this is probably going to get lost in the churn of trump news stories, but it really shouldn’t. the people responsible for keeping us safe and healthy and alive made active, informed decisions to do the exact opposite to try to protect the president’s ego. https://t.co/6EyS3tbdCR
— golikecorpromachine (@golikehellmachi) December 16, 2020
They’ll get sick, maybe a few die, but WE want this thing to be over…
… “There is no other way, we need to establish herd, and it only comes about allowing the non-high risk groups expose themselves to the virus. PERIOD,” then-science adviser Paul Alexander wrote on July 4 to his boss, Health and Human Services assistant secretary for public affairs Michael Caputo, and six other senior officials.
“Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk….so we use them to develop herd…we want them infected…” Alexander added.
“[I]t may be that it will be best if we open up and flood the zone and let the kids and young folk get infected” in order to get “natural immunity…natural exposure,” Alexander wrote on July 24 to Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn, Caputo and eight other senior officials. Caputo subsequently asked Alexander to research the idea, according to emails obtained by the House Oversight Committee’s select subcommittee on coronavirus.
Alexander also argued that colleges should stay open to allow Covid-19 infections to spread, lamenting in a July 27 email to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield that “we essentially took off the battlefield the most potent weapon we had…younger healthy people, children, teens, young people who we needed to fastly [sic] infect themselves, spread it around, develop immunity, and help stop the spread.”…
Senior Trump officials have repeatedly denied that herd immunity — a concept advocated by some conservatives as a tactic to control Covid-19 by deliberately exposing less vulnerable populations in hopes of re-opening the economy — was under consideration or shaped the White House’s approach to the pandemic. “Herd immunity is not the strategy of the U.S. government with regard to coronavirus,” HHS Secretary Alex Azar testified in a hearing before the House coronavirus subcommittee on Oct. 2….
The email cache provided a real-time look at the administration’s deliberations as the Covid-19 crisis first began to rebound during the summer.
“So the bottom line is if it is more infectiouness [sic] now, the issue is who cares?” Alexander wrote in a July 3 email to the health department’s top communications officials. “If it is causing more cases in young, my word is who cares…as long as we make sensible decisions, and protect the elderely [sic] and nursing homes, we must go on with life….who cares if we test more and get more positive tests.”…
Alexander sent his demands to officials like CDC Director Robert Redfield, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn and his boss Michael Caputo — for months.
Alexander was only pushed out of government in September after POLITICO detailed his efforts to muzzle Fauci and edit CDC’s reports. pic.twitter.com/oyO0yEYeJa
— Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) December 16, 2020
not particularly upset about the president wanting the whole country to get covid because i’ve assumed that for ages, but it’s nice to have it reported, with evidence. again, it won’t make a difference, but i like evidence, and historians like primary sources so good for them.
— Normie Transition Team (@CalmSporting) December 16, 2020
And this is why Donald Trump, despite his four-year record of failure, came entirely too close to gaming a second term. For too many of our fellow citizens, the only ethical guideline is What’s convenient for me?
From the closing para.: “I have children,” she told a bridesmaid, “What if my children die?” The bridesmaid responded, “I understand, but this is her wedding day.”
I truly do not know how people can act like this. I just don’t. https://t.co/2aqP2p8YaH
— hilzoy (@hilzoy) December 16, 2020
The wedding photographer had already spent an hour or two inside with the unmasked wedding party when one of the bridesmaids approached her. The woman thanked her for still showing up, considering “everything that’s going on with the groom.”
When the photographer asked what she meant by that, the bridesmaid said the groom had tested positive for the coronavirus the day before. “She was looking for me to be like, ‘Oh, that’s crazy,’ like I was going to agree with her that it was fine,” the photographer recalls. “So I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ And she was like, ‘Oh no no no, don’t freak out. He doesn’t have symptoms. He’s fine.’”
