The Walls Come Down: No Travel Betwen US and Europe for 30 Days

[MKSheppard]

Put France in.

[mr friendly guy]

Doesn't that risk spreading the infection around needlessly? It would be better to keep the infected isolated as much as possible and accept that a lack of resources will mean more deaths locally than to risk a spread into new regions.

Definitely runs the risk. However I will note Germany already has lots of cases (so its not like its necessarily spreading to a region previously COVID 19 free), and if you build hospitals just for treating COVID 19 you can transfer these patients to those hospitals to minimise the spread.

Ideally it would be better to transfer medical staff to the infected hotspots, but as I note, the language barrier is a problem.

[Jub]

Doesn't that risk spreading the infection around needlessly? It would be better to keep the infected isolated as much as possible and accept that a lack of resources will mean more deaths locally than to risk a spread into new regions.

Definitely runs the risk. However I will note Germany already has lots of cases (so its not like its necessarily spreading to a region previously COVID 19 free), and if you build hospitals just for treating COVID 19 you can transfer these patients to those hospitals to minimise the spread.

Ideally it would be better to transfer medical staff to the infected hotspots, but as I note, the language barrier is a problem.

Is France really so overwhelmed that it can't move its own doctors around from uninfected regions to infected ones or, unlike China, do they simply lack the means to grab an entire hospital's staff and equipment from one region and move them where needed?

[mr friendly guy]

Is France really so overwhelmed that it can't move its own doctors around from uninfected regions to infected ones or, unlike China, do they simply lack the means to grab an entire hospital's staff and equipment from one region and move them where needed?

Good question, so I did a quick search on this.

https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-treat ... a-52943695

It appears its the Alsace region of France which is particularly overwhelmed. This region borders Germany and Switzerland. According to DW (German news source) they are sending patients to other parts of France as well as Germany and Switzerland (a non EU country). This works I assume because Alsace is close to Germany and Switzerland.

The article also mentions they are taking patients from Italy (Lobardy) to Saxony in Germany. Eight patients. This seems more symbolic to me.

[mr friendly guy]

Further research, and now I have a better idea why Germany is able to take care of them. Also since then, Germany has increased the number of patients they are taking

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 40906.html

At 1:30am on Tuesday 24 March, an Italian air force plane landed at Leipzig airport in eastern Germany. Onboard were two men in their fifites from Bergamo in the Lombardy region of northern Italy, which has suffered the deadliest form of coronavirus in the world. Both unconscious and breathing through ventilators, they were quickly transferred to Leipzig’s University Hospital.

Over the past week Germany has begun transferring around 50 Italian patients in critical condition to hospitals all over the country. It has also taken in 63 patients from Alsace, one of the worst-hit regions in France. The country has some of the highest numbers of intensive care beds in Europe – according to 2011 data, Germany had 29.2 critical care beds per 100,000 people while Italy had 12.5.

As Germany has so far escaped the levels of infection seen in some countries – there have been 993 deaths compared to Italy’s 12,428 – its healthcare system still has plenty of capacity.


“We’ve been preparing for the pandemic now for a number of weeks and we currently have 45 intensive care beds free,” Professor Sebastian Stehr, chair of the critical care department, tells The Independent. “The situation in this region is still quite tranquil.”

[loomer]

Yarrabah continues to illustrate why systematic underfunding for Indigenous health care has made for COVID-19 timebombs. Mass overcrowding, huge numbers of lung patients, one ventilator, and no meaningful isolation capacity. This is not a unique situation to Yarrabah, to Queensland, or to Australia - it's just one of the most potent examples so far of exactly how vulnerable these communities are to an outbreak.

[loomer]

The Vid may have reached our prison system. This will be, to put it mildly, very bad if it has.

