Government Response to Coronavirus 3: Locked Down

[Audrey2]

The Republican asshattery continues. Because they just can't help themselves. Let's turn our focus on to Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Republicans Block Governor's Last Minute Plea to Change Tuesday Election

https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/wisconsin-primary-election-april-coronavirus-223358511.html

Quote

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) made a last minute push to stop in-person voting scheduled for Tuesday, as the number of coronavirus cases continues to rise in the state, but Republicans aren’t interested.

Evers called a special session of Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled legislature on Saturday in an attempt to change the state’s Election Day into an extended mail-in ballot only election. He had proposed mandating that all registered voters receive an absentee ballot by May 19 and extending the deadline to turn them in to May 26. 

But the legislative session lasted only a couple seconds Saturday afternoon; the state’s Republican leaders gaveled in and out, adjourning until Monday and leaving the in-person Election Day plans for Tuesday intact. 

“Hundreds of thousands of workers are going to their jobs every day, serving in essential roles in our society. There’s no question that an election is just as important as getting take-out food,” Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, both Republicans, said in a statement. 

Wisconsin has reported 2,112 positive cases of the coronavirus, and 56 related deaths, as of Saturday afternoon — more than double what the state was reporting last week. Residents have been under strict stay-at-home orders since March 25: All nonessential businesses have been shut down, and people who don’t live in the same household are not allowed to gather. Breaking the rules comes with jail time or fines. 

In related news, Wisconsin COVID-19 will explode within the next 2 1/2 weeks. What is especially concerning to me is that poll workers tend to be older. My Dad was one for several years before he passed, and my Stepdad is also one. No matter how the candidates do, I see catastrophic results. I'm so horrified, I can hardly type.

As usual, I just quoted the first part of the article.

[Audrey2]

One more quote. This is even worse than I thought.

Quote

Already, election officials are facing poll staff shortages and a backlog of absentee ballots. The majority of municipalities in Wisconsin have already reported a lack of poll workers. State election officials reported 111 jurisdictions that do not have enough people to staff a single polling place, and 60% of all Wisconsin towns and cities were reporting staffing shortages as of Monday. On Friday, the Milwaukee Election Commission announced the city was consolidating its usual 180 polling stations to just five. 

Five polling stations for Milwaukee. And you can bet they won't be in largely minority neighborhoods.

Edited April 5, 2020 by Audrey2

[GreyhoundFan]

When a 70+ year old toddler is in charge: "Trump has handled the coronavirus the way he handles everything: Like a toddler"

Spoiler

In January, when Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar first tried to brief President Trump about the coronavirus threat, the president got distracted and wanted to talk about vaping instead. That same month, Trump told a CNBC reporter that he was not worried about a pandemic; by March, he was claiming, “I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.” After declaring a national emergency, Trump fumed about the images of empty airports and grounded planes on television. He has publicly compared his poll numbers with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s. He has responded to anodyne questions from reporters by saying they are “nasty” and demanding that journalists “be nice.”

In other words, not even a crisis as massive as the novel coronavirus has stopped the president from behaving like a cranky toddler.

Trump’s toddler traits have significantly hampered America’s response to the pandemic. They aren’t new, either. In the first three years of his term, I’ve collected 1,300 instances when a Trump staffer, subordinate or ally — in other words, someone with a rooting interest in the success of Trump’s presidency — nonetheless described him the way most of us might describe a petulant 2-year-old. Trump offers the greatest example of pervasive developmental delay in American political history.

The elevation of a toddler to the Oval Office intersected with a trend that predates Trump and has made the problem worse: the increasing agglomeration of power in the hands of the president. In the half-century since Watergate, presidents from both sides of the aisle have beaten back formal and informal constraints. They have resisted congressional oversight, cowed judges into submission and disciplined bureaucrats into obeying their every whim. Increasing political polarization has facilitated presidential power grabs by enervating congressional oversight, increasing the political loyalty of Cabinet officers, and eroding the norms and unwritten rules of the presidency.

As these problems mounted, the presidency was redesigned to be occupied by the last grown-up inside the Beltway. And then Trump was elected. True, his brand of immature leadership is not the only reason the United States lags behind South Korea in its pandemic response, including testing and containment. Organizational inertia and garden-variety bureaucratic politics matter as well.

