All things political. Coronavirus Edition. (16 Viewers)

[Maxp]

I fear we are really going to be in a bad place due to the obvious cuts to the federal agencies that deal with infectious disease, but also the negative effect the Affordable Care act has had on non urban hospitals. Our front line defenses are ineffectual and our ability to treat the populous is probably at an all time low. Factor in the cost of healthcare and I can see our system crashing. What do you think about the politics of this virus?

 

[Archies Ghost]

... as the political ping pong and the virus-handling cluster**** continues, I was reading some stuff about WWII... I read that between 1941 and 1945, the U.S. produced just about 300,000 aircraft. Aircraft. And here we are, 2020, with computers and robots, and we can't produce enough ventilators, masks, toilet paper...

... indeed, the greatest generation.

However, the United States was also woefully unprepared for WWII. FDR had to keep the United States out of the war for two years while production and military training got up to speed.

Had the Japanese forced the US into the war earlier they would have had better results although, in the end, the United States likely still prevails.

In terms of WWII, we are in January, 1940. Britain was fighting alone against Germany. Russia was still allied to Germany. Japan was raping China and subjugating its neighbors and the US was just starting to wake up.

U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the 1940 State of the Union Address to Congress. "In previous messages to the Congress I have repeatedly warned that, whether we like it or not, the daily lives of American citizens will, of necessity, feel the shock of events on other continents. This is no longer mere theory; because it has been definitely proved to us by the facts of yesterday and today," the president said. He asked the Congress to approve increased national defense spending "based not on panic but on common sense" and "to levy sufficient additional taxes" to help pay for it.

 

[DJ1BigTymer]

However, the United States was also woefully unprepared for WWII. FDR had to keep the United States out of the war for two years while production and military training got up to speed.

Had the Japanese forced the US into the war earlier they would have had better results although, in the end, the United States likely still prevails.

In terms of WWII, we are in January, 1940. Britain was fighting alone against Germany. Russia was still allied to Germany. Japan was raping China and subjugating its neighbors and the US was just starting to wake up.

What does any of this have to do with the lack of toilet paper???

 

[First Time Poster]

So it seems as if the AA community will be particularly devastated by C19. Of the reliable data we are getting, it seems the black community is disproportionately being affected more than others. Calls are beginning to increase for state and federal governments to properly track and release racial data in Covid cases so more reliable data can be gathered to properly ascertain the validity of the findings. The usual suspects seem to be in play for the disproportion. We're less likely to be insured. We are more likely to hold jobs that can't/don't provide the opportunity to work from home. Less wages and less wealth means less money for healthcare. We are more likely to be victims of implicit racial bias in testing. We are less healthy as a community and many of our underlying conditions will contribute to complications with infection. Disheartening.

African Americans may be dying from COVID-19 at a higher rate. Advocates are demanding data.

"Our ability to fully understand and confront this pandemic requires and demands that we obtain racial data now," one advocate said.

www.google.com

In Chicago, a recent report found that 70 percent of people who died from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, are black — even though the city's population is just 30 percent black.

In Milwaukee County, which is 27 percent black, the figure is 81 percent.

And public health officials tracking the coronavirus have seen similar disproportionate impacts on African Americans in Philadelphia, Detroit and other cities.

Chicago’s coronavirus disparity: Black Chicagoans are dying at nearly six times the rate of white residents, data show

Black Chicagoans are dying from the coronavirus at a rate higher than any other racial demographic, public records show.

www.google.com

Black Chicagoans are dying from the coronavirus at a rate higher than any other racial demographic, public records show, a reflection of the deadly consequences that economically disadvantaged communities have faced for generations.

About 68% of the city’s deaths have involved African Americans, who make up only about 30% of Chicago’s total population, according to an examination of data from the Cook County medical examiner’s office and the Chicago Department of Public Health. The sobering statistics suggest black Chicagoans are dying at a rate nearly six times greater than white residents.

Indeed, some of the hardest hit communities on the South and West sides have struggled with unemployment and health care access for generations. As a result, residents have higher baseline rates of diabetes, heart disease, lung disease and high blood pressure — the chronic conditions that make the coronavirus even more deadly.

Even before the pandemic, these chronic conditions attributed to a life-expectancy gap in the city. On average, white Chicagoans live nine years longer than black residents, with half of the disparity due to chronic illnesses and smoking rates in black communities, public health officials said.

