Moderators: Alyrium Denryle, Edi, K. A. Pital
For the WWE, that would be blood sport, with complications.
Yes, yes, we need China to be more transparent even though we have evidence they communicated with US officials and the WHO way back in December. Move along, no hypocrisy to see here.White House blocks Anthony Fauci from testifying before Congress
White House says it would be 'counterproductive' for those involved in coronavirus response to testify before Congress.
Top United States health official Dr Anthony Fauci will not testify next week to a congressional committee examining the response to the coronavirus pandemic by the administration of US President Donald Trump, the White House said on Friday, calling it "counterproductive" to have individuals involved in the response testify.
The White House issued an emailed statement after a spokesman for the Congressional committee holding the hearing said the committee had been informed by Trump administration officials that Fauci had been blocked from testifying.
"While the Trump Administration continues its whole-of-government response to COVID-19, including safely opening up America again and expediting vaccine development, it is counterproductive to have the very individuals involved in those efforts appearing at Congressional hearings," White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement to Reuters news agency. "We are committed to working with Congress to offer testimony at the appropriate time."
Fauci's testimony was being sought for a May 6 hearing by a House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees health programmes, House Appropriations Committee spokesman Evan Hollander said.
The Washington Post first reported that Fauci would not testify.
Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has been one of the leading and most trusted medical experts helping to guide the US response to the highly contagious virus that has swept across the US.
Fauci, who is no stranger to testifying before Congress, has sometimes contradicted Trump's optimistic misstatements about the virus and how much it is under control after claiming more than 64,000 lives in the US.
Fauci has warned against relaxing social distancing rules that have helped slow the spread of the virus but caused a major hit to the economy. That has earned him criticism from some of Trump's most ardent supporters, and Trump himself has retweeted a supporter who called for Fauci's firing.
Following speculation about Trump's intentions about the retweet, the president said he was not considering firing the scientist.
That Rosewood Rest Home cluster is the one responsible for more than half the Covid19 deaths in NZ.The Ministry of Health "closed" two significant COVID-19 clusters on Saturday after no cases were linked to them in weeks.
Clusters are groups of cases linked together as those with the illness are connected to one location, but are not all part of the same household. New Zealand has 16 significant clusters, meaning those with 10 or more cases of COVID-19, the deadly respiratory illness caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Many of some these clusters have become well-known over the last month either due to the number of cases they have, such as the Bluff wedding, which has the most with 98, or for being linked to multiple deaths, like the Rosewood Rest Home cluster.
On Saturday, the Ministry of Health "closed" two clusters, the Wellington and Auckland groups which travelled to the United States. Both had 16 cases of COVID-19 linked to them.
A cluster is "closed" after no case is linked to it for 28 consecutive days. This reflects two cycles of the virus' incubation period and means "there is no longer transmission of the virus within or associated with the cluster".
On top of the two clusters closed on Saturday, the Ministry previously closed the Wellington wedding cluster on Anzac Day. This cluster had 13 cases and was linked to overseas exposure.
While these clusters may be closed, that doesn't mean all cases within them have recovered. The Auckland group still has two active cases, while one case linked to the Wellington wedding is yet to recover.
A case is considered recovered after it has been at least 10 days since their symptoms emerged and when they have been symptom-free for at least two days.
New Zealand's clusters:
Bluff wedding: 98 cases, linked to overseas exposure
Marist College, Auckland: 94 cases, unknown origins
Matamata Bar: 76 cases, linked to overseas exposure
Rosewood Rest Home, Christchurch: 55 cases, unknown origins
Stag party, Auckland: 39 cases, unknown origins
World Hereford Conference, Queenstown: 38 cases, linked to overseas exposure
St Margaret's Rest Home, Auckland: 35 cases, unknown origin
Community, Auckland: 30 cases, unknown origin
Ruby Princess Cruise Ship, Hawke's Bay: 24 cases, linked to overseas exposure
George Manning retirement village, Christchurch: 20 cases, unknown origin
Wellington group which travelled to the United States: 16 cases, linked to overseas exposure, closed
Auckland group which travelled to the United States: 16 cases, linked to overseas exposure, closed
Waikato rest home: 15 cases, linked to overseas exposure
Auckland rest home: 13 cases, linked to overseas exposure
Wellington wedding: 13 cases, linked to overseas exposure, closed
Christchurch workplace: 10 cases, linked to overseas exposure.
Now quoted: Twitter collectively pissing itself laughing.Far right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones caught the attention of Twitter Friday, following a clip of him pledging he will eat his neighbors in the event the coronavirus lockdown continues.
In vivid detail, Jones declared on his conspiracy radio show, the Alex Jones Show, that little would stop him from resorting to cannibalism if coronavirus stay-at-home orders implemented by state governors are not lifted.
“I’ll admit it. I will eat my neighbors,” Jones began.
“I’m not letting my kids die. I’m just going, to be honest. I have extrapolated this out. I won’t have to for a few years, because I have food and stuff. But I’m literally looking at my neighbors now, going, ‘Am I ready to hang them up and gut them and skin them and chop them up?’ And you know what, I’m ready,” the provocateur, who was arrested for DWI in his hometown of Austin, Texas in March, stated.
Jones then declared, “I’ll eat my neighbors. … I’ll eat your ass, I will.”
Fuming with anger and rage, he continued: “My point is, have you thought about this yet? Because I’m somebody that thought I could fix this, and I’m starting to think about having to eat my neighbors. You think I like sizing up my neighbor, how I’m gonna haul him up by a chain? Chop his ass up?”
The Texas native further riffed that he would eat his neighbor’s “ass,” while adding he hopes the “globalists” hear him.
“I’ll do it! My children aren’t going hungry! I’ll eat your ass! And that’s what I want the globalists to know … I will eat your ass first!” Jones cried out.
Calling the WWE a blood sport is like calling a 8 week old puppy a vicious attack dog. It's a soap-opera with stuntspeople doing athletic performances. (Coming from someone that has been a fan for 40 or so years, and has a cousin that has worked as a referee and wrestler in local indy shows).whackadoodle wrote: ↑2020-05-01 11:40pmFor the WWE, that would be blood sport, with complications.
The dude that is supposed to bleed nearly always bleeds from his forehead, right?
Lots of aspirin, a hidden razor, and a script.
Just saying as someone who visited Jake the Snake as a neighbor kid.
The Covid-19 economic crisis is not a recession. It is not the 2008-9 financial crisis. It is not the Great Depression. Forget the conventional categories of economic analysis. In terms of the size and spread of the global economic impact, the nearest comparison in the last 100 years is the Second World War. For the countries most badly affected by the outbreak, the preliminary forecasts for GDP bear comparison to the transition from planned economies in Eastern Europe – but without, as yet, changing the economic system.
Those countries most badly affected, at least in the developed world, are those where free-market policies had already eroded state capacity and left them with a political elite that made glib semi-competence a government policy goal. These were the countries that did not move rapidly to arrest the outbreak, did not impose the necessary public health sanctions, did not bolster health service capacity, and did not offer the income support mechanisms needed to ensure social distancing would be effective – at least, not until it was far too late.
