Yesterday you baselessly accused them of hoarding/stealing/selling masks and ventilators, you piece of human garbage.
— John Pavlovitz (@johnpavlovitz) March 30, 2020
And he doubled down today! Per ABC News:
As health care workers on the front lines of the coronavirus crisis warn about shortages of masks and other protective equipment, President Donald Trump insinuated over the weekend people might be taking masks from hospitals “out the back door,” suggesting they might be being sold on the black market.
He was reacting to an account by a mask company executive who said the demand had skyrocketed at one New York City hospital, which they did not name, from 10,000 to 20,000 a week to 200,000 to 300,000 masks a week.
The New York Greater Hospital Association and New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo have since pushed back on Trump’s claims…
Trump implied, without evidence, that there was a nefarious reason for the shortage in masks, which states have criticized the federal government for not providing. Meanwhile, nurses and doctors across the country have resorted to re-using protective equipment, accepting donations, buying their own PPE (personal protective equipment) and other workarounds to keep themselves safe.
“How do you go from 10 to 20 to 300,000? 10 to 20,000 masks to 300,000? Even though this is different, something’s going on. And you ought to look into it as reporters,” Trump said. “Where are the masks going? Are they going out the back door? How do you go from 10,000 to 300,000 — and we have that in a lot of different places,” he said, though he didn’t mention any other examples of hospitals that have reported stolen masks.
“I hope I didn’t get any of your clients in trouble, but it could be that they are in trouble,” Trump said, referring to hospitals as “clients” and speaking to the CEO of the mask-production company, who accompanied Trump at the briefing.
While there have been a handful of small-scale reports of people stealing masks, gloves and hand sanitizer from hospital waiting areas or other health centers across the country as anxieties over supply shortages rose, many quickly criticized Trump for seeming to put the blame on hospital workers…
At his daily coronavirus briefing in New York on Monday, Cuomo deflect questions about Trump’s comments, saying, “I don’t know what he’s trying to say.”
“In terms of a suggestion that the PPE equipment is not going to a correct place, I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what he’s trying to say. If he wants to make an accusation then let him make an accusation. But I don’t know what he’s trying to say by inference,” Cuomo said…
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top expert on infectious diseases and a key member of the White House coronavirus task force, said Monday morning that he wasn’t familiar with the issue but suggested that there could be more demand because “many more” patients need them.
“You know, I have not looked at that carefully, so I can’t really can’t comment. I mean, it could be that there are many more patients there that need them and they’re actually not walking out the door, they’re actually being utilized. I don’t know. I mean, that discussion came yesterday. I really didn’t know what was going on. I’d have to check that out later and find out what they were talking about,” Fauci said on CNN…
[Side note: Dr. Fauci’s not long for this administration, and is all too aware of that fact.]
President Trump blames hospitals for hoarding ventilators and health care workers for stealing masks. Like blaming the infantry for hoarding mortars and stealing bullets. He really has no idea what health care workers are doing this moment in NYC to save our lives.
— Jane McManus (@janesports) March 29, 2020
You see, kids, he's a thief. He has stolen, cheated, and defrauded people all his life and because he's also a sociopath he can't imagine anybody else is any different. https://t.co/EB5S9szRgP
— seiZedd tesla & spacex to mass produce ventilators (@Zeddary) March 29, 2020
Baud
We are all Hillary Clinton now.
Jay
WaterGirl
This bears repeating.
Trump is a total piece of shit.
MattF
One assumes that Trump is actually voicing resentment that he’s not getting his share of the black market goodies.
Jay
Funny that,…….
trnc
That could be a template for how to respond to DT’s BS.
A Ghost to Most
This ain’t about t* anymore. We know what a vile piece of shit he is.
This is about his brainwashed base. If he disappeared, they would latch onto some other slick talking grifter.
trnc
@WaterGirl: Every accusation is a confession.
Bill Arnold
@MattF:
Nah, one assumes that D.J.Trump is personally COVID-19-Profiteering.
Or even stealing masks.
joel hanes
@MattF:
Trump is actually voicing resentment that he’s not getting his share of the black market goodies.
What makes you think he’s not getting his share?
He hasn’t used the DPA to compel the major makers of pandemic materiel to produce them at a fixed price. He “talked to them, and they didn’t want” that. How do you suppose that conversation went?
