markets calm," he added.

And from a "purely political perspective," Konyndyk said this is an "incredibly dumb" approach from Trump.

"He is taking, perhaps unconsciously, an enormous political risk by trying to buy some short-term calm in the markets at the expense of accurate risk communication. That could hugely backfire on him," Konyndyk said.


Given the consensus on the risk to the US and the world at large, public health experts are not encouraged by the Trump administration's approach to coronavirus so far, particularly in terms of the president's attempts to downplay its potential severity.


https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-confusing-public-coronavirus-threat-experts-warn-2020-2

 

[allison22]

At what point are Trump and Mulvaney committing a criminal act by lying about the coronavirus?

If you're a business owner and your building is on fire, and you tell your customers that there is no fire because you want them to continue shopping, and they die, you go to prison.

Trump\s situation with the coronavirus is similar.

 

[Leather_Lesbian]

In times of crisis, the public desperately needs information to be free.

In times of crisis, an authoritarian government desperately needs to control it.

So after nearly two whole days during which the Department of Health and Human Services and even the White House promised “radical transparency” about the government’s response to the coronavirus (a since-deleted White House memo explained that “rather than keep Americans in the dark, the Administration wants citizens to be able to see inside each step of the process”), Donald Trump nominally put Mike Pence in charge.

And one of Pence’s first official acts was to impose a gag order on the entire U.S. government, except as directed by his office.

That cut off any direct media access during a public-health emergency to anyone in the government with credibility and gave control of the flow of information to people without any credibility at all.

https://presswatchers.org/2020/02/m...against-the-media-which-needs-to-return-fire/

 

[Leather_Lesbian]

The White House official charged with leading the U.S. response to deadly pandemics left nearly two years ago as his global health security team was disbanded. Federal funding for preventing and mitigating the spread of infectious disease has been repeatedly threatened since President Trump’s election.

Despite the mounting threat of a coronavirus outbreak in the United States, Trump said he has no regrets about those actions and that expertise and resources can be quickly ramped up to meet the current needs.

Former federal officials and public-health experts argue that an effective response to a epidemiological crisis demands sustained planning and investment. While the administration’s response to coronavirus has been criticized in recent weeks as slow and disjointed, people in and outside the White House have warned for years that the nation is ill prepared for a dangerous pandemic.

 

[MrRandyWatson]

At what point are Trump and Mulvaney committing a criminal act by lying about the coronavirus?

Never, because in the eyes of the hardcore supporters who own the Senate and the Supreme Court, Trump is the law, and no matter what he does, it’s not illegal.

 

[bodysong]

February 28, 2020

Two hours later, these few dozen people joined the broader
CPAC audience in a cavernous ballroom, where Presiderp
Trump campaign adviser Katrina Pierson urged them to
“bring home Donald J. Trump a win in 2020.”

“The best part about that,” she promised, “is we get to see more liberal tears.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts...nference-previews-trumps-reelection-strategy/

The New York Times ✓
Twitter › nytimes

A person in Washington state has died of the coronavirus,
officials announced on Saturday. It’s the first known death
in the U.S. from the virus.

bodysong comment-
I read the tweet when it was already cold for a half hour.

 

[bodysong]

Was this the reason for today's King Donald the Goon's propaganda session ?

February 29, 2020

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/02/29/nation/first-us-death-coronavirus-reported-washington-state/

 

[bodysong]

Someone in charge of the editorial office at NY Times
attached a highly political headline on Gail Collins's
opinion piece- "Let's Call It Trumpvirus"

Mike Pence usd this instance as an excuse to imply
that Democrats are making the issue of coronavirus
political.

The article in question-

So, our Coronavirus Czar is going to be … Mike Pence.

Feeling more secure?

“I know full well the importance of presidential leadership,”
the vice president said as soon as he was introduced in his
new role.

Totally qualified. First criteria for every job in this administration is
capacity for praising the gloriousness of our commander in chief.

Yeah, when you think of Mike Pence-
you maybe don’t think about Pandemic Fighter Supreme.

- Gail Collins
Verified
New York
Op-Ed Columnist — The New York Times

Pence cited a column by New York Times opinion writer
Gail Collins in which she said the disease should be
renamed “Trumpvirus,” calling Collins a
“prominent liberal journalist” who was looking
to blame the president.

(What is the reality of the situation ? Most of the people
on Trump coronavirus team are working for Trump,
not American citizens.

 

[bodysong]

This does not give me much confidence-

Although the World Health Organization has sent testing kits
to 57 other countries, the U.S. decided to make its own.

"A top federal scientist sounded the alarm about what he
feared was contamination in an Atlanta lab where the
government made test kits for the coronavirus, according
to sources familiar with the situation in Atlanta."