Britain is, needless to say, leading the charge of the incompetent and the malign, and has set a high international standard for murderous delay: we have lived through the early days of the most catastrophic government failure in modern times, and, barring a miracle, it will – as the biological imperative of Covid-19’s ferocious capacity to spread, debilitate and kill bears down on us – get worse from here on in.
It is unlikely that the economy either here or elsewhere will (to quote the Prime Minister) “bounce back” on the other side of the immediate crisis period. What makes Covid-19 such a fundamental economic challenge is that it is assailing the core institution of capitalism: the labour market. To preserve public health it is essential to impose restrictions on labour. If work involves contact with others, or sharing a space with others – as the majority of work still does – it cannot be safely performed in the crisis period.
A major part of the economy, in effect, must be put into hibernation, and no modern economy can perform such an act without immense costs. But attempting to shirk those costs today will merely produce far worse impacts down the line. The forecast of 250,000 UK deaths from the quack remedy of “herd immunity” gave a glimpse of what could happen when immediate costs are ducked by a government: it is unlikely that civil order would be maintained in a Britain where quarter of a million people had died in a few months from an avoidable medical emergency. The future costs of inaction are greater than the costs of action now.
The world economy, on the other side of this crisis, will reflect that balance of state capacity and competence, and it will be reordered to the benefit of those countries that moved quickly. Already, China is distributing aid to Italy. And as the laggard states scramble to catch up, borrowing without limit, they are creating immense new liabilities: not too apparent now, but when the peak of this outbreak subsides – as it will – they will appear like rotten teeth in an open mouth: leering, demanding immediate treatment, and quite likely sparking calls for a generalised debt amnesty. Austerity will have less appeal when the imperative for effective state functions has been made brutally apparent.
The virus is an acceleration of the tendency, apparent since the 2008-9 crash, of a shift away from the dominant version of globalisation. During the 30 years before the crash, the global economy grew, but global trade grew faster, and global cross-border financial flows grew fastest of all. Since the crash, that has been thrown into reverse: cross-border financial flows, for example, are down more than 60 per cent by value since 2007. And where once the ideology of neoliberalism stressed the need for governments to do no more than create a “level playing field” for markets to operate in, the post-crash period has seen overt state intervention and state-against-state economic clashes, of which the US-China trade war is the most obvious example.
Covid-19, in this sense, is a solvent for deglobalisation. It is unlikely that global trade and travel will ever entirely recover from it once the costs of future pandemics are known and assimilated, just as the financial system never truly recovered from 2000-9. Known risks concentrate the mind, and epidemics are increasing in frequency – not least as a result of climate change.
But a different version of globalisation has emerged. The formal structures of capitalism – beloved, especially, by neoliberal thinkers, who fixated on legal forms – have been weakened, from the World Trade Organisation to the International Monetary Fund, to the act of monetised trade itself. Yet informal structures have appeared in their wake, created and sustained by the ubiquitous structures of data production, collection and analysis. The volume of cross-border data flows has expanded twelvefold since 2008.
A global, connected public exists today in a way it did not previously, and it has clear impacts: would the UK government have reversed course so speedily if we had not been able to see and understand what China and South Korea and Taiwan were doing, and what Britain was not? Similarly, if we have an impressively clear understanding of Covid-19, it is because research data is now made available and shared globally.
A fear of recurring epidemics will no doubt drive an extension of this data economy, as testing and monitoring becomes generalised, along with the sharing of personal data to track outbreaks. But this extension of the data economy runs hard up against the economic fundamentals of the pandemic outbreak itself. A world constrained by pandemic risk, and needing to monitor and regulate its social interactions more closely as a result, is one in which the balance of power at work can shift dramatically back in favour of labour, since the requirement to withdraw labour becomes an institutionalised public health necessity.
The Conservative government’s belated protections for employees are an implicit recognition of this fact, and periods of looser and tighter controls on social contact are envisaged over the coming months. Universal income payments would further institutionalise the shift to labour.
But it is conflicts over the use and control of data for monitoring and regulation of behaviour, extending from the workplace and into wider society, that are likely to inform the post-Covid world; and, for the first time in decades, the terrain may not be decisively skewed against those who work. Modern capitalism, now well into its second century, has never known such a fundamental challenge.
That gives him too much credit. Trump's tolerated by the Republican establishment and various powerful special interests because he'll agree to damn near anything if you stroke his ego enough; the minute he stops being a useful vicious idiot he'll be lucky if they leave him alone with a pistol and a shot of whiskey before the police knock on the door.The Romulan Republic wrote: ↑2020-05-02 02:42pmYou know, when you think about it, its pretty fucking awful that the President has literally killed 60,000 Americans, robbed states of pandemic aid to give to his cronies, literally told the American people that it might be a good idea to inject bleach, and impeachment or the 25th Amendment aren't even on the fucking table. If you need proof of how close Trump is to being an absolute ruler already, there it is.
That, and they know Fauci will answer honestly any question he is asked, and did so last time he was before Congress. The Trump administration can't have that.mr friendly guy wrote: ↑2020-05-02 01:02am https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/05/ ... 57835.html
....[snip]....
Yes, yes, we need China to be more transparent even though we have evidence they communicated with US officials and the WHO way back in December. Move along, no hypocrisy to see here.
According to a report in the New York Times, Republican officeholders in competitive districts fear Donald Trump’s unpopularity — particularly in light of his coronavirus failures and the subsequent collapse of the economy — will swamp their chances of holding onto their seats in November.
As GOP lawmaker put it: “I’m holding on.”
“It is a tricky task for lawmakers like [Rep. Fred] Upton (R-MI) in centrist districts throughout the country, who understand that their re-election prospects — and any hope their party might have of taking back the House of Representatives — could rise or fall based on how they address the pandemic. Already considered a politically endangered species before the novel coronavirus began ravaging the United States, these moderates are now working to counter the risk that their electoral fates could become tied to Mr. Trump’s response at a time when the independent voters whose support they need are increasingly unhappy with his performance,” the report notes before adding, “The president’s combative news conferences, which his own political advisers have counseled him to curtail, have made the challenge all the steeper.”
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“In an attempt to ensure their contests become referendums on their own responses to the virus, rather than the president’s, vulnerable House Republicans are instead brandishing their own independent streaks, playing up their work with Democrats, doubling down on constituent service and hosting town-hall-style events — avoiding mention of Mr. Trump whenever possible,” the report continues with Rep John Katko (R-NY) admitting, “It does make it difficult at times.”
According to former Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) who battled with Trump and ended up losing his seat in the 2018 “blue wave” election — it is not an easy task.
“The president continues to be reckless in the context of the Covid-19 crisis,” Curbelo explained. “You could see a similar dynamic where a lot of Republicans in competitive districts will just break with him in an effort to protect their own candidacies.”
“Many of his former colleagues in competitive districts had hoped the severity of the crisis would give them a platform to highlight their own responses, Mr. Curbelo said. But as Mr. Trump’s nightly briefings ‘became more about the president and his personality’ than about the disease, he added, ‘Republicans have perceived a peril in that development, and certainly some of the recent polling validates that,'” the report continues.