I think it had a phase in which Trump said “I’ll need you to do me a favor …”
He’s run everything in his life as a protection racket, for his entire life. It’s all he knows.
bbleh
@A Ghost to Most: They would indeed, but it’s not because they’re “brainwashed.” Trump is more symptom than cause.
This is who his base is. Greedy, suspicious, irrational, angry, awash in resentment and victimhood, and in many cases — though not all — goddam dumb.
joel hanes
@Shrillhouse:
No sarcasm tag.
You’re serious?
Annie
Can Dolt45 Fire Dr. Fauci? IIRC he runs one of the departments at NIH, but I don’t recall if that’s a presidential appointment or a civil service position.
joel hanes
@Annie:
The laws haven’t restrained Trump’s conduct in office for a long time now.
debbie
@Baud:
Tiny Mike DeWine stood up to Trump and got him to override the FDA’s refusal to grant Batelle’s request allowing them to sanitize 80,000 masks per day. He hit his podium with his little fist and got the job done. If that wizened little gnome can do it, so can the rest of us!
Jay
lamh36
Evening BJ.
Some news on the NOLA front.
First, due to a couple of folks in the lab tested positive for COVID. So now we all have to wear masks as a precaution. No one in Micro, but other lab areas that we share a breakroom with. Normally I don’t eat in the breakroom…mainly cause I don’t want to talk to people, but I do eat in breakroom when I work weekends and of course just this past wekend, I ate in the breakroom with one of the recent knownw positives at least once ?.
Even though we do most of the setup processing of specimend than any other segment of the lab, no one in Micro has tested positive. But then again, we do wash our hands more than any other area of lab and wipe down with bleach wipes more cause of all the microbes. Also, we read cultures in the back of the lab away from core lab, specimens are processed in the vicinity of the core lab up front. So, we don’t have to wear masks while we are in the Micro lab in the back as of right now, just in the common areas
For anyone who might be surprised that masks weren’t requierd sooner, themajority of the laboratory doesn’t see patients. the only people most of us interact with are each other, especially in Micro.
Core lab techs do interact with RNs, MDs, etc more than Micro, but rarely patients. The people in the lab that directly interact with patients are phlebotomist and the hospital has decided that the nurses have to do their own blood collection. So the positive folks in the lab likely got the virus elsewhere and not likely patients.
So anyway, no direct patient care or testing means no need for masks in the lab. The laboratory follows universal precautions 100% of the time, including PPE and in micro, we do not manipulate patient specimen unless we are under a BSC (biological safety cabinet or microbiological safety cabinet) which is established general universal precautions in ANY micro lab.
Anyhoo, again, We are NOT direct patient care. So majority of us don’t wear mask inside the lab.
In this case since there are common areas folks share and definitive positive folks, now we have to.
The silver lining is that they gave us two so one so can use at work and one at home! So I don’t have to worry bout buying one! ??♀️
https://twitter.com/psddluva4evah/status/1244686601004830720
lamh36
@lamh36: A more general update, majority of hospitals in NOLA are full. My smaller hospital has no beds available, so they have had to open a tent triage in the ER parking area. Patients who come in are triaged, stablized and transported to another hospital, or soon the NOLA convention center, which is being turned into a COVID recovery center.
New Orleans convention center being turned into coronavirus recovery center https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/490129-new-orleans-convention-center-being-turned-into-coronavirus-recovery-center#.XoJzZVjl_2c.twitter
L85NJGT
There was a quick hit on CBS Evening News that suppliers were waiting for FEMA to tell them where to ship equipment.
MattF
@Annie: Probably. NIH is in Health and Human Services, so Azar could be directed to fire Fauci. It’s… conceivable that Azar would refuse to do that.
lamh36
@lamh36:
With all the new information and based a bit on personal gut, I’m thinking the effects of the pandemic won’t stop being felt until June at the earliest, August the latest.
Based solely on my own personal feeling and experience with things, I still think we could see some movement by late April or early to mid-May, but it all depends on the whole flattening the curve and folks actually doing the social distancing effectively
Jim, Foolish Literalist
he had the my pillow guy take the podium at the White House today (for context, he’s turned his company out for making masks, but…)
WhatsMyNym
Arizona’s governor seems to be ordering a stay at home.
MomSense
@Shrillhouse:
GO FUCK YOURSELF
You should be banned for that, asshole.
