Showing posts with label Defense Production Act. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Defense Production Act. Show all posts

Friday, March 20, 2020

An Indictment Of Americans' Intelligence: According to Pew Survey 3 in 5 Adults Believe the Media Is Exaggerating the Coronavirus



"DOH! I is a idiot but I duz know da Donald is da greatest and da librul media is just  makin' stuff up to scare us!"  He blurted just before he got the virus, went into an ICU - and croaked for lack of a ventilator

"There is no vaccine, there is no treatment. And yet the president inexplicably announced today a malaria medicine had been approved by the FDA as a treatment for coronavirus. This is not true at all. It's not true, not true, not true!  And it is insane that the president of the United States would say something that wrong and that irresponsible in the middle of a crisis this serious."    Rachel Maddow, last night

"There's some flat out statements  made by Chinese scientists and doctors that this drug was 'helpful', but this was only in shortening the course of the disease by a little bit.  But there's no evidence it made a huge difference in terms of mortality or survival".    Dr. David Ho, virologist last night on Rachel Maddow, referring to the anti-malarial drug Chloroquine.

"We have drug screening efforts underway and I am cautiously hopeful. But we have to slow things down enough so that has time to occur. We can for now do things like Seattle and expand our hospital capacity. And we can make a large effort to get a greater supply of ventilators and protective care equipment. That would not only cushion the blow on the health care system - but our model shows it would also speed up the process of building herd immunity." Dr. Mark Lipsitch, Director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, Harvard University.

"Trump has the demeanor of a circus barker, the integrity of a con man, the temperament of a neighborhood bully, the breathtaking ignorance of an arrogant know nothing... He fancies himself our Big Brother, but he is really our neediest Big Baby. He is a boy/man who experiences the world as an extension of himself  and other people exist purely to do his imperious bidding....Trump is bad but we the People are mad for having elected such a terribly flawed person to the most powerful position in the world.."    Allen Francis, 'The Twilight Of American Sanity'

"The inability of so much of the public to remember what Trump was saying just a month ago suggests that, in addition to the coronavirus crisis, we’re also experiencing a national amnesia pandemic."   - Bret Stephens, NY Times

The coronavirus according to a new survey.  is the most stressful topic for Americans, followed closely by money problems and then the 2020 election.  This is little wonder given we have the most incompetent president in history at the helm, not to mention an entire administration that belongs in a large clown car. So little wonder, rational citizens - and especially health professionals on the front lines of the Covid-19 pandemic-  have little confidence this government will get it right. Why the hell would they?

Trump and his gaggle of derelict fools and asslicking sycophants have been playing us for the past two months, letting this Covid-19 pandemic get out of hand.  This is as cases exploded exponentially - now over 10,000 (WSJ today, p. A1) -  even as he evidently has succeeded in mind fucking a majority of 'Muricans into giving him boffo approval ratings.  This also deduced from a new Pew Research Center poll Wednesday that found that 62 percent of adults say the media is "exaggerating the risk of the virus".  All of which plays directly into Janice's contention -  since the 2016 election- and stated more and more these days - that too many 'Muricans suffer from the virus of stupidity. (Def.: "Moron level IQ when it comes to political insight and education")  Why would she believe otherwise, with this latest evidence which merely confirms her belief?  Clearly, none of these mentally deficient yahoos comprehend the nature of exponential growth, or that the only thing standing between us now and the near apocalyptic scenes playing out in Italy is social distancing.

One especially dense dope, quoted in the accompanying  WaPo  piece insisted: "It's just hysteria created by the liberal media. They want to take Trump and our economy down.”

Seriously, you idiot?  Did it occur to you that "taking the whole economy down" would also take all of us down, since we are all interactive parts of it?  (Janice and I have huge investments in money market funds, for example, now seeing pressure because of most investors flight from risky stocks to safety.)  Or don't you grasp any macro-economics?  As for Trump, he is doing a great job taking himself down, by his endless lies, fabrications, gaslighting, and failure to act  the part of a real leader in a crisis.  But when one reads Allen Francis' quote (from his "Twilight of American Sanity')  about the Trump character one understands why we have the worst possible person to lead us in this crisis, i.e.:

"Trump has the demeanor of a circus barker, the integrity of a con man, the temperament of a neighborhood bully, the breathtaking ignorance of an arrogant know nothing... "

Another inbred yokel yapped: "It's just a virus!"  Adding: "We don't go this crazy over normal seasonal flu"  Well no, Roscoe, and we don't encounter totally novel human viruses (jumped over from animals) that have fatality rates 10 time higher than the flu and an infection rate (R nought) nearly double the seasonal flu.   Oh yeah, and at least we have vaccines for the seasonal flu - which we do not for Covid-19. This moron typifies what Mensans refer to as "Densans."

