Octopus Overlords

(Thread) Oligarchy v. Democracy

In dealing with a pandemic, a democratic leader would base success on how many lives are saved.

A would-be oligarch, on the other hand, bases success on whether he maintains power.

That's the clue to what's happening.

Rather than open the ACA exchanges, Trump & Alex Azar just announced another plan.

People without insurance can get cared for for free. And hospitals would get paid for at Medicare rates.

Wish there was a phrase for that.

Skinypupy wrote: Fri Apr 03, 2020 10:44 pm https://twitter.com/ASlavitt/status/1246195409631969280

Rather than open the ACA exchanges, Trump & Alex Azar just announced another plan.

People without insurance can get cared for for free. And hospitals would get paid for at Medicare rates.

Wish there was a phrase for that.

I've always wondered why they just didn't rebrand the ACA as "Trumpcare" or "Patriotcare". The popularity would skyrocket with the Red Hat brigade without them literally having to change a single thing.

Primetime host Tucker Carlson attacked "the public health establishment," which he argued "failed us badly" by recommending stay-home orders that are hurting the economy.

Fox commentator Melissa Francis argued on Friday that the virus is "everywhere already" in New York and she's "losing faith" in social distancing policies as the economy shrinks.

On "Fox and Friends," one of the president's favorite Fox New programs, co-host Brian Kilmeade called the economic damage from the virus "a self-inflicted wound."

The Fox News pundits are ignoring widespread consensus among public health experts and government officials that the only way to save thousands, if not millions, of American lives is to stay home.

Defiant wrote: Sat Apr 04, 2020 5:11 am 'It is everywhere already': Fox News hosts amp up the pressure on Trump to give up on coronavirus lockdowns and reopen the economy

Primetime host Tucker Carlson attacked "the public health establishment," which he argued "failed us badly" by recommending stay-home orders that are hurting the economy.

Fox commentator Melissa Francis argued on Friday that the virus is "everywhere already" in New York and she's "losing faith" in social distancing policies as the economy shrinks.

On "Fox and Friends," one of the president's favorite Fox New programs, co-host Brian Kilmeade called the economic damage from the virus "a self-inflicted wound."

The Fox News pundits are ignoring widespread consensus among public health experts and government officials that the only way to save thousands, if not millions, of American lives is to stay home.

Zaxxon wrote: Sat Apr 04, 2020 12:06 am https://twitter.com/JesseAPaul/status/1 ... 11744?s=19

malchior wrote: Sat Apr 04, 2020 7:31 am This is all I'll say to them. Them first. They go out and do a job that involves day to day contact with other people. They are sociopathic cowards egging on a sociopathic President. We are confronting one of the toughest challenges of our nation and we are governed by the worst of us. We need to sort this shit out when it passes.

malchior wrote: Sat Apr 04, 2020 10:42 amMy theory is that it absolutely is a clusterfuck but also Kushner/Navarro/Trump are likely all stuffing cash in their own pockets. It's probably hidden in the noise.

Smoove_B wrote: Sat Apr 04, 2020 11:15 am

malchior wrote: Sat Apr 04, 2020 7:31 am This is all I'll say to them. Them first. They go out and do a job that involves day to day contact with other people. They are sociopathic cowards egging on a sociopathic President. We are confronting one of the toughest challenges of our nation and we are governed by the worst of us. We need to sort this shit out when it passes.

The added issue is the significant lag time (10+ days) between enacting a control (i.e. social distancing) and seeing the actual benefit. When you also add in the testing bottleneck, it makes getting an accurate snapshot of what's happening even more difficult. For example in NJ they are logistically limited to submit about 800 tests a day. So the data we're getting on the other side is coming out in drips 8+ days later.

IceBear wrote: Sat Apr 04, 2020 11:45 am So apparently Trudeau told Trump that if he stops masks we'll stop sending the pulp and paper products used in making the masks...our news says Trump was unfazed

Red America is going to learn nothing from this ordeal.