“In some ways, the dilemma these centrist Republicans are facing is the same one they have had to navigate since Mr. Trump was elected, as they have repeatedly been called upon to answer for his more provocative statements and actions. But the pandemic has sharply raised the stakes as their constituents bear the brunt of its dire consequences,” the Times reports. “At home in their districts, lawmakers have largely been able to avoid direct questions about the president’s handling of the crisis, instead fielding an onslaught of requests from constituents and reporters for basic information about when relief will reach them.”
One Republican voter who voted for Trump in 2016 and will likely support him in 2020, said he understands the problems faced by GOP lawmakers who are trying to avoid the president.
“It’s a tightrope,” explained Gary Dixon, a retired salesman who supports Rep. John Katko (R-NY). “You’ve got to be on that wire where you’re trying to stay in the middle, but I don’t think his middle position will alienate the true Republicans.”
“Very fine people” at the deadly 2017 Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Under Donald Trump, the Republican Party is racing toward a transformation that mimics the greatest evil of the 20th century. Long before the Nazis fully engaged with genocidal murder against the Jews, there were persecutions of people deemed “unfit.” These were people whom Adolf Hitler’s extremists arbitrarily deemed insufficiently able to contribute to the greater German society. They included the infirm, people with learning disabilities, the mentally ill, those suffering from epilepsy, the physically disabled, and those struggling with alcohol issues.
According to the Nazis’ white supremacist ideology, those people were not only impediments to their quest in perfecting their master race, but were also economic burdens to society. The Nazis started a campaign of propaganda to mock them. They were called “unworthy of life” and labeled as “useless eaters.” The propaganda even expanded to math textbooks, which were revised to include arithmetic problems on how much it costs to care for these undesirables. This was the first stage.
Then the Nazis moved to the next stage; they worked with political and medical authorities to divide communities between who they deemed as the “fit” and “unfit” members. The arbitrary classification system would serve a deadly purpose.
This ultimately led to the final stage: the systematic, targeted killing of those labeled as a burden. At that point, the Nazis had groomed the German population by getting a little bit worse every single day—just enough to normalize the inhumanity. By the time the Nazis reached this stage, the populace had gotten so used to the cruelties, it seemed like murder of “the weak” was simply the next logical step. They had justified it in their minds.
The concept of social Darwinism and arbitrary human classification is based upon Friedrich Nietzsche’s Übermensch theory of superhumans. These are people not impeded by the needs of others deemed inferior. The weaker humans—characterized as the burdens of society—are to be left to fend for themselves. Hitler used this theory as the ideological foundation for his belief in a master race. Another person known to borrow heavily from this theory is the prophet of American conservatism, author Ayn Rand.
Born, raised, and educated in Russia, Rand’s entire philosophy is centered around the concept of individual supremacy and radical free market fundamentalism. Rand and her ilk applied the Übermensch theory to capitalism, which justifies the wealthy’s belief that they have an absolute right to plunder. She called it ”the virtue of selfishness.” Her philosophy was simple: The weak are weak and should be taken advantage of, because it is the natural order of things. Therefore, society needs to focus only on developing the strong, and allow the weak to suffer or die.
Rand’s theory did not spare anyone, even children. Two years before her death in 1982, she appeared on Phil Donahue’s eponymous talk show to explain why it was wrong for our government to ever consider the needs of “subnormal” children and the “handicapped.” I encourage you to watch the whole clip. In case you can’t view it, here’s a glimpse of the beginning.
AYN RAND: “The newest proposals of having special, millions spent on subnormal children and on the handicapped. You are getting the so-called “needing” [school] buses is the attempt to bring everybody to the level of the handicapped. […]
But it includes the mentally retarded which is the subnormal, which is the children who are unable to learn, so that at the end of spending thousands or millions of taxpayers’ money, you’re left with a half-idiot who MAY learn to read and write. MAY.”
She goes on to explain how she values some human lives over others … to applause.
x
Ayn Rand isn’t the sole driving force behind the right-wing’s belief in their superiority over others, but she is probably the most direct and honest about it—and the Grand Old Party loves her for it. Rand’s brand of social Darwinism can be found in the right-wing support of eliminating social safety nets for the poor in order to support massive tax breaks and subsidies for the top 1% of the wealthiest Americans. It’s this sort of mindset that forces the poor in this nation to fight for the crumbs that rarely trickle-down.
Randian capitalism hit the mainstream in the 1980s. It was the Reagan era, when a new crop of right-wing devotees adopted the principle that good governance, which is supposed to work toward the collective good, was no longer an ideal. Conservatives during this timeframe focused heavily on deregulation for big business, giving tax cuts to the richest Americans, and ending antitrust protections against monopolies. Ever since, Republicans have retooled their party to only serve the interests of the ultra-rich. Their destructive policies on everything—from education, health care, and shifting the tax burden away from the wealthy—has made U.S. income inequality the highest it’s been since the Census started tracking it over a half-century ago.
You would be hard-pressed to find any Republican today who doesn’t speak fondly of Ayn Rand. White House officials like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pay homage to her ideals. Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said he got into politics because of her. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul was even named after her by his father, former presidential candidate Ron Paul. But it’s Donald Trump—infamously known for hating to read—who said that The Fountainhead was one of his favorite books of all time, because it glorified the alpha male capitalist who had no regard for human consequence.
Unsurprisingly, Donald Trump also subscribes to the theory of inherent biological superiority. His father, Fred Trump, a white supremacist who marched with the Klan, instilled in his son the idea that their family’s success was genetic, according to Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio. According to D’Antonio, the elder Trump told his children that he and his wife were superior people, and produced superior offspring. To be fair to Donald Trump, a lot of autocrats also subscribe to this idea. The Koch brothers were taught by their father, a Nazi-sympathizer, that plutocrats deserved the right to rule, even at the expense of democracy, because they were naturally superior.
Donald Trump, who idolized his father, took his lessons to heart. He repeatedly tells people that he has “good genes”; he primarily consults with himself over anyone else because he believes he has such a great brain. Hilariously, Trump even claims his orange skin tone is the result of “superior” genes.
Democrats, of course, hold views that are the polar opposite to Rand’s ideology. Our values stem from our unshakable belief in equality and opportunity. We don’t subscribe to people being genetically superior or inferior, or makers and takers, or fit or unfit. We don’t see any class of people that doesn’t deserve basic human rights, or shouldn’t be treated with a humane level of decency, even though our political foes might label them with terms such as “vermin” or “an infestation.” Democrats see value in the lives of all humans, even our enemies.
Even though many Democrats have been hyper-aware of this difference between our parties’ two philosophies, it has typically manifested itself in our respective parties’ priorities in legislation. The Republicans would always ignore the needs of the poor, the sick, the uninsured: the weak. The Democrats would insist on fighting for them, even if it meant a slightly higher tax burden, preferably on the wealthy. It worked this way for years—until Trump came to power.
