Trump on the coronavirus

Fri Mar 20th 2020 by abagond

Here is some of what President Trump in the US has been saying about the coronavirus disease (covid-19) for the past two months:

22 Jan 2020 (1 confirmed US case): “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”

02 Feb 2020 (11 cases): “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China. It’s going to be fine.”

10 Feb 2020 (12 cases): “Typically, that will go away in April. We’re in great shape, though. We have 12 cases, 11 cases, and many of them are in good shape now.”

24 Feb 2020 (14 cases): “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA … Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”

Beyond the Republican Bubble: The Dow Jones Industrial Average of the US stock market from January 1st to March 20th 2020.

26 Feb 2020 (15 cases): “We’re going to be pretty soon at only five people. And we could be at just one or two people over the next short period of time. So we’ve had very good luck.”

26 Feb 2020 (15 cases): “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. Likewise their incompetent Do Nothing Democrat comrades are all talk, no action. USA in great shape!”

Fox News has been parroting Trump’s talking points.

27 Feb 2020 (15 cases): “One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”

28 Feb 2020 (19 cases): “The Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. One of my people came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia.’ That did not work out too well. They could not do it. They tried the impeachment hoax. … They tried anything. … And this is their new hoax.”

04 Mar 2020 (111 cases): “If we have thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work – some of them go to work, but they get better.”

06 Mar 2020 (252 cases): “Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. And the tests are beautiful.”

06 Mar 2020 (252 cases): “Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.”

08 Mar 2020 (497 cases): “We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on Coronavirus.”

09 Mar 2020 (645 cases): “The Fake News media & their partner, the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power to inflame the Coronavirus situation, far beyond what the facts would warrant.”

09 Mar 2020 (645 cases): “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!”

10 Mar 2020 (936 cases): “And we’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”

13 Mar 2020 (2,163 cases): Declares National Emergency.

17 Mar 2020 (5,656 cases): “This is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic … I’ve always viewed it as very serious.”

20 Mar 2020: 16,009 cases. That we know of.

Times Square yesterday afternoon (Thursday March 19th 2020 at 3.30pm).

– Abagond, 2020.

Sources: Google Images, Snopes, Rolling Stone, Business Insider, Media Matters, Wikipedia (case count).

See also:

pandemic
- The coronavirus
Donald Trump
- Trumpspeak
- Republican Bubble
- tribal epistemology
- alternative facts
- Hurricane Dorian – and Sharpiegate
fake news
US cable news
- Fox News
- CNN
- MSNBC – which Trump aptly calls MSDNC
Times Square through time

586

Posted in stuff | 192 Comments

192 Responses

on Fri Mar 20th 2020 at 22:34:41 Allen Shaw

We have to live with the current president and his administration; however, we do not have to be confused by his CHA actions. We need to be calm and hear other knowledgeable voices.

If any use information come from the president we should include it in our decisions.

NO I AM COVERING MY AZZ. I believe he has failed to grasp the situation and thinks this is a business transaction and if he stand strong with his rhetoric it will kill the virus.

LikeLike
on Fri Mar 20th 2020 at 22:56:37 Deb

Hey Abagond! I know I’ve been gone awhile, but damn! I had to reset my password to get in and tell how absolutely excellent this post is!

LikeLiked by 2 people
on Sat Mar 21st 2020 at 02:27:04 Solitaire

I am thankful for all the governors, mayors, city council members, county boards, etc., who have been showing true leadership.

LikeLiked by 3 people
on Sat Mar 21st 2020 at 12:27:41 Herneith

What a buffoon! He will cause many unnecessary deaths by his late actions.

LikeLiked by 4 people
on Sat Mar 21st 2020 at 13:09:51 Herneith

LikeLiked by 3 people
on Sat Mar 21st 2020 at 15:56:04 munubantu

Until now I believed that Trump would win the USA Presidential elections planed to take place later this year.
I don’t believe that anymore.
The old man has being able to lead his party in their disputes vis-a-vis the Democratic Party, and he has shown to be the best card the Republicans can have right now in the way to a new victory.
But the novel coronavirus has changed all that!
Except if a cure and/or a vaccine against the disease is discovered in the next couple of months, this POTUS will have many difficulties to win again.
The old man hasn’t been able to adapt to the new situation and to exert true leadership during these difficult times. He hasn’t been able to change his ways of “tweeting” and “faking” day by day against his real or perceived enemies.
Even the “hard guys” he admires, like Putin and Xi Jinping, not to mention the Third World dictators, are doing better.
As the saying goes: he is to old to adapt.

LikeLike
on Sat Mar 21st 2020 at 16:04:56 abagond

@ munubantu

At the rate things are going, the US will be lucky to keep the death toll under a half million and Trump will be lucky to win ANY states – assuming he is still alive.

LikeLiked by 3 people
on Sat Mar 21st 2020 at 19:26:42 gro jo

Comedians most be eating their hearts out, nobody has jokes like Trump, they are killers.

LikeLike
on Sat Mar 21st 2020 at 20:11:49 Afrofem

The Vanity Fair website published this interesting article yesterday: “Trump Uses Coronavirus Press Conference to Confirm He’s an Actual Sociopath”.

Author, Bess Levin, recorded this exhange between Trump and a reporter at a White House news conference:

“NBC reporter Peter Alexander: “What do you say to the Americans who are scared, though? Nearly 200 dead, 14,000 who are sick, millions, as you’ve witnessed, who are scared right now. What do you say to Americans who are watching you right now who are scared?

Trump: “I say that you’re a terrible reporter. That’s what I say. I think it’s a very nasty question, and I think it’s a very bad signal that you’re putting out to the American people. The American people are looking for answers and they’re looking for hope, and you’re doing sensationalism and the same with NBC and con-cast. I don’t call it Comcast, I call it ‘con-cast.’ Let me just tell you something. That’s really bad reporting, and you ought to get back to reporting instead of sensationalism.”

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/03/donald-trump-peter-alexander-coronavirus-press-conference

There is an old saying that people get the leaders they deserve. To me, that is only partly true. It is entirely true for supporters of Trump, but the rest of us had this sociopath forced on us by Republican/Democratic election trickery and an antiquated Electoral College voting system.

Only Trump could make George W. Bush look like a statesman.

LikeLiked by 2 people
on Sat Mar 21st 2020 at 21:48:47 gro jo

correction: “most” should be “must”

LikeLike
on Sun Mar 22nd 2020 at 01:34:58 Michael Barker

I think Trump still underestimates the severity of this pandemic. I think he is using his daily new conferences as a form of campaigning. He wants to be the “war time” president who leads the country back to health and prosperity. He is counting on the pandemic burning out and then will take credit for defeating it.

The Spanish flue started in mid spring and then died back a bit. It was the second wave that killed millions of people. I read that it take 75% saturation rate for herd immunity. With present awareness and shelter in place orders ect that will slow the virus spread but the downside is that it will take longer for herd immunity to develop within the human population.

I suspect the toll on the world economy is 50x more damaging then the 2005-2006 recession. That crises was created by bankers and solved by central banks pumping the economy with fiat and bailing out those institutions that created the collapse in the first place.

This is different. People unable to work, trade unable to move, factories where workers just don’t show up because they are afraid of contracting the virus.

Considering a second wave beginning in the fall and lasting through winter I think we are in for some tough times.

The only out I see is if a vaccine is developed. But those can take time to researched and tested ect.

LikeLiked by 1 person
on Sun Mar 22nd 2020 at 02:19:12 Mary Burrell

He does nothing but lie and spread disinformation. I wish Dr. Fauci could use his time and gifts for some other health care organization. These White House briefings are dangerous and many will die as a result. Trump has done a poor job handling this pandemic crisis. And it doesn’t help that many Americans are not doing the things to like quarantine and social distancing. Trump lies and people die.

LikeLike
on Sun Mar 22nd 2020 at 03:59:04 Mary Burrell

This current administration lied, censored, and covered up. In addition to having an inept and incompetent administration that is handling things abysmally. I hope when November comes the scales will fall from the eyes of Trump’s brain washed, sycophantic zombie supporters and see this narcissistic nightmare of an administration for what it is.

LikeLike
on Sun Mar 22nd 2020 at 04:00:34 Mary Burrell

Hopefully, if we make it to November we can vote this monster and his ghoulish administration out of office.

LikeLike
on Sun Mar 22nd 2020 at 05:33:58 Mary Burrell

Corona virus stopped tRumps hate rallies. That’s why he’s doing all these garbage press speeches.

LikeLike
on Sun Mar 22nd 2020 at 05:42:48 Afrofem

@ Mary Burrell

You can really tell Trump misses those rallies with his stupid followers. LOL.

LikeLiked by 1 person
on Sun Mar 22nd 2020 at 07:22:27 Xena

Reblogged this on We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident and commented:

Yesterday when asked about mask shortages for medical personnel, Trump responded about “past administrations”. SMH

LikeLiked by 1 person
on Sun Mar 22nd 2020 at 10:37:57 1tawnystranger

The fuck? Over 16,000 cases? We’ve not even reached 1,000 (as far as I know).

LikeLike
on Sun Mar 22nd 2020 at 23:48:16 blakksage

Not for sale’: Germany has reacted furiously to Trump’s attempts to poach German Scientists working on a Coronavirus Vaccine

German government ministers have reacted furiously to reports the Trump administration has tried to buy exclusive rights to a coronavirus vaccine being developed by a German firm.

An explosive report in the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag cited German government sources as saying the Trump administration offered a “billion dollars” to secure exclusive rights to a coronavirus vaccine being developed by the firm CureVac, “but only for the USA.”

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-germany-covid-19-vaccine-not-for-sale-donald-trump-2020-3

LikeLike
on Mon Mar 23rd 2020 at 01:00:03 blakksage

Leviticus 11:13 And these are they which ye shall have in abomination among the fowls; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray.

Jump downto verse #19. ….

Leviticus 11:19 19 And the stork, the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat.

LikeLike
on Mon Mar 23rd 2020 at 12:31:55 Open Minded Observer

“Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.”
The CDC visit where he spoke these words is truly special. At 40:11 he starts in about how he has an uncle that’s a genius which is why he understands this stuff.. at 40:50 he’s speaking about the scientists, but points both thumbs at himself as he says “they should be given tremendous credit” Like somehow he’s really the one that should be given credit for vaccine development efforts because his uncle was a tremendous super genius… and that’s just the bits surrounding the quote above!

https://www.c-span.org/video/?470138-1/cdc-send-million-coronavirus-testing-kits-week

LikeLiked by 1 person
on Mon Mar 23rd 2020 at 13:48:13 Mary Burrell

Not a fan of Mitt Romney or his politics but I sympathize that he has a wife with Multiple Sclerosis and he has to self quarantine. Also the orange menace that occupies the White House, when was told Romney tested positive for Corona Virus was sarcastic and dismissive. I never thought I would see see the day when I would have to stay locked in my apartment and being close to other humans would kill me or someone else.

LikeLike
on Mon Mar 23rd 2020 at 14:17:59 abagond

@1tawnystranger

“The fuck? Over 16,000 cases? We’ve not even reached 1,000 (as far as I know).”

In about two weeks in the US these are going to be the good old days.

LikeLike
on Mon Mar 23rd 2020 at 15:05:19 Afrofem

@ blakksage

“…the Trump administration offered a “billion dollars” to secure exclusive rights to a coronavirus vaccine being developed by the firm CureVac, “but only for the USA.”

Trump truly is the Pasha of Some-Nerve-Is-Stan. LOL!

Wish I could say I was surprised by his gall.

LikeLiked by 1 person
on Mon Mar 23rd 2020 at 15:15:22 Afrofem

@ Herneith

“…IT WAS HUGELY, PERFECTLY NEGATIVE. AND TREMENDOUS TOO!”

Thank you for my raucous laugh of the day!

I scrolled past it the first time you posted because I tend to ignore the crazy nine year old crap he spews from his mouth on a daily basis.

He has admitted to talking bs to distract from the truly ugly and incompetent policies of his administration…besides his followers and the media love it.

LikeLike
on Mon Mar 23rd 2020 at 19:19:02 Solitaire

@ Afrofem

“Only Trump could make George W. Bush look like a statesman.”

At some point on the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001, I thought to myself, “I wish Bill Clinton was still president.”

Then I thought, “Hell, I wish W’s father was still president.”

Then I started going through the list of presidents in my lifetime and rather surprised myself by concluding, “Yes, even Nixon would be a better president right now.”

I never thought, less than 20 years later, this country would be in a crisis where I would have to say, “Yes, even George W. Bush would be a better president right now.”

LikeLike
on Mon Mar 23rd 2020 at 22:10:37 Afrofem

@ Solitaire

“Yes, even Nixon would be a better president right now.”

So true. As detestable as Nixon was, he knew how to get things done. He didn’t waste time with public ego preening and juvenile statements like,

“MY DOCTOR SAID IT WAS THE BEST AND GREATEST SCORE OF ANYONE WHO HAS TAKEN THE TEST.”

Makes you wonder how anyone could make it to 70 plus years old and be in such a state of arrested development.

LikeLike
on Tue Mar 24th 2020 at 04:14:16 Michael Barker

I will admit I plagiarized Solitaire’s joke about Bush looking like a statesman with my neighbor. That got a good laugh.

Note: 9:12 pm West coast time. 46,418 U.S infected. 384,015 World.

LikeLike
on Tue Mar 24th 2020 at 05:30:04 Solitaire

@ MJB

The “statesman” joke was Afrofem, not me.

Is anyone else disturbed by the news that Trump wants everyone to go back to their offices and schools after next week?

Meanwhile, the UK is going on lockdown, as well as large sections of India.

I also read there’s been an uptick of cases in Hong Kong after they recently relaxed their social distancing precautions.