[ray245]

Mistakes were made. We must learn from them. Now.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/covid-19/italy- ... -1.5517520

The lessons Italy has learned about its COVID-19 outbreak could help the rest of the world

Nature of hospital admissions and testing policy among 'mistakes' in country's coronavirus response

Megan Williams · CBC News · Posted: Apr 02, 2020 4:00 AM ET | Last Updated: 11 hours ago

For the first time since coronavirus infections exploded in the small town of Lodi, Lombardy, the northern Italian region that would become the epicentre of the European outbreak, a remarkable sight has appeared in the hospital there: a few empty beds.

Health-care workers continue to issue strong warnings that Italy is far from being out of the woods, and on Wednesday morning, Italy's health minister extended the nationwide lockdown to April 13.

But the crushing pressure on northern Italian intensive-care units seems to be finally easing, providing if not a light at the end of the tunnel — deaths in Italy have surpassed 13,000 and still top 700 a day — then a distant flicker of hope.

Only carefully conducted epidemiological studies will bring to light exactly how and why COVID-19 took off in northern Italy with such speed. But in the midst of the emergency, experts say there are already lessons to be gleaned from Italy's fatal errors — and urgent messages for other parts of the world.

"The biggest mistake we made was to admit patients infected with COVID-19 into hospitals throughout the region," said Carlo Borghetti, the vice-premier of Lombardy, an economically crucial region with a population of 10 million.

"We should have immediately set up separate structures exclusively for people sick with coronavirus. I recommend the rest of the world do this, to not send COVID patients into health-care facilities that are still uninfected."

Already, Italian cities in other regions are doing this, as well as field hospitals in Milan and Bergamo, Lombardy, which are almost complete.

However, the virus was not only spread to "clean" — i.e. infection-free — hospitals by admitting positive patients. In early March, as the number of infected was doubling every few days, authorities allowed overwhelmed hospitals to transfer those who tested positive but weren't gravely ill into assisted-living facilities for the elderly.

"It was like throwing a lit match onto a haystack," said Borghetti, who spoke out against the directive at the time. "Some facilities refused to take in the positive patients. For those that did [take them in], it was devastating."

Along with the tragic misstep of putting infected people under the same roof as clusters of the most physically vulnerable, Borghetti and others point to a deeper structural factor that accelerated the outbreak in northern Italy: a highly centralized health-care system with large hospitals as its focus.

Under normal circumstances, these large hospitals are very effective, with a wide range of expertise under one roof. But as the go-to place for health services, they acted as conductors of infection.

"For the past 20 years, the region invested heavily in hospitals, which are now among the best in Europe," Borghetti said. "Unfortunately, we did not make the same investment in local health services: health clinics, rehab facilities, community nursing and family doctors. And as a result, we're drowning [in the epidemic]."

Testing policy 'was wrong'

Epidemiologists estimate the real number of infected in Italy, now officially more than 110,000, is likely at least 10 times that number. Affected areas in Italy began vast testing of even asymptomatic people in the last week of February, shortly after Patient One was discovered on Feb. 21. A week later, however, they began to comply with the government's requests to limit testing only to symptomatic cases.

"That policy of testing was wrong," said Guido Marinoni, president of the Medical Association of Bergamo, the hardest-hit city. "We should have extended testing to the relatives of positive people and the contacts of those relatives, at the very least."

This same loose grasp on the number of infected also applies to deaths, which researchers and mayors in Italy's north say could be four to six times higher than the official count.

Comparisons between the number of deaths in the four years prior to 2020 with the same period this year show a dramatic spike in mortality that the official death count of COVID-19 does not seem to adequately account for.

The gap, say experts, is the result of data being collected only on those who are hospitalized or who die in hospital with a positive test. Yet most people die at home.

"Many have died at home with undiagnosed coronavirus that exacerbated heart and lung complications," said scientist Luca Foresti, CEO of the Santagostino Medical Centre, Italy's largest out-patient clinic. Foresti has conducted a study on the mortality rate in four different towns in northern Italy: Nembro, Pesaro, Cernusco sul Naviglio and Bergamo.

