Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

[Skinypupy]

How many people is that now making money off selling books associated with bombshell-level information on Trump?

This is the most infuriating part to me. Anyone who could have done anything by speaking out chose to remain silent...until they could profit from it.

Although I suppose that's an rather apt metaphor for where we are as a society right now.

[Defiant]

https://twitter.com/Yair_Rosenberg/stat ... 6638574595

[malchior]

I thought about this line of logic earlier today and my conclusion is fuck that. People likely died because Woodward remained silent. So I don't care if the effect is greater or he thought he was pursuing some greater good.I guess we can get into some tortured argument about whether it would have mattered. However, early in the face of the pandemic he learned the President's plan was going to be to downplay it for panic sake. That actually would be sound if a plan was forthcoming or it was part of some management strategy for the pandemic. But it wasn't. It was a self-serving lie on Trump's part.

That is where it breaks down for me. Woodward isn't some idiot. He had to know it was clear days or weeks later that this rationale was itself a lie. Trump wasn't worried about a panic. Trump as usual only worried about himself. At some point in April it was clear Trump was mismanaging the most pressing crisis in decades and it was putting his fellow citizen's lives in danger. Woodward chose to sit on it. And one explanation of his rationale was to build a stronger case for the 'case's sake' as above? I'm paraphrasing there obviously. But I think that's bullshit. He did it because he needed the bigger story for his own purposes. He is a vulture and he was complicit in the death that ensued. Woodward deserves nothing but another hearty fuck you. All to feed his over-sized ego.

[LawBeefaroni]

I thought about this line of logic earlier today and my conclusion is fuck that. People likely died because Woodward remained silent.

No, they died because of the inaction and incompetence, and possibly malice, of the federal government, particularly the Trump administration.

How would knowing that Trump knew have changed anything?
In fact, we already knew he was downplaying it, we just didn't have a recording to prove it.

We know now, why isn't he being frog marched out of the White House today? What difference would this have made, any more than everything else before or since that has yielded nothing?

[malchior]

I thought about this line of logic earlier today and my conclusion is fuck that. People likely died because Woodward remained silent.

No, they died because of the inaction and incompetence, and possibly malice, of the federal government, particularly the Trump administration.

How would knowing that Trump knew have changed anything?
In fact, we already knew he was downplaying it, we just didn't have a recording to prove it.

Well, yes - obviously the incompetence was the root cause but people were reckless because they believed the lies. Everyone claims we all knew but it is *still* a subject of controversy to claim he is responsible. An entire column in the NY Times argued it wouldn't have mattered if he tried...on Sunday. Still Woodward had *proof* in his hand that the President was lying in a way that was dangerous to the health and safety of the people of the United States.

We know now, why isn't he being frog marched out of the White House today? What difference would this have made, any more than everything else since that has done nothing?

People behaved in a certain way based on the information they had. If they heard with Trump's own voice that he said it was deadly...would we have had the same re-opening the economy discussion? Would the press have acted differently? Would they have had to deal with changed political calculus? It is hard to know how it would have turned out but it is safe to say it would have been different. Academics are certainly going to debate this for a long time.

Nonetheless this gets into 'ends justify the means thinking' IMO. In the face of a public health crisis speaking up earlier was the only ethical thing to do. Sitting on it was unethical. This is a major failing/problem with our society. We don't hold people to ethical standards of any sort. And we will never know if thousands of lives could have been saved.

[Skinypupy]

Damn, they're fast.

https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/stat ... 9455904768

[Holman]

Biden is hitting this hard, as he should.

https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/130 ... 20226?s=20

https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/130 ... 31776?s=20

The tweets are just an echo of comments he has made on camera today.

[Alefroth]

You mean the Belfast boat?

[Formix]

So does this mean that there are at least 191,000 families who won't be supporting Trump? If that eats into his unassailable base even by a percentage or two, I'll take it. Otherwise, if you weren't personally affected, you'll probably just see this as more fake news.

[Unagi]

And it should be repeated so it's clear to everyone....

Trump wants to play it like he's a theater manager that downplayed the fire in the theater, so there wasn't a stampede to the door, killing everyone... He's the hero!!

But really, he told everyone they should all stay seated and the fire was already being put out, locked a couple of the doors, and declared that the show would continue... just so he would still make a profit that night.

[Paingod]

Let's not forget that a pandemic will ravage population centers hard and fast, while more rural areas will have geography working to their advantage in maintaining distance. It's basic math. Dense population areas are typically heavily Democratic, while rural areas tend to be more Republican. Back in May they were saying that blue-held areas were seeing death rates 3x higher than red areas. This gives a clear numeric advantage based on political party.