The photographer, who has asthma and three kids, left with her assistant before the night was over. Her exit was tense. The wedding planner said it was the most unprofessional thing she’d ever seen. Bridesmaids accused her of heartlessly ruining an innocent woman’s wedding day. She recalls one bridesmaid telling her, “I’m a teacher, I have fourteen students. If I’m willing to risk it, why aren’t you?” Another said everyone was going to get COVID eventually, so what was the big deal? The friend of the bride who’d spilled the beans cried about being the “worst bridesmaid ever.”
After the photographer left, she canceled her Thanksgiving plans with family, sent her kids to relatives’ houses so they wouldn’t get sick, and informed the brides of her upcoming weddings that she’d be subcontracting to other shooters. A few days later she started to feel sick, and sure enough, tested positive for the coronavirus. She informed the couple. “But they didn’t care,” she says. They didn’t offer to compensate her for the test, nor did they apologize for getting her sick…
Geoboy
Given Paul Alexander’s background, shouldn’t the title science advisor be in air quotes?
SiubhanDuinne
Monstrous. Fuck him fifteen ways from Friday.
MattF
Cruel, but not unusual. Prison would be a good option here.
Jeffro
Per the Normie Transition Team tweet…yes, exactly this. I want the lying orange scumbag and his gang of evil morons directly tied to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans.
There’ll be more of this, too. This is (partially) why they went back to having those super-spreader rallies. Not just for trumpov’s ego, but to get the virus going full-bore everywhere.
Nora
I think every Republican in power should be asked if they agree with “who cares” whether more people get COVID. I think it should be hung around the neck of every single one of them. Do you care? Do you agree that nobody cares if children or young people get COVID and get sick as long as they don’t die? Do you believe this is a good way to promote the general welfare?
Of course that’s not going to happen. The media just yawn at evidence Republicans don’t give a flying fuck about the lives and health of ordinary people — it’s dog bites man, as far as they’re concerned.
Parfigliano
Wonder if there is a trail from Trump Admin to So Dak Governor Noem concerning keeping Sturgis motorcycle rally going
p.a.
In a just world there’d be a looming tumbril shortage.
Citizen_X
But whatever you do, don’t call these psychopathic fuckers fuckers!
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
My take is this:
Don’t be a spreadneck.
Mask up.
Don’t crowd.
Limit family gatherings.
Diminish store time.
Get the damned vaccine.
The reality is that it is going to be Q3 of 2021 before sizeable numbers of people are going to have access to the vaccine, and cutting the transmission rate is vital to getting life back on track. Also, not that spreadnecks care about travel (why go more than 15-20 miles from mama n’em), but your prized American passport is going to remain worthless in a lot of the world if people insist on being assholes to the point where this virus lingers in the population – which will lead to the continued decimation of airlines, hotels and travel-related vendors.
Betty Cracker
We’ve got to have a select committee or something to review the coronavirus response and hold people accountable. We’ll probably have half a million or more dead by the time this shit is over, and hundreds of thousands will be needlessly dead. That simply cannot be swept under the rug.
Wag
I am looking forward to post-inauguration editions of the CDC’s Morbidity & Mortality Weekly. Once the current flunkies in charge are out, and no longer suppressing publication of assessments of super-spreader events, there is a trove of hundreds of clusters to publish. It’ll be epic
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker:
But that will take vital efforts away from the Hunter Biden investigation!
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: yes!
@zhena gogolia: no! =)
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Talk about a nationwide jobs plan.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Betty Cracker:
My guess is higher, probably 700K.
The spreadnecks and their ideological cousins (the Norther Ignoratii) are really eager to fuck things up
Spanky
@Nora:
Ask Melania.
WhatsMyNym
But of course they didn’t even try to do that.
PsiFighter37
@Spanky: The GOP won’t even bother answering – they will run away from the mics, just as they have the past four years.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Wag:
I suspect some other death categories are down due to diminished economic activity and social movement.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: This should be a commission with teeth. And Jared Kushner stealing supplies early on in the pandemic also needs to be investigated.
WaterGirl
I read this yesterday but it is no less shocking to see it in print today. I barely have words for how appalling this is.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@schrodingers_cat:
Appoint a special prosecutor and give wide latitude. Bharara would be a perfect choice.