LikeLiked by 1 person
on Tue Mar 24th 2020 at 12:15:36 Open Minded Observer

@Solitaire
“I also read there’s been an uptick of cases in Hong Kong after they recently relaxed their social distancing precautions.”
My guess is that’s to be expected. Without a vaccine, most of us will likely have Covid-19 at some point. The whole idea of flattening the curve is that many severe cases that could survive with treatment would die without treatment. So, we’re slowing the spread in an effort to balance the ratio of severe cases to treatment capacity. I suspect we’ll be doing some form of that for 18 months, not through shelter-in-place orders, but through voluntary/involuntary restrictions on visitation to care facilities, travel restrictions, restrictions on large events, maybe even year-round K-12 with staggered 2-week breaks, etc… Each step we take toward a return to normalcy will bring with it a wave of new patients, but they’ll have access to treatment because the timing will be better.

LikeLike
on Tue Mar 24th 2020 at 14:46:04 Afrofem

@ Open Minded Observer

I share your conclusions. I also think these COVID-19 related restrictions are meant to impress on the population just how serious this epidemic really is to them/us.

A lot of us, from Boomers to Gen Z grew up with the notion that science had “conquered” disease. HIV was a wake-up call from nature that we are still vulnerable. With SARS, MERS, Ebola and Zika, many in the Global North hit the snooze button and thought infectious diseases only happened to “other” people.

Now COVID-19 is clanging in our ears and we have to get up and make some fundamental changes to our health and other systems. Some of the changes will be welcome, some not. Nonetheless, change is coming.

LikeLiked by 1 person
on Tue Mar 24th 2020 at 15:01:29 Mary Burrell

If anything this crisis has taught me. That sorry platitude about all lives matter is garbage. Old people will die if they get sick with Covid19. Poor people will not get a bed or ventilator. This is the government’s way of thinning the herd. Lt. Governor Dan Patrick says the grandparents are willing to sacrifice their lives to make a better world for the youth. I never dreamed I would be living Logan’s Run or some other horror or science fiction novel or film that’s now become a reality.

LikeLiked by 2 people
on Tue Mar 24th 2020 at 17:14:53 abagond

@ Mary

Dan Patrick is yet another hollow “pro-life” Republican.

LikeLiked by 1 person
on Tue Mar 24th 2020 at 17:35:15 abagond

@ Solitaire

“Is anyone else disturbed by the news that Trump wants everyone to go back to their offices and schools after next week?”

I am. He and the Republicans care more about the stock market (= their money) than us worker bees and our families.

LikeLiked by 1 person
on Tue Mar 24th 2020 at 17:38:34 abagond

@ Open Minded Observer

Right, we are hamstrung by the capacity of the health care system. There is no going back to normal till they get the vaccine.

LikeLiked by 2 people
on Tue Mar 24th 2020 at 17:52:46 abagond

@ Afrofem

“A lot of us, from Boomers to Gen Z grew up with the notion that science had “conquered” disease. HIV was a wake-up call from nature that we are still vulnerable. With SARS, MERS, Ebola and Zika, many in the Global North hit the snooze button and thought infectious diseases only happened to “other” people.”

From historian Heather Cox Richardson:

“In all my reading today, one thing jumped out. In an interview, Dr. Fauci pointed out that every president he has served, starting in 1984 with Ronald Reagan, has had to deal with epidemic disease: Zika, AIDS, SARS, Ebola, H1N1, MERS. Some have handled their crises better than others, but after Reagan botched the AIDS crisis, they have always prioritized public health so effectively that most of us have had the luxury of forgetting that we live under these grave threats.”

Source:
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/march-23-2020

LikeLiked by 1 person
on Tue Mar 24th 2020 at 18:38:16 Solitaire

@ Open Minded Observer

I agree that eventually what you outlined will happen. But I don’t think we will succeed in flattening the curve if we stop the suppression attempt too early like Trump wants. We aren’t even making good progress now because there’s a patchwork of orders, not a national one, and too many people not taking it seriously.

LikeLiked by 1 person
on Tue Mar 24th 2020 at 18:44:55 Solitaire

@ Abagond

“He and the Republicans care more about the stock market (= their money) than us worker bees and our families.”

Exactly. And also Trump cares about getting reelected, which he thinks hinges more on the performance of the economy than on protecting our lives.

One thing a lot of the politicians are overlooking is what the effects on the economy will be of a raging plague.

LikeLiked by 1 person
on Tue Mar 24th 2020 at 19:15:50 Solitaire

@ Open Minded Observer

Also, we still don’t know yet if having the illness once confers immunity. The whole “herd immunity” strategy hinges on that. I’ve seen a lot of people assuming once you have it, you’re immune. While there’s reason to believe that may be so, Covid-19 is too new for scientists to know for sure.

LikeLiked by 2 people
on Tue Mar 24th 2020 at 19:21:33 abagond

On March 22nd Trump’s approval rating reached an all-time high of 49%. Only 45% disapprove.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/203207/trump-job-approval-weekly.aspx

LikeLike
on Tue Mar 24th 2020 at 20:03:16 Mary Burrell

Governor Cuomo is doing a better job of leadership than the orange menace that occupies the White House.

LikeLike
on Tue Mar 24th 2020 at 20:10:14 Mary Burrell

Trump telling people to go back to work. It’s my belief the GOP and the Republicans want most Americans dead. All he cares about is money. What happens when someone in his family like his wife or children get infected?

LikeLike
on Tue Mar 24th 2020 at 23:00:44 Mary Burrell

Mitt Romney is negative for Covid19. It was initially reported he had tested positive, he says he tested negative.

LikeLike
on Wed Mar 25th 2020 at 00:48:07 Open Minded Observer

@Solitaire
I have read mixed opinions on immunity and even some science that indicates our bodies will maintain antibodies for around 6 months. Obviously, it’s way too soon to tell.

I do have a secondary concern about vaccines rushed to market. Remember guillain barre from flu shots? that doesn’t happen anymore, but it was very real once upon a time and I actually know 3 individuals that suffered from it I have little faith in this administration to do anything right or cautiously. Quick is fine, rushed and cutting corners is something else.

LikeLike
on Wed Mar 25th 2020 at 05:59:58 Solitaire

#notdying4wallstreet is trending on Twitter

LikeLiked by 2 people
on Wed Mar 25th 2020 at 12:24:35 Open Minded Observer

@Solitaire
Don’t get me wrong… I wasn’t arguing for a pre-mature return to work which would bring with it a huge & tremendous surge in severe Covid-19 cases that would overwhelm the healthcare system. I was just commenting on the fact that pretty much any quarantine effort (short of sheltering in place for 18 months until a vaccine is available) will not stop the disease. It’ll merely slow the progression.

I don’t want me or mine to die for Wall Street either. Unless I can completely re-invent it, my business will very likely not survive this. I have no idea what society or economics will look like if we get to the point where the majority of Americans who work paycheck to paycheck cannot pay their debts, and are not buying any goods. Management people are working from home right now, but if you don’t have goods being manufactured because workers aren’t at work and you don’t have customers buying those goods because they aren’t earning an income, nor do they have need for those goods anymore, then “white collar jobs” also stop earning because there’s nothing left to manage. Money becomes meaningless and our value as people gets defined by what we can contribute to our immediate society and not by how much we’ve been able to extract from others. Anyway, I look forward to finding my niche in whatever the World looks like on the other side of this. But, I also understand the fear of those who have become comfortable and made progress in their plans for a future they know will not look the same if the economy remains frozen for too long.

LikeLike
on Wed Mar 25th 2020 at 14:50:42 Solitaire

@ Open Minded Observer

No worries, I didn’t think you did.

I will say — and I know this is a pipe dream, but it is also true — that if the 1% actually cared about this country and were willing to sacrifice for it, they could bail the rest of us out for some considerable amount of time.

They are sitting on billions and billions of hoarded wealth, that our government should never have let them amass to the detriment of the average worker, anyway.

I’m not including you in that. Not sure if you have any employees or are simply self-employed, but I know you are not one of the filthy rich and that your concerns about your business are very real.

I can’t remember where I saw it, but somewhere online last week I read a comment about how the Trump administration would soon decide to sacrifice part of the population and that we would know it when they began saying, “These people are going to die soon of old age or their underlying conditions anyway.” That’s not exactly the rhetoric coming out now, but pretty damn close. Trump and his enablers are floating a trial balloon.

LikeLiked by 1 person
on Wed Mar 25th 2020 at 15:00:48 Solitaire

Imagine if our government was doing something like this:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/denmark-freezing-its-economy-should-us/608533/

LikeLike
on Wed Mar 25th 2020 at 21:43:51 munubantu

Look at this article:

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/25/politics/donald-trump-gallup-approval-polling/index.html

Very strange. So now most Americans believe Trump is doing good!? Very strange.
Can the American contributors of this forum comment on this? Do this corresponds to what they are seeing around them?

LikeLike
on Wed Mar 25th 2020 at 23:20:17 Mary Burrell

So we got to wait until May to get that stimulus check?

LikeLike
on Wed Mar 25th 2020 at 23:35:53 abagond

@ munubantu

I do not know anyone in real life who thinks Trump is doing a good job. Not even a friend of mine who is a diehard Republican. They all think he is an idiot. But then again, most of us come from a blue (anti-Trump) part of the country (north-eastern US) and are currently living under a stay-at-home order.

LikeLike
on Thu Mar 26th 2020 at 03:27:53 Solitaire

@ munubantu

The article brought up one likely possibility, which is in times of crisis — especially at the very start — presidential approval ratings soar. On 9/11, all George W. Bush did was basically piss his pants in a kindergarten classroom and then fly around aimlessly for hours on the presidential airplane cowering in his seat, yet his approval ratings sky-rocketed.

This article may provide a more nuanced view of the importance of those recent polls:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/trumps-approval-ratings-are-up-but-for-how-long.html

LikeLike
on Thu Mar 26th 2020 at 03:30:32 Solitaire

@ Munubantu

Comment to you in mod

@ Abagond

At times like these, you really ought to let us swear more. JMHO! 🤐🤐😀

LikeLike
on Thu Mar 26th 2020 at 05:49:54 Afrofem

@ Abagond

Thank you for sharing a link to Heather Cox Richardson’s 3-23-20 blog post. It was interesting reading.

“Dr. Fauci pointed out that every president he has served…has had to deal with epidemic disease: Zika, AIDS, SARS, Ebola, H1N1, MERS. Some have handled their crises better than others, but after Reagan botched the AIDS crisis, they have always prioritized public health so effectively that most of us have had the luxury of forgetting that we live under these grave threats.”

That quote brought to mind the ways the COVID-19 pandemic differs from those earlier pandemics. Those differences include:

❆ long incubation periods and asymptomatic carriers which allow the virus to spread willynilly before health and government authorities can contain the virus.

❆ widespread travel that spread the virus globally.

❆ origination of the virus in the Global North (Northeast Asia, Europe and North America). HIV, Ebola, MERS and Zika seemed to originate in the Global South. Those pandemics devastated millions of people’s lives throughout Africa, Latin America, South and Western Asia (aka the Middle East). At most, those pandemics only affected select populations in the Global North.

While I agree with Professor Richardson that some former US presidents, “…handled their crises better than others…”, it is also true that each of them had a hand in undermining the US public health system through government funding cuts and privatization over the past forty years.

They were hardly alone. Congress, Federal courts and lawmakers in every statehouse were also part of the wrecking crew. Driven by ideology and greed, they hollowed out public systems like easter eggs. They suctioned out the nourishing interiors and left fragile shells that crack under stress.

Now we are faced with a global pandemic. We are facing this pandemic without the institutional tools we expected to be available. On top of that, we are facing a pandemic with a president who has openly signalled his willingness to sacrifice the health and lives of the American people so that he and his class can re-open the country for business.

I’m struck by the level of delusion by that line of thinking. Who exactly do they expect to sell goods and services to during and after a pandemic? We are already sliding into an economic depression. As Open Minded Observer so clearly noted upthread:

“Management people are working from home right now, but if you don’t have goods being manufactured because workers aren’t at work and you don’t have customers buying those goods because they aren’t earning an income, nor do they have need for those goods anymore, then “white collar jobs” also stop earning because there’s nothing left to manage. Money becomes meaningless and our value as people gets defined by what we can contribute to our immediate society and not by how much we’ve been able to extract from others.”

Well said, Open Minded Observer.

We are currently governed by people too blinded by avarice and sheer stupidity to see the obvious. They have carefully built hardened structures to maintain their power over the past decades, but even reinforced buildings can tumble over during powerful earthquakes. Maybe not today. Maybe not a year from now. However, the swaying has begun….

LikeLiked by 1 person
on Thu Mar 26th 2020 at 08:15:16 Origin

It’s an edifice built on a balloon. The making of “profit” is not a moral foundation that can effectively govern human activity in a way that fosters respect for each other’s legitimate needs and those of the planet as a whole. I’ve been expecting its decline and demise for a while and the instrumentality is becoming clearer.

I want to expound but words are a pain.
To be succinct, a scene I ordain.
A two headed dragon, fierce and swift,
One head swallows people, one head bans thrift,
It deserts the highways and clears the stores,
In terror the people remain indoors,
There’s no weapon with which it can be banished,
It’ll eat until it’s no longer famished.
But as it consumes its appetite grows!
Ah! Starvation will likely provoke death throes.

But by the customs of the age,
full days of slaving earns a wage.
A plot of land is owned by few,
Food is dispensed as a packaged brew.
A doctor you will have to spurn,
Unless you’re one of those who earn.

Yet while the dragon outside lurks,
nary a person dares to work.
Lack of patrons closes malls,
As people stay behind their walls.
Business as a whole diminishes,
“You must stay inside ’til the dragon finishes!”

The King surveys his silent domain,
He’s blessed with greed but not much brain.
In his realm, when great wealth has been won
It is quickly forgotten and must be outdone

“Slave they must so that my wealth flowers”
“But I’ll have no power if the dragon devours”
He thinks very hard but he’s known to be dumb
This is proving a vexing conundrum

“If I feed the people with their taxes”
“They’ll wonder why they worked while the King relaxes”.
“If I keep my dear slavers afloat with more funds”
“My subjects may think about grabbing their guns”

“There’s also a usurper of whom I’ve been told”
“Who wants to treat even every small cold”
“I’ve said that can’t happen for the cost in gold”
“But if I prop up slavers that argument grows old”.

