COVID-19 ongoing thread part 2

[mr friendly guy]

Let me get this right. China takes a few weeks to work out the characteristics of this new virus, eg human to human transmission etc. They are criticise for downplaying or outright withholding information. Meanwhile Woodward takes a much longer time of 6 fucking months before he reveals this revelation (because he took that long to figure out the same thing China did), and there are people here and media defending him.

I don't think people are even consciously aware of this double standard, but its there.

[Ralin]

I mean. One's a government and the other is a private citizen. People who trusted Trump at that point weren't likely to listen to anyone contradicting him, recordings or no. There were other sources available telling people why they needed to be concerned about the pandemic. Anyone who hadn't gotten it through their head to not trust Trump by the start of this year was probably a lost cause.

[mr friendly guy]

I mean. One's a government and the other is a private citizen. People who trusted Trump at that point weren't likely to listen to anyone contradicting him, recordings or no. There were other sources available telling people why they needed to be concerned about the pandemic. Anyone who hadn't gotten it through their head to not trust Trump by the start of this year was probably a lost cause.

Woodward definitely bears less responsibility, but I wouldn't necessarily say 100% of Trump supporters would ignore it. I think there were studies that Trump supporters who watch Tucker Carlson take more precautions against covid than Trump supporters who watch Sean Hannity, because Carlson at least warns about the coronavirus.

I think Darth Wong on his Facebook feed says it best

OK, since people are arguing about Trump and Woodward and their responsibility for 200,000 deaths, I think it's time for a primer on how moral responsibility works. As an individual, you are morally responsible for the foreseeable consequences of your decisions. And yes, "foreseeable consequences" is an actual term in law, not just moral philosophy.

For example, if you are drunk and you choose to drive, you are morally responsible for any harm that results from your drunk driving, because it is a foreseeable consequences of the decision to drive while drunk. However, if you're walking home and a cyclist on the sidewalk swerves to avoid you and blunders into traffic, his death is not your moral responsibility. It's not your moral responsibility because that was not a foreseeable consequence of you choosing to walk on that sidewalk, even though it wouldn't have happened if you weren't there.

Now, when we look at Woodward and Trump, both bear moral responsibility: Trump more than Woodward. As a journalist, Woodward has a moral responsibility to inform the public if he becomes aware of an imminent danger to public safety. He chose to withhold that information, because he could profit more from it if he released it at a later date. It would be completely absurd to pretend that at least some of the deaths due to covid-19 were not a foreseeable consequence of his silence and greed.

Just like the rest of us, Woodward saw Trump prancing about in public, mocking people who wore masks and encouraging millions of Americans to ignore social distancing. But unlike the rest of us, Woodward had hard evidence that Trump was knowingly lying to his followers the whole time. That gave him a power that you and I don't have, and therefore it elevates the consequences of his decisions. He had to know that he could potentially save lives by releasing his evidence, yet he chose not to.

Is Woodward responsible for what Trump does? Of course not. But Woodward is responsible for the foreseeable consequences of his own decisions, and every single day, he made the decision to remain silent. For six months, he made the same decision every day. Every day, he saw the fresh death toll: another thousand people dead, and every day, he chose to remain silent.

Of course, Trump bears much greater responsibility. While Woodward is a respected journalist and had devastating audio recordings at his disposal, he still does not have 60 million cult followers who obey his every beck and call. Trump does. If Trump told them to take this seriously from day one, they would have taken it seriously. He chose not to, even though he knew he was condemning many of them to death. Trump bears greater moral responsibility for his decision because he has so much more power, so his decisions affect more people. Woodward has less responsibility, but "less" does not mean "zero".

Foreseeable consequences. Remember that phrase, because a lot of people make a lot of really unreasonable statements about what people are morally responsible for, even though it all boils down to those two simple words.

[Ralin]

And as someone in the comments on that post pointed out, it's not at all obvious that the lives that might have been saved by Woodward going public earlier are more than the ones that might be saved by doing so at a time that will have the maximum effect on the election. Given that we don't know which move would have done more good, and given that Woodward is in at least as good of a position to judge that impact as any of us given that he's more familiar with his interviews and has many years of experience as high level reporter, I'm not inclined to criticize him.

His guilt is not just less but pretty minor compared to the people whose actual job is was to handle this situation and warn the public.

[mr friendly guy]

Is there any evidence that Woodward actually wants Trump to lose, as opposed to trying to sell his book? A quick search doesn't show him to be a registered democrat or a republican currently, although Bernstein, his collaborator in investigating Nixon stated Woodward was a registered Republican (at the time of the Watergate scandal).