WaterGirl
Regardless of whether anyone is prosecuted, we need major investigations and for the truth to come out.
There can be no reconciliation without truth.
Josie
@schrodingers_cat:
Yes. So much of this sort of thing has been swept under the rug and forgotten. I want hearings and testimony and proof of all of it.
MazeDancer
The way to bring sanity back to the nation is winning the Senate by electing Warnock & Ossoff in GA.
Write a PostCard. Help save the nation
Fun, easy, perfect snow day/pandemic sheltering pastime.
Get addresses and free designs to download: PostCardPatriots.com
p.s. If you don’t have a printer or cardstock, just write a letter. Same address works.
sab
The whole sad irony is if these guys had just ignored the damn virus and let the governmental works that Bush and Obama had left in place run, Trump probably would have been reelected. SARS 1, H1N1 and MERS were all potentially very dangerous but we let the epidemiologists and public health people do their jobs.
This time the US has become a reservoir for recurring infections. We are too big to ignore, so everybody else in the world is at risk whenever they come in contact with us.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@p.a.: In a sane world we wouldn’t be selecting delusional, drug addicted role players to positions of power.
Seriously, this is why Nixon seems relatively better than Trump, Nixon wasn’t living in a world of make believe.
Gravenstone
@SiubhanDuinne: Muzzle him, restrain him and lock him in a covid ward until he tests fucking positive. Then deny him any medical treatment. Let that motherfucker very much reap the whirlwind he chose to sow.
dmsilev
@sab: It is amazing, isn’t it? All Trump had to do was shut up and go golfing for six months, and read a script once in a while to urge Americans to do the right thing. He couldn’t do that, it was just impossible and unthinkable and never even considered as an option.
mrmoshpotato
@MattF: Imprisoned 90 years for each COVID-19 death.
Bnad
This video made me realize the importance of covid economic relief happening sooner rather than later. It was linked by my three percenter FB friend and I’m posting it here because the guy comes across as angry but clear, he doesn’t mention Trump, and it sounds like he’s speaking for others.
Warning: this is a video of a guy alluding to future violent action.
Peale
@Parfigliano: Oh, most definitely. Remember when she was confronted with her state’s surging hopitalizations and she responded that it was expected and everything is going as planned. She definitely bought into the idea that if only her entire state got sick, it’d be over.
scav
America said “What if my children die?” The Republicans responded, “I understand, but this is his election day.”
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@sab:
Our extensive community spread and excessive transmission rates are going to be what keeps us locked out of most of the world regardless of whether we hold an individual vaccine certificate, given the lifespan of this organism on surfaces.
All you need to do is grab a cup of coffee at the “Stop ‘n Shop” on the way to the airport, or maybe you stopped for gas, and touched or brushed something that some spreadneck coughed on or wiped a sneeze hand over. You’ll have contaminated the airport ticket counter, your passport as you handle it, the TSA trays, your seat.
Think that Australia, NZ, the EU or much of South America will want us? How about our plague ships in the Caribbean?
Yeah, it’s bad, and the longer that spreadnecks delay common sense, the longer things stay locked down. Do you think air routes will automatically resume, or will demand have to be built up over the next 3-4 years to reach pre-COVID numbers? And what about structural economic echoes related to the crashed economy? What effect wil that have on the international travel industry?
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker:
Agreed. If nothing else, for historical value. This wasn’t just a random thing with no way to mitigate it.
SiubhanDuinne
@Gravenstone:
It’s a good start.
p.a.
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Interesting, isn’t it. Noxin ?was evil but intelligent, tRump stupidevil, and stupidevil did (and continues to do) more damage than intelligently-directed evil. Different world, of course…
terraformer
@Betty Cracker:
Hear, hear. For this and so many other topics for which this maladministration had input and/or control.
We simply cannot sweep this under the rug, as is so often the wont of incoming administrations.
Nothing will change until people are held to account, especially (but not exclusively) the various rich a$$holes appointed to positions of power and authority – not by virtue of subject-matter expertise, but simply because they opened their wallets to make political contributions.
mrmoshpotato
@sab:
You wanted them to run the government like they had even the slightest care that it functioned? LOL
Ok, seriously, after gutting every department, or just not filling vacant posts from resignations, could it have even run well with a hands-off approach?
