Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

No one could have predicted…

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Consistently wrong since 2002

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

“Why isn’t this Snickers bar only a nickle?”

So many bastards, so little time.

After roe, women are no longer free.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 Coronavirus / About Robert Redfield, Director Of The CDC

About Robert Redfield, Director Of The CDC

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We still don’t know why the CDC decided to develop its own test for SARS-CoV-2. If the dysfunction persists, it’s a danger to other decisions being made about the epidemic. But, like the number of Covid-19 cases in the United States, we just don’t know.

The director of the CDC, Robert Redfield, was involved in the decision, but we don’t know how. It could be anything from a definitive order to passing it off to someone else, which is a decision too.

Redfield’s background is in the military and a university, as a clinician and researcher. Before he came to CDC, he had no experience in directing a public health agency. His research is in the area of HIV/AIDS. While in the military, in the 1980s, he called for mandatory HIV testing of recruits and segregating HIV-positive personnel, a move opposed by medical authorities at that time.

Also in the 1980s,

Redfield worked closely with W. Shepherd Smith, Jr. and his Christian organization, Americans for a Sound AIDS/HIV Policy, or ASAP. The group maintained that AIDS was “God’s judgment” against homosexuals, spread in an America weakened by single-parent households and loss of family values.

With ASAP, Redfield backed a House bill that would have effectively quarantined people with HIV. The bill died in Congress. Redfield also backed a developmental AIDS vaccine, lobbying Congress to fund a $20 million clinical trial. The vaccine and Redfield’s lobbying failed. ASAP is now known as the Children’s AIDS Fund, and Redfield was on its board in 2018 when he was named CDC director.

In last Friday’s press conference at the CDC, Redfield offered his adulation to Trump. Not a good look for someone who is supposed to be a scientific advisor.

Before Redfield was made director, the CDC was in turmoil from a poor decision on its director and continuing budget cuts. Thomas Frieden, appointed by Barack Obama, resigned in 2017. Six months later, Donald Trump appointed Brenda Fitzgerald, state health commissioner in Georgia. Fitzgerald’s directorship dissolved in revelations of a grant to a company that she and her husband held stock in and other conflicts of interest.  

Those disruptions may have made CDC more susceptible to poor decision-making.

Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner

Reader Interactions

258Comments

  2. 2.

    WereBear

    Before he came to CDC, he had no experience in directing a public health agency.

    I am really getting tired of all the winning.

  3. 3.

    Scott

    Redfield worked closely with W. Shepherd Smith, Jr. and his Christian organization, Americans for a Sound AIDS/HIV Policy, or ASAP. The group maintained that AIDS was “God’s judgment” against homosexuals, spread in an America weakened by single-parent households and loss of family values.

    Let me guess: Mike Pence hired this guy.

  4. 4.

    MattF

    I’ve pointed to Derek Lowe’s In The Pipeline blog before, he now has a series of posts on current drug development for COVID-19. And Redfield sounds like the wrong person for his job, very wrong indeed.

  5. 5.

    Roger Moore

    It’s consistently amazing that no matter how bad any Trump hire is, they always manage to find a replacement who’s even worse.  I guess that’s why Jared isn’t allowed to leave any post he’s been given; there’s no way to find a worse hire to replace him.

  6. 6.

    Yutsano

    @Scott: CDC chief does not require Congressional approval. I think that’s one of the things that should change, with requirements on background for the nominee.

  7. 7.

    Betty Cracker

    In last Friday’s press conference at the CDC, Redfield offered his adulation to Trump.

    Yeah, that’s the exact moment I stopped believing anything he has to say. The only one of the bunch I listen to is Faucci.

  11. 11.

    Aardvark Cheeselog

    I too took the liberty yesterday of looking up this Redfield character. Imagine my surprise when I found he’d been subject to a review about whether he committed scientific misconduct in trials of a vaccine in which he had a commercial interest! It was literally nonexistent (my surprise, that is)! We can’t, after all, have someone whose career is entirely unblemished by any accusations of cheating or self-dealing be in charge of something as important as the CDC, after all!

  12. 12.

    David C

    In the bureaucratic community, Redfield is considered a not-horrible choice, but there are questions about whether the political appointees are up to the task. Schuchat knows what she is doing, but we don’t know what is happening behind the scenes. When Nancy Messionnier was criticized, we were warned. There are people who are afraid to open their mouths, and the White House preparedness team doesn’t exist.

  13. 13.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Betty Cracker: I was half-listening to last night’s presser, and while I think Pence was most egregious, there were others, and I lost count of how many references there were to the “outstanding leadership” of Trump. Sounded like North Korea.

  15. 15.

    David C

    And Betty is wise to listen to Fauci, as long as he still has his voice (a little raspy these days). People behind the scenes are getting him the latest data.

  16. 16.

    jonas

    Talibangical nutcase? Check. Lack of qualifications? Check. Yep, sounds about right. I’m surprised Trump didn’t have a cabinet-level position for him.

  18. 18.

    Mike in NC

    The Surgeon General also appears to be a sniveling ass-kisser when he appears with Fat Bastard. What a surprise!

  19. 19.

    bbleh

    Those disruptions may have made CDC more susceptible to poor decision-making.

    Lol, no need to go out on a limb there …

  20. 20.

    Aardvark Cheeselog

    We still don’t know why the CDC decided to develop its own test for SARS-CoV-2…

    The director of the CDC, Robert Redfield, was involved in the decision…

    Who wants a bet that it will turn out the CDC test requires some component or reagent that is only manufactured by a business in which Redfield has an interest? Or that it was designed with (paid) consultation by a 3rd-party crony of Redfield’s?

  22. 22.

    Dadadadadadada

    My daughter’s school in the Bronx just closed for 2 weeks. A parent of a student has tested positive, and another family is being tested. My wife was sent home from work. I think this is just the beginning.

  25. 25.

    Martin

    @Yutsano: Wouldn’t matter. Republican senators keep confirming hacks and idiots. Just having them confirm more hacks and idiots doesn’t solve anything.

    Somehow we need to get them to stop confirming hacks and idiots, which would probably necessitate the voters stop electing hacks and idiots.

  26. 26.

    trollhattan

    Redding is one of the California places we quarantine our wingnuts. An unintended consequence is the formation of organizations like this one.

    A prominent Northern California mega-church whose members believe their prayers heal the sick and raise the dead is advising the faithful to wash their hands, urging those who feel sick to stay home, canceling missionary trips and advising its faith healers to stay away from local hospitals.

    Bethel Church leaders say they’re in close contact with local health officials, but they’re not yet canceling services for the 6,300 people who attend services each week in Redding, one of the largest regular gatherings in far Northern California.

    “Through email communications, signage, and church announcements, we are actively encouraging health practices and precautions to our whole community,” Aaron Tesauro, a church spokesman, said in an email. “We believe that wisdom, modern medicine, and faith are meant to work together, and express the value for each in the pursuit of continued health and healing.”

    Shasta County officials announced Saturday a 50-year-old man had tested positive for COVID-19. Two others — including one possibly exposed to the novel coronavirus on a cruise ship — tested negative last week, health officials said. Tesauro said no members of the church are believed to have caught the virus.

    Bethel is one of the north state’s largest institutions. Some 2,400 students from around the globe are enrolled at the Redding church’s School of Supernatural Ministry. The church has around 9,100 other members in Redding, Tesauro said.

    Bethel faithful are well known in Redding for approaching strangers and offering to touch them and to pray away their ailments including at local healthcare centers — a practice that is now at odds with public health officials’ campaign to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus.

    Not to worry, this is TOTALLY NORMAL.

  29. 29.

