This letter to the NEJM by one MA health system CEO on the pursuit of PPE is mind boggling. I'm glad that this health system has representation on the committee advising the governor on reopening.
Conservative Columnist David Frum said it sounded like something out of the last days of the Soviet Union. GW apparently was obsessed with pandemics after reading a history of the 1918 flu. Despite the catastrophe of Katrina, I would really prefer him as President right now.
In fact, this PSA from Bush that was linked to on a healthcare twitter feed I follow kind of impressed me. But maybe I just have really low standards after experiencing Trump's depraved narcissism.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1256607729151619073
Apparently there were some issues with those K95s that came over on the Patriots Plane. MIT did some testing of them. It's all the wild west. See that letter from the New England Journal.
When musing about what it would have been like to have Covid show up under different presidents, I get really depressed thinking about how Mitch McConnell and John Boehner would have rallied the Republicans to tie Obama's hands at every possible juncture. I just get really depressed thinking about it.
That letter in 1 is worth reading.
KN95s from the PRC are proving problematic all over.
There was some decent reporting on the situation a couple weeks ago from a few outlets, which at least clarified that there is (ostensibly) some method to the madness. The problem is a) this method doesn't appear to have been communicated to anyone, and b) it is overridden if you have Jared Kushner's ear, completely defeating what little purpose it serves. And of course it's not a particularly sensible method to begin with, and in no way a substitute for actually coordinating procurement at a federal level.
In very broad outlines, via NYT:
Federal officials say they are trying to expedite the shipment to the United States of large quantities of medical supplies procured by private health care providers such as McKesson Corporation, Cardinal Health, Owens & Minor, Medline and Henry Schein. FEMA allows those distributors to sell about half of the equipment to companies and counties that had previously placed orders. The other half of the shipments must be sold to counties that the federal government prioritizes by the severity of the outbreak, based on data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The federal government will also soon save 10 percent of the supplies on each flight for the national stockpile, according to officials. A Korean War-era production act also allows the federal government to force companies to prioritize its order over another client's, whether it be a private hospital or another nation.
I could have sworn there was a New Yorker or Atlantic article from around the same time which covered much the same ground, but I can't find it.
Ah.
Of course, the reality is that the federal government was then giving PPE to private companies to sell to the hospitals. I'll need to call in Yossarian to explain the details.
8: Right, but MA was turning into a hotspot and not getting supplies. Unlike Florida which was. Granted the formula assumed Florida would need more, because it was bigger, but it's still been a complete disaster.
8: Yes, there are in fact the bones of a useful program and rationale. But it of course lacks all of the trappings of an effective and honest program (like just about everything else this administration does). things like transparency, open and honest communication (particularly with *all* of the state governments involved) and yada , yada, yada. Of course that would open it to honest criticism and debate. There wan NYTimes Daily where part of it talked about how given Jared's connections with various prominent people in NYC they sort of kind of came out OK. If you're willing to sit back and accept just going with the flow of the totally transactional workings of the multinational crime syndicate that is administration then things sort of work. (""We're going to take a look at it. I think we want to take a little bit of a pause. But if we do that, we'll have to get something for it," Trump on giving states aid.)
Basically, a former governor of Illinois is in prison for that way of thinking.
Even as I was enjoying them myself, I was always a bit bothered by the societal embrace of various well-done renderings of the workings of mobs and gangs (Godfather, Goodfellas, Sopranos and what have you). But I would at least thought they would have made everyone fucking recognize a mob boss mentality when confronted with it. Or maybe a lot of people are in fact fine with it.
And heebie is of course right that it would have been a huge (but different) shit show with Obama (or Clinton). There would have been missteps of course, and the Republicans would have driven a tank through it. With media help, "Why can't Obama unite the country?" HRC they would have impeached, of course, probably for the 3rd or 4th time (I'm assuming a very different 2018 miidterm result.)