Timothy Stenzel, is the director of the Office of In Vitro Diagnostics
and Radiological Health

Stenzel is a highly-regarded scientist and diagnostics expert.
He was on the ground in Atlanta to deal with technical issues
and happened to stumble upon the inappropriate procedures
and possible contaminants. He is not a laboratory inspector
and thus was not charged with producing an inspection report
on the lab conditions.

https://www.axios.com/cdc-lab-corona...b1e44c2e2.html

A test kit produced and distributed by the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was shelved after state
and local lab trying it out discovered that it contained a faulty
reagent. As a result, many labs that have the capability to test
themselves have not been allowed to do so.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020...-changes-rules

If these labs want to make and use their own tests, FDA says,
they should send five positive and five negative samples, as
determined by their protocols, to another qualified lab for
confirmation. The FDA still requires labs to submit what’s
known as an emergency use authorization (EUA) application
to the agency. “For a reasonable period of time after validation
and while they are preparing their EUA requests, FDA does
not intend to object to the use of these tests for specimen testing,”
the recommendations state.

“It’s their method of saying just go ahead and start doing
the testing, it’s sort of got out of hand, and if you don’t
hear from us in a year, just keep testing,” says Mina.

 

[bodysong]

Problems cropped up because Trump discontinued funds, supports, safety measures

Feb. 28, 2020

In what is already an infamous snafu, CDC initially refused a request
to test a patient in Northern California who turned out to be the first
probable COVID19 case without known links to an infected person.
(no travel to China)

CDC finally started to send kits to state and local health labs on
5 February. But on 12 February, it revealed that several labs had
difficulty validating the test because of a problem with one of the
reagents.

The key problem with the kits is what’s known as a negative control,
says Kelly Wroblewski, director of infectious diseases at the
Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL). CDC’s test
uses the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay to find tiny amounts
of the SARS-CoV-2 genome in, say, a nose swab. To make sure a test
is working properly, kits also include DNA unrelated to SARS-CoV-2.
The assay should not react to this negative control, but the CDC reagents
did at many, but not all, state labs. The labs where the negative control
failed were not allowed to use the test; they have to continue to send
their samples to Atlanta. (The contaminated tests originated at this lab.)

“The declaration of a public health emergency did exactly what
it shouldn’t have. It limited the diagnostic capacity of this country,”
Mina says. “It’s insane.”

On 24 February, APHL asked FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn
for “enforcement discretion” to sidestep the emergency process
and allow APHL members labs to use their own tests.

On 26 February, Hahn replied that the CDC test could be modified
to use just the primers that specifically detect SARS-CoV-2, essentially
ignoring the faulty portion of the kits.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/202...d-coronavirus-testing-things-may-soon-improve

 

[bodysong]

Trump's picks for coronavirus team

How is this team to help Trump achieve his objective-
save his re-election campaign
save the appearance of his economy

help him keep the trillions he needs for (?)

March 1, 2020

Mike Pence, unofficial Coronavirus Czar- scapegoat ?

(given the instruction and the power to tell everyone
on the team to shut the fuck up)

Rather than putting someone who cares about science and
public health in charge of the coronavirus task force,
Trump appointed Vice President Mike Pence, a man
who has significant contempt for both.
(Pence's greatest hits include denying that smoking
kills people and that condoms prevent STI transmission,
as well as declaring that prayer works better to stop HIV
transmission than clean needles. Evangelical Mike Pence
de-funded Planned Parenthood.

alternet.org

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar

Not a stranger to HHS

Azar worked in President George W. Bush's Department
of Health and Human Services, where he was first a General
Counsel and then later became the Deputy Secretary.

Azar's ties to Pence date to his days at Lilly, an Indiana-based
pharmaceutical firm, when Pence was Indiana governor.
Azar spent a decade at Eli Lilly and Co., including five years
as president of Lilly USA, its biggest affiliate, before stepping
down in January to work as a health-care consultant.
Azar was the president of the American division of
pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly where he oversaw
lobbying efforts and corporate branding.

Azar is a Yale Law School graduate who once clerked
for conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

newsweek.com
washingtonpost.com

Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute
of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

Mick Mulvaney WH chief of staff and-
Director of the Office of Management and Budget

Joe Grogan, the director of the Domestic Policy Council

Ambassador Debbie Birx
Evangelical in charge of HIV/Aids budget

Robert Redfield Evangelical
Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

CNN reports:

The patient was transferred to UC Davis on February 19
from a Northern California hospital. Officials from both
hospitals said the patient wasn't initially tested for the
virus because she didn't meet the existing CDC criteria.

The patient didn't have any relevant travel history or exposure
to another known patient, said Dr. Sara Cody, director of the
county's public health department.

Confirmation that the Solano County woman had contracted
the virus came Sunday after UC Davis doctors insisted on testing.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2...a-warn-quarantines-124-health-workers-show-us

Pence promptly added Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin
and crank pseudo-economist Larry Kudlow to the task force.