CaseyL
If Fauci is expecting to get fired (assuming, pace @Annie, that T* can fire him), I hope Fauci does a last hurrah and coldcocks the Talking Vomit right there on the podium.
Jay
randy khan
@Jay:
Arithmetic is hard.
And, to take numbers from Wikipedia, Mt. Sinai has more than 3,000 beds. Figure 5 beds on average per nurse (more in regular wards, close to 1 per nurse in ICU) and 3 shifts, that’s 1,800 nurses per day who need masks, and of course they have to change them each time they see a patient, so if it is 30 patients per nurse per day, that’s 54,000 masks just at one hospital in one day.
Calouste
Awesome demonstration of social distancing in that picture by the piece of human garbage.
joel hanes
@Shrillhouse:
I don’t see you putting your life on the line to protect the health of people you don’t know. Asshole.
Adam, Cheryl, can we get this account kickbanned?
lamh36
Anyhoo, in non-COVID related news.
I decided to upgrade my Kindle 7. So I bought a Kindle 10 last week. Finally picked it up at UPS store and opened it up.
I thought I was just buying a Kindle, but it’s an actual Fire tablet. it’s a legit tablet!!! It’s bigger than my Ipad!!!
My old Kindle I can hold w/one hand and read in bed. This one…??♀️??♀️??♀️
(Left to Right: new Kindle10, old Kindle7, old IPad Air) https://twitter.com/psddluva4evah/status/1244743074967764992
debbie
@lamh36:
They’re also using the convention center here, but it will be for non-COVID cases.
Shrillhouse
@joel hanes: No. I am not serious. But, you just know the MAGA crowd believes whatever crazy theory Trump puts out there.
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I don’t need a pillow, but I will boycott that jerk for the rest of my life.
Brachiator
@lamh36:
Thanks for the inside look at the operations there.
I hope everything turns out well for those who tested positive.
Jay
@randy khan:
Arithmetic is hard because the Deep State makes us all use Islamic numbers rather than good Christian ones,……; )
debbie
@CaseyL:
He’ll be hired immediately by some think tank and given a very large microphone. Assuming he doesn’t want to retire.
Martin
@L85NJGT: Yep. People really don’t get that stuff doesn’t magically get made and into the hands of the people that need it. That needs to be initiated and coordinated, with understanding of logistics, lead times, supply chains, etc.
It’s complicated but not impossibly hard. But it does require intent and hard work, which is what we lack. Further, it requires delegation of authority, which we also lack. Give me decision and budget authority and shit will get done today. It’s pretty clear that there is only one authority at the federal level right now.
NotMax
WaPo: Pompeo’s pandemic performance ensures his place among the worst secretaries of state ever
joel hanes
@Shrillhouse:
yeah, I went and scanned a dozen of your previous comments, and this seemed completely out of character.
tone of voice is notoriously an insufficient vehicle for sarcasm on the internet. perhaps it would be good to give us a more definite clue? clearly I was not able to correctly make the call.
Jay
@Shrillhouse:
due to occasional drive by’s by Wilmerites, Branch Covidians and Russian trolls, there is a short hand here for snark.
there is a snark font, the winky smile or the // at the end of the snark.
BobS
Trump is obviously unaware that the only vestige of credibility his administration has (outside of the cult) is due to Fauci, but if he does get fired, I’d hope (at the very least) he’s provided a forum to do daily press briefings- maybe Cuomo could even hire him as a consultant.
Steeplejack
@lamh36:
Thanks for your informative “story behind the story.” Stay safe!
joel hanes
@CaseyL:
Ron Lain was great, but could I wish Biden would get Rear Admiral Zeimer to do some public talking.
I wonder what keeps Dr. Messionier from publicly spilling what she knows about how this all went down …
Chyron HR
@A Ghost to Most:
I believe this is central to the argument that “Bernie Woulda Won”.
Jinchi
I’m surprised he hasn’t “invoked P” to demand that companies don’t produce masks, so that Ivanka’s clothing line can corner the market.
Jay
Idiots,….. we are going to be social distancing and self quarantining for ever.
The Thin Black Duke
Or Joe Biden.
MisterForkbeard
@Shrillhouse: You are, generally, kind of a piece of shit. Or at least this comment is.
That said, my brother (who is an extremely anti-Trump nurse) told me weeks ago that they had to start locking their masks, gloves and wipes away because someone was stealing them. They were pretty sure it was the public, as there were notable cases of assholes coming in and grabbing the entire box of sanitary wipes that were there for individuals to use in the waiting area.
