As stark and cold as it sounds; it is real.

He has no plan. He has never had a plan. His response has always been measured and calculated by what will keep him in office. No matter what lies he has to tell.


Now there is tape. No disputing. Not from democrats. His own words. And then he says "I didn't want to spread panic."

And the sheep say "oh that explains it, of course, isn't he a great leader?"

I'm still waiting on the giant caravan of murderers and rapists that he "didn't want us to panic about" to show up.

So the same guy, Trump, who claims the suburbs will be taken over with crime and be destroyed if Biden wins, that no neighborhood will be safe anymore, doesn't want to panic America?

I think multiple things can be true, he knew, certainly that is not in doubt.

1. I think it's correct to not start a panic.

2. I think now that I am currently living with someone who has Covid right now, it is outrageously overblown. She would be more sick if she had a head cold..... Sidebar: the health department asked her for my birthday, my name and my phone number, which I view as an invasion of privacy since I did not get it. I LIVE with this person....without a mask and did not get it....she is cleared to re-enter public by the health department tomorrow.

3. The US as an entirety did not have a plan. This failure is shared. Whatever decisions were made bu Trump can be viewed as a mistake or a success, but we have had pandemics for decades.....H1N1, SARS, MERS, Ebola, this isn't some wild new phenomenon. Here is a pretty cool graphic on the history of pandemics.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/history...k2jYNjOTxM-Vlko


With all of that said, from a balanced perspective, some of the decisions Trump made, that the Democratic nominee for President literally called his a Xenephobe for, to ban travel...was CORRECT. If anything he should have banned entry a LOT earlier! Some of the decisions he made were not defensible.....you can tell the American public in a way that would not cause panic.


With all of that said, arguing that this hasn't been used as a political tool is utter nonsese.

Go tell that ridicules sob story to the 200,000 US families who lost a loved one. Pffft trump supporters...it’s all about me. Typical BS.

To start, I agree with your last sentence.

Also, just because your family member has it and wasn't greatly affected (which is great!) does not mean that it doesn't affect others much more severely. I have been in an auto accident that caused to harm to anyone. Does that mean that my neighbor who lost his wife in an accident is overblowing the situation. I know it's not a direct parallel, but COVID is contagious, but it is more so to some than others, and it is more dangerous to some than others.

Avoiding a panic and lying about it are two different things. In the Woodward tapes he said he knew it was much worse and more infectious than the flew. He told the American people it was much like the flu.

If you can't use honesty in a way not to inflict wide spread panic, you have zero communication skills. Everything else are excuses.

It's Trump, he is a terrible orator. He's a con man, is what it is.

It is what it is killed a lot of people.

The notion that Trump killed these people is garbage. The left cannot help themselves but to indulge in hyperbole. Did Trump kill all those people all over the world too? What about Influenza? Is every president responsible for all of those deaths every single year?


Debate the reaction, sure I get. Debate the ways in which we could have done it better or the merits how we got here to not do it again sure. He underestimated it and that MAY have cost more lives.....the idea that virtually no one was going to die with impeccable planning is rubbish.


The hyperbole, the blatant partisan nature of discussing it, people just see through it. "Trump killed 200,000 people" just does not help, no one in their right mind is buying that trash hyperbole, it's unproductive and in many cases counterproductive.

You may wish to look at death rates per capita in nations who had strong leaders that formed a national plan to fight the virus verses out statistics before you proceed with this line of debate.

There is a difference between underestimating it and knowingly avoiding to create any semblance of a national plan.

You twisted what I said. I didn't say Trump killed 200,000 people. I said "a lot of deaths".

We have tapes showing Trump knew the dangers. If not you may be able to play the underestimating card. But you can't.

Of course people would have died anyway. But to pretend that fewer people wouldn't have died if he had promoted mask wearing and had a national plan early is disingenuous at best.

To this very day he is holding huge indoor rallies with people not wearing masks and he does not call on them to do so. Surely at some point you have to stop making excuses for him.

And people wonder why we can't have nice things.

so there's talk of the EU doing another shutdown thanks to the morons in the UK, Spain, and Germany.

also, markets selling off due to shutdown worries here, combined with the damning report about banks and transactions, spikes in cases due to school openings, and the CDC playing games with their guidelines.

I want to thank social media for enlightening to the world how truly trash global leadership is.

all

over

the

world.

straight trash, homey.

He knew, he lied, and 200,000+ people died.

But Hillary's emails right? smh

Greed and a lack of patience. For some strange reason they just can't comprehend that the economy will only become stable long term AFTER the virus is under control. Doing it backwards will only prolong the devastation. Short term band aids won't stop the bleeding.

Case and point.

So many of the people who died was preventable.


Just the simple task of wearing a mask. Think about that.

Just trump setting the example. Promoting the guidelines. Thousands could have been saved. Why?

Because there a lot of people who follow the example of a president. Words and actions matter. Sure people should due their own research. Follow what the professionals in this field have stated.

The reality is there are many uneducated people who get their information from unreliable sources. Like trump and the media that promote him.

Think about how things would have been different. "If" right from the start the truth was told. That trump backed the science. That he had called a conference of all the governors and the medical experts there to chart a course of action. That he worked with all media outlets including social media to ask for their assistance in promoting CDC Guidelines.

We would not be where we are. There would not be 200k deaths and counting.

All one has to do is look around the world on the results in other countries with far less resources than the US.

It is called Leadership in time of crisis.
The JOB Description of a President.

jc

‘Fox & Friends’ Apologizes for Running False Story on Nashville Coronavirus ‘Cover-Up’
The Daily Beast
Justin Baragona
,The Daily Beast•September 21, 2020
Fox News

Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy on Monday morning issued an apology for his show having run with a since-retracted story falsely accusing Nashville’s Democratic mayor of engaging in a coronavirus cover-up, admitting that the mayor did not conceal information from the public as alleged.

Last week, a supposed bombshell by a local Fox affiliate in Nashville set the conservative media ecosystem on fire. According to the report by Fox 17—a Sinclair-owned station—the mayor’s office allegedly covered up numbers that showed relatively low spread of COVID-19 in bars and restaurants. The clear implication of the story was that the city was hiding the data in order to justify its coronavirus lockdown orders on public businesses.

The story, which focused on a selective misreading of emails, was quickly picked up by large right-wing digital outlets such as The Daily Wire and Breitbart and soon found its way to Fox News’ pro-Trump opinion shows. Tucker Carlson—who has become one of the network’s loudest coronavirus skeptics— kicked off his show on Thursday with the story, claiming the Fox 17 report was “conclusive proof” that Nashville officials hid key health stats “for no justifiable reason,” while explicitly calling for Mayor John Cooper’s impeachment.

His Fox primetime colleague Laura Ingraham also jumped on the report, claiming it exposed “a sinister COVID cover-up,” comparing it to something “you’d expect from communist China” or “Soviet Russia.” The following morning, Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade insisted the emails were proof that “they lied” while saying Cooper “has to resign yesterday.”

- ADVERTISEMENT -

Fox 17’s explosive report, however, was quickly and easily debunked by other media outlets. The data about the low number of cases at the time tied to bars and restaurants was disclosed at a July 2 press conference. A local Nashville reporter also published a story on the numbers back on August 4. Eventually, the station fully retracted the story.

“In a segment that aired earlier this week, we incorrectly asserted that Mayor Cooper's office withheld COVID-19 data from the public, which implied that there had been a cover up,” the station said in a statement. “We want to clarify that we do not believe there was any cover-up, and we apologize for the error and oversight in our reporting.”

“We continue to have questions about the level of transparency that the government showed to the restaurant and bar industry—whose livelihood was on the line,” the statement continued. “As journalists, we will continue to ask those questions and hold elected officials accountable.”


In a brief standalone segment on Monday morning, Doocy addressed the retraction during the first hour of Fox & Friends.

“We wanted to give you update on a story last week,” he noted. “On Friday, we reported on allegations that the mayor of Nashville had hidden coronavirus numbers. That was according to our local Nashville Fox affiliate.”

“They have since retracted their story. And we now know the mayor’s office did apparently not conceal those numbers and did release them to the public and so this morning on this Monday we wanted to apologize for any confusion,” Doocy concluded.

A Fox News spokesperson told The Daily Beast that both Carlson and Ingraham will also be addressing the retracted story on their programs Monday night

https://www.yahoo.com/news/fox-friends-apologizes-running-false-151254587.html

Interesting that when they thought a democratic mayor withheld information they were calling for his impeachment. Wonder why they aren't calling for trumps's impeachment (or should I say re-impeachment)

Precisely my point about the trump media organ promoting misinformation.

No matter what there is no getting away from "he Lied" to the people he took an oath to protect.

Would anybody have panicked if they were told the truth about Covid?

Panicked how? In what way?


Oh, I will wear a mask and stay away from others especially indoors?

Panic like we need testing and contact tracing to isolate the infected so they will not spread the virus?


Is that panic?

Or, is better to do nothing and watch 200k citizens of America die?

What a slap in the face to our senior citizens.

But to be fair, you all deserve the disrespect. You voted for this, after all.

This man pretty much said he don’t give two craps about y’all. But you’ll cheer anyway.

Sigh.....

hE TaLkS LiKE mE sO i LiKe HiM

So if you died, knew someone who died, was a relative of someone who died or was in the hospital for weeks or months. YOU ARE A NOBODY.

Are you saying that seniors deserve disrespect?

I am 73 this month.

IMO trump is by far the worst president this country has ever had.

On the world stage one of the most corrupt leaders.

He is unfit, incompetent, and a failure as president.

He has betrayed the people he took an oath to protect. In a time of crisis his incompetence has cost lives.

So are you profiling seniors as trump supporters?

Yes or no: did he win the majority of seniors in 2016?

Sorry bone, but I make my comments based on the evidence.

You can be mad at you want. What does the facts say?

I’m looking at it now:

Yes or no, did trump ALSO win the demographic of 50-64?

It's not that complicated. You mean as an overall voting block. Not as individuals.

I thought that went without saying, but I forgot I need to be very specific.

I’m only going off what the evidence says.

The evidence says trump thinks all seniors are nobodies

No matter I think it is disingenuous to generalize.

Nobody wants to be profiled.

Just like minorities that support trump.

My point is simple. trump lied. Nobody should vote for him.

He has failed the citizens of this country in a time of crisis. His response to the pandemic is appalling.

That alone is enough. That is on topic.

That does not take in consideration his environmental record.

And a long list of other offenses since his first day in office.

The make up of voters is immaterial.

None of this is my fault at all. I voted for someone else.

Trump lied.
Americans died.

Lets be real here. Arguing over party at this point is irrelevant.

What you are seeing transpiring today I believe is the beginning of the end of the US as we know it. We can't go on like this. It doesn't matter who becomes president, Biden and his fiscal policies will just hasten our collapse a bit sooner than Trump's.

We are 21 trillion dollars in debt, the Federal Reserve just announced they are going to hold interest rates at 0% till 2023. Guns are flying off the shelves in record numbers that demand can't be met, ammo is flying off the shelves faster than it can be made. , rioters and violent criminals run unfettered in most Us cities burning, destroying, and attacking people while the police simply don't have the manpower to deal with it, and get no help.

the writing is on the wall for anyone who pays attention it don't look good at all. put COVID19 and record job losses on top of it due to lockdowns and we got a recipe for disaster.

In most U.S. cities? Would you like to elaborate on that?

j/c

Sources: NFL fines Broncos' Vic Fangio, Seahawks' Pete Carroll, 49ers' Kyle Shanahan $100K each for mask noncompliance

The NFL fined three head coaches -- Denver's Vic Fangio, Seattle's Pete Carroll and San Francisco's Kyle Shanahan -- $100,000 each for not wearing masks Sunday, sources told ESPN's Adam Schefter.

In addition, the league fined each coach's team $250,000, sources said.

The $1,050,000 in punishments comes a week after the league sent a memo to teams reinforcing its requirement that coaches wear coverings over their mouths and noses at all times on the sidelines during games, threatening discipline for those who don't comply.

The sharply worded message, written by executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent, came in response to wide variance in compliance during the first Sunday of the 2020 season.

Players are exempt from these protocols.

More fines could be coming, as several other coaches violated the league's rules, among them New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick and both coaches in Monday night's game, Jon Gruden of the Las Vegas Raiders and Sean Payton of the New Orleans Saints.

Gruden wore his face mask like a chin strap and Payton wore his gaiter like a turtleneck.

Following the Raiders' 34-24 win over the Saints on Monday night, Gruden, who last week said he felt the league's memo was directed at him, revealed he'd had COVID-19 and apologized for violating the rules.

"I'm doing my best," Gruden said. "I've had the virus. I'm doing my best. I'm very sensitive about it ... I'm calling plays. I just wanna communicate in these situations, and if I get fined, I'll have to pay the fine, but I'm very sensitive about that and I apologize."

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/2994...k-noncompliance

FDA is going to revise the standards for a vaccine as soon as this week to bolster Americans eroding trust in the safety of a vaccine.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-8761493/FDA-make-harder-COVID-19-vaccines-approved.html

Yes, but winning political debates is more important than trying to overcome our problems and uniting.

You can't expect people to unite when you are supporting this nations biggest divider.

Sometimes the onion is too spot on

Trump claims White House can overrule FDA's attempt to toughen guidelines for coronavirus vaccine

President Donald Trump claimed Wednesday that the White House could override the US Food and Drug Administration if the agency released tougher standards for the authorization of a Covid-19 vaccine, casting such a move as "political."

His comments come as the FDA considers new Covid-19 vaccine guidelines that would likely push an authorization beyond Election Day, according to three sources familiar with the situation. That timeline would dash Trump's hopes of a pre-election authorization, having repeatedly said the vaccine could be ready by November 3.

"We're looking at that and that has to be approved by the White House. We may or may not approve it," the President said of the new FDA guidelines at a White House news conference. "That sounds like a political move."
The FDA "respectfully" declined to comment on Trump's claims. But generally speaking, agency guidelines do go through the White House Office of Management and Budget review process, an FDA official told CNN Wednesday.

In the meantime, the President's comments are sure to fuel new unease in a vaccine process that was already being greeted with skepticism by many Americans in polls. A lack of trust in the program is a nightmare scenario, public health experts say, since a vaccine is the best hope of eventually ending the pandemic and restoring normal life.

Earlier Wednesday, the commissioner of the FDA, Dr. Stephen Hahn, made a commitment to America that the "FDA will not authorize or approve a vaccine that we would not feel comfortable giving to our families."

"FDA will not authorize or approve any Covid-19 vaccine before it has met the agency's rigorous expectations for safety and effectiveness. Decisions to authorize or approve any such vaccine or therapeutic will be made by the dedicated career staff at FDA, through our thorough review processes, and science will guide our decisions," Hahn specifically promised the Senate Health Committee.

"FDA will not permit any pressure from anyone to change that," he added.
National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on "The Situation Room" that he trusts the FDA to apply the highest safety and efficacy standards to all the coronavirus vaccines, though he conceded that he wasn't sure if the FDA or White House had the final say on vaccine approval.

