Trump VS COVID-19 Threat

[lpetrich]

Two Coasts. One Virus. How New York Suffered Nearly 10 Times the Number of Deaths as California. — ProPublica - nice article about how California reacted quicker and saved more lives than New York did.

By March 14, London Breed, the mayor of San Francisco, had seen enough. For weeks, she and her health officials had looked at data showing the evolving threat of COVID-19. In response, she’d issued a series of orders limiting the size of public gatherings, each one feeling more arbitrary than the last. She’d been persuaded that her city’s considerable and highly regarded health care system might be insufficient for the looming onslaught of infection and death.

“We need to shut this shit down,” Breed remembered thinking.

Three days later in New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio was thinking much the same thing. He’d been publicly savaged for days for not closing the city’s school system, and even his own Health Department was in revolt at his inaction. And so, having at last been convinced every hour of delay was a potentially deadly misstep, de Blasio said it was time to consider a shelter-in-place order. Under it, he said, it might be that only emergency workers such as police officers and health care providers would be allowed free movement.

“I think it’s gotten to a place,” de Blasio said at a news conference, “where the decision has to be made very soon.”

Mayor London Breed got along very well with Governor Gavin Newsom, but Mayor Bill de Blasio didn't get along very well with Governor Andrew Cuomo. Another thing that helped California get ahead of New York.

 

[lpetrich]

Independent and chain restaurants press Trump on relief efforts at White House meeting - The Washington Post

Executives for restaurant groups large and small pressed President Trump for more federal assistance and for more time to spend the relief money they already have during a White House meeting Monday ostensibly arranged to discuss how to safely reopen for businesses during a pandemic that has stretched into its third month.

Trump didn’t signal whether he would provide restaurants with more cash, but he did boast that he has already “saved” the industry during a roundtable meeting in which he also acknowledged taking hydroxychloroquine, the potentially dangerous anti-malaria drug, despite testing negative for coronavirus.

Yet more of his horrible bragging.

Opinion | Trump Is Following in Herbert Hoover’s Footsteps - The New York Times - "And we know how that worked out."

All of this — the passivity, the indifference, the refusal to embrace the tools at hand for ideological reasons — is reminiscent of Herbert Hoover, who also presided over a catastrophic economic downturn, the mismanagement of which plunged the United States into a crisis that tore at the seams of American society.

Popular memory of the Great Depression is that Hoover did little to avert catastrophe or prevent suffering, a view captured at the time by Senator Robert Wagner of New York, who claimed the president had “clung to the timeworn Republican policy: to do nothing and when the pressure becomes irresistible to do as little as possible.”

Author Jamelle Bouie states that that was not quite right, since that didn't fit President Hoover's temperament -- he was a man of action.

And so, within weeks of the October 1929 stock market crash, the president was meeting with leaders of business and industry in an effort to protect wages and boost consumption, so that Americans would spend the nation back into growth.

At the same time, Hoover was a staunch conservative, who opposed government intervention on principle.

After reluctantly backing a modest relief program, he wrote to a friend that all such legislation must be repealed because the nation would be “plunged into socialism and collectivism with its destruction of human liberty which pursuance of those measures are bringing.”

What a thing to get worked up about. Did he think that military and police forces ought to be disbanded?

Hoover thought that the problem was more lack of confidence than lack of assistance. After the stock-market crash of 1929, he said “The fundamental business of the country, that is the production and distribution of commodities, is on a sound and prosperous basis.” A month later, he said “Any lack of confidence in the economic future or basic strength of business in the United States is foolish. Our national capacity for hard work and intelligent cooperation is ample guarantee of the future.”

As unemployment rose into the double digits the next year, he said about it “The income of a large part of our people is not reduced by the depression” and “is affected by unnecessary fears and pessimism.” On the anniversary of that stock-market crash, “No special session is necessary to deal with employment. The sense of voluntary organization and community spirit in the American people have not vanished.”

By 1931, Hoover was telling reporters that “We cannot legislate ourselves out of a world economic depression” and rebuking Congress for its attempts to pass relief. “We cannot thus squander ourselves into prosperity,” he said.

He was succeeded by FDR, and FDR tried to do something about the Great Depression with his New Deal programs. He was rather cautious, so the New Deal did not do as much as he wanted. It took Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor to provoke the amount of government spending necessary for getting the economy going again.

 

[lpetrich]

Opinion | Trump and His Allies Are Worried About More Than November - The New York Times

To even begin to tackle this crisis, Congress had to contemplate policies that would be criticized as unacceptably radical under any other circumstances. At $2.2 trillion, the initial relief package was a bill that was more than twice the size of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed in 2009. Further aid is almost certainly forthcoming ...