Alas the solution shone like the sun!
He couldn’t believe he was coming undone.
“My subjects may hate that the slavers’ I’ll pay”
“But I’ll do what I want anyway!!!!”

The rest of the story I’ll leave to be written
About how the greedy King finally got smitten.
My readers will surely complete the tale,
Once the future removes her veil.

LikeLike
on Thu Mar 26th 2020 at 13:14:34 v8driver

No, the check is supposed to come next wk, $1200+$500/child, a one shot deal. Apparently you must have filed 2018 fed taxes.

LikeLike
on Thu Mar 26th 2020 at 15:52:17 Afrofem

@ Origin

Bravísimo! Who knew we had a poet in our midst.

“My subjects may hate that the slavers’ I’ll pay”
“But I’ll do what I want anyway!!!!”

Oh yeah!

Wait until the subjects find out that Section 8 housing vouchers and WIC (Women Infants and Children food assistance) have been shuttered. His base will cheer until their $1200 ‘hush’ money is gone.

LikeLike
on Thu Mar 26th 2020 at 17:30:24 Origin

@Afrofem
LOL, yeah. I decided to have a little fun with it.
We’re living in interesting times.
This crisis stresses the system along all its vulnerable dimensions.

The global economic system is the “King” served by many governments including America’s. It’s main interest is in coming through this situation unscathed and it will violate every principle it supposedly holds as long as that will help it accomplish that aim.

LikeLike
on Thu Mar 26th 2020 at 21:52:00 Open Minded Observer

@munubantu
“Can the American contributors of this forum comment on this?”
There’s a lot of us that aren’t too smart.

Ok, that was sarcasm… Unlike Abagond who I think lives in a city, I live on the fringes between suburban and rural. Literally, my town is divided by a roadway and one half has stores, businesses, subdivisions, condos, apartments, etc… and the other half has a minimum required acreage to build which restricts it to farms and such. Head in one direction and you eventually hit the city, head in the other and you eventually hit 100+ acre parcels and government land. People here are a 50/50 mix of “Trump is an idiot” and “Trump is my president”. Those that consider him their president, do so because they feel that he speaks and does exactly what they would do were they given the chance to be president. Those folks are extremely angry at what they call “the government lockdown” and many of them believe the entire thing snowballed from media scare tactics. One school got scared and closed, then they all closed, then the businesses closed, then they lost their work hours or jobs. Family businesses are closing. People with no savings are sitting in houses filled with toilet paper, watching Netflix and their desperate to get back to work before they lose every tiny scrap they’ve worked their whole lives for. They are sad that some people will die. But, they believe death is inevitable and I think deep down, they might even consider it a blessing if they cannot see any way to get back on their feet. They also keep throwing around statistics like more people have died from flu that Covid19 already this year. They’re not seeing the progression and that Covid19 will eclipse the flu’s mortality rate in a short time. When that happens, when it’s people they know, then they’ll feel even more sad. However, I also believe it won’t matter. These are people that would go to work if you told them there was a 100% chance they’d become infected and if infected there’s a 3% chance they’ll die. They have a greater than 3% chance of death from lots of things and they’d rather get to work. Trump gets that and the approval ratings show it.

Anyway, that’s just my perspective from the folks I know throwing bon-fires and going to Walmart everyday because it’s open.

LikeLike
on Thu Mar 26th 2020 at 22:22:07 Solitaire

“the folks I know … going to Walmart everyday because it’s open.”

It must be because I’m an introvert and a homebody, but I don’t get what’s so hard about social distancing. I’m perfectly content to hole up at home, and I’ve noticed with glee how much quieter my neighborhood is because of the drop in motorized traffic.

LikeLike
on Fri Mar 27th 2020 at 00:17:14 Michael Barker

This L.A. Times article pretty much mirrors what Open Minded Observer writes:

Column One: He survived COVID-19. He’s broke. But he thinks America is overreacting
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-03-26/coronavirus-suburbs-trump-supporters-georgia-waffle-house

LikeLike
on Fri Mar 27th 2020 at 00:50:04 Origin

@Solitaire
LOL, I’m the same. I’ve been appreciating how clear the skies have been this week.

On another note, courtesy of the Federal Reserve:
https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/reservereq.htm

As announced on March 15, 2020, the Board reduced reserve requirement ratios to zero percent effective March 26, 2020. This action eliminated reserve requirements for all depository institutions.

A refresher from Wikipedia:

The reserve requirement (or cash reserve ratio) is a central bank regulation employed by most, but not all, of the world’s central banks, that sets the minimum amount of reserves that must be held by a commercial bank. The minimum reserve is generally determined by the central bank to be no less than a specified percentage of the amount of deposit liabilities the commercial bank owes to its customers. The commercial bank’s reserves normally consist of cash owned by the bank and stored physically in the bank vault (vault cash), plus the amount of the commercial bank’s balance in that bank’s account with the central bank.

So even though reserve ratios were low to begin with, bank lending is now completely unchained from deposits. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could lend money without necessarily having it on hand while obligating your debtors to pay it back with interest?

Imagine if your debtor used the loan to purchase a home and you’re able to take the home if they fail to keep up with the loan payments. Win, win! You either get a home for money you created to lend out, or you get real money (+ interest) paid back to you.

LikeLike
on Fri Mar 27th 2020 at 04:51:29 Afrofem

@ Origin

“…reduced reserve requirement ratios to zero percent…”

The banking casino is gearing up for record profits. This will lead to another credit bubble. When it bursts, how many people who scraped through COVID-19 will be utterly financially ruined?

The UK is putting together a special stimulus package for self-employed people, something the US has so far avoided. It consists of cash grants and low interest loans.

Even BOJO (Prime Minister Boris Johnson) is showing leadership in ways that escape Trump.

LikeLike
on Fri Mar 27th 2020 at 04:52:35 Afrofem

Oops, forgot to add the link:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/26/coronavirus-uk-offers-self-employed-80-of-earnings

LikeLike
on Fri Mar 27th 2020 at 04:56:50 Origin

@Afrofem
“This will lead to another credit bubble”

It’s so crazy because we’re already in a credit bubble since the “recovery” from the last financial crisis and they’re planning to inflate it more in response to COVID.

LikeLike
on Fri Mar 27th 2020 at 05:08:28 Afrofem

@ Origin

They never let a disaster go to waste. Another opportunity to stomp on people when they are down.

LikeLike
on Fri Mar 27th 2020 at 06:50:10 Origin

@Afrofem
True. Legislation arising out of the 2008 crisis allowed them to do many of the things they’re doing now without going back to congress. However 2008 was a true financial crisis. It was the system imploding. Now we have an exogenous circumstance (a pandemic) that is putting pressure on the financial system and the Fed is following 2008’s playbook, on steroids.

The difference is that COVID has REALLY reduced commerce significantly and doesn’t care about the Fed’s manipulations only medical interventions or time. So some people are concerned that increasing the money supply when the provision of goods and services has actually contracted may not work out so well in the long run since prices may be driven up.

LikeLike
on Fri Mar 27th 2020 at 08:56:44 iamvistinginstructoreric

Reblogged this on Project ENGAGE and commented:

h-nCOVID-19 is not a political virus designed by Trump. We are in early stages of government input or collaborations to eradicate the virus at the genomic level. But, each person that has contracted h-nCOVID-19 by whatever vehicle, must evaluate their own value system, managing relationships with family, friends, coworkers, and have an understanding about monetary matters about staying healthy. Staying healthy is a choice based upon those things, I just aforementioned.

LikeLike
on Sat Mar 28th 2020 at 11:23:15 v8driver

Well freelancers, self-employed independent contractors who do not pay UI taxes apparently now are being included in tradtional unemployment. So we’ll see, i fit in this category and have filed.

LikeLike
on Sat Mar 28th 2020 at 17:35:37 Afrofem

@ v8driver

Thanks for the update.

LikeLike
on Sun Mar 29th 2020 at 23:09:49 Afrofem

@Open Minded Observer

You called it days ago: “The latest sign the economic downturn is intensifying: White-collar workers are being laid off now” on the Washington Post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/28/white-collar-coronavirus-recession/

LikeLike
on Mon Mar 30th 2020 at 13:16:09 Mary Burrell

The inmates are definitely running the asylum in our government. Especially in the White House, and this cabinet. I never dreamed I would see the day when the person holding the office of President of the United States and his incompetent cabinet members. Many health care workers such as doctors and nurses are dying from taking care of patients infected with the virus. It frightening watching the news and seeing a large refrigerated truck to store the remains of the dead. New York is being devastated. Trump is accusing the nurses and doctors of stealing the personal protective equipment. People are dying and he’s tweeting about his approval ratings. Trump is Emperor Nero fiddling while Rome burns. In this case he is golfing and tweeting, while the world is burning.

LikeLike
on Mon Mar 30th 2020 at 13:23:32 Mary Burrell

So if all the Governors are not all kissing Trump’s orange posterior he gets offended and will not help those states especially blue states. Trump refuses to help the state of Michigan and New York because those Governors will not bow bow down and kiss his ring. I have never detested a President as much as I detest this current orange menace nightmare.

LikeLike
on Mon Mar 30th 2020 at 15:04:42 Mary Burrell

Doctors, nurses, health care workers need PPE, ventilators. Trump’s narcissism and incompetence is killing many Americans.

LikeLike
on Mon Mar 30th 2020 at 23:01:27 Solitaire

Mary Burrell wrote:

“Trump is accusing the nurses and doctors of stealing the personal protective equipment.”

He keeps saying stuff like, “How do they go from using 10,000 masks to 300,000? You go into these hospitals, they have one or two ventilators, now suddenly they’re asking for thousands?”

It’s like his brain is broken.

Even a child can understand that an epidemic increases the need for medical equipment and supplies!

LikeLiked by 1 person
on Tue Mar 31st 2020 at 16:17:04 Open Minded Observer

@Afrofem

Many of those “white collar” workers are folks with a few months operating cash in savings. If the virus peaks in a couple of weeks and we start getting back to work mid-June, we’ll have some jobs that were vacated by the deceased that will need to be filled, folks shuffling with re-training and many jobs just vanishing due to lack of demand and/or their jobs were superfluous in the first place. So, normal won’t be normal for those folks right away and they’re just now starting to come to grips with that.

However, most people have bills due right now and while there are delays and deferments available, those still create a financial hole that will take some time to dig out of. Even in a “best case scenario”, it may be years before most people’s life plans are back on track. If some of the +30% unemployment predictions are true, I imagine we’ll see some breakdowns or shifts in government control. I don’t know about everyone else’s area, but police presence is quite noticeable here. I suspect that’s as a deterrent… see a cop every mile or so or around every corner and it makes you think twice about committing an act out of desperation that could serve as a catalyst for a much larger event. In reality, it will the the police reaction to a somewhat minor event that sparks off a more significant event.

So, basically, the longer this goes on, the more people that get strained to the breaking point, the higher the likelihood the “worst case scenario” is quite a bit more dramatic than losing 3-10% of the population and 20% of the economy over a 12-month period. But, in my humble opinion, even the “best case scenario” puts us into September before we’re settled into our new normal and spending the next couple of years reckoning with the human loss and trying to regain what we’ve lost economically.

LikeLiked by 2 people
on Tue Mar 31st 2020 at 19:52:20 Mary Burrell

Trump says 100K is a pretty good job. Who thinks like this except a sociopath.

LikeLike
on Tue Mar 31st 2020 at 20:11:25 Afrofem

@ Open Minded Observer

Great points.

I would add that long before COVID-19 wreaked havoc with people’s lives many Americans were barely making it from one paycheck to the next. That was true not only of low wage workers (under $30k) but also of six figure households ($100k to $200K per year).

According to a CNBC report, up to 33% of households over $100k are running out of cash between paychecks.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/11/32-percent-of-workers-run-out-of-cash-before-payday.html

https://fm-static.cnbc.com/awsmedia/chart/2020/02/11/salary-finance-running-out-of-money.1581439825535.png?

Growing up, I thought once you hit a $100k per year, your financial worries vanished. No longer. Seems like the costs of housing and healthcare are taking big bites out of a lot of folks.

If we have an expected echo epidemic in the winter of 2021, a lot of people will be left in a prone position, financially and emotionally.

LikeLiked by 1 person
on Tue Mar 31st 2020 at 20:39:40 Afrofem

Last Sunday, a pundit on ABC discussed how Trump views his presidency as a TV show: The Trump Show. He constantly watches his approval and ratings numbers. Those numbers matter more to him than governing.

When COVID-19 appeared as an unexpected guest star, he tried to “fire” the guest star and move on with his show. He was helped along with high approval ratings a few weeks ago.

When the state governors started publicly exposing his failings, he lashed out in his usual fashion to try and control the story line of his show. Now many of the Democratic governors are seen as effective while he and his administration are not.

Even though he finally seems to be facing reality, his administration is still fumbling. They have not brought all resources to bear; namely the Veterans Administration (VA) medical system. The VA system with 170 hospitals and 1,000 clinics are part of the nation’s emergency medical system. According to a ProPublica article:

“The VA serves 9 million veterans through 170 hospitals and more than 1,000 clinics, but it’s also legally designated as the country’s backup health system in an emergency. As part of the National Disaster Medical System, the VA has deployed doctors and equipment to disasters and emergencies in recent instances such as Hurricane Maria and the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida. The VA system has 13,000 acute care beds, including 1,800 intensive care unit beds.

But for the coronavirus pandemic, VA Secretary Robert Wilkie told lawmakers this week that the agency won’t spring into action on its own. Instead of responding to pleas for help from states and cities, Wilkie said he’s waiting for direction from the Department of Health and Human Services or the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

[…]

Lawmakers are frustrated to see the VA largely sitting on its hands as the crisis escalates.”

