All things political. Coronavirus Edition. (1 Viewer)

[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?

 

[SaintForLife]

Here's a nice little detail you overlooked:



Peter Thiel, alleged libertarian hero and heavy financial backer of many GOP politicians. You seem to think the government is collecting this information on their own. They aren't. This is one of the biggest capitalist/libertarians in the U.S. today simply giving, and then later selling, this data to the government.

Where is your outrage over that? I don't expect a response.

Yeah I saw that. Did you see me defending Thiel? You views of someone who said they are libertarian are beyond idiotic. You try to pigeonhole me into things based on your biases. Worry about yourself and stop trying to be the internet forum police.

 

[SaulGoodmanEsq]

Yeah I saw that. Did you see me defending Thiel? You views of someone who said they are libertarian are beyond idiotic. You try to pigeonhole me into things based on your biases. Worry about yourself and stop trying to be the internet forum police.

Anyway, the irony is you are complaining about the government action in this case when it is enabled by a right-leaning venture capitalist. If this truly bothers you I would recommend voting for Bernie next time.

 

[MT15]

I saw that report - but didn’t read it. Did the data actually identify individuals, or did it just provide the CDC with data that a certain number of people were moving around in certain places?

Also, if you use FaceBook, I’ve got news for you. (probably other sites as well). They track everything and sell your individual data to anyone willing to pay. So, yeah.

 

[BullSheetBuddha]

I saw that report - but didn’t read it. Did the data actually identify individuals, or did it just provide the CDC with data that a certain number of people were moving around in certain places?

Also, if you use FaceBook, I’ve got news for you. (probably other sites as well). They track everything and sell your individual data to anyone willing to pay. So, yeah.

They track EVERYTHING.

 

[MT15]

They track EVERYTHING.

Yes they do. I didn’t know until today the extent of what they track. I’m sure I still don’t know everything they are doing. Probably other apps are the same.

 

[BullSheetBuddha]

Yes they do. I didn’t know until today the extent of what they track. I’m sure I still don’t know everything they are doing. Probably other apps are the same.

My godson and I tried to see if they were tracking PMs? So we sent messages back and forth about steak, steak houses, steak knives, Wagyu beef, etc., etc. Nothing. No adds, no nothing. So at least they don't appear to be checking your Facebook PMs.

 

[MT15]

I don’t think this deserves its own thread - but it was a very interesting article as it relates to my field. This pathologist, if he did what his employees are saying, should lose his medical license. He purposefully did things nobody trained in laboratory science should ever do. He compromised patient results and it seems he also committed fraud. Just terrible. I wonder how many other totally unethical doctors are out there promoting these anti-vax ideas?

 

[Optimus Prime]

Trump and many of the GOPs response to covid alone should have made their names mud to the American people

In a looooong list of “is this the thing? Is this the thing that turns his/their base against them?”

Covid response really should have been the thing

But of course, like everything else on the list it wasn’t
==============

On Feb. 14, 2020, President Donald Trump spoke to a White House audience about the virus then engulfing Wuhan, China. “We have a very small number of people in the country, right now, with it,” he said. “It’s like around 12. Many of them are getting better. Some are fully recovered already. So we’re in very good shape.”

But we weren’t in good shape. A little more than two years later, the United States is passing the ghastly milestone of at least 1 million deaths from the pandemic virus, and still counting.


This marks the gravest public health disaster in a century, outstripping all the combat deaths in both world wars, Vietnam and Korea. Largely because of the pandemic, life expectancy in the United States declined 2.39 years, the greatest fall in eight decades.

The disease caused by the coronavirus became a leading cause of death all through the pandemic, and as recently as January, more people age 15 and older died of covid than of cancer.

In addition, the pandemic is leaving lasting personal scars, including long covid and mental health troubles in years ahead.


The death toll is just one part of a truly catastrophic chapter in American history. The pandemic also tore at the nation’s social fabric, sent shock waves through the economy and caused widespread disruption in schooling and careers.

It brought unimaginable sadness: families and loved ones suddenly bereft; the deaths of so many people all alone, without a warm hand to hold; the bewildering arbitrariness of infection. The costs were heavy, the wounds deep and lasting.

Who were the 1 million lost? They were predominantly old: Almost 75 percent were 65 or older; only 4.2 percent were younger than 45. In the first year, 1 in 5 died in a nursing home or long-term-care facility. In about 90 percent of the 1 million deaths, covid was listed as the underlying cause; for the remainder, a contributing cause.

The victims were more likely to be blue-collar workers, in food and agriculture, health care, factories and transportation, studies suggest. Those who died were more often living in poorer U.S. counties.