Black Americans Face Alarming Rates of Coronavirus Infection in Some States (Published 2020)

Data on race and the coronavirus is too limited to draw sweeping conclusions, experts say, but disparate rates of sickness — and death — have emerged in some places.

www.google.com

In Louisiana, one of the states most devastated by the coronavirus, about 70 percent of the people who have died are African-American, officials announced on Monday, though only a third of the state’s population is black.

Data on the race of Americans who have been sickened by the coronavirus has only been made public in a handful of places, and it is too limited at this point, experts say, to make sweeping conclusions about the national or long-term picture. But day by day, the emerging statistics show black residents being infected at disturbing rates in some of the nation’s largest cities and states.

The racial disparities in coronavirus cases and outcomes, public health researchers said, reflect what happens when a viral pandemic is layered on top of entrenched inequalities.

The data emerging in some places, researchers said, is partly explained by factors that could make black Americans more vulnerable in any outbreak: They are less likely to be insured, more likely to have existing health conditions and, as a result of implicit racial bias, more likely to be denied testing and treatment. And then, the researchers said, there is the highly infectious nature of the coronavirus in a society where black Americans disproportionately hold jobs that do not allow them to stay at home.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/government-urged-to-release-race-ethnicity-data-on-covid-19-cases/2020/04/06/7891aba0-7827-11ea-b6ff-597f170df8f8_story.html?outputType=amp

A civil rights group and hundreds of doctors are calling on the federal government to release race and ethnicity data on coronavirus infections and deaths from covid-19, citing reports that the pandemic is affecting African Americans at a disproportionate rate.

The information is necessary to “better inform a robust public health response in the Black community” and to “ensure COVID-19 tests are not being administered or withheld in a racially discriminatory manner,” says a letter sent to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

The letter also points to provisions in federal civil rights laws and the Affordable Care Act that prohibit health-care providers “from using federal funds to administer healthcare services that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or national origin.”

Edit: To add, I just came across this story. There is a real fear in the AA community of going out in masks. Sigh.

Why some people of color say they won’t wear homemade masks | CNN

The CDC’s mask guidance is an example of heterogeneous effects, one scholar says: “Clearly, there are additional costs that blacks must consider when choosing what protective gear they will wear.”

www.cnn.com

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now recommending that all Americans wear homemade face coverings in public to help stem the spread of coronavirus.

But Trevor Logan, an economics professor at Ohio State University, will not be following this guidance.

"We have a lot of examples of the presumed criminality of black men in general," Logan, who is black, told CNN. "And then we have the advice to go out in public in something that ... can certainly be read as being criminal or nefarious, particularly when applied to black men."

Logan is not alone in his concerns. On social media and in interviews with CNN, a number of people of color — activists, academics and ordinary Americans — expressed fears that homemade masks could exacerbate racial profiling and place blacks and Latinos in danger.

 

[Archies Ghost]

What does any of this have to do with the lack of toilet paper???

Is your inability to correlate information a recent development or have you always been this way?

 

[Intensesaint]

High Blood Pressure Among Black People

The American Heart Association helps explain why being Black raises your chances of having high blood pressure, also called hypertension.

www.heart.org

I realize you're(First Time Poster) trying to make this political and racial, but the truth of the matter is that COVID-19 is more devastating to those with high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes. All are much more prevalent in African Americans.

 

[The moose]

I have a cousin that is a truck driver. Was talking to him the other night because he is everywhere.

He lives in rural Georgia has a wife and three kids. Work is insane right now you can get just about whatever you ask.

The thing that is flooring him is the rest of the world acts like nothing is wrong. Said diners, truck stops, and everything is like normal in the rural world and scares the crap out of him.

He said he only leaves the truck to work only. Carries enough food and stuff for days to survive.

He is fearful that people in his line of work are gonna spread this everywhere.

 

[First Time Poster]

High Blood Pressure Among Black People

The American Heart Association helps explain why being Black raises your chances of having high blood pressure, also called hypertension.

www.heart.org

I realize you're(First Time Poster) trying to make this political and racial, but the truth of the matter is that COVID-19 is more devastating to those with high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes. All are much more prevalent in African Americans.

This is a classic example of not making assumptions about a poster or a post. Because neither my words or post reflect anything that you are inferring.

You must have missed this part:

We are less healthy as a community and many of our underlying conditions will contribute to complications with infection. Disheartening.