Aziz, light!
From the article: “Trump implied, without evidence, that…’
Translation: “Trump pulled out of his ass the blatant lie that…”
lumpkin
The pressure is getting to Fauci. His dissembling is getting closer to outright lying.
NotMax
Can’t be limited to just here. Make sure to warn those who might be taken in.
dmsilev
Speaking of medicine…
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/mar/30/astrophysicist-gets-magnets-stuck-up-nose-while-inventing-coronavirus-device
Also, too, yet another demonstration of how ostensibly-intelligent people can do amazingly stupid things.
debbie
@The Thin Black Duke:
Wouldn’t that be a kick in the ass!
Jay
The Book of Faces is still garbage and disifo central,
lumpkin
@Shrillhouse:
This is a vile thing to say.
MisterForkbeard
@lumpkin: Only so much he can do without just screaming “YES! TRUMP IS LYING AND IT’S KILLING PEOPLE”.
It’s the same problem everyone that works in the administration has. You can’t tell the truth and be a loyal soldier at the same time, because the administration is just incredibly fucking awful in every way.
Martin
@dmsilev: Scientists and engineers are not interchangeable.
Jim Parish
@debbie: It would also be taken as proof that Fauci was a Deep State agent all along.
Jay
Martin
@MisterForkbeard: People are dying, in large numbers. We’re long past the time it was necessary to do that.
Jinchi
I think the phrase “lamestream media” was there to indicate sarcasm.
dmsilev
@Martin: He’s lucky that the only injuries were to his dignity; rare-earth magnets of the sort he was playing with are scary strong and there are all sorts of stories of people getting fingers crushed and the like because they were between a couple of the magnets.
MattF
@dmsilev: You have to be careful with neodymium magnets.
ETA: As you say.
debbie
@dmsilev:
There was much merriment in the morning thread about this tale of woe.
Jay
lamh36
A interesting read from a NOLA doc
NotMax
FYI.
MisterForkbeard
@Martin: Maybe “Trump is lying in order to blame everyone else for the deaths he personally has caused” is better at this point.
tokyokie
Most facilities don’t allow healthcare staff to wear PPE in the hallways because it’s contaminated. That means that every worker, on every visit, to every patient, has to gown up, then dispose of the PPE in the patient’s room before entering the hallway. Think of the last time you were in the hospital, how many times a day a janitor, an aide, a food-service worker, a physical therapy tech, a lab tech getting blood samples, a nurse, a doctor, anybody came into your room. That’s a full set of PPE for each visit. And although that’s supposed to occur with patients with infectious diseases, now it’s every patient on the hallway. When I worked as an aide, I’d use about a 100-count box of disposable gloves per 12-hour shift. Now it’s every staff member going through at least that much for every piece of PPE every shift.
Have some of the staff taken a few N95 masks home for their families to use? No doubt, and I can’t blame them for doing so. (My wife secured me a couple of N95 masks when it looked as though I was going to have to fly to another city a week or so ago.) But selling that stuff on the black market? Like they have the time to do that, even if they could figure out where that black market is.
Tony Jay
You would think, since you’re an actual human being with experience of how other human beings respond to vile bastardy, that the highly paid truthseekers of the Press might respond to the President of the United States openly claiming that doctors and nurses are stealing medical equipment to sell for, I don’t know, drugs or something, by hinting that he is, in fact, a vile bastard.
But since he’s not a Democrat, the best you can expect is for them to allude to ‘some people’ maybe being offended by the President suggesting that shortages of PPE are exacerbated by the well known problem of black market thievery, because of course that’s what he meant.
Fuckem. You know it makes sense.
cckids
@MisterForkbeard:
I’m sure it was. At the grocery store, where I work, we’ve had to station someone by the cart disinfecting wipes, they were getting stolen 2x a day. People still get pissy when that person stops them from spooling out 10-20, putting them into a ziplock (which they brought for that purpose) and taking them home.
Insanity rules.
Jinchi
I think this is the disconnect for a lot of people. Sitting at home and seeing Trump concoct nonsense, the coronavirus seems almost surreal. But every time I hear from someone working in a hospital, it sounds like a conflagration. I really wish the media would stop covering his daily self-congratulation rallies or his idiotic tweets about winning the ratings war and simply park a camera in the emergency ward of any random hospital.
