Government Response to Coronavirus 5: We're On Our Own

[GreyhoundFan]

Continued from here:

 

More insanity from Twitler's Faux town hall:

 

[47of74]

A libertarian law school class mate had posted something about Illinois Governor Pritzler's family traveling during the crisis.  So I did a bit of digging and found this...

Quote

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker would not answer questions regarding his wife leaving Illinois and flying to Florida during his extended “Stay-at-Home” order.

During the question and answer period during the Democratic Governor’s daily briefing press conference on Wednesday, a reporter asked him a pointed question about his wife’s whereabouts.

The speaker read the question from Mark Konkol with Patch.

“Where’s the First Lady? Is she accompanied by a state security detail? Is she engaged in non-essential travel? What is your response to people who say the stay-at-home order and non-essential travels bans aren’t abided by your family?”

He went and started grumbling about how the question was inappropriate and how his family are separate from politics.

Uh, kind of is jerk.  If you want people to endure hardship and discomfort you need to be leading by example, not pulling a Mayor Lightfoot and acting like emergency decrees are for other people.  People sacrificed a lot so the least you can fucking do is lead by fucking example. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

The Lincoln Project just dropped a brutal new video. I remember the Reagan "Morning in America" ad from the 1984 election.

 

Edited May 4, 2020 by GreyhoundFan

[GreyhoundFan]

I don't know what "reviews" he means. He's such a delusional ass.

 

[47of74]

Is this why you’re doing a fucking piss poor job Kimmy?

[elliha]

I hope you are all doing well here despite of things. I am fine and life goes on over here too. My region is still not that effected with around 330 cases and 16 deaths. The signs are positive for Stockholm which has had most of the cases. We keep getting asked to keep to the guidelines so that the positive signs are not reversed. I do so but some restaurants have been closed in Stockholm because they were too crowded. They say that there are people who go out here where I live too but I haven't been to town at hours where I could say so myself and the few times I have been to work the town has not been very crowded but that is of course during the day. Hopefully things keep going in the right direction and life can return to normal soon. So far, knock on wood, no one I know have died but three of my friends have probably had or have covid-19 due to symptoms but none of them have been tested yet so we don't know. So far they have not needed hospital care so that is great. 

If anything positive has come from this it is that I learned several tunes on tin whistle and I painted my first painting in years. I will now go into a very intense period at work so I don't know how I am going to survive it without the support of my colleagues but I will find some way I guess.

[fraurosena]

14 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

The Lincoln Project just dropped a brutal new video. I remember the Reagan "Morning in America" ad from the 1984 election.

 

Someone is a little upset about this ad.

 

 

[TuringMachine]

I can never decide what's more disturbing: his deranged temper tantrums or the "You tell them Mr. president! 2020" from his supporters in response to his deranged temper tantrums.

[Smee]

So you know how I posted (maybe in the other thread, I don’t remember) about schools and the different states’ approaches to gradually reopening them? NSW one day a week, QLD only a couple of grades for the first 2 weeks, VIC staying closed? That’s only for public schools. Public schools get the majority of their funding from state governments, whereas Catholic and Independent schools, far from actually being independent, get funding from the federal government (don’t get me started on how fucking wrong Australia’s school funding system is) aaaand our prime minister, who was fighting tooth and nail against school closures right up til he was overruled by the states in late March, has now convinced a heap of private schools to reopen sooner by offering an “advance” on their funding for next financial year. Are public schools being given extra (or even earlier) funding at this time? No. Are public schools even equipped with enough hand sanitizer and tissues to get through a regular flu season? No. But if you’re paying 20K a year in school fees your kids just might be back already, thanks to a bribe from Scotty from Marketing.

 

(in other news, I guess I’m feeling safe again because my “ScoMo has don’t an ok job on all this, minus a few exceptions” mental coping mechanism has reverted right back to loathing him, his party and everything they stand for)

[Ozlsn]

@Smee you know what I am really hoping comes out of this? The death of the religious discrimination bill as far as those schools go. You accept the money, tough shit, you follow what the federal legislation says. You want to discriminate on the basis of your religion in breach of the Equal Opportunity Act? Forfeit the money (and get sued anyway). 

Guessing ScoMo's kids will be back at school then. Meanwhile my state premier is still telling him to get knotted on that subject, and we've just had a teacher who was working at one school with the kids of essential workers/at risk kids diagnosed, and that school shut completely for decontamination. 

[GreyhoundFan]

7 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Someone is a little upset about this ad.

I love TLP's response to his series of rage tweets:

 

 

Apparently the ad aired during Tucker Carlson's show on Faux, which is likely part of the rage.

