A community thread for discussing the coronavirus as it intersects with the Trump administration.
How about maps of disease spread? Especially one that distinguishes cases contracted elsewhere v. Person-to-person spread. Thus far, CDC is claiming there are not Person-to-person cases, which, WHEN that starts in the US, will be a whole new ball game. I love graphic info. I also think a separate catagory might be a good idea after all. Itâs gonna be yooooooge.
Oops, first report of person-to-person in the US. Game on.
More on preparedness for the onset of Coronavirus.
Public-health officialsâ warnings about the coronavirus are sounding increasingly urgent, with one top CDC official asking the public yesterday âto prepare for the expectation that this might be bad.â
Reality check: Other administration officials, including President Trump himself, were more subdued in their assessments. But underneath those tonal differences, the reality of the coronavirus is the same: It spreads quickly, and has already spread to many countries, making it likely to start spreading here, too.
Where it stands: There are now cases piling up across Asia and into the Middle East, where itâs also spreading locally, even from people who werenât exposed in China. As the virus itself spreads and as American travelers can encounter it in more places, the risk of a pandemic rises.
- Financial markets are already braced for the worst; the S&P 500 fell by 3.4% yesterday as fears of the virus widened.
- So far, though, there are only about 50 confirmed cases of coronavirus inside the U.S., and most of those people were exposed to the virus abroad.
Yes, but: There may already be more American cases than we know about. The CDCâs diagnostic tests for the virus have malfunctioned, and only about a dozen state and local health agencies even have them.
- The CDC is working on a new one, but in the meantime, the U.S. has only tested some 426 people for the virus.
- âWe still do not know when the CDC kit replacements will come out ⌠it doesnât feel like a good place to be,â Scott Becker, chief executive officer of the Association of Public Health Laboratories, told the Wall Street Journal.
You do not need to start panicking about coronavirus, at least not yet.
- The best ways to avoid getting the coronavirus are the same things youâd do to avoid getting the flu: Wash your hands, and stay away from work, school or other crowded places if youâre sick.
- If a pandemic does begin in the U.S., some businesses may want to embrace telework; schools may ultimately need to cancel classes; and local governments may want to reschedule large events, the CDCâs Nancy Messonnier said.
- âI understand this situation may seem overwhelming and that disruption to everyday life may be severe, but these are things that people need to start thinking about now,â she said.
Whatâs next: The White House is asking Congress for $2.5 billion to combat the virus, though even some Republican senators were unhappy with a briefing yesterday about the federal response, per the Washington Post.
- The National Institutes of Health is working on a vaccine. That will still take a year or more, âeven at rocket speed,â the NIHâs Anthony Fauci said yesterday â but the coronavirus could stick around next flu season, too.
- Hospitals rarely keep on hand the large quantities of protective gear theyâd need to deal with a pandemic. Obtaining those supplies will be another challenge.
Be smart: Public-health experts told me in the early days of the Chinese outbreak that the smart thing to do was to prepare for the worst, and now the CDC is sounding that alarm, as well.
- Thereâs not much you yourself can or should do right now â but some degree of outbreak has always been pretty likely and keeps looking more likely.
And a reminder donât forget to get a flu shot-
Thanks for starting this thread, @Huddy! I think we can sufficiently keep things tidy in this thread for the time being. In general, I want to try and keep this conversation at the intersection of coronavirus x Trump administration response.
Cross-reference under immigration. With a potential pandemic looming, this is NOT good.
https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1221511119958769664
Also related:
https://twitter.com/JeremyKonyndyk/status/1232072095494000642
https://twitter.com/JeremyKonyndyk/status/1232072099419820032
https://twitter.com/JeremyKonyndyk/status/1232295696222560258
President Trump held a news conference to provide an update on the coronavirus outbreak.
This is a good graphicâŚwith comparisons of various influenza - Swine, Ebola, SARS etc. Spanish Flu. Might just put it in perspectiveâŚit is linked to WHO but not created by itâŚ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dDD2tHWWnU&t=
Not a T related intersection, but informative.
https://twitter.com/minhtngo/status/1232833555304079360
T backers are sure this is a conspiracy against T to bring him down. WTF
Trump backers see a coronavirus conspiracy
CDC official who raised fears turns out to be Rod Rosensteinâs sister, setting off MAGA-world alarms._
Some supporters of President Donald Trump see a threat bigger than the spread of a highly contagious novel coronavirus: a conspiracy by âdeep stateâ actors to use the virus against the president.