Yet another dupe, a  "retired chemistry teacher" -  ok, 84 years old so maybe with dementia  -  asserted it was created by the Chinese as a biological warfare weapon. An absurd conspiracy ideation that's already been  debunked, e.g.

Was coronavirus bioengineered in a lab? Tulane scientist debunks this conspiracy theory                      

Robert  Garry,  the Tulane university researcher and senior author of the paper which appeared in Nature Medicine, spelled it out:

"There’s no way that any human could put this together.  It’s similar to other viruses that do a pretty efficient job at spreading to people.”  The adaptations that the virus has made to affect humans are “very different than what you would expect if you were designing it using computational models in biological engineering,"


But Janice is convinced it's hopeless to reason with these numskulls and she's probably right. They are so far up Trump's ass with their blind Dotard worship it would take a monumental brain enema to redeem them.  Their brains in fact, are as full of shit as Trump's  performances every time he takes to the podium now, to brag how great he is, how it's all going "great" and he has this pandemic thing covered.   I am sure if Trump told them to drink a silver solution to get immunity from the virus they'd all do it like the brainless lemmings they are. Oh btw, let's not forget Dotard's promise that the new drugs are ready  and the ventilators are  in the mail. (Wait, he also stated, referring to his clown team: "We're not shipping clerks!"  So in other words, let the medical heroes suck salt or pound sand.)

 This orange maggot's serial lying and incompetence, combined with little in the way of mainstream media pushback, is creating a dangerous moment of government distrust which will not be easily rectified. (At least until and unless we get him out of office) .  Just seeing our health care workers' plaintive pleas in assorted news pieces last night, so desperate for equipment that they have to even beg others for help,  is enough to make a sane citizen puke. We beheld for example, nurses and others desperately stitching face masks together and re-using others (in one case until the support band split).  And all that as the President of Massachusetts General asked "anyone with a 3D printer to help make masks".


Meanwhile, Trump and Pence lie their asses off about there being "millions of ventilators".  As Rachel Maddow asked:  "Where are they? They're not in the hospitals where it counts!" 

Trump while he did sign the Defense Production Act - which would enable U.S. industries to shift production to medically essential equipment - like ventilators - hasn't pulled the trigger. He said he isn't prepared to let the factories hum unless it's a "worst case scenario".  The idiot doesn't grasp we're already in that condition, as evidenced by the medical front line workers now seeking to beg, borrow or steal ventilators any way they can.   The dopes who support him and believe in media exaggeration are just as bad given they don't get this, or that we're only about 100,000 critical cases from our health system being overrun.  As in breaking down, meaning these deniers die.

Why is this a big deal?  Because the country has only 160,000 of these devices and maybe 12,000 more it can get via a national security stockpile.  But in the worst case scenario - with only 5 percent of the populace critically ill and half needing the devices to breathe- we are looking at 960,000 machines. That is a shortfall of 800,000. To translate that into terms even a lower IQ  backwoods, red state gun toter can grasp- it means 800,000 deaths.  Or, 125,000 more Americans dead than in 1918-19 with the Spanish flu pandemic. Process that! 

Are liberals trying to make Trump look bad by exaggerating the crisis?  Give me a break! The nitwits who buy into this claptrap  ought to check on who continues the tariffs on $5 b worth of medical  exports from China, including (WSJ, March 19, "Trump's Tariffs Leave The U.S. Short On Medical Supplies', p. A19):  N95 masks, sterile gloves,  goggles, hospital gowns, surgical drapes, thermometers and breathing masks.

When these red state rurals and others who believe the "liberal media" are exaggerating to take down Trump start dying for lack of ventilators maybe they will come to their senses. By that, I mean see that Trump is not their best buddy as they believe. Janice isn't buying: "Are you serious? Those idiots will just dig in more and blame the Democrats and media for not warning about the scarcity of resources sooner!  Or the twits will ding us for not supporting 'our president'!  As I said they are all f**king morons!"  