    Martin

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: You hire people you know will do it. People know if they’re an ass licker or not. They know someone like Trump is their opportunity to get hired into a better position. It’s a self-reinforcing loop.

  33. 33.

    Feathers

    I remember early on that someone in Philadelphia was told that to get FDA approval for any test they developed it had to distinguish between COVID and two other viruses one which had not been seen in the wild since 2007 (SARS?) and another which was confined to the Mideast (MERS?). This person was upset because that would be impossible to prove but also pointless, because patients were not going to be presenting with either.

    This is a highly plausible reason for the early test bungles. I worked for an engineering firm where this was called Design by Vice President, where a worthy goal makes a project functionally either impossible or unworkable or both.

  34. 34.

    Martin

    @Sebastian: 1 mile restriction zone around the town. Hard quarantine of the town.

    Good on Cuomo for having the courage to do this. Not a step to be taken lightly. Not sure it’s the right thing to do, but since the feds are doing nothing…

  35. 35.

    Jharp

    I can think of only one reason to pass on using the WHO test.

    Profits for a Trump cronie.

  37. 37.

    cain

    @Aardvark Cheeselog:

    If he thinks he gets to fuck this job up during a pandemic and his boss will help him cover it all up, he picked the wrong job. He’s going to be thrown under the bus. Cruel fucker.

    This pandemic seems more like the worst curse for authoritorians everywhere. All these fuckers sunk deep in fake news and conspiracy are going to run headlong into reality – COVID19 is thy name.

  38. 38.

    Martin

    @Feathers: That’s what my understanding is as well. The FDA could have certified the WHO test in a day, and then set about working on this better test and swapped it out once they got it right, rather than this idiocy.

  40. 40.

    trollhattan

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Heh, a reference that then made my brain jump to

    But the second mother was with the seventh son
    And they were both out on Highway 61

  42. 42.

    germy

    The state will send National Guard troops to help clean surfaces and deliver food in the area, a 1-mile-radius (1.6 km) around a point near a synagogue connected to some existing cases, Cuomo said.

    The state and a private health system are setting up a testing facility in the area, schools within it will close for two weeks starting Friday and state and local officials are working to determine “large congregate facilities or gathering places” that also will shut down.

    “It is a dramatic action, but it is the largest cluster of cases in the country,” he said at a news conference. “The numbers are going up unabated, and we do need a special public health strategy for New Rochelle.”

  43. 43.

    cain

    @Martin:

    Their goal is to prove that govt is bad – and they believe in it so strongly that it is a religion. Zealots. I think we are all going to have a reality shift at this point.

    Trump is running the fed like a business. Now everyone can see how badly that is failing and is going to fail.

  44. 44.

    David C

    @Martin: An EUA could have happened rather quickly (a day might be pushing it, even assuming that everything is properly validated), but they won’t approve anything that doesn’t come to their desk.

  48. 48.

    Martin

    @David C: I don’t trust Fauci much. Yesterday he was saying it was fine to get on a cruise ship. He’s clearly the best of the lot, and by a lot, but he let his credibility get wrecked by Trump.

    And I hope Congress doesn’t fall for Trump stimulus bullshit. Payroll tax holiday and a bailout for the travel and hotel industry? Hmm, who’s going to profit most from that?

    Fuck that. Put forward protections for workers – guarantee sick leave, pay for hourly workers, etc.

  49. 49.

    Martin

    @Major Major Major Major: I used to take that line all the time.  It’s possible that’s the only reason I know where New Rochelle is, and why I knew which of the Grand Central Dunkin Donuts had the shortest line.

  50. 50.

    jonas

    @Sebastian: Bunch of outbreaks traced to a local synagogue there. Whole congregation was asked to self-quarantine, but now whole town is on lockdown.

  51. 51.

    germy

    “It took Barack Obama until October of 2009 to declare Swine Flu a National Health Emergency.

    It began in April of ‘09 but Obama waited until 20,000 people in the US had been hospitalized & 1,000+ had died.

    Where was the media hysteria then?” @charliekirk11

    — Rudy W. Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) March 9, 2020

    “Obama’s acting director of health and human services declared H1N1 a public health emergency on April 26, 2009.

    That was when only 20 cases of H1N1 — and no deaths — around the country had been confirmed.”https://t.co/PBiZQ5QWPp https://t.co/3u1v2No2Y4

    — hilzoy (@hilzoy) March 10, 2020

  52. 52.

    Martin

    @cain: The ecosystem is always filled with wingnuts. Or at least enough of them to find one to hire. If not, you put Jared and Mulvaney in every job.

  53. 53.

    John Revolta

    @Martin: The other problem of course is that it turns out that we don’t really need to confirm most of these bozos at all. We can just call them “Acting” Bozo and Hey Presto! Problem solved.

    We need a law saying all the bozos need Congressional confirmation within 30 or 60 days or they can’t serve. Period.

  55. 55.

    germy

    friends helping friends.

    BREAKING: White House likely to push federal aid for shale companies hit by coronavirus/international energy shock

    Trump confidante & oil billionaire Harold Hamm lost $2 billion yesterday. Hamm reached out to admin but says he didnt make “direct” contact https://t.co/GsjHIJE6VI

    — Jeffrey Stein (@JStein_WaPo) March 10, 2020

  56. 56.

    MattF

    @Martin: I do get the sense that media (except Fox) are looking past Trump for their facts. Maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part, but I don’t think Trump is taken seriously as a source of information, not by anyone.

  57. 57.

    KSinMA

    @Scott: I’d been wondering if a Christian wingnut or a fan of eugenics might be mixed up in this. Sounds like both.

  58. 58.

    David C

    @Martin: Fauci only has 35 years of getting it right. For him to make an official recommendation for everyone when this hasn’t been discussed internally would probably not be his call.

  59. 59.

    bluehill

    I don’t know if Trump and the coronavirus will be the end game of Grover Norquist’s drown the government bs, but maybe it will be the start.

  60. 60.

    germy

    It's at times like these that the vast disparities in wealth seem so painfully clear. Who can avoid crowded subways? Who can work from home and still receive a paycheck? Who can stock up on medicines and extra food? Which folks have laptops at home so the kids can learn remotely?

    — Rachel Swarns (@rachelswarns) March 10, 2020

  62. 62.

    dmsilev

    WaPo:

    Trump once again downplayed the severity of the coronavirus spread, telling reporters on Capitol Hill on Tuesday that his administration is doing a good job and it will all work out.

    “It will go away, just stay calm,” Trump said after an hour-long meeting with Senate Republicans on an economic relief package. “Everybody has to be vigilant, be calm, everything is working out.”

    The president, talking about U.S. consumers, said, “The consumer has never been in a better position than they are right now.”

    Trump dismissed the suggestion that he should be tested for the virus given his interactions with individuals who were in contact with a man who tested positive for the coronavirus at a recent conservative conference.

    “I don’t feel any reason, I feel extremely good,” the president said.

    Feel safer yet?

  63. 63.

    MJS

    In other news, social distancing might be a good campaign strategy for Joe for awhile. I like pugnacious Joe, but he needs to learn how to say, “That’s not true,” disengage, and move on.

  65. 65.

    trollhattan

    @germy:

    Oh lord, screw that with extreme prejudice. Can Trump actually bypass congress and shovel out a giant emergency Corona-gift to the awhl industry?

  66. 66.

    trollhattan

    @dmsilev:

    It reminds me so very much of Bush telling everybody to go shopping after 9/11. “Now, watch this drive.”

    Yet another reason I wanted Warren–no golf.

  71. 71.

    chopper

    @Feathers:

    problem is, outside of SARS and MERS there’s another family of coronaviruses that causes over 100 million cases of common cold every year in the US. so it’s important for the test kit to focus only on sars-cov-2 and exclude the other members of the coronavirus family.