One key piece of evidence fueling their theory: A Centers for Disease Control official making public statements on the outbreak is the sister of Rod Rosenstein, the former deputy attorney general who oversaw the Mueller probe and, according to a disputed report, once discussed removing Trump from office.
Dr. Nancy Messonnier, head of the CDCâs National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases â who got a shoutout from her brother for attending his 2017 confirmation hearing â warned Americans in a Tuesday media briefing that an outbreak in the U.S. is inevitable.
Messonnierâs comments got widespread attention, sparking calls for further actions by the administration, which had long struck a more reassuring note. The furor appeared to catch Trump flat-footed while en route back from his summit with the Indian prime minister, where he had declared the outbreak âvery well under control.â
The likes of conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh and Jim Hoft, publisher of the Gateway Pundit, a conspiratorial, pro-Trump site, have seized on the sibling connection, as have a large number of anonymous Twitter accounts.
âRod Rosenstein as we all know definitely worked to undermine the Trump administration, which is oddly exactly what his sister is doing by undermining the more logical and calm message the presidentâs team has issued on the virus,â charged conservative pundit Wayne Dupree in a Wednesday blog post.
Global financial markets have been sliding for several days over concerns about the fallout from the virus, a trend that threatens Trumpâs rosy economic message as well as his political future.
Yet there is no evidence that federal health authorities are over-stating the threat of coronavirus to prosecute a political vendetta against Trump, and some conservatives â even as they praised the administrationâs response â rushed to defend Messonier.
âIâve heard people jumping on Nancy Messonnier because she told us the truth: that itâs not a matter of if but when,âRep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told reporters on Wednesday. âIsnât that what you want to hear instead of some pie in the sky?â
Trump himself â who rose to political prominence by promoting the false idea that Barack Obama was not born in the United States â has aired his own suspicions that mainstream media outlets are sensationalizing the virus and contributing to a plunging stock market. âLow Ratings Fake News MSDNC (Comcast) & @CNN are doing everything possible to make the Caronavirus look as bad as possible, including panicking markets, if possible,â he tweeted on Wednesday morning.
The tweet came after Limbaugh aired fears that the virus was being âweaponizedâ against Trump on his Monday radio program. He accused the âDrive-By Mediaâ of over-hyping the threat posed by the virus in order to tank financial markets.
âThereâs nothing unusual about the coronavirus,â opined Limbaugh, who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Trump earlier this month. Limbaugh, who also compared the virus to the âcommon cold,â followed up on Tuesday by seizing on the Messonnier-Rosenstein connection.
Low Ratings Fake News MSDNC (Comcast) & @CNN are doing everything possible to make the Caronavirus look as bad as possible, including panicking markets, if possible. Likewise their incompetent Do Nothing Democrat comrades are all talk, no action. USA in great shape! @CDCgovâŚ
â Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 26, 2020
Other Trump supporters, meanwhile, have seized on the crisis to deflect blame to some of the presidentâs favorite targets: foreign governments and powerful global organizations.
In a January 29 blog post, America First Policies, a pro-Trump nonprofit co-founded by Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, criticized the Chinese Communist Party and the World Health Organization for not doing enough to raise the alarm about the outbreak.
The World Health Organization,â the group wrote, âis a case study of how the Chinese Communist Party infects supposedly apolitical institutions.â
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Yup, I posted a thing about that earlier from that moron Chuck Woolery. I didnât realize it was this widespread, though!
Is it wrong to hope that someone infected goes to a t rally?
Okay, first, there IS no vaccine any time in the near future.
But even if there was? HOW THE BLOODY BLUE BLAZES IS THIS EVEN CLOSE TO OKAY?
The Department of Homeland Security is coordinating the U.S. governmentâs response to the increasing threat of the novel coronavirus. The agency has also been under the control of acting head Chad Wolf for more than four months, with no full-time replacement selected.
And Wolfâs testimony Tuesday morning wasnât exactly confidence-inspiring â particularly for one GOP senator.
Appearing in front of a Senate appropriations subcommittee, Wolf was on the receiving end of a brutal line of questioning from Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.). Throughout the exchange, Wolf struggled to produce basic facts and projections about the disease. Perhaps most strikingly, the hearing came at a time of heightened fears about the disease, with the stock market plunging over new estimates about its spread into the United States. Itâs a moment in which youâd expect such things to be top of mind for someone in Wolfâs position.
