COVID-19 | Corona Virus April 2020

cbenoi1 said:

Spies, hijacks and export bans: the global battle for coronavirus equipment
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/02/global-battle-coronavirus-equipment-masks-tests

No wonder when a plane carrying 8.5 million masks arrives in Paris, the French government deployed a hundred fully-armed gendarmes to guard/escort the goods. (source: 20minf, translation)

This is not an isolated incident.

Des masques pour le Québec détournés
https://www.tvanouvelles.ca/2020/04/02/des-masques-pour-le-quebec-detournes

Translation: A shipment of medical-grade masks that landed near Montreal and was scheduled for distribution got loaded back onto a plane and send to Cincinnati, OH. Zero explanation.

-cb

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No wonder when a cargo plane carrying 8.5 million masks arrived in Paris, the French government deployed a hundred fully-armed gendarmes to guard/escort the goods. (source: 20minf, translation)

cbenoi1 said:

Translation: A shipment of medical-grade masks that landed near Montreal and was scheduled for distribution got loaded back onto a plane and send to Cincinnati, OH. Zero explanation.

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Update.

https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2...iges-en-ohio-a-cause-dune-erreur-informatique

The explanation from DHL: a computer bug. The shipment never left the DHL shipping center South of Montreal.

-cb

frimble3 said:

Well, folks, that's business. More precisely, capitalism.

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The Art Of Keeping Allies(tm)...

-cb

This what I says on the Strategic National Stockpile website:

Strategic National Stockpile is the nation’s largest supply of life-saving pharmaceuticals and medical supplies for use in a public health emergency severe enough to cause local supplies to run out.

When state, local, tribal, and territorial responders request federal assistance to support their response efforts, the stockpile ensures that the right medicines and supplies get to those who need them most during an emergency. Organized for scalable response to a variety of public health threats, this repository contains enough supplies to respond to multiple large-scale emergencies simultaneously.

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That's what our tax dollars paid for.

Yesterday, this is what Jared Kushner said about it:

"The notion of the federal stockpile was it's supposed to be our stockpile," he said during Thursday's coronavirus briefing. "It's not supposed to be states' stockpiles that they then use."

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I'd really love to hear a defense of this from one of our conservative voices. Really. What's it going to take for any of you to admit at the very, very least this administration is bungling and has been bungling the response to the pandemic? Or is there no breaking point for you?

Lyv said:

I'd really love to hear a defense of this from one of our conservative voices. Really. What's it going to take for any of you to admit at the very, very least this administration is bungling and has been bungling the response to the pandemic? Or is there no breaking point for you?

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I want every single reporter for the rest of ever to ask him who the **** "our" is.

ETA: What I really want is his fellow inmates jeering at him over it as he serves a life sentence, but I'll take the MSM pushing the point for now.

lizmonster said:

I want every single reporter for the rest of ever to ask him who the **** "our" is.

ETA: What I really want is his fellow inmates jeering at him over it as he serves a life sentence, but I'll take the MSM pushing the point for now.

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It's just... they are SO STUPID (and undereducated, and insanely arrogant with no basis, and examples of Dunning-Kruger, and six other gross things) its infuriating beyond all reason.

I want to get crayons and a giant pad and explain the basic setup of the country to him, but I suspect even if that were possible, he wouldn't listen, because he thinks he knows so much.

I keep thinking about Hillary's 'three a.m. phone call' ad. This, right here and right now is what that ad was talking about. The shit has hit the fan, the phone rang, and no one picked it up.

I have sworn off (99.5%) the NYT, but Michelle Goldberg's NYT Opinion piece from yesterday (it's free to read) is one of the more brilliant pieces of writing I've encountered in a while. The whole thing is worth a read, but this is the pgh that's getting the most attention:

Undeterred, he has now arrogated to himself a major role in fighting the epochal health crisis that’s brought America to its knees. “Behind the scenes, Kushner takes charge of coronavirus response,” said a Politico headline on Wednesday. This is dilettantism raised to the level of sociopathy.

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Personally, I like this one:

Kushner has embedded his own people in the Federal Emergency Management Agency; a senior official described them to The Times as “a ‘frat party’ that descended from a U.F.O. and invaded the federal government.