"Another factor is that people with other unrelated illnesses, under normal conditions, would call an ambulance and be taken to emergency. But with hospitals overwhelmed, there were no ambulances" or hospital beds available, said Foresti.

He estimates 90 per cent of the additional deaths in northern Italy so far this year are from coronavirus and only 10 per cent due to unrelated illnesses.

Theories about spread don't bear out

In the early weeks after the virus took off here, many theorized about what was behind Italy's high case fatality rate (deaths per confirmed infections), a global outlier at a shocking 10 per cent.

Among the explanations were the country's aged population and a cultural propensity to socialize in groups, often cross-generational, as well as showing affection through touch — compared to Asia, where mask-wearing and social distancing are common even in non-pandemic times.

Experts say the full impact of these factors won't be clear until further studies are carried out.

"Luck is a fundamental determinant of contagion [at the beginning]," said Matteo Villa, a researcher at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies. "A virus can be introduced to a person who has little contact with others, or to a super spreader," which was the case with Italy's Patient One.

After it starts to take off, however, it follows the same exponential pattern.

The biggest takeaway from Italy, experts say, is that what happened here can happen anywhere.

Yeah... this is why mitigation strategies initially pursued by some countries do not work. The virus is far too infectious to do any mitigation. If asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic people are the main vectors of the spread, then simply treating the worse cases is not going to do anything to mitigate the spread.

[chimericoncogene]

Dear god, SARS happened two decades ago. Hospital infection control is critical! Critical! They had hospital outbreaks in Italy too! SARS all over again on a much larger scale.

Chunks of East Asia banned nebulizers over SARS. We rebuilt dozens of hospital wards with doors (and presumably NP) in case there was another similar outbreak, for conversion to isolation units if mobilized (shared general wards with dozens of beds are standard in large chunks of East Asia, and patient square footage is low). Poor infection control practice was stunningly indicated in one teaching hospital, where one entire ward got infected (one poor sod infected ~100 people, including a bunch of docs and medical students); another hospital, anecdotally with better infection control practice, controlled the secondary spread to 10 people despite having more cases.

Looking back at it, yeah, SARS was a good trial run for East Asia. Well, this is Europe and America's SARS moment. Keep the lessons in good steed for the next generation, and then forget them as all normal people do.

[loomer]

Calls to evacuate vulnerable elders continue to mount. The South Australian government is refusing to do so. Me, I trust NACCHO - but I'm sure the usual suspects will find this idea of working to protect elders in consultation with the experts deplorable.

[madd0ct0r]

Calls to evacuate vulnerable elders continue to mount. The South Australian government is refusing to do so. Me, I trust NACCHO - but I'm sure the usual suspects will find this idea of working to protect elders in consultation with the experts deplorable.

“During the past week, our communities have seen an influx of estranged family members sent back from the cities as part of the government’s strategy of returning Aboriginal people to their communities,” the elders at Mimili art centre wrote.

why, why would they do that? that's the fucking opposite of spread control

[loomer]

Calls to evacuate vulnerable elders continue to mount. The South Australian government is refusing to do so. Me, I trust NACCHO - but I'm sure the usual suspects will find this idea of working to protect elders in consultation with the experts deplorable.

“During the past week, our communities have seen an influx of estranged family members sent back from the cities as part of the government’s strategy of returning Aboriginal people to their communities,” the elders at Mimili art centre wrote.

why, why would they do that? that's the fucking opposite of spread control

I'm assuming (if it is official policy) that the governments/people involved feel it's possible to keep it out of these communities completely and think that by establishing them as safe zones more lives will be spared. I haven't actually seen any official policy documents that would suggest it is, but I wouldn't be surprised.

[Captain Seafort]

I guess I need to add france for the next one.

Probably worth adding the UK as well, if it doesn't make the graph too busy.

[loomer]

The Ontario Human Rights Commission is calling for a COVID-19 response that includes minimizing inequality, centering human rights, and using the solidarity of the outbreak as a springboard for more permanent action. The full policy statement is available here. Another garbage view, presumably.