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-trump-administration-is-leaving-the-nations-emergency-backup-hospital-system-on-the-sidelines

The Trump administration can’t even get their messaging straight about the role of the VA. The article noted:

“The White House referred questions to the VA. The VA referred a question about taking directions from HHS and FEMA to those agencies. HHS referred questions to FEMA, and FEMA referred questions to the VA.”

The Trump show is ripe for cancellation, but I fear we may have to suffer through re-runs of this stinker for four more years.

LikeLike
on Tue Mar 31st 2020 at 21:05:32 Open Minded Observer

“but also of six figure households ($100k to $200K per year).”

Of course you’re right. Many have a buffer, but a third do not. Which is part of why I found the stimulus bill cutoff starting at $150k household to be a little surprising. There’s a dramatic difference in lifestyle between a $30k household and a $150k household, but there’s also a shocking amount of debt funding the lifestyle of the latter. I’m not arguing that debt “should” be the catalyst for keeping the economy moving… but it is. So, if those folks stop borrowing and spending and start living within their means, maybe because they filed bankruptcy to get out from under their pre-Covid19 debt, that will likely impact the economic downturn as well.

“If we have an expected echo epidemic in the winter of 2021…”
I suspect we will be more medically prepared and less economically prepared. So the gov’t will just trudge through it trying to keep the economy flowing.

LikeLike
on Tue Mar 31st 2020 at 21:28:42 abagond

@ Afrofem

“Last Sunday, a pundit on ABC discussed how Trump views his presidency as a TV show: The Trump Show. He constantly watches his approval and ratings numbers. Those numbers matter more to him than governing.”

It is like a reverse Truman Show! Reality TV has swallowed up reality.

LikeLike
on Tue Mar 31st 2020 at 23:33:34 Afrofem

@ Open Minded Observer

I still remember how shocked I was when I read that article in February 2020.

Many households with $100k plus incomes also feel a need to keep up with their peers. They also compare themselves to people with higher incomes and net worth situations. That leads some of them to pile on debt with no cushion for this proverbial rainy day.

On the other hand, I know people who live rather simply (nice mortgage-free house, decent, but not flashy cars, a notable absence of bling in their homes or clothes) who are multi-millionaires.

My mother used to call the flashy types “new money” with a sardonic smile.

LikeLike
on Tue Mar 31st 2020 at 23:35:16 Afrofem

@ Abagond

“Reality TV has swallowed up reality.”

Oh yeah! Until reality bites back, like now.

LikeLike
on Wed Apr 1st 2020 at 10:30:59 munubantu

I know that Trump is oft criticized in this forum for a lot mistakes is doing during his presidency, but yesterday he did the right thing and must be recognized by that, in the sake of the people of the USA and, indeed, every human with a conscience: he accepted reality, as it is, and decided to make something in the right direction (what he should do by the way). A good new, a good day.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/31/politics/trump-coronavirus/index.html

LikeLike
on Wed Apr 1st 2020 at 12:59:59 Mary Burrell

Trump never takes responsibility for his incompetence and ineptitude. So now he is saying his slow response to handling this crisis is because of the impeachment trials. Unfortunately, a very large number of Americans have drank the kool -aid and buying this. Many Americans refuse to see what a monster this current occupant of the White House is.

LikeLike
on Wed Apr 1st 2020 at 23:15:29 Solitaire

@ Munubantu

The problem is that Trump rarely lets his good decisions stand. He will do the right thing and then just a couple days later will change his mind.

I understand your wanting to give him credit for finally making a move in the right direction, but he is still doing so many things wrong. He has lowered the bar so badly that people praise him for doing things that would have been matter-of-course for any competent president.

Even the article you linked to pointed out that in this same briefing, Trump:

⚬”indulged in his familiar misinformation and political shape-shifting that underscored his own erratic leadership and dishonesty”

⚬”claimed of the virus, ‘It just reared up and came from nowhere.’ The White House in fact had weeks of notice once the disease emerged in China.”

⚬”appeared to be setting up a political construct to use in his reelection campaign under which he can claim to have saved hundreds of thousands of lives”

⚬falsely claimed that New York and New Jersey “got off to a very late start” when in fact those states have been begging him for help that only the president can authorize

LikeLike
on Thu Apr 2nd 2020 at 02:10:45 abagond

Wow, so Obama’s pandemic playbook is just sitting right there on the Internet:

(https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6819268/Pandemic-Playbook.pdf)

It took me five minutes to find it.

The hideous anti-Obama backlash is getting hideouser.

LikeLiked by 1 person
on Thu Apr 2nd 2020 at 04:20:58 munubantu

@ abagond

The hideous anti-Obama backlash is getting hideouser.

?
I’m not following you here. What do you mean?
Why anti-Obama? What’s anti-Obama?

LikeLike
on Thu Apr 2nd 2020 at 22:23:02 Afrofem

More Trump Show commentary. Vaniity Fair ran an article yesterday explaining why Trump called off his ‘Easter Coronavirus Miracle’ episode. According to the article:

“Trump’s latest tonal and tactical shift (and almost certainly not the last) was driven by several factors, both personal and political.

Trump learned that his close friend, 78-year-old New York real estate mogul Stan Chera, had contracted COVID-19 and fallen into a coma at NewYork-Presbyterian. “Boy, did that hit home. Stan is like one of his best friends,” said prominent New York Trump donor Bill White.

Trump also grew concerned as the virus spread to Trump country. “The polling sucked. The campaign panicked about the numbers in red states. They don’t expect to win states that are getting blown to pieces with coronavirus,” a former West Wing official told me.

From the beginning of the crisis, Trump had struggled to see it as anything other than a political problem, subject to his usual arsenal of tweets and attacks and bombast. But he ultimately realized that as bad as the stock market was, getting coronavirus wrong would end his presidency. “The campaign doesn’t matter anymore,” he recently told a friend, “what I do now will determine if I get reelected.”

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/04/inside-trumps-decision-to-back-off-of-his-easter-coronavirus-miracle

Ya think?

LikeLiked by 2 people
on Thu Apr 2nd 2020 at 23:46:53 Michael Barker

I think the pandemic has finally rattled Trump.

He is lives in this narrcistic bubble with his paranoid delusions surrounded by people who stroke his ego.

I read somewhere that it took Tucker Carlson to convince Trump that the virus wasn’t a conspiracy and that he should take it seriously. He still was in denial about it.

I do think the impeachment hearings distracted both parties about the potential pandemic. The first senate meeting held at the end of January on the coronavirus was poorly attended. It took the stock market to crash before it got Washington’s attention.

A handful of senators in the know from both parties dumped their stocks before they crashed so there’s that.

The West coast did get a bit of a head start then the East coast with “shelter in place” ect.

The other reason I think numbers are lower in California is that it is a car culture here and only a small percentage of the population relies on mass transit. Everything is spread out here while New York city the population is far more dense and dependent on public transportation.

Curiously Trump and Governor Newsom of California have a good relationship. You would think that in the most anti trump state in the union there would be tension between them.

California has been able to draw on Federal aid as well as private industry. Silicon valley stepped up to buy needed supplies and Musk has started manufacturing ventilators.

“California governor to state leaders who haven’t issued stay-at-home orders: ‘What are you waiting for?”

(https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/01/politics/gavin-newsom-california-coronavirus-cnntv/index.html)

LikeLike
on Fri Apr 3rd 2020 at 00:49:12 Michael Barker

I think the weather will warm up and the infection numbers in the Northern hemisphere will drop. Trump will declare victory and bla bla bla.

But I think its probable the virus returns in the fall. By November it should be back in full swing. No one is preparing the country for this senerio. It might very well impact the elections in that they are delayed or the voter turnout so poor that the election will seem like a farce.

I think if it does return in the fall we will have enough ventilators in place, hospital beds ect to handle it and minimize death rates. But that also means 4 to 6 months more shelter in place and that will hammer the economy in ways I can’t even imagine.

LikeLike
on Fri Apr 3rd 2020 at 04:32:31 Origin

In a microscopic virus, Trump has met his match; an adversary even more implacable, bullheaded and unconcerned with the consequences of its actions than he is.

LikeLike
on Fri Apr 3rd 2020 at 04:51:06 Origin

@MJB
I’m not so sure the warmer weather will see it go away completely. Perhaps we might see a lull in the rate of growth, but naturally warm countries (Brazil, Ecuador, Philippines, Malaysia, DR) have epidemics chugging along even now. Even if heat helps somewhat, it’s normal for people to be inside together in air conditioned buildings in the summer in America.

LikeLike
on Fri Apr 3rd 2020 at 05:32:22 Solitaire

I think it is a mistake to assume COVID-19 will act in predictable ways based on other illnesses.

(Caveats before I go on: I don’t mean to single out MJB here; this is very common thinking at the moment among many people — and there is of course a possibility that warmer weather will indeed slow the spread. I certainly understand why people make these types of assumptions, which are based on their prior knowledge and experience. I also don’t want to suggest that I’m not susceptible to this kind of thinking myself. I vastly underestimated what COVID-19 would do in the U.S. based on our previous experience with SARS.)

The article below addresses the commonly-held myths bound up in the seasonal theory:

https://ccdd.hsph.harvard.edu/will-covid-19-go-away-on-its-own-in-warmer-weather/

Another very common assumption is that once someone has COVID-19, they will become immune. This article has a detailed breakdown of the reasons why we shouldn’t assume that to be true:

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/20/819038431/do-you-get-immunity-after-recovering-from-a-case-of-coronavirus

LikeLiked by 1 person
on Fri Apr 3rd 2020 at 12:17:45 Mary Burrell

Trump is trying to distract from the Covid19 crisis by talking about his popularity on Facebook. Talking about drug cartels and other nonsense. Talking about the wall again. I think it would be good for me not to listen to his 💩show of press conferences.

LikeLike
on Fri Apr 3rd 2020 at 12:42:48 Mary Burrell

Saw a tweet that said “He was only supposed to kill only one person in the middle of Fifth Avenue not 200,000.” We are living in a frightening nightmare.

LikeLike
on Fri Apr 3rd 2020 at 13:12:02 abagond

@ munubantu

The week after Trump took office I said:

What little good he [Obama] did is now being swept away by President Trump.

It is good that the US had a Black president. In the long run I think it will help weaken racist stereotypes. Obama and his family were the picture of grace and dignity. You could not ask for better. But the shock proved too much for the nation, even with its ideas about Exceptional Negroes. And now we must live through the grotesque White blacklash.

More:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2017/01/26/obama-retrospective/

And ever since Trump has been undoing Obama’s policies, even if he had nothing better to put in their place. Among the things he has undone is much of what little pandemic preparedness Obama had put in place in the wake of the Ebola crisis.

That is why I say the anti-Obama backlash is getting hideouser.

Hopefully this will break the back of Trump’s support, but the stupidity in the US is profound.

LikeLiked by 1 person
on Fri Apr 3rd 2020 at 18:16:23 blakksage

“Hopefully this will break the back of Trump’s support, but the stupidity in the US is profound.”

Folks haven’t seen anything as of yet. Wait until they approve suspension of certain parts of the US Constitution.

LikeLiked by 1 person
on Fri Apr 3rd 2020 at 22:34:01 Solitaire

@ Mary Burrell

The sad thing is, Trump said, “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters” — and he has plenty of voters who will still support him if 200,000 Americans die from the virus.

He is trying to set up a narrative that if 200,000 Americans die, he will be a hero for keeping the number below a million.

I saw a comment that said, “Trump is the only president who is so full of 💩 that we all ran out of toilet paper.”

LikeLike
on Sat Apr 4th 2020 at 03:27:45 Michael Barker

Here is an article that explores the Wahun virology lab’s connection with the coronavirus outbreak.

Disclaimer: It is published by the National Review which is a right leaning conservative magazine.

Regardless the artical seems well researched though still speculative considering China’s closed society.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/coronavirus-china-trail-leading-back-to-wuhan-labs/

LikeLike
on Sat Apr 4th 2020 at 12:10:30 Origin

Here’s another article, this time from a publication that considered left-leaning, which is questioning the pandemic’s origin story.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/how-did-covid-19-begin-its-initial-origin-story-is-shaky/2020/04/02/1475d488-7521-11ea-87da-77a8136c1a6d_story.html

There’s a competing theory — of an accidental lab release of bat coronavirus — that scientists have been puzzling about for weeks. Less than 300 yards from the seafood market is the Wuhan branch of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Researchers from that facility and the nearby Wuhan Institute of Virology have posted articles about collecting bat coronaviruses from around China, for study to prevent future illness. Did one of those samples leak, or was hazardous waste deposited in a place where it could spread?

Richard Ebright, a Rutgers microbiologist and biosafety expert, told me in an email that “the first human infection could have occurred as a natural accident,” with the virus passing from bat to human, possibly through another animal. But Ebright cautioned that it “also could have occurred as a laboratory accident, with, for example, an accidental infection of a laboratory worker.” He noted that bat coronaviruses were studied in Wuhan at Biosafety Level 2, “which provides only minimal protection,” compared with the top BSL-4.

Ebright described a December video from the Wuhan CDC that shows staffers “collecting bat coronaviruses with inadequate [personal protective equipment] and unsafe operational practices.” Separately, I reviewed two Chinese articles, from 2017 and 2019, describing the heroics of Wuhan CDC researcher Tian Junhua, who while capturing bats in a cave “forgot to take protective measures” so that “bat urine dripped from the top of his head like raindrops.”

And then there’s the Chinese study that was curiously withdrawn. In February, a site called ResearchGate published a brief article by Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao from Guangzhou’s South China University of Technology. “In addition to origins of natural recombination and intermediate host, the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan. Safety level may need to be reinforced in high risk biohazardous laboratories,” the article concluded. Botao Xiao told the Wall Street Journal in February that he had withdrawn the paper because it “was not supported by direct proofs.”

Accidents happen, human or laboratory. Solving the mystery of how covid-19 began isn’t a blame game, but a chance for China and the United States to cooperate in a crisis, and prevent a future one.