Jay
GoFundMe’s doing the work of the Federal Government, yet again,
NotMax
What about us, Twitter? What about our chief executive? At long last, have you no backbone?
lumpkin
@MisterForkbeard: Yeah, I know. Didn’t mean to sound critical of Fauci. I was just pointing out that he must be getting a lot of pressure to stop contradicting trump.
Jay
@cckids:
we have had “people” steal sanitizer, disinfectant spray bottles, gloves and masks from the cashier stations and employee desks and counters,
as well as use crowbars to steal the public hand sanitizer from the washrooms and entrances.
on the otherhand, people are donating tons of PPE to hospitals and first responders.
Jay
senyordave
@WaterGirl: Trump is a total piece of shit.
That is what is truly amazing! Some people are pieces of shit in some specific area of their life – work, home, maybe just when they drive. Trump is a true Renaissance man – he’s a piece of shit in all areas of life.
Martin
@Jay: I support them, but these are relatively low-skilled jobs in an environment where unemployment could be as high as 20%. Public backlash is literally the only leverage they have. Very risky.
LesGS
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I have read the Bible from cover to cover once, and large pieces of it a number of times. It’s one of the things that tilted me into atheism…
Mike in NC
These are words that Fat Bastard is unfamiliar with. So someone else wrote them.
Flea, RN
Our Emergency Department had to put the N95’s and surgical masks under the Charge Nurse’s desk because visitors were grabbing them by the handful. (We got so low that we were told to wear 1-2 a shift and put the N95 into a paper bag for our next shift)
So instead of donning one every time I enter a room, I had to first go the desk (or stuff a few into a pocket).
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
It’s always projection with Dump.
Martin
Other bright sides – was just forwarded a photo taken from Huntington Beach where the Hollywood sign is visible. Bet that hasn’t happened since the sign first went up.
There is some climate change progress getting made.
Kayla Rudbek
@lamh36: and Virginia is now on lockdown until June 10th. At this rate, my office building is going to look like Miss Havisham’s house.
Jay
Mai naem mobile
I don’t know what station you guys are watching Orange Douchebags informercial but IIRC CSPAN does not have ratings so watch it on CSPAN not the regular stations where he can say he got the highest ratings evah!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Martin: Considering the pics of seen of the air quality back then, it probably wasn’t the case then either.
Martin
@?BillinGlendaleCA: You might be right. But it was remarkable being able to read the sign from a photo. I never thought I’d see that. In fact, I didn’t even realize we had line of sight to it.
Jay
@Martin:
funny thing, they arn’t low skill jobs. It takes a shit load of a broad range of skills and specific technical knowledge to do these jobs well. It just doesn’t take an expensive degree, although at other times, these employers were demanding expensive degrees.
currently, all these job positions are short staffed. People are not willing to die for minimum wage. A young friend of my Wife’s was working at an Amazon warehouse, ( longish story), and I got her into my store, full time, $3 more per hour plus benifits, in one 10 minute interview. My Department is supposed to have 4 full timers, 6 part timers, we have 2 full timers, 2 part timers, and we are better staffed than most other departments. Of 120 employees at the store, 80 are using the expanded and accrued benifits to “shelter in place”.
Mike in NC
Not really surprised that the My Pillow asshole is an Evangelical Christian.
Jay
Miss Bianca
@lamh36: Glad to hear from you lamh, thanks for your updates, stay safe!
Poor NOLA. : (
Steeplejack
I gave my friend B. a ride to work at Trader Joe’s at 5:00. Car traffic very light in Ballston and Clarendon (Arlington, VA). Foot traffic not quite as light, mainly because of gorgeous weather—sunny, breezy, 70°—that had people out jogging and walking dogs. Physical distancing sporadic, not many masks visible. I’m picking up B. at 11:00 after her shift. As I said a day or two ago, Metro has closed some train stations and reduced bus service, so it is much harder for her, and other “essential” retail workers, to get to work.
On my way home I went by my local pub and did curbside pickup of a burger and fries to support them. Gave the server a good tip. Came home, ate that and have eased into the evening, getting caught up on the news of the day.
I haven’t read much yet, but that My Pillow guy Trump had at his “briefing rally” today (h/t @DDale8) almost makes me want to never use any pillow on my bed ever again. Grr.