[aerius]

Death data from NYC
Daily updates from here https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloa ... deaths.pdf



If you have underlying conditions, your chance of dying goes up massively. For the age groups that most of us fall into, that's gonna be about 9 to 24 times, for older people, it gets even worse.

[loomer]

Now map that out to various vulnerable communities and you'll see what I've been squawking about.

[The Romulan Republic]

IMO while firing the captain outright is going overboard, if the above is accurate I agree with the concerns about revealing the combat readiness of a major naval asset over a non-secure, unclassified email and sending it to a number of people. However well intentioned, I doubt that's the best way to go about it.

An admonishment or reprimand would have been a better option.

Well, you'll be pleased to know that they've now backpeddled to "reassigned" rather than "fired". Which is good, but another possible sign of this regime's utter incoherency.

https://cbc.ca/news/world/navy-coronavi ... -1.5520142

The fired commander of a U.S. aircraft carrier that suffered a coronavirus outbreak will not be thrown out of the navy but rather reassigned, acting U.S. Navy Secretary Thomas Modly told Reuters on Friday, adding that an investigation would determine if he should face disciplinary action.

In an interview, Modly said the probe would look into the communications and the chain of command after Cpt. Brett Crozier was relieved of his command for sharing a scathing letter regarding the outbreak of the virus on the USS Theodore Roosevelt too widely, effectively allowing it to be leaked to the media.

"He'll get reassigned, he's not thrown out of the navy," Modly said.

The repercussions for Crozier could have a chilling effect on others in the navy seeking to draw attention to difficulties faced at a time when the Pentagon is withholding some detailed data about coronavirus infections to avoid undermining the perception of U.S. military readiness for a crisis or conflict.

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Reuters first reported last week that the U.S. armed forces would start keeping from the public some data about infections within its ranks.

Modly had said Crozier's letter was sent through the chain of command but that the captain failed to safeguard its confidentiality.

"I have no information nor am I trying to suggest that he leaked the information," Modly told a news conference. "He sent it out pretty broadly, and in sending it out pretty broadly, he did not take care to ensure that it couldn't be leaked, and that's part of his responsibility."

Modly went on: "It raised alarm bells unnecessarily."

A video posted to Twitter shows Crozier being given a hero's ovation by his crew when he left the vessel.

Crew members repeatedly chanted "Captain Crozier, Captain Crozier!" as Crozier walked the gangplank of the Theodore Roosevelt. He can be seen turning to wave back to them after stepping ashore in Guam.

'Shot the messenger'
About 1,000 sailors — a fifth of Crozier's crew — were taken off the vessel at the navy base on Guam, a U.S. island territory in the western Pacific, and placed in quarantine on Wednesday, a week after the first coronavirus case was reported on the carrier.

A total of 114 crew have tested positive for COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the highly contagious virus, Rear Admiral John Menoni, the region's top navy commander, told reporters in Guam on Thursday.

The evacuated sailors were being transported in groups to vacant hotels on the island to complete a two-week quarantine, he said.


About 1,000 sailors were taken off the vessel at the navy base on Guam and placed in quarantine on Wednesday, a week after the first coronavirus case was reported on the carrier. A total of 114 crew have tested positive for COVID-19, according to the Rear Admiral John Menoni, the region's top navy commander. (Reuters)
Although the navy has said 2,700 crew would ultimately be quarantined off the ship, Menoni insisted on Wednesday the carrier "could go to sea tomorrow" if necessary.

Crozier's demotion was criticized by Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, vice-chairman of the Senate's intelligence committee, who described the captain as a patriot "just trying to do what's best for his crew."

"I don't know why you would punish someone for that, especially with so many lives at stake," he said.

U.S. President Donald Trump, when asked about the captain during a White House news conference, disputed the notion that Crozier appeared to have been disciplined for trying to save the lives of sailors.

