Trump's Delusional View of the Virus Crisis

At yesterday's press briefing in the Rose Garden, Trump claimed he had a great phone call with state governors, saying, "we had a great call today with governors.  And they were — I actually said, I hope that the media is listening to this call because it was a really good call.  And that was randomly selected — largely Democrats and Republicans in there.  I think, for the most part, they were saying thank you for doing a great job.  And we discussed that at the end of the call.  So it really — people are very happy with what we’re doing."

A great phone call?  You think they were grateful for the job you are doing?  Well, maybe not.  The New York Times obtained a CBC news audio recording leaked from one of the attendees at that "great" phone call.  Here's how it went down:

Dr. Fauci: Do you have any system in place that you feel can adequately identify cases and isolate them and contact trace them, or are the capabilities and resources there that that's not something that you can do, given with what you have?

Governor Steve Bullock (Montana);  Yeah Dr. Fauci, we are trying to do contact tracing, but literally we are one day away if we don't get test kits from the CDC, that we wouldn't be able to do testing in Montana.  We have gone time and time again to the private side of this, the private market, and where the private market is telling us is that it's the national resources that are then taking our orders apart.   Basically, we're getting orders canceled.  That's for PPE, that's for testing supplies, that's for testing equipment.  So, while we're trying to do all the contact tracing, we don't have adequate tests to necessarily do it, we don't have the PPE along the way, and we're not finding markets to be able to do that along the way, or private suppliers.  So we do have to really on the national chain of distribution or we're not going to get it.  But we are doing our best to try to do exactly that-- and like Gallatin County would be an example where we have almost half of our overall state [unintelligible], so we are trying to shift the supplies to really isolate that and do contact tracing, but we just don't have enough supplies to even do the testing.

Trump:  Tony, you can answer it if you want, but I haven't heard about testing in weeks.  We've [been] testing more now than any nation in the world.  We've got these great tests.  And we've come out with another one tomorrow that's, you know, almost instantaneous testing.  But I haven't heard about testing being a problem.

I got news for you, Trump-- you just heard about testing being a problem! Do something about it!

What's Happening While President Irrelevant Fiddles Away

So much for "back to normal" by Easter!  And if you hadn't realized it, "15 days to slow the spread" is dead.  In a shocking discourse during which he accused CNN (yet again) of being "fake news", Trump suggested the continued shortage of masks in the nation's hospitals might be because healthcare workers are making off with them "out the back door."  Even worse, he accused, without evidence, hospitals of "hoarding" ventilators.  As I've said before, these quasi campaign briefings are full of blatant lies, lack any degree of empathy or leadership, and are increasingly irrelevant.  In the meantime:

There’s been quite a bit of discussion about what services are indeed considered essential, and therefore able to remain open and operational during the various stages of a shutdown. Bars and restaurants? Not so much. Abortion care? It depends on where you live. Gun shops? Crucial.  The Trump administration, potentially operating under the assumption that the novel coronavirus will one day manifest into a physical form so large we will be able to shoot it, deemed the firearms industry, which includes gun shops, critical to combating the current coronavirus outbreak. Prior to the list’s update, John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown for Gun Safety, had said, “Guns will not make Americans safer in the face of COVID-19. Gun stores do not deserve special treatment. In fact, a surge in gun sales will put many communities at greater risk if guns aren’t stored securely and if background checks aren’t completed.” So much for science and common sense.

Over 2,300 Americans have now died in the COVID-19 pandemic, due in large part to a government response that was delayed for weeks while Trump, conservative pundits, and his other allies suggested dire warnings of the pandemic’s potential spread were a “hoax” intended to make him look bad.  In the meantime, the increasing irrelevant Trump (who was forced to back off on his NYC quarantine) is obsessing over the ratings of his daily press briefings.  Yesterday, Trump boasted that the ratings of his daily press briefings rival that of the Bachelor or Monday Night Football-- saying, "Because the ratings of my news conferences are so high, "Bachelor finale, Monday Night Football type numbers,"  the Lamestream Media is going crazy."

As nations across the world refuse to open their ports, 10,000 people remain stranded on cruise ships around the world.  At least 10 cruise ships now find themselves sea with no place to dock-- even as COVID-19 infections mount dramatically onboard-- and passengers/crew begin to sicken and die.

in Utah, panicked citizens are now hoarding baby chickens. The Deseret News reports there has been a run on chicks since a large earthquake and the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.  Katy Cox, who raises chicks as a hobby but couldn’t find any at the Riverton IFA store, fears what will happen a year from now. “They grow up and become stinky and gross,” she said. “There may be a day when we have wild chickens all over Riverton.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom says 170 ventilators shipped to Los Angeles by the federal government to deal with the coronavirus crisis were “not working.” The Los Angeles Times reports that the life-saving machines from the national stockpile are now being fixed by a Silicon Valley company Newsom visited on Saturday.

In the U.K., the country's Chief Medical Officer has said that the nationwide lockdown put in place to try to slow the spread of coronavirus could go on for six months and the country may not return to its normal way of life until the autumn.

Ignorant churchgoers all over the world continue to ignore the physical distancing advice of scientists and public health experts--  attending crowd-filled services and exposing countless additional people to the risk of catching the virus.   Even NY mayor has been forced to threaten police action against synagogues who ignore legal orders against public gatherings.


Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro continues his denial of the serious of the virus crisis.  While awaiting the results of a second coronavirus test earlier this moth, he left self-isolation to join rallies against Congress.  He shook hands with supporters in Brasilia, exposing hundreds to possible infection, while sending a message to millions that this was not something to worry about.  In a televised address last week, he repeated a now well-worn phrase. "It's just a little flu or the sniffles," he said, blaming the media for the hysteria and panic over COVID-19. A few days later, he clearly demonstrated his prioritization of the economy over isolation measures favored by the rest of the world.  "People are going to die, I'm sorry," he said. "But we can't stop a car factory because there are traffic accidents."  He also included churchgoing as an essential activity in his recent decree, which contained a list of activities excluded from the national shutdown order.   Two days after Bolsonaro’s pronouncement, a judge in Rio de Janeiro state suspended his decree. Cathedrals in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are now closed.

Dare County, a popular summer vacation area in the state's Outer Banks, has established checkpoints around the county to stop visitors and non-resident property owners from entering.  For the last ten days, only permanent residents with proper identification -- including a permanent resident entry permit -- have been allowed to enter Dare County.

Mary Ellen Klas, Bureau chief for the Miami Herald and the Tampa Bay Times, was refused entry into the Florida State Capitol to attend a press briefing by the governor.  A reporter for the News Service of Florida was told that he would be shut out as well if he insisted that Klas be allowed to cover the press conference in person.  The Herald published an editorial last week that was critical of the governor’s leadership during the COVID-19 crisis,  Klas said later that the Governor's spokesperson Meredith Beatrice told her the state was refusing her access because she had requested “social distancing” at the governor’s briefings.   “I asked for social distancing. I didn’t ask to be excluded,” said Klas, who said she tried to attend the briefing because recent efforts to submit questions in writing had been unsuccessful. “We’d already had several days where they weren’t answering [our] questions.”  The decision to keep Klas from covering DeSantis’ press conference in person drew quick rebuke from the Herald, Times and some state lawmakers, all of whom warned that the state appeared to be limiting access to information during a time of crisis.  The Tampa Bay Times is the top newspaper in the state, ranked by circulation, and the Miami Herald is ranked #5.  “A worldwide pandemic is not the time to engage in petty politics,” she said. “Florida’s revered Sunshine laws were written to prevent actions such as this.”

Hair-Brained During the Coronavirus Crisis

A hairstylist is putting her time in quarantine to good use by practicing her skills on her very willing boyfriend, creating different 'dos for him every day that they are self isolating,

Heidi Lee Oley, 31, from Atlanta, Georgia, was forced to shut down her salon amid the coronavirus pandemic, and she and her boyfriend, software engineer Geoff Clark, decided to quarantine themselves in her family cabin outside of the city.

Knowing that she would likely be out of work for weeks, and maybe even months, Heidi started testing out her abilities on her boyfriend's long brunette locks - first using the one curling iron she brought with her to give him a George Washington-inspired style while he was working away at his computer.

After posting photos of the resulting look on social media, the couple quickly went viral, with Heidi's followers requesting she continue experimenting with his hair in order to create more funky styles.

'I kept up with it because the responses were so uplifting. Our industry, among others, is in limbo, we don't have clients, we don't get paid, many are self-employed. The love we received is why we kept the series going.

'I wanted to be a little glimmer of light during the shadows of the uncertainty of our industry.' Since sharing the first images of Geoff's new look on social media, Heidi has continued to get more and more creative with his hair - which she admits was the first thing about him that she noticed when they met two years ago.

Thus far, she has created looks inspired by Star Wars' Princess Leia, The Grinch's Cindy Lou Who, late singer Amy Winehouse - and even a do that might be modeled by a high schooler going to their 'first prom'.

Followers have started sending Heidi ideas and requests for future looks, and the hairstylist says she has enough to keep her going for months - ensuring she will stay occupied for as long as the couple remains in quarantine together.

 

Bits and Pieces During the Crisis

Trump has claimed that despite his executive order on Friday requiring General Motors to start producing ventilators, the U.S. will likely not need them all and will instead donate them to other countries.   When asked about New York’s estimate of needing 30,000 to 40,000 ventilators to fight the pandemic, Trump said he thought Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s estimates were “high.”

Trump later announced that he is considering a quarantine on the NYC tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.   Medical experts said that such a quarantine would have no beneficial effect and Governor Cuomo said that he had no communications with the White House about it and wasn't sure what such a move would mean. Enforcing such a large quarantine would be a significant drain on state and federal resources.

Using a loophole in California's shelter-in-place order, construction on mansions and luxury high-rises continues apace in San Francisco, risking the health of construction workers.

Following several days of name-calling and criticism of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Trump finally granted her request for a disaster declaration.   It is unclear how many lives were lost or put at risk due to the delay.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo disclosed that the price of ventilators has risen from $20K to $45K each, due to competition between the 50 states and the federal government, who are all bidding against each other.

The mayor of New Haven CT asked Yale University (his alma mater) if they could provide dormitory space for police officers, firefighters and their families-- the answer was NO.  University of New Haven said "yes" right away, with no reservations.  Yale dorms are only for rich kids, I guess.

In the wake of  Boris Johnson's failed strategy to contain the virus, he and his Health Minister have tested positive for the coronavirus.  The U.K. strategy failed because Tory ministers didn't follow the World Health Organization's advice to test every suspected case.  They didn't isolate and quarantine.   They didn't trace the contacts of victims.  These basic principles of infectious disease control were ignored, for reasons that remain unclear.

A ray of hope:  A 101-year-old man from Northern Italy has been released from the hospital after a long battle with COVID-19.  The man, identified as "Mr. P" was born in 1919 during the historic Spanish Flu pandemic.

Trump seems to have backed off his desire to get the nation back to work by Easter.  Even his closest advisors saw the move as a naked attempt to salvage his election chances.  Even sycophant LIndsey Graham was reported to have told Trump that if he reopened the nation's economy too early against the advice of public-health experts, he would own the deaths from the virus that would (surely) follow.