I'm a black man and I'm commenting in a thread about C19 on how C19 is seemingly disproportionately affecting my community. You do understand what disproportionate means in this context right? I went into reasons as to why we are disproportionately affected but I didn't opine on why. For instance, we are less insured. Fact. Which is what I stated. Why are less insured? That...would be political or racial commentary, of which I didn't offer. We are less healthy. Fact. Why are we less healthy as a community? Understand?

But, here is a better question. If from my post a discussion on these socio-economic factors is had, why is that an issue? Why is a conversation on those things inherently bad in your eyes? Hmm, something to consider.

 

[The moose]

High Blood Pressure Among Black People

The American Heart Association helps explain why being Black raises your chances of having high blood pressure, also called hypertension.

www.heart.org

I realize you're(First Time Poster) trying to make this political and racial, but the truth of the matter is that COVID-19 is more devastating to those with high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes. All are much more prevalent in African Americans.

Yes African Americans and the poor in general are gonna have serious problems with the coronavirus.

I don't know how the rest of the nation is but New Orleans one in five families don't own a vehicle or have access to one so public transportation is used. Public transportation is exactly how this spreads in big cities quickly. New York and Chicago the number is much higher.

The thing is poor people live much closer to each other because of cost and usually with more people per home.

Poor people have by far worse diets it is ungodly expensive to really eat healthy.

Poor people are underinsured if at all so yes they have underlying conditions they can't afford to take care of.

So yes the deck is stacked against the poor and minorities just like with everything else in the world.

 

[Dragon]

Trump effectively ousts the top watchdog for the $2 trillion in virus relief.

President Trump moved on Tuesday to oust the leader of a new panel of watchdogs charged with overseeing how his administration spends trillions of taxpayer dollars in coronavirus pandemic relief.

The official, Glenn A. Fine, has been the acting Defense Department inspector general since before Mr. Trump took office. Last week, an umbrella group of agency inspectors general across the executive branch named him the chairman of a new Pandemic Response Accountability Committee with control of an $80 million budget to police how the government carries out the $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-watchdog-glenn-fine.html

What could possible go wrong...

 

[FullMonte]

Trump is being criticized because of his beliefs that this would be no worse than the seasonal flu and he has convinced his most ardent supporters that is indeed the case.

He's also being criticized, and rightfully so, for his repeated statements that either have been shown to be false or that are contradicted by his own medical experts. It's a horrible time to try and work with the government when there are multiple messages coming that contradict each other
--Trump says that Chloroquine was fast tracked for approval by the FDA and that it would be available soon
(Truth - The FDA had not approved Chloroquine for use. They have now, apparently, approved it for compassionate use)
--Trump says that a vaccine will be available in a few months.
(Truth - Fauci immediately corrected Trump that a vaccine would likely be available for testing in a few months, but wouldn't be deployable for a year to a year and a half. Moments later, a drug manufacturer said that their vaccine was looking good, and that they would be testing in a few months. Trump said, "So you're saying you'll have a vaccine in a few months?")
--Trump says that patients taking Chloroquine for Lupus have not contracted COVID-19
(Truth - patients all over the world who are taking Chlorquine have contracted COVID-19)
--(My personal favorite) Trump says that he is taking care of veterans, because he got VA Choice passed when the VA has been trying to get it passed for decades.
(Truth - Trump has been telling this lie for a year and a half, and he's told it hundreds of times. The truth is that VA Choice was created, in part, by John McCain, and it was signed into law by Obama in 2014)
--Trump says that no one should be tested unless they are showing symptoms because of the shortage of test kits
(Truth - Trump made this claim at a briefing shortly before saying that he was tested the night before even though he didn't have any symptoms)
--Trump says that the CDC is recommending people wear cloth face coverings to help protect themselves.
(Trump then repeatedly explains what "voluntary" means, and sets a good example by saying he's not going to follow that advice)

These are just a few of the many many wonderful things Trump has said that are either demonstrably false or that contradict the advice of his own medical professionals.

He is also being criticized for the way his administration is working to handle this. One example was members of his administration were contacting other countries to ask if they could help supply us with medical equipment. At the same time, other departments were actually sending that same equipment to the same countries we were asking to help us out. At one point, the head of FEMA (I think it was) said that he didn't know what was going on, so he wasn't sure how to proceed. He put Mike Pence in charge of the Coronavirus Task Force which seems to be making serious efforts to work towards the best outcome for the country...and he also put Jared Kushner in charge of another Coronavirus Task Force that is meeting in secret and communicating via private emails so there is no oversight.