LikeLike
on Sat Apr 4th 2020 at 12:37:50 v8driver

i have 3 masks and some gloves, still taking the bus! The busses are free now in Philly, they make the passengers get on by the back door, so they don’t go near the driver. People on the street, it’s like 30-50% wearing masks… I’m apparently not getting the stimpy check over child support, and the unemployment web site just gives a 500 server error when I go to check my claim, so little contagions or not I need some $$$!

LikeLike
on Sat Apr 4th 2020 at 12:39:29 v8driver

and, the first person I ‘have known,’ a high school classmate, has passed due to CV, it’s getting closer!

LikeLike
on Sat Apr 4th 2020 at 15:29:14 Michael Barker

I meant to post my comments on the Coronavirus thread. Maybe Abagond can move my comment and Origin’s to the proper thread so we don’t derail this one on Trump.

LikeLike
on Sat Apr 4th 2020 at 18:32:29 Afrofem

Why COVID-19 supplies are flowing into the country but the states and hospitals are critically short of medical supplies:

This is so important for everyone to understand. This explains why Governors say: I'm not getting the supplies I need – yet @POTUS says we are sending tons of supplies: It's going from the federal govt to commercial distributors who then deliver to the highest bidder: states! pic.twitter.com/A9jfmgBDLl

— David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud) April 2, 2020

One commenter [B. Justice] on this Twitter thread observed:

“The project is called Project Airbridge. It’s a public-private-partnership where the public pays for the airlift and then gets shafted by the private distributors who are in it just for the profit. Jared Kushner [Trump’s son-in-law] came up with this.”

Guess who is getting kick-backs galore for this criminal enterprise?

Nurses, doctors and other frontline medical staff are dying from lack of PPE (personal protective equipment) and medical supplies.

LikeLike
on Sat Apr 4th 2020 at 18:51:53 abagond

Jared Kushner is a ghoul.

LikeLike
on Sat Apr 4th 2020 at 18:56:58 abagond

@ Michael Barker

“I meant to post my comments on the Coronavirus thread. Maybe Abagond can move my comment and Origin’s to the proper thread so we don’t derail this one on Trump.”

I cannot move comments. I can only delete them. You can copy your comment and then tell me to delete the one here. Or just leave it here – it is not a massive derail.

LikeLike
on Sat Apr 4th 2020 at 20:40:03 Solitaire

@ Afrofem

There’s also fierce competition arising internationally for PPEs, with Trump being accused by multiple countries of

effectively hijacking shipments of masks and additional crucial supplies meant for other countries, including U.S. allies, and strong-arming private firms to prioritize America over other parts of the world….

In one case, according to a report in The Guardian, American buyers managed to “wrest control” of a shipment of masks from China that was supposed to go to France by offering three times the selling price. In another report, a German official accused the U.S. of an “act of modern piracy” after a shipment of masks from China that was meant for Berlin were seized and diverted to the U.S. while en route in Thailand. Similar reports emerged from Brazil, where a top official said China had set aside his country’s orders for equipment after the U.S. sent some 20 planes to pick up materials for itself.

https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2020/04/03/ppe-world-supplies-coronavirus-163955

And then the question arises, are these the same PPEs that Trump is then turning over to commercial distributors?

LikeLike
on Sat Apr 4th 2020 at 21:31:56 Afrofem

@ Solitaire

“…are these the same PPEs that Trump is then turning over to commercial distributors?”

I would not be a bit surprised if that was true. Trump Crime Family greed seems to know no bounds.

Meanwhile frontline medical personnel and ordinary citizens globally go without—-and some are dying as a result.

LikeLike
on Sun Apr 5th 2020 at 01:16:44 Solitaire

@ Afrofem

Our federal government should have been remobilizing industries weeks ago. We don’t have as many factories as we used to, but we could still pull it off. Did it in WW2, no reason not to do it now.

If I hear “We’re just back-up for the states” one more time, my head’s going to explode. 😠😤

LikeLike
on Sun Apr 5th 2020 at 02:38:01 abagond

@ Solitaire

The US did get a slow start in the Second World War, the Space Race, the Civil War, and the American Revolution, but wound up winning through in the end. But sometimes it just flounders endlessly, like in the wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

LikeLike
on Sun Apr 5th 2020 at 09:27:23 Origin

The country is way more ideologically neoliberal than it was 6 decades ago. I’m not surprised that a “market-based solution” to supplying PPEs is being pursued even if it means that supplies do not get to the places that really need them but private enterprise makes a profit.

LikeLike
on Sun Apr 5th 2020 at 09:37:12 Origin

Many will probably say they’re the “Christian Right” but …
James 5:

Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter.

Such hypocrisy.

LikeLike
on Sun Apr 5th 2020 at 12:49:27 v8driver

Well my UC went through, supposedly PA is 2nd only to CA for claims! It says it’s going to be ‘reviewed,’ but it accepted the ‘biweekly claim,” which is fortunate as I’ve been working off a 1099 for 12 years!

LikeLike
on Sun Apr 5th 2020 at 14:05:51 v8driver

Good luck trying to get masks or gloves!

LikeLike
on Sun Apr 5th 2020 at 20:56:02 Afrofem

@v8driver

A friend sent me this link re: relief for sole proprietors, self-employed and contractors. Hope it helps.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-small-businesses-apply-loans-coronavirus_l_5e862e85c5b6d302366cbb04

LikeLike
on Mon Apr 6th 2020 at 03:11:28 Solitaire

@ Afrofem

More on the Trump Crime Family’s grift:

Massachusetts had ordered a shipment of 3 million masks from BJ’s, which were “lost” in the Port of New York, he [Mass. Gov. Baker] reiterated. The governor said Friday he assumes those masks were confiscated and put in the federal stockpile. Marylou Sudders, the state’s health and human services secretary, has said they were impounded by the federal government on March 18.

https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2020/04/03/charlie-baker-emotional-response-kraft-mask-delivery

Gee, where did those masks go? Obviously Massachusetts didn’t get them, nor did New York even though that’s where the masks were seized and it would have been easy to distribute them immediately to NYC’s hospitals.

LikeLike
on Mon Apr 6th 2020 at 03:58:23 Afrofem

@ Solitaire

Yes, the Trump Crime Family is in full gangster mode.

As I mentioned on another thread, it would be different if they were trying to ease the suffering of the American people. Instead they want more ‘product’ to sell to the states for a profit.

Pretty sickening.

LikeLike
on Mon Apr 20th 2020 at 00:02:30 munubantu

The obsession of Trump to undo things of the Black President is leading him to obvious mistakes in various domains, in particular in how he is dealing with the current health crisis, aka, Covid-19 pandemic. It´s a pity really, more than anything else, because it is creating much more victims of the pandemic than would normally occur.
But there are a few things that could give a more favorable light on his doings that we should recognize:

Trump is being heavily criticized fir his late, slow and contradictory response to the pandemic in the USA, and rightly so. But are we not forgetting that at some point in time he was pushing for a ban to all travel connections to and from China because of the disease, and was criticized by that? Wasn’t he, basically right, at that time? In hindsight it seems to me so.
Is it not right to recognize that his drive to re-industrialize the country in some basic industries was right? The problem with some items required to treat patients in the current pandemic do not highlight that the USA should have retained those industries to produce said items (and others) alive? For example, it is not strange that local industries in the USA are not able to produce enough PPE (=personal protective equipment) needed for health personnel to deal with Covid-19, and because of that the country is trying to buy them in foreign markets?
(Not directly related to the pandemic but…) Trumps policies have not contributed to the expansion of the labor market and the reduction of unemployment? Even if we recognize that Obama policies had already began to create the room for the upswing of the economy?

I feel that part of the current Trump’s obsession for a quick reopen of the economy reflects probably his understanding that Covid-19 is undoing what he feels was his best performance until now: economic grow, reduction of unemployment, etc.
Paradoxically this obsession too, will drag him down.

LikeLike
on Fri May 8th 2020 at 01:35:29 Solitaire

Trump’s administration has buried a 17-page report from the CDC that would have provided detailed guidelines for safety precautions in reopening daycares, restaurants, churches, offices, etc.

https://apnews.com/7a00d5fba3249e573d2ead4bd323a4d4

LikeLike
on Fri May 8th 2020 at 17:37:54 Afrofem

Trump on video responding questions about 74,000 Americans dead and 30 million filing for unemployment:

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZB7dijpF20)

“It is what it is…” [?!?!?!]

Textbook sociopath.

LikeLike
on Fri Oct 2nd 2020 at 06:10:39 Origin

Trump’s latest statement on the coronavirus:
“@FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19”

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/01/politics/hope-hicks-positive-coronavirus/index.html

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump tested positive for coronavirus, the President announced early Friday morning, an extraordinary development coming months into a global pandemic and in the final stretch of his reelection campaign.
The diagnosis amounts to the most serious known health threat to a sitting American president in decades. At 74 years old, Trump falls into the highest risk category for serious complications from the disease, which has killed more than 200,000 Americans and more than 1 million people worldwide.

LikeLike
on Fri Oct 2nd 2020 at 10:24:58 munubantu

@ Origin

I only hope that he and his family are able to go out of that quickly and without much suffering, and henceforth he becomes wiser and looks at this danger more seriously.

LikeLike
on Fri Oct 2nd 2020 at 12:33:15 Open Minded Observer

I had three thoughts in rapid succession upon hearing this news today:
1st: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA (because deep down, I’m a terrible person with a love of irony.)
2nd: Statistically speaking, while he is in a higher risk category, even still, he’s very likely to have mild symptoms and if he does, it will only embolden his opinion that COVID is no big deal. Expect to hear, “I’ve had it and I’m fine. It’s absolutely not worth shutting the country down and destroying our economy like the Democrats want to do.”
3rd: He’s making the entire thing up specifically so that he can emerge in 7-10 days and behave like it was no big deal.

LikeLike
on Fri Oct 2nd 2020 at 15:48:32 Origin

@munubantu
Very optimistic take!
I’m thinking more like Open Minded Observer.

If 70+ y.o Trump only experiences mild symptoms and recovers quickly he’ll probably brag about it and downplay the virus even more. If it beats him up like it did Boris Johnson (who’s just 55), I’m not 100% sure what his attitude will be. Trump facing real consequences is not something that has precedent. However, I’d not be surprised if he still downplays how sick he was amidst rumors that he was in the ICU, etc.

LikeLike
on Fri Oct 2nd 2020 at 16:57:27 munubantu

Is there any possibility that this is “fake news” created to make him seem vulnerable and at this moment of pre-election campaign, garner for his camp much needed sympathy from the public? Until today I hear people doubting the “case of Bolsonaro” that went a few months ago.
Needless to say that without evidence in contrary, I believe the official narrative of events.

LikeLike
on Fri Oct 2nd 2020 at 18:40:27 Origin

@munubantu
I think it’s genuine.
Apparently the President of Notre Dame University has also tested positive for COVID-19.
https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/notre-dame-president-tests-positive-for-coronavirus/2348232/

He was seen neither wearing a mask nor social distancing at Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination ceremony at the White House as the Trump administration hypocritically rushed to replace RBG before her corpse was fully cold after holding up an Obama Supreme Court nomination for months in 2016 on the grounds than an election was imminent. People are now wondering whether the nomination ceremony was a COVID-19 super-spreading event.

I am by no means complaining about the poetic justice and I’m not the least bit sorry for them. We have witnessed so much perversity: brazen and shameless lying, arrogance, hypocrisy, callousness on a grand scale before the eyes of the entire world. But balance is a rule in all things just like water finds its level. So I’ve been sitting here asking, “Where is the comeuppance for which so many of us yearn”? Therefore I’m not going to pretend that I have any emotional concern about what is unfolding here. Let’s see what happens. COVID-19 is survivable and most of these folks will have access to the best care possible.

LikeLike
on Fri Oct 2nd 2020 at 20:36:54 Afrofem

@ Origin

“I am by no means complaining about the poetic justice and I’m not the least bit sorry for them.”

Same here.

We live in an age of science, yet most Americans are acting like they are living in 1520 instead of 2020. I’ve heard otherwise sane and intelligent people call the pandemic a “hoax”. I’ve seen adults crowd into political rallies, biker rallies and beach front prayer groups convinced they are immune to infection.

I read, hear or see the news everyday and shake my head at the boneheaded behavior on the part of some people.

LikeLike
on Fri Oct 2nd 2020 at 21:09:49 abagond

@ munubantu

I think that, if anything, Trump is in way worse shape than they are telling us. Much like the US. See the original post above.

LikeLike
on Fri Oct 2nd 2020 at 22:50:11 Solitaire

@ Abagond

He’s now been admitted to Walter Reed.

LikeLike
on Fri Oct 2nd 2020 at 23:03:15 gro jo

Abagond, If Trump dies will he get a “Resquiescant in pace.” from you?
Wouldn’t that solve the pending constitutional crisis about his leaving office?
Will Biff tell us it’s a dark plot from “the deep state” to get rid of him?
So many questions, so few answers.

LikeLike
on Fri Oct 2nd 2020 at 23:05:37 Origin

@Afrofem
We live in an age of science, yet most Americans are acting like they are living in 1520 instead of 2020.

And many of those people will still think Africa is “backward” even though data would suggest that Africa is handling this health crisis much better, with fewer resources at that. Everyone who had it in their minds that Africa would suffer the world’s most horrific death tolls (due to economic challenges within this exploitative system) are not having their expectations met. In fact, there are now articles suggesting that poverty actually SAVED Africa from COVID-19, if you can believe that.
https://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-africa-could-poverty-explain-231532235.html

But @munubantu can probably attest to the fact that Africans (in his country) are perplexed by the stupidity of many Americas in refusing to wear masks or reduce their risk by social distancing. African countries, OTOH, had no intention to be sitting ducks in the face of this pandemic and took reasonable steps to control the spread. Meanwhile entitled people in “advanced” countries performed all sorts of mental gymnastics to avoid taking responsibility and doing what’s necessary.

IMO, this could be a natural consequence of the collective cognitive deficiencies they’ve cultivated over time. It is no surprise that the most rabidly racist sub-population seem to be the ones most likely to claim COVID-19 isn’t a real threat. They’ve already practiced denial of reality through their consistent denial of racism and it’s consequences. I guess it’s easy to activate that same program for another input.