Edited May 5, 2020 by GreyhoundFan

[GreyhoundFan]

He needs the time to watch Faux/OAN and eat ice cream.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I just don't know what to say...

 

[church_of_dog]

6 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I just don't know what to say...

 

Someone get him one of these:

www.restingriskface.com

[GreyhoundFan]

Sigh.

[thoughtful]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I just don't know what to say...

 

Bro Gary needs to hear about this. He'd love to have a religious-sounding excuse for not wearing one. HAYMAYUN!

[JMarie]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/05/05/donald-trump-team-may-wind-down-work-its-coronavirus-task-force/3086574001/

Quote

President Donald Trump's administration is considering plans to wind down its coronavirus task force as early as this month, a major shift in the White House strategy for responding to the greatest health crisis in a century.

Vice President Mike Pence, who has led the group since it was created in January, told reporters the work of the group will be transferred to other parts of the government, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

That could take place later this month or early June, he said.

"I think we’re having conversations about that and about what the proper time is for the task force to complete its work and for the ongoing efforts to take place on an agency-by-agency level," Pence told reporters, according to a transcript of his remarks reviewed by USA TODAY.

Maybe Trump just wants to get rid of Fauci and Birx.

[GreyhoundFan]

What a surprise. Not. "Kushner coronavirus effort said to be hampered by inexperienced volunteers"

Spoiler

The coronavirus response being spearheaded by President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has relied in part on volunteers from consulting and private equity firms with little expertise in the tasks to which they were assigned, exacerbating chronic problems in obtaining supplies for hospitals and other needs, according to numerous government officials and a volunteer involved in the effort.

About two dozen employees from Boston Consulting Group, Insight, McKinsey and other firms have volunteered their time — some on paid vacation leave from their jobs and others without pay — to aid the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, according to administration officials and others familiar with the arrangement.

Although some of the volunteers have relevant backgrounds and experience, many others were poorly matched with the jobs they were assigned, including those given the task of securing personal protective equipment, or PPE, for hospitals nationwide, according to a complaint filed last month with the House Oversight Committee.

The complaint, obtained by The Washington Post, was submitted by a volunteer who has since left the group and who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from the administration. Key elements of the complaint were confirmed by six administration officials and one outside adviser to the effort, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

A spokeswoman for the oversight panel declined to comment.

The document alleges that the team responsible for PPE had little success in helping the government secure such equipment, in part because none of the team’s members had significant experience in health care, procurement or supply-chain operations. In addition, none of the volunteers had existing relationships with manufacturers or a clear understanding of customs requirements or Food and Drug Administration rules, according to the complaint and two senior administration officials.

“Americans are facing a crisis of tragic proportions and there is an urgent need for an effective, efficient and bold response,” reads the complaint, which was sent to the committee on April 8. “From my few weeks as a volunteer, I believe we are falling short. I am writing to alert my representatives of these challenges and to ask that they do everything possible to help front-line health-care workers and other Americans in need.”

Supply-chain volunteers were instructed to fast-track protective equipment leads from “VIPs,” including conservative journalists friendly to the White House, according to the complaint and one senior administration official.

“Fox & Friends” host Brian Kilmeade, for example, called two people he knew in the administration to pass along a lead about protective equipment in an effort to be helpful, according to two people familiar with the outreach. Fox News Channel host Jeanine Pirro also repeatedly lobbied the administration for a specific New York hospital to receive a large quantity of masks, one of the people said.

Kilmeade and Pirro said they were not aware that their tips were being prioritized, a Fox News spokeswoman said.

The volunteer group tasked with securing protective equipment is part of a broader coronavirus team set up by Kushner that spans the White House, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Much of the effort is run out of office space at FEMA headquarters.

Kushner and other key administration officials praised the volunteers’ efforts, which they said have helped the administration’s virus response.

“The bottom line is that this program sourced tens of millions of masks and essential PPE in record time and Americans who needed ventilators received ventilators,” Kushner said in a statement. “These volunteers are true patriots.”

But some government officials have expressed alarm at the presence of the volunteers, saying that their role in the response is unclear and that they have needed guidance on basic questions.

Health experts said procuring personal protective equipment is a complex job that requires expertise in the different types of equipment hospitals need, experience dealing with manufacturers and an understanding of which types of masks, for instance, have FDA approval.

“That’s the danger — there may be decisions being made that are not fully informed and that’s going to lead to downstream effects on the response,” said Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and an infectious-disease physician. “The people that are volunteering, they are donating their time and we have to be grateful for that, but whoever is supervising them needs to match their skills with what the needs are.”