Doctors in the Philippines are up in arms over President Rodrigo Duterte's plan to pay volunteer medical professionals helping to contain the virus a daily wage of less than $10 (an amount that is less than the minimum wage).  it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that the country is on of the top exporters of nurses.

Spain suffered its largest single-day death count due to the virus, recording 832 fatalities in a 24-hour stretch.  Spain is closing fast on China to become the country with the third-largest number of cases (the U.S. and Italy are #1 and 2).

Ireland announced tighter restrictions for its citizens in a bid to slow the spread fo the virus.  Irish PM Leo Varadkar said the public should stay at home for the next two weeks in almost all circumstances, with exceptions for food shopping, medical appointments and family care.

There is still no word on a promise Trump made two weeks ago regarding a nationwide network of drive-through testing.  In a Rose Garden press conference, Trump said that Target, Walgreens, Walmart and CVS would work with the government to provide space in store parking lots for drive-thru testing sites across the country.   Journalists have reported on one site each for Walrgreen and CVS, with two opened by Walmart-- none for Target.  Rite Aid, which joined the effort letter, has now opened one drive-thru in Philadelphia.

The world's biggest lockdown due to the coronavirus is happening in India-- where PM Modi ordered a 21-day nationwide lockdown in the densely populated nation of 1.3 billion people.  The lockdown included a shutdown of all public transportation, which resulted in workers setting out on foot to walk hundreds and hundreds of miles for the home villages outside the urban centers.   The stories of impoverished workers walking along the road they helped build and passing apartment towers they helped construct are heartbreaking.

Trump finally issued an order allowing the Department of Defense to bring former troops back to active duty to assist in the coronavirus response.  The reasons for the delay in issuing the order remain unclear.

What's Really Plaguing the Nation

Conan Gray-Wish You Were Sober

What Chance do Any of Us Have With a Group of Idiots Like the Trump Administration?

Today was the deadliest day in America during the coronavirus crisis, and there was no mention from our incompetent leader.   Before his afternoon press briefing, there was still no indication that Trump had used the National Defense Production Act-- all while hospitals are turning "apocalyptic" due to the onslaught of patients of ongoing critical shortage of hospital supplies.  During the briefing, Trump hinted at "two minor" invocations of the National Defense Production Act, but callously acted like a game show host, keeping it a secret.   Trump also continued in his false claim that "everyone wants to get back to work"-- that is a LIE.  The majority of Americans believe that social distancing/stay-at-home measures should continue and contagious disease scientists and experts also continue to say that it will be many weeks until we have reached the peak of the crisis.    If you think that Trump is the only idiot endangering the lives of Americans, take a look at his cabinet:

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has said the deadly coronavirus outbreak in China could be positive for the American economy.  During a TV interview Ross said: "I think it will help to accelerate the return of jobs to North America".

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo torpedoed the recent meeting of G-7 leaders by insisting that the group use the Trump administration's preferred racist nomenclature, by labeling COVID-19 the "the Wuhan virus" in any communique.  As Germany's Der Spiegel reports, the other G-7 nations rejected Pompeo's label of COVID-19 as "the Wuhan virus." No medical organization on earth calls it the "Wuhan" or "China" virus, but still the White House is adamant that the world stick with its racist nickname.

"We've wanted to work with the Chinese Communist Party throughout this crisis," Pompeo said at a press conference after the G-7. "We tried, you'll remember, from the opening days to get our scientists, our experts on the ground there so that we could begin to assist in the global response to what began there in China, but we weren't able to do that. The Chinese Communist Party wouldn't permit that to happen."

But that's not what Trump was saying back in January-- he was touting China's marvelous cooperation to keep Americans safe:

And then today, tone-deaf Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin callously waved aside jaw-dropping unemployment numbers, saying that 3.28 million jobless Americans were "irrelevant."

Back on March 10, a group of Democratic senators asked Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to answer some key questions about her agency’s response to the spread of the novel coronavirus across the country, especially about how it plans to help vulnerable students.  Over two weeks later, the letter has still gone unanswered-- schools nationwide acted unilaterally, and began closing in an effort to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

On March 13, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt praised Trump’s declaration of a national emergency and lauded his boss for taking “decisive — even unprecedented — actions to protect the American people” from the coronavirus.  But just two days earlier, Bernhardt’s office had sent talking points to Interior officials that downplayed the virus threat.  “While the situation could change rapidly, the threat to the American public today remains low ... Americans don’t need to change their day-to-day lives but should stay informed and practice good hygiene, stated the two-page memo, which was obtained by the Los Angeles Times.  The March 11 memo closed with language highlighting the strength of the nation’s economy and advice on holding “large scale events (rallies).  If there is an event tomorrow in a place where there is no community spread, I think the judgment to have it might be a good judgment."

On March 18, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced cut backs on processing applications for guest workers from Mexico, which represents 60% of the needed laborers in the U.S.  Fruit and vegetable growers are "bracing for dramatic disruptions to their labor force" because of the guest worker changes, and and anticipate it will soon lead to food shortages.  "There won't be anyone to harvest the crops," said Robert Guenther, senior vice president for public policy at the United Fresh Produce Association. "It will be devastating to growers and ultimately to the supply chain and consumers. They won't have the food."



Alex Azar, the incompetent Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services was sidelined early on by the Trump administration.  HHS overruled the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in how infected Americans trapped in Japan were brought back to this country. According to a department whistleblower, HHS also appears to have bollixed its handling of Americans returning from Wuhan, China, leading to community spread of the virus in California.

HUD Secretary Ben Carson was also sidelined early on, after unexpectedly admitting on national TV that Trump had no plan to deal with the docking of The Grand Princess and the 3,500 passengers potentially exposed to coronavirus.