Although the modern conservative has always courted the impoverished, bitter, uneducated populace with xenophobic and racist dog whistles, it was because their purposefulness lay in their numbers: they were useful idiots to the plutocracy. At some point, a populist politician was bound to come along who took that hatred to heart. Now, within Trump’s party, hatred is no longer the means to achieving its goal, but rather, it is the goal itself.
For most Republicans, the intention was never to turn the Party over to the unabashed racists and Nazis, but rather to court them and use them. Trump has flipped this script on its head. The people in the White House who are closest to Trump—the ones manipulating him—are people like Stephen Miller, who is working for genocide to become a reality.
Miller is behind the worst of the worst impulses of the Trump administration, including abandoning the United States’ longstanding legal practice to not deport sick children. Trump ordered critically ill migrant children, such as kids with cancer, to be deported—even if it meant death. Immigrants who escaped here with their families to run from hit squads were ordered back without regard for their circumstances, only to be tortured and killed upon return to their home country. The Trump administration even ordered immigration courts to take down all CDC coronavirus posters to stop the spread of the virus—the only possible reason being to encourage the spread of the disease among those deemed a burden.
Letting immigrants die was beyond cruel, as was tearing babies from their mothers and putting them in cages indefinitely, yet half of America just shrugged as it happened. Trump is still seriously being considered as a presidential contender, and most Republicans still haven’t abandoned him. In fact, Trump has effectively taken the Party over. The worst people, now in high places within Trump’s new GOP, have pushed Republican ideology ever closer to Nazi ideals.
It’s no secret that the people most in danger of dying from COVID-19 are the sick, the elderly, and the infirm. Conservative pundits also gleefully point out, incorrectly, that the virus is primarily a problem in Democratic areas. Yet I cannot imagine any Republican choice for president in this century—Mitt, Dubya, or McCain—coming out in favor of letting the virus ”wash over the masses.” I can’t fathom any of them suggesting that the sick and elderly should die to save the stock market. A nation’s economy is supposed to serve the people, not the other way around, and no one should ever be asked to die for Wall Street.
It wasn’t so long ago that the party of George W. Bush was outraged over Terri Schiavo, a woman in a persistent vegetative state whose husband wanted to remove her from life support. It has only been a handful of years since the Republican rallying cry was “All Lives Matter.” It doesn’t surprise me how far Republicans have fallen, but it does amaze me how quickly Trump has turned them.
Yet that is exactly where we are now. Trump’s reelection and the GOP’s hold on power is so critical in their minds, they are demanding sacrifices be made.
Of course, the sacrifice these Republican leaders always speak of is from the weak and the poor. It is never their families who are asked to give up their money, their resources, or their lives.
Last month, White House National Economic Council chairman Larry Kudlow claimed in an interview that “The cure can’t be worse than the disease, and we’re gonna have to make some difficult trade-offs.” Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said on live television that “lots of grandparents” are willing to “take a chance” on their survival for the good of the economy. Brit Hume of Fox News said it’s “entirely reasonable” to let family members die for the stock market.
The nation’s billionaires, along with other members of our elite, who have the luxury of being able to socially distance while making money, are almost unanimously in favor of getting people back to work. After all, they are dependent on the workers making them money if they want to keep their lifestyle intact. Who cares if health officials say it’s unsafe? If workers die, they can be replaced.
I can’t believe they say things like this out loud:
“We’ll gradually bring those people back and see what happens. Some of them will get sick, some may even die, I don’t know. “—Dick Kovacevich, former CEO of Wells Fargo
“The damages of keeping the economy closed as it is could be worse than losing a few more people.” —Tom Golisano, the founder and chairman of payroll processor Paychex Inc.
Putting aside the immorality that making money for rich people should take precedence over a public health emergency, the very concept of allowing vast numbers of Americans to die to “save the economy” is completely illogical. By relaxing social restrictions too soon, the death rate will skyrocket. Our extremely fragile healthcare system will then collapse, and more businesses will crumble. Ironically, opening prematurely won’t just kill more people, it will cause even more devastating economic harm.
At least one billionaire, Mark Cuban, was honest about billionaires’ intentions: “Ignore anything someone like me might say … lives are at stake.”
For all of the screaming about individual freedom that the right does, including attacks on our party for being “socialist,” I find it ironic that the Trumpian right-wing is now demanding that people submit to death for the state: the expendable workers, the sick, the grandparents and great-grandparents who have already lived their lives. All should sacrifice to serve for Trump’s reelection bid.
That’s the Republican plan, anyway. This is a serious discussion that’s worth having, we are being told. Many state and local leaders have fought strongly against opening too soon, but others are caving to the pressure to open up immediately. Although many will die, the Republicans will believe they have protected the business class elite—our “superiors.” The Nazification of the GOP will be complete.
Republican governors are caving to their party’s demand to reopen, the consequences for their vulnerable constituents be damned. If that’s not an indication of how far our country has fallen since Trump, nothing is. It turns out that Trump openly mocking the disabled wasn’t the basement low of his party, but the ceiling. The trajectory of where the Republican Party is headed is far, far worse.
I didn’t think we’d fall this far this fast. I can’t believe I’m literally debating—with Trump supporters in my neighborhood—the value of letting people live during this outbreak. How the fuck are we still having serious discussions about Trump’s electability?
Serious discussions of sacrificing the weak weren’t acceptable too long ago; I don’t even want to think what might be considered acceptable four years from now, if the right-wing is still clinging to power.
This terrifying stance should scare you to do everything you can to make sure this Nazified version of the GOP is thrown out of power this year. Otherwise, you or your family might be subjected to the “next stage.” Right now, the right is asking for voluntary sacrifices of the old and weak, but history shows it’s just a few atrocities away from being made mandatory.
Well, nice to know that there's still someone in the judiciary who baulks at outright genocide.A federal judge has ordered federal immigration officials to free hundreds of people detained at three Florida facilities, ruling “there is record evidence demonstrating that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has failed in its duty to protect the safety and general well-being of the petitioners,” and that social distancing while in detention “is not only practically impossible, the conditions are becoming worse every day,” Miami Herald reports.
“In a strongly worded 12-page order filed late Thursday, U.S. District Judge Marcia G. Cooke said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has acted with ‘deliberate indifference’ to the condition of its detainees,” Miami Herald continued, saying officials failed to provide them soap and other supplies to protect themselves. Officials are now ordered to immediately distribute masks to detainees, and to inform her of their plan to reduce population size—something they should have already done long ago.
A medical expert in the lawsuit filed by the Immigration Clinic at the University of Miami, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Rapid Defense Network in New York, the Legal Aid Service of Broward County, and law firm Prada Urizar last month said that “hundreds, and potentially thousands of people will become infected, and many will die” in facilities like Krome Processing Center, Broward Transitional Center, and Glades County Detention Center if the courts don’t force ICE to act. Since the lawsuit’s filing, ICE has said nearly 500 detainees have been confirmed positive for COVID-19.
Cookes’ “order also comes eight days after federal Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman, who was asked by Cooke to take evidence in the case and report to her, filed a 69-page recommendation stating that ICE should ‘substantially’ reduce detainee populations as COVID-19 positive cases continue to climb behind bars,” Miami Herald continued. Advocates who have assisted in the litigation described a horror show inside the Florida facilities.