BobS
@Flea, RN: We’re labeling the bag that our N-95 masks are placed in with employee#, unit, and hospital (there’s 8 in our network) before sending the bag to CPD where they’re sterilized with heat and UV before being returned to us.
Jay
@Steeplejack:
the trick is to use your pillow on the My Pillow Guy the same way the winnuts claimed Nancy Smash offed Scalia.
Jay
germy
@Jay:
I really admire her.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mike in NC:
He also gives off a powerful that-boy-ain’t-right vibe
Jay
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Yes, this. His Base doesn’t lack agency, they aren’t being compelled at gun point to crowed into those Mega Churches like they did last Sunday. I know plenty of conservatives who are taking this pandemic seriously.
germy
@Jay: The My Pillow guy made so many outrageous and dishonest claims about his pillow. I remember one of his commercials (no longer shown) where he boasted his pillows could cure sleep apnea.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@germy: hey, that amendment about fake witnesses doesn’t say anything about pillows, nor in Two Corinthians.
That’s the one you like, right?
Martin
So, data update:
So, one thing I’ve been looking for in these comparisons is starting to show up. That social distancing short of lockdown has a measurable impact, and that alone may keep us from worst case scenarios. I was thinking CA would end up with 10k or so fatalities by Easter. Now I think that’s down to 1k, and could come in below even that. Not total, mind you, since we may well find ourselves in a protracted period of dozens of fatalities per day, and who the hell knows about subsequent waves, but in the near term, things look better each day in the states that moved fast. In fact, I’m seeing some evidence of non-lockdown efforts having real benefits.
I got some local data from my county today and the last two days we had vastly fewer positive cases than the trend we were on, which corresponds to a whole bunch of local decision making that I was part of in response to the bay area lockdown. Even though we didn’t lockdown yet, we threw a pile of lesser measures in place which, should the trend hold, suggests that we materially reduced R0. So to the extent that may have happened around the country – in NYC and elsewhere, we may see everyone or nearly everyone falling off of the model even without those state level lockdowns getting implemented. No question the lack of a lockdown will slow the rate at which things get better. Further, it will significantly complicate efforts to return to normal.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: WPWJSO? (What Pillow World Jesus Sleep On?)
A question that has long vexed theologians.
germy
japa21
@germy: There is a reason the BBB revoked his accreditation and gave him an F rating.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Sister Stephanie testifies to the godliness of Donald J trump.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Jay:
Hmm, good point. ?
lamh36
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Martin: No love for Mono County, the worst hit county in California with 13 cases out of a population 14,000?
Peak Virus is supposed to be April the 15th and if these numbers hold for Cal will be upsetting as apposed to horrifying.
Martin
AZ head of Emergency Management quit because the state isn’t following the state emergency plan, which her agency creates and implements.
Martin
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: 13 cases is still 13 cases. We don’t know how much of that is community spread, and how much is an extended family returning from a cruise. So, I try to not focus on the lower population areas because those ratios get very deceiving very quickly.
Peak virus may be April 15 for the nation, but CA is a good week or more ahead of most of the nation.
Jay
@germy:
they do “cure” sleep apnea, if used properly.
they also “cure” stupid, Republicanism. Branch Covidism,
but only if pressed down firmly, long enough.
Barbara
@Jay: Given the circumstances, HCWs need masks for every patient, not just those already diagnosed with an infectious disease, as would be normal. The sheer scale is many times worse than he imagines and is made even worse BECAUSE WE STILL CAN’T TEST EVERYBODY.
Jay
Jay
germy
And yet it was the My Pillow guy who got the invite from the president…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@germy: also Brooks Brothers and I think I saw Levi’s
cain
@L85NJGT:
95% to Florida and other red states and 4% to everywhere else, and 1% for Trump to keep and stash
Shalimar
@japa21: And My Pillow responded by saying they don’t recognize the Better Business Bureau as a legitimate company. Very Trumpian.
Barbara
@lamh36: Good article. Stay safe.
Ksmiami
@Jay: gallows or firing squad- January 21, 2021- all of them Katie.
ziggy
@Martin: I’m wondering if the overall youth and health of some of the highly affected areas (such as California and Washington) has made a big difference, as opposed to the older population in Italy. My suspicion (believe it is borne out in some studies) is that those who are quite sick (generally older) shed much more virus than those who have less severe symptoms. That is why the nursing homes have become such disaster areas, even for the workers. The lockdowns are keeping those asymptomatic or lightly symptomatic people from contacting more vulnerable older people, who show up in the deaths. That seems to me an important part of the equation that we somehow need to keep in place while easing up.