Already on the sidelines is Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie, who has no experience in emergency management.  He has been largely absent from meetings with senior officials on the pandemic, and only last Friday raised his hand and said that his agency had over 3,000 medical personnel and unused VA hospital capacity-- but that no one had asked him. 

Chad Wolf, who has also disappeared from Trump's coronavirus briefing, is the acting secretary of Homeland Security.  People wrote him off when he was recently unable to tell a Senate committee how many respirators and protective face masks were available in the United States.  In case you didn't know, administration officials are typically told in advance what questions they'll get at a hearing.

Bottom line: Trump has got a lot of third-stringers running the show and God help us all!

As the Virus Rages On, the Craziness Continues

Meanwhile, while the coronavirus crisis rages on:

Ohio is using the coronavirus as an excuse to cut off access to abortions.  In another effort to stop abortions in the state, Ohio lawmakers are using concerns regarding the limited amount of medical supplies in hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic as a reason for women to not end pregnancies. Ohio’s Attorney General Dave Yost has ordered healthcare providers in the state to stop all “nonessential and elective surgical abortions” referring to federal guidelines in place to help conserve needed medical supplies, Vox reported. “If you or your facility do not immediately stop performing non-essential or elective surgical abortions in compliance with the [health director’s] order, the Department of Health will take all appropriate measures,” Yolt’s letter to providers reads. 

Trump's continued use of the term "China virus" is fueling a rise in hate crimes against Asian people. A study by researchers in the San Francisco State University Asian American Studies program found that “Coronavirus discrimination news increased by 50% from 93 articles in week 1 to 140 stories in week 4.” Lead researcher Russell Jeung told The New York Times that this was “the tip of the iceberg,” since the study tracked only incidents serious enough to draw media coverage.

In the great ole state of Texas, the Lt. Governor said that patriotic grandparents should be willing to die for capitalism.  Dan Patrick, best known for blaming everything except guns for gun deaths, went on Tucker Carlson’s show to plead with the Democratic Party to allow elderly Americans out into public, along with the rest of the American consumers, to risk their lives for capitalism. Lt. Gov. Patrick wants to protect the American way of life—even if that means killing yourself and creating a historic crisis to our healthcare infrastructure.  The money quote:

"And you know Tucker, no one reached out to me and said, as a senior citizen, ‘Are you willing to take a chance on your survival, in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves, for your children and grandchildren?’ And if that’s the exchange, I’m all in."

An Arizona man died after mistaking a cleaning chemical for an unproven coronavirus treatment.
The man and his wife drank a fish tank cleaner containing a chemical derivative of chloroquine, which Trump has touted as a treatment despite a lack of scientific evidence.  The man’s wife, told reporters that she and her husband decided to ingest the aquarium product after hearing Trump on TV refer to two anti-malaria drugs — chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine — as a potential “game changer” in the fight against COVID-19.  “I saw it sitting on the back shelf and thought, ‘hey, isn’t that the stuff they’re talking about on TV?’” the woman said.  The couple, both in their 60s, had not been diagnosed with COVID-19, but the woman said they were worried of contracting the disease and had taken the aquarium product as a preventative measure.

A 74-year-old grandfather from Kansas has died from coronavirus after being turned away by doctors and denied a test three times because he 'wasn't sick enough' during agonizing week of 'immeasurable suffering'.  Dennis Wilson, of Lenexa, Kansas, first became ill on March 12 and visited medical professionals  three times, but was not tested for the coronavirus.   Wilson, who had did not have enough symptoms for the exam, finally became so ill he was rushed by ambulance to a hospital in Overland Park.  After Wilson was hospitalized and tested positive for the virus, he spent 'a week of immeasurable suffering' before dying, his wife Joanna said.   Now, she herself has been forced into quarantine and has to plan his funeral from home.

Avoiding Ibuprofen is NOT "Fake News"

There have been stories saying that use of ibuprofen to treat symptoms of the coronavirus is not recommended, as it makes COVID-19 disease worse.  Media outlets have been labeling these stories as "fake news"-- but this is not exactly true.

Many governments and media outlets continue to rely on the claim that there is "no evidence that ibuprofen (or other NSAIDs) makes COVID-19 infection worse."  Of course that is true-- COVID-19 infections only starting appearing in China three months ago.  There is no possible way that research on that question could be funded and published in such a short time.

Nevertheless, medical professionals speaking to the BBC have said that ibuprofen is not recommended for managing coronavirus symptoms. 

The UK's National Health Service website previously recommended both paracetamol (Tylenol) and ibuprofen, but has since changed its advice.

"There is currently no strong evidence that ibuprofen can make COVID-19 worse.  However, until we have more information, people should take paracetamol to treat the symptoms of coronavirus, unless they have been told by their doctor that paracetamol is not suitable for them," it says.

Even though it is still to early to see research on the use of ibuprofen with COVID-19 disease, research on the use of ibuprofen alongside respiratory infections suggests ibuprofen is linked to more complications and more severe illness, according to Paul Little, a professor of primary care research at University of Southampton.

Experts believe that ibuprofen's anti-inflammatory properties may "dampen" the body's immune response.  Professor Parastou Donyai at the University of Reading says: "There are many studies that suggest ibuprofen use during a respiratory infection can result in worsening of the disease or other complications."

The World Health Organization recommended this week that people suffering COVID-19 symptoms avoid taking ibuprofen.

The WHO suddenly eversed course two days later-- but not based on any new research, however.  It is unclear what or who pressured the WHO to change its recommendation.  In making the sudden change, the WHO said they "are not aware of reports of any negative effects of ibuprofen"-- a denial that is easily made given that we are only three months into this crisis and doctors are not focusing on such treatment outcomes.  The WHO also said they are "not aware of published clinical or population-based data on this topic."-- again, a denial that is easily made given that such research and data will only be available months or years from now.