  75. 75.

    Raoul

    Not that a twatter poll is even remotely scientific, but the US is following the Italian model of very poorly handled containment. It’s gonna get a whole lot worse here.

    @MarketWatch
    Mar 9

    How has the new coronavirus affected your daily life?
    Working remotely now . . . 8.1%
    Canceled travel . . . 12.8%
    Avoiding large events . . . 18.2%
    No change at all . . . 60.9%

    3,733 votes · 3 days left

     
    Obviously this leaves out many things people might be doing to prepare. But ‘no change at all’ is … not wise.

  78. 78.

    Martin

    Good policy by Inslee:  Nursing homes – one adult visitor per person per day, screened for virus. Exceptions for end-of-life care. That should be national, today.

  79. 79.

    Mallard FIlmore

    @dmsilev:

     

    Trump dismissed the suggestion that he should be tested for the virus given his interactions with individuals who were in contact with a man who tested positive for the coronavirus at a recent conservative conference.

    Maybe we will have a “War Of The Worlds” endgame event.

  80. 80.

    The Dangerman

    @germy: 

    Harold Hamm lost $2 billion yesterday. Hamm reached out to admin but says he didnt make “direct” contact.

    Harold Hamm didn’t have to give a handy?

  81. 81.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Involving “Christians”, with their ideology of cruelty, with ANY medical policy, is asking for trouble.

  85. 85.

    danielx

    Those disruptions may have made CDC more susceptible to poor decision-making.

    No, really? You don’t say!

  87. 87.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Roger Moore: Of course this guy is worse; no one serious about their career is going to work for Trump between getting humiliated, blocked from doing their job until they are blamed and then fired for Trump’s bad decisions. The only people will even apply for the Trump admin positions are crazies or losers.

  88. 88.

    Martin

    Yolo and Placer counties in CA are following Sacramento county’s recommendation to stop 14 day quarantine for just coming in contact with someone with it. Sounds like they’re struggling to stay operational with that in place.

  90. 90.

    The Dangerman

    @Chyron HR:

    Translation: Trump has been tested positive.

    The second Trump tests positive, he’s on his way to Walter Reed and Melania runs away like her ass is on fire.

  91. 91.

    Aziz, light!

    @Raoul: “No change at all” can also mean that one’s work and life do not require out of town travel or attendance at large events, and that only basic precautions are needed to limit one’s exposure.

  92. 92.

    trollhattan

    @Martin:

    Just read that. They’ve thrown in the towel WRT containment and now their strategy is mitigation. It didn’t have to play out this way, but the lame federal response has rendered containment moot, at least in regions that are transportation hubs.

    County health officials on Monday said they will no longer ask people who come into contact with an infected person to immediately self-quarantine themselves for 14 days.

    “With the shift from containment to mitigation, it is no longer necessary for someone who has been in contact with someone with COVID-19 to quarantine for 14 days,” health officials wrote. “This applies to the general public, as well as health care workers and first responders.

    “However, if they develop respiratory symptoms, they should stay home in order to protect those who are well.”

    The county also discouraged people from calling 911 or going to emergency rooms unless “they believe that they are extremely sick or their life is in imminent danger. Other emergencies are still occurring, and emergency resources must be available to address all of them, not just COVID-19.”

    Super.

  93. 93.

    Aziz, light!

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: At this point the mortality rates are meaningless figures because without widespread testing the number of reported cases does not convey how many people have been exposed to the virus.

    My guess is that we won’t know the actual rate for another month or three.

  94. 94.

    senyordave

    OT, but this thing about Biden cursing out someone over guns.  Is he fucking kidding?  Its’ almost never a good look.

  95. 95.

    West of the Rockies

    @trollhattan:

    I suspect that the virus has been in the U.S. and in transmission since early January.  I suspect a number of people caught it, didn’t even know, and recovered (after, of course, transmitting it to others).  The idea that, for instance, Glen County (near Butte, Tehema Counties) is clear of the disease and would remain so with proper measures is naive.

  96. 96.

    joel hanes

    @Aardvark Cheeselog:

    My own theory is that Trump himself directed Redfield to restrict the availability of test kits and to slow-walk testing in order to preserve the plausibility of Trump’s “nothing to worry about” kayfabe.   And that Trump still perceives this crisis as being a public relations problem, and about himself.

  97. 97.

    West of the Rockies

    Random OT good news… After today’s mini-Super Tuesday, we’re closer to Bernie disappearing.  The Dow has bounced back.  Look for good news where you can.  Be safe, all.

  98. 98.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    Robert Redfield has gained a lot of weight.  What a shame.  He was so good looking in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”

  99. 99.

    Roger Moore

    @cain:

    Trump is running the fed like a business.

    Perhaps if we want to hire a business leader to run the federal government like a business, we shouldn’t choose a business leader with a history of bankruptcy and mob ties.

  100. 100.

    Another Scott

    TheAtlantic (from March 7):

    […]

    The net effect of these choices is that the country’s true capacity for testing has not been made clear to its residents. This level of obfuscation is unexpected in the United States, which has long been a global leader in public-health transparency.

    The figures we gathered suggest that the American response to the coronavirus and the disease it causes, COVID-19, has been shockingly sluggish, especially compared with that of other developed countries. The CDC confirmed eight days ago that the virus was in community transmission in the United States—that it was infecting Americans who had neither traveled abroad nor were in contact with others who had. In South Korea, more than 66,650 people were tested within a week of its first case of community transmission, and it quickly became able to test 10,000 people a day. The United Kingdom, which has only 115 positive cases, has so far tested 18,083 people for the virus.

    Normally, the job of gathering these types of data in the U.S. would be left to epidemiologists at the CDC. The agency regularly collects and publishes positive and negative test results for several pathogens, including multiple types of the seasonal flu. But earlier this week, the agency announced that it would stop publishing negative results for the coronavirus, an extraordinary step that essentially keeps Americans from knowing how many people have been tested overall.

    Read: What you can do right now about the coronavirus

    “With more and more testing done at states, these numbers would not be representative of the testing being done nationally,” Nancy Messonnier, the chief CDC official for respiratory diseases, said at the time. “States are reporting results quickly, and in the event of a discrepancy between CDC and state case counts, the state case counts should always be considered more up to date.”

    Then, last night, the CDC resumed reporting the number of tests that the agency itself has completed, but did not include testing by state public-health departments or other laboratories. Asked to respond to our own tally and reporting, the CDC directed us to Messonnier’s statement from Tuesday.

    Our reporting found that disorder has followed the CDC’s decision not to publish state data. Messonnier’s statement itself implies that, as highly populous states like California increase their own testing, the number of people the CDC reports as having been tested and the actual number of people tested will become ever more divergent. The federal tally of positive cases is now also badly out of date: While the CDC is reporting 99 positive cases of the coronavirus in the United States, our data, and separate data from Johns Hopkins University, show that the true number is well above 200, including those on the Diamond Princess cruise ship.

    The White House declined to comment.

    […]

    ince the CDC’s pullback, it has become extremely difficult to track the nation’s growing capacity to test for the coronavirus.

    There are material reasons for this. At first, the CDC did all the testing, so its results were easy to report. But as the outbreak grew, state public-health laboratories were brought into action. Each of them can do only so many tests, however, so university research laboratories have now joined the effort. Soon private laboratories such as LabCorp and Quest Diagnostics will begin testing people too. Both companies announced yesterday that doctors can now order tests. Still, no one is quite sure precisely when this new testing capability will start delivering results at scale.**

    The more entities involved, the more complex the data-gathering effort grows. State public-health departments should be tracking tests from university labs and eventually private labs, but in this time of crisis, they may not have the capacity to gather those data. For example, a Washington public-health official told us that the state could test up to 100 people, but as noted, the University of Washington has far higher throughput. That suggests a positive implication of our reporting: more capacity nationwide than our, or any, data reflect.

