SunSeeker
SunSeeker's JournalA viral plea to let grandparents sacrifice themselves captures a truth about Trump
[T]he virus is the underlying cause of the threat to the economy. Indeed, it’s worse than this: As Will Wilkinson argues, the current Trump/Patrick line is that we should risk millions more dying, even though we’d only be guessing that relaxing social distancing would help the economy, when in fact the mounting deaths would take their own economic toll.
We don’t have to choose between unbearably high mass death totals and an economic collapse that dooms the American experiment. The government can send people money in sufficient sums and fortify the welfare state to save them from personal economic calamity, while bailing out small and large businesses with tight conditions that sagely protect taxpayers and working people.
The federal government could have done this while also offering a robust response to the crisis from the outset that itself would have minimized deaths. But Trump didn’t do this, because he feared taking the novel coronavirus seriously would rattle the markets and imperil his reelection.
What Trump is really proposing here — and what Patrick is justifying — is a further washing-of-hands of responsibility for this whole affair. Trump would not put it quite this way. But this, at bottom, is what he’s asking us to accept. And we don’t have to.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/24/viral-on-air-plea-captures-an-essential-truth-about-trump/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most
Man dies after ingesting chloroquine in an attempt to prevent coronavirus
Source: NBC News
An Arizona man has died after ingesting chloroquine phosphate — believing it would protect him from becoming infected with the coronavirus. The man's wife also ingested the substance and is under critical care.
The man's wife told NBC News she'd watched televised briefings during which President Trump talked about the potential benefits of chloroquine. Even though no drugs are approved to prevent or treat COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, some early research suggests it may be useful as a therapy.
The name "chloroquine" resonated with the man's wife, who asked that her name not be used to protect the family's privacy. She'd used it previously to treat her koi fish. "I saw it sitting on the back shelf and thought, 'Hey, isn't that the stuff they're talking about on TV?'"
The couple — both in their 60s and potentially at higher risk for complications of the virus — decided to mix a small amount of the substance with a liquid and drink it as a way to prevent the coronavirus.
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/man-dies-after-ingesting-chloroquine-attempt-prevent-coronavirus-n1167166
Just another death caused by the Misinformer-in-Chief. Rachel is right, they really should not be broadcadting his press conferences live.
Olympics will be postponed, likely to 2021
https://twitter.com/USATODAY/status/1242140452578406400Sewing Masks for the Hospitals
Anyone out there looking for something to do while required to stay home? If you like to sew, here is a video tutorial on how to sew masks that you can donate to your local hospital.
https://www.courierpress.com/story/news/2020/03/18/coronavirus-deaconess-ask-public-provide-medical-face-masks/2865273001/
I saw the above on my Nextdoor neighborhood app. A healthcare worker asked people in my area if they can help donate such masks to Long Beach Memorial/Miller Children’s Hospital where she works. She said they have heard multiple times from management that they worry they will not have enough supplies to protect the hospital workers from infected patients. Just like people have been hoarding at the grocery stores, they see it at work with the masks and protective eyewear.
I am sure every hospital in the country is facing the same predicament. If you can sew, please help!
Trump Resists Pressure to Force Companies to Make Coronavirus Supplies
Source: NY Times
President Trump and his advisers are resisting calls from congressional Democrats and a growing number of governors to use a federal law to mobilize industry to provide badly needed resources to help halt the spread of the coronavirus, days after the president said he would consider using that authority.
The Defense Protection Act grants presidents extraordinary powers to force American industries to produce medical supplies, materials and equipment that health care workers say are in dire shortage in hospitals across the country.
“We’re talking about a president who is basically doing what Herbert Hoover did at the beginning of the Depression and minimizing the danger and refusing to use available federal action, and people are going to die, and they shouldn’t, they don’t have to, if we could get the support that we’re asking for,” he said in an interview with WNYC on Friday.
The president’s advisers say they see the role of the federal government as facilitator, as opposed to chief producer and a national governor. They have tried to encourage states to get by with what they can, suggesting there will be support from the federal government but that this shouldn’t be the first option. And they have hoped that private companies will be spurred to increase production by the president’s statements.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-supplies.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage
Without masks, our medical providers will get sick, and we'll have nobody to run the ventilators, which we don't have enough of. The body count will be horrific. And it's all because of "conservative principles."
Hilarious PSA about our shitstorm!