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Interestingly, the Powers That Be changed the headline since I saw it yesterday, when it read, "Jared Kushner is going to get us all killed."

Some woman submitted to our local newspaper that "we don't have to follow the rule that states we have to be indoors because it goes against the first amendment--the right to assemble" (paraphrased but still...)


If there was a tornado warning, would you still demand to assemble, Kate?

Lyv said:

This what I says on the Strategic National Stockpile website:



That's what our tax dollars paid for.

Yesterday, this is what Jared Kushner said about it:



I'd really love to hear a defense of this from one of our conservative voices. Really. What's it going to take for any of you to admit at the very, very least this administration is bungling and has been bungling the response to the pandemic? Or is there no breaking point for you?

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Quoting my own post to say: Now that people are pointing to the website, they changed the wording from the above to:

The Strategic National Stockpile's role is to supplement state and local supplies during public health emergencies. Many states have products stockpiled, as well. The supplies, medicines, and devices for life-saving care contained in the stockpile can be used as a short-term stopgap buffer when the immediate supply of adequate amounts of these materials may not be immediately available.

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Sure looks like Trump and the GOP are using this pandemic the way they use everyone: For personal gain, ego, and revenge. They'll kill as many of us as they can to get what they want.

Lyv said:

I'd really love to hear a defense of this from one of our conservative voices. Really. What's it going to take for any of you to admit at the very, very least this administration is bungling and has been bungling the response to the pandemic? Or is there no breaking point for you?

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Thus far, the arguments Conservatives I know have been making are that Trump isn't perfect, but Obama wasn't either, or that Trump inherited a bad situation from Obama.

In other words, they are ignoring the multitude of ways Trump and his cohorts have made this situation worse and are ignoring all the lies and incompetence. It's straight out of those alt right playbook videos: if you don't have a leg to stand on, put your accuser on the defensive instead. We spend all this time discussing what Obama did and didn't do, how he handled the H1N1 outbreak etc., and we never get back to talking about what a complete and utter tool the current President is, and they deflect discussion from all the extra people who are dying and will die because of #45's utter ineptitude and unsuitability to lead us through a crisis.

Lyv said:

Quoting my own post to say: Now that people are pointing to the website, they changed the wording from the above to:

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As one of my favorite people on Twitter said today, "Orwell would have a f**king stroke."


“And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed - if all records told the same tale - then the lie passed into history and became truth.”

~ George Orwell, 1984

Unfortunately impossible given the people who would invoke the 25th Amendment are just like those in Orwell's description.

From Salon:
https://www.salon.com/2020/04/02/ou...s-arrogance-and-ignorance-are-killing-people/

Donald Trump is the Dunning-Kruger president of the United States.

But he is also something much worse than that. Donald Trump is an almost perfect living, breathing example of the Dunning-Kruger effect: a president in a time of plague whose ignorance and stupidity are amplified through apparent and obvious mental illness as well as cruelty, compulsive lying, grand immorality, corruption and evil.

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https://www.salon.com/2020/04/02/ya...by-waging-war-on-reality-not-the-coronavirus/

Dr. Lee, a forensic psychiatrist at Yale School of Medicine and editor of the bestseller "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump," recently convened a panel on the coronavirus in her role as president of the World Mental Health Coalition. The panel discussed Trump's bungled response to the crisis and his attempts to downplay the threat posed by the pandemic.

The panel issued a "prescription for survival" arguing that Trump must be removed from office, whether through the 25th Amendment, a second congressional impeachment or his resignation. Alternatively, the panel recommended an intervention by mental health professionals or an act of Congress to establish a Coronavirus Crisis Department headed by the Centers for Disease Control to ensure the safety of the public.

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World Mental Health Coalition convened by Dr Lee: Prescription for Survival

cbenoi1 said:

Update.

https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2...iges-en-ohio-a-cause-dune-erreur-informatique

The explanation from DHL: a computer bug. The shipment never left the DHL shipping center South of Montreal.

-cb

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That's odd given this in the NYTs today:
Trump Seeks to Block 3M Mask Exports and Grab Masks from Its Overseas Customers

There was a discussion on the CBC News just now about the returned masks but it was interrupted for a National message.

This is beyond being mishandled and well into the territory of incompetrumpetty's mental illness.