Also if Trump pulls off a win, doesn't that mean Woodward squandered an opportunity to save lives, even assuming that his goal was to try and save even more lives by stopping a Trump second term?

[Ralin]

Is there any evidence that Woodward actually wants Trump to lose, as opposed to trying to sell his book?

Yeah. He's met with Trump personally at least eighteen times.

Also if Trump pulls off a win, doesn't that mean Woodward squandered an opportunity to save lives, even assuming that his goal was to try and save even more lives by stopping a Trump second term?

Like I said, can't know for sure, so...

[mr friendly guy]

https://www.newsweek.com/teachers-die-c ... 1599779147

Teachers Die of COVID in South Carolina, Mississippi, Missouri, Iowa and Oklahoma As Schools Reopen
BY DANIEL VILLARREAL ON 9/10/20 AT 6:31 PM EDT

Six teachers in Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma and South Carolina have died of COVID-19 since the start of the fall semester, renewing fears about the dangers of teaching during the ongoing coronavirus epidemic.

It's unclear whether any of the teachers actually contracted COVID-19 at their schools. Two are believed to have contracted the virus outside of school and one unnamed teacher died before classes officially began.

Regardless, most of their respective schools have offered counseling for students and faculty affected by their deaths and have pledged to redouble efforts to prevent a COVID-19 outbreak following their deaths.

The six deceased teachers are the following:

- AshLee DeMarinis, a 34-year-old special education teacher at John Evans Middle School in Potosi, Missouri who had asthma and died on September 6 in the hospital three weeks after first experiencing coronavirus symptoms. She occasionally paid for students' school supplies and helped them get clothes when needed, according to KMOV 4.

- Demetria Bannister, a 28-year-old third-grade teacher at Windsor Elementary School in Columbia, South Carolina, died on September 7 after testing positive on September 4. She led the school's student choir and school spirit initiatives, according to The State.

Tom Slade, a 53-year-old high school history teacher at Vancleave High School in Vancleave, Mississippi, died on September 6 after testing positive for coronavirus on August 24. His sister told The Sun Herald that he was exposed to COVID-19 at a gathering outside of school.

- Nacoma James, a 42-year-old teacher and assistant football coach at Lafayette Middle School in Oxford, Mississippi, died in quarantine on August 6 following his first week back on campus after a summer coaching football. District officials are conducting contact tracing to determine which students he might have been in contact with, according to Mississippi Today.

- Teresa Horn, a 62-year-old special education teacher at Tahlequah High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma tested positive for COVID-19 on August 24 and then died on August 28 after not being hospitalized, according to KTUL 8 Tulsa.

- An unnamed teacher at the Ruby Van Meter School in Des Moines, Iowa also died after contracting COVID-19 following an out-of-state trip. The teacher hadn't been around students since falling ill, according to The Associated Press, as they died a week before classes started.

Almost all of the teachers' aforementioned states fall among the top half of U.S. states with the highest overall number of coronavirus cases. As of September 10, South Carolina ranks 16th among the 50 U.S. states, Missouri ranks 21st, Mississippi ranks 23rd, Iowa is 27th and Oklahoma 29th.

In late July, the National Education Association (NEA), the largest teachers' union in the U.S. with over 3 million members, said it would support its members striking over health and safety conditions in schools.

While such strikes haven't yet materialized, school districts are monitoring COVID-19 outbreaks to assess the successes and dangers in teaching online and in-person.

[mr friendly guy]

https://www.straitstimes.com/world/unit ... -us-israel

UN adopts Covid-19 pandemic resolution despite objections from US, Israel

PUBLISHEDSEP 12, 2020, 12:46 PM SGT
FACEBOOKTWITTER
NEW YORK (AFP) - The United States was supported only by Israel on Friday in a vote against a UN resolution for a "comprehensive and coordinated response" to the Covid-19 pandemic, a text that included recognition of the WHO's leadership role.

The measure, which has been negotiated since May, was adopted by an overwhelming majority of 169 countries out of 193, with Ukraine and Hungary abstaining.

The text, called an omnibus resolution because it covers multiple aspects of the pandemic, "acknowledges the key leadership role of WHO and the fundamental role of the United Nations system in catalysing and coordinating the comprehensive global response to the Covid-19 pandemic".

The US withdrew from the WHO this spring, accusing the body of mismanaging the coronavirus pandemic and delaying launch of a global alert.

