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Government Response to Coronavirus 3: Locked Down


GreyhoundFan

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2 hours ago, clueliss said:

I bought a new car in January I am now getting like two emails a week one from Kia US and one from the local dealership are telling me how safe they are and how much the dog take care of me when I’m buying a new car yeah it’s annoying

Dear Cartmann99,

Isn't your new Hyundai totally awesome? Don't you love the toaster oven/nuclear reactor/washing machine package? Don't you want some snazzy floor mats that will predict your future? Have you told every person you know about how we gave you a totally free bottle of water at the dealership? We've got this $2000 shit you can wipe on the outside of the car that makes spikes pop out if someone gets too close in a parking lot.You gotta have that. We can fix you up, call, email, or text us, please? We love you, please come back! Hello?

 

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8 minutes ago, Cartmann99 said:

Dear Cartmann99,

Isn't your new Hyundai totally awesome? Don't you love the toaster oven/nuclear reactor/washing machine package? Don't you want some snazzy floor mats that will predict your future? Have you told every person you know about how we gave you a totally free bottle of water at the dealership? We've got this $2000 shit you can wipe on the outside of the car that makes spikes pop out if someone gets too close in a parking lot.You gotta have that. We can fix you up, call, email, or text us, please? We love you, please come back! Hello?

 

Man, I've missed you!

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My sister ordered a new car just before the madness, and when she went to pick it up she summarised the experience like this:

The car dealer (in a disappointed tone while clearly struggling to fight every instinct drilled into him during car dealing 101): "We are not doing handshakes anymore :(" 

Also the car dealer: "Let me show you all the features of your new car!!" *proceeds to touch every single button and knob in sight*

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16 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Yeah, there is no way Trump had this done.

Admittedly, I do have a lot of schadenfreude at the thought of him having to submit to someone (preferably a woman) sticking a swab that far up his nose and him feeling utterly helpless and at their mercy. 

I assumed the swab would be going in my immediate nasal area only.  Stupid me.  That swab burned! Then it burned again on the other side! I might have let out a "holy god" as reaction.  No way Trump had this done.

P, S. - test done on Thursday, still waiting for results

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Australia is at 4,860 confirmed cases as of 3pm today, with 303 new cases since 3pm yesterday. 20 deaths at this point - hoping we can keep those numbers low.

Turn around time on urgent testing for Covid-19 in a major hospital in Melbourne is under 24 hours, which is good. 

Interestingly (to me at least!) there is a small cluster of infection in QANTAS baggage handlers in Adelaide. Debate is raging as to the source of that infection - contact with contaminated surfaces, or person to person transmission in the airport or (as my husband pointed out) contact by one person outside the workplace who then infected others. It will be interesting to see where they trace it back to.

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16 hours ago, fraurosena said:

The look on his face says it all.

image.png.672290005d0972596729b83d63fd17f2.png

He cannot help himself, can he?  He just cannot stick to a fucking script, or follow directions.  In a media briefing designed to tell us that 200,000 americans are likely to die of this thing, we do NOT need this kind of inept comedy. 

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There's a tiny bit of good news from Alabama.  A federal judge ruled that abortions can't be banned due to coronavirus.  Color me shocked (in a good way)!?

https://www.waff.com/2020/04/01/judge-temporarily-blocks-alabamas-ban-abortions-during-coronavirus-outbreak/

Spoiler

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) - A federal judge has temporarily blocked an effort that would have banned abortions in Alabama amid the coronavirus outbreak.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Monday challenging Alabama’s temporary state health order, which requires dental, medical and surgical procedures to be postponed during the pandemic.

The ACLU argued the state was “using the guise of the COVID-19 crisis” to prevent people from having an abortion.

The health order, issued Friday and in effect until April 17 at 5 p.m., included exceptions for treatment of an “emergency medical condition” or to “avoid serious harm from an underlying condition.”

Federal Judge Myron Thompson granted the request to keep clinics open in Alabama. The temporary restraining order will be in effect until April 13.

“Because Alabama law imposes time limits on when women can obtain abortions, the March 27 order is likely to fully prevent some women from exercising their right to obtain an abortion,” Thompson wrote.

The lawsuit was filed Monday on behalf of Dr. Yashica Robinson and three independent abortion clinics: the Alabama Women’s Center, Reproductive Health Services and West Alabama Women’s Center.