Still, the Trump White House’s inadequate handling of the outbreak highlights his every toddler-like instinct. The most obvious one is his predilection for temper tantrums. Some advisers describe an angry Trump as a whistling teapot that needs to either let off steam or explode. Politico has reported on the myriad triggers for his tantrums: “if he’s caught by surprise, if someone criticizes him, or if someone stops him from trying to do something or seeks to control him.”

Like a toddler’s, Trump’s temper has flared repeatedly as the pandemic has worsened and the stock market has tanked. Multiple reports confirm that Trump was irate with prescient statements in late February by Nancy Messonnier, a senior official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who warned that a coronavirus outbreak in the United States was inevitable at a time when Trump was insisting he’d prevented one by banning travel from China. A report in Vanity Fair quoted “a person close to the administration” saying that Trump was “melting down” over the pandemic. He pitched a fit after his Oval Office address in early March was widely panned. His temper has acted as an obvious deterrent for other officials to contradict Trump’s happy talk about the pandemic: In early March, Defense Secretary Mark Esper ordered his overseas commanders not to take any action mitigating the coronavirus that might surprise the president. For Trump’s staff, crisis management revolves around managing the president’s temper, not managing the actual problem.

Trump, like most toddlers, also has poor impulse control. Some White House advisers reportedly refer to it as the “shiny-object phenomenon” — his tendency to react to breaking news rather than focusing on more important issues. This is a problem for competent governance. As White House counselor Kellyanne Conway noted back in 2017, “The hallmark of leadership is a deliberative process, not an impulsive reaction.”

During the coronavirus outbreak, Trump’s access to Twitter has exacerbated his impulsiveness. He has tweeted out statements that aides have scrambled to interpret or reverse-engineer into existence, on topics including whether he would invoke the Defense Production Act to force manufacturers to make ventilators. Health experts have reportedly tried to get him to focus beyond the immediate bad news cycles of rising infections and look at the larger picture of “flattening the curve” and preventing a much bigger health disaster, to little avail. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) complained on the record about Trump’s erratic public statements, noting that “he at times just says whatever comes to mind or tweets, then someone on TV is saying the opposite.”

Trump’s short, toddler-like attention span has been a problem throughout his administration. One former high-ranking government official told me that a 45-minute meeting with the president was really 45 different one-minute meetings, in which Trump would ask disconnected, rapid-fire questions such as “What do you think of NATO?” and “How big is an aircraft carrier?” One book reported that Trump would interrupt his first chief of staff to pepper him with questions about badgers. That inability to focus laid the groundwork for the bad pandemic response. During the transition, the Obama administration prepared a tabletop exercise to brief the incoming Trump team about how to handle an influenza pandemic. The president-elect did not participate, and a former senior official acknowledged that “to get the president to be focused on something like this would be quite hard.”

Trump’s inability to sit still has been on display recently. His aides have questioned whether he has the capacity to focus on what will be a months-long emergency. White House staffers acknowledged that the one time he tried to read a prepared speech from the Oval Office was an unmitigated disaster. Multiple reports confirm that he has grown restless while confined on the White House grounds. He has crashed staff meetings because he does not know what else to do.

Toddlers are natural contrarians, who love to test boundaries by pushing back on whatever they’re told. So is Trump. In the first two months of the outbreak, he insisted that the coronavirus would never spread within the United States, despite expert assessments to the contrary. In late February, he said: “It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.” He repeatedly claimed that the virus was not a serious problem, even as mayors, governors and his own administration said otherwise. After finally declaring a national emergency, he clung to the idea that most of the country would be back to normal by Easter. And he insisted that anti-malarial drugs offered an effective treatment despite minimal evidence because, according to one source, he “wants this magical moment when this is all over.” Each time, Trump’s advisers have had to expend precious time and energy to change his mind and soothe his ego rather than focus on the crisis at hand.

The final and most disturbing parallel between Trump and a toddler is that, like at a day-care center that doesn’t pay caregivers enough, the staff turnover in this administration has hampered the government’s response. The burn rate of senior officials has been much higher under Trump than under any of his post-Cold War predecessors.

The GOP did not send its best to staff Trump’s administration in January 2017, and he is now scraping from the bottom of the barrel. As the coronavirus crisis metastasized, Trump fired his third, and hired his fourth, chief of staff. His fourth national security adviser shrunk his staff by more than a third before the outbreak — including shuffling the National Security Council’s planning for pandemics into a larger sub-office, diluting its power within the White House. Two-thirds of the senior positions at the Department of Homeland Security are vacant or filled with acting officials. Civilian vacancies at the Pentagon are at record highs.