"I am not a lawyer or a constitutional scholar," he said. "I actually don't know the answer to that."

Two former FDA commissioners previously told CNN that while they think it's very unlikely that Trump could pressure scientists into authorizing or approving a Covid-19 vaccine, it's possible. The Department of Health and Human Services has in the past overruled the FDA's recommendations on medications.

Despite reassurances from federal officials, there are fears that the typical pathway for review and approval of the Covid-19 vaccine will be eschewed, or at least bent, because of political pressure.

"What I'm concerned about is there could be a gray zone where a vaccine looks partially protective and it goes on the market without a full formal review process," said Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccinologist at Baylor College of Medicine.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/23/politics/trump-fda-coronavirus-vaccine/index.html

People need to wake up to the fact that Trump doesn't care if he's killing republicans or democrats as long as it helps get him reelected.

j/c

A 'distressed' Birx questions how long she can remain on White House task force, sources say

Once a fixture at the administration's coronavirus briefings, Dr. Deborah Birx has confided to aides and friends that she has become so unhappy with what she sees as her diminished role as coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force that she is not certain how much longer she can serve in her position, sources familiar with her thinking tell CNN.

Birx has told people around her that she is "distressed" with the direction of the task force, describing the situation inside the nation's response to the coronavirus as nightmarish.
According to people familiar with her thinking, Birx views Dr. Scott Atlas, a recent addition to the task force, as an unhealthy influence on President Donald Trump's thinking when it comes to the virus.
"The President has found somebody who matches what he wants to believe," a source close to Birx said of her view of Atlas's relationship with Trump. "There is no doubt that she feels that her role has been diminished."

Birx believes Atlas is feeding the President misleading information about the efficacy of face masks for controlling the spread of the virus, the source said. Trump, whose rallies draw crowds of supporters who refuse to wear masks, has repeatedly mocked Democratic rival Joe Biden for using them.

Speaking from the White House briefing room Wednesday evening, Atlas claimed there isn't any bad blood between himself and Birx.

"Dr. Birx speaks for herself but that's a completely false story and she denied it today. It's completely false," Atlas said at a news conference.
Birx has not yet responded to request for comment on the story, despite Atlas saying she had denied the report.

A White House official rejected the notion that Birx has been diminished in her role on the task force.

"All of the medical experts in the administration are working together around the clock to carry out the President's No. 1 priority: protecting the health and safety of the American people and defeating this virus from China," White House spokesman Judd Deere said. "President Trump relies on the advice and counsel of all of his top health officials every day and any suggestion that their role is being diminished is just false."

A longtime US government health official, Birx became a household name during the early weeks of the pandemic, appearing with Trump at news conferences in the White House briefing room to deliver sobering warnings about the threat posed by the virus. In recent weeks, however, Birx has spent much less time with Trump, as she is now dispatched to raise awareness of the administration's pandemic efforts in states where cases of Covid-19 have surged.

Atlas, a neuroradiologist without expertise in infectious diseases, has seen his prominent role on the task force come under some scrutiny as respected medical experts have questioned his controversial flirtation with "herd immunity" as a solution for the outbreak in the US.

"When you isolate everyone, including all the healthy people, you're prolonging the problem because you're preventing population immunity. Low-risk groups getting the infection is not a problem," Atlas told Fox News in July.

An administration official close to the West Wing's coronavirus response acknowledged the addition of Atlas has unsettled some of the experts on the task force. But the official maintained Atlas "shook things up a bit" and brought "fresh eyes" to discussions behind the scenes, a dynamic Trump prefers.

"He's not been instructed to make friends," the official said of Atlas.
Trump has invited Atlas to appear at recent White House news conferences to field questions from reporters. Noticeably absent in the briefing room are Birx and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government's leading authority on infectious diseases.

"Don't you think the frustration would be there?" remarked one source close to Birx about the briefings.

The same source said Birx, who has spent much of her career tackling global health crises from Covid-19 to AIDS, is not likely to end her time in government service by stepping down from the task force.

"She is a good soldier. I don't think she's going anywhere," the source said.

Unlike Fauci, who occasionally differs with the President's statements on the virus during television appearances, Birx is seen as much more of a team player inside the administration. During one memorable task force news conference in late April, Birx famously bit her tongue and sat stone-faced as Trump suggested that government researchers investigate whether injections of disinfectants could somehow guard Americans against the virus.

Birx believes her current role as a traveling spokesperson for the administration's coronavirus response in states across much of the south and southwest is having some positive effect, a source said. She has touted the benefits of mask mandates during visits to college towns and other communities where Covid-19 spikes have alarmed local officials.

James Glassman, a friend of Birx and a former top State Department official during the George W. Bush administration, said the task force coordinator is trying to make the best of a difficult situation.

"Dr. Birx is out in the states with the most trouble, telling them the right things about masks and distancing and going back to school," Glassman said. "She's ignoring the nonsense from Scott Atlas and just getting the job done -- just as I've seen her do, fighting AIDS for the past 15 years."



https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/23/politics/deborah-birx-white-house-task-force/index.html

Now Trump is using an ass kisser radiologist with no experience in infectious diseases to bolster his anti science agenda.

Next he’ll bring in Dr Phil to be his mouthpiece. His cult followers will rejoice.

j/c

Parents knowingly sent kids with coronavirus to school, Wisconsin officials say

“A handful of irresponsible parents could be responsible for closing down entire school districts,” the Washington-Ozaukee public health director said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/par...sm_npd_nn_fb_ma

Donald Trump Says FDA’s Push For Stricter COVID-19 Vaccine Standard “Sounds Like A Political Move”

Deadline
Ted Johnson
DeadlineSeptember 23, 2020


Donald Trump said that the White House would have to approve an effort by the Food and Drug Administration to impose stricter standards for a coronavirus vaccine.

The Washington Post reported that the FDA is moving toward new guidance for emergency authorization of a vaccine, which would make it unlikely that it would get a green light before Election Day.

“That has to be approved by the White House,” Trump said. “We may or may not approve it. It sounds like a political move, because when you have Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna. These great companies coming up with vaccines and they have done testing and everything, I am saying why would they be adding great length to the process. …I think that was a political move more than anything else.”

But polling suggests that there is sagging public trust in a vaccine. An Axios-Ipsos poll showed that just 39% say that they are likely to take the vaccine as soon as it is available.

Trump, though, insisted that the companies doing current trials on a vaccine could be trusted. “When they come back and say, we have something that absolutely works, and they are coming back with great numbers and statistics and tests that they have to come back with, I don’t see any reason why it should be delayed further.”

On Capitol Hill on Wednesday, FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn said, “FDA will not authorize or approve a vaccine we won't be confident in giving to our families.”

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/donald-trump-says-fda-push-232507541.html

Man, I wish trump and the GOP would’ve acted as fast on COVID as they’re doing with the SC pick.

Don't be silly man.... acting fast on Covid would have saved LIVES ... acting fast on the SC pick means POWER. Pffft. I didn't think you were so naïve.

They'll cry the blues next month when all the evictions start getting tallied up. Homelessness is about to shoot up by millions. And at this point, I blame Dems too. They should do something for people that are hurting IMHO. That unemployment EO Trump did ended before it was even funded in most states. It was good for 4 or 5 weeks I think, but I can't remember 100%. Other than that, neither side is doing anything for the working class and poor, BUT they gave a couple trillion to billionaires, wall street, and big businesses... smh Throw them all out.

EDIT:

FEMA expects this additional $44 billion from the Disaster Relief Fund to last about 5-6 weeks, depending on how many states participate.

To put this in perspective, in just the month of July, the extra $600/week cost $80 billion and has cost nearly $254 billion since it started in April. More than 30 million people are currently claiming UI benefits.

https://gop-waysandmeans.house.gov/how-i...xecutive-order/

So let's say Trump's EO cost 44 billion, that's $298 billion to help 30 million people/families during a pandemic and recession. I wonder how many 1%ers were helped with that 2.5 trillion rich people bailout?... smh

Woman tased, arrested for trespassing for not wearing mask at Ohio football game

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-...o-football-game

School rules say everybody had to wear a mask. The articles I read said she was asked to put it on or leave and that she declined both. Watching the video she resisted arrest which is why she was tased. It's about time people stopped fighting the cops and breaking the rules then blaming the damn cops. 90 percent of the time (my estimate not a fact) cops get physical the person was acting like a damn fool and needs to look in the mirror to see who is to blame.

While I agree with you to some extent, in no state is the penalty for resisting arrest death.

J\C

I beleive that the dems are directly responsible for the spread of covid Nancy Pelosi encouraged people to go out and party especially in China town in her district in February so when the leader of the dem party of the entire U.S. say its safe, a whole lot of lemmings listened to her. pffft... watta joke the libs are

Yeah, that's the kind of stupid crap people say when they go all the way back to February and March when very little was actually known about the virus.

Meanwhile..... Trump is still holding indoor rallies with very few people in the crowds wearing masks. And let's not forget that, "waiters don't like masks".

Coronavirus mutation emerges that may bypass mask-wearing, hand-washing protections

New strain contains higher loads of the virus, may be more contagious

By Jackie Salo | New York Post


A new COVID-19 mutation appears to be even more contagious, according to a study — and experts say it could be a response by the virus to defeat masks and other social-distancing efforts.

Scientists in a paper published Wednesday identified a new strain of the virus, which accounted for 99.9 percent of cases during the second wave in the Houston, Texas, area, the Washington Post reported.

The paper, which has not been peer-reviewed, said people with the strain, known as the D614G mutation, had higher loads of virus — suggesting it is more contagious.

Though the strain isn’t more deadly, researchers said it appeared to have adapted better to spread among humans.

David Morens, a virologist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the findings suggest that the virus may become more contagious and that this “may have implications for our ability to control it.”

He said it’s possible that the virus had evolved to resist efforts such as hand-washing and social distancing.

“Wearing masks, washing our hands, all those things are barriers to transmissibility, or contagion, but as the virus becomes more contagious, it statistically is better at getting around those barriers,” Morens told the newspaper

https://www.foxnews.com/us/coronavirus-m...ing-protections

Gee I must have missed where they killed her

While I accept that the virus may mutate, I do not believe that the virus has overcome hand washing and social distancing. Cooler/colder weather certainly may impact this however I suggest that we are getting more lax with more restrictions lifted as we go along...

I agree, but I'll add that the police response must be with no more than appropriate force...

But we're told almost daily how much worse this will get coming into flu season...........and I guess there is a second strain of this new covid that is worse, and we're all going to get it, and everything is worse, or getting worser, or is the worstest ever.

We gotta do gooder.

I can't tell whether you are serious or not although I believe the latter. Who do you believe: Trump or Fauci?

We agree bro.

first, personaly I wouldn't care, I've said from the beginning, as a society we have to deal with whatever comes from this version of the 100 year flu.

You realize Trump shut down the travel from China before others would suggest, and when prominent Dems like Mayor or Gov of NY was still saying to go out in groups and such.

Trump brought in the hospital ships to San Francisco and New Jersey.

Trump enacted the war powers act to force companies like ford to make ppe masks. and Ventilators

Do Realize Trump has shown tremendous restraint in following the constitution to keep allowing + suggesting Governors make their own decisions, and hasn't interfered.

Even though the dastardly left has baited him into trying to get him to interfere with the military in cities, so they could claim he's trying to violate the constitution.

Trump haters are going to hate,

They will never wake up , or open up their eyes.

The Democratic party???
" If you don't know them by now----
You will never ever ever know them, ooh ooooh ooooh."

Went to the doctor for a check up and prescription refills today. He gave me a flu and pneumonia vaccine told me I was due for a tetanus booster, so I got that too. Then he was talking to me about a low grade fever I had on and off for a couple weeks where I isolated and chilled until it was gone. Not other symptoms and I didn't really feel sick, just low grade temps up to 101, but mostly 100 or under. Monday I get tested to see if I have the antibodies.

j/c

Florida reopens: DeSantis lifts state’s coronavirus restrictions

TALLAHASSEE — Florida will no longer require bars and restaurants to operate at less than full capacity, as Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order Friday removing all remaining restrictions on those businesses because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The order, which takes effect immediately, also prohibits local governments from closing businesses or collecting fines related to pandemic-related mandates, such as mask requirements — leading to at least one Central Florida county being inundated with calls asking if people no longer have to wear one. But it does allow local authorities to limit restaurant and bar capacity to 50% if they can justify it.

“We are today moving into what we initially called phase 3,” DeSantis said during a news conference in St. Petersburg. “And what that’ll mean for the restaurants is there will not be limitations from the state of Florida. We’re also saying in the state of Florida everybody has a right to work. (Local governments) can do reasonable regulations, but they can’t just say no.”

Democratic state Sen. Linda Stewart called the move politically motivated and questioned whether the timing was right because Florida continues to have a relatively high death and positivity rates compared with the rest of the country.

“I’m not terribly convinced that we’re ready for this right now,” said Stewart of Orlando. “And if the governor wants to move forward in this fashion, we will find out in three weeks if we’re ready.”

There are four major provisions of the order:

-It removes all remaining state-level restrictions on businesses, including on bars and restaurants.

-It provides a general right to work and to operate a business. Local governments can limit and regulate businesses, but won’t be able to close businesses because of coronavirus concerns.

-Local governments won’t be able to prevent restaurants from operating at below 50% capacity. Under previous orders, local governments could go further than state-level restrictions, and counties in South Florida kept restaurants and bars closed after the state allowed them to reopen. But cities and counties won’t be able to impose any restrictions without an economic and health-based justification for it.

-Cities and counties can’t collect on any outstanding fines they issued as part of their pandemic response. The order, though, doesn’t compel local governments to refund anyone who has already paid a fine.

No effect on theme parks

DeSantis said the order doesn’t affect sports venues and theme parks because there were no state-imposed restrictions on them currently, but each business has the ability to impose their own distancing and mask requirements.

In Seminole County, Commission Chairman Jay Zembower said officials currently do not plan to modify or cancel its executive order, which requires patrons to wear masks and practice social distancing within businesses and other public areas, until it receives written guidance from the Governor’s Office.

“We really don’t know anything yet, because we haven’t received anything,” Zembower said. “And until we do, we can’t do anything.''

County officials said that almost immediately after DeSantis made the announcement this morning, residents and business owners started calling their offices asking if people would still need to wear masks in public within the county. Extra workers were even called to handle the deluge of calls.

Seminole urged voluntary compliance in its order, but chronic offenders could be charged with a misdemeanor. However, no one was ever ticketed, fined or arrested for noncompliance.

DeSantis asked local governments earlier this month to detail their coronavirus-related orders and any fines and fees issued to citizens. While not all cities and counties have responded, DeSantis aides said that of those that had, the fines totaled nearly $2 million. It’s unclear how much of that has already been paid.

One Seminole business owner, Oviedo Brewing Co.'s Vishal Chunilal, had mixed feelings about the decision. He said it was great to start getting back to pre-coronavirus numbers, but safety is more important.

“I look at my staff first and myself and my family,” Chunilal said.