Even as the volunteer group struggled to procure protective equipment, about 30 percent of “key supplies,” including masks, in the national stockpile of emergency medical equipment went toward standing up a separate Kushner-led effort to establish drive-through testing sites nationwide, according to a March internal planning document obtained by The Post and confirmed by one current and one former administration official. Kushner had originally promised thousands of testing sites, but only 78 materialized; the stockpile was used to supply 44 of those over five to 10 days, the document said.

One White House official denied that a third of the stockpile went to Kushner’s initiative, but declined to provide details.

The team of volunteers focused on PPE had trouble developing manufacturer relationships and making inroads with brokers, in part because they were using personal email accounts, rather than official government email addresses, the House Oversight Committee complaint states. Three senior administration officials confirmed the volunteers’ use of personal email addresses.

In addition to the already challenging circumstances, the complaint also says that on some of the teams, “minimal attempts at social distancing are taken.”

Jordan Libowitz, a spokesman for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said that the volunteers should be classified as “special government employees” and that the arrangement raises myriad concerns.

“This is the problem with operating off the books,” he said. “We just don’t know if they’re following the law or not.”

The volunteers were told to preserve and share a copy of all of their official emails, to comply with the Federal Records Act, according to the volunteer and administration officials. But Libowitz said that “by using private email accounts, we have no assurances that their emails are being preserved. . . . This doesn’t prove anything nefarious is going on, but if something nefarious was going on, this is how they would do it.”

Two senior administration officials disputed a number of the concerns outlined in the complaint. They said that the volunteers did not have trouble vetting leads or getting responses from brokers or companies, and that many of the volunteers had relevant backgrounds and experience. The officials added that it is difficult to know whether the volunteers received leads on protective equipment that resulted in procurement because nongovernment employees did not have final decision or purchasing authority.

The officials also said they had not heard of any sort of “VIP” treatment prioritizing some leads over others.

“I believe the volunteers are competent, hard working and intelligent, but we represent a smaller procurement team than at most midsized companies despite the magnitude of the crisis,” the complaint says. “I believe America deserves a larger, better-funded response. The team generally works 12+ hour days, seven days per week, but frankly has little to show for it.”

Kushner’s team is made up of private industry volunteers as well as allies in government, including Brad Smith, director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, and Adam Boehler, a former HHS official who was brought in to assist with the coronavirus response, as well as private industry executives.

Some of the volunteers were asked to create models projecting how much protective equipment the government would need to address the crisis, while others worked to project potential drug shortages that hospitals could face, according to four people familiar with the effort.

But administration officials deemed some of the models “too catastrophic,” a person familiar with the situation said. The administration ultimately decided to rely primarily on a model created by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington that has had some of the most optimistic projections of cases and deaths.

Those directly involved in Kushner’s effort were quick to praise the volunteers, stressing that the team members — many of whom relocated to Washington — upended their lives to try to help the administration manage the deadly pandemic.

“In the face of this unprecedented crisis, these volunteers dropped everything to help our country,” Boehler said in a statement. “This is not a partisan issue, this is an American one, and I am proud of these patriots.”

Navy Rear Adm. John Polowczyk, who is heading FEMA’s supply chain task force, was similarly effusive about the volunteers’ efforts. The initial mission of the supply-chain task force was to “find more product around the globe to buy time to increase domestic production,” he said in a statement, and the volunteer team was critical in that effort.

 

[Ozlsn]

7 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I just don't know what to say...

 

Presumably he's never been anywhere really cold, or been skiing, or diving, or worked in a medical field, or in any industry requiring faceshields. What. A. Tool.

8 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

He needs the time to watch Faux/OAN and eat ice cream.

 

Part of me is outraged, part of me thinks it's the safer option keeping him where he can do least harm, and all of me wants him paid commensurate with his work.

[GreyhoundFan]

Because of course: "Trump tours mask production facility in Arizona while not wearing mask"

Quote

President Trump did not wear a face mask Tuesday afternoon during a tour of the Honeywell mask production facility in Phoenix, his first trip outside the Washington area since late March.

After delivering remarks at a roundtable, Trump and several others were led on a tour of the facility by one of the company’s leaders. Trump and the leader of the tour wore goggles, but no one in the group wore a face covering.

A sign was posted in the part of the facility Trump toured reading, “Face Mask required in this Area.” According to a White House official, the Honeywell facility said officials were not required to wear masks.

Earlier Tuesday, Trump suggested that he would wear a mask during the visit. “I think it’s a mask facility, right? If it’s a mask facility I will, yeah,” he told reporters as he prepared to leave the White House.