“This is critical victory and ensures government response to the pandemic is grounded in public health, not politics. We will continue to fight until the state’s attacks on abortion are blocked once and for all,” said Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, senior staff attorney at the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall released a statement Monday, before Thompson granted the temporary restraining order, saying the state’s health order applies to all healthcare facilities, and it would be “enforced uniformly against all violators.”

“At a time when all Americans are making significant sacrifices to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus, it is remarkable that one class of providers demands to be treated differently than all others," Marshall said. “Abortion clinics want an exemption, yet they are by no means exempt from the known risks of spreading the virus in crowded waiting rooms, depleting scarce personal protective equipment that should be reserved for those treating the virus, and transferring patients with complications to already overburdened hospitals."

Oh, and fuck you AG Steve Marshall!  This isn't political! This is about the health an well-being of women who you give a damn about!

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12 hours ago, Howl said:

While Trump endlessly creates chaos at the top, WH and GOP leadership issue talking points to be amplified and weaponized by MAGAT foot soldiers on social media, and once they have issued talking points, they stay the f**k on message.  It drives me crazy, but it's a strategy that has been brutally efficient and effective.  Trump's approval for all things among Republicans is shockingly high. 

Democrats have not been able to come up with an effective way to counter this, partly because of the MSM's proclivity to cover Trump and then talking heads discuss his bull shit endlessly.  Trump started sucking the air out of the room during the campaign and he hasn't stopped. 

 

One interesting thing about the repub party of the last 30 years is that they have message discipline. They concoct a story and every single one of them repeats it without fail forever. Democrats tend to have more independent thought, which leads to multiple messages.

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6 hours ago, JMarie said:

test done on Thursday, still waiting for results

How did you manage to get a test done?

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Ron Johnson is such a nasty piece of work. I wish the people of Wisconsin would stop foisting him on us:

 

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I live in Florida. As most of you know, Gov. DeSantis has STILL not issued any orders to shelter in place or close the beaches. Many are taking advantage of the time off to go the beach, the parks, believing that being outside is somehow "healthy," despite the virus outbreak. There are people everywhere. The grocery stores are packed, home improvement stores are packed. Restaurants have closed their dining areas, but still offer take-out.  I'm fearful for my family and myself. I am over 65, and I came down with H1N1 in 2009, the only one in my office/family to do so. It turned into pneumonia, resulting in a hospital  stay. I'm afraid to leave my house as the news indicates the next 2 weeks may be worse.

DeSantis is waiting for "guidance from the federal government," read, Trump.  If Floridians don't start taking this seriously, we will soon have numbers like New York. Unfortunately, we don't have a governor like New York's, we have one that takes orders from the idiot-in-chief.

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This is obscene. Our medical teams and first responders are begging for PPE and companies are selling to the highest offshore bidders:

 

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This is what happens when the president guts our federal government:

 

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36 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

This is obscene. Our medical teams and first responders are begging for PPE and companies are selling to the highest offshore bidders:

 

The companies exporting masks now need to be named publicly.  

Can't Trump forbid this with the war time declaration order?

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And let's ensure people can't get insurance:

 

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2 hours ago, SilverBeach said:

How did you manage to get a test done?

I'm an RN

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From George Conway: "Impeachment didn’t distract from coronavirus preparations. Trump did."

Spoiler

George T. Conway III is a lawyer and an adviser to the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump super PAC. He is a co-founder of Checks & Balances, a network of lawyers advocating for the rule of law.

There should have been shame enough in orchestrating the acquittal of an impeached president who, in order to extort help for his reelection campaign, unlawfully withheld security aid to an ally. Shame enough in turning the Senate impeachment trial into a sham by refusing to hear a single live witness.

But it turns out Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was just getting started.

On Tuesday, he added to the disgrace by claiming that impeachment distracted officials from dealing with the coronavirus. Speaking to radio host (and Post columnist) Hugh Hewitt, McConnell said the virus “came up while we were, you know, tied down in the impeachment trial. And I think it diverted the attention of the government, because everything, every day, was all about impeachment.”

This is gaslighting of the highest order. Leave aside that the president now claims that he presciently “felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic” and that he “always treated the Chinese Virus very seriously."

Look at the calendar. The impeachment trial ended on Feb. 5. In reality, it was over before it even started, thanks in large part to McConnell. The only drama was about whether there’d be any witnesses — and that ended on Jan. 31, when the Senate voted not to hear testimony. That left plenty of time to deal with the virus.