The bottom line is this-- given all this uncertainty, why take the risk?  Avoid ibuprofen.

Another Trump Dumpster Fire, Another Stock Market Downturn

Trump held another horrible press briefing late yesterday.  Trump started off by talking about repatriating two groups of young Americans in Peru and Honduras.

He then announced that Rand Paul had tested positive for coronavirus-- but it's not clear how he got tested, since he is not symptomatic and the CDC is preventing the average American from getting tested unless they show symptoms.  It was later reported the Rand Paul was in the Senate gym earlier Sunday, even though he was tested on Saturday and show have been home under self-quarantine.

While spelling out specific statistics on the federal response, Trump digressed to say that he has very high poll ratings among military veterans.

Trump announced that Major Disaster Declarations have been approved for New York and Washington with approval for California to come.  No details on why these declarations have taken so long or when the California declaration will come.  Don't these White House guys work weekends or overtime?

Trump then repeated accusations that he has made in the past that any problems are not down to him but rather than the “broken” system he inherited.

Trump resumed his criticism of China, saying he wished China “had told us three months sooner” about coronavirus. He adds that “we could have saved a lot of lives.”  No one thought to mention that CNN and MSNBC had been reporting on the outbreak in China as far back as early December.

As news broke that the Senate failed to advance the coronavirus bill, Trump said the economic stimulus package is important so U.S. companies can be helped (no mention about workers).  Trump was then asked if he would reach out to former presidents for advice.  Trump said that he has an “incredible” team already and he “doesn’t see” a situation where he would reach out to George W Bush or Barack Obama.

Trump complained that no one said “thank you” after he gave away his salary as the US president. “I get excoriated all the time,” he says. What this has to do with a global pandemic is unclear.

Callously joked about Mitt Romney being in quarantine-- which is especially despicable, given that Romney's wife has an underlying medical condition which could prove FATAL if she catches the virus.  What the fuck is wrong with this narcissistic jerk?

Trump was asked if he sold stock in the run up to the outbreak, as several other Republicans have done. He describes it as a “nasty” question. He goes into a rambling answer even by his own standards. “It cost me billions of dollars to be president,” he says before praising Melania as a great first lady and a then segues into a riff about the fact that George Washington had two desks, presumably a reference to the fact that he was the president and a businessman. Trump then adds he is now a “wartime” president. “I’m glad that this team and me are here for this horrible thing,” he says.

in the meantime, Pete Gaynor, Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) (who is supposed to be coordinating the federal government’s coronavirus pandemic response), appeared on a variety of Sunday talk shows and managed to sidestep question after question about how many masks are actually being sent to hospitals across the nation as healthcare workers plea for supplies on not one, but two major Sunday shows.

The Trump administration has continued to do very little to help states hard-hit by the virus.  Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker blasted Trump, saying "Get to work or get out of the way."

The basics:  People are still getting turned away for testing, hospitals are still critically short of medical supplies, there is still not national lockdown and the national government has still not invoked the National Defense Production Act and nationalize the supply chain so that individual states aren't competing against one another bidding up the prices of previous medical supplies.

In early overnight trading, Dow futures started tanking immediately after the Trump press briefing.

GOP Senators Dump Stocks After Private Briefings on Coronavirus

Republican senator Richard Burr dumped a load of stock while he was being briefed on the threat of coronavirus but before the markets tanked, disclosure records have revealed.

North Carolina senator, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was directly briefed on coronavirus and then sold up to $1.7million in stock including in hotels, according to records seen by The Daily Beast, New York Times and ProPublica. 

Senators Kelly Loeffler or Georgia also sold off personal investments after private briefings in Congress, but she later claimed her investments were in a blind trust, and that she exercised no control over the investment decisions.  Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma also engaged in investment sell-offs after private briefings, but he has not yet commented publicly on the circumstances surrounding his investments.

Despite Senator Loeffler's denials over her personal investments, there are now reports that her husband (CEO of the Intercontinental Exchange, owner of the New York Stock Exchange) sold $3.5 million of his own stock after she had the secret briefing before the coronavirus market crash.  Jeffrey Sprecher offloaded the shares in his own company before they plunged by nearly 25%.   Sprecher also sold another $15.3 million worth of ICE shares on March 11.

The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act prohibits members of Congress from insider trading based on classified  information they have received in briefings.

Stop the Horrible White House Press Briefings-- They Do Not Help

Trump had another disastrous press conference yesterday, which sparked another 900 point drop in the stock market.

Highly-respected immunologist Anthony Fauci rolled his eyes and suppress laughter as Trump went on a rant describing the State Department as the 'Deep State department'.   Dr Fauci then placed his hand over his face, in what many described as a 'face palm' reaction to Trump's inflammatory remarks. 

Trump said that there had been positive results after doctors trialled chloroquine on COVID-19 patients, and suggested the drug could be a game-changer. "It's shown very, very encouraging early results. We're going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately. It's been approved,' Trump exclaimed.

But Dr Fauci later  put a dampener on the President's excitement, bluntly stating: "There's no magic drug for coronavirus right now.  Let me put it into perspective-- there has been anecdotal non-proven data that it [chloroquine] works... but when you have an uncontrolled trial you can never definitely say that it works."

At his Thursday news conference, a discussion of chloroquine and other experimental therapies formed the core of his remarks, when those drugs and therapies are untested and unproven and, in some cases, won’t be ready for several months, as NBC’s Peter Alexander pointed out the following day.

“What do you say to Americans who are scared?” Alexander pressed.