He added he is waiting for the local government’s response before starting his plan.

Chunilal expects his brewery, which also offers food, will expand the number of people allowed inside in stages and won’t go directly to 100% capacity.

“We’ll have a plan of action to get to 100%, but it won’t be immediate,” Chunilal said.

Up the road, Hollerbach’s Willow Tree Café in downtown Sanford plans to ease up to its full 665 seats, with owner Christina Hollerbach hoping to reach 100% capacity around March. It is operating with about 280 to 300 seats right now.

The German restaurant, which is now running with about 90 employees, needs to hire 15 to 30 people in the next six months, Hollerbach said.

Hollerbach’s was wrapping up an expansion with hundreds of new seats and a rooftop beer garden around when the pandemic started. The restaurant laid off more than 50 people in March while keeping nearly 50 others on the payroll, before eventually returning its staff to 90 employees.

Hollerbach added she does not expect masks, sanitizing or social distancing to go away immediately.

“I’m glad the governor is trusting restaurant owners to be responsible so that we can restore a good economy and bring jobs back,” Hollerbach said.
Slowdown in cases

DeSantis aides said the order was based partly on the reduction in hospitalizations, new cases and deaths from COVID-19 since the state was hit with a surge of the virus in the summer.

There were 2,815 new cases reported Friday, along with 162 deaths, bringing the totals for Florida since the pandemic began in March to 695,887 cases and 13,915 deaths. There were 2,169 people hospitalized with the coronavirus in the state as of Thursday, down from a peak of more than 9,000 in late July.

But the average daily case count this week has also increased 5% from two weeks ago, the New York Times reported. Florida also has a positivity rate of 4.29% compared to New York’s 1%, though several states in the Midwest were seeing rates in the double digits.

DeSantis also said that while the pandemic isn’t over, society must continue to function even as citizens take measures to prevent its spread.

“The fact that you continue to move forward with the economy, it doesn’t mean that the virus disappears,” DeSantis said. But imposing lockdowns “where society flounders people are out of work, kids aren’t in school - that is not going to work. And that’s not the way forward for us.”

But critics of the move said the prevalence of the virus was still too high for DeSantis to remove all restrictions.

“Some of the top economists across the country have told Governor DeSantis in no uncertain terms that the economy will not recover until he gets the virus under control,” said Sydney Riess, public health fellow with Florida chapter of the Public Interest Research Group, a national consumer interest and advocacy group. “Yet, the governor is preventing potentially life-saving restrictions while COVID-19 cases are still well above the levels that health professionals deem safe for reopening.”

Stewart also said she was "not that convinced that the statistics [on coronavirus] are being reported in an accurate fashion. I hope they are. ... I just don’t I don’t really think we need to be playing politics with public health.”

She added she wasn’t surprised about the mask penalty waiver, saying DeSantis “never was in favor of mandatory masks. ... But I think on their own, [people are] going just put the mask on whether or not the governor thinks they should or shouldn’t do it."

Although the restrictions have been removed, DeSantis' state of emergency related to the pandemic remains in effect through Nov. 3. His aides said the declaration is still important to give agencies the flexibility to order and distribute personal protection equipment to hospitals, run state testing sites and coordinate with federal agencies on response.

State government agencies under DeSantis' control also aren’t affected by the order. Some departments still have employees work from home and maintain social distancing guidelines when in the office, but DeSantis aides said those restrictions could be removed in the near future.

The state Capitol also remains closed to the public.

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/politics...ereq-story.html

Let freedom ring or let freedom kill. Or call killing your fellow Americans freedom. Or whatever.

The wife and I returned 10 days ago from our third trip up and down the East Coast since June, visiting family, hugging, eating in restaurants daily, staying in hotels, going to Church, shopping, no Covid to be seen anywhere except in Colleges.

What a lie.

God's honest truth.

Then you weren't looking for it. To claim that the only covid cases along the east coast are in the colleges is either purely deceitful or extremely naive at best.

Every evening the local news had a map of new Covid cases in their viewing areas and it would be Zero-Zero-Zero...

Except the counties with large colleges, then it would be 127 and such. The smaller the college, the lower the number.

All you need to do is cite a source that backs that up. You do realize there are colleges in most counties somewhere, right? Be that state or community colleges. Dude, you just can't seem to grasp reality can you? So if only counties that had colleges had Covid cases, almost every county would have Covid cases.

I am back from visiting my children, grand children, family and friends for the third time this summer.

It doesn't get anymore real than that.

Today, I'm sick of the corona restrictions. I don't care about the spread, I feel, even long ago the virus spread to everywhere and back again, every demographic of any population has been exposed,
we can't even point to say, Alaska, and say, wear masks and stay in your home so it doesn't spread to Alaska, or the corner of some basement in Wyoming or something,
Covid spread everywhere and all the restrictions didn't contain it.

At this point, it's on everyone individually to watch out for themselves.

There is no longer a curve to flatten.

And Florida is doing the right thing, the complete removal of business shutdowns is necessary.

Indoor crowds should still try to stay 6 feet apart, but beyond that it's time to let people live life.

And we didn't even get near a 2.5 million number so
people who want to stay home can.
We have to open society.

And Ohio needs a Governor born after the Civil War.
Octogenarians would close bars and all restaurants by 6:30 pm because they are at the end of their life expectancy
We need new leadership in Ohio.

Here Are the States Where COVID-19 Is Increasing

The spread of COVID-19 appears to be headed up as fall 2020 debuts today.

The New York Times reports that there was an average of more than 41,000 new confirmed COVID-19 cases per day during the past week. That was a 7 percent increase from the 36,000 daily average reported a week ago.

The Times also notes that new cases have increased 15 percent over the past 10 days, the largest jump since spring.

Reuters reports that there were 287,000 new COVID-19 cases for the week that ended September 20. That was an increase of 17 percent from the previous week.

It’s the first increase after 8 consecutive weeks of decline.

One of the big concerns is colleges. A study released this week reports that the resumption of classes at colleges and universities produced an average of 3,000 additional COVID-19 cases per day in the United States between mid-July and mid-September.

Concerns were also heightened by a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) 2 weeks ago that concluded that people who test positive for COVID-19 are twice as likely to have eaten at a restaurant in the previous 2 weeks.

Overall, the United States now has nearly 7 million confirmed COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began.

Hospitalizations stand at more than 26,000, which is significantly below the 50,000-plus numbers posted in late July but an increase from the 25,000 reported earlier this week.

COVID-19 related deaths have now topped 200,000.

That number places the viral illness as the third leading cause of death in the United States in 2020, trailing behind only heart disease and cancer.

The New York Times reports that deaths averaged 850 per day in mid-September. It also noted that 1,091 people died from COVID-19 on Wednesday.

Reuters reports that deaths rose 5 percent this past week to 5,400. It’s the first increase after 4 weeks of decline.

A daily tracking graph from the New York Times shows 18 states where “new cases are higher and staying high.” That’s up from 9 states last week.

It lists no states where cases are higher but going down. It reports that there are 11 states where new cases are lower but going up.

It also notes there are 21 states where cases are lower and staying low.

A weekly tracking graph by Reuters that was updated on Monday listed 41 states where COVID-19 case numbers ticked upward the previous week.

That was up from the 17 states reporting increases a week ago.

The news service reports there was an average of 812,000 people tested for COVID-19 per day the previous week. That was a significant increase from the week before that. The nation set a record on Saturday by testing 1 million people.

The rate of positive test results fell to 5 percent this past week, the seventh straight week of decline. It reached a high of 9 percent in mid-July.

However, 26 states had rates above 5 percent, the level the World Health Organization considers “concerning.”

Idaho, Wisconsin, Iowa, South Dakota had the highest positivity rates at 16 percent.
Where cases are the highest

In terms of percentage, Arizona showed the largest increase among states in new confirmed COVID-19 cases, according to the Reuters graph.

Arizona reported 5,506 new positive tests this past week, a hike of 101 percent from the previous week.

Utah was second with 5,870 new cases this past week, an increase of 82 percent.

There are concerns about the continued increase of cases in some Midwestern states. Minnesota, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, and North Dakota all reported increases in cases.

South Dakota did report an increase of 35 percent in new cases this past week.

Some of the spike has been linked to a large annual motorcycle rally held in Sturgis in mid-August.

State officials have said there were nearly 300 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in 11 states tied to that rally. That includes the death of a man in his 60s who was among the 400,000 people who attended the event.

Maine’s new cases increased by 19 percent to 216 new cases after several weeks of increases, according to Reuters.

Part of the spike is due to a wedding reception held on August 7 in the small town of Millinocket.

Officials report at least 270 cases linked to the event. There are also eight deaths connected to the wedding. None of the people who died actually attended the wedding.

In terms of sheer numbers, Texas, California, and Florida are still leading the way in new COVID-19 cases.

Texas reported 31,058 new cases, a increase of 26 percent, according to Reuters.

California was second with 24,931 new cases. That was a hike of 8 percent from the previous week.

Florida was third with 19,760 new cases, an increase of 13 percent.

Illinois had the fourth highest number of new cases with 12,990, an increase of 9 percent.

Wisconsin was fifth with 12,613 new positive tests, an increase of 52 percent.

Georgia was sixth with 11,841 new positive tests, an increase of 7 percent.

Hospitalizations declining

The number of COVID-19 hospitalizations are on the decline but still remain high.

On Wednesday, Texas was listed as having 3,270 people hospitalized with COVID-19, a decline from the high of 10,893 reported in late July.

California has the next highest hospitalizations with 2,617 patients, a decline from where it was a week ago.

Florida is third with 2,319 people hospitalized with COVID-19, less than the numbers reported last week.

Illinois has the fourth highest number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients with 1,563, around the same as last week.

Georgia has the fifth highest number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients with 1,406, also less than last week.

The death toll

The New York Times lists 13 states where COVID-19 related deaths have risen the past 2 weeks.

The Reuters graph lists 23 states where deaths had increased the previous week.

Virginia had the highest percentage increase among states at 533 percent with 291 new deaths.

Kansas was second with an 183 percent increase with 85 deaths.

Arkansas recorded 200 deaths last week, an increase of 130 percent, while West Virginia reported 44 deaths, a jump of 120 percent.

In terms of sheer numbers, Florida recorded the most deaths with 695 this past week, a decrease of 9 percent from the previous week.

Texas was second with 687 fatalities this past week, a decrease of 8 percent.

California was third with 632 deaths, a decrease of nearly 4 percent.

Georgia reported 269 deaths, a decrease of 9 percent.

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/h...#The-death-toll

Just remember that hospitalizations and death rates take a while to catch up with a rise in new cases.

I'm glad you had a wonderful visit with no ill consequences. But stop pretending that your example is true for everyone. It's not.

A prime example of what's wrong with the self centered American culture we live in today.

"I want what I want and to hell with who or how many it kills!"

Sad...

https://dph.georgia.gov/covid-19-daily-status-report

The State Of Georgia didn't get that memo. We are decreasing per actual stats.

Some states are.

Yes, but we are doing exactly what you've been fear mongering about.

We were among the first to open the economy fully.
As well as send kids to school.

Our covid is going away drastically. It could change when the cold weather gets here, but for now it's way down.

A small battle in the middle of a war is no time to declare victory. Unless you somehow feel that wise.

A Prime example of the self centered tell everyone how to live culture we live in today.
INSURANCE COMPANY MENTALITY, Nobody can live a life,

And They say "Do what you're told and to hell with who or how many it kills!"

Mad!!!

INSURANCE COMPANY MENTALITY, Nobody can live a life,


Zackly!

Science has proven you wrong many times over. It's not a part of your "freedom" to infect and kill Americans.

And I'm not even going to read your long winded post to look at any of your numbers.

I don't care about any of your numbers! You had since May to have it your way, it didn't contain Snothing!

It didn't flatten Snothing!

I don't care about any of your numbers,

Going to organize a mask burning rally!

End Restrictions NOW, it didn't get anywhere near 2.5 million dead?

#Overreaction

#Fearmongering

Go Live In A Cave Then! (namecalling, I'm not allowed to call someone something that rhymes with unscaredy not a cat)
I'm MAD! Get over yourselves!

And your science is not a Religion, We don't have to follow it! Can't turn your science into a religion
Ban on establishment of a national religion!

Oh, Why don't your Crowd go ask the Japanese people who cleaned up after Fukishima for what attitude you need to adopt!

Wah. You sound like Pocapornstar

I couldn't find the original quote
People need to learn what I'm about to say next, even though 40% of the time it won't apply.

Yeah! 40% of the time is almost half the cases, almost half the cases, what I'm about to say won't matter, but 60% of the time, if people would just learn it, it could make 100% of the difference.

If people would just wait to have their constitutional rights discussion until after they agree to sit in the back of a patrol car, and go in front of a judge, it would make all the difference.
60 percent of the time.

Oh No! ^ Read This.

Yo Yo Yo Check this out! I wouldn't be surprised...

if this virus doesn't evolve so the only way to combat it is to lock yourselves in padded cells.

Think about it.

You sound like the blind mute talking to the deaf man over a disconnected telephone.

As that says nothing.
I basically left PitDawg speechless,
A Feather in my Cap! I consider it.

That's the new ice bucket challenge,

You basically said nothing. As usual.

jc

204k and counting. people can blow this off if they want to. Rona sure isn't. She's a hungry overweight american, and we're Golden Corral.

While people are promoting the very lack of practices that would help to keep the death rate lower.

Murica!

Ummmm....you lost me there somewhere. At least 60% of the time.

Covid-19,:
Economy shutdown, :

Emergency situation: Unprecedented:

( I went to fill up gasoline, it says, 18.9 cents, federal tax,
38+ cents, Ohio tax)

Well, shoot! I survived the Bush years when it was 4 dollars a gallon, in price, for a Year! and it's been 2-2.50 for the last couple years.

Double the Federal Gasoline tax, for 5 years, we can survive it

If the Governors didn't shut down the economy for half a year, Like I said from the start, then this wouldn't be necessary.

In 5 years there will be room to cut it, being that it was never adjusted for inflation, it's pretty much been dropping in real value anyway.

They should double it one time, for the federal, and not adjust it for inflation, and in general, lower taxes are better economicaly

But because in 2020, everybody from the governors to the protesters, ruined everything, we need to tourniquet all possible areas.

Double the Federal Gasoline tax, one time for 5 years, and spend it on NOTHING! Nothing but absorbing the budget deficit.
Austerity! Austerity has to come from somewhere, A stitch in time saves 9, There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

j/c:

Due to political reasons, I feel that the public has been given a lot of misinformation form both sides. It's becoming increasingly difficult to sift through all the claims.

Not sure if people are watching college football. Folks are congregating in the stands w/out masks. The announcers say they are social distancing, but they are not. Schools are open and the huge surge that was predicted has not occurred. Private bars have sprung up and people are shoulder to shoulder and there have not been huge increases. Thousands and thousands of folks have been protesting and huge outbreaks did not come to reality.