IceBear wrote: Sat Apr 04, 2020 11:45 am So apparently Trudeau told Trump that if he stops masks we'll stop sending the pulp and paper products used in making the masks...our news says Trump was unfazed

Smoove_B wrote: Sat Apr 04, 2020 11:51 am

Red America is going to learn nothing from this ordeal.

That's certainly one take. I'm firmly in the camp that believes that because this virus doesn't respect borders, religions or political ideologies it's going to rip through communities that aren't following public health guidance. While the numbers in NYC are frightening. the virus does not care about a map. Population density might increase risk of transmission, but this will absolutely rip though suburban and rural communities as well if they're not careful.

The city’s emergency mandate, which went into effect on April 2, states that every person over the age of five must wear “some form of covering over their nose and mouth” when using public transportation, taxis, ride shares, pumping gas or when inside a building open to the public. That face covering can include a homemade mask, scarf, bandana or handkerchief. The penalty for violating the order is a Class C misdemeanor, punishable by a fine up to $1,000.

The rule does not apply to people who are riding in “a personal vehicle,” who are alone in “a separate single space,” who are engaging in “permissible outside physical activity,” who are alone with their household members or who are eating food. It also doesn’t apply if when wearing a face covering poses a health, safety or security risk to the individual. Laredo’s mandate is reportedly the first in the U.S. to enforce the wearing of face coverings.

That face covering can include a homemade mask, scarf, bandana or handkerchief.

IceBear wrote: Sat Apr 04, 2020 11:45 am So apparently Trudeau told Trump that if he stops masks we'll stop sending the pulp and paper products used in making the masks...our news says Trump was unfazed

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada is due to receive a shipment of "millions of masks" in the coming days, as a major medical device manufacturer remains under continued pressure from the United States to cease its exports of the protective equipment.

"We're working around the clock to get Canada the resources we need," Trudeau said during his daily address to Canadians Saturday. "In the next 48 hours, we will be receiving a shipment of millions of masks by a chartered cargo flight. We are also working with provinces to transport their medical supplies when possible."

Trudeau added that items ordered by the province of Quebec will arrive on the flight.

The news comes as Minnesota-based company 3M revealed Friday that because of the Trump administration's invocation of the Defence Production Act — which allows the president to boost industrial production of critically needed goods — the manufacturer is under orders not to send U.S.-made masks to other countries, including Canada.

In a statement, 3M said that halting such exports could adversely affect America's own supply if other countries choose to retaliate, prompting President Donald Trump to reveal that his administration was "not at all happy" with the company.

Trudeau addressed the dispute during his Friday briefing, stating that failing to send supplies destined for Canada "could end up hurting Americans as much as it hurts anybody else."

But the prime minister said Saturday that he wasn't seeking retaliatory measures against the U.S. — such as blocking Canadian nurses from Windsor, Ont., from travelling across the American border to Detroit.

"We are not looking at retaliatory measures or measures that are punitive. We know that it is in both of our interests to continue to work collaboratively and co-operatively," Trudeau said.

He added that his government is "continuing to engage in constructive discussions with different levels within the [Trump] administration" to preserve the flow of goods and services across U.S.-Canada border.

“We are not looking at retaliatory measures or measures that are punitive,” Trudeau said from outside his Rideau Cottage residence Saturday.

“We know it is in both of our interests to work collaboratively and co-operatively to keep our citizens safe and that's very much the tenor of our conversations and I'm confident that we're going to get there.”

Much of the pulp for the masks that protect against COVID-19 spread comes from a mill in Nanaimo, B.C. Thousands of medical workers who live in Canada work every day in the United States helping to support the COVID-19 response in America. Canada supplies the U.S. with test kits and gloves.


Trudeau says these are some of the things he will be highlighting to Trump when they speak in the coming days to ensure the U.S. understands the inter-connectedness of supply chains and the importance of keeping all goods and services flowing freely between the two countries.

“We recognize that our countries are deeply interlinked in sometimes very complex ways. The necessary goods and services back-and-forth across our border keep us both safe and help us on both sides of the border,” Trudeau said.