Having Kushner involved running FEMA reminds me of GW Bush assigning religious 20-somethings to go to the GreenZone and from there with no knowledge of the country or culture, write laws for Iraq's new government.


"The Art Of Keeping Allies(tm)"... Indeed.

MaeZe said:

There was a discussion on the CBC News just now about the returned masks but it was interrupted for a National message.

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Probably Ontario PM Doug Ford announcing death and hospitalization projections. He looked like he was about to have a coronary.

MaeZe said:

This is beyond being mishandled and well into the territory of incompetrumpetty's mental illness.

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Trump's pyramidal scheme: let's solve today's problem without thinking about the consequences that will bring even bigger problems down the line. Rinse & Repeat (tm). The output is a tweet that makes him look good now. Tomorrow is another tweet storm.

There is no mental illness. He's got an un-diagnosed case of NPD.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/donald-trump-narcissism-therapists

“Remarkably narcissistic,” said developmental psychologist Howard Gardner, a professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education. “Textbook narcissistic personality disorder,” echoed clinical psychologist Ben Michaelis. “He’s so classic that I’m archiving video clips of him to use in workshops because there’s no better example of his characteristics,” said clinical psychologist George Simon, who conducts lectures and seminars on manipulative behavior. “Otherwise, I would have had to hire actors and write vignettes. He’s like a dream come true.”

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MaeZe said:

"The Art Of Keeping Allies(tm)"... Indeed.

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There is going to be a new World Order after this crisis and at this rate the US will not get an invitation.

-cb

Mental illness or NPD is a semantics issue that might take a couple pages to discuss. I'm happy with whichever term anyone wants to use. For me, Dr Lee of Yale University has it right. She has said Trump has a dangerous mental illness and she has supported that with quite a bit of evidence.

And it doesn't mean people with mental illnesses are evil like Trump is.

Having NPD isn't mutually exclusive with other mental, emotional, or cognitive illnesses, disorders or disabilities. I suspect there's something going on with him beyond NPD, which is a relatively common trait in politicians and the rich in general. He's an outlier, even among those types of people. Quite frankly, on top of the outsize ego and lack of empathy, he just seems incredibly stupid, even child like in his cognitive abilities.

Of course, stupidity is not a disorder, per se. More and more today, we tend to steer clear of blanket terms like "stupid" in favor of more targeted assessments of specific cognitive disabilities or differences with the goal of maybe mediating them (my mom's first-grade teacher thought my mom was dull witted, but it turned out she was simply nearsighted and couldn't see the board). I could only guess what assortment of learning disabilities and mental conditions could be converging to create someone who appears as cluelessly idiotic and incurious as he does. It's pretty clear that if this guy hadn't been born into a wealthy family he'd have been a nobody, an abject failure who might not have survived young adulthood (because someone would probably have shut his offensive, lying mouth for good). Unless of course all his problems really stem from one of the worst cases of "affluenza" in recorded history.

Navy commander relieved of duty for sounding alarm about COVID outbreak on board get a resounding cheer as he leaves the ship:

CNN: Commander of aircraft carrier hit by coronavirus removed for 'poor judgment' after sounding alarm

Many on board gave Crozier a warm and loud send off, clapping and cheering as he left the ship, according to a video taken by a person onboard the ship and obtained by CNN.

Number of positive cases continues to increase
News of Crozier's removal comes after a US defense official told CNN Friday morning that 137 sailors from the Roosevelt have tested positive for the virus, representing more than 10% of all cases across the US military.
The outbreak on the ship is escalating rapidly.

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What has happened to my country?

And we all knew this was coming on the White House Survivor show:
Politico: Trump fires intelligence community watchdog who defied him on whistleblower complaint


Edited to add: better videos of the send off here: Stars and Stripes: 'Captain Crozier! Captain Crozier!': Videos show sailors sending off ousted USS Roosevelt commander with cheers

Also: Stars and Stripes: Lawmakers call for probe into firing of virus-stricken aircraft carrier's commander

While the GOP legislators are still investigating the Inspector General about the mistakes on the FISA warrant applications investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. I guess to make incompetrumpetty happy???