Oh..and speaking of oversight...He has now fired the Inspector General who was in charge of overseeing the spending on the 2 trillion dollar stiumulus bill that was just passed....so, he now has a 2 trillion dollar checkbook and no one is watching how he spends it.

 

[Beach Friends]

This is a classic example of not making assumptions about a poster or a post. Because neither my words or post reflect anything that you are inferring.

You must have missed this part:



I'm a black man and I'm commenting in a thread about C19 on how C19 is seemingly disproportionately affecting my community. You do understand what disproportionate means in this context right? I went into reasons as to why we are disproportionately affected but I didn't opine on why. For instance, we are less insured. Fact. Which is what I stated. Why are less insured? That...would be political or racial commentary, of which I didn't offer. We are less healthy. Fact. Why are we less healthy as a community? Understand?

But, here is a better question. If from my post a discussion on these socio-economic factors is had, why is that an issue? Why is a conversation on those things inherently bad in your eyes? Hmm, something to consider.

Well, you did mention implicit racial bias in testing, and there was a statement about Obamacare's mandate for non discrimination, and an article about black people feeling reluctant about wearing masks.

Maybe it's just not possible to discuss fully without it getting political.

And, maybe it's not possible to discuss fully without getting into cultural aspects.

The other day I saw a video of New Orleans residents having a party in the streets - seemingly in response to the corona virus. They were black, but I didn't see that as the defining characteristic that led them to that response. To me, that looked like a New Orleanian response. A population that gets through good times and bad in much the same way - by enjoying being a community that is known for being more carefree than the rest of the nation. But, those attitudes have to be taken into account when evaluating the spread of this virus. (And that exampler may have been an outlier. I am not in NOLA so I can't say).

 

[SystemShock]

However, the United States was also woefully unprepared for WWII.

Given the snippet you quoted from FDR, he didn't sound like he was "woefully unprepared".

Had the Japanese forced the US into the war earlier they would have had better results although, in the end, the United States likely still prevails.

And had the Germans not go into the USSR and left the Western Front as thin as they did... and if my uncle ...

... and the spreadsheet with the number of troops is cute and all... but is not germane to the point.

But here is the point: it was the 1940's. No computers to run thousands of simulations per minute, not robotized production lines, no instantaneous information, no real time 4K satellite images downloaded to cell phones... and yet, under FDR's leadership, airplanes alone, the U.S. churned 300,000 units... in the freaking 1940's.

And no, we are not in the equivalent of 1940, unless we are Poland. We have proven to have no leadership on this matter, to be ill prepared, and are now running like headless chickens.

 

[Optimus Prime]

A top White House adviser starkly warned Trump administration officials in late January that the coronavirus crisis could cost the United States trillions of dollars and put millions of Americans at risk of illness or death.

The warning, written in a memo by Peter Navarro, President Trump’s trade adviser, is the highest-level alert known to have circulated inside the West Wing as the administration was taking its first substantive steps to confront a crisis that had already consumed China’s leaders and would go on to upend life in Europe and the United States.

“The lack of immune protection or an existing cure or vaccine would leave Americans defenseless in the case of a full-blown coronavirus outbreak on U.S. soil,” Mr. Navarro’s memo said. “This lack of protection elevates the risk of the coronavirus evolving into a full-blown pandemic, imperiling the lives of millions of Americans.”

Dated Jan. 29, it came during a period when Mr. Trump was playing down the risks to the United States, and he would later go on to say that no one could have predicted such a devastating outcome.

Mr. Navarro said in the memo that the administration faced a choice about how aggressive to be in containing an outbreak, saying the human and economic costs would be relatively low if it turned out to be a problem along the lines of a seasonal flu.

But he went on to emphasize that the “risk of a worst-case pandemic scenario should not be overlooked” given the information coming from China.

In one worst-case scenario cited in the memo, more than a half-million Americans could die.

A second memo that Mr. Navarro wrote, dated Feb. 23, warned of an “increasing probability of a full-blown COVID-19 pandemic that could infect as many as 100 million Americans, with a loss of life of as many as 1.2 million souls.”.........................

Trade Adviser Warned White House in January of Risks of a Pandemic (Published 2020)

A memo from Peter Navarro is the most direct warning known to have circulated at a key moment among top administration officials.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Archies Ghost]

Given the snippet you quoted from FDR, he didn't sound like he was "woefully unprepared".