Much like frazzled preschool teachers, the remaining competent people staffing Trump are clearly past the point of exasperation. In response to an interview question about why he failed to correct Trump at a news conference, Anthony Fauci, who’s been running the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for decades, responded: “I know, but what do you want me to do? I mean, seriously . . . let’s get real, what do you want me to do?”

Indeed, the rest of Washington seems as frustrated as Fauci: Despite his meltdowns, Trump has been able to use the enhanced powers of the presidency with minimal pushback. When he signed the $2 trillion stimulus bill, he rejected congressional oversight of the spending. The president told his vice president not to respond to governors who complain too much about the federal response. Despite his bad behavior, a bizarre aspect of this crisis is that some officials have complained that Trump has not used his emergency powers enough.

Any parent of a badly behaved toddler can identify with what Fauci is saying. Fortunately for parents — but unfortunately for all of us — no household up to now has had to cope with a toddler with the sprawling powers of the modern presidency.

 

[Smee]

5 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

The Republican asshattery continues. Because they just can't help themselves. Let's turn our focus on to Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Republicans Block Governor's Last Minute Plea to Change Tuesday Election

https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/wisconsin-primary-election-april-coronavirus-223358511.html

In related news, Wisconsin COVID-19 will explode within the next 2 1/2 weeks. What is especially concerning to me is that poll workers tend to be older. My Dad was one for several years before he passed, and my Stepdad is also one. No matter how the candidates do, I see catastrophic results. I'm so horrified, I can hardly type.

As usual, I just quoted the first part of the article.

Is this the presidential primary? I.e. the one where the republican nomination is already decided so it will be democrats putting themselves at risk to vote? Or is it an election for state level stuff?

[Smee]

Well this is sweet.

 

[fraurosena]

Daily update:

• For the first time since the outbreak in Belgium, more patients left the hospital than entered it in the past 24 hrs. 499 patients were admitted, 504 went home. Since March 15, 8273 corona patients have been admitted into hospitals, of which 3751 have recovered enough to go home again. Belgium has total number of 1447 deaths corona-related deaths. The country went into lockdown on March 18.
• Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez has voiced that Europe should create a Marshall-plan to revitalise the economy after the corona-crisis has passed. He says the plans Europe has put into effect up till now are fine, but not ambitious enough. He points out that this crisis is 'a war against an invisible enemy' that could make or break Europe. "If we keep thinking small, we will fail."
• In a telephone call with leaders of American sports unions, Trump has stated that he wants to fill the sports stadiums again as soon as possible, including spectators. "The fans want the games back. They want to watch basketball, baseball, football and hockey. They want to watch their favourite sports. They want to go out on the golf courses again, and breath fresh, clean air." He didn't want to name a date, but said "I think it will be sooner than everyone thinks."
• The Ecuadorian government has issued its apologies for the dozens of dead corona-patients lying in the streets in Guayaquil, the largest city in the country. On social media, residents of the city shared images of decomposing bodies who had been left outside because hospitals, mortuaries and graveyards don't have any more room. The authorities have now started taking away the bodies and storing them in large cooling units.
  Officially Ecuador has 3500 confirmed corona-cases and 172 corona-related deaths. President Moreno has stated that the actual numbers are probably much higher.
• There is now a confirmed corona case in a second refugee camp in Malakasa, Greece. The camp has been put into quarantine after a 53-year-old Afghan tested positive. He has been hospitalised in Athens.
• 130 members of a riot police team in Hong Kong have been placed into quarantine. In all probability one of the members was infected in a bar, the others possibly whilst they were in action against an anti-government demonstration in Kowloon.
• Surinam has scrapped the controversial costs they were levying from people who had been placed into quarantine. These people had to pay about 1000 euro's so the authorities could hire security that would prevent them from leaving their homes. After public outrage, the authorities are now paying for the security themselves. People who have already paid up, will receive their money back.
• St. Maarten (the Dutch half of St. Martin) is now in lockdown for the coming two weeks. People with essential jobs will receive a pass enabling them to leave their homes. Shops, including grocery stores are only allowed to open in an emergency. Next week the lockdown will be evaluated too see if the lockdown can be partially lifted to enable residents to buy necessary goods. Many people had been standing in long queues in front of shops so they could stock up as much as they could; authorities say this shouldn't be necessary as people already always need to have provisions at home for at least two weeks in case of hurricanes.
  The Netherlands have sent a mobile hospital to the island, including PPE's and medical equipment to treat corona-patients.
• Puerto Rican authorities have found a stock of medical equipment in different locations on the island, mainly PPE's, worth more than 3.7 million euro. 
  There are 450 confirmed cases in Puerto Rico, and 18 corona-related deaths.
• Attilio Fontana, governor of Lombardy in Italy, has called for people who venture outside during the lovely spring weather to cover their mouths and nose when they go out, although he advises people to keep following the rules and stay inside as much as possible.
• A sweet initiative from Spanish police officers: they're making surprise visits to children's birthdays, driving through the streets with music, balloons and banners in an effort to cheer them up for their special day during the quarantine.
• A record number of corona-related deaths in one day for New York: 630 patients have died, bringing the total number of deaths in New York up to 3565. There are 114.000 confirmed corona cases in the state.
• Spain has overtaken Italy as the country with the highest number of confirmed cases in Europe. Spain now has 124.736 cases, Italy 124.632. With a number of 15.300 Italy still has the highest number of corona-related deaths in Europe. Spain has reported 11.700 deaths.
• The global corona death toll has exceeded 60.000 deaths. Most patients died in Spain and Italy (see above). The US is also high on the list with 7500 deaths. 
  More than 1.1 million people have been infected with the virus worldwide. 
• There are now 1360 Dutch corona patients in the ICU, 17 of which in hospitals in Germany. 33 German hospitals have offered to take in Dutch patients if necessary.
  Care homes have been hit hard with virus infections. Officially there are 705 confirmed cases in care homes in the Netherlands, but doctors say an additional 960 people have corona-like symptoms. The death toll amongst care home residents is also relatively high; doctors estimate that 199 people have died of the virus; 56 confirmed cases, 143 suspected cases. 
  Care homes have been in lockdown since March 19.
• Residents of Moscow are only allowed outside for necessities such as groceries and medication, and they have been advised to keep their distance and wear masks. However, hardly anyone is adhering to that advice, including mayor Sobjanin.
  Officially Moscow has 536 new confirmed cases; 29 residents have died of the virus.
• The number of new confirmed cases in China is on the rise again. Yesterday there were 30 new cases, 11 more than the day before. 25 of the patients were supposedly contaminated abroad. 
  In total the Chinese authorities have reported 81.669 corona cases.
• Queen Elisabeth will be addressing the public in a special speech today. It is expected that she will praise the British healthcare workers in a four minute speech. It will be the fourth time in 68 years that the Queen will address the public in an extra speech. The three other times were in 1991 when the Gulf War broke out, in 1997 when Princess Diana died, and in 2002 when the Queen Mother died. Today's speech has been recorded in the White Drawing Room, the only room where the 93-year-old monarch and the cameraman can keep at a safe distance from each other.

Personal news:

Yesterday as I was doing exercises for my back, something finally popped back into place! Yay! The worst of the pain is gone now and I don't need painkillers anymore. I do have residual muscle pain (which is normal) and sitting for any length of time is still rather uncomfortable, but I don't have to lie in bed all day anymore. If past experience is any indication, it will be a matter of a couple of days and then I'll be back to normal... only this time I swear I'll be doing my exercises faithfully... truly!

There are no new numbers in hospitalisations, so I'll only post them when they change.

Edited April 5, 2020 by fraurosena

[clueliss]

Re golf courses , I live in a complex with a 9 hole course.  It remains open. People can still play golf if they social distance while doing it.  They’re also issuing 1 golf cart per person so I keep seeing two to four carts in the course at a time.  
 

the moron in charge is board (again) and wants is golf courses and forms of entertainment back in to please him and never mind all the dead people.  
 

I've said for four years (before the moron took office) that he had zero clue about what the job actually was.  He still needs to go watch education rock from the late 70s as a tutorial on his own job. Running a company =/= running the country.  
 

and I’m over political finger pointing amid all of this (on both sides,  unaffiliated voter here, no allegiance to either party).  

[AmazonGrace]

 

[WiseGirl]

5 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Trump has stated that he wants to fill the sports stadiums again 

On Senday Today Chuck Todd called 45 tone deaf. The idiot 45 really has no clue.