“I spoke with several men via Skype and telephone from inside of the detention facilities, and they were petrified of contracting COVID-19, or even already displaying COVID-19 symptoms,” second-year Miami Law student Meredith Hoffman said late last month. “They had received no responses to their medical requests, no gloves, and no masks. They remain confined in close quarters, making it impossible for them to social distance. ICE should release them immediately.”
That’s what ICE should do, but Rebecca Sharpless, director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Miami, told Miami Herald “the worry is that ICE will instead evade the clear intention of the court by transferring people to other detention centers.” What can happen then has already been devastatingly clear: BuzzFeed News reported this week that 21 out of 72 detainees who were shuffled from hard-hit facilities in Pennsylvania and New York to a facility in Texas have tested positive for COVID-19. None were tested before being loaded onto the flight.
Paul Spiegel, director of the Center for Humanitarian Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, criticized the agency for its deadly incompetence and said the best way to reduce ICE population sizes is not by moving them around, but by releasing them. “They shouldn’t be putting people on planes and buses where we know there can’t be a 6-foot rule,” he told BuzzFeed News. “The longer the trip, the more chance of getting infected. We may not be able to definitively say people were infected because of this but there is a decent likelihood that was the case.”
Amongst the hundreds of Friday afternoon protestors opposing the extension of Illinois Governor JB Pritzker’s stay-at-home order were two with anti-Semitic ones: one sign read, “Heil, Pritzker” with a large swastika next to it, and another read, “Arbeit Macht Frei,” the German phrase for “Work Makes You Free,” which appeared over the entrance to Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps.
These signs were all the more ominous seeing as Pritzker is Jewish.
Considering the far-right’s interest in white supremacy and nationalism, it’s not really surprising to see far-right protestors embracing Nazi slogans and symbols. Nor is it surprising to hear that yesterday’s protestors outside of the state’s capitol building in Springfield largely disregarded facial masks and social distancing guidelines meant to slow the spread of coronavirus.
That’s all the more troubling when you realize that Illinois is the fourth U.S. state with the highest number of coronavirus cases (56,055) and deaths (2,457). The state had its highest number of new cases (3,137) on Friday, the same day the protest occurred.
Jackie Fletcher, the woman holding the swastika sign, told her local NBC news affiliate that she had “Re-Open Illinois” written on the other side of her sign because “some people get touchy about swastikas.”
“I’m here to protest the loss of our rights,” she continued. “We’re protesting for our First Amendment and other things. Our speech isn’t really being prohibited, but our freedom is. We’re unable to leave the house and have to wear a mask.”
Yes, you know those Nazis and their love of facial masks and making people stay at home for public health reasons: apples to apples.
The Nazi signs are just the latest escalation in right-wing anti-quarantine protests. On Thursday, armed Michigan right-wing extremists carrying firearms took over the Michigan Statehouse in an armed occupation that largely lacked face masks and social distancing as well.
There are many reasons to want to re-open state businesses despite the pandemic. Recognizing the ongoing epidemic’s economic devastation, Democratic and Republican governors alike have begun gradual re-openings of their states. But the protestors are overwhelmingly white and the Nazi symbols and firearms carry violent overtones meant to warn any “outsiders” who oppose their desire to “go back to normal” as quickly as possible, even if it kills us.
Woman uses a Nazi slogan to protest against Illinois Governor, J.B. Pritzker (who is Jewish).#Auschwitz #LOCKDOWN2020 pic.twitter.com/ZwCo0eHzKa
— Election dot Org (@DotElection) May 2, 2020
This is disgusting.
“Arbeit macht frei” (Work will set you free) is the Nazi slogan that appeared over Auschwitz & other concentration camps.
JB Pritzker is Illinois’ Jewish Governor.
It’s not about freedom.
It’s about bigotry. Defying public health. Antisemitism. Terror. https://t.co/6tM3KXTIl2
— Bend the Arc: Jewish Action (@jewishaction) May 2, 2020
This sign is targeting Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who is Jewish. They're not even hiding it. pic.twitter.com/ML1SEquOgu
— Yes, You're Racist (@YesYoureRacist) May 2, 2020
This was one of the signs at the “Re-open Illinois” event today. She assured those that she was not a Nazi, and stated, “I have Jewish friends.” Thank you for representing yourself and your “movement” for what it is. pic.twitter.com/CcIX2SVu6s
— Dennis Kosuth, RN (@Dennis_Kosuth) May 1, 2020
Even if this person was trying to make the point that she thought Pritzker was being a Nazi(?), it doesn’t make sense since she’s the one who wants people to be able to work (to death)
— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) May 1, 2020
Seen at the “re-open” protest in Illinois today.
Governor Pritzker is Jewish. pic.twitter.com/I9TCrMApXi
— Joshua Potash (@JoshuaPotash) May 1, 2020
A few Things about these Illinois Nazi signs, which attack Governor Pritzker for trying to save lives:
#1 This moron is comparing A Jewish American to Hitler
#2 Putting a Swatzika on any sign is incredibly offensive to Jews
#3 Notice how these idiots are always near Trump flags pic.twitter.com/ltVtEkCQsL
— Ms. Krassenstein (@HKrassenstein) May 2, 2020
J.B. Pritzker may not be the best governor but this is fucking DISGUSTING. Comparing a Jewish man to Hitler is about ten thousand steps past too far. Fuck this woman. Fuck anyone who supports this. Springfield, I’m disappointed to be from here. pic.twitter.com/Kum2Qh9CUx
— samantha (@samantha_macke_) May 2, 2020
Top New York doctor takes her own life amid coronavirus crisis
Dr Lorna Breen's death has highlighted the emotional strain the pandemic is having, as an Aussie expert warns of increasing PTSD amongst healthcare workers
A leading US emergency doctor, overwhelmed by the sheer number of patients presenting with COVID-19, has become the latest healthcare worker to take her own life, leading an Australian expert to warn of post-traumatic stress disorder among frontline workers.
Dr Lorna Breen, 49, the medical director of New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital's emergency department, died after being “crushed” by the weight of COVID-19 cases, says her family.
Dr Breen, who had no history of depression, contracted the viral illness and returned to work after just a week and a half, but ran out of “emotional gas”, according to her father Philip Breen, who is also a doctor.
"The last time I talked to her was before she went in for her 12-hour shift that she couldn't finish,” he said.
"Just before she went back, she said that the ambulance had been waiting outside the building for over three hours with sick people. They couldn't even get the people out of the ambulances in there.”
He added Dr Breen should be considered a victim of COVID-19:
Professor Reg Nixon, from the Flinders Posttraumatic Stress Research Unit, said doctors and other healthcare workers on the COVID-19 frontline were at increased risk of PTSD, with the crisis possibly bringing up past traumatic events.Willie Geist
✔
@WillieGeist
This is gut-wrenching.
Dr. Lorna Breen’s father pleads: “Make sure she’s praised as a hero, because she was. She’s a casualty just as much as anyone else who has died.”