There is a certain irony that the people adjusted to hardship under “white supremacy” may be more mentally equipped to handle the onrushing challenges of the age. Perhaps the Cv pandemic is a “canary in the coalmine” for the current loci of power in the world.

LikeLiked by 1 person
on Sat Oct 3rd 2020 at 00:39:51 Solitaire

@ Origin

“People are now wondering whether the nomination ceremony was a COVID-19 super-spreading event.”

I have a friend who says this proves RBG just won her first court case on the other side.

LikeLike
on Sat Oct 3rd 2020 at 02:19:44 Origin

@Solitaire
They were found guilty of extreme hypocrisy!

BTW, Kelly-Ann Conway’s daughter has a rebellious TikTok channel and reports are that she’s saying her mother has also tested positive for COVID-19 and is coughing a lot.

LikeLike
on Sat Oct 3rd 2020 at 02:24:16 Origin

Apparently Conway was also at the nomination ceremony for RBG’s replacement on the Supreme Court.

LikeLike
on Sat Oct 3rd 2020 at 02:41:32 Origin

OK she confirmed it on twitter.

Tonight I tested positive for COVID-19. My symptoms are mild (light cough) and I’m feeling fine. I have begun a quarantine process in consultation with physicians.

As always, my heart is with everyone affected by this global pandemic. ❤️

— Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) October 3, 2020

So add Conway to the list – which includes Trump, Senator Lee and Senator Tillis along with the President of Notre Dame University – of those who were recently diagnosed with COVID-19 after having attended the judge’s nomination ceremony.

LikeLike
on Sat Oct 3rd 2020 at 04:08:08 Solitaire

Trump’s campaign manager Bill Stepien has just tested positive.

LikeLike
on Sat Oct 3rd 2020 at 04:11:01 Afrofem

@ Origin

Thanks for the link to the article about COVID-19 and low death rates in Africa.

I think Africans have several things going for them:

★ a prevalence of young people; the majority of most countries is under 40 years old.

★ an overall lack of chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease and asthma.

★ healthier diets low in junk foods, processed foods and sweetened beverages.

★ a lot less environmental pollution in the water, soil and air.

LikeLike
on Sat Oct 3rd 2020 at 04:13:13 Solitaire

@ Origin

“Apparently Conway was also at the nomination ceremony for RBG’s replacement on the Supreme Court.”

I just watched some of the C-Span footage from the ceremony. Conway, Barr, and others shaking hands, hugging, then rubbing their noses or their eyes. HFS!

LikeLike
on Sat Oct 3rd 2020 at 05:49:34 Origin

@Afrofem
Another factor is their experience dealing with infectious diseases.

Back when Nigeria recorded its first case in late Feb. there was an article on CNN talking about it, in which the head of Nigeria’s equivalent of the CDC stated confidently that they can manage it.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/28/africa/nigeria-confirms-first-case-of-coronavirus-intl/index.html

“Nigeria is ready,” Chikwe Ihekweazu said. “We successfully managed Ebola and we manage outbreaks all the time and are currently managing Lassa fever. We have a strong team that is used to doing this.”

The article went on the express concern about Nigeria’s large 200 million population and the potential for spread given water access issues etc.

Fast forward to July and the article below observes that the cases haven’t soared but that could still happen:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/it-s-tricky-thing-covid-19-cases-haven-t-soared-nigeria-could-change

So far, sub-Saharan Africa has not faced the extreme numbers of cases and deaths from the novel coronavirus some public health experts feared would occur. Nigeria, the continent’s most populous nation, has reported only 33,000 cases and just under 750 deaths among its nearly 200 million citizens. (The number of daily reported cases more or less stabilized in June, after an increase since April.) Like everywhere else, the true toll is likely higher—testing in Nigeria is scant—but the country hasn’t seen overflowing hospitals.

As of now I’m seeing 1,112 deaths so the huge spike never occurred. While there may be factors working in Africa’s favor (including the possibility that Neanderthal DNA raises the risk of a severe COVID-19 illness) there are also countervailing factors that some expected would weigh heavily against the continent. However their advantages AND their genuine efforts to contain the spread seem to have won out so far.

LikeLike
on Sat Oct 3rd 2020 at 05:54:19 Origin

Here’s another article about this in which the writer argues that Africa’s COVID-19 successes has been overlooked.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/21/africa-coronavirus-successes-innovation-europe-us

LikeLike
on Sat Oct 3rd 2020 at 05:57:50 Origin

@Solitaire
Yes! I saw some of the footage. Sometimes they standing so close they were almost kissing and masks had gone AWOL!

Ahhhh….swoon…it’s good that we have such responsible people running the country…

LikeLike
on Sat Oct 3rd 2020 at 07:44:57 Origin

I’ve had a barrage of posts, but in the likely case that Trump recovers from COVID-19, what effect do you think this will have on the political situation?

One negative consequence to his campaign is that he obviously cannot campaign while he’s in hospital. OTOH, instead of being attacked he’s being wished well by his political opponents and getting a certain amount of sympathy as a matter of decorum. Biden has suspended negative ads. [It’s funny because I can imagine Trump tweeting about Biden’s mask not helping him if the shoes were on the other foot.] The COVID-19 diagnosis has reduced his questionable statements in the debate and the somewhat embarrassing “Melania Tapes” to insignificance whereas they were in the news before.

The elections are near and they’ll be even nearer after he recovers if it takes him a couple weeks. He may still have a grace period after that from people who don’t wish to appear uncouth. So, assuming that Trump makes a complete recovery, I’m wondering if this episode my actually help him by suddenly changing him into a more sympathetic figure thus putting people who are concerned about “decency” on the back foot. What do you guys think?

(The Boris Johnson situation is an interesting parallel.)

LikeLike
on Sat Oct 3rd 2020 at 12:14:03 abagond

@ Origin

Is it too early to talk about a Pence landslide? I mean, that would be very 2020.

LikeLike
on Sat Oct 3rd 2020 at 15:53:03 Solitaire

Chris Christie has just tested positive for covid. He says no one was wearing masks during the debate prep last week.

LikeLike
on Sat Oct 3rd 2020 at 16:28:19 Origin

@abagond
It would be very 2020, lol!
I wasn’t even considering the ramifications of Trump croaking or being too sick to be a viable candidate and Pence replacing him just before the elections.

@Solitaire
Christie now, is it? Assuming they weren’t hanging around people who were obviously sick and coughing, it really underscores the stealthy way that the coronavirus can spread from asymptomatic people. This is why we wear masks instead of just avoiding obviously sick people.
Bill Barr is another is another attendee of Amy Corona Barrett’s nomination shindig that I have on my list as a possible case. He was seen in close contact with Conway, who has already confirmed her positive test.

LikeLike
on Sat Oct 3rd 2020 at 17:29:07 Solitaire

@ Origin

Christie was apparently at both the Rose Garden nomination ceremony and the debate prep. There’s footage of him shaking hands at the ceremony.

“Assuming they weren’t hanging around people who were obviously sick and coughing, it really underscores the stealthy way that the coronavirus can spread from asymptomatic people. This is why we wear masks instead of just avoiding obviously sick people.”

Reportedly Hope Hicks felt fine Wednesday when she left for Minnesota and started exhibiting symptoms while there, bad enough a few hours later that she isolated herself in a cabin on the plane during the return trip to DC.

That illustrates how quickly someone can go from presymptomatic to sick, and how no one around that person is safe — especially if they aren’t following proper protocol.

I really, really hope that at least some Americans who had a false sense of confidence will now wake up and realize these Republicans are not good role models for how to avoid infection.

The doctors at today’s briefing contradicted earlier anonymous reports that Trump was having trouble breathing and running a fever. Shades of Brezhnev?

LikeLike
on Sat Oct 3rd 2020 at 17:51:57 Solitaire

@ Origin

“Amy Corona Barrett’s”

LOL! Didn’t catch that the first time I read it. Typhoid Amy??

LikeLike
on Sat Oct 3rd 2020 at 19:41:19 Origin

@Solitaire
Typhoid Amy !?
DEAD 😀

This bio-hazard situation alone should disqualify her from the Supreme Court with all the older people on it. She’d be like a drop of soap in greasy pot the moment she landed on the bench.

LikeLike
on Sat Oct 3rd 2020 at 20:37:12 munubantu

@ abagond

In a comment made more than six months ago you raised the possibility that the current POTUS, given the disastrous way he was/is handling the COVID-19 pandemic, could even become himself a fatality. See, https://abagond.wordpress.com/2020/03/20/trump-on-the-coronavirus/comment-page-1/#comment-435139

And here we are. The old man has got the virus and modern medicine has not yet been able to counter this pathogen with assurance. He can die. The other members of his trio – Jair Bolsonaro and Boris Johnson – have been lucky enough to escape the deadly embrace of this enemy of human kind. Will he too be able to escape? A old Portuguese adage says that “à terceira é de vez”, meaning that at third attempt you succeed in what you do. Will this virus succeed this time? I hope not, but the odds are high that the outcome this time will be less than glorious.

In the meantime he is forced to “endure” the higher ethical and moral level of his political adversaries. Obama, Biden, Pelosi, etc sent to him their wishes of a quick recovery ( see for example, https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/02/politics/obama-trump-speedy-recovery-coronavirus/index.html ). To him, who was not able to show heart, humanism and compassion to the families of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Heather Heyer, Ahmaud Arbery and the uncountable victims of this pandemic that he helped take root in the USA. At these moments when he certainly contemplates all the odds at stake in this fight for his own life, he must look at the many wrongs he has done to other human beings. Maybe he should have remained a billionaire businessman instead of venturing at the trick waters of big politics.

LikeLike
on Sat Oct 3rd 2020 at 21:46:55 Solitaire

@ Munubantu

English has a similar saying: “Third time’s the charm.”

It is mind-boggling to read the original post and early comments. The number of fatalities were so scary then, and now they seem so small.

LikeLike
on Sat Oct 3rd 2020 at 22:00:37 Origin

The abagond comment which munubantu linked to said:

At the rate things are going, the US will be lucky to keep the death toll under a half million and Trump will be lucky to win ANY states – assuming he is still alive.

Yeah, that’s looking quite prescient now. It’s much more of a possibility now than when he said it back in March.

There are claims that Trump needed supplemental oxygen at the White House before he went to the hospital.
https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/president-trump-covid-19-positive-test-latest-news-2020-10-03/

President Trump received oxygen at the White House before he was transferred to Walter Reed Medical Center, two sources confirmed to CBS News’ Paula Reid. Mr. Trump’s physician, Dr. Sean Conley, told reporters on Saturday that Mr. Trump was “not currently on oxygen,” but did not say whether he had ever been.

Another strange, sneaky thing about COVID-19 is that some people with it have been acting normally even though they have dangerously low blood oxygen levels.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/why-don-t-some-coronavirus-patients-sense-their-alarmingly-low-oxygen-levels

Among the many surprises of the new coronavirus is one that seems to defy basic biology: infected patients with extraordinarily low blood-oxygen levels, or hypoxia, scrolling on their phones, chatting with doctors, and generally describing themselves as comfortable. Clinicians call them happy hypoxics.

“There is a mismatch [between] what we see on the monitor and what the patient looks like in front of us,”

LikeLike
on Sat Oct 3rd 2020 at 22:25:29 Solitaire

Chris Christie has been hospitalized.

This is the October Surprise that just keeps going.

LikeLike
on Sun Oct 4th 2020 at 00:48:22 Origin

@Solitaire
Hmm….looking into it more, apparently Christie is asthmatic too. Did these people actually believe their lies? How could he fail to take precautions when he’s possibly overweight and has a chronic breathing problem which would raise his risk?

I’ve said from the beginning that the tactics Trump and the GOP have become accustomed to using will not work against this implacable virus. It won’t be swayed at all by obfuscation, lies or gaslighting. Its borg-like mandate is to take over human bodies and reproduce. Period.

LikeLike
on Sun Oct 4th 2020 at 05:40:18 Mbeti

This has indeed been a strange year.
I

LikeLike
on Sun Oct 4th 2020 at 07:26:42 Mbeti

This has indeed been a strange year.
I am a hardcore atheist and no this year has not changed that.
But mystically (as in I don’t know but the universe is more complex than anything we can imagine including our pathaiec (my opinion) religions)

To me a signal of this was a famous sports figure and his daughter died in a helicopter crash along with 7 or 8 other people just before the pandemic/covid 19 hit the news.

And in addition to the obvious media courage here in Los Angeles, artist started painted murals of him and his daughter and people would stop get out of their car and pose for pictures in front of them.

I started to think and ask myself a few weeks into it ,
what where the names of the other passengers?
what was the first name even of his daughter that died with him?

And to quote Melania Trump jacket statement “I really don’t care , do you”
Sums up what I think most people think and feel about those other passengers ,even the sports figure’s daughter.

We have a hierarchy of human worth in this society.
which is why I have yet to hear of famous or wealthy black people getting harrased or assuled or killed by police or anyone else really.

Along comes the smallest biological organism known ,
And how does it affect the alleged most intelligent and powerful species on the planet including the most powerful and knowledgeable group of them – Americans?

One thing was they made a slogan “we are all in this together”
yeah right – any one see any drastic change in how we treat a population of us that can’t shelter in place or social distance or afford a mask etc etc?

Something happened to me around February and although I see how I layed the foundations I did not expect it to occur so soon and the pandemic/covid 19 has definitely helped.

Long story short – was born low income poor ,be came homeless for years as a result of the many deficits of being born black and poor in america and now I am tentively middle class.

I have gotten a bit of money this year (a whole saga in itself) for various sources,
extremely flexible job with two different companies both of which pay well,
plus income from a business I started 2 years ago,
etc etc

Now this not to say my problems have gone away nor that I have not experienced suffering and abuse ,arrested 2 twice (but exact same charge and released within a few hours both times;-) ,few weeks later asulted and my phone stolen right out of my hand.