The text "calls for intensified international cooperation and solidarity to contain, mitigate and overcome the pandemic and its consequences".

And it supports UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' call in March for a ceasefire between countries in order to better facilitate the fight against the pandemic - a request that has been little followed.

The text additionally calls for "the urgent removal of unjustified obstacles", meaning sanctions, in order to create better access to products used in combating the virus.

It requests nations to maintain food and agricultural supply chains and encourages syncing economic recovery strategies to promote sustainable development and combat climate change.

Ahead of the vote, the US unsuccessfully attempted to remove a paragraph on protecting women in the area of sexual and reproductive health, over objections about abortion.

Libya and Iraq also voted for the paragraph's removal. However, more than 120 countries voted to keep it and 25 countries abstained.

So after fucking up its own responses to the pandemic, the US wants to fuck up a coordinated response for other nations as well. What the hell do you expect from the nation that displaced 37 million people in its war of terror.

[Bedlam]

https://www.newsweek.com/teachers-die-c ... 1599779147

Teachers Die of COVID in South Carolina, Mississippi, Missouri, Iowa and Oklahoma As Schools Reopen
BY DANIEL VILLARREAL ON 9/10/20 AT 6:31 PM EDT

Six teachers in Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma and South Carolina have died of COVID-19 since the start of the fall semester, renewing fears about the dangers of teaching during the ongoing coronavirus epidemic.

It's unclear whether any of the teachers actually contracted COVID-19 at their schools. Two are believed to have contracted the virus outside of school and one unnamed teacher died before classes officially began.

Regardless, most of their respective schools have offered counseling for students and faculty affected by their deaths and have pledged to redouble efforts to prevent a COVID-19 outbreak following their deaths.

The six deceased teachers are the following:

- AshLee DeMarinis, a 34-year-old special education teacher at John Evans Middle School in Potosi, Missouri who had asthma and died on September 6 in the hospital three weeks after first experiencing coronavirus symptoms. She occasionally paid for students' school supplies and helped them get clothes when needed, according to KMOV 4.

- Demetria Bannister, a 28-year-old third-grade teacher at Windsor Elementary School in Columbia, South Carolina, died on September 7 after testing positive on September 4. She led the school's student choir and school spirit initiatives, according to The State.

Tom Slade, a 53-year-old high school history teacher at Vancleave High School in Vancleave, Mississippi, died on September 6 after testing positive for coronavirus on August 24. His sister told The Sun Herald that he was exposed to COVID-19 at a gathering outside of school.

- Nacoma James, a 42-year-old teacher and assistant football coach at Lafayette Middle School in Oxford, Mississippi, died in quarantine on August 6 following his first week back on campus after a summer coaching football. District officials are conducting contact tracing to determine which students he might have been in contact with, according to Mississippi Today.

- Teresa Horn, a 62-year-old special education teacher at Tahlequah High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma tested positive for COVID-19 on August 24 and then died on August 28 after not being hospitalized, according to KTUL 8 Tulsa.

- An unnamed teacher at the Ruby Van Meter School in Des Moines, Iowa also died after contracting COVID-19 following an out-of-state trip. The teacher hadn't been around students since falling ill, according to The Associated Press, as they died a week before classes started.

Almost all of the teachers' aforementioned states fall among the top half of U.S. states with the highest overall number of coronavirus cases. As of September 10, South Carolina ranks 16th among the 50 U.S. states, Missouri ranks 21st, Mississippi ranks 23rd, Iowa is 27th and Oklahoma 29th.

In late July, the National Education Association (NEA), the largest teachers' union in the U.S. with over 3 million members, said it would support its members striking over health and safety conditions in schools.

While such strikes haven't yet materialized, school districts are monitoring COVID-19 outbreaks to assess the successes and dangers in teaching online and in-person.

So what is this overall trying to say?

The overall deaths from Covid in the US has been about 0.06% of the population so far. There are about 224K teachers in the states mentioned so these 6 represent about 0.003%, true the time frames aren't the same but as it states none of them can be directly linked to the schools and half seem to be fairly well linked to situations outside the class. Going by this it seems like teachers are less likely to die than the general population.

This is why stats are useful, simply stating 'people died! something needs to be done!' without looking at the or comparing the overall situation isn't that helpful. The article could list that four TV repair people died in the last week and demand that more is done to protect them, of six pet shop owners or ten sewage maintenance workers, 'won't someone think of the poor sewage maintenance workers!'