African Americans and Hispanic Americans suffered deaths somewhat disproportionate to their share of the population; they also suffered marked drops in life expectancy in the first year of the pandemic, and once again were disadvantaged by long-festering inequity in access to health care…….

The United States suffered more deaths per capita than the other major Western democracies. It was not supposed to be this way. The October 2019 Global Health Security Index rated the United States as the most prepared nation in the world for a pandemic.

Yet when one happened, the U.S. response was abysmal, with patients waiting in ambulances parked outside overflowing hospitals and health-care workers in New York City donning garbage bags for protection. We were not a shining example.


How could this have happened? A major unforeseen factor was not health care, but leadership and public confidence. Mr. Trump’s response during the first year was reckless and impetuous: championing drugs ineffective for covid such as hydroxychloroquine, encouraging Americans to throw off restrictions long before it was prudent and sloughing off responsibility to the states.

Over the course of the pandemic, the debates over lifting restrictions, wearing masks and taking vaccines were utterly politicized. Public confidence was also eroded by confusing and shifting communications from politicians and public health authorities.

Trust is fragile and, once broken, hard to regain. What would happen today if another threatening variant emerged — perhaps evading vaccines — and the public was urged to put the masks back on? Would we?……….

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/09/million-american-covid-deaths-preventable/

 

[Optimus Prime]

One of the comments from the above article

Is a commission going to look into Trump supporting conservogelicals who avoided vaccines and masks because they thought it made liberals mad?

In many cases, it wasn't even about vaccine hesitancy - they had other vaccines. It wasn't even about a fear of the medical system - they hightailed it to the hospital at the first sign of symptoms.

It was because they thought they were pissing off liberals, Democrats, progressives (all "socialists" in their book) and somewhere, on some level, they thought "owning the libs" was more important than living. Living.

What kind of mentality is that? How do you reach people who would actually, literally rather die than agree with Democrats?

 

[BullSheetBuddha]

Question stands... Why such the uproar over a virus with an (out of context) 97% survival rate, and an 80% rate of recovery with little to no special treatment?

I know the answer... I just want to hear (read) someone else say (write) it.

Because the effect it has had on the world is dramatic.

For example:

How Covid-19 Transformed the U.S. Economy​

April 29, 2022, 10:00 AM EDT
Covid-19 arrived as an emergency. It’s turned into a catalyst for lasting economic change.
The pandemic now in its third year has redrawn the map of the U.S. economy, reshuffled its labor force, and reupped the toolkit available to its policy makers. All of those shifts appear likely to outlast the health crisis that triggered them.
American workers are on the move, as the economy tilts away from its historic coastal strongholds. They’re also more likely to be found at home during office hours, after a remote-work revolution.
Companies are scrambling to hire—but they’re investing in machines too, with automation and e-commerce gaining ground. Entrepreneurship is on the rise. Politicians have discovered the power of direct payments, which shored up household and business finances in the pandemic, and may be back next time there’s a downturn. Consumers are grappling with the biggest jump in the cost of living for generations.
What all of this means for already-sharp income and wealth divides is a key question for the post-pandemic era. The richest have pulled further ahead. Work-from-home advantages skew to educated professionals. Low-income workers are winning pay raises in a tight labor market—but inflation is eating away at their gains.

State-by-State​

How unemployment rates have differed by state over the past two years
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

One thing is clear: there’s no going back to the American economy as it was in early 2020 when Covid hit.

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-us-economy-pandemic-recovery/

 

[Optimus Prime]

I remember all the stories about the meat shortages
==================================

Trump officials “collaborated” with the meatpacking industry to downplay the threat of Covid to plant workers and block public health measures which could have saved lives, a damning new investigation has found.

Internal documents reviewed by the congressional Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis reveal how industry representatives lobbied government officials to stifle “pesky” health departments from imposing evidence-based safety measures to curtail the virus spreading – and tried to obscure worker deaths from these authorities.

At least 59,000 workers at five of the largest meatpacking companies – Tyson Foods, JBS USA Holdings, Smithfield Foods, Cargill, and National Beef Packing Company which are the subject of the congressional inquiry – contracted Covid in the first year of the pandemic, of whom at least 269 died.

According to internal communications, the companies were warned about workers and their families falling sick within weeks of the virus hitting the US.

Despite this, company representatives enlisted industry-friendly Trump appointees at the USDA to fight their battles against Covid regulations and oversight.

In addition, company executives intentionally stoked fears about meat shortages in order to justify continuing to operate the plants under dangerous conditions.

The fears were baseless – there were no meat shortages in the US, while exports to China hit record highs.........

Yet in April 2020, Trump issued an executive order invoking the Defense Production Act to keep meat plants open following a flurry of communication between the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, the vice president’s office, USDA allies and company executives..............