"I don't agree with that at all. Not at all. Not even a little bit," Trump said.

Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden said that the Trump administration showed "poor judgment" in relieving a warship commander who was trying to stem a coronavirus outbreak among his crew.

"Donald Trump's acting navy secretary shot the messenger — a commanding officer who was faithful to both his national security mission and his duty to care for his sailors, and who rightly focused attention on a broader concern about how to maintain military readiness during this pandemic," Biden said in a statement to Reuters.

Captain calls for 'decisive action'
In his four-page letter, Crozier, who took command in November, described a bleak situation aboard the carrier as more of his crew began falling ill.

He called for "decisive action": removing more than 4,000 sailors from the ship and isolating them, and wrote that unless the navy acted immediately it would be failing to properly safeguard "our most trusted asset — our sailors."

The letter put the Pentagon on the defensive and alarmed the families of those on the vessel, whose home port is in San Diego.

White House expected to roll out mask guidance to combat COVID-19 spread
COVID-19 has upended the U.S. election campaign and could also change how Americans vote
The Theodore Roosevelt is just the latest example of the spread of the respiratory virus within the U.S. military. Navy officials say that sailors on a number of ships have tested positive, including an amphibious assault vessel in San Diego.

Modly denied that removing Crozier would have a chilling effect on the navy command.

"I hope that what this will do, it will reinforce the fact that we have the proper way of handling this," Modly said.

My guess is they got some pushback from others in the military for trying to fire an officer for, essentially, trying to protect his crews' lives in an urgent crisis.

[The Romulan Republic]

Dismissed Navy officer Captain Brett Crozier receives "thunderous applause" from his crew as he disembarks:

https://nationalpost.com/news/world/cov ... irus-fears

WASHINGTON — Even as he is hailed as a hero by his crew, the fired commander of a coronavirus-stricken U.S. aircraft carrier is being reassigned while investigators consider whether he should face disciplinary action, acting U.S. Navy Secretary Thomas Modly told Reuters on Friday.

Captain Brett Crozier was relieved of his command of the Theodore Roosevelt on Thursday after a scathing letter in which he called on the Navy for stronger action to halt the spread of the virus aboard the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier was leaked to the media.

Modly said in an interview that the letter was shared too widely and leaked before even he could see it.

And that’s how you send out one of the greatest captains you ever had

But the backlash to Modly’s decision to fire Crozier has been intense. In videos posted online, sailors on the Theodore Roosevelt applauded Crozier and hailed him as a hero, out to defend his crew – even at great personal cost to his career.

“And that’s how you send out one of the greatest captains you ever had,” exclaimed one sailor in a video post, amid thunderous applause and cheering for Crozier as he left the carrier and its 5,000 crew members in Guam.

Modly did not suggest that Crozier’s career was over, saying he thought everyone deserved a chance at “redemption.”

Here is Captain Crozier walking away from his ship while sailors chant his name after he was relieved from duty for blowing the whistle on a coronavirus contamination aboard the USS Roosevelt.

He sacrificed himself and it sounds like everyone knows it. pic.twitter.com/hwiu7Z1MVV

— Amee Vanderpool (@girlsreallyrule) April 3, 2020
“He’ll get reassigned, he’s not thrown out of the Navy,” Modly said.

But Modly said he did not know if Crozier would face disciplinary action, telling Reuters it would be up to a probe that will look into issues surrounding “communications” and the chain of command that led to the incident.

“I’m not going to direct them to do anything (other) than to investigate the facts to the best of their ability. I cannot exercise undue command influence over that investigation,” he said.

Crozier’s firing has become a lightening-rod political issue at a time when the Trump administration is facing intense criticism over its handling of a coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 6,000 people across the country, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

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Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden, accused the Trump administration of poor judgment and said Modly “shot the messenger.”

The dismissal, two days after the captain’s letter leaked, demonstrated how the coronavirus has challenged all manner of U.S. institutions, even those accustomed to dangerous and complex missions like the military.