And had the Germans not go into the USSR and left the Western Front as thin as they did... and if my uncle ...

... and the spreadsheet with the number of troops is cute and all... but is not germane to the point.

But here is the point: it was the 1940's. No computers to run thousands of simulations per minute, not robotized production lines, no instantaneous information, no real time 4K satellite images downloaded to cell phones... and yet, under FDR's leadership, airplanes alone, the U.S. churned 300,000 units... in the freaking 1940's.

And no, we are not in the equivalent of 1940, unless we are Poland. We have proven to have no leadership on this matter, to be ill prepared, and are now running like headless chickens.

My point was that even the greatest generation was no where near ready even though it was very obvious for years WWII was coming.

FDR was aware of the threat but, as he often expressed to Churchill, he was confined by our system of government. Churchill tried desperately to prepare England and was driven out of government only to be recalled to service when the emergency he tried to prevent was upon England in full force.

It is the nature of the United States and democracies in general to be unprepared.

The United States can be woefully unprepared but, given time, can react with overwhelming capacity.

That is the stage the United States is in now. Unprepared for a large number of hospital cases, we are buying time in order to respond.

In WWII, we had oceans that bought us huge amounts of time to spool up production. We took what we learned from Henry Ford and turned out some amazing production rates. Willow Run in Ypsilanti, Michigan produced one B-24 bomber every hour at its peak of production in 1944. However, that peak did not occur until over two years after Pearl Harbor. 2700 Liberty ships were built in 4 years. The first, "SS Patrick Henry" launched by FDR on 27 September 1941, took 244 days to build. That dropped to 42 days but it didn't happen overnight.

We don't really have that sort of time in this case and the virus is more likely to burn itself out before production of necessary items really gets spooled up.

What we do have now that we didn't have then are government regulations preventing speeding up production.

Computers do not make things. They only process the instructions given them.

The fact that the US is unprepared is not surprising. It really is to be expected. However, we are not nearly as bad off as other countries with different cultures and systems of government.

Personally, I do not feel compelled to lay blame anywhere here. This fits the historic pattern and we are unlikely to ever really change how that works without destroying the freedom we should want to preserve more than our desire to prepare for worst case scenarios.

 

[zztop]

Given the snippet you quoted from FDR, he didn't sound like he was "woefully unprepared".


And had the Germans not go into the USSR and left the Western Front as thin as they did... and if my uncle ...

... and the spreadsheet with the number of troops is cute and all... but is not germane to the point.

But here is the point: it was the 1940's. No computers to run thousands of simulations per minute, not robotized production lines, no instantaneous information, no real time 4K satellite images downloaded to cell phones... and yet, under FDR's leadership, airplanes alone, the U.S. churned 300,000 units... in the freaking 1940's.

And no, we are not in the equivalent of 1940, unless we are Poland. We have proven to have no leadership on this matter, to be ill prepared, and are now running like headless chickens.

Nobody said we've gotten smarter or better since the 1940s
Actually I'd argue we're going full-on towards idocracy level of stupidity

 

[Eeyore]

Trump effectively ousts the top watchdog for the $2 trillion in virus relief.


https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-watchdog-glenn-fine.html

What could possible go wrong...

Nobody could have predicted that. At least, not another politician. He's going to steal so much that money won't have value when he's done.

 

[DJ1BigTymer]

Is your inability to correlate information a recent development or have you always been this way?

Lighten up Francis...it was a joke.

 

[coldseat]

This is a classic example of not making assumptions about a poster or a post. Because neither my words or post reflect anything that you are inferring.

You must have missed this part:



I'm a black man and I'm commenting in a thread about C19 on how C19 is seemingly disproportionately affecting my community. You do understand what disproportionate means in this context right? I went into reasons as to why we are disproportionately affected but I didn't opine on why. For instance, we are less insured. Fact. Which is what I stated. Why are less insured? That...would be political or racial commentary, of which I didn't offer. We are less healthy. Fact. Why are we less healthy as a community? Understand?

But, here is a better question. If from my post a discussion on these socio-economic factors is had, why is that an issue? Why is a conversation on those things inherently bad in your eyes? Hmm, something to consider.

Don't expect Republicans in this thread or elsewhere to actually care about this disparity. You may hear lip service from a few, but that's about how far the concern goes. Most will just blame the black community for it and not care.

This, just like every other malady in America was always going to affect POC more. But the degree to which it is, is effecting communities of color is striking and heart breaking.