Martin
@ziggy: Sort of. It’ll affect fatality rates, since we know that’s tied to age, and hospitalizations, but it shouldn’t necessarily affect rate of spread – except for how age relates to mobility.
Nursing homes are a special case – like universities. They are designed around social interaction, so they’re absolutely the hardest places to control.
laura
@Martin: no, these are not unskilled jobs – and if you haven’t worked in a grocery store, you may have nonworking knowledge of the hard and soft skills necessary to work a well oiled machine of moving inventory from hundreds of sources and self life and the privilege of serving the public. 20 years of bagging checking working the night crew, the office, receiving, produce and leading a crew makes me push back hard on anyone who might demean or dismiss what ot actually takes. Get robbed a few times by the brash and the desperate. Try and extend dignity to customers while they experience the scorn and the degradation of the makers dressing down the takers and their children.
All work is worthy of respect. Don’t presume to dismiss the work of others. Don’t look down on those who perform the simple tasks you believe are beneath you. Try a little tenderness for fucks sake. Honor labor along with the laborer. Give us bread and give us roses.
Mary G
Barbara
@Martin: Epicenter in Maryland and Virginia is in nursing homes, similar to Washington State. That is why both governors and Mayor of DC have doubled down on the stay home orders this week. They stopped all visitors before they had a reported case and they are still seeing widespread infection.
ziggy
@Barbara: Just read in the news about ANOTHER nursing home infected, this time on Whidbey Island (near Seattle). I’ve lost track of how many nursing homes in the Seattle area have been hit by Covid (each one with multiple cases), it must be over 2 dozen by now! There’s got to be a way to get a handle on this, we need instant testing now for them.
Chris T.
@senyordave: That’s how he managed to cause an entire country to run out of TP.
sempronia
I am a frontline md in a major Bay Area hospital, and we are thus far still under capacity [crosses fingers, knocks wood]. Everyone’s greatest fear was that we would be the calamitous war zone that New York City is currently, but we have not had to execute the drastic flex plans that we’ve had in place. We are sending lots of stable people home with COVID-19 – the ER staff and radiologists can tell by now who has it based on clinical presentation alone, but we can’t test anyone unless they’re being admitted to the hospital. So numbers are vastly under-reported. You can’t get PPE except from the unit charge nurse – they’re all locked up because people were stealing them (probably a combination of staff and public, really). We have one N95 per shift, although hospital admin says they are following CDC guidelines. These change daily, but last I heard it was one mask per 5 patient encounters (keep the same mask if they’re COVID-19 positive, use a different one if they’re PUIs). Pretty sure we’re not following this. We’re very very very low on PAPR hoods (battery powered filter sets for aerosol isolation), and nurses are sharing them, which seems like a terrible idea.
My professional society’s official discussion boards are populated half by frontline people warning everyone else to get ready and half with Trumpian jackasses complaining about the effect of the shutdown on the economy and about blue states closing gun stores. My own partners are all deep-blue liberals, thankfully, and I sometimes forget why I hate most surgeons, but the boards remind me.
@Martin: thanks for the daily trend updates – they are much appreciated. Please note that the new-case curves may be flattening, but the area under the curve is what will kill hospitals for the next few months. Each patient stays maybe 1-2 weeks, and longer if they are really sick (avg 2 weeks on a ventilator), and older folks will most likely need to be discharged to a nursing/rehab facility, not home. No rehab place will take a COVID-19 pt without two negative tests, and some won’t take them at all. So the length of stay just increases. Hospitals may still be inundated – it just might take longer to get there.
PAM Dirac
@MattF: @Annie:
Director of NIAID is not a presidential appointment, it is appointed by the NIH Director. NIH Director is a presidential appointment, currently held by Francis Collins. The orange fart cloud could certainly tell Collins to fire Fauci, but I have personally seen Collins stand up to political bull shit before and I would not be surprised if Collins would refuse. Of course then Collins could get the boot, but I’m really not sure if they could get anyone in there to go along. In any case, I am almost certainly that Fauci has career civil service protection, which means that they could remove him as NIAID Director, but he would still be a federal employee at his present salary unless they went though civil service procedures.