Wolf got started on the wrong foot almost immediately, when Kennedy asked him how many cases of the coronavirus there were in the United States. Wolf stated there were 14 but was uncertain about how many cases had been repatriated back to the United States from cruise ships, placing the number at â20- or 30-some-odd.â
Asked how many DHS was anticipating, Wolf didnât have an answer and suggested this was the Department of Health and Human Servicesâ territory. âWe do anticipate the number will grow; I donât have an exact figure for you, though,â Wolf said.
âYouâre head of Homeland Security, and your job is to keep us safe,â Kennedy responded, asking him again what the estimates might be. Wolf talked around the question, which led Kennedy to say, âDonât you think you ought to check on that, as the head of Homeland Security?â
âWe will,â Wolf responded. He referred to a task force that is working on that issue.
âIâm all for committees and task forces,â Kennedy said. âI think you ought to know that answer.â
Things didnât get much better from there.
Kennedy then asked Wolf how the coronavirus was transmitted, to which Wolf responded that there were âa variety of waysâ including âhuman to human.â That, though, wasnât what Kennedy was asking; he was asking how it was transmitted between humans.
âHow is it transmitted?â Kennedy cut in, making clear he wanted specifics.
âA variety of different ways,â Wolf again responded.
âTell me what they are,â Kennedy quizzed him, clearly skeptical that Wolf knew the answer.
When Wolf again referred to âhuman-to-humanâ transmissions, Kennedy cut in. âWell, obviously human to human,â Kennedy said. âHow?â
Wolf could muster only that it was âbeing in the same vicinityâ and âphysical contact.â
Kennedy then sought to compare mortality rates for the coronavirus â which is about 2 percent â and for influenza âover the last 10 years in America.â Wolf, who was clearly on his heels, responded somewhat haltingly that the flu was âalso right around that percentage, as wellâ â referring to the 2 percent.
âYou sure of that?â Kennedy asked.
âYes, sir,â Wolf said.
The mortality rate for influenza in the United States is significantly lower than that â only around 0.1 percent, according to the CDC, with some differences depending on how you define an influenza-related death. In other words, while about 1 in 50 people are dying from the coronavirus, only about 1 in 1,000 Americans die of the flu. Wolf may have been referring to the worldwide flu mortality rate, which is indeed significantly higher than in the United States. He began answering the question as Kennedy was saying âAmerica.â
It was more of the same from there. Kennedy asked whether we have enough respirators, and Wolf again wasnât totally sure. âTo my knowledge, we do.â Kennedy responded the committee had been told that wasnât the case. Wolf seemed to think Kennedy was asking only about equipment for DHS officials and not the broader public.
A similar exchange occurred on masks. Wolf then tried to push back, noting Kennedy was asking him about âa number of medical questions.â
âIâm asking you questions because youâre the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security,â Kennedy shot back, âand youâre supposed to keep us safe. And you need to know the answers to these questions.â
Kennedy then asked when a vaccine for the disease might be ready, and Wolf said âseveral months.â Kennedy again said that conflicted with what the committee had been told elsewhere.
âYour numbers arenât the same as CDCâs,â Kennedy said.
Kennedy concluded by again begging Wolf to have answers to these questions. But as Wolf tried to respond, Kennedy was apparently finished with the whole thing, and he instead yielded his time back.
The scene was jarring, but it wasnât without precedent from Kennedy. The Louisiana senator has occasionally sent a message to the Trump administration by lighting into the presidentâs judicial picks â including in 2017 and last year. He also told administration officials during a hearing on the opioid crisis two months ago, âI donât speak B.S.â
Tuesday was particularly striking, though, given who Wolf is. President Trump has left acting officials in charge of major departments and in other Cabinet-level jobs for months and months without picking successors that people like Kennedy would vote to confirm. The downside of that is the people in charge havenât been vetted as closely for situations such as a potential outbreak of a disease. (DHS has actually been under acting control for more than 10 months now.)
Whether any one of Kennedyâs individual questions was fair or not, Wolfâs exchange with Kennedy suggested someone who was wasnât terribly plugged in to whatâs going on. Thatâs not a great sign.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/24/trumps-economy-just-caught-coronavirus/
I wouldnât wish that on anyone but that would really bring new meaning to âwhere we go one, we go all.â
