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real-human



Joined: 02 Jul 2011
Posts: 14838
Location: on earth

PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2021 4:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/deborah-brix-says-some-donald-trump-white-house-staff-believed-covid-was-a-hoax/ar-BB1d31BI


Deborah Brix Says Some Donald Trump White House Staff Believed COVID Was a Hoax


Quote:
In an interview with on CBS News' Face The Nation, Birx spoke about the challenges she faced while working with the Trump White House on combatting the COVID-19 pandemic.

"There were people who definitely believed that this was a hoax," Birx, the former coordinator of the Trump administration's coronavirus task force, told Margaret Brennan when asked if there were coronavirus deniers in the Trump White House.

Pressed on why, Birx said: "I think because the information was confusing at

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mac



Joined: 07 Mar 1999
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2021 4:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Why? Because Trump hired idiots and paranoids.
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real-human



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PostPosted: Tue Jan 26, 2021 7:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/late-night/trump-administration-didn-t-leave-a-vaccine-plan/vi-BB1d5SBk?ocid=msedgntp



Trump Administration Didn’t Leave a Vaccine Plan

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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 27, 2021 1:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

As expected, the local Fair Grounds mass vaccination zoo hit the fan full force. Well over 500 people were lined up in their cars by the middle of a cold, wet, snowy morning for shots slated to begin at 1:00 PM ... already more doses than the clinic hoped would arrive by 1:00. I'll bet half of them showed up without the required prioritization and appointment forms, with no clue what Phase 1B Tier 1 means and/or just hoping to wing it and get their shots ahead of their turn. Hey, that attitude got many of them into the U.S. ahead of their peers in the first place, so why not try it here, too?

A few more observations:
• I'd hate to be the owner of the phone number incorrectly listed in the newspaper as the regional covid vaccination scheduling hotline.
• I was quite surprised how many of the nurses administering the vaccine were not fully vaccinated yet themselves.
• The main pharmacy the state listed as a vaccination center is still not providing them, which is OK with me because they demanded that we authorize them (Safeway) to spam our email and cell phones with marketing BS if we wanted a vaccination.
• Many idiots even blame one president or another for the confusion at local and state levels.
• Some ... too many ... doses had to be dumped in the trash because Operation Warp Speed got the vaccines approved and distributed faster than some ... too many ... states could get their acts together.
• Some ... too many ... people will die or become long hauler Covid victims because of that.
• You can reduce your odds of either of those by becoming very proactive in your own family's vaccination.
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vientomas



Joined: 25 Apr 2000
Posts: 2343

PostPosted: Wed Jan 27, 2021 8:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

isobars wrote:
I'll bet half of them showed up without the required prioritization and appointment forms, with no clue what Phase 1B Tier 1 means and/or just hoping to wing it and get their shots ahead of their turn. Hey, that attitude got many of them into the U.S. ahead of their peers in the first place, so why not try it here, too?


Kinda similar to someone stating that they will go windusrfing despite a lockdown order because ain't nobody gonna tell them what they can't do! Just wing it!
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mac



Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17742
Location: Berkeley, California

PostPosted: Wed Jan 27, 2021 11:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

mrgybe wrote:
berkeley wrote:
Boris isn’t that bright, but he managed to figure this out.

I suggest that you all read the Wiki description of Boris, his heritage, his life, his education, his colorful exploits, his career...........and then consider whether you also find the pathetic assertion by a lifelong, low level government employee that "he isn't that bright" is laughable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Johnson


Let’s look at how Boris has done. In today’s news, the relatively small country has now reached 100,000 deaths. A toll twice as high as those killed by German bombs during the blitz, and 30,000 more than British civilians killed during the 6 years of World War II. This same idiot has rationalized the Trump response, belittling those that expressed concerns. Of course the mess that Trump left was worse. No distribution plan. Suppression of science and access to media by scientists. More dead than soldiers in World War II. A 9/11 worth of dearth every day.

I guess that is all offset by colorful exploits and a stiff upper lip.
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real-human



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PostPosted: Thu Jan 28, 2021 11:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

because he was dismantling the CDC gov well here is what you get. from the get go they brought americans back from china with no testing ...


https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/01/28/wuhan-americans-evacuation/

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mac



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PostPosted: Fri Jan 29, 2021 1:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

We all remember Matty's shameless, and bigoted, shilling for Trump's travel ban from China as the right thing to have done when the pandemic broke. Along with buggy whip's shameless shilling that we should just hope for the best and forgive minor mistakes. Wrong.

Quote:
heco/Getty Images)
By
Dan Diamond
Jan. 28, 2021 at 7:19 p.m. PST
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As the first American evacuees from Wuhan, China, touched down at a California military base a year ago, fleeing the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, they were met by U.S. health officials with no virus prevention plan or infection-control training — and who had not even been told to wear masks, according to a federal investigation.

Later, those officials were told to remove protective gear when meeting with the evacuees to avoid “bad optics,” and days after those initial encounters, departed California aboard commercial airline flights to other destinations.

