Thursday Reads: Living Through a Pandemic with a Lunatic in Charge

Good Morning!!

Finally, after months of dithering, Trump has settled on a strategy for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. He has decided to force businesses to reopen and let tens of thousands–maybe millions–of Americans sicken and die in a futile attempt to save the economy. This goal will be aided by a massive cover-up of scientific information and a propaganda campaign to claim victory. Of course it won’t work, but we are all going to pay the price for Trump’s insane delusions.

Let’s examine the evidence.

AP Exclusive: Admin shelves CDC guide to reopening country.

A set of detailed documents created by the nation’s top disease investigators meant to give step-by-step advice to local leaders deciding when and how to reopen public places such as mass transit, day care centers and restaurants during the still-raging pandemic has been shelved by the Trump administration.

The 17-page report by a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention team, titled “Guidance for Implementing the Opening Up America Again Framework,” was researched and written to help faith leaders, business owners, educators and state and local officials as they begin to reopen.

It was supposed to be published last Friday, but agency scientists were told the guidance “would never see the light of day,” according to a CDC official. The official was not authorized to talk to reporters and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.

The AP obtained a copy from a second federal official who was not authorized to release it. The guidance was described in AP stories last week, prior to the White House decision to shelve it.

That’s right. Trump tried to cover-up the CDC’s plan for a safe reopening of state economies.

Traditionally, it’s been the CDC’s role to give the public and local officials guidance and science-based information during public health crises. During this one, however, the CDC has not had a regular, pandemic-related news briefing in nearly two months. CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield has been a member of the White House coronavirus task force, but largely absent from public appearances.

The dearth of real-time, public information from the nation’s experts has struck many current and former government health officials as dangerous.

“CDC has always been the public health agency Americans turn to in a time of crisis,” said Dr. Howard Koh, a Harvard professor and former health official in the Obama administration during the H1N1 swine flu pandemic in 2009. “The standard in a crisis is to turn to them for the latest data and latest guidance and the latest press briefing. That has not occurred, and everyone sees that.”

The Trump administration has instead sought to put the onus on states to handle COVID-19 response. This approach to managing the pandemic has been reflected in President Donald Trump’s public statements, from the assertion that he isn’t responsible for the country’s lackluster early testing efforts, to his description last week of the federal government’s role as a “supplier of last resort” for states in need of testing aid.

Putin couldn’t have made a more authoritarian decision. Fortunately, we still have remnant of a free press.

Peter Baker at The New York Times: Trump’s New Coronavirus Message: Time to Move On to the Economic Recovery.

Confronted with America’s worst public health crisis in generations, President Trump declared himself a wartime president. Now he has begun doing what past commanders have done when a war goes badly: Declare victory and go home.

The war, however, does not seem over. Outside New York, the coronavirus pandemic in the United States is still growing, not receding. The latest death toll estimates have more than doubled from what Mr. Trump predicted just weeks ago. And polls show the public is not ready to restore normal life.

But Mr. Trump’s cure-can’t-be-worse-than-the-disease logic is clear: As bad as the virus may be, the cost of the virtual national lockdown has grown too high. With more than 30 million people out of work and businesses collapsing by the day, keeping the country at home seems unsustainable. With the virus still spreading and no vaccine available until next year at the earliest, though, the president has decided that for life to resume for many, some may have to die.

“Hopefully that won’t be the case,” Mr. Trump said on Wednesday when asked if deaths would rise as a result of reopening, but added, “It could very well be the case.”

That’s pretty clear. Trump is willing to sacrifice our lives because he thinks opening the economy will help his reelection prospects.

A bit more from Baker:

The president has made little effort to reconcile his increasing pressure to reopen with the increasing death toll, instead boasting that the government is now in better shape to deal with new cases with more ventilators, masks and other equipment.

“I think he has given up on the hard stuff and as a consequence is writing off people’s lives,” said Andy Slavitt, the acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under President Barack Obama and now a senior adviser at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington.