    Read: Here’s who should be avoiding crowds right now

    As more laboratories join in the effort, quality control will become more difficult. While each lab must have the FDA’s permission to operate, under an Emergency Use Authorization, a new FDA policy allows labs to immediately begin testing people, and requires that they submit their paperwork to the agency within the next 15 days.

    These types of measures are necessary because the United States’ response to the coronavirus is far behind the spread of the disease within its borders. Testing is the first and most important tool in understanding the epidemiology of a disease outbreak. In the United States, a series of failures has combined with the decentralized nature of our health-care system to handicap the nation’s ability to see the severity of the outbreak in hard numbers.

    Today, more than a week after the country’s first case of community transmission, the most significant finding about the coronavirus’s spread in the United States has come from an independent genetic study, not from field data collected by the government. And no state or city has banned large gatherings or implemented the type of aggressive “social distancing” policies employed to battle the virus in Italy, Hong Kong, and other affluent places. (After this story was published, Austin, Texas, cancelled this month’s SXSW festival.)

    […]

    (Emphasis added.)

    More at the link.

    Messonnier seems to have the technical chops to do the job. I have to assume that she’s being told not to do it.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  101. 101.

    patrick II

    I haven’t heard or read this anywhere, so maybe I misheard it — but didn’t the last guy to speak at that presser yesterday, the person in uniform, say that coronavirus was no worse than the flu?  And is that really what the last statement of that presser should be?

  103. 103.

    Raoul

    Def. off topic, but de-fucking-liscious:

    Austin-based conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was booked into the Travis County Jail on a charge of driving while intoxicated just after midnight Tuesday, the Travis County sheriff’s office said.

  104. 104.

    burnspbesq

    Wait until you see how quickly the payroll tax holiday becomes part of the reason why Social Security and Medicare have to be cut.

  106. 106.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    My old field’s major annual conference was just cancelled. It was schedule for two weeks from now. I feel so bad for the people who did all the work and planning, and also for the scholars ready to do presentations, especially the not-yet-tenured ones. But I think it was the right decision.

  107. 107.

    Martin

    @burnspbesq: Yep. And what’s the point? Businesses aren’t required to pass that on to workers. They’ll just keep it as they did with the tax cuts.

  111. 111.

    Mallard FIlmore

    @Aziz, light!:

     

    My guess is that we won’t know the actual rate for another month or three.

    My guess is that even this is too late. We will get the actual rate from other countries.

  113. 113.

    Matt McIrvin

    @cain: But it does give them an excuse to get their authoritarianism on, which some will surely abuse endlessly.

    Singapore’s somewhat illiberal government is coming off really well in this crisis–they seem to have leveraged their power to control the thing, and the local culture of rule-following, without falling prey to authoritarian incompetence in the early stages. Of course they were also in a really unique geographic situation–an early target of the virus because of huge Chinese traffic to there, but they’re also a geographically small city-state with controllable borders.

  114. 114.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I’m a little more skeptical about all these cancellations. As I posted this morning in a long-dead thread, I’m still looking at a trip to Ukraine in April – air fares are dropping, and the country seems to have a fairly good handle on things.

    I’m over 60, yes, but no underlying health issues (unless you count all these steel and titanium components.) Statistically, I’m more likely to die driving to the airport.

  115. 115.

    Barbara

    @Martin: You cannot stay operational — EMS personnel, nurses, doctors, even the laundry and food service workers would be perpetually at home with that kind of policy in place.  People who don’t serve those kinds of functions should voluntarily stay home if they can, but requiring self-isolation is only possible when the number of cases is very small relative to the population.

  117. 117.

    trollhattan

    @Raoul:

    Alex Jones behind bars for any amount of time is a gift to baby Jesus. That it was in Texas…[chef’s kiss]

  118. 118.

    gene108

    @Aziz, light!:

    My guess is that we won’t know the actual rate for another month or three.

    I don’t think we’ll ever know the actual infection rate or number of people infected.

    Researchers will be doing best guess approximations based on the testing data from other countries, who have responsibly responded to this outbreak.

  122. 122.

    Barbara

    @Aziz, light!: I am definitely washing my hands more, but I have a separate office, so I don’t feel compelled — yet — to work from home.  I still go to my gym, but mostly because it just offers classes, there is no gym equipment, and I am always three feet or more from other people.  They are sanitizing all mats and soft and hard surfaces between all classes.  They told everyone to wash hands before and after class.

    I haven’t canceled plans but I was thinking about travel later this summer, and I have decided not to pursue it.

  123. 123.

    Gin & Tonic

    Ladies and gentlemen, the estimable Daniel Dale presents the President of the United States.

    Trump: “I’ve been briefed on every contingency you could possibly imagine. Many contingencies. A lot of positive. Different numbers, all different numbers, very large numbers, and some small numbers too.”

  124. 124.

    Matt McIrvin

    @gene108: We’re going to go straight from “tests aren’t available” to “this is endemic, there’s no point in testing everyone”.

  125. 125.

    chris

    @patrick II:

    the person in uniform

    The Surgeon General of the United States of America, Jerome Adams, aka Pence’s man from Indiana. Another great hire who told an interviewer that the preznit is in better shape than he is. He’s 45 and looks fairly well put together. Worth examining while you’re looking at Redfield.

  127. 127.

    Martin

    Smart idea. NY is training school nurses to help with diagnostics. As we close schools, press them into broader service in their community. Everyone should be doing this.

  129. 129.

    dmsilev

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Different numbers, all different numbers, very large numbers, and some small numbers too.

    His MIT-physicist uncle would be so proud.

  131. 131.

    catclub

    @Martin: Just having them confirm more hacks and idiots doesn’t solve anything.

     

    Actually, even that is not enough. There are now many people ‘acting with the authority of’  who are NOT acting – which is time limited.

  132. 132.

    Mandalay

    @Raoul:

    Austin-based conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was booked into the Travis County Jail 

    Speaking of scumbags behind bars, Weinstein is being sentenced tomorrow morning. This is the latest (embarrassing) effort from his lawyers to win the judge over:

    Harvey Weinstein’s lawyers have petitioned the judge who presided over his trial and rape conviction in a New York court to sentence him to the minimum of five years in prison, controversially citing the fallen producer’s “remarkable accomplishments”…

    …A letter from Rotunno and her fellow lawyers, addressed to Burke, contains praise for the convicted rapist that is certain to incense the 105 women who have come forward to accuse him of various degrees of sexual misconduct.

    The note says: “His life story, his accomplishments, and struggles are simply remarkable and should not be disregarded in total because of the jury’s verdict.”

    I don’t know how long his sentence will be – his lawyers are asking for the minimum of 5 years – but I think that he will leave prison in a box regardless.

  134. 134.

    catclub

    @burnspbesq: Trump is not even pretending. He wants it to continue up to the election.

    Is it needed all the way to the election?

    Is it needed after the election?

    doesn’t matter.

  136. 136.

    trollhattan

    @Mandalay:

    “should not be disregarded in total because of the jury’s verdict.”

    What an elegant double-negative. Harv’s getting his money’s worth right there.

  138. 138.

    Fair Economist

    @Raoul: From what I see on twitter, preparing consists solely of stocking up on supplies. That will help people survive a forceable home quarantine, but as you say, won’t slow the arrival or need for said quarantine.

  139. 139.