My Senator, Murphy, keeps Tweeting the truth unlike a certain liar, liar pants on fire jackass.

Oh our local university converted its sports center into a mobile hospital. We are expected to peak within the next two to three weeks but who knows.

[Audrey2]

12 hours ago, Smee said:

Is this the presidential primary? I.e. the one where the republican nomination is already decided so it will be democrats putting themselves at risk to vote? Or is it an election for state level stuff?

It sounds like it's the primary election, in which they do both the presidential primary and all of their state and local offices as well.

I read that each of the five polling places in Milwaukee will be for about 10,000 people, if they show up.

Edited April 5, 2020 by Audrey2

[clueliss]

Pastor died of covid19 after being a covidiot 

 

And what the hell Georgia 

Quote

 

 

[Audrey2]

20 minutes ago, clueliss said:

Pastor died of covid19 after being a covidiot 

 

And what the hell Georgia 

 

Ask Oregon how well that went. Just before Oregon issued its stay-at-home order and it was just a strong recommendation, people flocked to the coast and to the Columbia Gorge. That led to hiking trails being shut down for the duration, because people were not keeping their distance.

[GreyhoundFan]

He needs to be banned from the daily rally:

Maybe his sitters could give him some "Curious George" books to practice reading.

[Italiangirl]

i everyone i'm sorry i haven't update you in a while but i have been a little bit tired the last few days as we have work outside, we have plant tomato, and potato, clean some plant from ivy and others stuff...

anyway here the data seems going better for the second consecutive day we have seen less people than the day before in the ICU it was 4068 the day before yesterday and 3994 yesterday and 3977 today is not much i know but is a good news, the number of death is going down too today it was "only"525 teh 03/04 was 766

the number of new infection is steady now around 2500 pretty much 

i will post here the link to the site with a the data and the graphics made by the the major technical journal using the data from the civil protection https://lab24.ilsole24ore.com/coronavirus/en/

[AmazonGrace]

 

[fraurosena]

Boris Johnson admitted to hospital for coronavirus

Quote

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was admitted to hospital for tests on Sunday night, 10 days after testing positive for coronavirus.

In a statement, a Downing Street spokeswoman said it was a precautionary move and had been taken "on the advice of his doctor."

“This is a precautionary step, as the prime minister continues to have persistent symptoms of coronavirus ten days after testing positive for the virus," the spokesperson said.

The prime minister is expected to stay in hospital overnight, officials indicated, having been admitted earlier on Sunday evening. Downing Street did not say which hospital he was in, and officials emphasized that it had not been an emergency admission.

Johnson confirmed he had tested positive for coronavirus on Friday last week, and has been self-isolating in Downing Street ever since, chairing meetings via videoconference, and having papers and meals left at his door. Ten days on he is still showing symptoms of the illness, including a high temperature.

While officials said Johnson remains in charge of the government, and in contact with his ministers and officials, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab will chair Monday morning’s meeting of the government’s COVID-19 “war cabinet,” officials said. The Sunday Times reported last month that Raab had been nominated as "designated survivor" should the prime minister be incapacitated.

U.K. Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who confirmed that he had also tested positive for coronavirus on the same day as the prime minister, has since recovered and resumed his public role at the forefront of the government’s pandemic response. Johnson’s fiancé Carrie Symonds has also been ill with COVID-19 symptoms and is self-isolating but has not been tested for the virus.

News of Johnson’s admission to hospital came just over an hour after Queen Elizabeth II gave a rare televised address, which was pre-recorded, to rally spirits in what she said was an “increasingly challenging time.”

Leading British politicians including Hancock, Keir Starmer, the new Labour leader, Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and London Mayor Sadiq Khan wished the prime minister well on social media.

Asked about the prime minister’s health earlier Sunday, Hancock told Sky News that Johnson was “OK.”

“He has still got a temperature … I was lucky, I had two pretty rough days and then I bounced back and some people do get it pretty mildly, and then for others, it’s very, very serious and the prime minister is not at that end of the spectrum.”

 

[clueliss]

The moron in charge may think he’s too manly to wear a mask, but the department of defense has other ideas.