Fuckers. All of them.
Ruckus
@SiubhanDuinne:
With a very large and fully loaded semi truck. At full speed.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@p.a.:
Say what you will, but Dick Cheney would have been infinitely more successful at managing this pandemic.
mrmoshpotato
@Ruckus: I’m more partial to a 100+ car, fully-loaded freight train rocking along at full speed.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@p.a.: I also don’t remember Nixon needing to be center stage all the time.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
I can’t recall where we’ve intentionally killed as many people in a war, strictly to be popular and because we had zero ideas about anything else. I’m sure that we have but even in a war we didn’t actually want to kill them. I mean yes we wanted to kill Hitler because that would take out the main rational for them doing what they did and we wanted to stop them from continuing to do more damage. But we weren’t trying to kill our own people to get there either. Yes we knew a lot would die but we wanted to keep the number on both sides as low as possible to achieve the goal of ending the war. Conservatives wanted others to die to achieve a goal that is impossible with a virus. I don’t care where they went to school or their grades, humanity says they are fucking dangerous idiots.
Gravenstone
@SiubhanDuinne: I want his viral load to be so heavy, he’s basically guaranteed a one-way ticket to a respirator. Which will then be denied him, with much pomp and circumstance.
SiubhanDuinne
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
God help us, but you’re absolutely right.
Shit.
Central Planning
“…we need to establish herd…”
I wish these people knew a little bit of grammar. Wasn’t there a wingnut talking about Dolt45’s desire for the wall with that kind of wording, like “Trump wants wall, USA needs wall” or something like that?
scav
It’s not just the Covid deaths and the associated excess deaths to be laid to their account, but also the associated Covid long-haulers and the people still living with medical conditions worsened by inadequate access to medical care for nigh on a year. All of them. Quite a legacy.
schrodingers_cat
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: And his daughter has been one of the saner Rs in this shit show.
The Moar You Know
What disturbs me in particular about this is what was known about the virus months ago; herd immunity isn’t possible with COVID.
mali muso
Nuremburg trials. Get it all out in the open. Calling them “fuckers” is too nice.
Omnes Omnibus
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: @schrodingers_cat: Yes, and syphilis is better than AIDS. That doesn’t make it good.
mrmoshpotato
@mali muso: Yup. These fuckers were at Nuremberg-level trials even before this fucking virus (remember the other years of death and destruction).
rikyrah
Absolutely. Investigate the phuck outta these clowns.
laura
In a just world, that fucker Alexander should drown in a pit of hockenberry stew from his own covid shattered lungs in the gutter just outside a teaching hospital on his way to herd immunity.
mali muso
@mrmoshpotato: Yeah, there are layers upon layers. Utter evil all the way down.
Frankensteinbeck
@The Moar You Know:
I don’t recall ever hearing this. I recall many statements that we’re nowhere near herd immunity even in our most infected areas, and the level of death and horror required to reach herd immunity is far beyond what most people imagine.
Elizabelle
@sab: if only XXXX, “Trump probably would have been reelected.”
Not picking on you, but I honestly do not understand why Juicers amplify the GOP message here.
It is so goddamned tiresome.
gvg
Orphans. They have made orphans, with lost income. Children going to grow up poor because of the lost lives of adults. Not to mention I am pretty certain some child will be told you killed grandma by some careless jerk. Trump and company are just evil.
schrodingers_cat
What are Paul Alexander’s academic credentials? Is he a scientist or a physician
From Wikipedia
Alexander has a bachelor’s degree in epidemiology from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and a master’s degree from Oxford University.[1] In 2015 he earned a PhD degree from McMaster University’s Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact.[4][5]
The Thin Black Duke
@Elizabelle: Yes, it’s goddamned tiresome, but it’s true. The GOP knows that as long as they suppress the votes of black people, most white people will continue to vote for Republicans. As Kay wisely observed months ago, the election was going to be closer than it should have been because Republican voters always come home. Always.