“I say that you’re a terrible reporter,” Trump answered.

Only a liar — and a weak man with delusions of competence — would be so unnerved by the facts.

The Washington Post reacted against the "inflexible, bureaucratic FDA, which is dragging its feet."  They reported on stockpiles of masks, hand sanitizer and other supplies sitting in warehouses waiting for FDA inspectors to get around to them.  Where other nations are expediting deliveries, the FDA has resorted to its favorite fetish:  bureaucratic lethargy."

Alex Azar may have been the worst of the political hacks behind Trump at the briefing, speaking to the urgency of closing the southern border. He’s the secretary of health and human services, not homeland security. Yet he was parroting Trump’s message about the coronavirus, one specifically tailored to the base: We’re keeping brown immigrants from spreading it.

Vice President Mike Pence kept talking about a “strong and seamless” partnership with the states, when at the same time Trump trolls the states, telling New York's Cuomo to get his own respirators.

Pence spoke relentlessly of a “whole-of-government approach,” when in fact the government is hollowed out — defunded to fight pandemics, denuded of experts — and broken in shards, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sidelined in this fight, and the president’s task force now mutely competing with a shadow group run by the president’s son-in-law.

Despite his earlier attack on NBC, Trump said he cherished journalism, but his secretary of state complained about disinformation on Twitter. 

These daily press conferences are clearly becoming campaign rallies as opposed to beneficial public health briefings-- mere propaganda, not information.  The networks should stop showing them live.

5 Seconds of Summer-Old Me

Trump Administration Still Not Making Full Use of Federal Resources to Fight Virus

The mayor of Seattle wanted “mass tents” from the federal government to rapidly build shelters to house people in quarantine. The state of New York pleaded for help from the Army Corps of Engineers to quickly build hospitals. Oregon’s governor repeatedly pressed the Department of Health and Human Services for hundreds of thousands of respirators, gowns and gloves, face shields or goggles. 

After so many of these pleas, the Trump administration is only just now moving to begin enlistment of much of his government in what the White House had promised for weeks would be a “whole of government” approach to the rampaging coronavirus.

Yet despite promises of a “whole of government” effort, key agencies — like the Army Corps of Engineers, other parts of the Defense Department, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Veterans Affairs — had not been asked to play much of a role.

Oregon sent a letter to Vice President Mike Pence on March 3 asking for 400,000 N95 masks. For days, it got no response, and only by March 14 received its first shipment, of 36,800 masks. But there was a problem-- most of the equipment they got was well past the expiration date and so “wouldn’t be suitable for surgical settings,”  New York City also put in a request for more than 2 million masks but only recently received 76,000- and all of them were expired.  Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon told reporters, “We’ve been contacting this administration every single day  and we have received nothing. Zip. Zero. Nothing from them.”

After many weeks, hospital ships are finally being called into action.  Yet the Department of Veterans Affairs-- legally designated as the backup health care system in national emergencies-- awaits requests for help. The veterans department has a surplus of beds in many of its 172 hospital centers and a robust number of special rooms for patients with breathing disorders.

The sprawling system of emergency doctors and nurses ready to be deployed by the Department of Health and Human Services — known as the National Disaster Medical System — is also still waiting for orders, other than to staff locations where passengers offloaded from cruise ships are being quarantined.

And the Defense Department, home to 1.3 million active-duty troops and a civilian and military infrastructure that has made planning for national emergencies almost an art form, has yet to be deployed to its fullest capabilities.

Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said this week that the Pentagon will make available to the Department of Health and Human Services up to 5 million N95 masks, which can be used to help protect health workers and vulnerable people against the virus.   The Pentagon has also just now been asked to make available 2,000 ventilators. 

A spokeswoman at the Army Corps of Engineers said that the agency— which has had its massive capacity put to use in past disasters like Hurricane Katrina— was still awaiting orders.

“The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is prepared to assist the nation in a time of crisis to the very best of its capabilities, and we are postured to lean forward when an official request is received through the Department of Defense,” Raini W. Brunson, an Army Corps spokeswoman said in a statement. “However, at this time, we have not been assigned a mission.”

FEMA officials said the Department of Health and Human Services remains in charge of the federal response, and it too is waiting for orders from the agency before it moves to ramp up assistance.

Hey Trump--Get your shit together!  People are dying!

Timeline of Trump's Destructive Comments During Virus Crisis

The amount of denial and deception and misinformation Trump has produced about coronavirus, even as the disease spreads and its threat increases, has been a serious danger to the people of the United States, ever since the disease started getting out of control.  Here is a timeline of Trump's public comments during the crisis:

January 22: When asked if there were concerns about a pandemic Trump said, “No. Not at all. And we have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”

January 24: “It will all work out well.”

January 28: Trump retweeted One America News claiming Johnson & Johnson was creating a vaccine.

January 30: “We have it very well under control."

January 31, Trump limited air travel by foreigners who had recently traveled to China. He’s endlessly bragged about that move, but he didn’t accompany it with any other serious measures to contain the virus in the U.S.
 
February 2: “Well, we pretty much shut it down coming in from China,” Trump claims in an interview with Sean Hannity.

February 10: "Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.”

February 19: “I think the numbers are going to get progressively better as we go along.”

February 23: “We have [coronavirus] very much under control in this country.”

February 25 Trump started ranting about “Cryin’ Chuck Schumer.”

February 26. Trump tweeted that the media was "panicking markets" by reporting on coronavirus.

February 28: Trump blames“The Democrat policy of open borders.”  Trump also claimed “we’re going down, not up.  We’re going very substantially down, not up” and “It’s going to disappear. One day—it’s like a miracle—it will disappear.”