So far, it looks like she's spot on correct, alas.  In any case the biggest IQ test for the nation will arrive in November. The heads up for it appeared in today's WSJ ('Faltering Economy Prompts Trump Campaign To Change Its Strategy', p. A3).    Therein we learn on account of the markets cratering Trump will no longer be able to point to the DOW for his reelection fantasies.  Also, even aides confessed that waiting for the stock market to rebound may not happen. Instead we see:

"The main super PAC supporting Trump held discussion on possible ads highlighting steps he has taken to combat the virus."

In other words pump him up as some kind of savior in the face of a brutal pandemic, who saw it coming and acted responsibly. I.e. mutated from a "Covid -19 hoaxer" to "wartime president".  Trouble is, Trump's numerous brash, infantile and bullying press  briefing reactions precedes such efforts.  I.e.  "That's a very nasty question!"- etc. e.g.

Which shows the Dotard  "like" FDR posturing isn't real and he is the lying shithead most of us always suspected him of being, apart from being a con man and snake oil salesman.  Will Americans fall for it?  As Janice put it: "Yeah, if they are the morons and idiots I expect most of them are!"

Janice's prescription for Americans'  preserving their intelligence now is the same as Rachel Maddow's for "inoculating" us against  Trump's efforts to recast himself as another FDR:  Simply stop watching his daily press briefings on the coronavirus.  They have become mere PR stage shows, featuring large dollops of feel good snake oil.  While it is totally understandable for Americans to want sober and quality leadership in this time of national peril, only a bloody fool or nincompoop (or hopeless, blind optimist) would believe Donald Trump qualifies for that role. What we desperately need now are serious leaders with vision -  not transparent fakes proffering feel good snake oil!

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Thursday, March 19, 2020

It Turns Out The Young May Be Almost As Susceptible To COVID-19 As Oldies- Who'da Thought?

Image may contain: outdoorImage may contain: 1 person, smiling
Part of the crowd of young idiots mobbed on a beach near Clearwater, FL.  Right - one of them spouts off how he "don't care 'bout no silly cor- oh- no virus"

Let's face it, Herr Dotard, like  a broken clock - does seem to be right about twice each day.  In this case, he described the battle against COVID-19 as a "war against an unseen enemy" - which it is.  He also blurted he's a "wartime president" - which is false because wartime presidents - like Harry S. Truman -act, they don't dither.  In the case of Trump while he did sign the Defense Production Act - which would enable U.S. industries to shift production to medically essential equipment - like ventilators - he isn't prepared to let the factories hum unless it's a "worst case scenario".  The idiot doesn't grasp we're already in that condition with doctors and nurses having to fabricate their own gear using materials from Home Depot, and feeling like they're going to war with only a BB gun.

But this is what we have with a halfwit leader like Dotard, akin to a unit commander who doesn't know which end is up. That means the rest of us are left to fight the enemy with "blunt force" tactics, i.e. sequestering, social distancing.  It isn't sexy or cool. In fact to a young Turk (or Turkess)  it's a buzz kill - but hey, it's the only thing left to prevent  our hospitals being totally overwhelmed given Trump doesn't have the balls or sense to act expeditiously.  I mean he has yet to give the order to actually start the production of the ventilators, masks, etc.    Worse, this deluded, narcissistic demagogue continues his tariffs on $5 b worth of medical  exports from China, including (WSJ today, "Trump's Tariffs Leave The U.S. Short On Medical Supplies', p. A19):  N95 masks, sterile gloves,  goggles, hospital gowns, surgical drapes, thermometers and breathing masks.

Pardon me, but this is utter, deranged madness. It would be analogous to a president - say Truman in WW II - undermining and kneecapping the troops risking their lives in Europe and the Pacific.  Next thing to a traitor, if not outright a traitor.

Indeed, as reported on CNN yesterday, medical personnel have been calling on Trump to get this equipment out for weeks. So any delay now adds to the misery and worse, risks much further spread because hospital staff aren't properly equipped when they deal with COVID-19 patients. I.e. they are using - and reusing- surgical masks instead of the N95s, and going without face shields.

Trump's  bumbling incompetence, twisting facts to suit ("I always knew it was a pandemic!") and failure to act expeditiously has made it incumbent on the rest of us - the actual ground troops-  to take up the main battle via the blunt force strategy of social lockdown. The problem is that while most of us are prepared to be good soldiers and do what's needed - locking ourselves down - the young (many of them) believe they have no skin in the game (or this war) or if they do, so what?  It ain't their war!