And my nemesis racist americans still plague me and haunt my every step,
but I see many glimmers of hope even in the midst of the worse of it.

And the best of it, like I said I am now tentative middle class ,car ,home, and accessories like 3 (cause I just a beginner) and 4 figure total in multiple brokage accounts ,700 + credit score cause I payed off all outstanding debts and I budget and continually increase my financial literacy, etc

So now the meanest lying racist president you can imagine and his mean wife
(the jacket slogan while visiting immigrant families separated and imprisoned including their children and tapes revealing she hates or does not give a f–k about Christmas! I am a atheist and even I and many other atheist like Christmas!)
have gotten the virus he lied about and refused to respect or even care about the people affected.

And so many people dislike and hate him tweeter has to ban wishes for him and her to die.
And don’t tell me karma cause its one word ,a Hindu religious concept
and where is it and why don’t we rely on it to affect racist people ,indeed all criminals and better yet show m the scientific peer reviewed studies that validate or invalidate this idea.

As to wishing him or her well ,the best or a speedy recovery, how much hate and violence and lies should you forgive?

I cannot help but be elated that this happen to them even though its not justice ,they may well survive and I servelly doubt if they do that they will have any change in their lack of empathy or respect for other human beings and may well ignore sympathy toward them esp from “us” people.

Away I don’t know ,even though I have learned a lot,
I still rage ,and blame and even lie when I think necessary.

I am a part of this society too and just as guilty and deserving of the demise
that might befall this society.

The complaints of the lost of “our” democracy sound hollow to a me a member of a population that to this day ,the word is meaningless.

I do wish and hope the best for everyone ,but is this the truth (as in way of the universe ?,the best way? ) and realistic?

I am grateful for this blog and the technology that allows me to communicate to others as due to years of proverty I have many scars and and a extreme aloneness that is to me the direct result of my reaction to my proverty and the racism that participated in it – to hate back ,to rage, to mentally and emotionally seek revenge with our entertainment media as a guide ,and most importantly keep others away.

so I write infrequent long posts attempting to provide an overview and details beyond which i am capable.

and try to be as honest as possible.

LikeLike
on Sun Oct 4th 2020 at 12:33:05 munubantu

I just watched the news in television and now they are saying that the POTUS was likely infected at least 1 to 2 weeks ago and now he is going through the critical days of the disease. In 3 days things will clear themselves up.

A few questions:
1) How frequently is the POTUS really subjected to a Covid-19 test? Because if it is daily or even weekly then they (we?) should have known about the infection before.
2) Are they trying to dispel the notion that “that event” was really the trigger of most of these infections and continue the notion that, you know, masks don’t matter that much?
3) It smells fake news”. Ok, this is not a question! It’s me feeling out loud!

The POTUS released a video-clip and he is back to his combative mode, fighting for the greatness of the country.
Voilà!

LikeLike
on Sun Oct 4th 2020 at 17:44:31 Solitaire

@ Munubantu

“How frequently is the POTUS really subjected to a Covid-19 test? Because if it is daily or even weekly then they (we?) should have known about the infection before.”

The White House has been using a rapid test incorrectly.

[T]he Food and Drug Administration said the test was only to be used by a health care provider “within the first seven days of symptoms.”…

[I]n people who are infected but not yet showing symptoms, the test is much less accurate, missing as many as one in three cases.…

In May, after many reports of problems with the test, the F.D.A. warned that those who test negative using the test should confirm that result with a lab-based test.

Still, the Trump administration has routinely used the test to screen people without symptoms, allowing anyone who tested negative to go without a mask during meetings and official proceedings.

“Are they trying to dispel the notion that ‘that event’ was really the trigger of most of these infections and continue the notion that, you know, masks don’t matter that much?”

That event happened over a week ago, on Sept. 26, so it still falls within their timeframe.

“The POTUS released a video-clip and he is back to his combative mode, fighting for the greatness of the country.”

He made it sound like his getting sick was somehow confronting the threat, like going to battle. In reality, it may not even confer permanent immunity. He is so stupid. The virus doesn’t care if you’re afraid of it or not, but if you act like you aren’t afraid by flouting social distancing and refusing to wear a mask, you give the virus the opportunity it needs. Just as Origin said above.

LikeLiked by 1 person
on Sun Oct 4th 2020 at 19:52:13 Solitaire

By the way, it’s been reported that Hope Hicks tested negative for covid-19 on Wednesday morning, yet by Wednesday evening she was sick enough to self-isolate. Presumably she had a rapid test on Wednesday morning and got a false negative.

LikeLike
on Sun Oct 4th 2020 at 20:35:51 Solitaire

“There’s probably several super spreader events mixed up in this one scenario,” said Susie Welty, a contact tracing expert and technical director of surveillance at the University of California-San Francisco.

Welty said the number of people Trump and Hicks exposed to the virus could have expanded well beyond the circle of close contacts. The pair attended several events over the past week, drawing thousands of people. The list includes his top advisers, his campaign donors, his Democratic rival Joe Biden and scores of his supporters….

It may be impossible to determine exactly how many people Hicks and Trump exposed before they received their positive test results this week. It’s not even clear whether Hicks infected Trump – or vice versa. It’s possible they were infected by a third person.

Welty said it may have been “inevitable” that Trump and others in his inner circle became infected “because they were relying solely on testing to keep them safe” and shunning other tools – such as masks and distancing – that can prevent infection.

“It’s too late once you test positive,” she said. By that time, “you’ve already been around too many people and spread it to too many people.”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/10/02/how-did-trump-get-covid-and-who-has-he-infected/3590490001/

LikeLike
on Sun Oct 4th 2020 at 21:33:38 abagond

Prediction: If Trump getting covid-19 was a fake electoral stunt (to distract from his taxes, huge debts, and terrible debate performance), then he will be back at the White House on Monday (to reassure the stock market). If he remains at Walter Reed beyond tomorrow, then it was for real.

LikeLike
on Sun Oct 4th 2020 at 22:50:52 Afrofem

@ Mbeti

“So now the meanest lying racist president you can imagine and his mean wife…have gotten the virus he lied about and refused to respect or even care about the people affected.”

Funny how karma works.

I am more concerned about the 200 thousand (and counting) needless deaths that happened because the Prez and his gang didn’t care about the American people. They still don’t.

I think they are due even more chickens coming home to roost.

“I am a part of this society too and just as guilty and deserving of the demise that might befall this society.”

This sense of responsibility is difficult for many Americans. Many are totally clueless about the US role in world affairs. They know about the military (because there are bases in every state) but they have no idea that the US has 800 bases overseas in almost every country on the planet—–or why those bases exist.

The few Americans that read about economic sanctions have no idea about the pain and suffering they have caused. Most don’t even hear about economic sanctions because they only read gossip, sports, gaming or hobby sites. Americans are wrapped up in their own concerns and tend to forget about the rest of humanity.

“I am now tentative middle class ,car ,home, and accessories like 3 (cause I just a beginner) and 4 figure total in multiple brokage accounts ,700 + credit score cause I payed off all outstanding debts and I budget and continually increase my financial literacy, etc”

Congratulations to you, Mbeti! I hope your years of struggle have ended. May the wind be at your back from now on.

LikeLike
on Sun Oct 4th 2020 at 23:06:36 Afrofem

@ Abagond

Tuesday will be an interesting day.

LikeLike
on Sun Oct 4th 2020 at 23:27:50 Afrofem

@ Origin

Thanks for that Guardian article link upthread, “Why are Africa’s coronavirus successes being overlooked?”

From Senegal’s one dollar testing kit and COVID-19 planning in January 2020 to Ghana’s extensive contact tracing, it is good to read about Africans innovating their way through this pandemic. That and fully exploiting their human resources through scientists, community health workers and volunteers.

Not to mention good leadership. That would be the “good governance” that Global North policy makers and media always finds lacking in their view of Africa and Africans.

LikeLiked by 1 person
on Sun Oct 4th 2020 at 23:34:44 Solitaire

@ Abagond

I’m not so sure. Origin mentioned “happy hypoxics” above. In today’s briefing, Trump’s doctor said that he resisted one of the oxygen treatments, insisting it was unnecessary because he felt fine, even though his oxygen saturation level was below normal. His excursion in the limo earlier today was foolhardy and most probably against his doctors’ advice. I can definitely see a scenario where Trump insists on returning to the White House much sooner than his medical condition warrants.

There are many documented cases of patients feeling fine when their vitals suggest they are very ill, and then suddenly crashing in a matter of minutes. It remains to be seen how much the physicians will be able to protect Trump from himself.

LikeLiked by 1 person
on Mon Oct 5th 2020 at 16:52:49 Origin

Trump admin. Press Sec. Kayleigh McInaney tests positive for COVID-19.
This aged well…

With Kayleigh McEnany testing positive for COVID-19, here’s her in April: ”We will not see diseases like the coronavirus come here, we will not see terrorism come here…isn’t that refreshing when contrasting it with the awful presidency of President Obama?”pic.twitter.com/aSIYRpxZRp

— Khanoisseur 🐶🤦🏻‍♂️🌎 (@Khanoisseur) October 5, 2020

LikeLike
on Mon Oct 5th 2020 at 18:15:00 Solitaire

I read that two other press aides also tested positive. We’re hearing about the big names, but I wonder how many others aren’t making the headlines who also got infected in this outbreak. I’ve read at least one reporter in the press pool and possibly more. Will we ever know the full number of victims of the White House hot spot?

In other news, apparently Trump was clamoring to be discharged from the hospital Sunday. Besides the possibility of happy hypoxia, he’s also taking steroids which can mask pain and cause mood changes. You especially have to watch with steroids that a patient doesn’t overextend because they can feel well and even impervious. I suspect there is a real danger of VIP syndrome, where Trump’s doctors may defer to his wishes more than they would an average patient

LikeLike
on Mon Oct 5th 2020 at 18:24:15 Holly

Interesting that Trump had Regeneron and Gilead stock The very companies developing Covid vaccines and one of the exeperimental treatments he’s currently taking.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-covid-19-treatment-president-212014353.html

LikeLike
on Mon Oct 5th 2020 at 19:06:13 Origin

I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M. Feeling really good! Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2020

Says the man with access to medical care most people can’t even dream of.

(Walter Reed’s Presidential Suite)

LikeLike
on Mon Oct 5th 2020 at 19:12:20 Origin

The other question is whether Trump’s still contagious and, if so, whether he’ll quarantine or blithely infect others.

LikeLike
on Mon Oct 5th 2020 at 19:27:33 Origin

Listening to the press conference, he’s not out of the woods yet. A reporter asked about the 7-10 window previously mentioned and how it clearly hasn’t passed and it was acknowledged that they’re still medically observing Trump but determined that they can do what’s necessary at the White House now. IMO, Trump probably insisted on leaving for “optics”.

LikeLike
on Tue Oct 6th 2020 at 03:22:43 Solitaire

“I feel better than I did 20 years ago!”

That’s the steroids talking. Very typical sentiment expressed by patients at the beginning of a course.

LikeLiked by 1 person
on Tue Oct 6th 2020 at 04:22:31 Origin

FWIW, apparently Kellyanne Conway’s daughter is saying on her social media that Trump is “doing badly” and “they are doing what they can to stabilize him”. She also says she now has COVID-19 too, presumably via her mother.

Grain of salt, of course, but she also broke the news of her mother’s COVID-19 positive test on TikTok (which probably forced her mother to publicly acknowledge it). It’d be on brand for 2020 and the Trump admin for us to find out from her social media that the president is at death’s door before the White House says anything.

LikeLike
on Wed Oct 7th 2020 at 04:21:27 Solitaire

Stephen Miller, senior White House aide, is the newest big name to test positive.

LikeLiked by 1 person
on Wed Oct 7th 2020 at 14:46:36 Mary Burrell

I have no prayers for Trump and his wife or the other ghouls in his circle who have been affected by Covid-19. Trump is a reprehensible, 💩. The people i feel bad for and my heart goes out to are the people that have to cook and clean who have to go to work among these 💩stains. My prayers are for those housekeeping staff and kitchen workers and lawn care workers, many who are Black and Brown, and mostly elderly probably with underlying health issues. I don’t care about Trump or his fembot spouse or those other detestables. They are the devil’s snot rags.

LikeLike
on Wed Oct 7th 2020 at 14:48:46 Mary Burrell

The doctors at Walter Reed which is a top notch medical care facility have lost credibility. Everything Trump touches turns to garbage.

LikeLike
on Wed Oct 7th 2020 at 16:00:46 Mary Burrell

Perhaps this lasted news of the Trump cabal getting infected is karma or it’s what they call the chickens coming home to roost. I am infuriated because Trump got the best health care and treatment and millions of Americans died and he was being cavalier and reckless. I need Barr and Mitch McConnell to get a visit from Miss Rona. McConnell is trying to push a white conservative judge through who will take our health care. I see Steven Miller the vampire got tested positive. I wonder will Giuliani be next? I remember when Hilary Clinton got pneumonia back in 2016. Trump and the deplorable GOP mocked and laughed.

The MAGA on social media trying to preach how we need to show compassion and empathy, knowing if it was the other way around and it was Biden, they would be mocking. No disrespect to Michelle Obama, but when these disgusting Trump sycophants go low, I am not going high, I am going subterranean. This is the problem with Democrats always trying to be the good guys, they always bring a butter knife to a gun fight. I need Biden and his crew to put those ads up showing what a despicable piece of 💩 Trump is.

LikeLiked by 1 person
on Wed Oct 7th 2020 at 16:01:59 Mary Burrell

*the latest *

LikeLike
on Wed Oct 7th 2020 at 18:07:36 Mary Burrell

Ask Herman Cain how all this super spreader business works out.

LikeLike
on Wed Oct 7th 2020 at 20:55:48 Afrofem

@ Mary Burrell

“…when these disgusting Trump sycophants go low, I am not going high, I am going subterranean.”

Go as deep as you need to, Mary B.

The White Supremacists MAGA crowd have some nerve telling anyone “to show compassion and empathy”. They routinely threaten, harass and wish death on people they disagree with. The social networks let them get away with their abusive behavior.