Am getting increasingly tired of various normalization gambits and invite anyone pushing those hard to go fuck themselves in the ass with a meathook so deeply that it comes out their eye socket. World-weary cynical fuckpigs from hell.
5: KN95s from the PRC are proving problematic all over.
Yes. They are fucking substandard! The did not and do not meet the fucking standards! What the fuck,. That is a known thing. In the pinch they were substituted. In part because of multiple failures of leadership* in multiple countries and multiple institutions. And of course much of it a result of structural deficiencies in our current late-capitalist organization of we make and get stuff.
*Not all equal magnitudes of failure, as I unsuccessfully preempt a bad faith response.
12: Basically, a former governor of Illinois is in prison for that way of thinking.
Not anymore (at least I assume he is now out) because game recognized game.
That's right. At least there used to be standards. (Mostly I was too lazy to look up how to spell his name.)
The totality of the pardon/clemency list really is a wonder to behold. (Apart from a few token attempts to gain political favor among otherwise hostile-to-Trump demographics).
5/15: Once upon a time, the person who handled ordering at my last gig found off-brand Tyvek suits and ordered them, thrilled that she was saving hundreds of dollars on our supply budget. They tore like crazy: when you put them on, when you zipped them up, when you sat, and when you stood. They were not ordered again.
There is zero doubt in my mind that the federal PPE supply chain control was used to enrich Trump's companies and his donors. Remember the R fundraiser who abruptly quit fundraising and suddenly said he'd be selling 100M PPE units despite no contracts, no inventory, and no experience in the field besides "I know people"?
At least Don Shula didn't live to see this. Not the worst of it anyway.
Slide 11 is really what the utter fuck.
I do wish these projections would state what their assumptions are re: containment measures, though.
Is the KN95 standard itself inadequate, or is the problem that the masks do not meet the KN95 standard?
22 Holy fuck
This is a great tool (link in the tweet):
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1257265014618173440
22: That curve sure looks like "wishful thinking" modeled against scatterplotted reality. I wonder if the inflection (and much steeper line after 5/15) reflects the decision of states to abandon containment and open up... so even DHS's own woefully behind the curve model thinks that opening up will be a disaster.
Those slides look like we're doing pretty well here, which I think is pretty generally recognized. If people take Sec. Mnuchin's suggestion that they travel in the US, and look at those maps, I'm afraid a lot of people are going to be heading to the Missouri Breaks.
I thought Warzel got this right: the u.s. virus response feels so much like our response to gun violence. seems easy to prevent! others have! but it's not 'who we are.' a certain idea of freedom makes it impossible. so we move on and just learn to accept a level of human loss that other countries won't tolerate.
Missouri">https://festival-larochelle.org/sites/default/files/film/120-133-R-PENN-FEMA19-HD_Page_13_Image_0001.jpg">Missouri Breaks
Missouri Breaks!
Marlon Brando in his transition phase.
26: Yes. From everything I've seen so far Montana has probably been the most unqualified success (and/or lucky) in the US. Hawaii may be the closest other one.
26 gets it right. In the past week the people on my other message board who were saying the death numbers were inflated, and probably it's been here since December and we all had it already, and it's ridiculous to do something for a disease if you don't do it for the flu every year, have finally started ignoring the statistics and saying "telling businesses they can't open? that's dictatorship. enforcing social distancing? that's dictatorship. central quarantine? ooohh you better believe that's dictatorship."
29 You guys should've gotten on the Bullock for President wagon back when there was one.
28 You wouldn't want to use the location as part of your ignore-covid-road-trip planning, but for mid-70s rustling films, I like this one better: http://www.belcourt.org/sm_files/LSMachineRanchoDeluxeweb.jpg
(Further to 31.1, I think luck has been a big part of it.)
From everything I've seen so far Montana has probably been the most unqualified success (and/or lucky) in the US. Hawaii may be the closest other one.
We've been doing pretty well here too so far, but we'll see how things go now that stuff is starting to open back up.