Last month, Vice President Pence was sharply criticized after he met with patients and staff at the Mayo Clinic while not wearing a mask, an apparent violation of the medical center’s policy during the coronavirus pandemic. Pence acknowledged in a Fox News Channel town hall Sunday night that he should have worn a mask during the visit.

He looks like he's dreaming of playing golf and shmoozing with his buddies at Mar-a-Loco.

[JMarie]

20 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Because of course: "Trump tours mask production facility in Arizona while not wearing mask"

He looks like he's dreaming of playing golf and shmoozing with his buddies at Mar-a-Loco.

He's thinking, gee, these goggles are bigger than my spray tan ones.

[GreyhoundFan]

No surprise here:

 

[JMarie]

What do you call the person who graduated last in their medical school class? A doctor.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/rand-paul-says-hes-not-wearing-a-mask-in-senate-because-he-already-got-coronavirus/ar-BB13DCY3?ocid=spartanntp

Quote

As senators returned this week to Capitol Hill for the first time since mid-March, many were spotted entering their chambers wearing the now-ubiquitous face masks meant to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.

One notable exception: Sen. Rand Paul.

The Kentucky Republican, who is the only senator to have so far tested positive for COVID-19, explained Tuesday that he doesn’t need a mask because he’s already had the virus.

As senators returned this week to Capitol Hill for the first time since mid-March, many were spotted entering their chambers wearing the now-ubiquitous face masks meant to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.

One notable exception: Sen. Rand Paul.

The Kentucky Republican, who is the only senator to have so far tested positive for COVID-19, explained Tuesday that he doesn’t need a mask because he’s already had the virus.

Quote

What's more, the virus could mutate — a recent study conducted by Chinese scientists suggests that it has once already — meaning the same people infected once before could be infected again with a new strain, ultimately causing a second wave of illness.

When questioned about the possibility that he could become infected by another, mutated strain of the virus, Paul brushed off any concerns.

"I can’t get it again nor can I transmit it," Paul said. "So of all the people you'll meet here, I'm about the only safe person in Washington you'll meet.”

 

[Becky]

15 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

What a surprise. Not. "Kushner coronavirus effort said to be hampered by inexperienced volunteers"

  Reveal hidden contents

The coronavirus response being spearheaded by President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has relied in part on volunteers from consulting and private equity firms with little expertise in the tasks to which they were assigned, exacerbating chronic problems in obtaining supplies for hospitals and other needs, according to numerous government officials and a volunteer involved in the effort.

About two dozen employees from Boston Consulting Group, Insight, McKinsey and other firms have volunteered their time — some on paid vacation leave from their jobs and others without pay — to aid the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, according to administration officials and others familiar with the arrangement.

Although some of the volunteers have relevant backgrounds and experience, many others were poorly matched with the jobs they were assigned, including those given the task of securing personal protective equipment, or PPE, for hospitals nationwide, according to a complaint filed last month with the House Oversight Committee.

The complaint, obtained by The Washington Post, was submitted by a volunteer who has since left the group and who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from the administration. Key elements of the complaint were confirmed by six administration officials and one outside adviser to the effort, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

A spokeswoman for the oversight panel declined to comment.

The document alleges that the team responsible for PPE had little success in helping the government secure such equipment, in part because none of the team’s members had significant experience in health care, procurement or supply-chain operations. In addition, none of the volunteers had existing relationships with manufacturers or a clear understanding of customs requirements or Food and Drug Administration rules, according to the complaint and two senior administration officials.

“Americans are facing a crisis of tragic proportions and there is an urgent need for an effective, efficient and bold response,” reads the complaint, which was sent to the committee on April 8. “From my few weeks as a volunteer, I believe we are falling short. I am writing to alert my representatives of these challenges and to ask that they do everything possible to help front-line health-care workers and other Americans in need.”

Supply-chain volunteers were instructed to fast-track protective equipment leads from “VIPs,” including conservative journalists friendly to the White House, according to the complaint and one senior administration official.

“Fox & Friends” host Brian Kilmeade, for example, called two people he knew in the administration to pass along a lead about protective equipment in an effort to be helpful, according to two people familiar with the outreach. Fox News Channel host Jeanine Pirro also repeatedly lobbied the administration for a specific New York hospital to receive a large quantity of masks, one of the people said.

Kilmeade and Pirro said they were not aware that their tips were being prioritized, a Fox News spokeswoman said.

The volunteer group tasked with securing protective equipment is part of a broader coronavirus team set up by Kushner that spans the White House, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Much of the effort is run out of office space at FEMA headquarters.

Kushner and other key administration officials praised the volunteers’ efforts, which they said have helped the administration’s virus response.