In one short month, the United States has made a significant leap toward a kind of emergency social democracy, in recognition of the fact that no individual or community could possibly be prepared for the devastation wrought by the pandemic. Should the health and economic crisis extend through the year, there’s a strong chance that Americans will move even further down that road, as businesses shutter, unemployment continues to mount and the federal government is the only entity that can keep the entire economy afloat.

But this logic — that ordinary people need security in the face of social and economic volatility — is as true in normal times as it is under crisis. If something like a social democratic state is feasible under these conditions, then it is absolutely possible when growth is high and unemployment is low. ...

The Republicans face the risk of being blamed for the poor economy and the poor control of the COVID-19 virus, and author Jamelle Bouie suspects an ideological sort of risk: that it endangers their Gilded Age II ideal of politics and economy, with governments mostly helping those on the top of the social heap and protecting them from the rest of the population.

Republicans haven’t openly expressed this, but they seem aware of it, to the extent that on the eve of approval of the first coronavirus bill, they tried to kill the most generous provisions of relief — an enormous expansion of unemployment insurance. The reason? “The moment we go back to work, we cannot create an incentive for people to say, ‘I don’t need to go back to work because I can do better someplace else,’” Senator Rick Scott of Florida explained on the Senate floor. In other words, we cannot help people so much that they can effectively bargain for better wages; crisis or not, we must discipline the working class.

 

[lpetrich]

Opinion | The Anti-Lockdown Protesters Have a Twisted Conception of Liberty - The New York Times - "Their notion of freedom derives a lot of its power from the enforcement of racial hierarchy."

Author Jamelle Bouie then goes on to discuss how the US racial hierarchy developed.

I don’t think you can separate the vehemence of anti-lockdown protesters from their whiteness, nor do I think we can divorce their demands to “reopen” the economy from the knowledge that many of those most affected belong to other racial groups. It’s not so much that they’re showing racial animus (although some are), but that their conception of what it means to be “free” is, at its root, tied tightly to their racial identity.

... To be white was to have control over oneself and one’s labor. It was to be autonomous and subject to no one’s will but one’s own.

The tie between whiteness, freedom and autonomy would grow stronger in the 19th century, during the Jacksonian era, when universal white male suffrage was paired with the strengthening of slave society in the South and, in the 1850s, the outright denial of black citizenship rights.

Freedom from domination and control is one aspect of the meaning of whiteness. The other aspect, in a kind of ideological inversion, is the right to control the presence and the lives of nonwhites. To be white in antebellum America, for instance, was to be able to enslave Africans and expropriate native land. It was, as Harris notes, the right to exclude as well as the right to discipline; to punish those who violated the terms of the racial order.

During the Civil War, the Confederate government wanted to requisition foodstuffs and slaves, but many plantation leaders considered these efforts to be just like enslaving them. Consider the case of slavery apologist James Henry Hammond. He defended slavery by saying that higher civilization rests on the labors of a miserable lower class -- the mudsill theory -- and he argued that slaves were well taken care of. But when the South Carolina government requisitioned sixteen of his slaves to improve fortifications for Charleston, he refused, calling it "wrong every way and odious." Also, when a Confederate army officer stopped by to requisition some grain, he tore up the requisition order, tossed it out a window, and wrote about it that it compensated him too little, and that it was like

"branding on my forehead:"

"SLAVE"

(emphasis mine)

 

[lpetrich]

JB:

If whiteness has meant the right to control and to be free from control, then it is easy to see how racial identity might influence the reaction to the lockdowns among a certain subset of white Americans.

More than just burdensome, the restrictions become an intolerable violation of the social contract as these Americans understand it. They run against the meaning of their racial identity, of the freedom and autonomy it is supposed to signify. And they resolve the violation by asserting the other aspect of white freedom, the right of control.

Just like James Henry Hammond, who considered requisitioning some of his grain to be just like enslaving him. Even though the South's side of the Civil War was being fought on the behalf of slaveowners -- like JHH himself.

Opinion | Mitch McConnell Is Not as Clever as He Thinks He Is - The New York Times

When banks, corporations and wealthy individuals need bailouts, the Republican Party is there, pen in hand. The $2 trillion CARES Act reserved $500 billion for aid to large industries as well as $90 billion in tax breaks for owners of “pass-through” businesses — a benefit that overwhelmingly aids rich hedge fund investors and owners of real estate businesses. Even the small business fund ($350 billion for firms with fewer than 500 employees) has mostly benefited larger companies.