I wonder Black Lives Matter would get more respect from Republicans if they copied the new tactic of holding semi-automatic rifles and yelling in the face of police officers?
Best-case scenario at this point is not a declining curve but a flat line, until we have a federal government that's actually responding (either by being forced by Congress, or by being replaced).
34: Obligatory. A signature moment in the increase in gun regulation. The whole 60s in general plus prominent assassinations in general helped of course but in CA it was a specific response.
I guess getting laws passed in response to your actions is a kind of "respect." Like sports players who have had rules changed in response to their abilities (see Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem in basketball and Jim Brown in lacrosse).
It seems like we should be hearing a lot more about efforts to get exposed people into supported quarantine situations. Like, is the strategy still just to have people with light infections chill at home, with their families?
Meanwhile, all these hotels are empty.
38: Yeah, that's what countries are doing that are trying to minimize infections and get back to normal life. We seem to be doing the Swedish approach to try to infect everyone without overwhelming hospitals.
26.2: incredibly depressing, but yes. My related thought was that it's complicated in the U.S. because we have to have one response for "liberals" and another response for "conservatives," where the conservatives are convinced that they're doing it right and the liberals are fucking it up. Action on a national level now requires interparty conflict. That's a lot of overhead.
26: i saw a graph which had it right. Don't compare confirmed COVID deaths to modeled flu deaths. Apples to apples comparison is confirmed COVID to confirmed flu. COVID is obviously a lot higher.
38: We set up a medically supervised hotel in one of our hardest hit areas. I don't know whether people have been choosing to go in big numbers.
Via Kevin Drum, maybe everyone (CDC, DHS, etc.) is modeling the disaster that opening up is going to be, so the White House can pivot from deny, deny to "we all knew this all along, it's old news" and not have to spend much time in between.
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/05/cdc-projects-half-a-million-deaths-from-covid-19/
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/04/us/coronavirus-updates.html
My related thought was that it's complicated in the U.S. because we have to have one response for "liberals" and another response for "conservatives," where the conservatives are convinced that they're doing it right and the liberals are fucking it up.
Based on opinion polls I think even the majority of self-identified conservatives are concerned about reopening, but GOP is elevating the nuttery.
Oh of course -- this is mostly about a few powerful Republicans, hence the scare quotes. We are now ruled by brand managers.
Are any of the rest of you permanently, constantly summer-of-2018 angry? I'm glad everyone is baking bread, but I've actually had a very similar experience cultivating rage starter.
I've been constantly low-grade furious since 2000.
That's probably a risk factor for COVID complications.
Gov. Teeth bruits hiring 20,000 contact tracers statewide. SocialismEffective government in one state!
I was constantly low-grade furious from about age 18 until I got pills for it.
I just started chewing tobacco because medication wasn't invented then.
Wow, jesus christ: So, a bunch of state universities in Texas announced last Friday that they were opening up for in-person classes for Summer B. Including the one in Heebieville (which is not where I teach).
Wtf, right? That seems like an unforced error to announce on May 1st that you're going to be in-person by the end of the summer. Online summer is an easy thing to do. Why not just bide your time and see how things play out, and make a decision for the fall semester?
Apparently, for Local U, the decision was announced before the task-force for deciding when things should reopen had even met once. The rumor mill is saying that the pressure is coming down super hard all the way from the Governor.
It's just so crazy. I understand he's an utter shithead who just wants to get everyone off unemployment as soon as humanly possible. Rushing the re-opening of universities - and rushing the announcement, no less - does nothing! The universities haven't laid off massive numbers of people. They're losing money, but dorms during Summer B can't be a super big draw. It's just weird and speaks to how bonkers the wingnuts are about this thing.
Is there an NCAA rule about no summer football practice unless there are classes?
THE GREATEST ECONOMY IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD! MAGA!
some Wendy's fast-food restaurants have taken burgers -- their hallmark item -- off the menu
The sensible intermediate step would have been to use round patties.