Those are among the findings of two federal reports obtained by The Washington Post, supporting a whistleblower’s account of the chaos as U.S. officials scrambled to greet nearly 200 evacuees from Wuhan at March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, Calif., in the early morning of Jan. 29, 2020. The handling and quarantining of those evacuees — the nation’s first up-close confrontation with a virus that has now sickened more than 25 million Americans — and the resulting whistleblower complaint prompted internal reviews by the Health and Human Services Department and an investigation overseen by the Office of Special Counsel.

The “most troubling finding” is that the government’s handling of the Wuhan evacuees “increased the risk of infection transmission not only to deployed [government] personnel, but also to the American public as a whole,” Special Counsel Henry Kerner wrote in a letter to President Biden on Thursday.

“In this unprecedented, dynamic, and evolving situation, the mission command and control structure during the March deployment temporarily broke down,” acknowledges an accompanying November report conducted by the HHS general counsel’s office. That report faulted a last-minute decision that resulted in HHS overseeing the operation — rather than the state of California, which had planned to house the evacuees but lacked medically adequate facilities — for the slew of ensuing problems.

Catch up on the most important developments in the pandemic with our coronavirus newsletter. All stories in it are free to access.

In a notable rebuke, the special counsel criticized the general counsel’s office, led by Trump appointee Robert Charrow, for its “attempts to shame the whistleblower,” such as by publishing a nine-page supplemental report that repeatedly highlighted inconsistencies in her account and circulating it with members of Congress.


I'll not hold my breath waiting for an apology.
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mac



Joined: 07 Mar 1999
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 05, 2021 2:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

One of the truly evil things that the Trump administration did was to ignore worker safety and squelch all efforts to provide a standard of protection. Hundreds died--but fat Donny got his chicken nuggets.

Quote:

FEBRUARY 4, 2021
A key House subcommittee cited reports by ProPublica and other news outlets in launching an investigation into how the country’s meatpacking companies handled the pandemic, which has killed hundreds of workers to date.

A key congressional panel launched an investigation this week into the wave of COVID-19 infections that killed hundreds of workers at meatpacking plants nationwide last year and highlighted longstanding hazards in the industry.

Since the start of the pandemic, the meat industry has struggled to contain the virus in its facilities, and plants in Iowa, South Dakota and Kansas have endured some of the biggest workplace outbreaks in the country.

The meat companies’ employees, many of them immigrants and refugees, slice pig bellies or cut up chicken carcasses in close quarters. Many of them don’t speak English and aren’t granted paid sick leave. To date, more than 50,000 meatpacking workers have been infected and at least 250 have died, according to a ProPublica tally.

The congressional investigation, opened by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, will examine the role of JBS, Smithfield Foods and Tyson Foods, three of the nation’s largest meat companies, which, the subcommittee said, had “refused to take basic precautions to protect their workers” and had “shown a callous disregard for workers’ health.”

The subcommittee is chaired by Rep. James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the No. 3 Democrat in the House.

In response to the subcommittee's announcement, officials for JBS and Tyson said that the companies had spent hundreds of millions of dollars to implement coronavirus protections and to temporarily increase pay and benefits, and they looked forward to discussing their pandemic safety efforts with the panel. Smithfield said in a statement that it had also taken “extraordinary measures” to protect employees from the virus, spending more than $700 million on workplace modifications, testing and equipment.

The House subcommittee noted that reports from a variety of news organizations had illuminated problems with how the meatpacking companies handled the pandemic, and with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s enforcement efforts. The subcommittee cited ProPublica’s reporting on how meat companies blindsided local public health departments, and on Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts’ efforts to intervene when local health officials tried to temporarily shutter a JBS plant amid an outbreak.

ProPublica has also documented how meat companies ignored years of warnings from the federal government about how a pandemic could tear through a food processing facility, and chronicled the role that meatpacking plants like a Tyson pork facility in Waterloo, Iowa, have played in spreading the virus to the surrounding community.

The subcommittee’s inquiry will also scrutinize the federal government’s shortcomings in protecting meatpacking workers. “Public reports indicate that under the Trump Administration, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) failed to adequately carry out its responsibility for enforcing worker safety laws at meatpacking plants across the country, resulting in preventable infections and deaths,” according to the subcommittee's letter to OSHA.

The subcommittee also said that the agency had issued only a “few meager fines” and “failed to show urgency in addressing safety hazards at the meatpacking facilities it inspected.” The letter noted that OSHA had received complaints about JBS and Smithfield plants months before the agency conducted inspections.

David Seligman, a lawyer who helped meatpacking workers in Pennsylvania file a lawsuit against OSHA during the pandemic, said he hopes the subcommittee’s efforts are “just one of the initial steps” to holding companies accountable and ensuring workers are safe. “The harm inflicted on meat-processing workers during this pandemic, in service of the profits of corporate meat-packing companies and under a government that seemed happy to turn a blind eye, is a grave scandal,” Seligman wrote in an email.