RIP, Dr. Breen. A hero.https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/27/nyre ... ticleShare …
Top E.R. Doctor Who Treated Virus Patients Dies by Suicide
“She tried to do her job, and it killed her,” said the father of Dr. Lorna M. Breen, who worked at a Manhattan hospital hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak.
nytimes.com
"Frontline staff are vulnerable. We have people dying, and paramedics, doctors and nurses having to make very difficult decisions about whose lives are in danger," he told the Canberra Times.
Dr Breen’s death followed that of a young trainee paramedic, John Mondello, who told friends the heavy toll of coronavirus deaths was weighing on him.
Ray Barishansky
@rbarishansky
I am not sure that tragic is a strong enough word for this. RIP. https://nypost.com/2020/04/25/nyc-emt-c ... LHQ1LFK5Ow … #ems #emt #COVID19
EMT John Mondello kills himself after less than three months on the job
The body of John Mondello, 23, was spotted by passersby Friday at 6:48 p.m. at 25-40 Shore Boulevard in Astoria on the rocks along the river wall.
nypost.com
In other reports:
An Italian nurse, Daniella Trezzi, committed suicide after recently being infected with coronavirus.
The National Federation Italian Nurses (FNOPI) reports other nurses quarantined with her were showing signs of “heavy stress for fear of having infected others.”
Dr Natalia Lebedeva, a Russian emergency doctor, defenestrated herself a few days after being hospitalised for suspected coronavirus.Sanaa+
@Sanaakhouri
Daniella Trezzi, a 34-year-old Italian nurse working on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic, took her own life after testing positive for the illness and was terrified that she had infected others. https://nypost.com/2020/03/25/italian-n ... ng-others/ …
Italian nurse with coronavirus kills herself over fear of infecting others
Daniela Trezzi had been suffering “heavy stress” amid fears she was spreading coronavirus while working at the San Gerardo Hospital.
nypost.com
And a second Russian doctor, Dr Yelena Nepomnyashchaya, was also critically injured after falling out of a window.X Soviet
@XSovietNews
The head of the ambulance service of Moscow's Star City that trains cosmonauts, Dr. Natalia Lebedeva, reportedly committed suicide after bosses blamed her for employees catching coronavirus. https://twitter.com/TVmosobl/status/1254710238135160832 …
ТВ Подмосковья
@TVmosobl
Выяснилось, в чем обвиняли покончившую с собой главврача Звездного городка
Ей не удалось предотвратить вспышки COVID среди медиков
https://www.mk.ru/incident/2020/04/26/v ... rodka.html …
She’d been told her hospital would need to care for COVID-19 patients, despite a lack of PPE.
What a tragic coincidence...
Top Russian doctor, Dr. Yelena Nepomnyashchaya, "fell out of a window" from the 5th floor of the hospital where she is Chief Physician right when she was on a conference call fighting for more PPE for her doctors & nurses.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... ssion=true …
Top Russian doctor falls out of 5th floor window during conference
Mother-of-two Dr Yelena Nepomnyashchaya, 47, plunged 50ft from an office window in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, after being told her hospital would treat coronavirus patients, despite lack of PPE.
dailymail.co.uk
I HAVE to work, because I'm essential, and here I am, feeling like I'm playing Russian roulette here because I like the idea of eating food and having a place to sleep.Texas posts third straight day of 1,000 new cases as state reopens
PUBLISHED SAT, MAY 2 2020 8:31 AM EDT
UPDATED SAT, MAY 2 2020 9:38 PM EDT
Texas reported more than 1,000 new coronavirus cases for the third straight day as the state heads into its first weekend of reopening the economy with limited measures.
The Texas Department of Health reported 1,293 new positive cases of Covid-19 on Saturday, which is its second highest single-day infection rate. This also marks the first time Texas has recorded more than 1,000 cases three days in a row.
Texas now has a total of 30,552 positive cases and 847 fatalities. The spike in infection rate comes after Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order on April 28 allowing certain businesses to reopen on May 1.
In-store retail services and dine-in restaurants may operate at up to 25% capacity. Movie theaters and shopping malls are also allowed to operate at up to 25% of the total occupancy. The governor enacted a "stay-at-home" order on April 2. —Jasmine Kim
I've been working through this entire thing because my store is considered essential, even though many of our departments are not. The main reason they haven't closed down departments like our photo lab, computer department, cosmetics is that without anybody watching them they would be picked clean by thieves. So I'm quite literally at risk due to my company wanting to mitigate the risk of theft.
The incubation period of covid-19 is about 5-10 days, that is, it takes that long from the time someone gets infected until he starts showing symptoms. If you have a wave of people showing up with infections this weekend, it means they got infected on Monday or Tuesday at the latest, which was before the lockdowns got lifted. The spike of infections (if there is one) resulting from the reopenings won't hit until later this week.FaxModem1 wrote: ↑2020-05-03 09:39pm CNBC
I HAVE to work, because I'm essential, and here I am, feeling like I'm playing Russian roulette here because I like the idea of eating food and having a place to sleep.Texas posts third straight day of 1,000 new cases as state reopens
PUBLISHED SAT, MAY 2 2020 8:31 AM EDT
UPDATED SAT, MAY 2 2020 9:38 PM EDT
Texas reported more than 1,000 new coronavirus cases for the third straight day as the state heads into its first weekend of reopening the economy with limited measures.
The Texas Department of Health reported 1,293 new positive cases of Covid-19 on Saturday, which is its second highest single-day infection rate. This also marks the first time Texas has recorded more than 1,000 cases three days in a row.
Texas now has a total of 30,552 positive cases and 847 fatalities. The spike in infection rate comes after Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order on April 28 allowing certain businesses to reopen on May 1.
In-store retail services and dine-in restaurants may operate at up to 25% capacity. Movie theaters and shopping malls are also allowed to operate at up to 25% of the total occupancy. The governor enacted a "stay-at-home" order on April 2. —Jasmine Kim
Even with the two events being unrelated, it still highlights how pants on head stupid reopening the state on even a limited basis was. Now we have another potentially larger spike coming in two more weeks.aerius wrote: ↑2020-05-03 10:28pmThe incubation period of covid-19 is about 5-10 days, that is, it takes that long from the time someone gets infected until he starts showing symptoms. If you have a wave of people showing up with infections this weekend, it means they got infected on Monday or Tuesday at the latest, which was before the lockdowns got lifted. The spike of infections (if there is one) resulting from the reopenings won't hit until later this week.
This is what pisses me off about the media. When & how to do the reopening along with its effects and how to deal with them is a legitimate concern and requires serious discussion. But we can't have a reasoned discussion if they're chumming the waters with "record number of cases on reopening weekend!!!" while conveniently leaving out the fact that the two are unrelated because of the incubation time. If this article came out a week from now it would be cause for legitimate concern and re-evaluation of policy. But now? It just makes people with functional brains distrust the media & authorities.
Another milestone to show that we are making progress towards elimination.New Zealand has not recorded a single new Covid-19 case for the first time in 49 days.