And while some lawyers in the executive branch and Congress were working on impeachment around the clock, impeachment didn’t consume the government. Trump managed to get to Mar-a-Lago at least four times in January and February, working in a few rounds of golf along the way. He held five campaign rallies around the country during the impeachment trial.

Trump even had the bandwidth during the trial to comment on the coronavirus: On Jan. 22, he told CNBC “we have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China.” On Jan. 24, he tweeted, “China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!” On Jan. 30, at a speech in Michigan, he said again, “We think we have it very well under control.” On Feb. 2, referring to his administration’s Jan. 31 order partially banning travel from China, Trump told Sean Hannity, “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.”

Most importantly, impeachment didn’t keep U.S. intelligence agencies from warning the president and Congress in January and February about the danger of the virus. In particular, as Josh Rogin wrote, impeachment notwithstanding, “throughout January and much of February, senior Trump administration officials heatedly debated the scope and scale of the coronavirus pandemic.”

McConnell’s own colleagues got the message, too. Throughout the early weeks of the crisis, senior administration officials repeatedly briefed senators about the coronavirus. What senators were told was “chilling,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), but the administration wasn’t asking for more funds. “Bottom line: they aren’t taking this seriously enough,” because the administration made “no request for ANY emergency funding, which is a big mistake,” Murphy tweeted — on Feb. 5. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) found enough time in mid-February, apparently prompted by concerns about the emerging pandemic, to sell 33 stocks worth up to $1.7 million, triggering an insider-trading investigation by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission. (Burr denies wrongdoing.)

The problem wasn’t impeachment — it was the president. There was never any chance that the government was going to take sufficient action on the virus when the president himself wasn’t taking the virus seriously. It was Trump, after all, who claimed — at the very end of February, weeks after the impeachment trial had ended — that criticisms such as Murphy’s were a “hoax” and that “within a couple days,” the number of coronavirus cases “is going to be down to close to zero.”

And the problem with the president stemmed from the very same impulses that got him impeached. Just as his focus on himself, and his reelection, led him to extort Ukraine and lie about it, so, too, it led him to deceive the public about the coronavirus as well. Eager to keep the number of coronavirus cases from going up, he didn’t want to let a cruise ship full of Americans dock. He didn’t want virus warnings to spook the stock markets, lest he not be able to brag about the markets during the campaign. Even as late as March 8, a month after the impeachment trial, he told Republican donors at Mar-a-Lago that his political opponents were “trying to scare everybody, from meetings, cancel the meetings, close the schools — you know, destroy the country. And that’s ok, as long as we can win the election.”

For Trump, it’s always about Trump and only Trump. If anything, it was McConnell and his fellow Senate Republicans’ refusal to remove him, not the impeachment itself, that helped bring us to where we are today.

I couldn't agree more.

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So previous administrations were supposed to come up with a test for a disease that didn't exist? And that's the reason Twitler refused to take things seriously? You couldn't make this up.

 

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Listening to Cuomo right now.  The facts he's giving aren't comforting, but he is.  I hate that I'm so simple my brain can be tricked by a show of intelligent and compassionate leadership, but it helps a little.

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2 hours ago, JMarie said:

I'm an RN

Interesting.  My sister is an RN and she says the hospital is refusing to test personnel because they are afraid those who test positive will use it as an "excuse" not to come to work.  

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This is actually a thread but I don't know how to link to the whole thing.

 

And this wtf moment brought to you by Google.

 

Edited by WiseGirl
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This is terrifying: "Protective gear in national stockpile is nearly depleted, DHS officials say"

Quote

The government’s emergency stockpile of respirator masks, gloves and other medical supplies is running low and is nearly exhausted due to the coronavirus outbreak, leaving the Trump administration and the states to compete for personal protective equipment in a freewheeling global marketplace rife with profiteering and price-gouging, according to Homeland Security officials involved in the frantic acquisition effort.

As coronavirus hotspots flare from coast-to-coast, the demand for safety equipment — also known as PPE — is both immediate and widespread, with health officials, hospital executives and governors saying their shortages are critical and that health care workers are putting their lives at risk while trying to help the surging number of patients.

Two DHS officials said that the stores kept in the Department of Health and Human Service’s Strategic National Stockpile are nearly gone, despite assurances from the White House that there is availability.

“The stockpile was designed to respond to handful of cities. It was never built or designed to fight a 50-state pandemic,” said a DHS official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly about the stockpile. “This is not only a U.S. government problem. The supply chain for PPE worldwide has broken down, and there is a lot of price gouging happening.”