I am still practicing safe habits and will continue to do so. It's better to error on the side of caution. But, I am starting to wonder how valid some of these claims are? I feel the GOP misled us about the virus for economic/political reasons and now I am starting to wonder if the Dems and their supporters are overstating things and inflating numbers for political reasons.

The US Consumes 142 billion gallons of gasoline a year.

If you add an additional 18 cents per gallon, you make $25.56 billion/year

The national debt is $26,700 billion

Since Trump Took Office, the National Debt has been increasing by $5.01 billion/day (or $1828 billion/year)

1.) They should definitely increase the national gas tax. Probably quadruple it.

2.) This is still a drop in the bucket.

**Note, about half the gas that is consumed is tax free as well -- since it is used for farming or other commercial vehicles.

I mean, 900 people/day are still dying, but sure...

I think we've mostly just gotten bored of it.

This is all 100% true.

If Biden gets elected you may never hear about Covid again.

So the Democrats have somehow made it front page news on every paper throughout the rest of the world too?

Man I wish you deniers ( I wish I could call you all something much different) could follow me or other nurses for a day. You’d wilt. Screw you all.

No one's saying it's not real.

Easily one of the dumbest comments ever.

I can top that..... Here hold my beer

27 states have seen increases in cases. Eight of those states by over 60%.

Scientists don't have "a side" unless you're drinking the koolaid.

j/c:

Here is the latest report from the CDC regarding survival rates for various age groups. This will either be ignored or met w/deflection because it is an election year.



I saw this news here: https://tallahasseereports.com/2020/09/26/cdc-releases-updated-covid-19-fatality-rate-data/

j/c

205,000 dead Americans and counting. How many more deaths will it take until people stop doing everything they can to downplay it?

LOL..........here is how an obviously right leaning radio station reported the findings of the CDC.



Like I said earlier, this virus is being politicized by people on both sides. It wasn't such a dumb statement after all.

You understand that a large majority of people have cardiovascular and pulmonary damage after defeating the virus, right?

You understand that MOST people have cardiovascular and pulmonary damage, regardless, right?

I shared those numbers w/my wife and she said she knew about them. She said that the people who really are at risk are those w/diabetes and who are obese. It's sad, but those people are at risk from so many different things.

While some might not like the survival rates due to political preferences and the leverage that can be created, I am thrilled that the survival rate is so high.

Hispanics get significantly sicker than whites or blacks with similar risk factors.

Also copd\emphysema\asthma

I think he was referring to the studies that show a significant people with no prior heart or lung disease end up with long term issues. To soon to tell if it will "just" be months or if it will be permanent.

This includes asymptomatic patients found to have developed heart abnormalities.


https://www.espn.com/college-football/st...eason-viability

https://news.yahoo.com/redfield-voices-alarm-over-influence-090057649.html

And soon trump will throw Atlas under the bus.


https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politic...s-task-n1241221

WASHINGTON — The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has grown increasingly concerned that President Donald Trump, pushed by a new member of his coronavirus task force, is sharing incorrect information about the pandemic with the public.

Dr. Robert Redfield, who leads the CDC, suggested in a conversation with a colleague Friday that Dr. Scott Atlas is arming Trump with misleading data about a range of issues, including questioning the efficacy of masks, whether young people are susceptible to the virus and the potential benefits of herd immunity.

"Everything he says is false," Redfield said during a phone call made in public on a commercial airline and overheard by NBC News.

Redfield acknowledged after the flight from Atlanta to Washington that he was speaking about Atlas, a neuroradiologist with no background in infectious diseases or public health. Atlas was brought on to the White House task force in August.

The families of dead relatives will never be thrilled about anything related to the virus that trump helped bring to their doorsteps. But yeah the survival rate is thrilling. Pffft trump supporters

How did I know folks would deflect and/or ignore this positive news?

Whether the mortality rate is 1% - 0.5% - slightly lower or somewhere in the middle ..... the fact is that this is a contagious virus that is infecting large numbers. Large numbers with a small(ish) mortality rate still means a lot of dead victims. 1/2% mortality rate means 1 in 200 die. We are at 37,000 new cases a day .... 185 new fatal cases a day.

Sure that is better than the 1%+ that was feared and we saw early on before treatment got better .... but it's not something to shrug off and say that CV-19 suddenly doesn't matter any more.

Plus we still don't know the long term impact of getting a serious bout of CV-19 has.

Plus we don't know how long or effective immunity lasts.

Plus we are coming into the regular seasonal flu season and don't know how that will affect the situation.

We'll all be glad when a vaccine arrives that's safe and has gone through full testing/protocols .... but then there is an enormous logistical challenge to get 100,000,000+ shots where they need to be administered - possibly twice, possibly 3 times.

I have more and more and more friends who are Trump supporters convinced this is a hoax and an effort to get Trump out of office. They are all saying the numbers are inflated, the mortality rate is low and we should just open the whole country up .... I don't agree with any of that.

Positive news? The death rate is on the rise again. We’re still in the first wave of the virus. Pffft.... trump supporters are thrilled.

When asked for a response to this article, Atlas shrugged.

j/c:

So, the survival/death rate has been extremely high the entire time and the media and certain posters never let us know about it? My two kids had the virus and no thought to tell me about this? Seriously?

The media and the Dems won't tell us the truth because it is more important to use it as a political tool than anything else? Y'all are some despicable human beings.

Trump is, too. But, you are no better!!!

What is it you are trying to say? The data has been the data. That's what's been reported on regards mortality rates from the very beginning. It's also been consistent that those with pre-existing conditions and elderly were by far and away the most in danger.

Wake up - this isn't a Democratic hoax. The whole freaking world and the whole world's media has been through the same exact cycle of news/sensationalism/data/reporting/updates/revisions as the USA .... I know that holding Trump for his response to CV-19 is offensive to you and you want to call that politicizing the pandemic but only in your head and the other Trump supporters who are buying into yet another fake Trump narrative.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

This is a site that has been posted and referred to many, many times on these boards and has nothing to do with media bias or spin ... it's data.

This:

So, the survival/death rate has been extremely high the entire time and the media and certain posters never let us know about it? My two kids had the virus and no thought to tell me about this? Seriously?

The media and the Dems won't tell us the truth because it is more important to use it as a political tool than anything else? Y'all are some despicable human beings.

Trump is, too. But, you are no better!!!

How can the survival and the death rate be extremely high.... that makes zero sense.

As for what the media tells you ... I answered that directly. But hey, I know you don't like that. so you do you and deflect and call me despicable.

Once again, you misrepresented my message. But, you will win because Pit, OCD, Swish, Rocket, Perfect will back you.

Congrats.

All I know is that you guys sicken me even more than you did before. My kids were diagnosed w/the virus and not one of your told me about these numbers. The media did not publicize them either, which tells me even more about how this virus has been reported.

You trump supporters will never learn. ........winning!? We all be losing because of trump.

https://www.businessinsider.com/pence-banned-cdc-extending-cruise-ban-axios-2020-9


Mike Pence reportedly overruled the CDC on extending a cruise ship ban to 2021, the latest example of the White House sidelining expert advice in the pandemic
Bill Bostock 1 hour ago



Vice President Mike Pence stopped the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from extending a ban on cruise-ship journeys until 2021, Axios reported.

Pence, who heads the White House coronavirus task force, told CDC Director Robert Redfield that extending the "no-sail order" to February 2021 was unfeasible, the report said.

The ban on cruises was first imposed on March 14, 2020, and has been extended twice.
The news is the latest in a string of stories showing how the White House has sidelined scientific advice during the pandemic.

In July, four former CDC directors wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post that said: "Trying to fight this pandemic while subverting scientific expertise is like fighting blindfolded."

The no-sail order was due to expire on Wednesday, September 30. USA Today reported late Tuesday that it had been extended, but only until October 31.

Vice President Mike Pence prevented the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from extending the ban on cruise-ship travel into 2021, Axios reported.

On Tuesday, Pence and CDC director Robert Redfield met in the White House Situation Room to discuss the state of the withered cruise industry, two White House coronavirus task force sources told the news outlet.

The CDC first imposed a 30-day "no-sail order" on cruise ships on March 14, 2020, which was extended on July 16.

The ban expired on Wednesday, September 30, with Redfield asking to extend the order until February 2021, Axios said.

But Pence told Redfield that couldn't happen, the report said.

Later on Tuesday, USA Today reported that the ban had been extended, but only until October 31.

The news is the latest in a string of examples showing how the White House is ignoring scientific advice during the coronavirus pandemic.

In early April — following a CDC notice advising people to wear face coverings — Trump told reporters: "I don't think I'm going to be doing it."

A week later, The New York Times reported that Dr. Anthony Fauci, the US' top infectious-disease expert, had advised the White House to enforce social-distancing measures since February, but that his advice was ignored.

Fauci later confirmed the Times report. Social-distancing guidelines were finally issued by the US government on March 16.

On May 8, a CDC official said that White House had chosen to ignore much of the agency's 17-page reopening plan for the country.

The Trump administration has also ignored and even criticized CDC advice on reopening schools. Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, said on July 16 that "science should not stand in the way of' schools reopening."

In an op-ed in published in The Washington Post on July 14, four former directors of the CDC wrote: "Trying to fight this pandemic while subverting scientific expertise is like fighting blindfolded."

And on July 20, at least 1,200 members of the US National Academy of Sciences signed a letter that slammed Trump's "denigration of scientific expertise."

Earlier this month Politico reported, citing leaked emails, that Trump political appointee Dr. Paul Alexander accused career scientists of trying to undermine the president's campaign to reopen schools.

The New York Times also reported that a controversial guideline published by the CDC in August — which said that those exposed to the novel coronavirus but did not show symptoms should not seek a test — was in fact written that by Trump officials and published despite scientists' objetions. The CDC has since retracted that advice.

Money over life.

I question the sanity of anyone voluntarily boarding a cruise ship during a pandemic. But common sense has been thrown out the window these days. No surprises.

Also you gotta love school administrators blaming the kids for all the out breaks on their campus’s and not their own lack of preparation and safety for their students.

You got nothing but support from everyone when your family members were diagnosed with CV-19.

The fact that there is a TON of information out there that you didn't find or research when your family members were sick is not my fault or the fault of the board. Mortality rates have been discussed in the media since March. Early indications that the rate might be as high as 2-3% - but even then, or certainly by April, it was reported extensively how this virus was much much more dangerous for the elderly ... over time they added the issues with pre-existing conditions.

The fact that you lash out, name call and blame others for what you failed to find and research is a reflection of you and epitomizes what you have become on these boards.

A search for "mortality rate" shows a slew of posts dating back o 4/4/2020. I can't see them because I get a ""404 - File or directory not found."" message when I click on a link.

To add to the earlier posts. . . the relatively high 2-3% death rates were based on information from Europe - especially Italy when it was being ravaged. As time has gone on and our treatment of the virus and those infected has refined and improved - the rate has steadily decreased.

It would be great to look at these reports and believe the information. It would be a relief...

But I have a problem with any report from this CDC because of their recent (2020) record..below is an example...


Trump-Appointed CDC Officials Reportedly Meddled With Coronavirus Reports

Daniel Cassady, Forbes Staff
Updated Sep 12, 2020, 11:28am EDT
link

TOPLINE Trump appointed communications officials in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been looking over the agency’s weekly Covid-19 reports before they’re published, a Politico investigation found, and in some cases have successfully put pressure on scientists to change reports that would undermine President Donald Trump’s positive message about the pandemic.

KEY FACTS
Since former Trump campaign official Michael Caputo was installed as the CDC’s spokesperson in April, he and his aides have made sizable efforts to keep the agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports in line with Trump’s public stance that the coronavirus is under control, the investigation found.

CDC officials have pushed back against Caputo, but have increasingly agreed to allow them to review the reports and, in some cases, change the wording.

Caputo and his team tried to add qualifiers to reports written by career scientists, and sometimes retroactively change reports they say overinflated the risks of Covid-19, sources told Politico.

They also allegedly blocked reports from being published, including one that said the benefits of hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug promoted by Trump as a coronavirus treatment, “do not outweigh [the] risks.” — that report, published last week, was delayed by a month after Caputo’s team raised questions about its authors’ political leanings.

Caputo’s aides have accused CDC Director Robert Redfield and CDC scientists of using the reports to ‘hurt the President,” calling them “hit pieces on the administration” — one asked specifically to be able to make line edits and demanded the reports should stop until then, the investigation found.

The CDC did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Caputo, his aides, or the response within the department.

CHIEF CRITIC
Caputo defended his team’s reviewing CDC reports. “Our intention is to make sure that evidence, science-based data drives policy through this pandemic—not ulterior deep state motives in the bowels of CDC," he told Politico.

KEY BACKGROUND
Trump has publicly criticized the CDC and its guidelines since the start of the pandemic, and there seems to be an ongoing battle between the administration and the health agency. Last month, after a sudden change in testing guidance from the CDC raised alarms in the medical community, unnamed officials told the New York Times and CNN the change came from top levels of the Trump administration — a charge the administration denied. In July, the White House blocked Redfield from testifying to Congress about the safety of opening schools in the fall, and later that month the administration was reportedly trying to block “billions of dollars” in federal funding for testing and the CDC in a stimulus package proposal, a move they eventually backed away from.


BOTTOM LINE...Trump and his boys have a history of "LYING" by changing "REAL CDC REPORTS" to fit their version of the truth.

Just can't trust these reports...sorry.

j/c:

Folks on this board and the media tell us about the number of deaths from Covid occur multiple times daily, yet the survival rates have been hidden from us.

Guys like 888 can blow smoke up our asses all they want, but y'all are some despicable souls and the media is even worse. The intention was to deceive in order to win at politics. There is a reason why I despise the media and folks like 888 and Pit.

sup with trump supporters and putting things up their asses?

smoke, covid cures, etc.

leave that crap on pornhub.

A typical disgusting response from the left. You guys are disgraceful.

says the guy voting for a white supremacist.

Says the guy who threatened to murder cops.

which is why im not running for president.

you're supporting a white supremacist as POTUS. i guess i can start referring to you as a grand wizard.

you like white robes, or the shiney green ones some of them wear? lemme know, i got you.

As always, the name-calling left never disappoints.

if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

as a matter of fact, stay in the kitchen, and go make me a sandwich.

More lies from you. By your own definition.

I know you are smarter than this - but I'll make it REALLY freaking simple.

If the MORTALITY RATE is projected to be - say - 2%.... WHAT DO YOU THINK THE SURVIVAL RATE IS ??????

If - to use another example - the mortality rate drops to 1% .... what do you now think the survival rate adjusts to ????

Get out of here with your fake ass name calling, crying and being a victim.

If you really struggle to figure out that the rest of the people that don't die from Covid end up surviving and still want to name call, lash out and attack others for your own short comings, it just goes in the bucket with all the other things that YOU are that you continually attack and accuse others of.

This is 100% a YOU problem.... not a media or board problem. Support Trump all you like - but this lying and name calling and attacking others for your own issues is truly tiring.

I will stand by every word I said. Y'all make me sick w/your lies and deceptive techniques. I even predicted this is what you would do. It's what your little group always does.