But when ordinary Americans need help to pay their bills, and when states — which can’t run deficits — need help to avoid fiscal collapse, the Republican Party is much less interested.

...
Looking back at this period in 2016, the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute concluded that even if other policymakers made serious mistakes, the sluggish recovery from the Great Recession could “be explained entirely by the fiscal austerity imposed by Republicans in Congress.” Austerity put hard limits on the economy’s ability to grow, leading to persistent, long-term unemployment for millions of people.

Opinion | McConnell to Every State: Drop Dead - The New York Times - "Blocking federal aid is vile, but it’s also hypocritical."

 

[angelo]

Nope. Nor has he claimed to be a better strategist and tactician than five star generals. What's your point?

You're right about Biden being my idol though. I have a shrine of him in my bedroom. My missus thinks it's hot, but I suspect that's because of her kink towards voyeurism.



Agreed. He was called The Appears in Chief by partisan cunts who like nothing better than projecting huge double standards. I don't seem to recall Obama writing love letters to North Korea, giving Saudi Arabia the green light to murder journalists or throwing the Kurds under a bus driven by a Turkish dictator. Someone else did that. Can't remember who.

How many " red lines did Obuma draw in the sands" of the Middle East again?

How many people who called Obama out on it suddenly became silent when Trump was literally appeasing to totalitarian states? Fuck your argument, it's done in extreme bad faith.

This is what you don't get, or don't want to get. Everything Obama has been accused of vis a vis appeasement, Trump has done with greater frequency and intensity. It was also pretty fucking stupid of you to use the Red Line moment to prove your point. All it proves is your unwillingness to be consistent in condemning different Presidents for the exact same thing.

Exact same thing yet the Trump is the villain and not Obongo?

 

[Patooka]

Exact same thing yet the Trump is the villain and not Obongo?

Your the one complaining about Obama being the appeaser in chief, not me. Your argument makes complete sense if, and only if, I have called Trump's foreign policy acts of appeasement.

So show me where I've done that. It's ok, I'll wait.

 

[angelo]

Exact same thing yet the Trump is the villain and not Obongo?

Your the one complaining about Obama being the appeaser in chief, not me. Your argument makes complete sense if, and only if, I have called Trump's foreign policy acts of appeasement.

So show me where I've done that. It's ok, I'll wait.

That's my argument that Obongo was known as the Appeaser In Chief. I've never accused you of calling the Trump any kind of appeaser as he's far from it! He's the only president in decades that actually stands up for America. It's the main reason the left hate the ground he stands on.

 

[Patooka]

Exact same thing yet the Trump is the villain and not Obongo?

Your the one complaining about Obama being the appeaser in chief, not me. Your argument makes complete sense if, and only if, I have called Trump's foreign policy acts of appeasement.

So show me where I've done that. It's ok, I'll wait.

That's my argument that Obongo was known as the Appeaser In Chief. I've never accused you of calling the Trump any kind of appeaser as he's far from it! He's the only president in decades that actually stands up for America. It's the main reason the left hate the ground he stands on.

So they are guilty of the exact same thing and yet "Obungo" is the villain and Trump is not in your eyes because of reasons. Got it. That's a fucking terrible argument, by the way.

 

[KeepTalking]

Exact same thing yet the Trump is the villain and not Obongo?

Your the one complaining about Obama being the appeaser in chief, not me. Your argument makes complete sense if, and only if, I have called Trump's foreign policy acts of appeasement.

So show me where I've done that. It's ok, I'll wait.

That's my argument that Obongo was known as the Appeaser In Chief..

That's all you got? Trump is know as the Dotard In Chief, Whiner In Chief, Plaintiff In Chief, and Grifter In Chief, just off the top of my head. I am quite sure there are quite a few more that are regularly applied to him. Yup, I'll take Appeaser In Chief any day over those.

 

[ZiprHead]

From the Ford plant. He refused to wear it on camera.

 

[Elixir]

Obongo was known as the Appeaser In Chief.

By a few Republitards, maybe. Big deal.

Trump is known by the majority of Americans as Putin's puppet, MBS's lapdog, Kim Jong Un's play toy, the Rapist in Chief, Liar in Chief, killer of at least 36,000 Americans via dereliction of duty and/or negligent manslaughter...

No comparison.

 

[Jarhyn]

Obongo was known as the Appeaser In Chief.