Rather than quick headlines we need to see who is actually dying more than average, why and what can be done about it.

[mr friendly guy]

In Australia, the chief health officer in Queensland is now getting death threats for their tough border stance. Qld and WA have tough border stances, which is still being opposed by the Federal government who aims to get things open by Christmas. The above states seem to be taking a more cautious approach without locking themselves in with deadlines.


https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-14/ ... e/12650210

The crazies have come out over here in Australia as well.

[PainRack]

Just a reminder.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/1 ... -19-412809

The health department’s politically appointed communications aides have demanded the right to review and seek changes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s weekly scientific reports charting the progress of the coronavirus pandemic, in what officials characterized as an attempt to intimidate the reports’ authors and water down their communications to health professionals.

In some cases, emails from communications aides to CDC Director Robert Redfield and other senior officials openly complained that the agency’s reports would undermine President Donald Trump's optimistic messages about the outbreak, according to emails reviewed by POLITICO and three people familiar with the situation.

And the much older news
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2 ... d-19-data/
So... Over the past few months, we seen the CDC data now transit to the Covid taskforce and a decline in Covid occur right after.

We seen that Azar said we can deploy the National Guard to seize hospital data for Covid.



Now. None of this on its own dennotes an official cover-up. But when you remember Trump projection........


Seriously. China warned doctors that patient data security is an issue and you can't anyhow spread rumours, let the hospital media department and etc decide= massive cover-up but this doesn't count????

The media is again giving a free pass to Trump to cover-up for his crimes. The MWMR is a mere newsletter but it's sole job is to inform critical information to doctors so they can note stuff ...like the 1982 MWMR that changed doctors perception of GIRD to AIDS.

How much cost and potential harm was done for example due to the delay of the HCQ article ?

[mr friendly guy]

Now we know where all those COVID was manufactured by the Chinese military rumours came from. Steve Bannon.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/steve-ban ... ured-covid

Steve Bannon Is Behind Bogus Study That China Created COVID
STUDY BUDDY
The study goes against basically all scientific evidence and expert opinion. But it fits with the former Trump adviser’s anti-China posture.

Adam Rawnsley
Lachlan Markay
Reporter
Updated Sep. 15, 2020 7:32PM ET / Published Sep. 15, 2020 3:16PM ET

A new study purporting to show that the novel coronavirus was manufactured in a Chinese lab was published by a pair of nonprofit groups linked to Steve Bannon, the former top Trump strategist now facing felony fraud charges.

The study, co-authored by a Chinese virologist who fled Hong Kong this year, claims that “laboratory manipulation is part of the history of SARS-CoV-2.” Its findings were quickly picked up by a handful of prominent news organizations such as the New York Post, which hyped the “explosive” allegations that run counter to virtually all existing scientific literature on the source of the virus.



The study is the work of the Rule of Law Society and the Rule of Law Foundation, sister nonprofit organizations that Bannon was instrumental in creating. According to documents posted on the Society’s website last year, he served as that group’s chair. The Bannon connection was first spotted by Kevin Bird, a Ph.D. candidate at Michigan State University, and shared by Carl Bergstrom, a biology professor at the University of Washington, who called the study “bizarre and unfounded.”

A search of Google Scholar and the Rule of Law Society and Rule of Law Foundation websites indicates that the organizations have not previously published scientific or medical research, and it’s unclear whether the paper received any peer review. It was posted on Monday on the website Zenodo, a publicly available repository of scientific and academic research to which anyone can upload their work.

Both of the nonprofits behind the study were formed in conjunction with exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui, with whom Bannon has collaborated on a number of advocacy efforts targeting the Chinese government and business endeavors that have drawn the scrutiny of federal law enforcement officials.

In addition to their work on the Rule of Law nonprofits, Bannon and Guo have also collaborated on a news website, G News, that has published stories suggesting that the coronavirus was manufactured by the Chinese military.

In July, Bannon appeared to tease forthcoming scientific studies supporting his contention that the coronavirus originated in a lab in Wuhan, China. He told the Daily Mail that scientists from the lab had “defected” to the U.S. and were collaborating with American intelligence agencies. On the “War Room: Pandemic” podcast, Bannon has hosted others who have speculated that the virus may have been a Chinese “bioweapon,” but he has said that he believes the most plausible explanation is that it “came out of experiments that were going on” at that Wuhan lab.

That’s a line that has been echoed by some prominent U.S. officials. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have both alluded to intelligence reports supporting that theory. “This evidence is circumstantial, to be sure,” wrote Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) in an April column for the Wall Street Journal, “but it all points toward the Wuhan labs.”