NYC's Cry For Help Sees 1k Retirees Step Up To Fight Coronavirus
The cavalry is coming. A plea for help made on behalf of a city desperate for medical aid has been answered by 1,000 retired health care professionals.As New York City's hospitals face being overwhelmed by patients suffering from the new coronavirus, the retirees didn't hesitate to rush back into service.
"In the last 24 hours, 1,000 New Yorkers who are retired medical personnel have volunteered to join the effort to fight coronvirus," the mayor said on WCBS Wednesday night.
As well as retirees, Cuomo has contacted the state's medical schools, asking for qualified faculty members and students to join the fight.
Altogether, volunteers numbered 1,746 on Thursday, de Blasio said.
https://patch.com/us/across-america/s/h1zng/citys-cry-help-sees-1k-retirees-step-fight-coronavirus?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_content=national&utm_medium=social
WSJ: America Needed Coronavirus Tests. The Government Failed.
Decisions that limited testing for the pathogen blinded the U.S. to the outbreak’s scale. Here’s how it happened.
...
CDC officials botched an initial test kit developed in an agency lab, retracting many tests. They resisted calls from state officials and medical providers to broaden testing, and health officials failed to coordinate with outside companies to ensure needed test-kit supplies, such as nasal swabs and chemical reagents, would be available, according to suppliers and health officials.
When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, also involved in the response, finally opened testing to more outside labs, a run on limited stocks of some supplies needed for the CDC-developed test quickly depleted stores, lab operators and suppliers said. Hospital and commercial lab operators said the government didn’t reach out to enlist their help until it was too late.
This was kind of a perfect storm of three separate failures,” said Tom Frieden, who directed the CDC from 2009 to 2017, citing the botched test, overstrict FDA rules and sidelined private labs. He cautioned he didn’t have direct knowledge of details.
Now, the U.S. is testing far fewer patients than public-health and infectious-disease experts say is necessary and just a fraction as many as other countries that rolled out wide-reaching diagnostic programs. South Korea as of Tuesday was testing up to 20,000 patients a day, more than half the total of U.S. patients who have been tested since the outbreak began.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-washington-failed-to-build-a-robust-coronavirus-testing-system-11584552147
This is the biggest blunder in presidential history
President Trump, as he often does when he has made a mistake or revealed his ignorance, changed course to claim that he knew all along that we were facing a pandemic.
As a preliminary matter, this is a lie, as this video shows:
https://twitter.com/SarahLongwell25/status/1239959414771273734
The president has consistently downplayed, denied and misled the public about the seriousness of the threat. Moreover, since the first cases appeared in China in late December, he took few steps to prepare the country for the pandemic before it inevitably reached our shores. We are to believe that he knew there was a pandemic but willfully allowed the crisis to get worse.
...
Trump shares the blame for failing to develop an infrastructure to fight pandemics (and removing structures put in place by the Obama administration). But, to borrow a phrase, “he alone” made the crisis infinitely worse by doing nothing for so long when leaders around the world were responding forcefully.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/18/trumps-lie-is-worse-than-truth/
Officials: Trump mulls using pandemic powers to send all who cross border illegally to Mexico
Source: Associated Press
The Trump administration is considering a plan to turn back all people who cross the border illegally from Mexico, two administration officials said Tuesday, using powers they say the president has during pandemics like the coronavirus outbreak to mount what would be one of the most aggressive attempts to curtail illegal immigration.
The plan is under consideration and no final decisions have been made, according to the officials, who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because the plan hasn’t been announced.
The officials said the president has authority to take such action in a pandemic and that Mexico’s efforts to stop the spread of the coronavirus, along with Venezuela’s, have been the weakest in North and South America.
The administration had declared in November 2018 that anyone who crossed the border illegally from Mexico would be denied asylum, a measure has been blocked in court. Last month, a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in San Francisco upheld a lower court decision to keep that asylum ban on hold while a lawsuit proceeds.
Read more: https://ktla.com/news/nationworld/officials-trump-mulls-using-pandemic-powers-to-send-all-who-cross-border-illegally-to-mexico/
As if the economy is not screwed enough, there goes agriculture and food service! Crops are already rotting in the fields due to labor shortages. Good luck finding produce at your local store!
Trump can't figure out how to use his emergency powers to help Americans deal with Covid-19, but he sure knows how to use them to torture immigrants.
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