“Not, unfortunately, in exchange for a better economic outcome,” he added. “The economy — hiring, consumer spending, buying cars, getting on airplanes, signing leases — isn’t going to happen. It’s not going to happen until we have demonstrated we can navigate this global health crisis.”

Most Americans do not have confidence in that yet, preferring that the president and their states take a slower course in the name of public health. By a ratio of two to one, those surveyed by Monmouth University in a poll released this week were more concerned about lifting restrictions too quickly rather than too slowly. And 56 percent said the more important factor should be making sure as few people get sick as possible, while 33 percent said it was more important to prevent the economy from sinking into a profound downturn.

Erin Banco at The Daily Beast: Trump Wants a Quick Reopening. Data His Own White House Is Examining Shows It Could Be a Disaster.

One of the studies that the Trump administration is relying on as it moves ahead with plans to reopen the U.S. economy warns that even if states take the necessary steps to ease social distancing restrictions, counties across the country—both big and small—will see a significant spread of coronavirus.

The study, which was put together by PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, is in the hands of top coronavirus task force officials and people working with the team, sources confirmed to The Daily Beast. It projects that if officials move too quickly and too aggressively to reopen in mid May, individual counties could witness hundreds, if not a thousand-plus, more coronavirus cases reported each day by August 1. Just two weeks more social distancing, the study projects, could reduce infections substantially—with potentially hundreds of thousands of fewer cases if the projections are conservatively expanded out to all 3,000-plus counties across the country.

The modeling shows that those counties exist in various parts of the country, in both urban and rural communities. In almost all cases, counties would see notably fewer cases per day if they waited to ease social distancing restrictions until June 1, according to the study’s projections. The model also suggests that states moving to ease restrictions should consider allowing individual counties to craft their own policies. Under the projections, one county could experience significantly different daily case numbers than others in the state—even those nearby—merely by continuing to adhere to social distancing protocols.

“There’s going to be transmission if people stop sheltering in place,” Dr. Rubin, the director of PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said in an interview. “It’s not that all [counties] are safe to reopen. Every area is extremely sensitive to the amount of distancing you’re doing. The more cautious you are the better.”

But Trump is so delusional that he’s going to ignore all the warnings. What he doesn’t seem to understand is that the people who have to do the actual work of the economy and people who will buy goods and services may not want to go along with his plans.

Another part of Trump’s plan is to try to cover up the numbers of infections and deaths. Axios: Trump and some top aides question accuracy of virus death toll.

President Trump has complained to advisers about the way coronavirus deaths are being calculated, suggesting the real numbers are actually lower — and a number of his senior aides share this view, according to sources with direct knowledge.

What’s next: A senior administration official said he expects the president to begin publicly questioning the death toll as it closes in on his predictions for the final death count and damages him politically.

— The U.S. death toll has surpassed 71,000, with more than 1.2 million confirmed cases, according to the latest figures.

— Trump’s engagement could amplify a partisan gulf we saw in this week’s Axios-Ipsos Coronavirus Index over believing the death statistics.

Reality check: There is no evidence the death rate has been exaggerated, and experts believe coronavirus deaths in the U.S. are being undercounted — not overcounted.

Behind the scenes: The official said Trump has vented that the numbers seem inflated and has brought up New York’s addition of more than 3,000 unconfirmed but suspected COVID-19 cases to its death toll.

The propaganda is working on Trump’s followers, who likely get most of their “information” from Fox News and other right wing sources.

NBC News: ‘What are we doing this for?’: Doctors are fed up with conspiracies ravaging ERs.

At the end of another long shift treating coronavirus patients, Dr. Hadi Halazun opened his Facebook page to find a man insisting to him that “no one’s dying” and that the coronavirus is “fake news” drummed up by the news media.

Hadi tried to engage and explain his firsthand experience with the virus. In reply, another user insinuated that he wasn’t a real doctor, saying pictures from his profile showing him at concerts and music festivals proved it.