There were also no new deaths to report on Monday - the "cause for celebration" was delivered by director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield at Parliament.
The result, which comes a week out from when Cabinet was due to decide whether the country can move from Covid-19 Alert Level 3 to 2, was due to the "collective effort" of New Zealanders in adhering to the restrictions.
While one probable case being reclassified as confirmed, it did not alter the country's overall number of Covid-19 case count which sat at 1487.
The vast majority of these cases have recovered — 1276 - with the number of active cases falling below 200 for the first time in 40 days.
Just four people with Covid-19 remain in hospital, but none were being looked after in intensive care.
To date, 20 people have died from Covid-19 in New Zealand, more than half of whom were residents of Rosewood Rest Home and Hospitals in Christchurch.
Bloomfield acknowledged Monday's result was "cause for celebration" but emphasised there was "a risk" people would loosen their attitudes towards the Alert Level 3 restrictions.
"This is just a point in time and it remains very important for us to maintain discipline around this and be vigilant," Bloomfield said. He did not want New Zealand to "squander" the advantages gained through restrictions on things like physical distancing.
The key test would come later in the week when new cases that have emerged since moving to Level 3 had become symptomatic.
Bloomfield was asked about whether the country should be moving out of Alert Level 3 sooner.
"The important thing here is that we are still wanting to be sure there is no undetected community transmission," he said.
"Now is the time to just maintain that vigilance right across the country and as we move into alert level 2, that's when there may be a case for some regional differentiation," Bloomfield said.
Restricting interaction to our bubbles, practising good hand hygiene and for sick people to remain at home continued to be the main key messages for the public."We may still see cases emerging later this week and there's no guarantee they won't emerge even in those regions that don't have a case," Bloomfield said.
On the potential establishment of a trans-Tasman travel bubble, Bloomfield said the Ministry of Health was in "constant dialogue" with his Australian counterparts over what the "key public health pillars" would be needed should this concept being given the green light.
These pillars would include how both countries were testing, isolating cases, a common position around contact tracing and the "ability to exchange information smoothly" should travellers pick up Covid-19 in the other coun
"My sense is, if I reflect how closely we have worked together over the last three months, right from the early days and trying to go very much in tandem with the range of moves whether it was around the border, in case definitions and sharing of information.
"I'm confident we could continue that to support a trans-Tasman bubble arrangement if that's what the governments agree," Bloomfield said.
When asked whether the resumption of domestic flights, or the reopening of retail stores and bars caused him the biggest concern, Bloomfield instead said people relaxing their attitudes to physical distancing and hygiene at level 2 would be more of a worry.
On the influenza vaccine, Bloomfield said more than 1.35 million doses already distributed this year - a national record.
"This is something we have been plugging hard this year, not because the flu vaccine gives any protection whatsoever against Covid-19, but because by vaccinating as many New Zealanders as possible, in particular our older people and vulnerable New Zealanders, that reduces the likelihood that they will get the flu and then suffer the sorts of illness that might put them in hospital.
"It's been important for us to prioritise those vulnerable groups early on, hence we started the vaccination campaign two weeks early," Bloomfield said.
He reassured those who were "relatively healthy" that there was a "very low level of influenza circulating in the community."
More than 451,000 people over 65 have been vaccinated thus far, exceeding last year's total.
While Bloomfield acknowledged there had been challenges around distribution of stock, any GP or pharmacy which had run out should get in touch with their local immunisation coordinator.
Remember, the first case of atypical pneumonia was reported to Chinese authorities on December 26, this was weeks before they realised this pneumonia was due to COVID.Was the virus in France last year?
The number of new recorded deaths is the lowest since late March, when only deaths in hospitals were being recorded. The new figures include deaths in care homes and have been declining for several days.
Meanwhile an intensive care chief in the Paris region has told local media that the virus was present in France on 27 December - a month before the first cases were confirmed.
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Yves Cohen told BFMTV that his team had revisited negative tests for flu and other coronaviruses on 24 patients who had been in hospital with respiratory symptoms in December and January.
"Of the 24 patients, we had one positive result for Covid-19 on 27 December when he was in hospital with us," he said, adding that the test had been repeated several times to confirm the result.
Dr Cohen said he had reported the case to the regional health authorities and called for other negative tests from the same period to be retested.
Thoughts on criticisms the article presented.Health Secretary Matt Hancock was midway through a radio interview when the phone call came through live to air. On the line was Intisar Chowdhury, whose father Abdul had made a prescient public plea to Boris Johnson in late March.
Through a Facebook post, the 53-year-old consultant urologist for a London hospital had urged the Prime Minister to make sure every health worker in Britain would be given protective equipment during the coronavirus pandemic. Abdul Mabud Chowdhury died just three weeks later, after contracting the disease.
In his phone call, the doctor's grieving son asked for answers and an apology: "The public is not expecting the government to handle this perfectly," he told Hancock. "We just want you to openly acknowledge that there have been mistakes in handling the virus, especially to me and to so many families that have really lost loved ones as a result of this virus and probably as a result of the government not handling it seriously enough."
Chowdhury seemingly spoke on behalf of a growing chorus of health experts, MPs and members of the public who think Britain's response to the crisis has suffered from a series of deadly mistakes and miscalculations.
The charges focus on four areas: that healthcare workers struggled to access personal protective equipment, that Britain was too slow to implement a lockdown, that it bungled testing, and that vulnerable care home residents were not properly protected.
Downing Street and key ministers such as Hancock have been reluctant to concede many errors, although their tone has shifted over recent days as the official death toll hit 28,446, one of the highest in the world and well above the 20,000 figure Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance once said the government hoped to not exceed.
Says Martin McKee, professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and an adviser to the World Health Organisation: "The countries that moved fast have curtailed the epidemic. The countries that delayed have not. It's as simple as that."
Dr Richard Horton, editor in chief of The Lancet medical journal, is even more damning: "The handling of the COVID-19 crisis in the UK is the most serious science policy failure in a generation."
Hancock and Johnson had their first discussion together about the virus on January 7. The government's crisis committee, COBRA, would meet several times over the following weeks and the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies started crunching the numbers. The government knew a threat existed but did it fully understand just how bad it could get?
By March 12 a full-scale outbreak had taken hold in Italy and the illness was spreading across Europe. More than 1000 Italians had already died and thousands more were gravely ill in packed hospitals in the country's hard-hit north. The deadly potential of an invisible killer was becoming more obvious by the hour.
That day, Johnson announced Britain would move from the "contain" phase of the emergency to the "delay" phase. This decision would prove a pivotal moment. The shift meant contact tracing would be abandoned, and testing would be restricted to those only in hospital with symptoms. The move was at odds with the WHO, which urged countries to "test, test, test", as well as Germany's much-lauded program of mass testing.
The Prime Minister warned at the March 12 press conference that the "worst public health crisis for a generation" was about to hit the country and that "many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time".
What he did not announce was a lockdown. Or anything close to it. Tougher measures would come but not yet, Johnson said, citing the need to introduce measures when they would have the most impact. But his chief scientific adviser also cast serious doubt on whether closing schools, banning mass gatherings or stopping international flights would ever be effective levers to pull.