By a few Republitards, maybe. Big deal.

Trump is known by the majority of Americans as Putin's puppet, MBS's lapdog, Kim Jong Un's play toy, the Rapist in Chief, Liar in Chief, killer of at least 36,000 Americans via dereliction of duty and/or negligent manslaughter...

No comparison.

Well, using your own ad-hom to reinforce later ad-homs obviously works, right? Or at least we know it does when you don't have the intelligence to know what an ad-hom is.

 

[lpetrich]

Katie Hill on Twitter: "We all want to start getting back to normal. The shutdown is hurting people like my sister, whose small business has been closed for over 2 months & can’t get federal $ to help. But if we don't #OpenSafely, we'll be right back to lockdown in a month. https://t.co/yu9jFPqJ8u" / Twitter
noting
Andy Slavitt @ on Twitter: "BREAKING: Americans want their sense of normalcy back - but not at the cost of people’s lives. ..." / Twitter

BREAKING: Americans want their sense of normalcy back - but not at the cost of people’s lives. Today 20 bipartisan health care leaders and I joined forces to outline how our government can #OpenSafely amid COVID-19. 1/

Experts Mark McClellan, @EricTopol, @juliettekayyem, @cmyeatom, @DrLeanaWen, @T_Inglesby, @Bill_George, @bfrist, @DavidBrailer and others (tagged in pic) built this plan because Americans don’t need to choose between a good economy and the public’s health. They go together. 2/

Despite efforts by some to turn COVID-19 into a partisan political football, Americans have sacrificed with great unity to reduce the infection rate, support our front line health care workers, and save lives and are equally unified in wanting to #OpenSafely. 3/

#OpenSafely means following the plan laid out by Dr. Birx to begin opening communities after two weeks of declining #COVID19 cases. For states that have opened, it also means states must develop containment plans should infection rates increase. 4/

#OpenSafely means ensuring diagnostic testing is available for every single American who needs a test - particularly people with symptoms and high-risk professions like nurses and corrections officers. 5/

#OpenSafely means new safety standards to avoid outbreaks & reduce spreading in potential hot spots. It means protecting others & yourself by wearing masks - and ensuring first responders have enough #PPE to meet the demands of nationwide testing. 6/

#OpenSafely means contact tracing and voluntary isolation to contain the virus when it is detected. This @USofCare report card looks at the state of contact tracing nationwide, and what we can do to improve critical testing infrastructure. 7/

#OpenSafely means protecting vulnerable and high-risk populations and hard-hit communities and not putting essential workers or people required to work at greater risk than anyone else. 8/

#OpenSafely means states must monitor hospitalizations and hospital capacity and be prepared to immediately pause or dial back reopening efforts. The lag between infection and hospitalization can be 8 days or more, so there is no time to waste if hospitalizations increase. 9/

#OpenSafely means making progress in ways that reduce transmission, like widespread use of masks, surge hospital capacity, screenings in offices and public spaces, continuous monitoring using syndromic surveillance tools, coordinating with neighboring states, & telemedicine. 10/

Following our #OpenSafely guidelines means we can begin opening up critical services like doctors’ offices and surgery centers, outdoor spaces, and retail spaces where people don’t congregate in large numbers or for extended periods. 11/

Our #OpenSafely guidelines also mean we can end one of the most painful aspects of #COVID19: the inability to attend small weddings and funerals for our loved ones, as long as they are in outdoor settings and people respect distancing guidelines. 12/

Our #OpenSafely guidelines mean some activities should only open up under modified conditions, depending on local factors: day care centers, summer camps and youth sports, restaurants, schools, movie theaters, and colleges and universities. 13/

Large gatherings like concerts are still not suggested. We should still #StayHome as much as possible. You can monitor how your state is doing on a variety of measures here: https://covidexitstrategy.org
14/

Americans want to remain united in the fight against COVID-19, just as we were after 9/11. We can do this with smart policies and committed actions. The #OpenSafely plan is our path for bringing Americans together to save the most lives while returning to normal. 15/

Read the full op-ed in the @usatoday here: https://open-safely.us 16/16

And of course thanks to @cmyeaton who was and is a big driver to #OpenSafely. (Despite my bad keystroke!)

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Trump says churches must open or he will overrule the Governors. He noted that places of worship were "essential".

When asked "What the fuck does that mean..." the press got jack shit in responses.

 

[lpetrich]

Andy Slavitt had a lot of links.