I also saw a piece on tv news in the last week or so about the military quarantining a unit and sending them into Cheyenne Mountain for a month rotation for the sake of continuity of command.  They will do the same with a second unit at the end of that month 
 

I’m old enough to get the Cheyenne Mountain reference.  (Cold War compound in Colorado)

[Cartmann99]

1 hour ago, clueliss said:

The moron in charge may think he’s too manly to wear a mask, but the department of defense has other ideas.

He's afraid that the straps will mess up his hairdo.

[fraurosena]

This is what real leaders do.

 

[Dandruff]

50 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

This is what real leaders do.

 

Not that we'd want Twitler anywhere near patients (who want to live).

[Ozlsn]

1 hour ago, Dandruff said:

Not that we'd want Twitler anywhere near patients (who want to live).

Frankly I think keeping him isolated on the golf course with security surrounding him at a socially necessary distance is safest for everyone. 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump blocks Fauci from answering question about drug Trump is touting"

Spoiler

President Trump spent a portion of Sunday’s press briefing yet again promoting an unproven treatment for the novel coronavirus, repeatedly asking, “What do we have to lose?”

So toward the end, a CNN reporter turned to Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, for his opinion on the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine with a sharper question: “What is the medical evidence?”

Standing at the microphone, Fauci opened his mouth — but before he could speak, the answer came out of Trump’s instead.

“Do you know how many times he’s answered that question?” Trump cut in. “Maybe 15.”

A tight smile stretched across Fauci’s face. His eyes, framed by a pair of wire-rimmed glasses, flicked quickly to Trump. He glanced back at the reporter, who was saying to the president, “The question is for the doctor. … He’s your medical expert, correct?”

Fauci’s smile, for just a moment, was all teeth now. Trump raised his finger sternly, telling the journalist, “You don’t have to ask the question,” and so Fauci didn’t answer it, and the news conference shuffled right along.

The unexpected interruption was an extraordinary moment even in this season of brash behavior exhibited by the president during his daily briefings. While Trump has been at odds with Fauci in the past, repeatedly clouding his administration’s public health messaging, the president has never shut down his top medical expert so abruptly and publicly before, intervening to keep him from answering. In other contexts, the president routinely calls on Fauci for medical questions.

But had he been permitted to speak, Fauci’s answer, which he’s given many times, likely would not have tempered Trump’s enthusiastic endorsement of the anti-malarial drug as a potential treatment for covid-19. Trump, advised by his lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, among others, has touted the drug for weeks.

Virtually every time, Fauci has warned that there is so far no definitive medical proof that the drug is an effective treatment and has cautioned that it is still being studied.

“As I’ve said many times … the data are really just at best suggestive,” Fauci said when asked about the drug’s potential to prevent coronavirus during an appearance on “Face the Nation” just hours before Sunday’s briefing. “There have been cases that show there may be an effect and there are others to show there’s no effect, so I think in terms of science, I don’t think we can definitely say it works.”

Separately, the president of the American Medical Association, Patrice Harris, told CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer on Sunday that she would not prescribe hydroxychloroquine if she had a coronavirus patient, cautioning against Trump’s “What do we have to lose?” rationale. The drug’s well-known side-effects can cause fatal heart problems in patients who are taking other drugs that affect the heart’s rhythm, such as anti-depressants, or who have existing heart issues.

“You could lose your life,” Harris said. “It’s unproven. And so certainly there are some limited studies, as Dr. Fauci said. But at this point, we just don’t have the data to suggest that we should be using this medication for covid-19.”

The different messaging about the drug from the president and his top medical expert sets up a potentially confusing clash of advice on the pandemic. Last week, the Food and Drug Administration gave emergency approval to the Trump administration’s plan to distribute millions of doses of anti-malarial drugs including hydroxychloroquine to covid-19 patients, despite the fact that no substantial clinical trials have been completed. Using its emergency powers, the agency reasoned that trying the unapproved treatment outweighed the risks.

Trump on Sunday said “we have no time” to do lengthy studies on the drug, saying he fears people may die without it and, “if it does work, it would be a shame if we didn’t do it early.” He told people they still needed a physician’s approval but that personally, “I’ve seen things that I sort of like."

“What do I know? I’m not a doctor. But I have common sense,” he added.

He has put more stock in hydroxychloroquine than Fauci and other leading medical experts, having previously described the drug as possibly one of “the biggest game changers in the history of medicine.”

But those optimistic statements have sharply contrasted with Fauci’s.