“I told them: ‘I am a real doctor. There are 200 people in my hospital’s ICU,'” said Halazun, a cardiologist in New York. “And they said, ‘Give me your credentials.’ I engaged with them, and they kicked me off their wall.”

“I left work and I felt so deflated. I let it get to me.”

Halazun, like many other health care professionals, is dealing with a bombardment of misinformation and harassment from conspiracy theorists, some of whom have moved beyond posting online to pressing doctors for proof of the severity of the pandemic.

And it’s taking a toll. Halazun said dealing with conspiracy theorists is the “second most painful thing I’ve had to deal with, other than separation of families from their loved one.”

Several other doctors shared similar experiences, saying that they regularly had to treat patients who had sought care too late because of conspiracy theories spread on social media and that social media companies have to do more to counteract the forces that spread lies for profit.

“Folks delaying seeking care or, taking the most extreme case, somebody drinking bleach as a result of structural factors just underlines the fact that we have not protected the public from disinformation,” Maru said.

I don’t know what the solution to this is for those of us who are sane and think logically. We are stuck will Trump until at least January 2021 unless Republicans wake up and realize that people in red states are as vulnerable as those in blue states. Even then, would Republicans stand up to Trump?

Sorry this post is such a downer, but we have to face reality. We are on our own, and our only defense is to stay at home as much as possible and try to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe. Please take care Sky Dancers!

Monday H.L Mencken Reads: “Boobus Americanus”

This would be great satire if it wasn’t really.  (via Ian Bremmer)

Good Day Sky Dancers! great

American History has left the building!  So has common sense.  But anyway …

Here’s just a taste of how the lesser “Boobus Americanus” presents. Notice his festive plummage as he struts and preens. His pack leader, the Major “Boobus Americanus” has a distinct vocalization.   Go straight to the tweet below for the latest capture of the Major Boobus Americanus in its habitat, the Faux News Show with the Lincoln Memorial as the chosen reality stage backdrop.   After all, who would say something stupid in a memorial to one of the greatest American minds, Presidents, and orators in our history?

H.L. Mencken was a known as the “Sage of Baltimore” which seems apropos to today as much as his time. I actually own a first edition of one his books of essays having tripped upon it in a St Louis used bookstore around 25 plus years ago.  I also bought that a child’s french grammar book.  It was a quaint little place and I wish I could revisit it. Perhaps one day.  The essays included “In Defense of Women”.  From the point I started reading this, I knew I was down one of my rabbit holes.

From the keyboard of Carson Vaughn:

For better or worse, I am a child of the Plains, and so my first experience with H. L. Mencken was less an introduction than a confrontation. I first learned of the Sage of Baltimore during his cameo appearance in a Great Plains history course, at the University of Nebraska. Henry Mencken considered us part of a large and ever-growing species he called homo boobiens, my professor explained. Wedged between the Omaha race riots and the Agricultural Marketing Act of ’29, Mencken showed up during the Scopes Monkey Trial to wield his pen against William Jennings Bryan, whom he described as “one of the most tragic asses in American history.” What a dick, I thought. I liked him immediately.

I liked him so much that I bought The American Language, the pillar of his bibliography, and never touched it again. Unaware of my purchase, my girlfriend gave me a copy of the same book as a gift, but not before gluing the pages together and carving out the middle to camouflage my secrets. Later I purchased a used copy of The New Mencken Letters and schlepped that 635-page tome around wherever I went, reading a letter or two here and there, recklessly quoting from it in term papers.

From the letters, I became smitten with Mencken’s verbal gymnastics, his apparent refusal to say something plain when it could be said with the cocksure verbosity of a Southern lawyer. Perhaps, too, I was charmed by that most convenient of facts: he was dead. Had Mencken still been alive, I have no doubt I’d have raised my guard, but that is the gift of hindsight. Instead I accepted him the way he accepted himself, disregarding the imperfections—of which, I would later find out, there were many.