President Trump said during Tuesday’s White House briefing that the administration has nearly 10,000 ventilators on reserve and that authorities are ready to deploy the lifesaving equipment rapidly to coronavirus hotspots in coming weeks. He also said that large amounts of PPE were being shipped directly from manufacturers to hospitals. But the DHS officials said the stockpile has not been able to handle the load.

Hospitals and states face a real risk of running out of supplies, one of the officials said. “If you can’t protect the people taking care of us, it gets ugly.”

Several reports in recent days have documented a wild-west-style online marketplace for bulk medical supplies dominated by intermediaries and hoarders who are selling N95 respirator masks and other gear at huge markups. Forbes reported that U.S. vendors have sold 280 million masks — mostly into the export market — and that U.S. states and local governments were outbid in the frenzy.

There are few signs the Trump administration is making efforts to stop the export shipments or seize the supplies for use in U.S. hospitals, despite statements from Attorney General William P. Barr last week that U.S. wholesalers hoarding masks and other supplies would get “a knock on your door.”

Governors have been pleading with federal authorities to ship more equipment and protective gear. Distribution of the supplies has happened unevenly, with some states saying they’ve received a fraction of the supplies they desperately need and some cities having received no assistance from their state governments.

Officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency said the government had anticipated the Strategic National Stockpile would be exhausted, and the administration is moving swiftly to procure and distribute medical supplies.

“FEMA planning assumptions for COVID-19 pandemic response acknowledged that the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) alone could not fulfill all requirements at the State and tribal level,” Janet Montesi, a FEMA spokesperson, said in a statement. “The federal government will exhaust all means to identify and attain medical and other supplies needed to combat the virus.”

The government has more than $16 billion available to make the acquisitions, she said.

“We remain committed to helping ensure key medical supplies expeditiously arrive at the front lines for our health care workers,” Montesi said.

According to the White House, FEMA had shipped or delivered 11.6 million N95 respirator masks, 26 million surgical masks, 5.2 million face shields, 4.3 million surgical gowns, 22 million gloves, and 8,100 ventilators as of March 28.

A stockpile of 1.5 million expired N95 masks that U.S. Customs and Border Protection has in storage will be distributed to the Transportation Security Administration and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, CBP said in a statement. The CDC has issued guidelines for the safe use of masks with expiration dates that have passed, potentially leaving their elastic bands too loose to form a proper face seal.

U.S. Rep. Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.) said this week she and other lawmakers were told some of the expired CBP masks would be given to hospitals.

“Officials confirmed that the masks would indeed go to health care workers and be prioritized by highest need such as NY and NJ. I will follow up to make sure this happens!” the lawmaker tweeted Sunday.

A CBP official on Wednesday confirmed to The Washington Post that the masks would go to ICE agents and TSA officers instead, not to FEMA staff or medical personnel.

The government has long viewed the national stockpile supples as a holdover during an emergency so the government could buy time for manufacturers to boost output and for new supply chains to solidify, according to a senior administration official. Having the medical supplies sitting in a warehouse doesn’t serve any purpose, the official said, even though the administration has been holding back thousands of ventilators.

Asked about concerns that the government will not be able to keep pace with the demand for PPE supplies, the official said the government has planes coming in from Asia every day for the next few weeks ferrying new materials, noting that a planeload with 80 tons of PPE arrived from China on Sunday.

 

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Because, to paraphrase Twitler, he alone can fix things:

 

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31 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Because, to paraphrase Twitler, he alone can fix things:

Twitler is an acting vacancy.

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I was becoming a Pritzker fan, but he's losing me.  Why is he touting his wife's charity, Arts for Illinois, and blathering on about how much they love art and have raised $4 million already for grants to artists and art organizations.

If artists are struggling financially due to the virus there should be help for all people in all professions who are hurting right now, why are they being held apart?

And organizations?  Because artists are sharing their art and music and such online...all well and good and I know art is important as a societal thing over all but are you fucking kidding me right now?  That's what they want people to donate to right now?  I guess I missed the memo where no one in Illinois is hungry or struggling because their workplace closed and they have bills to pay.  

How about donate to those people who are getting sick and won't have the money to pay their medical bills when they recover?  No, online corona concerts are more important.

This isn't a time for politicians to shill for their spouses pet projects.  (Chicago Mayor Lightfoot and her wife are also in support.) Shame on all of them.  

DeSantis is finally issuing Stay at Home order for Florida.

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