51: Rushing the re-opening of universities - and rushing the announcement, no less - does nothing!
I'm guessing it's for reasons Henry Farrell sets out here.
TL;DR: accepting a college's admissions offer isn't actually binding at all, and as of this year, college admissions offices will no longer refrain from poaching each others' incoming students (antitrust issues), so there's going to be massive pressure to commit to in-person instruction in order to avoid having all your tuition paying freshmen poached by a college that promises it *will* be in-person.
I've had a similar-but-different thought, which is that this pandemic will not hurt regional universities as much as it will hurt national, more elite universities, where most students are a plane flight from home.
(OTOH, the elite universities have deeper endowments to weather the storm.)
Local U is sort of in between. It's going to have a lot students from Houston and Dallas who can't easily commute from home, depending on the daily situation. But it also has failed to build dorms for a really long time, and so the vast majority of students live independently in local apartment complexes.
Either way, I don't think Local U is basing this on the thing Farrell describes. I think this is partisan, and coming from Abbott, out of some attempt to show how bold and successful Texas is while thumbing its nose at librul panic.
(OTOH, the elite universities have deeper endowments to weather the storm.)
Which they don't seem to be using for that purpose.
I believe Harvard received funds in the first bailout?
JFC. I'm supremely annoyed by all these stories of mega-wealthy organizations scooping up bailout millions. Like, they could have just capped the amount at 500K or $1M and solved everything, but of course it's a feature, not a bug.
Uh, this doesn't look good. No, not good at all.
college admissions offices will no longer refrain from poaching each others' incoming students (antitrust issues)
Its interesting how the Trump Administration only gives a shit about anti-trust when it comes to undermining institutions of higher education.
Nobody said this above and the thread maybe no longer, but: Dividing the country and pitting the fragments against each other is what victors impose on defeated enemies.
As an initial step, China's government (or Korea's, or I guess eventually Russia who could sell weaponry to any national guard units that get cut off) could say to a state-- sure, you get the shipment, next week. But could you first please ask your senator to vote against a clause of this sanctions bill, and these three guys that live in your state, we'd like them back. In China, a visit from police is a very high probablity after just talking about independent regions or praising Taiwan's government. Centrifugal forces and institutions reifying those are no joke. Apart is harder than together, and there's not going to be a friendly sandbox for everyone to learn to play together.
I'm more in line with 62- it's a single amino acid change (although a pretty significant one) and they don't actually demonstrate increased infectivity or reinfection of previously exposed patients, just increased prevalence globally. There are many ways to explain that change without changes in function. For now I won't say the claim is wrong, but almost completely unsupported.
Did Trump back the Bay of Pigs 2, Electric Boogaloo? It seems very unlikely, but it's irresponsible not to speculate.
Bay of Piglets. (h/t Lawfare.)
66: Anyway, the Florida mercenaries involved apparently did security for some Trump rallies, which in this administration actually puts it within the realm of plausibility.
68: Doonesbury made the same joke about some Reagan administration thing.
Some hams are more seasoned than others.
57: Even local universities are going to have budget shortfalls in the millions due to the economic depression. Elite schools and tuition dependent slacs are going to move heaven and earth to have face to face instruction because they won't survive a year of online teaching. Summer enrollments are up here but fall is down and rumors are we're moving everything online that can be moved online.
Trump wasted all the time that could have been used to work on making tests, PPE, a system of contract tracing, a way to protect the most vulnerable, etc. Everything is going to open up, and soon, with nothing much gained by the delay. I think Frowner is right on that point, though I think the numbers of dead might not get to millions.
That should have gone in the anger thread.
They're all anger threads now, Moby.
My melon was delicious. The other half is still there for breakfast.
What does a melon eat for breakfast?
Dunno, but it'll have to move fast if it doesn't want to die hungry.