Coronavirus is still spreading, but here's how states can open safely - "We don’t believe we need to wait until there is zero risk. Many states are already beginning to reopen and this must happen in the safest way possible." - Andy Slavitt, Dr. Mark McClellan and 20 other health leaders

COVID-19 is still spreading, but at a steadier rate. While it is shrinking in places like New York, it is still growing rapidly in some areas where there had been fewer cases. The virus is still equally contagious. The virus is still lethal to many. The virus still spreads through unsuspecting asymptomatic people. Some places are especially hard hit: nursing homes, meatpacking plants, prisons, detention centers, public housing, and the communities around them as people move in and out. People are still dying at an alarming rate, and that will continue unless we follow the path like the one outlined by Dr. Deborah Birx at the White House: a steady, gated reopening that avoids accelerated growth in cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

Tens of millions of Americans are now out of work. Many businesses have closed; others are in danger. Americans are facing hunger and the inability to pay their rent or mortgage at levels not seen here since the Great Depression. Congress and the administration have passed laws to support Americans through this, but support isn’t the same thing as a job. And the support still leaves voids that need to be filled.

Phase I: "Areas that can most safely open up..."
►Doctor offices, clinics and surgery centers with sufficient community PPE.
►Workplaces like retail and manufacturing.
►Parks and other outdoor recreation, lakes, gardens and bike trails.
►Shopping areas and coffee shops where people don’t congregate in large numbers or for extended periods.
►Outdoor weddings and funerals with small groups that physically distance and wear masks when close together.

Phase II: "Additional areas that we hope can open up successfully under significantly modified conditions, but that will benefit from further technical assessment on how processes should be modified that would allow them to operate with lower risks:"
►Day care centers
►Summer camps and youth sports
►Restaurants
►Schools
►Movie theaters and small entertainment venues
►Sporting events with very limited or no crowds
►TV and film production
►Colleges and universities
►Bars

Phase III: "Areas that should remain closed until risks can be significantly reduced:"
►Large-scale events like concerts, sports with high attendance
►Large conventions and other activities involving significant travel and congregation

All very sensible - open up outdoor, low-density, and low-population activities first. It also seems to me that Phase I and phase II cover most of the economy, and that phase I covers much of it.

 

[lpetrich]

Opening Up America Again | The White House - rather sensible, much more than their creators' boss, it must be noted.

USofCare’s Founder’s Council Members Urge Congress to fund $46 billion for COVID-19 Contact Tracing

“The existing public health system is currently capable of providing only a fraction of the contact tracing and voluntary self-isolation capacity required to meet the COVID-19 challenge,” explains the letter, which is making national news. The group recommends the next federal relief package provide $46 billion to achieve what is the most important component for our recovery: a full-scale army of contact tracers and resources to help people self-isolate if they lack the shelter to do so.

...

• Build an army: $12 billion is needed to expand a workforce of content tracers 180,000 people strong and will be necessary until a vaccine is on the market
• Take care of our most vulnerable: $4.5 billion to utilize vacant hotels so those ill but without a place to properly self-isolate have somewhere they can go so they can limit the spread of the virus to others or their own families
• Meet financial needs: $30 billion to offer 18 months of income support for people self-isolating, with a per-person, per-day stipend of $50 for those who need it, much like federal jury duty.

Slavitt, Gottlieb Seek Money For Contact Tracing, Self-Isolation : NPR

Two leading former federal health officials who served in recent Republican and Democratic administrations are spearheading a call for a $46 billion public health investment in a future coronavirus aid package in order to safely reopen the economy.

I don't know how much of that will happen. The Democrats seem much more willing to spend the necessary money than the Republicans.

 

[blastula]

Hydroxychloroquine Tied to Deaths, Heart Risk in Covid Study - Bloomberg

But that's just another Trump-enemy statement and political hit job.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Hydroxychloroquine Tied to Deaths, Heart Risk in Covid Study - Bloomberg

But that's just another Trump-enemy statement and political hit job.

So is America just one Trump Tweet away from a shortage on Royal Jelly?

 

[lpetrich]

Use Cloth Face Coverings to Help Slow Spread | CDC

How to Wear a Cloth Face Covering

Cloth face coverings should—

• fit snugly but comfortably against the side of the face
• be secured with ties or ear loops
• include multiple layers of fabric
• allow for breathing without restriction
• be able to be laundered and machine dried without damage or change to shape

That page also recommends two layers of typical cotton fabric for a do-it-yourself mask.

State of COVID-19 Contact Tracing in the U.S. - United States of Care

How We Reopen Safely - covidexitstrategy.org - shows how different states are doing