While an accidental leak from the virology lab in Wuhan remains a theoretical possible source of the initial outbreak in the city, the vast majority of the scientific literature on the virus has determined that its origins were natural, and that it was not laboratory manufactured. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Trump administration’s coronavirus point-person, has stressed repeatedly that all evidence indicates the virus was not man-made.

The study published by Bannon’s group on Monday is therefore particularly incendiary. “This virus is not from nature,” declared Dr. Li-Meng Yan, one of the scientists who conducted the study, during a Monday appearance on a British talk show. She called reports that the virus originated in a Wuhan meat market “a smoke screen” designed to obscure its true origins.

But other virologists disagree and say the paper makes false claims about a number of basic facts. “Basically, it's all circumstantial and some of it is entirely fictional,” Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University, told The Daily Beast of the study.

The paper leads with a claim that the coronavirus' genes are "suspiciously similar to that of a bat coronavirus discovered by military laboratories" in China—an assertion Rasmussen says, that shouldn’t be surprising because “they are related SARS-like coronaviruses.”

The study’s authors made a similar claim about a portion of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein—which viruses use to breach and infect cells—and wrote that it’s similar to the original SARS virus in a “suspicious manner” and suggests genetic manipulation. “SARS-CoV also used ACE2 as a cellular receptor, as do other SARS-like bat coronaviruses,” Rasmussen says. “It is not suspicious and is in fact expected that the receptor binding domains that bind the same protein would be similar.”

Rasmussen also said that the paper misrepresented basic facts about another part of coronavirus spike proteins known as furin cleavage sites. The authors claim that SARS-CoV-2’s cleavage site is “unique” and unseen elsewhere in nature. But according to Rasmussen, “Furin cleavage sites occur naturally in many other beta-CoVs, including MERS-CoV and other SARS-like bat coronaviruses.”

Yan has said that she fled China to avoid reprisals from the government there over her allegations that it was not being forthcoming about the origin and nature of the virus. She said she warned officials in December that the virus was highly transmissible between humans but that her allegations were ignored.

The University of Hong Kong’s school of public health, where Yan was employed, has disputed her allegations that the university failed to heed her warnings prior to the outbreak in China.

In August, Yan appeared on Bannon’s podcast. During that show, Bannon said that he was “still not in the camp that believes they purposely let it out but I’ve been strongly in the camp from the beginning that it came out of the Wuhan P4 lab.”

Unrelated to his work with the Rule of Law groups, Bannon is also facing felony charges over what federal prosecutors say was an effort to extract millions of dollars from a nonprofit seeking to privately finance the construction of a wall on the southern U.S. border. Bannon has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Dr. Li-Meng Yan has apparently had her twitter account suspended. And apparently according to one of my FB friends there was an article saying she can't go back to China and see her family. Well, you made your bed with a known racist like Steve Bannon, all that's left is to lie in it.

[PainRack]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/18/media/na ... index.html



Just another reminder that there should be a moratorium on all Daily Mail, Breitbart, Sinclair and Fox news vis Covid because they say is deliberately lying .





TLDR: Sinclair Fox17 says Nashville is covering up Covid data to prolong lockdown.



Oops: turns out Mayor already released said data TO Fox17 and the public before the story and Fox17 lied about what the news really is.

We have certainly refused to give counts per bar (i.e. # cases per bar cluster) because this numbers are low per site, and there are data standards prohibiting the release of a total count that is less than 10 per small geographic area. We do have 2 bars now where the counts are over 10, but then that would single out those two and not the others. We could still release the total though."

Sinclair reports the first line, omits the rest. In context, what this means is that the health department refused to single out individual bars/restaurants Covid cluster and will report only if a superspreader event happened.
Especially since it's against HIPAA rules to provide the ability to identify patients


The total numbers however was released.

[PainRack]

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/09 ... id-19-fate

.

Kushner, seated at the head of the conference table, in a chair taller than all the others, was quick to strike a confrontational tone. “The federal government is not going to lead this response,” he announced. “It’s up to the states to figure out what they want to do.”

One attendee explained to Kushner that due to the finite supply of PPE, Americans were bidding against each other and driving prices up. To solve that, businesses eager to help were looking to the federal government for leadership and direction.

“Free markets will solve this,” Kushner said dismissively. “That is not the role of government.”

The same attendee explained that although he believed in open markets, he feared that the system was breaking. As evidence, he pointed to a CNN report about New York governor Andrew Cuomo and his desperate call for supplies.