By the time I stumbled upon Prejudices, a selection of Mencken’s essays, at a used bookstore in Lincoln, Nebraska, I felt as if I’d known the cigar-chomping wise guy for years, even though I hadn’t read a word of his professional canon. My respect for him was hardly reciprocated. About Nebraska, my home state, he had made himself very clear: “I don’t give a damn.” Mencken judged me with the smirk of a haughty equestrian, spun me around, tied my shoelaces together, and encouraged me to walk with him. He called me a boob, said it was okay, said that we children of the corn couldn’t be expected to understand the rich intellectual life along the Potomac, or better yet, across the Atlantic.

Flipping eagerly among the essays, I was aware that Mencken, like the Boobus Americanus he lampooned, had never attended college himself. In fact he rarely left the confines of Baltimore, and spent much of his adult life living with his mother and eating her sandwiches. In 1928, Irving Babbitt accused Mencken of “intellectual vaudeville,” and more recent critics have labeled him a philistine, but it didn’t matter to me. The show had already started, and his ridicule, in a way, seemed a privilege. I felt like the drunk at a comedy club, asking to be called out.

Yes,  Boobus Americanus still walks among us and is unfortunately planted in the White House for what I hope is less than another year.

“Our whole practical government is grounded in mob psychology and the Boobus Americanus will follow any command that promises to make him safer.” – H.L. Mencken

That’s a good one but this is by far my favorite.

“On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron”.

And, I thought that was George W Bush. Silly me.

So let me just juxtapose two headlines for you.

Kristin Myers / Yahoo Finance: Reopening states will cause 233,000 more people to die from coronavirus, according to Wharton model

Well, that does’t sound good.

New data from the University of Pennsylvania suggests that relaxing lockdowns across U.S. cities and states could have serious consequences for the country’s battle to contain the coronavirus, which has infected over a million people while killing more than 66,000 people.

According to the Penn Wharton Budget Model (PWBM), reopening states will result in an additional 233,000 deaths from the virus — even if states don’t reopen at all and with social distancing rules in place. This means that if the states were to reopen, 350,000 people in total would die from coronavirus by the end of June, the study found.

Kent Smetters, the PWBM’s director, said the decision to reopen states is ultimately a “normative judgement that comes down to the statistical value of life.”

He explained: “That’s not a crude way of saying we put a dollar value on life, but it’s the idea that people will take risks all the time for economic reward.”

That figure far surpasses estimates and models that the White House has cited from the University of Washington, which put the death toll at roughly 73,000 by the start of August.

The U.S. economy is reeling as statewide lockdowns have thrown 30 million Americans out of their jobs, and stoked a furious debate about how long the restrictions can remain in place. Some states, like Georgia, are choosing to partially reopen, allowing businesses like restaurants, hair salons, massage parlors, and more to open again.

However, partially reopening would also cause the death toll to rise, the university’s data found. An additional 45,000 lives would be lost, according to Wharton’s Budget Model, bringing the U.S.’s death toll from COVID-19 to 222,000.

However, the policy of reopening states would provide a much needed economic boost, according to the model.

“Almost all net job losses between May 1 and June 30 would be eliminated,” the report found.

Well, maybe it sounds like ‘acceptable losses’ to both Boobus Americanus and extremely wealthy American businessmen who think they’re impervious because they’re white, they’re on the right, and their shortcomings can be viewed beneath the belt and on IQ tests.

And, here’s another:

Steve Benen / MSNBC:

For the 5th time in two weeks, Trump tweaks projected death toll  —  When a president finds it necessary to revise a projected death toll five times in 13 days, there’s a problem.

Two weeks ago today, Donald Trump said he believed the overall American death toll from the coronavirus could be as low as 50,000 people. By the end of the week, the president’s forecast had already been exposed as tragically wrong.

Exactly one week later, Trump said the overall American death toll from the coronavirus would “probably” be as low as 60,000 people. Four days later, based on NBC News’ overall tally, the fatalities from the pandemic climbed past that threshold, too.

This past Wednesday, the president suggested the number of fatalities in the United States could be as low as 65,000. Predictably, we also soon passed that projected total.