Fauci has repeatedly found himself tasked with trying to keep Trump’s statements rooted in fact — a role that often puts the scientist in the awkward position have having to publicly contradict the president.

And his job, Fauci told Science Magazine last month, isn’t easy.

“I can’t jump in front of the microphone and push him down,” Fauci said, referring to Trump. “Okay, he said it. Let’s try and get it corrected for the next time.”

Though Fauci stressed in the March Q&A that Trump does listen to him “on substantive issues” related to coronavirus, that has not appeared to be the case when it comes to the efficacy of existing drugs as treatment.

Since mid-March, Trump has privately and publicly pushed unproven or experimental drugs as “cure-alls,” The Washington Post reported. Trump has on some occasions even taken advice about the effectiveness of experimental treatments from Giuliani, his private lawyer, who has now morphed into the president’s unofficial science adviser, The Post reported Sunday.

One person familiar with official coronavirus task force discussions recently told The Post that the president “wants this magical moment when this is all over.”

Fauci, however, has sought to tamp down such assertions in public statements and interviews, assuring people “there’s no magic drug out there right now,” as he said during a CNN town hall on March 20. His unwavering stance may be best illustrated by his exchanges with conservative media personalities, several of whom have tried to get the scientist to promote the drug on their shows in recent weeks.

On March 24, for example, Fox News host Laura Ingraham asked Fauci if he would “feel comfortable” taking hydroxychloroquine if he were diagnosed with coronavirus.

“I’m a believer in a clinical trial,” he responded. “I might take one of those drugs, but I’d do it within the auspices of a controlled clinical trial.”

Then in a Friday appearance on “Fox and Friends,” Fauci pushed back against the mention of a small study conducted in Wuhan China, where the virus originated, that reported a handful of patients with mild cases saw improvements in their conditions after receiving hydroxychloroquine.

“That was not a very robust study,” Fauci said, noting that while “it is still possible that there is a beneficial effect,” the research was only “an indication, a hint of” the drug’s potential efficacy.

He was equally skeptical of another study brought up by host Steve Doocy in which researchers surveyed 6,200 doctors in 30 different countries and found that 37 percent of respondents chose hydroxychloroquine as the “most effective therapy” for coronavirus out of more than a dozen other options.

“Thirty-seven percent of doctors feel that it’s beneficial,” Fauci said. “We don’t operate on how you feel. We operate on what evidence is and data is.

“I think we’ve got to be careful that we don’t make that majestic leap to assume that this is a knockout drug,” he continued. “We still need to do the kinds of studies that definitively prove whether any intervention, not just this one, … is truly safe and effective.”

The battle between Fauci and Trump’s allies touting the promise of the anti-malarial drugs appeared to come to a head over the weekend, culminating in what Axios described as an “epic White House fight.” The heated confrontation reportedly played out between Fauci and the president’s trade adviser, Peter Navarro, who touted various studies on the drug that Fauci has found insufficient, according to the Sunday report from Axios citing anonymous sources, which was later corroborated by the New York Times.

But Fauci isn’t the only medical expert who has attempted to temper efforts to push unproven drug therapies for coronavirus.

In a joint statement last month, the American Medical Association, American Pharmacists Association and American Society of Health-System Pharmacists said they “strongly oppose” prescribing and hoarding medications that may be used to treat the virus.

James Phillips, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at George Washington University, told CNN in a recent interview, “We don’t know enough to make medical recommendations.”

“It’s a dangerous message for someone without a medical license to get up there and tell people to try it,” Phillips said, according to the Guardian. “You need to listen to physicians, people who understand science, before you go willy-nilly into the medicine cabinet.”

But on Sunday, as the number of coronavirus cases in the country continued to soar and the U.S. surgeon general warned that Americans are about to experience “the hardest and saddest week” of their lives, Trump and Fauci were united on at least one front: “The most effective weapon in this war,” as the president put it, is not catching the virus.

“The only tool, but the best tool, we have is mitigation,” Fauci said. “If we really want to make sure that we don’t have these kinds of rebounds that we’re worried about it’s mitigation, mitigation, mitigation.”

On this note, Trump nodded in agreement.

"Doctor" Toddler is overruling the actual medical doctors. He just can't let anyone else have the spotlight.