His removal could have a chilling effect on others in the Navy seeking to draw attention to difficulties surrounding coronavirus outbreaks at a time when the Pentagon is withholding some detailed data about infections to avoid undermining the perception of U.S. military readiness for a crisis or conflict.

Reuters first reported last week that the U.S. armed forces would start keeping from the public some data about infections within its ranks.

‘DECISIVE ACTION’

In his four-page letter, Crozier, who took command in November, described a bleak situation aboard the carrier as more of his crew began falling ill.

He called for “decisive action”: removing more than 4,000 sailors from the ship and isolating them, and wrote that unless the Navy acted immediately it would be failing to properly safeguard “our most trusted asset – our sailors.”

The letter put the Pentagon on the defensive and alarmed the families of those on the vessel, whose home port is in San Diego.

President Donald Trump, when asked about the captain during a White House news conference on Thursday, disputed the notion that Crozier appeared to have been disciplined for trying to save the lives of sailors.

“I don’t agree with that at all. Not at all. Not even a little bit,” Trump said.

The outbreak aboard the Theodore Roosevelt is just the latest example of the spread of the COVID-19 respiratory virus within the U.S. military. Navy officials say sailors on a number of ships have tested positive, including an amphibious assault vessel in San Diego.

— Reporting by Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart Editing by Paul Simao

Anything that drives a wedge between Trump and the armed forces is a good thing.

[ray245]

IMO while firing the captain outright is going overboard, if the above is accurate I agree with the concerns about revealing the combat readiness of a major naval asset over a non-secure, unclassified email and sending it to a number of people. However well intentioned, I doubt that's the best way to go about it.

An admonishment or reprimand would have been a better option.

Well, you'll be pleased to know that they've now backpeddled to "reassigned" rather than "fired". Which is good, but another possible sign of this regime's utter incoherency.

https://cbc.ca/news/world/navy-coronavi ... -1.5520142

The fired commander of a U.S. aircraft carrier that suffered a coronavirus outbreak will not be thrown out of the navy but rather reassigned, acting U.S. Navy Secretary Thomas Modly told Reuters on Friday, adding that an investigation would determine if he should face disciplinary action.

In an interview, Modly said the probe would look into the communications and the chain of command after Cpt. Brett Crozier was relieved of his command for sharing a scathing letter regarding the outbreak of the virus on the USS Theodore Roosevelt too widely, effectively allowing it to be leaked to the media.

"He'll get reassigned, he's not thrown out of the navy," Modly said.

The repercussions for Crozier could have a chilling effect on others in the navy seeking to draw attention to difficulties faced at a time when the Pentagon is withholding some detailed data about coronavirus infections to avoid undermining the perception of U.S. military readiness for a crisis or conflict.

Defence secretary says Trump ordered him to let disgraced SEAL keep status
Pentagon fires top U.S. Navy official over handling of controversial ISIS photo case
Reuters first reported last week that the U.S. armed forces would start keeping from the public some data about infections within its ranks.

Modly had said Crozier's letter was sent through the chain of command but that the captain failed to safeguard its confidentiality.

"I have no information nor am I trying to suggest that he leaked the information," Modly told a news conference. "He sent it out pretty broadly, and in sending it out pretty broadly, he did not take care to ensure that it couldn't be leaked, and that's part of his responsibility."

Modly went on: "It raised alarm bells unnecessarily."

A video posted to Twitter shows Crozier being given a hero's ovation by his crew when he left the vessel.

Crew members repeatedly chanted "Captain Crozier, Captain Crozier!" as Crozier walked the gangplank of the Theodore Roosevelt. He can be seen turning to wave back to them after stepping ashore in Guam.

'Shot the messenger'
About 1,000 sailors — a fifth of Crozier's crew — were taken off the vessel at the navy base on Guam, a U.S. island territory in the western Pacific, and placed in quarantine on Wednesday, a week after the first coronavirus case was reported on the carrier.