“The bottom line is that this program sourced tens of millions of masks and essential PPE in record time and Americans who needed ventilators received ventilators,” Kushner said in a statement. “These volunteers are true patriots.”

But some government officials have expressed alarm at the presence of the volunteers, saying that their role in the response is unclear and that they have needed guidance on basic questions.

Health experts said procuring personal protective equipment is a complex job that requires expertise in the different types of equipment hospitals need, experience dealing with manufacturers and an understanding of which types of masks, for instance, have FDA approval.

“That’s the danger — there may be decisions being made that are not fully informed and that’s going to lead to downstream effects on the response,” said Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and an infectious-disease physician. “The people that are volunteering, they are donating their time and we have to be grateful for that, but whoever is supervising them needs to match their skills with what the needs are.”

Even as the volunteer group struggled to procure protective equipment, about 30 percent of “key supplies,” including masks, in the national stockpile of emergency medical equipment went toward standing up a separate Kushner-led effort to establish drive-through testing sites nationwide, according to a March internal planning document obtained by The Post and confirmed by one current and one former administration official. Kushner had originally promised thousands of testing sites, but only 78 materialized; the stockpile was used to supply 44 of those over five to 10 days, the document said.

One White House official denied that a third of the stockpile went to Kushner’s initiative, but declined to provide details.

The team of volunteers focused on PPE had trouble developing manufacturer relationships and making inroads with brokers, in part because they were using personal email accounts, rather than official government email addresses, the House Oversight Committee complaint states. Three senior administration officials confirmed the volunteers’ use of personal email addresses.

In addition to the already challenging circumstances, the complaint also says that on some of the teams, “minimal attempts at social distancing are taken.”

Jordan Libowitz, a spokesman for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said that the volunteers should be classified as “special government employees” and that the arrangement raises myriad concerns.

“This is the problem with operating off the books,” he said. “We just don’t know if they’re following the law or not.”

The volunteers were told to preserve and share a copy of all of their official emails, to comply with the Federal Records Act, according to the volunteer and administration officials. But Libowitz said that “by using private email accounts, we have no assurances that their emails are being preserved. . . . This doesn’t prove anything nefarious is going on, but if something nefarious was going on, this is how they would do it.”

Two senior administration officials disputed a number of the concerns outlined in the complaint. They said that the volunteers did not have trouble vetting leads or getting responses from brokers or companies, and that many of the volunteers had relevant backgrounds and experience. The officials added that it is difficult to know whether the volunteers received leads on protective equipment that resulted in procurement because nongovernment employees did not have final decision or purchasing authority.

The officials also said they had not heard of any sort of “VIP” treatment prioritizing some leads over others.

“I believe the volunteers are competent, hard working and intelligent, but we represent a smaller procurement team than at most midsized companies despite the magnitude of the crisis,” the complaint says. “I believe America deserves a larger, better-funded response. The team generally works 12+ hour days, seven days per week, but frankly has little to show for it.”

Kushner’s team is made up of private industry volunteers as well as allies in government, including Brad Smith, director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, and Adam Boehler, a former HHS official who was brought in to assist with the coronavirus response, as well as private industry executives.

Some of the volunteers were asked to create models projecting how much protective equipment the government would need to address the crisis, while others worked to project potential drug shortages that hospitals could face, according to four people familiar with the effort.

But administration officials deemed some of the models “too catastrophic,” a person familiar with the situation said. The administration ultimately decided to rely primarily on a model created by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington that has had some of the most optimistic projections of cases and deaths.

Those directly involved in Kushner’s effort were quick to praise the volunteers, stressing that the team members — many of whom relocated to Washington — upended their lives to try to help the administration manage the deadly pandemic.

“In the face of this unprecedented crisis, these volunteers dropped everything to help our country,” Boehler said in a statement. “This is not a partisan issue, this is an American one, and I am proud of these patriots.”

Navy Rear Adm. John Polowczyk, who is heading FEMA’s supply chain task force, was similarly effusive about the volunteers’ efforts. The initial mission of the supply-chain task force was to “find more product around the globe to buy time to increase domestic production,” he said in a statement, and the volunteer team was critical in that effort.

 

Gosh, who could have predicted that getting rid of your pandemic readiness office and relying upon completely inexperienced and unprepared volunteers from businesses unrelated to science or medical readiness would not end well? 

We are so screwed.  

[GreyhoundFan]

Apparently someone blasted "Live And Let Die" (the Guns and Roses version) over the loudspeakers while Twitler toured the mask factory. That makes a ... statement.

Edited May 6, 2020 by GreyhoundFan