Last night, Trump held his latest Fox News event — this time using the Lincoln Memorial as a backdrop — and acknowledged that he was moving the goalposts with his fourth number in 13 days. “I used to say 65,000,” the president said, pointing to a total he promoted just a few days earlier. “And now I’m saying 80,000 or 90,000.”

Around the same time, the president rolled out his fifth projected death toll.

President Donald Trump has warned that the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus outbreak could reach 100,000 — revising upwards his estimate on the number of people the outbreak could kill by tens of thousands. “Look, we’re going to lose anywhere from 75, 80 to 100,000 people. That’s a horrible thing. We shouldn’t lose one person out of this,” Trump said speaking during a Fox News virtual town hall.

Circling back to our earlier coverage, when I say I don’t know why Trump keeps doing this, I’m not being coy or facetious. I honestly have no idea. There is no upside to a president, every few days, presenting a new projected death toll, seeing reality catch up to that number, and then starting the process anew.

Open up America!  We just stockpiled another 100,000 body bags for no apparent reason at all.  The Boobus Americanus wants hair cuts, all you can eat buffets, and a job that will kill them.

The Department of Homeland Security is poised to spend $5.1 million on the largest batch order for “human remains pouches” from E.M. Oil Transport, Inc., according to an April 21 filing, NBC news reported.

The pouches have not yet been paid for or shipped to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), according to NBC News.

“I hope to God that they don’t need my order and that they cancel it,” the company’s marketing manager, Mike Pryor, told the news source.

According to the report, FEMA also opened up bidding for different companies to provide refrigerated trailers to serve as makeshift morgues to localities around the country. The request specifies a preference for “53-foot tall trailers”, the largest of their kind.

Other internal documents obtained by the media outlet showed that the White House coronavirus task force has serious concerns about what lies ahead for the U.S., with fears that the country might endure another spike in infections in the future.

Members of the task force were reportedly concerned over the lack of coronavirus tests, a vaccine or proven treatments for coronavirus and the possibility of a “catastrophic resurgence” of the disease.

Live Free and Die!  (Via BB)

From the NYT: “Coronavirus Live Updates: Trump Administration Models Predict Near Doubling of Daily Death Toll by June”.  But you know, nothing to see here Boobus Americanus. Go out there and prove them wrong.  Just stay away from the hospitals and every one else.

So, my neighbor Nancy frequently chat.  She’s in front of the house and I’m walking Temple across the street on the neutral ground.  Total Social Distancing. She told me this story.

Nancy wanted to walk along the River in one of the many paths in the Crescent City Park. It’s outside, they’ve pretty much removed all the benches and it’s just a place to walk so no real danger in a little exercising there.  She veers off to a less broad side paths and sees two Wipopo walking towards her so she carefully pulls her mask up and moves to give them some space.

So, “Karen”–we’ll just call her that–starts yelling at Nancy that the mask is causing her to breathe in her own toxins and will kill her.  These comments just come out of the blue, uninvited, and of course Karen started moving in on Nancy because getting in some one’s face is just so real down home neighborly, am I right?

Nancy said well, she’s just doing what every one is asking us to do including the many doctors begging us to stay home and socially distance on every TV News outlet but Faux..  Karen, respond by telling her that all doctors are “retarded” and she’s going to die breathing in her own toxins.  By this time, Nancy is trying to move forward and says some like well, okay, have a nice day.  Karen does keep moving up the path while Nancy moves down.  Nancy cannot help but overhear the next subject.  Karen’s telling her companion something about all the trees dying because of 5G. Well, that’s all interesting except we don’t have 5G here in New Orleans let alone in my neighborhood and we had a mini drought in April.  But, hey, Karen’s gotta Karen and wipipo be wipopo and we still have an ample supply of Boobus Americanus as demonstrated resplendently by Donald J Trump who has managed to make George W Bush look better.

Take care!  Stay your ass at home!  Be kind to yourself!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today!