What I do know is this...........I feel a lot safer now than I did when I was listening to the lies of the media and the likes of you.

Vers post like a scorned woman in a lifetime movie.

That's because you are the perennial and eternal victim.

There is no "Group" despite you continually trying to add posters to it whenever you don't like the truth being posted ... hell you've added Jester and Clem and Obber to it in the last week I think??? Pffft.

And once again.........we go from the actual statistics of the survival rate to multiple attacks by the same group of posters who pollute this forum on a daily basis.

Yeah and in the last hour we've had:









And of course includede in one of these posts was this WHOPPER of a lie



When in fact ANY and EVERY time the media or the board talks about the MORTALITY rate ... we are simultaneously, absolutely, totally also talking about SURVIVABILITY RATES. One is the inverse of the other. Period.

I didn't attack you bro, I was just laughing at you is all...

He has to talk about the thrilling news of surviving a deadly virus and not the mortality of it. It’s how trump supporters are justifying their decision this November.

This is what it sounds like when school children blame others for not doing their homework for them.

"It's your fault you didn't give me all the answers!"

I'm glad you despise me. I pity you.

But it's even simpler than that - and by his own standards of trying to call posters "liar" he is outright lying . . . . to talk of the mortality rate is to talk about the survivability/recovery rate. If 1% die from Covid... 99% survive.

I get what you are saying here, but I can't help myself when it comes to math. I have to point out that is not an inverse. A multiplicative inverse, which is what you are likely referring to is the reciprocal. e.g. 1/Mortality Rate. What I think you want to say is that SurvRate = 100% - MortRate

No problem at all with the geekology ! You are right, it's not the inverse, and reciprocal is probably right.

But verbiage aside, when you state what the mortality rate is, you are also providing the survivor rate. By definition, those that don't die 'survive'. Suggesting the board and the media hid this deliberately is asinine.

Who goes to a Football fanboard expecting to get reliable medical information about a current viral pandemic from the posters? An ex teacher? smh

j/c

Well over 206,000 dead and counting.

More deaths than our past five wars combined.

Now some of you can carry on with how low the death rate is.

It's hilarious to see how the left changes how they look at things. On one hand, they say that folks are responsible for finding their own information after saying they were tricked by Trump. As if anyone would rely on a politician for advice regarding health issues. Hypocrisy at its finest.

It's everyone elses job to do your homework for you?

Coronavirus vaccine trial participants report day-long exhaustion, fever and headaches — but say it’s worth it

-High fever, body aches, headaches and exhaustion are some of the symptoms participants in Moderna and Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine trials say they felt after receiving the shots.

-While the symptoms were uncomfortable, and at times intense, they often went away after a day, sometimes less.

-The phase three trials are a critical last step needed to get the vaccines cleared for distribution.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/01/coronavi...-headaches.html



Lefties better hurry with the Fear Mongering as time is running out for them.

Everybody wants a vaccine 40, we just don't want the cure to be drinking bleach and shoving a UV light up our asses. We'll wait for the science and safety testing... But please, please, please, DO take the vaccine Trump is pushing through without taking all safety steps. Let us know how it works out too.

Says the trump supporter who is so afraid of Biden he’ll actually eat trump’s poop.

Trump to quarantine after Hope Hicks tests positive on Wednesday. She was with trump on Tuesday and Wednesday


https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/02/hope-hicks-coronavirus.html

Trump and 1st lady test positive for covid

https://www.cleveland.com/coronavirus/20...quarantine.html

Baron finally get’s a break from both of his lunatic parents. There’s some hope for him now.

Where can I get my hands on one of these? Would make a top ten 2020 Xmas gift.

For the amazingly low price of $300,000 I will make you one.

But wait there's more. buy now and receive a second one at half price.

That's hilarious. Now who has Covid? Well Donald, guess you're the old and weak as well huh?

Karma comes for us all

Is shipping and handling extra?

Coronavirus vaccine trial participants report day-long exhaustion, fever and headaches — but say it’s worth it

KEY POINTS

• High fever, body aches, headaches and exhaustion are some of the symptoms participants in Moderna and Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine trials say they felt after receiving the shots.
• While the symptoms were uncomfortable, and at times intense, they often went away after a day, sometimes less.
• The phase three trials are a critical last step needed to get the vaccines cleared for distribution.

Luke Hutchison woke up in the middle of the night with chills and a fever after taking the Covid-19 booster shot in Moderna’s vaccine trial. Another coronavirus vaccine trial participant, testing Pfizer’s candidate, similarly woke up with chills, shaking so hard he cracked a tooth after taking the second dose.

High fever, body aches, bad headaches and exhaustion are just some of the symptoms five participants in two of the leading coronavirus vaccine trials say they felt after receiving the shots.

In interviews, all five participants — three in Moderna’s study and two in Pfizer’s late-stage trials — said they think the discomfort is worth it to protect themselves against the coronavirus. Four of them asked not to be identified, but CNBC reviewed documentation that verified their participation in the trials.

While the symptoms were uncomfortable, and at times intense, they often went away after a day, sometimes sooner, according to three participants in the Moderna trial and one in Pfizer’s as well as a person close to another participant in Moderna’s trial.

The phase three trials are a critical last step needed to get the vaccines cleared for distribution. At least 41 Covid-19 vaccines are in human trials worldwide but only four U.S.-backed candidates are in phase three: Moderna, Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson. Health officials expect to have at least one safe and effective vaccine by the end of the year.

Double-blind

The trials, which each have tens of thousands of participants, are double-blind, meaning half of them are receiving saline or another placebo and patients don’t know what treatment they are receiving. The health care worker administering the vaccine is also in the dark. While it’s possible some of the symptoms described could be attributed to an unrelated illness, Moderna and Pfizer previously said some participants in their phase one trials experienced mild Covid-19 symptoms. But Pfizer said it was in a minority of its cases. The trials are also still ongoing, so it remains to be seen how many participants who received the vaccine will report side effects.

Hutchison, a 44-year-old computational biologist in Utah, said he signed up for Moderna’s phase three trial because he’s healthy, physically fit and a big believer in vaccines. He specifically wanted to support Moderna’s effort, as he was intrigued by the company’s RNA-based approach. While still experimental, mRNA vaccines potentially offer faster development and production times, which could be a major benefit during a global pandemic that has led to more than 1 million fatalities.

“I had a high degree of confidence it would work and I wanted to contribute to the solution,” Hutchison said.

Bed bound

After getting the first shot on Aug. 18, he said he felt a little under the weather for several days with a low-grade fever. He got his second shot at a clinic on Sept. 15. Eight hours later, he said he was bed bound with a fever of over 101, shakes, chills, a pounding headache and shortness of breath. He said the pain in his arm, where he received the shot, felt like a “goose egg on my shoulder.” He hardly slept that night, recording that his temperature was higher than 100 degrees for five hours.

After 12 hours, Hutchison said he felt back to normal and his energy levels returned. Having signed a lengthy consent form, Hutchison was aware that he might experience symptoms. But he was still struck by the severity and duration, tweeting on Sept. 16 that he experienced “full on Covid-like symptoms.”

Two other participants in the Moderna trial, who asked to remain confidential because they feared backlash from the company, reported similar side effects. Likewise, one participant in the Pfizer trial said he experienced more severe symptoms than he expected.

Moderna and Pfizer have acknowledged that their vaccines could induce side effects that are similar to symptoms associated with mild Covid-19, such as muscle pain, chills and headache. As companies progressed through clinical trials, several vaccine makers abandoned their highest doses following reports of more severe reactions.

Infectious disease specialist Florian Krammer of New York’s Mount Sinai said on Twitter that the side effects reported in Moderna’s phase one trial are “unpleasant but not dangerous.” It remains to be seen whether kids and pregnant women will experience similar symptoms.

Short-term pain

If approved, the Covid-19 vaccine would not be the first to cause short-term pain and discomfort in some recipients. “It’s a simple fact that some vaccines are more unpleasant to take than others,” Stat News’ Helen Branswell recently wrote.

One North Carolina woman in the Moderna study who is in her 50s said she didn’t experience a fever but suffered a bad migraine that left her drained for a day and unable to focus. She said she woke up the next day feeling better after taking Excedrin, but added that Moderna may need to tell people to take a day off after a second dose.

She said other people in the trial have joined a couple of private Facebook groups and have shared similar experiences. She said members of the groups also reported a fever and pain in the arm similar to getting a tetanus shot, adding “you’re not going to be lifting weights or working out.”

“If this proves to work, people are going to have to toughen up,” she said. “The first dose is no big deal. And then the second dose will definitely put you down for the day for sure. ... You will need to take a day off after the second dose.”

Worth the risk

She said while uncomfortable, the apparent side effects are worth the risk of not getting Covid-19. “My hope is that this works but also that the communication [on side effects] is good,” she added.

A Maryland participant in his late 20s said he experienced nausea after the first shot, but it wasn’t until the second that he “really felt things.”

He said he woke up at 1 a.m. with chills and a 104 fever. He said the fever went down after he took Advil and Tylenol but it lasted until around 8 p.m. He said Moderna promptly responded, calling him within an hour after he reported his symptoms in the app.

“I wasn’t sure if I needed to go to the hospital or not because 104 is pretty high,” he said. “But other than that, it’s been fine.”

Side effects

Pfizer’s phase one study showed “short-lived fever, mostly mild to moderate in severity, can be expected in a minority of recipients of BNT162b2 30mcg,” spokeswoman Jerica Pitts said.

“No safety signals have been identified in the study,” Pitts said in an email. “As discussed earlier, safety and tolerability of our vaccine candidate are continuously monitored by Pfizer qualified personnel and a DMC, an independent external data monitoring committee, which has access to unblinded data.”

A Moderna spokeswoman said the company does not comment on participants in ongoing clinical trials, but added that the safety committee “has recommended that the study continue as planned” at each review.

A spokesperson from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is helping to develop Moderna’s vaccine, declined to comment and referred CNBC to a press release and Q&A for information about how participant safety is being monitored. The NIAID is not involved with the Pfizer trial.

‘Educating the public’

Hutchison said he’s concerned that the pharmaceutical manufacturers have not sufficiently informed the public about potential side effects. If the vaccines are approved, he fears, it might cause a widespread backlash if word spreads, which is why he decided to go public now. Polls show some 35% of Americans say they won’t get a coronavirus vaccine when it is available, because of misinformation or mistrust.

The White House has dubbed its project to bring a vaccine to market in record time as “Operation Warp Speed,” which has raised concern that drugmakers may take shortcuts to produce one quickly. President Donald Trump’s push to have a vaccine ready before the Nov. 3 election also isn’t helping to allay those fears. The pharmaceutical companies tried to tamp down those doubts by releasing a joint statement in September that pledged to “stand with science,” rather than politics, saying the clinical trials won’t sacrifice safety or the effectiveness of a vaccine.

Kolina Koltai, a vaccine researcher at the University of Washington at the Center for an Informed Public, said using “speed” to describe a national vaccine campaign can be counterproductive, even if the trials are robust.

“I’m hearing from people who say they want other people to test it (the vaccine) first,” she said. “There’s a lot of uncertainty.”

Young people

Another challenge with the vaccine is that young people, who don’t tend to get as sick as people over 40, may not think they are at high risk for severe health outcomes if they get the virus. If they hear about side effects via word of mouth, they may not deem the vaccine to be worth it.

The vaccine is “fairly unusual,” said Dr. Peter Bach, an epidemiologist and director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, because the benefits to some young and healthy groups may be “secondary” in nature.

In order words, getting a coronavirus vaccine — like wearing a mask — may be an act of service to help protect others. But public health officials can have difficulty getting some people to wear a mask, indicating that even more people may be reluctant to get the vaccine.

Hutchison is continuing to report his symptoms via an app, which serves as a form of a diary. He has returned to the clinic for follow-up visits on several occasions, including after he received the second dose.

Since tweeting about his experience, Hutchison said he has received pushback from people who felt that he shouldn’t have said he received the vaccine rather than the placebo. Given his symptoms, he said he thinks it’s highly unlikely he was part of the control group that received a saltwater solution.

Up all night

A physician in Baltimore participating in the Pfizer study is due for his second dose on Saturday. While he said his symptoms were “very mild” for the first dose, he wouldn’t be surprised if others experienced symptoms more serious than a flu shot and said people should be prepared for that.

Another participant in Pfizer’s trial said he was up all night after the first shot from the pain of the injection. The booster injection he received caused more of that same pain in his arm, followed by intense flu-like symptoms that hit him around 1a.m. He couldn’t sleep that night without an electric blanket, and shook so hard that it became uncontrollable and he cracked part of his tooth from chattering them.

“It hurt to even just lay in my bed sheet,” he said, before he decided to see a doctor.

Despite all that, he remains pro-vaccine and said he is a big advocate for science. Had he known in advance, he would have recommended getting the shot on a Friday so he could rest on the weekend. He recognizes that getting the virus would likely still be far worse for many people.

“If it gets approved, I still think a lot of people should get the vaccine,” he said, “and I hope that all the side effects are made clear upfront.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/01/coronavi...-headaches.html

So with Senator Johnson testing positive, that now marks 3 republican senators who’ve tested positive after trump.

The still unknown is the length of effectiveness. If you end up with all these symptoms and side effects for only 2 or 3 months of immunity is it worth it?
That’s why these trials now have to go on for quite some more time. So we can see how much staying power the vaccine has.

jc...

The media points toward the ceremony for Barrett one week ago as being the source of the super spreader event...if true, what or who could have been the source?

Source tracing seems to come down to a 'guess' rather than a science.

Any input welcomed...

Could be any of these clowns.

Am I reading this right? 5 people out of "tens of thousands" of participants (half of whom received a placebo) experienced these side effects. Unless the trials are complete, can we even be sure all of these 5 received the actual vaccine? It just says they were participants, meaning they could have been in the control group? Hopefully this isn't just a scare article.

I don't know that we know the answers to any of those good questions.

The good news *appears* to be that we aren't actually trying to short cut the process.

Not the three wearing masks

At those super low prices yes it is.

BAM!!!

Game over.

Amber Smith
@ambersmithtv
Kentucky reports 1,275 new positive #coronavirus tests. “This is our highest number of cases ever. This is the highest number of cases per week ever and we have one more day that will add to the count, and it shows that we have to do better.” - @GovAndyBeshear
https://twitter.com/ambersmithtv/status/1312511864861978625

WCCO - CBS Minnesota
@WCCO
Wisconsin health officials on Saturday said the state set a single-day record for COVID-19 cases with nearly 2,900 positive tests. |
https://twitter.com/WCCO/status/1312522011617357825

Jennifer Jacobs
@JenniferJJacobs
NEWS: One of Trump’s personal assistants has tested positive for coronavirus, sources tell me. Nick Luna, as bodyman, works in very close proximity to the president so it’s not surprising.

Jennifer Jacobs
@JenniferJJacobs
Another factor that is unsettling White House aides tonight is Nick Luna is married Cassidy Dumbauld, who is an aide to Jared Kushner. More people in the circle around Trump’s senior adviser diagnosed with coronavirus.

https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1312586170325495809

#hoax.
#fakenews.