    Another Scott

    @germy: I think you may have buried the lede:

    New Rochelle is at the center of an outbreak of 108 cases in Westchester County, out of 173 statewide as of Tuesday. New York City has 36 cases, while its population is more than 100 times that of New Rochelle.

    :-(

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  141. 141.

    Brachiator

    @Martin:

    And what’s the point? Businesses aren’t required to pass that on to workers. They’ll just keep it as they did with the tax cuts.

    Is Trump talking about cutting the employee share of payroll taxes, the employer’s share, or both?

  142. 142.

    Fair Economist

    @Matt McIrvin:

    We’re going to go straight from “tests aren’t available” to “this is endemic, there’s no point in testing everyone”.

    They’re trying, but do your best to not let them get away with it. The reality is the reverse – with such a dangerous disease to which nobody has immunity, if it’s really endemic we have to test EVERYBODY with a fever or a cough to prevent catastrophic infections of entire clinics or hospitals.

  144. 144.

    Ruckus

    @cain:

    trump is running the country like one of his businesses. Very, very badly and right into the ground. He’s so fucking stupid he thinks he can declare bankruptcy and walk away.

  147. 147.

    mad citizen

    Re: Biden’s swearing at a citizen.  He picked a great news cycle to do it, it will be swallowed by Virus.

    Also, I employ a Bill Murrayism: It Just Doesn’t Matter!

  150. 150.

    Roger Moore

    @Ruckus:

    He’s so fucking stupid he thinks he can declare bankruptcy and walk away.

    The truly scary part is that he probably can.  If nothing else, he could leave the country and live in exile and probably avoid extradition if he picks the right country to run to.  We’ll be left to pick up the pieces.

  152. 152.

    Martin

    Props to Bernie. He cancelled tonights Ohio rally over coronavirus concerns. Put aside alternate theories for why he did, that was the right decision for the right stated reason. Let’s take it as such.

  153. 153.

    Martin

    @chris: 124% increase in testing. Overnight.

    We’ll have a lot of this the next 1-2 weeks. We’re about to discover how widespread this actually is.

  156. 156.

    Another Scott

    @Brachiator:

    There are a few sensible people also making the case for cutting the payroll tax:

    As the Trump administration’s ineptitude is rapidly increasing the likelihood of a recession, we have to plan for a stimulus to counteract the worse effects. Many people (including me) have mentioned the possibility of a cut in the Social Security payroll tax as being a major component of a stimulus package. The idea is that the cut would be simple, progressive, and could get into people’s pockets quickly. We have a model for this, the Obama administration put in place a 2.0 percentage point reduction in the Social Security payroll tax in 2011 in order to provide a boost to the recovery.

    When Obama put this cut into place, the Social Security trust fund was reimbursed for the lost revenue, and the payroll tax returned to its prior level in 2013. While that worked out fine, there is a potential problem in going this route.

    The payroll tax has been the main designated funding source for Social Security since its creation in 1937. Under the law, it is operated as a separate program and it can only pay benefits if it has money available from its designated revenue sources.

    It is no secret that the Republican party is extremely hostile to Social Security. Prominent Republicans have often proposed cuts to the program and President George W. Bush wanted to privatize it.

    A temporary cut to the Social Security tax raises the possibility of Republican game-playing, which could worsen the program’s finances and create a situation that eventually forces cuts. While last time the Republicans in Congress did not interfere with the tax returning its prior level and left the trust fund unharmed, we certainly should not assume that the current crew of Republicans would act in good faith.

    For this reason, it would be best to have a tax cut that was not directly tied to the Social Security payroll tax. The Make Work Pay tax credit that was part of President Obama’s initial stimulus is a great model. This tax cut effectively refunded 6.2 percent of workers’ pay, up to $400. This meant that anyone earning over $6,500 a year got the full amount of the tax credit. It phased out for incomes over $100,000. That made the tax cut considerably more progressive than a payroll tax cut and it was not tied to Social Security in any way whatsoever.

    This sort of tax cut would be a great model for a tax cut to offset some of the economic impacts of the coronavirus. Of course, we would want to do much more.

    We recognize that close to a quarter of the workforce does not have paid sick leave. We don’t want people to go to work when they are sick. We should have a generous tax credit to employers (e.g. $800) to extend at least seven paid sick days a year to workers who do not already have it. We also need to pay for testing and treatment of coronavirus to ensure that people who are uninsured or who have bad insurance will come in for testing.

    We also have to remember that when schools are closed, many lower-income children are missing out on lunches and breakfasts. We need more money for food stamps and other forms of assistance for low-income families.

    And, we need to put more public money into developing a vaccine. Also, we have to move into the 21st century in our thinking about this research. It should be fully open. We want our researchers not only sharing their findings with each other so that all can benefit from new results, but also with researchers in Europe, China, and elsewhere. Science advances most quickly when it is open.

    And, when we do get a vaccine, it should be in the public domain so that it can be sold as a cheap generic from Day One. We shouldn’t have to worry about whether a vaccine will be affordable, it will be cheap if the government doesn’t grant a patent monopoly. The problem with high drug prices is not that we need the government to make drugs affordable, we need to stop the government from granting patent monopolies that make drugs expensive.

    Anyhow, the full story of an effective stimulus would be longer, but this is a good start.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  158. 158.

    Martin

    Ok, more of this.

    A Portland distillery is now making hand sanitizer and giving it out to customers.

    Shine Distillery and Grill already has the equipment and the alcohol for it. They say it just makes sense for them to help keep people healthy right now.

    Basically, when they distill the alcohol, the first part that comes out isn’t meant to drink, so they make a cleaner out of it.

    “I had a lady sitting at the bar the other night and she asked if she could have some and I wasn’t sure, so over the weekend, we did our research and checked with the controlling authorities and come to find, as long as we’re not making a medical claim or selling it, we’re allowed to give it away,” owner Jon Poteet said.

    Now with 80 percent alcohol (above the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation of at least 60 percent), xanthan gum to thicken the mix, and a little bit of water, they’re making hand sanitizer for customers.

    Artisanal craft sanitizer is a whole mood. There’s 6300 craft breweries in the US. That’s a lot of production capacity. Beats prisoners by a mile.

  160. 160.

    Sure Lurkalot

    I canceled a 2-day trip to L.A. this weekend for my niece’s wedding.  I waited until the last minute to make up my mind and not lose money on the hotel reservation. I will have a United credit for airfare to book another flight until next February.

    I am a reasonably healthy 65 year old on no medications but I was too anxious about the flying, the hotel stay and the probably ridiculously remote chance of getting stuck in quarantine.

    I feel badly about not being in attendance but moreso that usually a wedding is a time for hugging and dancing with relatives and strangers and that’s not going to be happening regardless.  I told my niece, who expresses herself well, that she should write “Wedding in the Time of Corona”, but unfortunately, she didn’t get the reference.

  162. 162.

    Martin

    @Baud: Biden needs to cancel his. Dude can’t stop shaking hands. I get it, it’s a habit. Get out of that space.

  163. 163.

    catclub

    OT: The dollar had been quite strong, but in the past two weeks it has weakened noticeably against the Euro and the Yen. Anybody understand why?  I thought the flight to T-Bills would make the dollar more in demand.

  168. 168.

    catclub

    @Another Scott: we need to stop the government from granting patent monopolies that make drugs expensive.

     

    You can tell the lion by his claw.

    When Leibniz posed a calculus problem, Newton sent in an answer anonymously – hence the lion quote.

     

    I can tell it is Robert Reich by patents on drugs.

  169. 169.

    joel hanes

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    The data is pretty much statistically useless, because very little testing has been done, and the selection of people to test has been very skewed.