Wag
@schrodingers_cat: So what you’re saying is he should have known better.
Geminid
@Elizabelle: I don’t think the commenter was amplifying any republican narrative. Biden’s election was not a certainty. And while trump shouldn’t have been reelected even if he had made a halfway competent response to Covid-19, I think the commenter was correct in saying that he could have been. Why shouldn’t she say that?
J R in WV
@Frankensteinbeck:
I recall learning that NO population has ever reached a situation of herd immunity without vaccination of the population for any contagious disease, from smallpox to polio etc, etc! The proportion of the population which needs to be vaccinated varies somewhat, but all diseases require vaccination to be overcome.
J R in WV
@schrodingers_cat:
From Wikipedia:
So he took the classes, passed the tests, wrote the papers, and was still pig ignorant of the subject at the end of all that work? Right?
ETA: and still can’t spell common, everyday words in important things he wrote!!!
Ksmiami
@Gravenstone: Covid likes this?
WaterGirl
@Bnad: watched the video. Wow. What’s a 3 percenter?
Bnad
@WaterGirl: Far right fringe group that falsely believes only 3% of colonial residents fought in the Revolutionary War, and that they themselves are the 3% that will fight in some future civil war.
The video struck a chord with me because the guy (who is not necessarily a 3%er) doesn’t seem like an insane Trumper, he’s reasonably well spoken, and sounds dead serious. Hoping that this guy and people like him find other ways of getting through this than trying to go to war.
Jay
@WaterGirl:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Percenters
sab
@Elizabelle: It is so@mrmoshpotato: I am thrilled that Trump didn’t get reelected, but meanwhile well over 200,000+ people died who needn’t have. I personally know some of their relatives. It is just so very very sad. This Christmas will be so hard for so many families, and they did not need to be in such pain.
And then there are the jobless families facing their own hardships and fears. For an economy pointlessly blown up. The virus started it, but Trump’s cronies incompetence also clobbered it.
That’s my point. He didn’t even need to fuck it up. All the mechanisms were in place to handle it. Painful but possible. But Trump had to be the center of attention. McConnell had to prove that he spends nothing for anyone, and here we are.
Ruckus
@sab:
Yes. Between a spoiled 5 yr old brat’s personality, demented, deranged asshole and a MF who believes basically the same racist crap and both of them are money grubbing assholes who’ve never earned a dime in their useless fucking lives at the levers of power and all they really want to do is fuck over everyone who’s not exactly as screwed up as they are, look at the damage they have managed to do. We need to look long and hard at the structure of our federal government and at our election laws and procedures. I’ve called for term limits here before and been chewed out up one side and down the other. And it is true that many of our finest politicians have stayed in office a long time and been extremely good during that time. But the country goes on, even as some of those long term people gain way too much power and control and people at the bottom get screwed royally. I’d rather that some one good had to retire after 20+ yrs or move from the house to the senate for example than one bad asshole such as turtle becomes way too powerful and fucks all of us, as he’s been doing and continues to do as long as he’s in power. (A question I have is how does he stay in power, what is he bringing to KY that keeps him in office? His popularity polls in the teens in KY and yet no one seems to be able to replace him.) Look at my own state, CA. We can’t seem to find a reasonable replacement for the oldest senator in the joint, who seems to be showing signs of dementia.
So I call, once again for REASONABLE term limits. 4 terms for the senate, that’s 24 yrs in office and 12 terms for house members, that’s 24 yrs as well. And 24 yrs in the Supreme Court. One could spend 48 yrs in national office in congress and that’s more than enough. Also the Supreme Ct should have a requirement that a person has served as a federal judge for some period of time, 6-10 yrs as a requirement for being selected. And we need better rules for the senate/house, that can not be just discarded at the whim of the majority leader. As it stands the rules are arcane and ignored as the leader sees fit. Fuck that, it’s our government, all of ours, it’s time the people we ask to run it for us actually do it for us, not to us.
Baudolino
Alexander will be doomed to spout shit his whole life, just like a horse’s ass.