A total of 114 crew have tested positive for COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the highly contagious virus, Rear Admiral John Menoni, the region's top navy commander, told reporters in Guam on Thursday.

The evacuated sailors were being transported in groups to vacant hotels on the island to complete a two-week quarantine, he said.


About 1,000 sailors were taken off the vessel at the navy base on Guam and placed in quarantine on Wednesday, a week after the first coronavirus case was reported on the carrier. A total of 114 crew have tested positive for COVID-19, according to the Rear Admiral John Menoni, the region's top navy commander. (Reuters)
Although the navy has said 2,700 crew would ultimately be quarantined off the ship, Menoni insisted on Wednesday the carrier "could go to sea tomorrow" if necessary.

Crozier's demotion was criticized by Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, vice-chairman of the Senate's intelligence committee, who described the captain as a patriot "just trying to do what's best for his crew."

"I don't know why you would punish someone for that, especially with so many lives at stake," he said.

U.S. President Donald Trump, when asked about the captain during a White House news conference, disputed the notion that Crozier appeared to have been disciplined for trying to save the lives of sailors.

"I don't agree with that at all. Not at all. Not even a little bit," Trump said.

Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden said that the Trump administration showed "poor judgment" in relieving a warship commander who was trying to stem a coronavirus outbreak among his crew.

"Donald Trump's acting navy secretary shot the messenger — a commanding officer who was faithful to both his national security mission and his duty to care for his sailors, and who rightly focused attention on a broader concern about how to maintain military readiness during this pandemic," Biden said in a statement to Reuters.

Captain calls for 'decisive action'
In his four-page letter, Crozier, who took command in November, described a bleak situation aboard the carrier as more of his crew began falling ill.

He called for "decisive action": removing more than 4,000 sailors from the ship and isolating them, and wrote that unless the navy acted immediately it would be failing to properly safeguard "our most trusted asset — our sailors."

The letter put the Pentagon on the defensive and alarmed the families of those on the vessel, whose home port is in San Diego.

White House expected to roll out mask guidance to combat COVID-19 spread
COVID-19 has upended the U.S. election campaign and could also change how Americans vote
The Theodore Roosevelt is just the latest example of the spread of the respiratory virus within the U.S. military. Navy officials say that sailors on a number of ships have tested positive, including an amphibious assault vessel in San Diego.

Modly denied that removing Crozier would have a chilling effect on the navy command.

"I hope that what this will do, it will reinforce the fact that we have the proper way of handling this," Modly said.

My guess is they got some pushback from others in the military for trying to fire an officer for, essentially, trying to protect his crews' lives in an urgent crisis.

Reassignment is as good as being fired in the military. You still get paid, but you have no command where you get to make decisions and take care of people under you.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, if Trump is removed from office in November, perhaps the new administration will remember his service and find a fitting position for him.

[ray245]

Well, if Trump is removed from office in November, perhaps the new administration will remember his service and find a fitting position for him.

He's due to retire really soon, and the administration usually do not handle issues like reassignments.

[aerius]

Your assumption is the country holds together until November.
If the models used by Fauci & Birx are correct, you won't have a nation worth living in by then.

[MKSheppard]

Berlin says that US confiscated 200,000 masks (FFP2 and FFP3) at airport in Bangkok that were ordered for Berlin police. Masks were produced by a 3M factory (US company) in China. City of Berlin says this is "modern piracy" and urges Merkel government to address this with the US.

https://t.co/2kXfFCGOHq

[The Romulan Republic]

Your assumption is the country holds together until November.
If the models used by Fauci & Birx are correct, you won't have a nation worth living in by then.

I don't assume. Merely hope.

But I fully expect that the best we can hope for is that this is decided in the streets. I suppose that'll make you happy.

The worst is that COVID keeps everyone quietly in their homes, and the republic dies without even a whimper.

[aerius]

The worst is that COVID keeps everyone quietly in their homes, and the republic dies without even a whimper.