In a statement, a Department of Labor spokesperson said that the subcommittee’s inquiry is “focused on the Trump administration’s actions surrounding the protection of workers from COVID-19 related risks,” and the agency is committed to protecting workers, and that new guidance on coronavirus enforcement that was issued in late January will serve as a “first step.”

In its Feb. 1 letters to OSHA, JBS, Tyson and Smithfield, the subcommittee has requested documents related to government inspections at meatpacking plants and COVID-19 complaints lodged with the companies. OSHA was asked to brief the subcommittee
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mac



Joined: 07 Mar 1999
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Location: Berkeley, California

PostPosted: Thu Mar 11, 2021 12:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Of course this is one of multiple subjects where the buggy whip guy's response was sneering not ideas. From this morning's NYT e-mail blast. Pretty thoughtful.

Quote:
Amber Jowers, a bartender, took down “mask required” signs in San Antonio yesterday.Matthew Busch for The New York Times
‘Finally, slowly, starting to run out’
Public discussion of “herd immunity” often treats it like an on-off switch: When the U.S. reaches herd immunity, the crisis will be over; until then, the country has little immunity from Covid-19.

But that’s not right.

Herd immunity is more like a light dimmer. The more people develop immunity — either from having been infected or from being vaccinated — the less easily the virus will spread.

Nearly 30 percent of Americans have now had the virus, according to Youyang Gu, a data scientist. (That includes many people who have never taken a Covid test.) About 18 percent have received at least one vaccine shot. There is some overlap between these two groups, which means that about 40 percent of Americans now have some protection from Covid.

Had these people been exposed to the virus a year ago, they could have become infected — and then spread Covid to others. Today, many are protected.

“This level of population immunity slows down transmission,” Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, wrote in The Washington Post. “After millions of infections and the start of a vaccination campaign, the virus is finally, slowly, starting to run out of new people to infect.”

The pandemic is still a long way from over. And the situation may worsen again, because of a combination of risky behavior and new virus variants. Experts are particularly worried about some states’ rush to lift mask mandates and restrictions on indoor gatherings. For now, however, the virus trends are improving, thanks largely to the rising level of immunity.

When I last gave you an overview of the U.S. situation — two weeks ago — I highlighted a mix of positive trends (declining nursing home deaths and encouraging vaccine news) and negative ones (rising caseloads and falling vaccination numbers). Since then, the good news has largely continued, and the bad news has not. Below is a new update, with help from three charts.

Cases are falling — slowly
When the number of new cases began rising last month, it was reasonable to wonder if the more contagious virus variants were on the verge of sparking a nationwide surge. They have not. In retrospect, the February increase looks like a blip:


By The New York Times | Sources: Health agencies and hospitals
One caveat, as you can see in the chart, is that the recent decline is much gentler than the declines during most of January and February. The reasons aren’t wholly clear, and the variants may play a role. Either way, it’s another sign that the pandemic is not on the verge of ending.

Vaccinations are rising again
The pace of vaccination slowed last month, because of winter storms. But it has now picked up again, and more than two million Americans per day are receiving shots:


The New York Times | Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The current pace won’t be impressive for long. By the end of the month, the federal government will be receiving an average of more than three million doses a day, from Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and Pfizer. At that point, three million daily shots will be a more sensible goal.

How quickly the Biden administration and state governments can get there will help determine how many lives are saved and how quickly normal life returns.

The variants look a little less scary
I recommend you keep two different ideas about the variants in mind at the same time: First, one or more of the variants could create terrible problems — by being highly contagious, by reinfecting people who already had Covid or by causing even more severe symptoms. A British study released yesterday, for instance, found that the B.1.1.7 variant increases the risk of death in unvaccinated people.

But — here’s the second idea — the overall evidence on the variants has been more encouraging so far than many people expected. The vaccines are virtually eliminating hospitalizations and death in people who contract a variant. Reinfection does not seem to be widespread. And even if the variants are more contagious, they have not caused the kind of surges that seemed possible a couple of weeks ago.

In Florida, where B.1.1.7 has spread widely, “there’s no sign of any increase in cases,” Dr. Eric Topol of Scripps Research wrote. In South Africa, where the B.1.351 variant was first detected, cases are nonetheless plunging:


By The New York Times | Sources: Johns Hopkins University
It’s a remarkable decline, given the variant. What explains it? Growing natural immunity appears to be part of the reason, The Financial Times has reported. Rising vaccinations are also helping. So did the restrictions that South Africa imposed in late December and January, including “a ban on alcohol sales, the closing of all land borders and most beaches, and an extended curfew,” Bloomberg explained.

The bottom line
South Africa’s situation also serves as a useful summary of where the U.S. stands: Natural immunity has become a significant force in slowing the pandemic, but government policy can still make a big difference, by accelerating vaccination and discouraging needlessly risky behavior.

Over the past week, another 12,000 Americans died of Covid. The crisis continues.

In other virus news:

The U.S. plans to purchase an additional 100 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which may be used to inoculate children once the F.D.A. allows it.
The Biden administration has loosened its guidelines for nursing home visits. The advice recommends outdoor visits, but says that “responsible indoor visitation” should be allowed.
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