[clueliss]

Not the first time there has been a difference of opinion.  The real indicator is if Fauci gets dropped for a day or three from the daily presser.  Granted that only prompts everyone in the media to ask him where Fauci is (which annoys the crap out of him but it also is what brings Fauci back to the daily presser).  

I'm still waiting for the return of the Surgeon General who has been such a bad boy that he has yet to return to the circus tent.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

9 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

He's afraid that the straps will mess up his hairdo.

I think he's afraid of the transfer of his make up ...can you imagine those masks covered in that orange bronzer and white lines around his face.

Because his makeup is more important to him than saving lives.

Do we think he does his own make up?  And don't forget, as long as his hair is being colored he's putting someone in danger with not distancing because you know he can't do it himself.  

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I can't bring myself to watch the daily rallies, I much prefer reading. That way, I don't have to listen to Twitler's voice and rambling delivery. Plus, it cuts out all his crap. "What you need to know from Sunday’s White House coronavirus briefing"

Spoiler

President Trump and the White House novel coronavirus task force are holding briefings about the federal government’s response seven days a week. It’s a lot to follow. Here are three things that happened in Sunday’s briefing you need to know.

1. This is going to be an extremely deadly week — and Trump goes beyond the experts in assuring it will be the peak

Coronavirus task force officials have been warning lately that hard weeks are to come, and they’re particularly grim about this week. Infectious-disease expert Anthony S. Fauci warned Sunday on CBS, “Just buckle down, continue to mitigate, continue to do the physical separation because we’ve got to get through this week that’s coming up because it is going to be a bad week.” U.S. Surgeon General Jerome M. Adams said on Fox News: “This is going to be our Pearl Harbor moment, our 9/11 moment.”

With those dire warnings, these officials offer words of comfort. Adams said in the next breath: “I want Americans to understand that, as hard as this week is going to be, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.”

On Sunday, Trump offered a similar warning. But he took his words of comfort much further than any of the experts have been willing to by indicating that after this week, things will get better: “In the days ahead, America will endure the peak of this terrible pandemic,” Trump said.

Trump’s assurance that the worst comes this week does not take into account places where the virus has not spread as rapidly. In the District, for example, experts are predicting the highest number of cases as late as May. The Washington Post reports that the death toll in the United States is almost certainly higher than the official numbers.

Trump’s confidence stands in stark contrast with what Fauci said hours earlier, that “we are struggling” to get the virus under control.

2. The federal government is stockpiling drugs that have not been proven

Specifically, one that Trump has been touting for weeks, saying he has a good feeling about it.

“We bought massive amounts of it, 29 million doses of it,” Trump said of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug. The Trump administration approved its use for clinical trials in New York, despite there being no scientific consensus at this time that it works and health experts having concerns about heart and vision risks.

When NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell asked Trump how he draws a line between being enthusiastic about a possibility and “playing doctor,” Trump explained his logic this way: “If it doesn’t work, great. If it doesn’t work … it doesn’t kill people.”

When CNN’s Jeremy Diamond asked Trump why he doesn’t just let the clinical trials play out and let science determine whether the drug works, Trump claimed he wasn’t pushing the drug (even though he has, near daily) and attacked the reporter for asking the question.

When a reporter asked Fauci to comment on this, Trump intervened and wouldn’t let Fauci speak.

3. Trump’s strategy to deflect: Blame governors

Particularly, Democratic governors. He has questioned whether New York needs the 30,000 ventilators sought by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

He has used gendered language to attack Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who is pleading with the federal government for more supplies.

And on Sunday, he went after Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who said earlier in the day that he had “given up” on the federal government helping states.

Trump said he asked his aides to give him a list of all the things the federal government has done for Illinois (it sent 600 ventilators and is building a hospital in Chicago), then said: “He’s not able to do what he’s supposed to be able to do as a governor. He has not performed well.”

Trump’s harsh words come as people inside his administration are criticizing the federal government, not the states, for being short of ventilators. From Washington Post reporting this weekend:

In late March, the administration ordered 10,000 ventilators — far short of what public health officials and governors said was needed. And many will not arrive until the summer or fall, when models expect the pandemic to be receding.

“It’s actually kind of a joke,” said one administration official involved in deliberations about the belated purchase.

In addition, Trump belatedly moved to force General Motors to make ventilators, meaning the devices will not be ready for months.

To the extent that the president can make governors his scapegoat for the clearly documented failings of the federal government, he is trying.