Just what everyone needs now--the US may get more ventilators, but now necessary drugs needed to keep people sedated while on ventilators could run out.

https://www.npr.org/2020/04/04/8269...but-run-out-of-medicine-for-covid-19-patients

"We have seen an increase in demand on pharmaceuticals that's unprecedented," says Daniel Kistner, who manages the pharmacy program for Vizient, a group purchasing organization that negotiates lower prices with drug manufacturers. "Never seen anything like this before across the whole country."

This week, Vizient released data showing dramatic spikes in demand for sedatives, pain medications, paralytics, and other drugs that are crucial for patients who are on ventilators. According to Vizient's study, the rate at which those orders are filled is lagging far behind the demand.

"We're not at a rate yet where there's just no drug," Kistner says, "but we are quickly approaching it."

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Roxxsmom said:

Just what everyone needs now--the US may get more ventilators, but now necessary drugs needed to keep people sedated while on ventilators could run out.

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Jared Kushner to the rescue!

-cb

This is Governor Charlie Baker:

I’m going to start by saying I will get none of the details on dates correct, because I feel like March 6th to today has been one day. I can’t keep track of it anymore. So what I do know is that sometime around the time that we had our 3 million masks that we had ordered through BJ’s confiscated in the Port in New York, that at that point it became pretty clear to us that using what I would describe as sort of a traditional approach to this wasn’t going to work and just started calling everybody I could think of who might have the ability to help us access N95 masks, which were clearly viewed at that point … That was the loss. It was 3,000,095 masks that we lost in the Port in New York.

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And that's happening other places. Trump told governors to find their own supplies and when they do, he steals them. That's what Robert Kraft got involved and helped us get masks. Because Trump stole the ones Baker bought.

Read this Twitter thread from Cate Eland (it has links to articles) for more:

Just so we're clear on how Trump is handling distributing PPE and ventilators:

1) States are buying PPE and ventilators for themselves because they can't get them from the federal government.
2) The federal government is stopping planes on tarmacs to confiscate these shipments.
8:35 PM · Apr 3, 2020·Twitter Web Client


3) The federal government is then allowing private distributors like McKesson to transport those confiscated PPE on FEMA planes to recipients determined by federal government. It's unclear what the profit mechanism for these private distributors is or how recipients are chosen.

4) States who had their ordered supplies confiscated turn around and start asking the federal government for supplies, since theirs were confiscated.
5) The Trump family goes on TV to say "it's the FEDERAL stockpile, not the STATE stockpile, you should have planned ahead."

6) States have to go to extraordinary means (like using NFL planes and covertly coordinating with other states) to finally get PPE and ventilators.
7) People die due to lack of needed medical resources.
8) Trump keeps killing people, because no one will hold him accountable.

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More at the link. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know all the charges Trump and his enablers should face, but I know there is a pretty long list.

This is so disgusting, it makes me want to spit.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/...ription-altered-after-kushners-remarks-163181

It is the ultimate in corporate strategies: if you can't deal with a problem, change the language/description surrounding the issue!

Why, again, do so many people think it's a good idea for government to work "like a business"? Is that swamp drained yet? Are Americans tired of winning yet?

I keep expecting to hear that the little twerp's family owns stock in a medical supply company or something. I can't look at Jared Kushner without thinking what a towel-snapping little twerp he is.

Oh, and I'm eagerly awaiting NASA's progress report on that cannon they should be building to fire our POTUS at the sun after the stock market lost waaaay more than 1000 points in one day (no excuses).

Is it too tin-foil-hatt-ish of me to start thinking that all of this mishandling and sloughing off of responsibility is a deliberate exploitation of the situation, so they can, in the confusion, sabotage the election and keep *rump in power?

Roxxsmom said:

Just what everyone needs now--the US may get more ventilators, but now necessary drugs needed to keep people sedated while on ventilators could run out.

https://www.npr.org/2020/04/04/8269...but-run-out-of-medicine-for-covid-19-patients

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Most of those are manufactured in China, and if they aren't the components they are made from are.

lizmonster said:

Is it too tin-foil-hatt-ish of me to start thinking that all of this mishandling and sloughing off of responsibility is a deliberate exploitation of the situation, so they can, in the confusion, sabotage the election and keep *rump in power?

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It's always possible, but it's also impossible to underestimate the effects of old-fashioned incompetence.