It was once posited that the GOP was happy to let the virus weaken Democratic voting communities. Being fully aware of the lethality of the pandemic and downplaying it plays well with that theory. I really don't want to believe that to be the motivation, but I refuse to take anything off the table or out of the realm of possibility with this president.

I can easily see him being indifferent to death and suffering when it's reported to him as a statistic. Throughout all of this his biggest concerns were the optics; controlling the numbers, not the cases. Not once that I can recall has he given a single shit about the number of sick and dead unless someone was trying to grill him on it and it might make him look bad.

So there's motive to let the virus run rampant, and a president that knows it's dangerous but doesn't act.

I feel like I should be wearing a tinfoil hat for even posting it. I wish I didn't think there was a possibility it was true.

[Skinypupy]

I find this "I didn't want people to panic" defense absolutely hilarious.

Trump’s entire presidency has been built on sowing panic and fear. Mexican hordes are invading. Migrant caravans are coming for your jobs. Gangs of MS13 are invading the suburbs. Millions are voting illegally. Antifa is burning every major city in the US to the ground. On, and on, and on. Very rarely are these claims even remotely in the vicinity of the truth on what’s actually happening, yet he continues to stoke the flames with his continual stream of lies.

But with COVID-19 - the one time the threat was actually real and not some GOP fever dream boogeyman - we’re somehow supposed to believe that Trump decided to suddenly show restraint as to “not panic the public”? Yeah, sure.

[Max Peck]

Allegedly, there were also indications that federal assistance was being steered away from blue areas and toward red areas. Some states seemed to be getting a fraction of what they needed while others received every single thing they asked for. And then there was the fact that the federal government was intercepting and confiscating supplies that were being purchased by state and local entities. Trump didn't just do nothing despite knowing how bad the situation was, he directed the federal government to take action that materially worsened the situation.

[YellowKing]

Reducing panic is fine if said panic could impede relief efforts or increase the danger to the public. In this case, neither is true. As far as impeding relief efforts, the government was doing absolutely nothing (or at best, the bare minimum) to contain the virus. So there was nothing to impede. Ans as far as danger to the public, fear of the virus would have been a *benefit* as people would have likely self-quarantined sooner instead of going about their business.

As usual in Trump world, his arguments don't make sense even if you give him the benefit of the doubt.

[malchior]

I find this "I didn't want people to panic" defense absolutely hilarious.

Trump’s entire presidency has been built on sowing panic and fear. Mexican hordes are invading. Migrant caravans are coming for your jobs. Gangs of MS13 are invading the suburbs. Millions are voting illegally. Antifa is burning every major city in the US to the ground. On, and on, and on. Very rarely are these claims even remotely in the vicinity of the truth on what’s actually happening, yet he continues to stoke the flames with his continual stream of lies.

But with COVID-19 - the one time the threat was actually real and not some GOP fever dream boogeyman - we’re somehow supposed to believe that Trump decided to suddenly show restraint as to “not panic the public”? Yeah, sure.

If he were a functional non-evil President - not causing a panic - in February or March would be the right thing to do. That buys them time while they got more information and ran their pandemic playbook to get a response together. Where it falls apart is when you get into month 3 or 4 and he is calling it a hoax, advocating public policy that'll *spread the virus* and kill people in across the nation and in places like nursing homes, and then months later then threaten to investigate blue states for not protecting those people put in harm's way. We'll never know how many lives could have been saved if he was just a normal indecent man but listened to the experts. Unfortunately he is evil.

He is delving into behavior we've never seen in this nation but we've seen elsewhere. This is the behavior of autocrats like Stalin, Mao, etc. who put their lust for power over the lives of their citizens. He deserves to not only get voted out of office but worse. Unfortunately, we don't even have a crime for this. It was unthinkable. Yet here we are. This will complicate efforts to make peace internally as this devolution of government goes on.

[Paingod]

Unfortunately, we don't even have a crime for this. It was unthinkable. Yet here we are.

Anytime you hear about a guy getting jiggy with a horse in some poor farmer's pasture and then they discover there's no law that they can use on the books to prosecute him, you wonder why they never anticipated it. It's because normal people don't see the world in shades of horse sex.

Trump does. Shades of indifference to human life on a large scale.

By himself, it should have been stopped early on - but he had an entire political party enabling him for their own benefit as well. They may have been seeing the world the same way as Trump, but it never benefited them to pass laws to prevent it.

Trying to legislate that becomes tricky, I expect, as you'll start to trip over the corpses left behind by gas companies using lead additives, cigarette companies encouraging children to smoke, and food manufacturers setting the stage for global obesity.

[LordMortis]

I find this "I didn't want people to panic" defense absolutely hilarious.