“We are continuing to engage in constructive discussions with different levels within the administration to highlight that the U.S. will be hurting itself as much as Canada will be hurting if we see an interruption of essential goods and services flow back and forth across the border.”

malchior wrote: Sat Apr 04, 2020 3:29 pm This is a long read but worth it. The Washington Post documents in blow by blow detail how the Trump administration failed on Covid-19. Trump deserves all the scorn we thought and more. Also, Mnuchin and the adherents to the school of neo-sociopathic economics is squarely to blame for this fiasco. Surprising element - Azar actually sounds fairly competent which is likely why Trump sidelined him.

The failure has echoes of the period leading up to 9/11: Warnings were sounded, including at the highest levels of government, but the president was deaf to them until the enemy had already struck.

The Trump administration received its first formal notification of the outbreak of the coronavirus in China on Jan. 3. Within days, U.S. spy agencies were signaling the seriousness of the threat to Trump by including a warning about the coronavirus — the first of many — in the President’s Daily Brief.

And yet, it took 70 days from that initial notification for Trump to treat the coronavirus not as a distant threat or harmless flu strain well under control, but as a lethal force that had outflanked America’s defenses and was poised to kill tens of thousands of citizens. That more-than-two-month stretch now stands as critical time that was squandered.

Beyond the suffering in store for thousands of victims and their families, the outcome has altered the international standing of the United States, damaging and diminishing its reputation as a global leader in times of extraordinary adversity.

“This has been a real blow to the sense that America was competent,” said Gregory F. Treverton, a former chairman of the National Intelligence Council, the government’s senior-most provider of intelligence analysis. He stepped down from the NIC in January 2017 and now teaches at the University of Southern California. “That was part of our global role. Traditional friends and allies looked to us because they thought we could be competently called upon to work with them in a crisis. This has been the opposite of that.”

This article, which retraces the failures over the first 70 days of the coronavirus crisis, is based on 47 interviews with administration officials, public health experts, intelligence officers and others involved in fighting the pandemic. Many spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information and decisions.

"Areas where the outbreak was less had movement restrictions removed sooner," she says. "But that didn't mean completely. It meant first they started major factories and started letting those people who work there go back to work so that they could restart their industries."

Movement restrictions – basically orders for people to stay home — are still in place for some areas and some people considered to be high risk.

...

"One of the things that China is doing is while it is relaxing social distancing measures, it's not removing them entirely," Ainslie says. "And it's not removing them haphazardly."

For instance, schools in much of the country remain closed.

Cowling says public health officials in China and elsewhere have two sets of tools to contain its outbreak — social distancing and case management. Social distancing makes it harder for the virus to find new people to infect. Case management tracks down cases and potential cases individually and then isolates them – and the virus. China wielded both of these tools aggressively.

While China is now trying to figure out how to relax social distancing without allowing the virus to come roaring back, this is also a question that European countries and the U.S. hope to address in the coming weeks. But the U.S. may have a harder time doing this than China. Cowling says one problem facing the U.S. is that there are many different outbreaks that are being managed primarily at the state level and might peak at different times.

"It's possible that New York could be coming out of lock down, having got the numbers to a low level. But there are other cities where they're having a lot more infections and it is going to be very difficult to have travel restrictions," Cowling says. "And the worst case scenario is that infections are kind of bouncing around the U.S. And so, the lockdown is relaxed and then infections come back and then you have to lockdown again and nobody wants that to happen. So it really is a urgent question to figure out what's the best way to suppress transmission across the whole of the U.S."

Some Georgia beaches will reopen this weekend following an executive order issued by Gov. Brian Kemp (R) that overrode local shelter-in-place mandates from a number of cities.

gilraen wrote: Sat Apr 04, 2020 4:17 pm GA governor orders beaches to re-open

Some Georgia beaches will reopen this weekend following an executive order issued by Gov. Brian Kemp (R) that overrode local shelter-in-place mandates from a number of cities.