Instead, Brits were encouraged to wash their hands and stay home for seven days if they had symptoms. Schools remained open, restaurants and bars traded as usual, and visitors were still allowed into care homes. Flights were arriving from mainland China, even though Australia had banned them six weeks earlier. Heaving public events were still allowed. A Champions League match in Liverpool drew a crowd of 52,000, about 3000 of whom came from Madrid, where a partial lockdown was already in force. More than 250,000 tickets were sold for the Cheltenham horse racing festival. Both events are now being investigated by health officials who suspect they may have contributed to the rapid spread of the disease in the areas surrounding the venues.
By March 16, the government's advice abruptly strengthened. People were told to stay away from pubs, theatres and clubs, to avoid non-essential travel and to work from home if possible, although the orders were not yet mandatory.
Why the sudden change? The government had just been handed a bombshell piece of research by scientists from Imperial College London warning that taking a light-touch approach to the virus would cause 250,000 deaths in Britain and overwhelm the National Health Service (NHS). Any hope of defeating the virus by building "herd immunity" in the community was smashed. The only way to prevent 250,000 deaths was through draconian measures, the researchers concluded.
Even then, Johnson would not put Britain into lockdown until one week later on March 23. By that point, many other European countries with a much smaller death toll had already been locked down.
Says David Hunter, an Australian-educated professor of epidemiology and medicine at the University of Oxford: "It's very easy in hindsight to state the obvious, which is that the lockdown came too late.
"The British response so far is not a model to follow. It has one of the worst epidemics in Europe and the world. That may have happened anyway. There's no way to know for sure, but some aspects of the response have almost certainly contributed to the high mortality."
A former Australian high commissioner to Britain, Mike Rann, says crucial mistakes were made right when they had the most damaging impact: "The earliest stages were handled negligently," Rann says. "A shambles of mixed messaging, poor organisation and a complacent attitude that what was happening in Italy wouldn't happen here."
Hunter says border closures in Australia and New Zealand stood in stark contrast to Britain, which only briefly imposed restrictions on people flying in from Wuhan. Even today, the few passengers still arriving in Britain are under no obligation to self-isolate.
"Good public health practice would be to, if not close the borders, then at least have some sort of mandatory self-isolation for people coming in during the very early stages of the pandemic," Hunter says.
"The reasons why the UK did not do it are unclear. Australia, albeit at a different stage of the epidemic, has been highly successful in closing its border, as has New Zealand, and that has almost certainly played a role in the much much lower number of cases."
Arrivals at Heathrow Airport were half what they normally were in March but still, 3.1 million landed there over the month. Nearly half a million came from the Asia-Pacific; 875,000 were from the European Union, and 711,000 came from North America.
Home Secretary Priti Patel supported a ban on travellers who had been in hotspots but was slapped down by Downing Street, which cited scientific advice that doing so would have little impact on the spread of the infection. When this spat was under way, Australia's borders had already been closed for a week to all foreign travellers. Australia banned flights from China as early as February 1.
The decision on March 12 to abandon mass testing meant the government could only guess who was infected with the virus and how it was behaving. Government experts at one point estimated as many as 55,000 people had contracted coronavirus, even though there were just 2000 confirmed cases. The extent of its spread would not become obvious until hospitals started to fill with seriously ill patients.
Of the few tests that were available, the results were initially processed by a small number of government-run laboratories. Private sector labs and universities offered to help but now say they were given the cold shoulder before the government eventually embraced them as the answer to ramping up testing.
Nobel prize-winning geneticist Sir Paul Nurse told the BBC's Question Time program that testing was "absolutely critical and hasn't been handled properly".
"We know that with this particular disease, you can be infected and have no symptoms. Now, this makes absolutely no sense. We were allowing, potentially, for front-line workers to be on the wards, potentially infecting people, because we weren't testing."
Nurse, who is the director of Britain’s largest biomedical research lab, the Francis Crick Institute, likens the addition of private facilities to the flotilla of small boats that rescued British soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk and says their call-up was long overdue.
One of the strongest critics of the testing system has been Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary under former prime ministers David Cameron and Theresa May. Piers Morgan, a polarising morning television presenter and former tabloid newspaper editor, repeatedly mauled government ministers on his Good Morning Britain program about the deficiencies.
Under pressure, Hancock announced a plan to lift the number of tests conducted each day to 100,000 by the end of April. He achieved it − sort of. The government reported 122,000 tests on April 30. The devil is always in the detail, though: about 40,000 were tests mailed to people but not yet returned to labs for results. Regardless, Hancock's ambitious goal has transformed Britain's approach to testing and, if sustained, it will make it one of the world's most prolific testers. The government is also hiring 18,000 "contact tracers" by the middle of May.
Despite the recent surge, those early delays mean Britain has conducted just 10.13 tests per 1000 people, the lowest rate in western Europe. Italy's rate is 32.73, Ireland's is 31 and Germany's is 30.4.
Australia's testing effort has been double the relative size of Britain's, despite having a far less serious outbreak. And for all the criticism of the US response to the crisis, the rate of testing there never fell below the rate in Britain in April.
In his first address from Downing Street after his own battle with the virus, Johnson said the government was determined to fix the "challenges" that "have been so knotty and infuriating".
"I’m not going to minimise the logistical problems we have faced in getting the right protective gear to the right people at the right time, both in the NHS and in care homes. Or the frustrations that we have experienced in expanding the numbers of tests."
The additional testing capacity has allowed the government to get a better grip on the unfolding toll in Britain's care homes. It was previously flying blind. Only three weeks ago, even symptomatic care home residents and staff did not qualify for a test. For many weeks, patients were discharged from hospitals and into care homes without being tested to check whether they would be taking a deadly virus to a place where it could unleash havoc.
The Office for National Statistics, which compiles death data based on whether COVID-19 was mentioned on death certificates − believes 4343 care home residents died in England alone in the fortnight ending April 24. In the week ending April 17, 7316 people died in care homes from all causes. This was 2389 more deaths than the week before and almost double the week before that.
Care home deaths were not added to Britain's official death toll until late last week, and the true extent of the loss is still unclear. In early March, Johnson and his team spoke of "shielding" care home residents during the worst of the epidemic. They have since failed, but are not alone: all badly affected countries in Europe have experienced a wave of death in care homes.
While the Prime Minister has enjoyed a sharp rise in his personal approval ratings since the outbreak began, polling firm Ipsos MORI has recorded a "significant rise" in the number of people that think the government acted too late. Two weeks ago, 57 per cent felt that way but that figure now stands at 66 per cent.
Johnson and Hancock have been keen to stress that Britain has passed through the peak of the virus without the NHS being overwhelmed, pointing to a massive and rapid expansion in capacity and the early purchase of thousands of ventilators.
Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty says the only way to truly compare Britain's response will be once the pandemic has run its course not just in Britain but in other countries that may yet experience serious outbreaks.
"We are nowhere near the end of this epidemic. There is a very long way to run for every country in the world on this and I think let's not go charging in to who's won and who's lost."
Same here.