February 29: Trump claimed a vaccine would be available “very quickly” and that “my administration has taken the most aggressive action in modern history to confront the spread of this disease.” False and false.

March 2: Trump discovers that the flu also kills people, and tries to change the subject to the flu.

March 4: Trump tells Hannity that the fatality rate is lower than the World Health Organization’s latest number.

March 7: Asked if he’s concerned that the virus is getting closer to the White House, Trump responds “No, I’m not concerned at all. No, I’m not. No, we’ve done a great job.” This remark is made at Mar-a-Lago, before dinner with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Three people at Mar-a-Lago that night have tested positive for coronavirus.

March 10: “It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”

March 11:  In a televised address, Trump told the nation "Testing and testing capabilities are expanding rapidly, day by day. We are moving very quickly."  (This is patently not true-- U.S. daily testing only exceeded 10,000 for the first time on March 16.  In contrast, South Korea has been testing in excess of 12,000 per day since early February.)  "I will soon be taking emergency action, which is unprecedented, to provide financial relief."  (one week later, no checks have been sent out).  The morning after the speech, Wall Street halted trading after the S&P fell 7% in the first 15 minutes.

March 13: Trump blasted PBS reporter Yamiche Alcindor for pressing him on whether he takes responsibility for eliminating the Global Health Security team in the National Security Council, calling it a "nasty question"

March 15:   Trump said millions of new coronavirus tests would be made available in the coming weeks, and claimed his administration had “tremendous control” over the spread of the disease." Dow futures plunged shortly after the president's remarks, hitting the 5% "limit down" threshold implemented by the futures exchange to prevent panic selling.

March 16: Trump refers to COVID-19 as the "Chinese virus" which sparks anger in China and further damages diplomatic relations with the country.




 

In Italy, the Living are Trapped With the Dead

Italy has been hard hit by the coronavirus since it arrived there with a vengeance there three weeks ago, sucking the lifeblood out of one of the most vibrant countries in the world.  The Daily Beast has published a piece by Barbie Latza Nadeau, a single mom in Rome.  Nadeau eloquently describes how daily life has changed for her and her two sons:

My neighbor died a few days ago, it seems, but was only discovered Thursday when men in hazmat suits freaked out the collective condominium by breaking the lock on her door. Her caregiver hadn’t been able to come to check on her because schools have been closed and the caregiver couldn’t afford a babysitter. And since everyone is supposed to stay inside, no one noticed she wasn’t around.

They’ll eventually do an autopsy to see if she died with “il virus,” pronounced il vee-rus in Italian. There was a sense of conflicted relief when whispers that she fell and hit her head circulated around the palazzo.

The story of this woman’s singular tragic death is complicated by the location of the grocery store on the ground floor of my building here in central Rome. People have to stand one meter apart and only 10 people can enter at a time, making the line a long one. The coroner quite rightly didn’t want to alarm anyone waiting to buy vital supplies by wheeling out a corpse covered in protective plastic, so it was decided to do it in the dark of the night after the store closed.

Part of me—the bad part—wondered if such a spectacle would have scared people off, making the long queue slightly shorter. The store has been, for as long as I have lived in this apartment, my pantry. I run down for one meal at a time since my kitchen is small and my fridge is minuscule. It has been a rude awakening to plan ahead. How do I know what my teenage son and I are going to be hungry for tomorrow? But as the coronavirus has spread its lethal wrath from Milan to Rome to the depths of Italy’s boot, we’ve all had time to change our daily lives.

As a result, I’ve got enough toilet paper to build several igloos, tuna to feed an army, and my back balcony looks like an enoteca. But still I go to the store and keep buying because, despite “them” telling “us” they will never close the supermarkets, I can’t take the chance. I certainly never thought they’d first close public events, then schools, then clothing shops, then bookstores, then coffee bars, then churches. Or that I would be blocked from flying into my home country because my life is in Europe. But here we are.

Once inside the small, six-aisle supermarket, common in large European cities, it becomes one of those contests where you try to get as much into your small cart as you can in a short period of time. Inevitably, I’ve brought no list. I frantically check expiration dates, making sure the lettuce is crisp, the carrots are firm “in case” I can’t get back in.

I panic buy things like Diet Coke, which I gave up years ago, which suddenly feels like a comfort food from home. I buy more sugar, more flour, more butter. The clerks tell you to hurry so someone else can come into the store. There are several strips of masking tape on the floor leading to the cash register to mark the one meter safe zone we are required to keep as part of what should really be called anti-social distancing. The strips of tape are everywhere in Rome now, and they are always shocking, sending the subliminal message: “Don't cross the line or everybody dies.”

Everyone is wearing a mask even though we all know they do little good. But if you don’t have one on or at least have a scarf covering half your face, others look at you in fear. A simple cough clears the whole area. On a warm day, everyone is covered up and overdressed and sweating… or is it a fever? Every time I cough in the house, my son yells out, “You’ve got the virus.” Ha ha.

After the grocery trip I work for a while and then try to do another outing or two to break up the day. Hardware stores are among the “essential” shops that remain open during this harsh phase of the lockdown, which will last until at least April 3. I bought some nails, duct tape, and a small hand tool that looked useful, even though I have no idea what it is for.

You can only leave the house for justifiable reasons—supply shopping, health, or work—and you have to carry a government form in case you get stopped by the cops who are out in ever great force and with ever-more protective gear. Even taking out the garbage has become a treat, but rather than carrying as much as I can at one time, I am suddenly happy to make multiple trips.

My son, a high school senior, is settling into his online learning, having commandeered the living room as a makeshift classroom. He is dedicated but terrified that he and his friends won’t get to graduate on time and that those college acceptance letters they worked so hard for won’t be honored if school never goes back into session. I can do little to comfort him; it’s my biggest concern, too. That, and my fear that the memories he should be making with friends during his last year will be eclipsed by the solitude and loneliness of being locked down with his mom.