He doesn't deserve my research to get context, but he didn't want panic. He wanted and still wants you to keep things normal so profit margins can be maintained. Your health is not his concern and the concern of the circles who support him financially.

Never forget, "to me they're not even people"

[pr0ner]

https://www.twitter.com/UrbanAchievr/st ... 7837617152

[$iljanus]

Reducing panic is fine if said panic could impede relief efforts or increase the danger to the public. In this case, neither is true. As far as impeding relief efforts, the government was doing absolutely nothing (or at best, the bare minimum) to contain the virus. So there was nothing to impede. Ans as far as danger to the public, fear of the virus would have been a *benefit* as people would have likely self-quarantined sooner instead of going about their business.

As usual in Trump world, his arguments don't make sense even if you give him the benefit of the doubt.

And in Trump world, the Leader doesn't want you to panic until he tells you to panic. Such as in these instances:

“Radical justices will erase the Second Amendment, silence political speech and require taxpayers to fund extreme late-term abortion. They will give unelected bureaucrats the power to destroy millions of American jobs. They will remove the words ‘under God’ from the Pledge of Allegiance. They will unilaterally declare the death penalty unconstitutional, even for the most depraved mass murderers. They will erase national borders, cripple police departments and grant new protections to anarchists, rioters, violent criminals and terrorists.”

— Sept. 9

Or

“Biden wants to surrender our country to the virus, he wants to surrender our families to the violent left-wing mob, and he wants to surrender our jobs to China — our jobs and our economic well-being.”

— Sept. 7

Or

“In Joe Biden’s America, rioters, looters and criminal aliens have more rights than law-abiding citizens, and that’s true.”

— June 20

“The entire Democratic field supports deadly sanctuary cities, which release dangerous criminals to terrorize your communities right here in North Carolina, believe it or not.”

— March 2

“Every major Democrat running for president has pledged to eliminate gas-powered automobiles and destroy the U.S. auto industry forever.”

— Dec. 18

-as reported in a WaPo article titled: Trump says he didn’t want to spark panic. But he’s running on fear

[Holman]

Reducing panic is "We have a fire in the theater. Please follow the safety procedures and move to the exits, taking care not to block the aisles."

Trump gave us "The fire is a hoax! The show must go on!"

[Smoove_B]

Exactly. "Be honest" is emergency communication 101. As a public official -arguably THE public official - he had an obligation to communicate to the public what was known and what the government and citizens can and should be doing to address the problem. As stated, the only thing he didn't want to panic was the market; he had (and still has ) zero concern for the meatbags that power it.

As disgusted as I am with Woodward, I'm not sure it would have made a lick of difference. This really wasn't going to go in any other direction regardless, given the entrenched nature of the Trump cancer throughout all levels of federal government at this point.

[Unagi]

Reducing panic is "We have a fire in the theater. Please follow the safety procedures and move to the exits, taking care not to block the aisles."

Trump gave us "The fire is a hoax! The show must go on!"

(that's what I said)

[Defiant]

https://twitter.com/LivingBlueinRed/sta ... 6009593856

[Paingod]

Pulling out is historically the worst way to prevent anything bad from happening afterwards.

[disarm]

Pulling out is historically the worst way to prevent anything bad from happening afterwards.

potus interruptus?

[Unagi]

Pulling out is historically the worst way to prevent anything bad from happening afterwards.

[Little Raven]

Some Covid pr0n for Smoove:

("Contagion Externality of Super-spreader") finds Sturgis Motorcycle Rally was a local & nationwide spreader of COVID-19. Estimated public health cost: ~$12B

Some more Covid pr0n for Smoove.

Spoiler:

No, The Sturgis Biker Rally Did Not Cause 266,796 Cases of COVID-19

Not surprisingly, the internet lit up with “we told you so!” headlines and social media shaming and blaming. The huge figures immediately hit the “confirmation bias” button in many people’s brains. But hold up. There are lots of reasons to be skeptical of these findings, and the 266,796 number itself should raise serious believability alarm bells.

I defer to our resident expert. Smoove - what say you?

[Smoove_B]

I didn't realize people were thinking that was an actual tally. My take was that it presents a possible (and mathematically sound) scenario, but it's just a model. Academics and modelers had been arguing about the details, but for the most part there seemed to be a general agreement that the numbers were reasonable. We don't know (and might never know) the actual number of cases. Worse, given that people were coming from 30+ states, seeing any type of measurable "bump" in the data is going to be difficult - unless local authorities are on top of testing and contact tracing.

We are almost a month out now from Sturgis so if there are suddenly lots of cheap bikes for sale, that will likely be more telling.