    My take:  Stanford spun up their own test, tested for a couple days, and immediately cancelled classes.    I think that we’ll find that there are between 100 and 1000 undetected infections for every one that shows on the sfgate page.

  170. 170.

    Redshift

    @germy:

    White House likely to push federal aid for shale companies hit by coronavirus/international energy shock

    Weird how the “the free market is best for everything” crowd are willfully blind to the fact that if you bail out the losers, it’s not a free market, and it doesn’t produce the benefits of one.

  172. 172.

    joel hanes

    @Sure Lurkalot:

    I commend your decision.

    I’m 67, in Silicon Valley, and started isolating myself as much as possible yesterday.

    No way would I get on a ship or go to an airport anytime soon.    My family is supposed to go to Aruba at the end of June — I don’t think there’s any chance at all that it’ll even be possible to go.

  174. 174.

    Martin

    @catclub: This would be an excellent time for California to put the pedal down on the plan for the state to produce our own generics.

  177. 177.

    The Dangerman

    @Redshift:

    Weird how the “the free market is best for everything” crowd are willfully blind to the fact that if you bail out the losers, it’s not a free market…

    Privatize the profits, socialize the losses is a sweet deal if you can get it.

  178. 178.

    LuciaMia

    We can use any good news…

    “Second person cured of HIV is still free of active virus two years later.”

  179. 179.

    trollhattan

    @Martin:

    Agree, it’s the right thing to do for the right reasons.

    Kind of like McCain suspending his campaign to hustle back to D.C. to fix the recession. Okay, maybe not like that.

  180. 180.

    Orange Is The New White

    This would be an excellent time for California to put the pedal down on the plan for the state to produce our own generics.

    @Martin: Problem:  that plan was predicated on the raw materials being available from China.  They may now not be.  Now, I wouldn’t mind doubling down and making those too, but that’s not a trivial proposition.  Nor cheap.

  181. 181.

    opiejeanne

    @Martin: This is the first time I heard the name New Rochelle. I was about 17. In “How To Succeed in Business” Rosemary sings “Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm”
    New Rochelle, New Rochelle,
    That’s the place where the mansion will be
    For me and the darling bright young man
    I’ve picked out for marrying me.

  182. 182.

    joel hanes

    @Major Major Major Major:

    No bleach, nor any disinfecting cleaner, nor rubbing alcohol, nor sanitizer, nor hydrogen peroxide when I went yesterday morning early.   Very little toilet paper.   Garbanzos gone, kidney beans gone, lentils gone, many empty slots among the rice products.

  183. 183.

    MJS

    @Orange Is The New White: It’s not the need to reach out to Trump voters. It’s the need to pick your battles, and not engage with a random audience member for any more than 10 seconds, especially when everything is filmed, and that person will do everything to catch you in a “gaffe.” “What you said is not correct”, and then engaging the next person who may vote for him is how this interaction should have gone.

  184. 184.

    trollhattan

    @Martin:

    Point of order: I think breweries would get into bigly trouble if they added distilling equipment to their production line.

  185. 185.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @opiejeanne: New Rochelle to me is forever the home of Rob and Laura Petrie

    Sanders and Biden have both cancelled rallies tonight. I think it will be a test for the Biden people if they can figure out some kind of on-line event to make up for it. I suspect Sanders team is a little more forward thinking in that regard

  187. 187.

    Brachiator

    @Another Scott:

    For this reason, it would be best to have a tax cut that was not directly tied to the Social Security payroll tax. The Make Work Pay tax credit that was part of President Obama’s initial stimulus is a great model.

    Interesting article. I remeber the Make Work Pay credit. It didn’t do too much either way.

    I agree, though, that the proposed payroll tax credit is not a great idea. And part of the idea here is that the nature of the problem is different. People who are forced to stay home may not be able to spend much, and another larger problem is the disruption of supply chains and the impact on all kinds of businesses.

    The issues of paid leave, possible unemployment, potential medical costs, are much larger than a modest $400 or $800 credit.

    And yeah, I don’t trust the Trump administration to restore any payroll taxes they might cut.

  188. 188.

    Immanentize

    @Martin: Agree.  Sadly this might just result in more commercial campaigning on TV and internet?

    Where have you gone, Michael Bloomberg,
    Our Nation turns its desperate eyes to you.
    Woo woo woo
    What’s that you say, Mister Biden,
    Minnie Mike is continuing to pay?
    Hey hey hey?
    Hey hey hey!

  189. 189.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @trollhattan:

    Kind of like McCain suspending his campaign to hustle back to D.C. to fix the recession. Okay, maybe not like that.

    He canceled an appearance on Letterman saying he had to fly back to DC, then scheduled an interview with Katie Couric, on the same network, in the same building. Letterman aired in-house video of McCain in the make-up chair– not a good look for anybody– during his own taping. Letterman’s glee was a glorious thing to behold.

  190. 190.

    Martin

    @trollhattan: Must vary by location. The closest craft brewery to me is also a distillery, which is why I was thinking it was more common.

    Kids: don’t extrapolate from a sample of 1. You’ll look dumb.

  191. 191.

    trollhattan

    @joel hanes:

    My kid decided against going to Vegas for her soccer tournament weekend after next. Not because of plague fears but because she missed her 1,600m qualifying time for the state CIF track championships by a whopping 2 seconds, and needs to hit the mark that weekend at another track meet instead. (Hopefully they still hold said meet.)

    Net plus in my book, because I was against the Vegas trip for the exposure possibilities.

  192. 192.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Martin: I have a vague idea where New Rochelle is, having been born and grown up in NY. But my experience of the state is mostly right around NYC, or the far north part, the Erie Canal, the Adirondacks and the parts near Canada. The lower Hudson area is fly-over territory for me, or more accurately drive-through territory.

    The main thing I knew about New Rochelle growing up was that it was where Rob Petrie (Dick van Dyke’s character) lived.

  194. 194.

    trollhattan

    @Martin:

    That’s a very cool pairing. ABC licenses for the two are very different, so it’s perhaps a rare bird. There could be federal ATF licensing for a distillery as well–this stuff gets complicated.

    I blame Al Capone and Junior Johnson.

  196. 196.

    catclub

    @Brachiator: I don’t trust the Trump administration to restore any payroll taxes they might cut.

     

    I trust Nancy Pelosi to get this right. It has to be a change in law, anyway. Time it out.

  197. 197.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @joel hanes: I did fly in February, as the Corona stories were just gaining traction.  It was more of a no choice trip…a terminally ill sister who did pass away while I was with her.

    This wedding was supposed to be the joy that comes after the trauma and I’m sad to say that I just didn’t feel the joy amid the anxiety.  

    It’s a shame there’s a good chance of your family missing out on lovely Aruba…I haven’t been to the A, but have been to the B and C of the ABC’s and there are lovely waters down there.  Hope you can reschedule for better times.

  198. 198.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    So we’ve tried to avoid the slippery slope of prepper-ism. But we just went out to reload the pantry and ended up spending nearly $400, “just in case”. Including the 20-pack of TP, that the guy was restocking because the shelves were completely cleaned out. Was going to get a 4-pack, but what the heck, the 20’s are more cost effective. And we do need more cleaning supplies. And we were out of produce, might as well get some extra and put it up.

    The thing is, people are kind of self-quarantining everywhere around us despite there being only a couple of isolated positive cases. Universities are sending students and faculty home, offices are encouraging telework, etc. So being locked in seems like it’s kind of inevitable.

    Plus I’m always kind of hoping to be locked in with the wife, though my preferred scenario is with a roaring blizzard outside and hot cocoa inside. Didn’t get so much as a flake of snow this winter, which in itself is almost as scary as the virus.