When the novel coronavirus first broke out of Asia, I was worried for my older son in university in Vancouver, which has a large Chinese student population who, I assumed, had just returned after Christmas break. I sent him masks and links to articles about washing his hands. Now every day he grows more concerned for us here. I don’t really blame him, it’s actually terrifying to think some unseen enemy could invade the house and take over our lives even more than it already has.

These early days of the lockdown will surely be the most important. Eventually we will acclimate to these restrictions, carrying out our new daily tasks like science-fiction zombies wandering a wasteland. The first inclination when things started to close down last weekend was to get around the rules and sneak out. People borrowed dogs to walk because it is one of the accepted reasons to go outside. I strolled around for an hour carrying a shopping bag with a few onions and lemons in it in case I got stopped. But as of Sunday, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases had risen to 24,747 and no one wants to break the rules anymore. Three weeks ago we had just three cases.

When the virus exploded here on Feb. 23, I was shocked when the Italian government locked down 50,000 people in 11 communities where the virus first started spreading. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like. On Thursday, the original red zone cleared an incredible hurdle: not one single new case in that entire ground zero area was recorded.

The lockdown is awful, it’s constricting and it breeds fear and paranoia. But it’s the only way out of this—as long as everyone respects it. One feverish person in a grocery store could light it up again.

Before this horrific plague hit Italy, we were sure it was going to stay “somewhere else.” As it crawled south down the peninsula, we’ve been forced to prepare, almost like people watching the trajectory of a Category V hurricane in the distance. Even though we knew it was coming, we weren’t ready at all.

Too Soon?

CBP Incompetence Results in Airport Chaos as U.S. Cases Spiral Out of Control

As the number of U.S. confirmed coronavirus cases continue to spiral upward, President Trump announced that he was expanding his European travel ban-- adding the United Kingdom and Ireland to its list less than 24 hours since initially excluding them.  The Trump administration did not coordinate the move with European governments or the airline industry, resulting in panic and chaos at European airports as American rushed to book return flights, not knowing if they would be allowed back.

Customs and Border Protection (which is part of Homeland Security), failed to staff up and prepare for the sudden influx of Americans coming home.  The result was shockingly long lines for customs at JFK, Dallas-Fort Worth and O'Hare airports.  People were jammed into airport hallways and terminals, which resulted in many additional American being exposed to risk of catching the virus.

While this shit-storm was playing out, Google was forced to admit that it was not actually building the website Trump described. Not with 1,700 engineers. Not at all. Another company owned by the same parent company as Google is working on a site connected to the coronavirus, but it is absolutely nothing like what Trump described. In a press event that was entirely designed to make Trump’s disastrous handling of this crisis look better, Donald Trump decided the best approach was to simply lie his ass off.

Donald Trump's credibility was quickly called into question-- yet again-- when he originally announced that Google was working on a website to be “very quickly done”—a claim that was refuted the next day by the tech giant, which said the tool is still “in the very early stages of development.”   The company gave no indication of a timeframe and said the tool, still in early development by Google and Verily, would be tested in the Bay Area “with the hope of expanding more broadly over time.”

Trump also said the website would help members of the public “determine whether a [coronavirus] test is warranted.”  The head of communications at Verily, an Alphabet subsidiary, admitted that the website was actually a “triage website” that was intended for health workers rather than the general public.

It was also not immediately clear where Trump got the “1,700 engineers” figure, but an employee at Google told reporters that number was blatantly incorrect.   “There's absolutely not 1,700 engineers at Verily-- fewer than 1,000 people work at the biosciences company, the employee said.

Sorry Donald-- But You ARE Responsible

"The system is not really geared to what we need right now," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said this week about the lack of proper testing for the coronavirus in the U.S. “That is a failing. Let's admit it."

But Donald Trump won't admit it.  Asked at a Rose Garden press conference whether he bore any responsibility for his administration's bumbling response to the coronavirus, Trump rejected the notion immediately, saying, "No, I don't take responsibility at all."
 
But Trump is absolutely responsible.  Trump has repeatedly failed to promote aggressive testing because he didn't want the number of cases to increase and make him look bad.  Trump's administration rejected a World Health Organization test adopted by nearly 60 other countries at the end of February.   Trump's national security advisor John Bolton disbanded the global health security team on the National Security Council and eliminated the post tasked with leading that group in May 2018.

Asked about disbanding the global pandemic team from the White House National Security Council, Trump deflected responsibility--calling it a "nasty question,” and claimed, "I don't know anything about it."

But that was yet another lie-- Trump did know about it.  Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown wrote to Donald Trump on May 18, 2918, saying, "In our globalized world, where diseases are never more than a plane ride away, we must do all we can to prepare for the next, inevitable outbreak and keep Americans safe from disease.  I urge you to act swiftly in reaffirming your commitment to global health security by taking immediate action to designate senior-level NSC personnel to focus on global health security, supporting adequate and appropriate funding for global health security initiatives, and leading the way in preparing for the next pandemic threat."

As the Atlantic has put it, the coronavirus is quite likely to be the Trump presidency’s inflection point, when everything changed, when the bluster and ignorance and shallowness of America’s 45th president became undeniable, an empirical reality, as indisputable as the laws of science or a mathematical equation.

It has taken a good deal longer than it should have, but Americans have now seen the con man behind the curtain. The president, enraged for having been unmasked, will become more desperate, more embittered, more unhinged.  He knows nothing will be the same. His administration may stagger on, but it will be only a hollow shell.  The Trump presidency is over.