I never listened to him.
I never took my daily behavioral cues from him.

I've worn a spit/mucus/aerosol barrier ever since the very first day I could acquire one. Since mid-March, 2020, I have never ventured into public space without protecting my fellow citizens from myself.

...and NOW he wears a mask, as he marches resolutely toward Marine One... on a straight-line flight to Walter Reed Army Hospital.
Under the tightest of security.
With the finest of treatment- A flight that You and I pay for.

This clown made wearing masks a political issue from the start, with his willful defiance of time-honored common sense protocols (dating back to the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918). His inner circle is now victim to his lax standards. And now, SARS/CoV2 is living in The White House.

Snugged up, all nice & deep... in that sweet spot.

The American Peoples' house.
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Typical AF.

___________________


When I saw him walking across the South Lawn with that 'afterthought' black mask over the bottom half of his face... sweartagawd, my first thought was:

"That mask is only half as tall as it needs to be."


What an awful time we are living through.

Are we having a national day of Heart Disease Remembrance for the 650,000 US citizens who have died this year?? or a cancer remembrance for the 600,000 US citizens who have died from cancer this year??

I totally understand Covid is real but the politicization of it drives me nuts...

Amen, and thank you for saying it.

For starters:

January is Cervical cancer awareness month

February is Heart awareness month
February 4th is world cancer day

March is national colorectal awareness month
MArch 11th is world kidney day

April is national cancer control month

May is brain cancer awareness month
May 8th is world ovarian cancer day

June is cancer immunotherapy awareness month

July is sarcoma and bone cancer awareness month

August 1 is world lung cancer day

September is blood cancer awareness month (ie leukemia/lymphoma)

October is breast cancer awareness month

November is lung cancer awareness month

December 1 is world AIDS day


https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health-topics/education-and-awareness/heart-month

https://www.cancer.net/research-and-advocacy/cancer-awareness-dates

You and arch must have forgotten about breast cancer awareness month.

Trump just claimed he isn't contagious at all.

lol, i expect a super spreader to say something like that.

they revised last weeks numbers up to 849k.

so i expect this 840k to go over 850k when they do the revision.

but the overall point is that we are barely recovering, if at all. more and more layoffs are happening, and the holiday season is right around the corner. i have to wonder if lack of sales for this holiday season is gonna be the event that really crashes whatever recovery we've seen this year, and throws us back into a full blown recession.

Biden and Harris, y'all are gonna have a huge mess to clean up.

And if everything does go down like that - you know Trump will blame the election result as the reason! LOL

Ignoring Science ... it's what Harris said last night. Did you see how Pence faltered after she said that? He tried to say the administration was guided by science or would listen to science ... with a complete and total lack of conviction.

I just hate how this has become so political. I don't understand the hesitation and objection to just wearing a damn mask.

Don't like Mitch all that much but ffs, it seems like he is down for trying to not be the worst major country to handle this pandemic.

Listening to this scientist is chilling:

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/10/08/rick-bright-speaking-out-tapper-intv-sot-lead-vpx.cnn


Makes me sick to think of all the families who have lost loved ones.

Many did not have to die.

And there are still those who want to frame this as republicans vs democrats. Like it is an ideological battle.

When in fact it is about an incompetent, unfit president who has failed the people he took an oath to protect.

So anyways......20,000 more American’s are projected to die Before the election.

Vote Early

Trump makes me sick with his handling of the virus, as do all the (I want to call them idiots but I won't) self centered, uncaring, disturbing people who refuse to social distance and wear a mask. This includes the people with IQ's so low they can't keep the mask over their nose (hint by a adjustable mask, or the right size mask) (and for those who keep grabbing the front of the mask with their hands) There is plenty of blame to go around with them, and with the Trump administration.

I was watching the baseball games.

Pulling for the Braves. Changing channels watching some of the other series.

I saw Aaron Boone in the dugout mask on. Watched him pull the mask down so he could spit?

WTF?

First baseman spit constantly. Guys in the dugout spitting.

Felt like it should be on John Oliver's Last Week Tonight..

Trump To Nation: ‘Don’t Let Your Lives Be Dominated By Fear Unless It’s Related To Immigrants’

https://www.theonion.com/trump-to-nation..._source=twitter

I was confronted by some idiot at Kroger last week who told me, "You know your mask is fake, right?"

Let's just say when the conversation was over, he wasn't happy.

j/c

He claims there is a cure now.

He claims because he feels good he doesn't believe he's contagious anymore.

He wants to start holding rallies again right away. You know, the kind where nobody has to wear a mask.

He now says that he probably was infected by Gold Star families.

There are a number of people in this world that never learn anything no matter what the facts are to the contrary. Many of those people end up in prison. But at least one of them was elected president.

Given the rumblings out of NY, I wouldn't say that he's avoided the prison part.

I should have used the caveat "To this point".

j/c

Lindsey Graham refusing to use Covid protocol prior to debate.

I don't understand. How can a mask be fake?

You're not supposed to understand it.

I've started a list of weird stuff I've heard in the Kroger parking lot.

I have no idea. He wasn't wearing one and I kept my distance. He claimed they didn't do anything and we were being controlled by the media. I reminded him that the media is reporting what the scientists and experts on the subject were saying as fact and that maybe if he listened to people who knew what the hell they were talking about instead of those who didn't, he might be better informed. I can't use the expletives that became involved in the back and forth but let's just say other people at Kroger were looking at him like he was an idiot.

I never confront those who aren't wearing a mask. But I'm not going to stand there and listen to someone tell me I'm wrong for wearing one. My best estimate is that when I go to Kroger, 95% to 98% of the people there are now wearing them. It wasn't that way at first until Nashville became such a hot spot.

j/c

34 people connected to White House, more than previously known, infected by coronavirus: Internal FEMA memo

The administration has sought to downplay the spread.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/34-peopl...ory?id=73487381

j/c...

Didn't he also say that he feels so good that he doesn't think he even ever had coronavirus?

Coughing Trump suggests he may never even have had coronavirus in Fox News interview: 'They found very little, if any'

The Independent
Mayank Aggarwal
,The Independent•October 9, 2020


https://www.yahoo.com/news/coughing-trump-suggests-may-never-083458491.html

Good job bro

I peed off my son in law a while back because I couldn't keep my mouth shut on his facebook. One of his friends who had convinced my son in law that they guy was a scientist who was bashing everybody about wasting their time wearing masks. I confronted him and heard how he was a scientist who dealt with covid every day and that he knew more than me. After some digging (oh hell yes I'm good at that lol)I found out he was a lab tech at the Cleveland Clinic, and a part time auto mechanic teacher. Needless to say he ran away after I confronted him with those facts.

Just when you thought he couldn't utter a more stupid, moronic, baseless, lie ... he dug really deep and found something ridiculous to say. I mean this and the bleach dealio - priceless.

If you look at the mask retention for virus, there are a lot of charts that indicate that unless it is a N95 mask or a surgical mask it will not be effective against virus.

While this is true, what has been found is that virus is contained in water particles, not just floating around freely. So masks that stop aerosols are more effective than none.

There was a lot of work done after the homemade masks call went out in March/April, and the studies demonstrated that masks were far more effective than none.

A lot of people argue that the masks we are wearing are not 100% effective because they are not N95. But they don't need to be.


On an individual level, imagine that you are crossing a street. If you don't look both ways before you cross, you have a higher likelihood of getting hit by a car but that risk of getting hit by a car is not 100%. Much depends on which street you are crossing. But if you look both ways before crossing your risk of getting hit by a car is significantly reduced but not zero. In this metaphor, getting hit by a car is catching covid while looking both ways brfore crossing is wearing a mask


On a more global level, the mask again doesn't need to be 100% effective. It needs to be effective enough to get the R-naught to less than 1. R-naught is the number of new cases that arise from each case. The R-naught needs to be >1 to be considered a pandemic. If we can get the R-naught to <1 then the virus can burn itself out.

^this, right here.^

j/c

COVID-19 cases rising in 39 states – 9 months into the pandemic: 'We are overwhelmed'

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/heal...rds/5906943002/

As today Trump once again tried to downplay the virus saying yet again, "It will disappear" while he was using our White House as the backdrop of another political rally.

Another one of those unwritten rules nobody thought you actually had to write because it was never expected a president to stoop that low.

White House Blocked C.D.C. From Requiring Masks on Public Transportation
The order would have mandated that both passengers and employees wear face coverings on planes, trains, buses and subways and in airports, stations and depots.

By Sheila Kaplan
Oct. 9, 2020
Updated 8:00 p.m. ET

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention drafted a sweeping order last month requiring all passengers and employees to wear masks on all forms of public and commercial transportation in the United States, but it was blocked by the White House, according to two federal health officials.

The order would have been the toughest federal mandate to date aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus, which continues to infect more than 40,000 Americans a day. The officials said that it was drafted under the agency’s “quarantine powers” and that it had the support of the secretary of health and human services, Alex M. Azar II, but the White House Coronavirus Task Force, led by Vice President Mike Pence, declined to even discuss it.

The two officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment, said the order would have required face coverings on airplanes, trains, buses and subways, and in transit hubs such as airports, train stations and bus depots.

A task force official said the decision to require masks should be left up to states and localities. The administration requires the task force to sign off on coronavirus-related policies.

“The approach the task force has taken with any mask mandate is, the response in New York City is different than Montana, or Tuscaloosa, Alabama,” said the official who asked not to be identified because he did not have permission to discuss the matter. “Local and state authorities need to determine the best approach for their responsive effort depending on how the coronavirus is impacting their area.”

Most public health officials believe that wearing masks is one of the most effective ways to protect against the spread of the virus, particularly in crowded, poorly ventilated public places that attract people from all over, like transportation venues. Many feel that the Trump administration has turned the wearing — or not wearing — of masks into a political expression, as seen most dramatically on Monday evening when President Trump whipped off his surgical mask at the White House door after returning from the hospital where he was treated for Covid-19.

“I think masks are the most powerful weapon we have to confront Covid and we all need to embrace masks and set the example for each other,” Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the C.D.C. director, who oversaw the drafting of the order, said in a recent interview.

Dr. Redfield has been publicly at odds with President Trump for promoting mask wearing along with social distancing, and for warning that a vaccine for the virus won’t be widely available until next year.

The thwarting of the mask rule is the latest in a number of C.D.C. actions stalled or changed by the White House. Late last month, the coronavirus task force overruled the C.D.C. director’s order to keep cruise ships docked until mid-February. That plan was opposed by the tourism industry in Florida, an important swing state in the presidential election. Political appointees at the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services have also been involved in rewriting the agency’s guidelines on reopening schools and testing for the virus, bypassing the agency’s scientists.


Some other members of the White House Task Force support a mask mandate. But others do not, among them Dr. Scott W. Atlas, a radiologist who has become Mr. Trump’s closest adviser on the coronavirus, and Mr. Pence, who runs the panel and sets the agenda.

Representative Peter A. DeFazio, Democrat of Oregon and chairman of the House committee on transportation and infrastructure, criticized Mr. Trump for ignoring public health experts from his own administration on the mask issue.

“It’s especially outrageous because the science is so clear: masks save lives,” Mr. DeFazio said. “The millions of Americans who work in and use our transportation systems every day — from bus drivers, train conductors and flight attendants, to the frontline workers who rely on public transit — deserve to know their president is relying on experts’ best advice and doing everything possible to keep them safe.”

The transportation trades department of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., which represents 33 unions with what it describes as “millions” of transportation workers, said that the administration last week rejected its July petition to require passengers to wear masks on public transportation.

Larry Willis, president of the department, said his members were being endangered by a patchwork of rules regarding face coverings on airplanes, trains and buses around the country, as well as in airports, train stations and bus depots.

“Some airports are all in and they require masks when you walk in the door,” Mr. Willis said. “Some places where masks have become too politicized, the right mandates are not in place.”

“I think it creates an uncertain level of health and safety for workers and passengers,” he said. “This is a global pandemic, this is a national emergency. We should have a national standard.”

Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants, said that while airlines do technically require passengers to wear face coverings, enforcement can be difficult.

“If there is a requirement by regulation or law, then there’s typically a consequence for not following that regulation or law,” Ms. Nelson said. “So that gives us backing and it often serves as a deterrent from bad behavior.”


https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/09/health/coronavirus-covid-masks-cdc.html

They'll still say Trump didn't kill anybody.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-ne...-study-n1242970

I wonder if and when we will ever stop hearing that the deaths and news are fake and manufactured to make Trump look bad?? Or maybe the Journal of the American Medical Association is Deep State too?

So anyways a second Covid Vaccine has been put on hold due to some test recipients coming down with unexplained sicknesses.

Huge setback. While trump hosts unmasked Super spreader rallies. Known from now on as Trump’s SS sending us to the gas chambers.

https://www.statnews.com/2020/10/12/john...in-participant/

Not a huge setback.

This is to be expected for vaccines that are fast-tracked in development. Jester can probably chime in here, but 90% of vaccines don't actually ever make it to market.

There's still a good chance we get a viable vaccine. Just a matter of which one it will be, how effective it is, and if we can update it quick enough in comparison to how covid mutates.

LOL I was at Heinens in Aurora last week.. I was wearing my mask as required.. Some lady was standing near me at the Deli counter. She Said, out of nowhere, you do know that these masks don't help right?

I asked her if she got her Medical degree from Trump University..... She wasn't happy, but the deli clerk sure was....

j/c

And the Covid lies continue from Trump's cronies....

Rudy Giuliani Tells Trump Supporters ‘People Don’t Die’ Of Coronavirus Anymore

Trump’s personal attorney made the egregious comment while standing in a small office space in Philadelphia.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/rudy-giul...ign=hp_fb_pages

IF this is true- oh, man.

I'm going to wait to see if this is anything, because this is about as bad as it could be. This tweet is my first exposure to any such story... and at first blush, it seems too nakedly awful to accept. So I'm going to take My Pops' advice: "Don't go off half-cocked when you hear something that makes you mad. Wait for the facts. If they stand up, then you can go off fully-cocked."



This would be further proof that rich, powerful people don't give a flying fox about people like us. None of them.

44 admin was guilty of bailing out banks while giving us crumbs.
45 admin told the truth to their moneyed friends- then directly lied to the rest of us about something that could kill us all.

No wonder Americans of every stripe are depressed, angry, and openly hostile.

But hey- the 60's were a blazing dumpster fire, and we managed to stagger our way out of that. Guess we'll see if we have what it takes to do it again, a half-century later.

Damn, we're stupid as a society.
Damn, we're stupid as a species.

I agree. But in the 60s at least we had good drugs and music to get us through...

Ohio reports new single-day record high of 2,039 COVID-19 cases

https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2020...day/5971439002/

The Woodward tapes told me everything I needed to know. Trump knew the truth and he said it on tape. That's all the evidence I needed to know he would lie even if it kills people. Lots of people.

Whats a few hundred thousand deaths if he can get re-elected?

To him? It appears it doesn't mean that much.