“That’s the CNN bullshit,” Kushner snapped. “They lie.”

I was wondering why Betsy McCaughey, yes the same Betsy who got fired after she appeared on the Daily Show to claim ACA death panels and is responsible for helping torpedo Hilary Clinton healthcare reform in 1994 was lying about Cuomo choosing not to buy ventilators precovid(Cuomo did. They however bought enough for only medium level crisis)



Now we know. Because people needed to justify Jared and the Trump family decision not to do anything and blame Cuomo for not kowtowing to Trump.





So, it's small government when it's Blue states and MERICA first when it's red states.



Seriously. Out out you damn spot. How on earth is the Trump family going to wash their hands clean of 200,000 American dead ?

[EnterpriseSovereign]

What do you know, infection rates in the UK are going up again in spite of the government's half-assed attempts to control it, latest such measure is pubs and restaurants closing at 22:00. The alert level has been raised from 3 to 4, reflecting the current situation of the much-talked-about second wave that looks set to sweep the country.

[Zaune]

What do you know, infection rates in the UK are going up again in spite of the government's half-assed attempts to control it, latest such measure is pubs and restaurants closing at 22:00. The alert level has been raised from 3 to 4, reflecting the current situation of the much-talked-about second wave that looks set to sweep the country.

Four more bloody years of this bunch, assuming there's a UK left by the time they've run out of new ways to combine pointless counter-productive vindictiveness with hamfisted incompetence.

I'm glad I was already clinically depressed when this whole thing started. This would be ten times harder to cope with if I wasn't already too miserable to care anymore.

[PainRack]

whistleblower account of Kushner task force

Kennedy believes that the Administration relied on volunteers in order to sidestep government experts and thereby “control the narrative.” He said that Brad Smith, one of the political appointees who directed the task force, pressured him to create a model fudging the projected number of fatalities; Smith wanted the model to predict a high of a hundred thousand U.S. deaths, claiming that the experts’ models were “too severe.” Kennedy said that he told Smith, “I don’t know the first thing about disease modelling,” and declined the assignment. (A spokesman said that Smith did not recall the conversation.) To date, nearly two hundred thousand Americans have died.

The volunteers were also instructed to prioritize requests from the President’s friends and supporters. According to Kennedy, the group paid special attention to Jeanine Pirro, the Fox News personality. Pirro, Kennedy said, was “particularly aggressive,” and demanded that masks be shipped to a hospital she favored. The volunteers were also told to direct millions of dollars’ worth of supplies to only five preselected distributors. Kennedy was asked to draft a justification for this decision, but refused. “Hundreds of people were sending e-mails every day offering P.P.E.,” he said, but no one in charge responded effectively. “We were super frustrated we couldn’t get the government to do more.”

Just. Sheer. Evil.

Corrupt. Ineffective. Political.inept. amateur. All on purpose.


Millons diverted from CDC for PR camoaign
tLDR: CDC director Robert Redfield is begging for money from Congress for vaccines and to sustain contact tracing/testing/efforts to fight Covid.

Trump diverts 300 million dollars for a PR campaign to inspire hope and avoid defeatism vis Covid. Most likely for election purposes


Fuck you. If Arnold Schwarzenegger is going to personally pay money to help keep poll places open, Trump can spend his own fucking money promoting himself

[PainRack]

https://khn.org/news/many-people-of-col ... -to-covid/

These figures track with other research. According to a Harvard Medical School study published in The Lancet Public Health last month, health care workers of color were more likely to care for patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 and nearly twice as likely as their white counterparts to test positive for the coronavirus

A story that isn't heard. As immigrants and people of colour tend to work for nursing homes and poorer hospitals, they also tend to be the ones more likely exposed to Covid and die from it.



This get worse as US employers are less likely/able to give sufficient PPE to protect their workers and the areas where said workers are less likely to be protected are either not unionized or poorer, and thus tends to be more POC and etcetcetc.





https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/ ... 2020.01011





This is just another highlight into how social inequality in the US creeps into everything.

[Simon_Jester]

So what is this overall trying to say?

The overall deaths from Covid in the US has been about 0.06% of the population so far. There are about 224K teachers in the states mentioned so these 6 represent about 0.003%, true the time frames aren't the same but as it states none of them can be directly linked to the schools and half seem to be fairly well linked to situations outside the class. Going by this it seems like teachers are less likely to die than the general population.