73: This is what's most pissing me off besides you know, everything else. The point of this whole thing was to avoid overwhelming the hospitals and buy time to ramp up PPE production, testing, and figure out a plan for managing something approximating ordinary life. Now we have no plan, a destroyed economy, and people whining that Costco is infringing on their freedom by not giving them snacks.
At least here, we did keep the hospitals substantially under capacity. That part did work.
Lots of it worked on California. The problem is that if other states did nothing and the federal government did less than nothing, the problem keeps going longer than any state can shut down.
Is it wildly optimistic of me to think that there must in principle be some point where Republican governors are more worried by the prospect of piles of dead constituents than that of Trump's tweets?
Some of them are doing O.K. I just don't think that there are enough to counter the movement to open things too soon.
Without some way to finance staying shut, which can only be federal dollars, it doesn't matter what the governors want. People will go back to work.
The Fed has issued vast guarantees for corporate debt, and it worked (to the extent of eg. Boeing no longer needing a bailout). States maybe spin up coronasploitation "corporations" and do an end run?
I don't think that will work except that it might hurt Trump at the polls.
Closed states issue jointly-guaranteed bonds. Added together they must be 2nd or 3rd largest economy in the world.
Like, the governors aren't actually as dumb as Trump, right? They know full well their internets will be covered in morgue videos in a month or two.
It's like in "I, Claudius" where the bodyguards come in and start slaughtering everyone in the theater or whatever and there's this collective breaking-ice realization, if we don't do something this imbecile will fucking kill all of us.
There's no chance of that except the election.
80: Flattening the curve worked. But the point wasn't to unflatten all over again and treat it as a TV ratings problem.
Basically, every person who switches their support from Trump and the Republicans because of how the virus was handled makes the assholes that stand with guns in state capitol buildings that much more important to the Republican Party. The stronger the chance might lose power, the worse the situation will be if they don't.
Also, it's now legal to block public roads to punish political opponents.
94: The. Fuck.
The state of things where that's maybe only the second worst perversion of justice in America this week, after the Georgia lynching.
I get that you will win some and lose some in the quest for justice, but the errors are all too highly correlated.
There's a great deal of ruin in a nation, as we are seeing.
Also, that one asshole who keeps paying women to make false accusations of sexual offenses against Trump's opponents is at it again.
Fortunately for him he's not doing anything illegal unless he explicitly asks for money as a result of the scam. Fraud for political gain is 100% SCOTUS approved.
100: They were trying to set up Fauci. right?
Bill Barr, a legal Benedict Arnold for our times.
The ride it is just beginning. TRUMP said he talked about the collusion "hoax" with PUTIN. "I said, 'You know, it's a very appropriate time, because things are falling out now and coming in line ... and I wouldn't be surprised if you see a lot of things happen over the next number of weeks.'"
Yes which was only slightly less preposterous than Warren cougering a 24 year old marine.
||
If you are a person of color or an indigenous person living in the United States of America today, and a member of your family is murdered by White racists, whether or not the racists are also police officers, I believe you have a perfect right to carry out reprisal killings. Call me all the names you want, argue it left, right or upside down, but that's my opinion and it will remain so until the day I die.
||>
My God, here is a question CBS just asked Barr in an interview (re : Flynn etc.):
"It sounds to me like one of your objectives is to never allow the Justice Department to be used as a political weapon."
"IT SOUNDS TO ME LIKE ONE OF YOUR OBJECTIVES IS TO NEVER ALLOW THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT TO BE USED AS A POLITICAL WEAPON."
In the context of today's this may be the most softball question from a mainstream outlet ever. Fuck me gently.
"IT SOUNDS TO ME LIKE ONE OF YOUR OBJECTIVES IS TO NEVER ALLOW THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT TO BE USED AS A POLITICAL WEAPON!!!!????"
That's fucking bonkers. I'm so sorry you had to hear it.
Turns out she came to CBS in 2019 after being at Fox for 20+ years. She was 'news" side there but apparently was heavy into Benghazi BS and the unfairness of the Russia probe while there. Great hite CBS.