US sees highest daily coronavirus count since August, with nearly 60K new cases Wednesday

https://www.newschannel5.com/news/nation...cases-wednesday

trump administration was telling wealthy donors something else.
too long to post so I will include the link.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/14/us/politics/stock-market-coronavirus-trump.html

Chris Christie says he was in ICU for 7 days battling Covid-19, urges Americans to wear masks
NBC News
Dareh Gregorian
,NBC News•October 15, 2020


Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Thursday urged Americans to wear masks to fight the coronavirus that put him in intensive care for seven days, and warned the virus is "something to take very seriously."

Christie was one of a number of people with ties to the White House who tested positive for the coronavirus at around the same time as President Donald Trump.

"I believed that when I entered the White House grounds, that I had entered a safe zone, due to the testing that and I and many others underwent every day. I was wrong. I was wrong to not wear a mask at the Amy Coney Barrett announcement and I was wrong not to wear a mask at my multiple debate prep sessions with the President and the rest of the team," Christie said in a statement obtained by NBC News.

The government's top infectious disease doctor, Anthony Fauci, last week called the Rose Garden event, where few attendees wore masks, a "superspreader event."

The longtime Trump ally said he's now recovered from his illness, and thanked his doctors and "the manufacturers of Remdesivir and the Eli Lilly monoclonal anti-body cocktail for giving me access to their extraordinary treatments. I am confident that all of those factors contributed to my good health today."

Christie also appeared to distance himself from the president, who said he felt better that he's felt in decades after getting treated with a different antibody cocktail for the virus.

"No one should be happy to get the virus and no one should be cavalier about being infected or infecting others," Christie said. "It is something to take very seriously. The ramifications are wildly random and potentially deadly."

He added that "as a former public official, I believe we have not treated Americans as adults, who understand truth, sacrifice and responsibility."

"When you have seven days in isolation in an ICU though, you have time to do a lot of thinking," Christie said, advocating that people "follow CDC guidelines in public no matter where you are and wear a mask to protect yourself and others."

"Every public official, regardless of party or position, should advocate for every American to wear a mask in public, appropriately socially distance and to wash your hands frequently every day. At the same time, we should be reopening in every corner of this nation under these guidelines," Christie said.

"I believe that these two steps can bring our country together while our pharmaceutical companies invent the therapeutics and vaccines which will rid us of this virus," he added.

"While we may seem very divided today, I do believe we can use this public health tragedy to bring us together. It is never too late to start," he said, but "It will take leadership that both challenges and trusts the American people."


https://news.yahoo.com/chris-christie-says-icu-7-224343806.html

For me, this was the line of the entire article. Never before have we seen executive level mixed messages and contradictory public statements like this. In every crisis, we have seen unanimity of message from the early days of crisis response. A plan of action was devised, the American people were informed, and guidelines were established for the public to help. Victory gardens and recycling tin cans were a feature of WWII domestic life. Even after 9/11, POTUS 43 advised the public to shop, go do the things you always did. Don't let these people to make you live in fear"

All partisanship aside, leadership looks like that.

A year ago+, PP was discussing the divide in our nation's psyche. Someone asked what it would take to bring us back to each other. I suggested that it would take a national threat on the level of 9/11. This could have been that event. We never had a chance.



...is how we could have had that chance. All oars in the water, boat heading in a straight line. We never had a chance.

and then, there's this:

...is what a responsible adult says when he's seen his errors. He is someone who has earned the right to speak. This dude saw Jesus- and he's still here to tell us about this evil thing.


IMHO, we never had a chance because we were never given that chance.
From the very start, this crisis has been- from top to bottom- every man for himself.


All partisanship aside, leadership looks nothing like that.


.02

A all time new low.

Last night trump made the totally false claim that 85% of those wearing a mask caught the virus.

Not only is this dead wrong. That in itself is bad.

But to make that claim as thousands are dying when all the science underlines the importance of wearing a mask is unconscionable and irresponsible to the highest degree.

trumps pal Chris Christie's message about wearing masks:
"I was Wrong."

This type of behavior from the highest office in the Land is beyond all reason.

Well he also claimed that a radiologist is a world expert on infectious diseases, so....

He also claims as Covid cases skyrocket that we've "turned the corner and it will disappear". He just keeps doubling down on stupidity.

Let me give you an example of just one difference between the two candidates.

Trump never admits he's wrong even while hundreds of thousands of Americans are dying. Still denied that wearing masks is a good thing because of the lie he is perpetuating that "85% of people dying from Covid wear masks".

Biden admitted he was wrong in his vote on the 1994 crime bill. He stated what was good about it and what was bad about it. Then he stated what he had learned from it.

I want a president that learns from his mistakes. Not one who feels he has nothing to learn and never makes a mistake.

Justice does not always prevail.

But the day of reckoning is close at hand.

May the polls be accurate and a landslide tells the story.

Amen

Former White House chief of staff, retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, has told friends that President Donald Trump "is the most flawed person" he's ever known.

"The depths of his dishonesty is just astounding to me."

I believe it but I wish these individuals would come out and say it. Bolton was another too scared to be honest and forthright.

A day late and a dollar short with that information Major General John Kelly.

Bolton is probably allergic to being honest and forthright. The guy was key in concocting the whole Iraq WMD lie.

psssst! Hey, Charger: go next door to Rocket's thread. Read the link bone and I posted. You'll find my thoughts there.

FYI....That was Donald Rumsfeld. Another lying GOP operative that got US servicemen killed for no purpose but to sell weaponry.

So anyways ...Covid cases increase at the most rapid rate since July. We could loose another 50k lives by the end of the year. Hospitalization rates sore. 14 states with increase fatalities.

Super spreader trump says we’re on the mend. Pffft Trump and his supporters continue to super spread. Literally killing US.

and trump said there would be 500,000 deaths if he listened to Fauci. trump knows this from all his medical experience.

He got that from the radiologist he claims is an infectious disease expert Dr. Scott Atlas.

You know, the guy that tweeted out that masks don't work over the week-end.

'Masks work? NO': Twitter removes tweet by White House coronavirus adviser that says face coverings are not effective against COVID-19

https://www.businessinsider.com/tweet-removed-dr-scott-atlas-masks-dont-prevent-covid-19-2020-10

Trump couldn't get an actual infectious disease expert to go along with his BS so he found a radiologist/ FOX News guest who would.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/19/trump-ties-fauci-to-biden-430217

LOL

Anyways. 500% increase in cases over the last two weeks in Texas 20% are people under 30. Mississippi reimposing mask mandates.

Meanwhile trump faces a self induced decline today to get relief aid passed. But struggles with GOP leaders and senate republicans still refusing to take this relief aid seriously.

From a purely tactical perspective, I'm not sure why Pelosi isn't aggressively seeking a deal with the White House. Her proposal is $2.2T and the White House I believe was last at $1.9T, and I think that they are desperate to try to get something out before the election, so I think that they would be more willing to compromise. I have to believe that - if Trump loses - he won't want to do jack squat to get anything passed, and that would turn into a bad look for the HoR as well.

If she and the White House can come to a deal, it would then fall on the Senate, which you would think would make it a win-win for her. Either they pass it and she could claim victory, or they would stick to their guns of not passing it, based on their bill that foregoes individual stimulus payments.

If the agreement fails in the Senate, they would look like the obstructionists and she could highlight that they don't even want an individual stimulus, which - last I checked - was hugely popular among voters. I don't know who the constituents are that are backing Senate Republicans to not include that in their bill. She would also send the Senate to war with the White House and increase the likelihood that the Senate will flip in the election.

She seems to want and all-or-nothing approach though. I really don't get her, other than the obvious corrupt, career politician concerns, which apply in like manner to McConnell.

Everyone needs to check out this graphic. I found it very interesting. I can’t post it directly to the board as it’s an animation file of some sort.
https://dangoodspeed.com/covid/total-cases-since-june

Interesting graphics...Kind of like watching that mountain climbing game on The Price Is Right. (I played the song in my head)

With exception to Arizona, it almost seems the flu season held true, north vs south, as our flu season down here tends to be our warmer months (Because we all hunker indoors away from the heat, I presume), and I fully expect the second wave to be worse on the northern states (just due to timing), although I would not overlook the possibility of southern tourist states to see spikes as tourists come and go.

But I thought Trump said we're turning the corner now? As a matter of fact, he's been on the Trump Farewell Super Spreader Tour 2020 for a while now saying that as the cases and hospitalizations soar.

This isn't really intended towards you personally. I just couldn't resist making that comment to follow up your post.

A TRUE EYE-OPENER: THIS IS WHY TRUMP WON'T AGREE TO PELOSI'S STIMULUS BILL 
For all of you that think President Trump and the Republicans are wrong for blocking the bill and telling Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer No because it is not what is right for the working class people and here is the reason why Stimulus package:
COVID-19 VIRUS STIMULUS BILL ...Now you know why Republicans are blocking this 2 trillion dollar congressional bill !!!
Hard to believe but look it up on the Congressional website for HR 748 from 116th Congress.
American population: 330,483,530
Stimulus bill: $2,000,000,000,000 ($2 Trillion)
Dividing the cost by everyone in America is $6,051.74
The government could have given every person over $6,000, but instead will give $1,200 to each adult under a certain income.
Want to know where the missing 96% of your tax dollars went?
$300,000,000 for Migrant and Refugee Assistance pg 147
$10,000 per person for student loan bailout
$100,000,000 to Nasa, because, who knows why.
$20,000,000,000 to the USPS, because why the hell not
$300,000,000 to the Endowment for the Arts - because of it
$300,000,000 for the Endowment for the Humanities/ because no one even knew that was a thing
$15,000,000 for Veterans Employment Training / for when the GI Bill isn't enough
$435,000,000 for mental health support
$30,000,000,000 for the Department of Education stabilization fund/ because that will keep people employed (all those zeros can be confusing, that’s $30 BILLION)
$200,000,000 to Safe Schools Emergency Response to Violence Program
$300,000,000 to Public Broadcasting / NPR has to be bought by the Dems
$500,000,000 to Museums and Libraries / No one know how we are going to use it
$720,000,000 to Social Security Admin / but get this only 200,000,000 is to help people. The rest is for admin costs
$25,000,000 for cleaning supplies for the Capitol Building / I kid you not it's on page 136
$7,500,000 to the Smithsonian for additional salaries
$35,000,000 to the JFK Center for Performing Arts
$25,000,000 for additional salary for House of Representatives
$3,000,000,000 upgrade to the IT department at the VA
$315,000,000 for State Department Diplomatic Programs
$95,000,000 for the Agency of International Development
$300,000,000 for International Disaster Assistance
$90,000,000 for the Peace Corp pg 148
$13,000,000 to Howard University pg 121
$ 9,000,000 Misc. Senate Expenses pg 134
$100,000,000 for Essential Air carriers - pg 162 - because the Airlines are going to need billions in loans to keep them afloat.
$100,000,000 is chump change
$40,000,000,000 goes to the Take Responsibility to Workers and Families Act This sounds like it's direct payments for workers. Pg 164
$1,000,000,000 Airlines Recycle and Save Program pg 163
$25,000,000 to the FAA for administrative costs pg 165
$492,000,000 to National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) pg 167
$526,000,000 Grants to Amtrak to remain available if needed through 2021 pg 168 (what are the odds that doesn't go unused)
Hidden on page 174 the Secretary has 7 days to allocate the funds & notify Congress
$25,000,000,000 for Transit Infrastructure pg 169
$3,000,000 Maritime Administration pg 172
$5,000,000 Salaries and Expensive Office of the Inspector General pg 172
$2,500,000 Public and Indian Housing pg 175
$5,000,000 Community Planning and Development pg 175
$2,500,000 Office of Housing
What DOES ALL of this have to do with the Virus? Are your eyes open yet? If you made it this far in reading this, please don’t vote for a Democrat/Socialist.

H.R. 748 was already passed by both the House, Senate and signed by Donald J. Trump. It is known as the Cares Act.

It passed in the House 419-6
It passed in the Senate 96-0
Trump then signed it into to law on 3/27/20.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/748

That's what I get for reading spam mail lol

I haven't been tracking the numbers closely for a while. But the fact we are setting all time highs is concerning.

I did want to chime in on one Trump lie about the numbers spiking because the USA is testing more. That's not true. We've been testing at about this same level per 1M population for a while. We are in the same sort of test rate as countries like the UK, Belgium & Spain .... the numbers did go up when we eventually started wide spread testing back in like May - but we have not continued to ramp up and accelerate testing. The idea we have this massive spike because we test more is lunacy / denial / ignorance / fabrication. CV-19 is spiking in a LOT of places around the world.

I have to fly to England in a couple weeks. Not looking forward to that one bit.

US passes single-day record for new COVID-19 cases

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/522554-us-passes-single-day-record-for-new-covid-19-case

Tennessee reports 3,606 new COVID-19 cases, 65 deaths, both record-high single-day increases

https://www.wkrn.com/community/health/co...-day-increases/

Covid-19 hospitalizations continue to rise in several states, and Wisconsin is now using an overflow facility

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/21/health/us-coronavirus-wednesday/index.html

New record cases, hospitalizations on the rise as Trump is conducting super spreader events and lying to his supporters that we've turned the corner and it is going away. Murica!

Mask exemptions based on religious beliefs granted in Williamson Co. schools

https://www.newschannel5.com/news/mask-e...mson-co-schools

Nowhere in the Bible did I ever read a passage that told people to go out into the world and be a dumb ass.

Fauci: Trump has not attended a White House coronavirus task force meeting in 'several months'

WASHINGTON – Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease expert, said Friday that President Donald Trump has not attended a coronavirus task force meeting in "several months"and the meetings themselves have greatly "diminished".

Fauci's comments came after the U.S. reported more than 77,000 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins data. The last time daily cases exceeded 71,000 was during the summer surge in July. The U.S. has also reported more than 223,000 deaths.

Fauci, a leading member of the White House's coronavirus task force and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during an interview on "Meet the Press Daily" that he hasn't directly spoken to or interacted with Trump in some time, and the number of task force meetings have "diminished".

Led by Vice President Mike Pence, the coronavirus task force used to meet daily during the first months of the pandemic, but that has now been scaled back to meeting once a week, Fauci said, due to the White House focusing on an "economic reopening."

“We certainly interact with the vice president at the task force meetings, and the vice president makes our feelings and what we talk about there known to the president,” Fauci said when pressed about the last time the president attended. "But direct involvement with the president and discussions, I have not done that in awhile."

Similarly, Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, who sits on the task force as well, told NPR in an interview Monday that Trump has been primarily receiving information from Pence and Dr. Scott Atlas.

“I definitely don’t have his ear as much as Scott Atlas right now. That has been a changing situation,” Fauci told MSNBC.

Atlas, who is not an infectious disease expert, is now a White House adviser on the coronavirus and has publicly downplayed the virus. Reports from The Washington Post said Atlas, a fellow at the conservative think tank Hoover Institution, has been pushing herd immunity inside the White House, and Trump has been listening.