  201. 201.

    Immanentize

    Oh shit, my son’s friend who is returning from Haverford to Boston, reports that he was seated on the plane next to a guy from Italy who was wearing a mask and sweating profusely.  He has asked to be moved….  The Quakers will have their meeting!

  203. 203.

    Barbara

    @Redshift: It’s not an international energy shock attributable to COVID-19 disruptions. Clearly, that’s transitory.  It’s Putin and MSB playing chicken at the OPEC conference.  And his “loss” of $2 billion is not “fixed.”  It’s not like he owes anyone $2 billion.  It’s just that his assets are no longer worth as much as they were and Trump is worried that his buddy won’t feel quite as flush when it comes to campaign check writing time.  But then, taking care of their own on the pretext of coping with a disaster is what they do.

  204. 204.

    zhena gogolia

    So I got in a tiff with the lady at the veterinarian’s office. She was saying to a co-worker, “It’s not as bad as the flu . . .” and I went off on her! She said she heard it on Fox News. My husband was not happy with me. I ended up apologizing. Fox News is going to kill us all. But he said, “There are some things we can’t control.” I shouldn’t have done it, I’m just so on edge. Or if I did it I should have been more diplomatic.

  206. 206.

    Roger Moore

    @catclub:

    OT: The dollar had been quite strong, but in the past two weeks it has weakened noticeably against the Euro and the Yen. Anybody understand why?

    I don’t know for sure, but I can hazard a guess: it reflects differences in our coronavirus response.  Countries that manage the pandemic well will bounce back quickly and have functioning economies again pretty quickly.  Countries that manage the pandemic poorly will have lingering problems that keep their economies from getting back on track.

  209. 209.

    Gin & Tonic

    @joel hanes: I was there the last week of Feb with no issues. Shit was just starting to hit the fan around the world, and we were more careful than usual in-flight, but we had a grand time.

  210. 210.

    Immanentize

    @zhena gogolia: What you are upset about is not your message — but your delivery.  I always try to parse that out after I embarrass myself at parties.

  211. 211.

    Martin

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: North on the 95 like you’re going to Connecticut, it’s the first town after you leave the Bronx. Next up Port Chester and Greenwich.

    When we lived in CT we drove through there a million times heading to relatives in NY, but I was too little to register it. My girlfriend in college lived in Newtown, so I’d take the train up to visit with her and New Rochelle is a stop on that line.

  212. 212.

    Roger Moore

    @Orange Is The New White:

    There’s no point in “reaching out” to people who would literally shoot a family member for voting Democratic, and Biden knows it, so might as well just start telling all of ’em they’re full of shit.

    This.  It’s not just that there’s no point in reaching out to people who aren’t going to listen.  It’s that our voters are tired of candidates bending over backward to try to impress people who are never going to give us a fair hearing.  We want candidates who are going to bring the fight to the Republicans, and seeing Biden do just that is energizing.  When our candidate fights for us, it makes us more willing to fight for him.

  214. 214.

    zhena gogolia

    @Immanentize:

    Yes, I really screwed up in my delivery. They were all smirking at me as if I were the nutjob. That doesn’t help get the message out.

  215. 215.

    jeffreyw

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Mrs J was needing bird seeds so we went to the local Rural King.  The Kroger store is in the same development so we dropped in there while we were out.  It was practically deserted.  I told her to grab some TP, she said we just bought some three days ago, remember?  I told her millions of panicking shoppers couldn’t be all wrong.  I was meaning to look in the hand sanitizer aisle to see if they had some but forgot.  One thing that did look hard hit was bananas

  216. 216.

    Cheryl Rofer

  217. 217.

    Immanentize

    Speaking of great prepper instincts, I love the Immp so much!  Yesterday, after shooting pool with his compadre, they were walking near Davis Square, Somerville (near Tufts University) and he spied what he thought was a discarded P.C. between two trash cans.  So, of course he grabbed it and brought it home to scavenge.  Turned out it was an eight bottle wine refrigerator.  It was totally non-operational, but after a little you tube education, we were able to fire it up and good as new.  I now have enough chilled white for two weeks in case we are isolated!  What a good son!

  218. 218.

    The Dangerman

    @MJS:

    “What you said is not correct”, and then engaging the next person who may vote for him is how this interaction should have gone.

    Mild disagreement; in the era of Trump, “WYSINC” doesn’t get any media.

    FOS? Gets media.

    There are clear limits. You can’t tell someone to FOAD, for example.

  219. 219.

    Martin

    @Barbara: Not just that, but oil demand is falling FAST as people cancel trips, work from home, etc. Oil is fairly inelastic, so any drop in demand causes disproportionate price drops. That Putin and MBS have both decided to outproduce the other to drive prices below production cost is just adding  to it.

    ND and Alberta are fucked, but tough shit. We’ll get some free progress on climate change. Maybe it’ll stick.

  220. 220.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Martin: Maybe she lived in Norwalk? Newtown is east of Danbury, which is on the Harlem line, while New Rochelle is on the New Haven Line.

  223. 223.

    Immanentize

    @Cheryl Rofer: Did the doofus ask them to be fully engaged eight weeks ago?  Did he convene a meeting of (as Ozark and I like to say) TOP MEN?

    We are being ruled by the lowest quality hires.

  224. 224.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Major Major Major Major: I have flown a couple of times when I was really sick with cold and flu.  I’m sure a lot of people do…especially when young and not a lot of money to be flexible.  Besides, where do you want to be when you’re sick as a dog? HOME.

    It’s miserable to fly with any kind of upper respiratory crud…it seems to worsen the sneezing, dripping and coughing. I hope the glaring worked though!

  225. 225.

    Kent

    Is this thread still alive?  The Bilgramage blog which covers politics from the perspective of an gay former priest has some interesting and detailed comments about the cadre of fundies that has been put in charge of the CDC.  Not just Redfield, apparently there is a bunch of them.  He quotes Digby’s Salon column and has a lot more details about the megachurch fawning over Trump’s performance on the coronavirus.

    http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2020/03/pro-life-christians-may-yet-be-death-of.html

    There’s something important happening under the surface here. It may not simply be that these health policy professionals are trying to keep the kooky president happy so they can do their work on behalf of the country. They may be Trump true believers.  U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams, for instance, is a Mike Pence crony who previously served as the Indiana state health commissioner. He was intimately involved in the horrific HIV outbreak in that state, where Pence refused to authorize a needle exchange program until a number of people had died unnecessarily. Naturally, Trump appointed him surgeon general.

    [CDC Director Robert] Redfield and [US Global AIDS Coordinator Deborah] Birx are both evangelical Christians who have been associated with HIV research for many years, going back to the 1980s. Birx runs PEPFAR, George W. Bush’s global AIDS initiative, and both she and Redfield have been involved with Children’s AIDS Fund International, which lobbies for abstinence-only sex education around the world.  The Washington Post reported back in 2018 that they belong to a network run by an important power broker in the evangelical world:
    “Evangelical activist Shepherd Smith has spent more than three decades cultivating relationships with leading AIDS researchers and policymakers to promote abstinence-only sex education and other programs. Those connections now could influence government programs and funding within the Trump administration. Among the most prominent: Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…

    [His wife] Anita Smith is now a consultant within PEPFAR to Deborah Birx, a physician and ambassador at large who oversees the program’s estimated $5 billion annual budget. Birx is also a former board member of Children’s AIDS Fund International and served until she was hired by the CDC in 2005, a PEPFAR spokesman said.” Anita Smith was hired by Birx to ‘improve prevention programs aimed at preteen girls.’ I’m pretty sure we know what she recommended.
    Redfield and Birx both served in the military doing AIDS research in the mid-1980s. Redfield is well-known for recommending measures that were considered extreme even within the Reagan administration, including the forced quarantine of AIDS patients. He later had a financial interest in an HIV vaccine that didn’t work, but which he continued to push. Birx, on the other hand, has maintained a stellar reputation.