Fifteen years ago, Florida braced for a pandemic.

Officials knew as early as 2005 that an outbreak could devastate the state and infect much of the population. They wrote reports predicting a crisis remarkably similar to the one playing out now: a virus that could infect more than a million Florida residents.

And they responded in force, bolstering the state health department with resources and specialized workers to combat a potential crisis.

But that operation was dismantled by governors and lawmakers more worried about the bottom line, the Tampa Bay Times has found.

They slashed research funding, cut thousands of jobs and ignored gaps in the state’s defense against fast-spreading diseases.

Florida now has fewer epidemiologists per resident than most of the country and has cut back on statewide pandemic drills.

There’s the health department’s 2012 workforce development plan:

“Florida is facing a public health workforce crisis” that puts Floridians “at grave risk.”

There’s the agency’s 2017 budget request:

“There is a lack of sufficient individuals at the local level who have the skills to perform epidemiological analyses as well as manage the large volume of day-to-day reportable diseases, outbreaks.”

Max Peck wrote: Sat Apr 04, 2020 2:51 pm 'Millions of masks' expected as 3M faces pressure over equipment exports

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada is due to receive a shipment of "millions of masks" in the coming days, as a major medical device manufacturer remains under continued pressure from the United States to cease its exports of the protective equipment.

"We're working around the clock to get Canada the resources we need," Trudeau said during his daily address to Canadians Saturday. "In the next 48 hours, we will be receiving a shipment of millions of masks by a chartered cargo flight. We are also working with provinces to transport their medical supplies when possible."

Trudeau added that items ordered by the province of Quebec will arrive on the flight.

Trudeau said Canada’s shipment of “millions of masks” from China will arrive via chartered cargo flights. His government, he added, has also leased a warehouse in China to help collect and distribute the items as quickly as possible.

China has also launched a mission to burnish its image after being the first big epicenter of Covid-19 and has been offering its expertise and medical supplies to other parts of the world. On Saturday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told reporters in a briefing that the Chinese government is sending the hard-hit state 1,000 ventilators.

Max Peck wrote: Sat Apr 04, 2020 8:55 pm

Max Peck wrote: Sat Apr 04, 2020 2:51 pm 'Millions of masks' expected as 3M faces pressure over equipment exports

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada is due to receive a shipment of "millions of masks" in the coming days, as a major medical device manufacturer remains under continued pressure from the United States to cease its exports of the protective equipment.

"We're working around the clock to get Canada the resources we need," Trudeau said during his daily address to Canadians Saturday. "In the next 48 hours, we will be receiving a shipment of millions of masks by a chartered cargo flight. We are also working with provinces to transport their medical supplies when possible."

Trudeau added that items ordered by the province of Quebec will arrive on the flight.

Apparently the shipment of masks is coming from China. Presumably not from 3M's factories.

Trump's moves to hold medical supplies tip Trudeau to China

Trudeau said Canada’s shipment of “millions of masks” from China will arrive via chartered cargo flights. His government, he added, has also leased a warehouse in China to help collect and distribute the items as quickly as possible.

China has also launched a mission to burnish its image after being the first big epicenter of Covid-19 and has been offering its expertise and medical supplies to other parts of the world. On Saturday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told reporters in a briefing that the Chinese government is sending the hard-hit state 1,000 ventilators.

Smoove_B wrote: Sat Apr 04, 2020 7:44 pm This is the first story I've seen that covers public health for a state. I don't expect it to be the last.

Mobile phone mast fires are being investigated amid conspiracy theories claiming a link between 5G and coronavirus.

There have been fires at masts in Birmingham, Liverpool and Melling in Merseyside.

A video, allegedly of the blaze in Aigburth, was shared on YouTube and Facebook, claiming a link between the mobile technology and Covid-19.

"I'm absolutely outraged and disgusted that people would be taking action against the infrastructure we need to tackle this emergency," he said.

Mobile UK said key workers had suffered abuse and threats from people about damaging infrastructure under the pretence of claims about 5G.