Trump officials and meat firms blocked life saving Covid controls, investigation finds

 

[BullSheetBuddha]

"North Korea admits it has an outbreak of covid-19

An unvaccinated population and minimal health infrastructure spell disaster​

(Updated May 14th 2022)
FOR MORE than two years, North Korea insisted that its border controls had kept covid-19 out of the country even as it devastated most of the rest of the globe. No longer. On May 12th state media said that the country had recorded its first cases of the Omicron variant a few days earlier. Pyongyang was locked down on May 10th.

Even for a country accustomed to bad news, the outbreak is disastrous. North Korea’s response to the pandemic was to close itself off from the world, reduce imports to a trickle and impose domestic travel restrictions. While other countries rushed to vaccinate their people, North Korea gambled that it could ride out the storm. It repeatedly declined offers of vaccines from China, Russia and covax, a un-backed global effort to supply shots to poor countries. The leadership was reluctant to allow health workers into the country, for fear they might spread the virus or gather information about the dire conditions inside the closed dictatorship. It may have been spooked by rumours of doubts about the safety of the vaccine made by AstraZeneca, offered through covax.

Whatever the reasons for the vaccine hesitancy, the approach always looked dubious. There was no guarantee that the virus would evolve to be less dangerous over time, rather than become more infectious and harder to manage, as turned out to be the case. China’s pursuit of a zero-covid strategy was designed to buy time while it vaccinated its population. Though the North Korean leadership blamed those tasked with keeping the virus out for their “carelessness, laxity, irresponsibility and incompetence”, the real folly was the leadership’s failure to set up a vaccination programme in the time it had bought.

North Koreans will now suffer the consequences. Omicron is not especially dangerous in vaccinated populations, but still deadly for the immunologically naive. Hong Kong, which had a poor vaccination rate among the elderly when the variant hit, is a case in point. In late January its death toll stood at 205. Within two months it had climbed to nearly 8,000 after an Omicron outbreak spread like wildfire.

North Korea is likely to do even worse. The impoverished dictatorship lacks the testing and tracing infrastructure that other countries have built over the past two years. Its health-care sector suffered from serious underinvestment even before the pandemic. It does not have enough equipment and medical staff. Hospitals do not have regular power, clean water or proper sanitation. Two years of closed borders have depleted supplies of medicine, much of which is imported. It is unclear how much oxygen or how many ventilators the country has available. And pre-existing conditions make North Koreans especially susceptible to covid-19. Tuberculosis, which worsens the effects of the virus, is rampant. So is malnutrition."

https://www.economist.com/asia/2022/05/14/north-korea-admits-it-has-an-outbreak-of-covid-19

 

[MT15]

This is a really good graphical overview of the pandemic. Extremely well done, I really hope it isn’t behind a pay wall:

How America Lost One Million People (Published 2022)

Understanding the death toll — who makes up the one million and how the country failed them — is essential as the pandemic continues.

www.nytimes.com

 

[el caliente]

This is a really good graphical overview of the pandemic. Extremely well done, I really hope it isn’t behind a pay wall:

How America Lost One Million People (Published 2022)

Understanding the death toll — who makes up the one million and how the country failed them — is essential as the pandemic continues.

www.nytimes.com

Unfortunately it is behind a pay wall.

 

[MT15]

Here are some of the graphs:

 

[MT15]

No region did worse than the South:

 

[Optimus Prime]

The US’s top infectious disease expert has said he would resign if Donald Trump retakes the presidency in 2024.

Dr Anthony Fauci bluntly said “no” when CNN’s Jim Acosta asked him during an interview on Sunday if he would want to stay on as the director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases in the event that voters gave Trump a second stint as president……

Fauci says he will resign if Trump retakes the presidency in 2024

Fauci said ‘no’ when asked if he would stay on as National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases director under Trump again

www.theguardian.com

 

[el caliente]

The US’s top infectious disease expert has said he would resign if Donald Trump retakes the presidency in 2024.

Dr Anthony Fauci bluntly said “no” when CNN’s Jim Acosta asked him during an interview on Sunday if he would want to stay on as the director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases in the event that voters gave Trump a second stint as president……

Fauci says he will resign if Trump retakes the presidency in 2024

Fauci said ‘no’ when asked if he would stay on as National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases director under Trump again

www.theguardian.com

That’s cool and all, but what’s he doing now that would cause any incoming President from wanting to work with him? The death tolls are still climbing, and while Presidents have changed, the one constant has been Dr. Fauci.

I’m not saying he is doing a bad job. I’m not saying that he is doing a good job. I’m just saying that the death toll didn’t stop when Trump left office. Why wouldn’t you want to get a fresh set of ideas in place to replace Fauci?