    Parton concludes her essay with a question on which the mainstream media would do very well to focus, but on which it’s unlikely to focus attentively:

    Is their [i.e., Redfield and Birx’s] worshipful admiration for this man blinding them to the need to communicate honestly with the American people about this crisis? Because that would explain a lot.

  226. 226.

    dww44

    @Gin & Tonic: My bil, who’s visiting with us, wondered aloud why everyone was kowtowing to Trump.  Spouse said that all those with principles and character long since left, freely or otherwise.  We listened to it all and it was indeed kinda nauseating.  Never in my life have I seen this behavior around any President and I’ve seen a good number of them. But wanna be King has been this way since the day after his inauguration.  He expects everyone to bow and scrape in his very presence and beyond.

     

    @Gin & Tonic:

  227. 227.

    Martin

    @Gin & Tonic: She lived in Newtown but her dad would pick me up in Bridgeport. He was CT state police stationed out of there at the time. Cop dads always like a little time to chat with daughter’s  boyfriend.

  228. 228.

    Immanentize

    @dww44: There are still amazing professionals in the federal government who do no kowtowing to anyone.  The ones I know are mostly EPA and DOJ.  I think the ones G&T knows are mostly in State.  But these fabulous people are not allowed out of their offices/cubes.  Certainly not allowed to say anything outside the narrow confines of their job responsibilities.

  229. 229.

    Immanentize

    @Martin:

    Cop dads always like a little time to chat with daughter’s boyfriend.

    Ain’t that the truth! Same with P.K.s

  231. 231.

    Immanentize

    Mass. Governor declares State of Emergency based on large increase in likely CPAC-20 cases.

  233. 233.

    Kent

    Catholic Church closes the Our Lady of Lourdes healing pools due to coronavirus concerns.  You would think if they had the integrity to stand by their beliefs they’d be keeping them open.  I guess it takes something like the coronavirus to expose the fraud.  https://catholicherald.co.uk/lourdes-shrine-closes-healing-pools-as-precaution-against-coronavirus/

    As the number of people testing positive for the coronavirus in Europe continues to grow, the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes announced that pilgrims were still welcome, but the pools where the sick bathe in hope for healing would be closed temporarily.

    “Our first concern will always be the safety and health of the pilgrims and the shrine’s working community,” said a note posted on February 28 on the shrine’s website. “As a precaution, the pools have been closed until further notice.”

  234. 234.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Kent: I’m not sure if the thread is still alive, but thanks for this.

    Evangelical Christianity should take a big hit when this is all over, along with the other Trumpies.

  236. 236.

    Kent

    @Cheryl Rofer:Evangelical Christianity should take a big hit when this is all over, along with the other Trumpies.

    It will be the opposite of course.  Evangelicalism is like Republicanism.  It can never fail, it can only be failed.

  237. 237.

    cckids

    @Brachiator: Is Trump talking about cutting the employee share of payroll taxes, the employer’s share, or both?

     

    And how does a payroll tax cut help those who are . . . just not working – laid off, furloughed w/out pay, small business owners whose cafe/dry cleaner/bar’s business just dropped off a cliff?

    ETA: A bit of good news from Amazon:Amazon,  along with many other tech companies, said it would continue to pay its hourly employees as its work from home policies were in effect. It also said it was subsidizing rent for businesses inside the buildings it owns. Today, Amazon announced it’s creating a $5 million Neighborhood Small Relief Fund to provide cash grants to local small businesses in need during the novel coronavirus outbreak, as well.The fund will be directed towards small businesses with fewer than 50 employees or less than $7 million in annual revenue, and with a physical presence within a few blocks of Regrade and South Lake Union office buildings. The businesses must be those that are open to the general public and that are reliant on foot traffic for customers.The businesses will be asked to share how much revenue they anticipate to lose during the month of March, and will be asked to back up that information in some way. Amazon will work with a third party to administer grant applications and distribute the funds.

  238. 238.

    Immanentize

    @Cheryl Rofer: I think it is alive — I think that the Lourdes decision is a recognition that some who go there are tourists “taking the waters” while others are deeply religious people of faith who are suffering.  My guess is that one would still be able to petition to enter the pools.

    Otherwise, I agree.  Megachurches especially should suffer.  Maybe this is God’s way of putting Christ back into Christianity?

  243. 243.

    joel hanes

    @trollhattan:

    Hopefully they still hold said meet

    I hope they don’t.

    Kids will be heartbroken, and for some of them, there’ll never be another chance to shine like that.

    But at least they’d be more likely to have living parents and grandparents six months from now.

  245. 245.

    J R in WV

    @Brachiator:

    Is Trump talking about cutting the employee share of payroll taxes, the employer’s share, or both?

    It doesn’t matter — if you have been quarantined, your salary is ZERO and your tax liability is also ZERO~!!!!~ Businesses will call that “laid off” and will not be providing salary, benefits, nothing —

    What can the government tax if you aren’t earning anything?

    If Trump gets away with this bullshit, there’s nothing he can’t steal.

    I’m sure Pelosi won’t buy into this fraudulent scheme, as long as she can hang in there. Trump is a worm!!!

  247. 247.

    Roger Moore

    @cckids:

    And how does a payroll tax cut help those who are . . . just not working – laid off, furloughed w/out pay, small business owners whose cafe/dry cleaner/bar’s business just dropped off a cliff?

    Magic.  Tax cuts are a magic solution to every economic problem.  Your lack of faith in them just proves you’re a heathen.

  248. 248.

    Martin

    @cckids: Be willing to bet the managers talked to one another (they do that a lot) and decided that if they both cancelled, it’d even out, and be safest for all involved.

  249. 249.

    Martin

    @chris: Note the corporate owned qualifier. Not sure I’ve ever been in a non-franchise one.

    But it sets the right precedent. Hopefully the franchises will follow suit as their employees complain.

  250. 250.

    joel hanes

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Evangelical Christianity should take a big hit when this is all over

    Fundagelical Protestantism has already been taking a big hit, for some time, because young people find it unattractive.

    Coronavirus is going to kill off a big tranche of the  oldest believers, particularly if they get their health advice from Fox.

  251. 251.

    J R in WV

    @Martin:

    There’s 6300 craft breweries

    Yes. But we’re talking about distilleries, not breweries.  Breweries can’t get much better than 15% alcohol. Distilleries get much closer to pure ethanol, and the “heads and tails” of the still run, the first part and the last part, aren’t very potable, but would be fine for sanitizer. They have other alcohols besides ethanol, which are not healthy for the drinkers, taste bad, cause hangovers, etc.

  252. 252.

    Martin

    @Roger Moore: Magic. Tax cuts are a magic solution to every economic problem.

    Tax cuts are thus far the only action Trump has offered in response to an epidemic.

  253. 253.

    Heywood J.

    We still don’t know why the CDC decided to develop its own test for SARS-CoV-2.

    1. Unlike other tests, it has a loyalty clause.
    2. Trump and his failchildren own the company that manufactures it.
  257. 257.

    Roger Moore

    @Martin:

    Tax cuts are thus far the only action Trump has offered in response to an epidemic.

    Trump doesn’t care about people dying; he only cares about whether he’s losing money.

  258. 258.

    Dan B

    @germy:  The good burghers of Wuhan and mullahs of Iran are overcome with joy thst their gay pride parades are finally being acknowledged.

     

    (Pssst.: When is the Onion getting on this?)

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