This is why stats are useful, simply stating 'people died! something needs to be done!' without looking at the or comparing the overall situation isn't that helpful. The article could list that four TV repair people died in the last week and demand that more is done to protect them, of six pet shop owners or ten sewage maintenance workers, 'won't someone think of the poor sewage maintenance workers!'

Rather than quick headlines we need to see who is actually dying more than average, why and what can be done about it.

I mean, this one's pretty basic. Teachers are dying of coronavirus because teachers, like everyone else, are not immune to coronavirus. And schools in many states were foolishly opened instead of going to a distance learning paradigm, because most Republican state governors and governments are part of a fucking plague cult.

If teachers are getting coronavirus, it logically follows that students are too, and some of THEM will die, and they'll be passing it on to their parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and some of THEM will die.

The point is to highlight a handful of easily identified and entirely preventable deaths, so as to put a human face to an obvious public health argument that Republicans are steadfastly insisting they don't need to make because they do not acknowledge or care how many Americans die, because... I don't know, Joe Biden would attack and dethrone God or something if they admitted Trump fucked this up. So the entire party institution rallies around the idiot and pretends he's doing the right thing by ignoring it, so THEY ignore it, and we can talk about the consequences on a grand statistical level all we like but it won't matter until and unless Republicans are forced to pay attention to statistics again.

[PainRack]

So what is this overall trying to say?

The overall deaths from Covid in the US has been about 0.06% of the population so far. There are about 224K teachers in the states mentioned so these 6 represent about 0.003%, true the time frames aren't the same but as it states none of them can be directly linked to the schools and half seem to be fairly well linked to situations outside the class. Going by this it seems like teachers are less likely to die than the general population.

This is why stats are useful, simply stating 'people died! something needs to be done!' without looking at the or comparing the overall situation isn't that helpful. The article could list that four TV repair people died in the last week and demand that more is done to protect them, of six pet shop owners or ten sewage maintenance workers, 'won't someone think of the poor sewage maintenance workers!'

Rather than quick headlines we need to see who is actually dying more than average, why and what can be done about it.

I mean, this one's pretty basic. Teachers are dying of coronavirus because teachers, like everyone else, are not immune to coronavirus. And schools in many states were foolishly opened instead of going to a distance learning paradigm, because most Republican state governors and governments are part of a fucking plague cult.

If teachers are getting coronavirus, it logically follows that students are too, and some of THEM will die, and they'll be passing it on to their parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and some of THEM will die.

The point is to highlight a handful of easily identified and entirely preventable deaths, so as to put a human face to an obvious public health argument that Republicans are steadfastly insisting they don't need to make because they do not acknowledge or care how many Americans die, because... I don't know, Joe Biden would attack and dethrone God or something if they admitted Trump fucked this up. So the entire party institution rallies around the idiot and pretends he's doing the right thing by ignoring it, so THEY ignore it, and we can talk about the consequences on a grand statistical level all we like but it won't matter until and unless Republicans are forced to pay attention to statistics again.

The real issue is that because schools represent another effective source of transmission to other vulnerable people, such as grandparents, parents and etc.

Can't find the cite but there's currently over 100 thousand people who has been exposed to covid from US school reopening and such numbers are always an underestimate.

So death rates from teachers aren't important, its the fact that yes, teachers have covid. Because teachers with said covid will then spread it to others including your kids.

That's afterall was what happened with one of Singapore clusters, as a tuition centre teacher and then a family returning from holiday in Europe way back in...... march? April? spread a cluster...


This risk can be mitigated via testing and contact tracing but well........... Slow the testing down someone said.

[PainRack]

So............ Remember Michael Caputo who was going CDC is DEEP STATE and Fauci is underming Trump?



He took a medical leave of abscene after the news broke about the interference with the MMR, only to appear on Facebook and rightwing radio to talk about how when the inaugration starts, expect the shooting to start and other nonsense?



Well...........



He has cancer.

https://buffalonews.com/news/michael-caputo-receives-metastatic-head-and-neck-cancer-diagnosis/article_e1bcb148-fe77-11ea-862a-d375b2b7683d.html

Stage IV.

Caputo, 58, said he entered the National Cancer Institute at the urging of Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who noticed the lump, and that the president directed arrangements for his admission and had checked on him.













"The Caputo family wants to thank President Donald Trump and Secretary Alex Azar for their friendship and support," DiPietro said Thursday, referring to the HHS secretary.





Caputo is on a 60-day leave from the federal government after posting a Facebook Live claim that some doctors from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the agency battling the Covid-19 pandemic, were involved in an anti-Trump conspiracy.

