The epidemic control efforts unfolding today in China—including placing some 100 million citizens on lockdown, shutting down a national holiday, building enormous quarantine hospitals in days’ time, and ramping up 24-hour manufacturing of medical equipment—are indeed gargantuan. It’s impossible to watch them without wondering, “What would we do? How would my government respond if this virus spread across my country?”Trump must think that he can control epidemics by tweet, or some other stupid shit. What he has done is make the country vulnerable to pandemics. I guess he's nostalgic for the Black Death.
For the United States, the answers are especially worrying because the government has intentionally rendered itself incapable. In 2018, the Trump administration fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure. In numerous phone calls and emails with key agencies across the U.S. government, the only consistent response I encountered was distressed confusion.
Trump cut pandemic planning staff because the staff infrastructure was set up by President Obama. Trump has a mental illness when it comes to anything Obama did. If Obama had put in place programs to combat drowning, Trump would take lessons in breathing underwater.
Meanwhile, Rush Limbaugh, the guy who previously thought that lung cancer was no big deal, is claiming that Covid-19 is really the common cold. Which goes to show that anyone who has a "Rush is Right" bumpersticker on their vehicle is advertising their own stupidity.
He’ll spin it as him reducing the unemployment rate.
ReplyDeleteEarly reports that the virus began from bats or pangolins is probably a Chinese cover story. Wuhan, the contagion's epicenter, is home to China's biggest biological weapons research station and reports are now that the virus probably escaped from their test tubes.
ReplyDeleteBut not to worry, trump says it'll be over by April. After he destroyed by defunding the US government's epidemic reporting and control apparatus. Because it was an Obama program.
He also said the stock market was looking great. Because if you say something often enough Republicans will believe it.
Kinda like what he's done to the EPA and the State Department, and not even as bad as what he's doing to DoJ.
ReplyDeleteThere just happens to be something going on outside of his information warfare reach in this case and he can't make it go completely away for his supporters.
Which, don't kid yourself, is all he cares about, besides making his wattles go away in the videos he shoots of himself.
-Doug in Oakland
...and the new budget calls for cuts in the CDC. Give the man a one-way ticket to Wuhan.
ReplyDeleteTod, I am not going to buy the "escaped bioweapon" theory without some hard proof. It sounds too much like a whackaloon conspiracy theory.
ReplyDeleteIt’s very possible that Patient Zero in Wuhan was somebody who frequented the market, and spread it from there. Most people who believe the virus made in a lab have no idea how difficult it would actually be to do so.
DeleteBeen hanging back on this, as is my wont, see what things looks like before I ... ahhh, commit. What I've seen of the bat flu is no worse than the bird flu that was going to kill us all fifteen or so years ago. Turns out that was just a big push to sell Donald Rumsfelt's Tamiflu© and wo, what to you know... there's a run on flu shots and concerns there may not be enough to go 'round. Not to mention we've seen evidence of drumpf uck and the 'tards manipulating the stock market with short-term crises, my bet is someone's making a bundle.
ReplyDeleteYou could eat right, exercise, but this is "America" ...
If you want to go down that rabbit hole about health and eating right, just look up ALR reaction videos on the YouTube.
DeleteI guess he's nostalgic for the Black Death.
ReplyDeleteOh come now. Obersturmbannführer Miller would never allow that. They would demand that it be the White Death.
Interesting analysis in the Atlantic magazine to the effect that this new bug may become as common and unavoidable as the common cold and flu, that due to Typhoid Mary like asymptomatic carriers the disease may not be containable
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/02/covid-vaccine/607000/
Channeling my dad in law here " if the president had only arrested the clintons and obamas none of this would have happened. We're going to trust in the lord and our annoited president. And pray that Jesus only kills the communistic socialist liberals . Not the good decent Christian folks that support the president" Amen. Remember pray loud and often.
ReplyDeleteSince it seems somewhat likely the virus jumped from animals in a market to humans, it therefore seems unfortunate that Fergus ran most of the scientists out of the USDA.
ReplyDelete-Doug in Oakland