However, when people wish the Prez a taste of his own medicine, Twitter deletes those tweets and suspends some users. A lot of people have commented on the double standard including:

☛ Filmmaker Ava DuVernay who wondered, “Does this also go for Black and Brown women who have long been and continue to be harassed and threatened with assault and death on this platform or nah? I think no. Because I see those same accounts still up. Still causing harm. Your anyone is disingenuous.”

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/oct/03/twitter-faces-backlash-over-abuse-policy-in-wake-of-trump-illness

☛ Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts have all spoken out about the threats they receive on social media and say Twitter isn’t doing enough about it.

[…] “Seriously though, this is messed up. The death threats towards us should have been taking more seriously by [Twitter],” Rep. Rashida Tlaib tweeted in response.

https://www.kptv.com/general/twitter-bans-posts-wishing-for-trump-death-the-squad-wonders-where-that-policy-was-for/article_df7c87b4-675f-5687-b36d-260842b453e4.html

Not surprising. Twitter and Facebook allows the MAGA crowd to go wild on their platforms, taunting, bullying and threatening Black and Latinx folks, but draws the line at anti-Trumpers wishing the Prez a taste of his own medicine.

Ah, the wages of Whiteness.

LikeLiked by 1 person
on Wed Oct 7th 2020 at 21:01:57 Mary Burrell

@ Afrofem: I am in Twitter jail. For my likes and the-tweets of anti-Trump.

LikeLike
on Wed Oct 7th 2020 at 22:18:59 Afrofem

@ Mary Burrell

It seems you are in good company in Twitter jail. It is pretty packed.

LikeLiked by 1 person
on Thu Oct 8th 2020 at 00:06:42 Origin

Scathing New England Journal of Medicine editorial on the Trump administration’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2029812

Dying in a Leadership Vacuum
[…]
The United States came into this crisis with enormous advantages. Along with tremendous manufacturing capacity, we have a biomedical research system that is the envy of the world. We have enormous expertise in public health, health policy, and basic biology and have consistently been able to turn that expertise into new therapies and preventive measures. And much of that national expertise resides in government institutions. Yet our leaders have largely chosen to ignore and even denigrate experts.

[conclusion]
Anyone else who recklessly squandered lives and money in this way would be suffering legal consequences. Our leaders have largely claimed immunity for their actions. But this election gives us the power to render judgment. Reasonable people will certainly disagree about the many political positions taken by candidates. But truth is neither liberal nor conservative. When it comes to the response to the largest public health crisis of our time, our current political leaders have demonstrated that they are dangerously incompetent. We should not abet them and enable the deaths of thousands more Americans by allowing them to keep their jobs.

This must be unprecedented from the NEJM. I imagine that many experts are (privately) seething and a few are fed up enough to dispense with the usual protocol of refraining from public criticism.

LikeLike
on Thu Oct 8th 2020 at 17:37:43 gro jo

“This must be unprecedented from the NEJM. I imagine that many experts are (privately) seething and a few are fed up enough to dispense with the usual protocol of refraining from public criticism.”
Unlike you, they dispensed with the bs that China is somehow responsible for this f..up. Where’s your ‘outrage’ now that you know that your ‘leaders’, aided and abetted by the ‘free press’ sacrificed your health to prevent a possible stock market crisis?

LikeLike
on Thu Oct 8th 2020 at 17:49:42 gro jo

The NEJM article is wrong about the ‘competence’ of Trump and friends. They successfully prioritized wealth over health. Trump’s Lazarus stunt is more of the same. The message to the lower orders is get off your rusty dusty and report for work to make us even richer, after all, I have huge tax and loans that can only be repaid from the sweat of your brows.

LikeLike
on Thu Oct 8th 2020 at 20:15:38 Origin

@gro jo
Unlike you, they dispensed with the bs that China is somehow responsible for this f..up.
You seem to take disagreements very personally, quoting and reviving them at every opportunity ad infinitum across multiple threads. I’ve seen you quote other posters before while wondering what you were talking about since your response seemed disconnected from the topic at hand. Now I understand.

You also have this persistent habit of hiding behind baseless accusations as an excuse to resume your spiels. In fact, you’re that one constantly linking China and the pandemic. In this topic about Trump and the coronavirus, I don’t recall mentioning China at all. I’m certainly not here blaming China for everything that has gone wrong. Rather, you seem fixated on completely indemnifying China.

China did cover up the initial outbreak, including lying to the world that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission while healthcare workers were warning (and ultimately dying) that it was clearly spreading between people in Wuhan. However those facts have never absolved the Trump administration of responsibility for its own incompetent handling of the outbreak. I’ve never claimed so, notwithstanding your desperate attempts to perform a Frankenstein-like animation of that strawman as part of your propaganda blitz.

LikeLike
on Thu Oct 8th 2020 at 23:51:41 gro jo

“However those facts have never absolved the Trump administration of responsibility for its own incompetent handling of the outbreak.”
Here you go again writing bs. THERE WAS NOTHING INCOMPETENT ABOUT TRUMP’S RESPONSE. HIS PRIORITY WAS WALL STREET NOT MAIN STREET. HE SUCCEEDED BRILLIANTLY. GET THAT FACT INTO YOUR BRAIN AND MAYBE, YOU WON’T BE AS RIDICULOUS AS YOU ARE.
I decided to bug you once more because you never showed me a time line to ‘prove’ your claim about China. Hell, I tried to make it easy on you by pointing you to Jennifer Zeng’s Youtube videos giving the Falun Gong line on the genesis of the disease, you failed to rise to the challenge.
“You also have this persistent habit of hiding behind baseless accusations as an excuse to resume your spiels.”
Haha, now let’s quote you: ” on Sun Apr 5th 2020 at 14:25:53
Origin

On January 14, 2020 the World Health Organization posted that preliminary indications from Chinese officials was that there was no clear evidence that human to human transmission of the novel coronavirus was occurring. But doctors who were warning colleagues to take protective measures were being muzzled from December so officials had no reason to be genuinely ignorant about the disease’s communicability near the middle of January.
```
Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China🇨🇳. pic.twitter.com/Fnl5P877VG

— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) January 14, 2020
```
This isn’t about “love” or hate for any government; I’m not going on a date.
It’s about what’s credible.”
Now for the CPC take on this: ” Global Times
6-7 minutes

Washington’s hysterical COVID-19 claims will fail

By Hu Xijin Source:Global Times Published: 2020/4/13 23:43:40…Washington is now attacking Beijing from three directions. First, it is accusing the Chinese government of initially “concealing the epidemic” which allowed the crisis to get out of control and “harm the US and the world.”

Second, Washington has blackened China’s reputation saying it is hiding the “actual number of deaths,” claiming it’s somehow higher than the official account. This is an obvious attempt to deflect attention from the shocking number of deaths in the US. It’s an attempt to deceive people into think that the US is more honest than China, rather than reflecting on the dereliction of duty or even malfeasance that has occurred in the US.

Third, the US has encouraged a few lawyers to initiate lawsuits against the Chinese government, making farcical claims and instigating anti-Chinese sentiment in the US. Washington has turned to extreme nationalism in the hope of saving itself.

China is being forced into needless and pointless war of refuting US’ hysterical claims against us. We need not worry about this as there are two reasons Washington’s travesty will fail…As early as January 3, China began to inform the World Health Organization (WHO) and relevant countries and regions of the pneumonia outbreak. Chinese medical experts and administrative authorities have been collecting and accumulating knowledge on the virus ever since. On January 20, China formally confirmed human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus and made this knowledge public. Completing this evidence-based process was no easy task.

Chinese scientists have maintained close contact with WHO and the international medical community. They have published several papers on the coronavirus outbreak in the world’s most prestigious medical journals, sharing information with the international community without reservation.

Wuhan issued a notice locking down the city in the early hours of January 23, a decision so shocking it woke the entire world. For the first time in human history, a mega-city with a population of more than ten million shut down all its outbound channels.”
Naturally, you and your friends ignored what the Chinese had to say and ran with the bs propaganda coming out of the US government, rightwing nuts, US media and Chinese sources like Falun Gong.
Note that Trump claimed that NIH scientists were hard at work on a vaccine as early as 1/11/2020, three days before you claimed the WHO “…posted that preliminary indications from Chinese officials was that there was no clear evidence that human to human transmission of the novel coronavirus was occurring.” This information came from Trump. (“Scientists at the NIH began developing the first vaccine candidate on January 11th — think of that — within hours of the virus’s genetic code being posted online. So, January 11th. Most people never even heard what was going on January 11th. And we were out there trying to develop a vaccine, not even knowing what we were up against.”
(https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vaccine-development/))
Now, why in hell, would the Chinese post the genetic code of the virus if they intended to have it spread? You never explained that fact. Read the following article from an ‘obvious CPC shill’ the University of Minnesota and weep: (https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/01/china-releases-genetic-data-new-coronavirus-now-deadly)

LikeLike
on Fri Oct 9th 2020 at 02:50:33 Origin

@gro jo
You were already schooled on those issues months ago in the general coronavirus thread. I’m not rehashing it here, Wumao. An archive of the discussion exists for your perusal.
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2020/03/10/the-coronavirus/

LikeLike
on Fri Oct 9th 2020 at 02:50:56 Origin

Also apropos:

LikeLike
on Fri Oct 9th 2020 at 06:11:16 gro jo

Trump said your claim that China covered up the disease was bull.
“Scientists at the NIH began developing the first vaccine candidate on January 11th — think of that — within hours of the virus’s genetic code being posted online. So, January 11th. Most people never even heard what was going on January 11th. And we were out there trying to develop a vaccine, not even knowing what we were up against.” That was an official White House statement not a ‘wumao’ invention.
“President Donald Trump admitted he knew weeks before the first confirmed US coronavirus death that the virus was dangerous, airborne, highly contagious and “more deadly than even your strenuous flus,” and that he repeatedly played it down publicly, according to legendary journalist Bob Woodward in his new book “Rage.”
“This is deadly stuff,” Trump told Woodward on February 7.”
Who told Trump it was airborne?
“on February 7, two days after he was acquitted on impeachment charges by the Senate, Woodward expected a lengthy conversation about the trial. He was surprised, however, by the President’s focus on the virus. At the same time that Trump and his public health officials were saying the virus was “low risk,” Trump divulged to Woodward that the night before he’d spoken to Chinese President Xi Jinping about the virus. Woodward quotes Trump as saying, “We’ve got a little bit of an interesting setback with the virus going in China.”
“It goes through the air,” Trump said. “That’s always tougher than the touch. You don’t have to touch things. Right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed. And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flus.””
More wumao bs no doubt. The CPC has managed to turn Trump into ‘wumao’ number one!
You made an ass of yourself, it’s my pleasure to remind you of your gullibility.
You didn’t even try to deal with the facts stated in that well known ‘wumao’ publication, a/k/a the University of Minnesota, I linked to.
Being ‘wumaos’, they claimed a grand total of one death out of forty-one patients by 1/11/2020. Quite a contrast to the thousand, nay, millions bs artists like you were claiming. I’m giving you the jefe treatment since he seems to have vanished and your claims are just as fact free as his were.

LikeLike
on Fri Oct 9th 2020 at 08:15:41 Mbeti

“Filmmaker Ava DuVernay who wondered, “Does this also go for Black and Brown women who have long been and continue to be harassed and threatened with assault and death on this platform or nah? I think no. Because I see those same accounts still up. Still causing harm. Your anyone is disingenuous.”

maybe because I would bet if you look at the staffing and ownership of said company it would predominately 1.white 2 .male.

“The White Supremacists MAGA crowd have some nerve telling anyone “to show compassion and empathy”. They routinely threaten, harass and wish death on people they disagree with. The social networks let them get away with their abusive behavior.

However, when people wish the Prez a taste of his own medicine, Twitter deletes those tweets and suspends some users. A lot of people have commented on the double standard :”

the old racist double standard
whole ideology based on hierarchy of human value but the minute they are affected they want the sympathy and empathy they are ideologically opposed to sharing.

“No disrespect to Michelle Obama, but when these disgusting Trump sycophants go low, I am not going high, I am going subterranean. This is the problem with Democrats always trying to be the good guys, they always bring a butter knife to a gun fight. I need Biden and his crew to put those ads up showing what a despicable piece of 💩 Trump is.”

no you are still being subservient or perhaps you think ad hominem attacks are anything more than useless venting.

I increasingly cannot see the point of paying attention much less voting.
so your okay with a liberal racist and his liberal racist running mate?
because the current racist is more obvious?

One of the biggest problems of this is its inflation – that trump and the republicans are that important and that the only way to deal with them is to get excited ,and riled up and sling your slurs to counter their slurs etc

Police ,esp white ,kill so black person I don’t know ,lets not quietly think and discuss it ,no lets come up with a strangely easy to counter slogan and go out into the street emasse i.e with a bunch of other people i do not know and guarantee that
additional numerous “innocent” people with be assaulted and arrested by the very same police we say we want to stop.

And even though every out protest has resulted in and enviable riot ,not police being arrested ,not serious policy change ,nope just riots and fires and more assaults and arrests ,again and again.

“The people i feel bad for and my heart goes out to are the people that have to cook and clean who have to go to work among these 💩stains. My prayers are for those housekeeping staff and kitchen workers and lawn care workers, many who are Black and Brown, and mostly elderly probably with underlying health issues.”

really ,is that how you really feel or what you and everyone else is supposed to say?

Im say how I really feel
I don’t care about any of those people
because there are 300 million americans and 7 plus billion humans
but I am supposed to say I care about some people that alledgly died of this current illness
when more then a million people die every day of something
and yeah yeah the “innocent”
what about the guilty
guility mean people get sick too as we obviously see
and one of my biggest solaces in this life is that while the guilty may not be justly punished everyone will inevitably die.

LikeLike
on Fri Oct 9th 2020 at 11:05:56 Mary Burrell

@Mbeti: In the words of Joe Biden,”Shut up, man.” You weirdo.🤬

LikeLike