Nevertheless, there's a lot we now know about the stats related to Covid-19,  we didn't know earlier. Especially that the most recent C.D.C. data reveal that nearly 40 percent of patients  aged 20 to 54 are sick enough to be hospitalized.  And oh, btw, that often means with respirators or ventilators given the virus has turned one or both lungs to pulp.  The report, issued Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that — as in other countries — the oldest patients had the greatest likelihood of dying and of being hospitalized. But of the 508 patients known to have been hospitalized, 38 percent were notably younger — between 20 and 54. And nearly half of the 121 patients who were admitted to intensive care units were adults under 65, the C.D.C. reported.


 Dr. Tara Narula on CBS this morning noted the R nought now appears to be 3.0 meaning each person can infect three others. This means all those numskulls having their beach bacchanals are actually putting the rest of us at risk. As opposed to being good soldiers for the good guys they are fifth columnists. Unknowing  (or uncaring) enemy agents.

 This is a fact the brash young spring breakers packing beaches in Texas and Florida ought to process before they spout such bollocks as referenced by Gayle King - to Tara Narula- on CBS:

"This kid said yesterday,  'It's my spring break and I'll do whatever I want!"

Causing Gayle to nearly lose it.  CBS co-host Tony Dokoupil quickly explained it couldn't be Millennials (his generation) but the Generation Z bunch now in their 20s and more likely to be spring breaking.

But whether Gen Z or other these young know-it-alls, famous for their "Ok, Boomer!" mockery and memes, would do well to pay attention to what the U.S.  top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said this week,

“Even though when you look at the total numbers, it’s overwhelmingly weighted toward the elderly and those with underlying conditions, the virus isn’t a mathematical formula. There are going to be people who are young who are going to wind up getting seriously ill.”

In the words of Stephen S. Morse, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health:

“I think everyone should be paying attention to this. It’s not just going to be the elderly. There will be people age 20 and up. They do have to be careful, even if they think that they’re young and healthy.”

Oh, and not just healthy but invincible relative to the COVID-19 circulating now in the U.S. and on an exponential increase.  In the current realm of social distancing - the only way we have now to slow this thing -  one would think these youngsters would get it. That is, that remaining sequestered is the optimal way to slow the spread as China and South Korea have shown. And yet we behold images of these youngsters frolicking en masse on the beaches!

Indeed, the NBC News spot last night informed us these were kids "on Spring break" which implies they arrived from assorted universities. But to hear and see some of the responses to Kerry Sanders (NBC reporter) one wondered if most even saw the inside of a high school, far less a college or university.  One kid, clearly half toked out on either MJ candies or opioids, burped out:

"If I get da corona I get da corona. I'm not gonna let it stop me from partying."

Out of the mouths of imps and idiots.  Another girl in the vicinity spouted:

"I'm worried for the older people but not for me."

But if she knew anything, she'd know that was an illogical, indeed nonsensical remark - given we know people (especially the young) can be asymptomatic and spread it to seniors.  Also, that her lot are not as invincible as they believe.

In the C.D.C. report, 20 percent of the hospitalized patients and 12 percent of the intensive care patients were between the ages of 20 and 44, basically spanning the millennial generation. The findings served to underscore an appeal issued Wednesday at a White House briefing by Dr. Deborah Birx, a physician and State Department official who is a leader of the administration’s coronavirus task force. Citing similar reports of young adults in Italy and in France being hospitalized and needing intensive care, Dr. Birx implored the millennial (and Z) generation to stop socializing in groups and to take care to protect themselves and others.  She said:





“You have the potential then to spread it to someone who does have a condition that none of us knew about, and cause them to have a disastrous outcome,” 

According to Dr. Christopher Carlsten, head of respiratory medicine at the University of British Columbia:

"Younger people may feel more confident about their ability to withstand a virus like this, but if that many younger people are being hospitalized, that means that there are a lot of young people in the community that are walking around with the infection.”

More worrisome, experts said that even if younger people in the report were medical outliers, the fact that they were taking up hospital beds and space in intensive care units was significant.
And these more serious cases represent the leading edge of how the pandemic is rapidly unfolding in the United States, showing that adults of all ages are susceptible and should be concerned about protecting their own health, and not transmitting the virus to others.

The authors conclude, “these preliminary data also demonstrate that severe illness leading to hospitalization, including I.C.U. admission and death, can occur in adults of any age with Covid-19.”

The $64 question now is: Can we count on the youthful generations to do their part in this ongoing battle? Or, will they become "conscientious objectors" - or worse, draft dodgers like Dotard?

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