So. It turns out he didn't take the medical leave to avoid the PR issues afterall. It was to treat cancer. And while he had cancer, he was still able to do interviews about Trump Deep State resistance.



De mortuis nihil nisi bonum. But hey, apparently, the CDC director was the one who noticed his lump and advised him to get medical attention and he apparently finally listened to the CDC. We all should do that. Listen to the CDC. Nuff said.

[Broomstick]

Is there any evidence that Woodward actually wants Trump to lose, as opposed to trying to sell his book? A quick search doesn't show him to be a registered democrat or a republican currently, although Bernstein, his collaborator in investigating Nixon stated Woodward was a registered Republican (at the time of the Watergate scandal)

Well, clearly being a Republican was not an obstacle to Woodward helping to take down a Republican president - not every member of a political party puts that party ahead of everything else. I don't think you can look at Woodward's personal political leanings to figure out if he's pro- or anti-Trump. As you point out, it might be just about selling the book.

Fuck you. If Arnold Schwarzenegger is going to personally pay money to help keep poll places open, Trump can spend his own fucking money promoting himself

The problem is, it looks like Trump might not have any of his "own fucking money". Apparently he's been using other peoples' money all along.

[bilateralrope]

Some news from New Zealand that you might laugh at:

Man who escaped managed isolation by 'creating rope out of bedsheets' gone for eight hours

Danielle Clent
15:45, Sep 29 2020

CCTV footage has shown a man who allegedly escaped a managed isolation facility in Auckland by climbing down bedsheets from a fourth storey window was gone for more than eight hours.

Head of managed isolation and quarantine Air Commodore Darryn Webb said that about 8.20am on Monday, on-site security staff at the Ramada on Federal St located a number of sheets tied together, hanging from a window of a fourth floor room.

As the matter was being investigated, the man from that room presented himself at the front gate of the hotel at 8.24am, he said.

He was immediately taken into police custody and faced questioning.

On Tuesday, Webb said the investigation into the incident was ongoing.

CCTV footage reviewed as part of the investigation found the man walking around Aotea Square at about 1am.

“Inquiries have established the man likely absconded shortly after midnight before returning to the facility on foot at 8.24am. The matter is still under investigation and some details about his movements are yet to be confirmed,” he said.

“The man has been viewed on CCTV walking in parts of Auckland, from the central city to Newmarket, Epsom, Onehunga and Mt Albert before returning to the facility on Federal St.”

The man returned from Australia on a deportation flight on September 16. He has tested negative for Covid-19 twice and it is believed that the risk to the public is low.

Webb said security improvements at the facility will be made, including the installation of more CCTV cameras as well as extra lighting at the likely point of the man’s exit.

“The method of exit is still under investigation, but early indications are that the absconder broke the security latch on his window to force his way out.

“Police have reviewed a range of CCTV footage, interviewed the absconder under strict Covid-19 protocols, conducted a preliminary scene examination at the facility and spoken with staff.”

The man has not been charged at this point.

On Monday, Webb said the man had put himself and others at risk and labelled his actions “unacceptable”.

“Wilfully leaving our facilities will not be tolerated, and the appropriate action will be taken.”

Rules were in place for all returnees, Webb said, and people were expected to follow them for the entirety of their 14-day isolation.

Webb said there have been more than 55,000 people through managed isolation and quarantine facilities.

Of that, there had been nine incidents involving 13 people escaping.

“These incidents are rare, and we treat them extremely seriously.”

Despite the risk to the public being very low, anyone with concerns about their health should call Healthline on 0800 358 5453.

Everyone coming into NZ goes into managed isolation for 14 days. Since he was tested twice, that means he had been in isolation for at least 12 days. With no symptoms and two negative tests, he would have been let out today at the latest. Instead, he pulled the bedsheet rope escape


As for how our second community outbreak is going. It was detected on August 11. We are now in the "How many consecutive days of 0 new community cases before we declare victory ?" phase. It was successfully contained to Auckland.

[Solauren]

So, he broke confinement?

Toss his ass in prison for a few months, see if that drives the message home.

[PainRack]

Money taken away from CDC to fund Trump did great ad campaign flounders


TLDR so, even taking away a quarter billion dollars away to fund a PSA for Trump election, they CANT actually do the PSA because the film crew is inexperienced and people withdrew since the only interview they wanted was with Fauxi and not Velma and etc, with other celebs not wanting to promote Trump elections.