[Defiant]

An appropriate quote from The West Wing (Episode "Women of Qumar") for these times:

What I meant was, that the public will not forgive a President who withheld information that could have helped them or saved lives. Second, in a crisis, people need to feel like soldiers, not victims. Third, information breeds confidence, silence breeds fear. That's my argument.

Though it looks like about 40% would gladly forgive such a President if they had an (R) next to their name.

[malchior]

Yeah that number was developed by an 'economist' but still in the realm of possibility. My read on the article was that it was a bit of a peer review of the original 'model' to point out some of its obvious deficiencies - the high share of infections as a fraction of the whole of the nation is an easy mark fro her to hit there. And maybe she is right but in the end she like most experts ares fighting an uphill battle. Americans want simple cause and effect stories and the story that Sturgis caused hundreds of thousands of infections is easy to consume.

[Z-Corn]

As always, my man All Gas No Brakes was there in the thick of it:

[Alefroth]

[Skinypupy]

Oh, the irony. Jaws actress Lee Fierro dies due to coronavirus.

https://twitter.com/georgehahn/status/1 ... 1040188417

A tragic irony: the woman who said “You knew there was a shark out there and you let people go swimming” died from the coronavirus.
#TrumpLiedPeopleDied

[Smoove_B]

Oh nothing. Just another way in which the Trump administration has actively destroyed credibility and trust in public health:

The CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports are authored by career scientists and serve as the main vehicle for the agency to inform doctors, researchers and the general public about how Covid-19 is spreading and who is at risk. Such reports have historically been published with little fanfare and no political interference, said several longtime health department officials, and have been viewed as a cornerstone of the nation's public health work for decades.

But since Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign official with no medical or scientific background, was installed in April as the health department's new spokesperson, there have been substantial efforts to align the reports with Trump's statements, including the president's claims that fears about the outbreak are overstated, or stop the reports altogether.

Caputo and his team have attempted to add caveats to the CDC's findings, including an effort to retroactively change agency reports that they said wrongly inflated the risks of Covid-19 and should have made clear that Americans sickened by the virus may have been infected because of their own behavior, according to the individuals familiar with the situation and emails reviewed by POLITICO.

The damage here to an entire profession is incalculable. It might take a generation to un-fuck this. I'm speechless.

[Blackhawk]

I didn't realize people were thinking that was an actual tally.

[malchior]

The name Michael Caputo kept ringing bells in my head so I looked him up. He is tied back to Russia *of course*. He advised Yeltsin while the Russian oligarchs were feeding at the trough and eventually aligned himself with Trump before Trump became President. Caputo ran some of Trump's dirty schemes including a bid to buy the Buffalo Bills that included some smear jobs against rivals likely architected by Caputo. Calling him a 'former Trump campaign official' underplays that he is in a class of GOP fixers like Roger Stone. Heck he helped Oliver North back in the Reagan administration. He was almost certainly installed in this job to distort the message at HHS intentionally to produce the result seen.

[Stefan Stirzaker]

Oh nothing. Just another way in which the Trump administration has actively destroyed credibility and trust in public health:

The CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports are authored by career scientists and serve as the main vehicle for the agency to inform doctors, researchers and the general public about how Covid-19 is spreading and who is at risk. Such reports have historically been published with little fanfare and no political interference, said several longtime health department officials, and have been viewed as a cornerstone of the nation's public health work for decades.

But since Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign official with no medical or scientific background, was installed in April as the health department's new spokesperson, there have been substantial efforts to align the reports with Trump's statements, including the president's claims that fears about the outbreak are overstated, or stop the reports altogether.

Caputo and his team have attempted to add caveats to the CDC's findings, including an effort to retroactively change agency reports that they said wrongly inflated the risks of Covid-19 and should have made clear that Americans sickened by the virus may have been infected because of their own behavior, according to the individuals familiar with the situation and emails reviewed by POLITICO.

The damage here to an entire profession is incalculable. It might take a generation to un-fuck this. I'm speechless.

Just saw this tonight asnit was posted by an epi who i used to work with who now works for the CDC. Needless to say she is not impressed by all of this.

[Skinypupy]

We've had the first bout of sniffles and general gunk run through our house this week. The 50 degree temperature swing earlier in the week might have had something to do with that.

While there are no signs of coronavirus (no fever, no cough...just stuffy head, bit of a sore throat, and feeling a little cruddy), the kids are absolutely PANICKED that mom and dad are going to die from COVID, like Uncle Ken did. Wonder Twin 7.3a spent nearly all of last night in tears because he was so worried about what he’d do without us.

Poor kids.

[Holman]

Flu season will be rough because everyone will think its COVID.

[$iljanus]

Flu season will be rough because everyone will think its COVID.

Luckily for us we can test to confirm what a person may have. Well, in countries that have a good public health infrastructure to support mass testing anyway.