On Sunday, Twitter removed a tweet by Atlas, who posted: “Masks work? NO.” The social media platform stated the tweet violated the policy on coronavirus misinformation.

“The President is routinely briefed about the coronavirus each and every day. The relevant information is brought to him on the big decisions, and then he moves forward in the way that’s best for our country,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Matthews told USA TODAY in a statement.

Fauci said the nation is in a "precarious" position regarding COVID-19, and people need to grasp how difficult winter will be if infections continue to spike how they are now.

"We don't want to shut the country down. Every time I talk about things that we need to do, people get concerned. We're not talking about shutting down, but we're talking about doubling down on some of the fundamental public health measures that we need to adhere to," Fauci said, referring to mask-wearing and social distancing. "They seem rather simple, but they really do work."

Trump has repeatedly claimed “we’re rounding the turn, we’re rounding the corner,” regarding COVID-19. “It’s going away,” he said during the debate Thursday. According to CNN, Trump has made this, and similar claims, diminishing the threat of coronavirus nearly 40 times.

On Monday, Trump blastedFauci as a "disaster" after Fauci said in an interview that it came as no shock to him when the president tested positive for COVID-19 because Trump regularly eschewed the use of masks "as a statement of strength."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/poli...ths/6009403002/

Trump quietly closed the U.S.'s vaccine safety office last year. Researchers are scrambling to replace it.
The Week
Kathryn Krawczyk
,The Week•October 23, 2020


Developers will start rolling out their COVID-19 vaccines in the coming months, leaving U.S. health officials to test their long-term safety. But that won't be easy, especially given that the Trump administration quietly shut down the office responsible for ensuring the safety of vaccines last year, The New York Times reports.

Before the late 1980s, vaccine safety relied on parents, doctors, vaccine makers, and hospitals to step forward and report symptoms they feared were connected to a vaccine. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention then worked out a new system that sought out clusters of symptoms among people who receive a vaccine, and expanded that oversight during the H1N1 epidemic of 2009. This system helped the U.S. figure out which symptoms actually popped up long after a vaccine was injected, and which were just coincidental.

But in 2019, the National Vaccine Program Office was shut down in an effort to cut costs and "eliminate program redundancies," Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar wrote at the time. The shortsightedness of that shutdown has come into clear view amid the coronavirus pandemic, said Dr. Nicole Lurie, who who was assistant secretary for preparedness and response at HHS during the 2009 pandemic. FDA and CDC staffers have reportedly been meeting up on their own time to cobble some safety projects together. "There's no sort of active coordination to bring all the information together," Lurie told the Times.

Other vaccine experts and political scientists have their own concerns: foreign disinformation campaigns, a lack of transparency, proper communications to clear up health issues unrelated to vaccines, to name a few. A coordinated vaccine office would be tasked with handling all of that.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-quietly-closed-u-vaccine-203303743.html

How many times do you need to listen to people talking about masks and washing your hands?

Wearing masks has been fairly widespread from the beginning and even more now, yet the world keeps spiking.

Face it, we are all going to get it at some point, just like we all caught the flu at some point in the past and will again at some other point in the future.

Most studies that I have seen have mask wearing in the 54-59% range. While that if a majojrity, it is grossly inadequate. We need that number to be at least 80%, preferably closer to 90%

Yeah, the trends, numbers and what's going on in our nation concerning something that's killed over 225,000 Americans should be no concern to the president.

You would think that a president who keep claiming a vaccine is coming soon would be gathering all the information he can every day and tell the people of America how to move forward in trying to keep the death count as low as possible until that vaccine comes along.

But nah. Let's skip the meetings with the experts and keep holding super spreader events with crowds close together and wearing no masks. Sometimes I find your responses unbelievable.

What I am hearing is that a vaccine(s) is going to be approved around the end of November.
We'll see.

Still little to no safety and efficacy data available.
Distribution logistics will be an issue

No No No there is a general!

As many times as it takes to get people to grow up and wear the damn masks.....

GOPers are like so what if people are dying... but the same people were crying the blues when the economy was shut down and the markets dropped. The party of upside down values, religion, and guns... Pffft.

jc...

Pence to keep up travel despite contact with infected aide

link

By ZEKE MILLER AND JILL COLVIN | Associated Press | Published: October 25, 2020

WASHINGTON — Vice President Mike Pence plans to maintain an aggressive campaign schedule this week despite his exposure to a top aide who tested positive for the coronavirus, the White House said Saturday.

Pence himself tested negative, his office said. Under Centers for Disease Control and Prevention criteria, the vice president is considered a "close contact" of his chief of staff, Marc Short, but will not quarantine, said spokesman Devin O'Malley.

O'Malley said Pence decided to maintain his travel schedule "in consultation with the White House Medical Unit" and "in accordance with the CDC guidelines for essential personnel." Those guidelines require that essential workers exposed to someone with the coronavirus closely monitor for symptoms of COVID-19 and wear a mask whenever around other people.

O'Malley said Pence and his wife, Karen, both tested negative on Saturday "and remain in good health."

President Donald Trump commented on Short early Sunday after his plane landed at Joint Base Andrews, outside Washington. "I did hear about it just now," he said. "And I think he's quarantining. Yeah. I did hear about it. He's going to be fine. But he's quarantining."

Saskia Popescu, an infectious disease expert at George Mason University, called Pence's decision to travel "grossly negligent" regardless of the stated justification that Pence is an essential worker.

"It's just an insult to everybody who has been working in public health and public health response," she said. "I also find it really harmful and disrespectful to the people going to the rally" and the people on Pence's own staff who will accompany him.

"He needs to be staying home 14 days," she added. "Campaign events are not essential."

After a day of campaigning in Florida on Saturday, Pence was seen wearing a mask as he returned to Washington aboard Air Force Two shortly after the news of Short's diagnosis was made public. He is scheduled to hold a rally on Sunday afternoon in Kinston, NC.

Pence, who has headed the White House coronavirus task force since late February, has repeatedly found himself in an uncomfortable position balancing political concerns with the administration's handling the pandemic that has killed more than 220,000 Americans. The vice president has advocated mask-wearing and social distancing, but often does not wear one himself and holds large political events where many people do not wear face-coverings.

By virtue of his position as vice president, Pence is considered an essential worker. The White House did not address how Pence's political activities amounted to essential work.

Short's diagnosis comes weeks after the coronavirus spread through the White House, infecting President Donald Trump, the first lady, and two dozen other aides, staffers and allies.

Short, Pence's top aide and one of his closest confidants, did not travel with the vice president on Saturday.

Pence's handling of his exposure to a confirmed positive case stands in contrast to how Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris responded when a close aide and a member of her campaign plane's charter crew tested positive for the virus earlier this month. She took several days off the campaign trail citing her desire to act out of an abundance of caution.

Correction: This version corrects in the news summary that Pence tested negative.

Mike Pence's chief of staff Marc Short, other top aide test positive for COVID-19

The vice president has been on the campaign trail for weeks.

ByJohn Santucci,Katherine Faulders,Rick Klein, and Jonathan Karl

October 24, 2020, 11:22 PM
link


Two of Vice President Mike Pence's top deputies have tested positive for the coronavirus: chief of staff Marc Short and political aide Marty Obst.

"Today, Marc Short, Chief of Staff to the Vice President, tested positive for COVID-19, began quarantine and assisting in the contact tracing process," Devin O'Malley, press secretary for the vice president, said in a statement.

O'Malley said both Pence and wife Karen Pence tested negative for the virus on Saturday.

ABC News has also learned at least one additional staffer in the vice president's office has tested positive in the last few days and several staffers are now quarantining.

Pence has been crisscrossing the country on the campaign trail for weeks. He made visits to Lakeland and Tallahassee, Florida, on Saturday. On Friday, he spent time in his home state of Indiana, where he voted in person in Indianapolis, before holding rallies in Ohio and Pennsylvania. He will continue his schedule, O'Malley said, despite the close contact with Short.

"While Vice President Pence is considered a close contact with Mr. Short, in consultation with the White House Medical Unit, the Vice President will maintain his schedule in accordance with the CDC guidelines for essential personnel," he wrote in a statement.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advise essential workers who have been exposed to COVID-19 should take their temperature before work, wear a face mask at all times and social distance "as work duties permit." Pence is scheduled to hold a rally in Kinston, North Carolina, on Sunday evening.

Short has served as Pence's chief of staff since March 2019.

Obst, a top political aide to the vice president, tested positive last week, multiple sources familiar with the matter told ABC News. He is an outside adviser and not a government employee.

He was spotted at a fundraiser at Trump Doral attended by both Pence and President Trump on Oct. 15. While he was traveling with the VP last week, he wasn't in close proximity to him, sources say.

Obst did not respond to a request for comment. The vice president's office did not immediately respond.

The trusted adviser, who ran Pence's campaign in 2016, has kept up a steady stream of tweets and retweets on Twitter in recent days and weeks, though he does not appear to have mentioned his own diagnosis.

This is the second time someone close to Pence has tested positive for the virus. Katie Miller, Pence's press secretary and wife of Trump adviser Stephen Miller, tested positive for COVID-19 in May.

Both Mike Pence and the second lady tested negative for coronavirus in the days after President Donald Trump tested positive and was hospitalized at the beginning of October.

Earlier this month, in an interview with CNN, Short said the vice president was tested "every day."

At least 34 people connected to the White House tested positive for the virus earlier this month, including the president and first lady Melania Trump, as well as press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, campaign manager Bill Stepien, senior adviser for policy Stephen Miller and outside advisers Kellyanne Conway and Chris Christie.

ABC News' Mark Osborne contributed to this report.

Anyone see this?

Borat 2 - access to the WH and Trump Jr ... no Covid testing.

https://www.ign.com/articles/borat-2-deleted-trump-scene

""Borat's official Twitter account also claims that COVID-19 tests were not required in order for them to enter the White House.""

Look - I know Cohen was hell bent on making fun of and making the Trump administration look ridiculous..... But he can only do that if you let him right. You can't get access to the WH without a Covid test unless they let you.

US Covid count yesterday 88,973 record high and about 10% higher than previous high.

The actual number of covid cases was closer to 10,000.

About 70,000 of those cases listed as covid were actually the flu that doctors were too stoopid to diagnose.

Did you hear that at a trump rally or on social media? lol

I won't mention a name but it was posted on the influenza thread in the Everything Else forum.

It was either done to get a reaction out of people or it was done out of stupidity. Testing will plainly tell you if you have Covid or not. Anyone trying to create some crazy narrative to the contrary is either naive, stirring the pot or stupid. I'll let you come to your own conclusion.

At least 5 people in Pence's orbit, including chief of staff Marc Short, are positive for coronavirus

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/24/politics/mac-short-coronavirus-positive-test/index.html?

So anyways...While covid attacks the WH again Pence refuses to quarantine, and trump plans another super spreader event in the rose garden today ....Cases are up in 80% of all states. 125,000 American’s dead. They just don’t care. But they be saving a few unwanted fetus’s while taking away our healthcare soon. Pffft trump and his supporters.

WOOHOO that means over 100,000 people must have came back to life

Zombie apocalypse?

Meadows says Pence won't quarantine because he is 'essential'

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday that Vice President Mike Pence will not quarantine after multiple aides tested positive for Covid-19 because he is "essential."

Meadows was pressed about Pence continuing to campaign even after four of his aides, including his chief of staff and top political adviser, tested positive for the virus in recent days.

A Pence spokesman said the vice president and his wife tested negative for the virus, but Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines stipulate that a person who has come into close contact with infected individuals should quarantine for 14 days.

Meadows said Pence, who is continuing to campaign on Sunday, is considered "essential personnel," adding that Pence will social distance and wear a mask.

"I spoke to the vice president last night at midnight," Meadows said. "And I can tell you that what he's doing is wearing a mask, socially distancing. And when he goes up to speak, he will take the mask off, put it back on. But he — he's wearing a mask as it relates to this particular thing because the doctors have advised him to do that."

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-el...4689#blogHeader

Just so we're clear here. Pence is in charge of the Covid 19 task force. Their own policy requires anyone known to have been exposed to the virus to self quarantine.

But for political reasons he has chosen to ignore the very advise of the task force he is in charge of.



Murica!

Isn't he tested out the wazoo? If he is, then common sense says he's ok so long as he continues to test negative.

How long could I be contagious before a positive virus test?

Studies have shown that people may be contagious for about two days before developing COVID-19 symptoms.

In fact, right before developing symptoms is when people are likely the most contagious, said Dr. Werner Bischoff, an infectious disease specialist at Wake Forest University.

People who never develop symptoms can spread infection, too. That’s a problem because many people would never seek testing unless they developed symptoms or knew they’d been exposed.

But there’s a more complicated part to this question: What if someone knows they were exposed but their virus test comes back negative -- could they still be contagious?

Maybe.

A negative test within less than seven days after exposure “is a very, very poor indicator of whether you have virus on board,” said Dr. Alan Wells of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Some tests are less accurate than others, and you have to factor in the incubation period, he said.

A negative test between seven and 10 days of exposure is a better indicator, Wells said, but even then some people might not test positive until later.

“That is why if you have had a credible exposure, you should wear a mask and you should self-quarantine if there’s any question,” he said.

https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbrea...dfa2a390471b347

This is why the self quarantine policy is so critical.

I think they actually take swabs of his nose or throat.
I think the wazoo is a different test.

How some you can joke about 200,000+ Americans dead is so telling. But expected.

I joke about cancer
I joke about strokes
I joke about heart problems
I joke about myself.
I joke about dementia
I joke about memory problems.
I joke about covid.
I joke about being Quarantined.

Hell there is not much I won't or don't joke about.

Not joking about american deaths due to covid right? Because that’s what it seemed like, not just you. Maybe I’m wrong. Let me go back and re read.

Nope You didn’t, I made a typo and you joked about my typo and 100k Zombies coming back to life.

I apologize

No problem bro.

Admit it, you are just a twisted sob....LOL

Always have been, always will be. One of these days when covid is out of the way we have to have lunch or dinner again.

j/c

Coronavirus: Hospitalized virus patients at ‘all-time high’ DeWine says

Ohio is at an all-time high for hospitalized coronavirus patients, Gov. Mike DeWine said Tuesday.

There have been 18,433 hospitalizations reported in Ohio throughout the pandemic, including 198 reported Tuesday, according to the Ohio Department of Health. There are 1,456 COVID-19 patients in Ohio’s hospitals, including 459 in southwest Ohio.

“We have no indication that we’ve plateaued out at all,” DeWine said. “We’re not at the point where any of our hospitals are overflowing, but our trend line is not good.”

Ohio has 82 counties with a high incidence of coronavirus spread, meaning a county has more than 100 cases per 100,000 people.

“As you can see, this virus is everywhere, and it is spreading,” the governor said. “This community spread endangers our schools, our nursing homes, and our hospitals.”

DeWine called for Ohioans to go back to the basics: wearing face masks, social distancing and avoiding large gatherings.

“We are Ohioans, we always come together," he said.

He asked that people living in high incidence counties reconsider attending gatherings of any size and to wear masks inside and outside where social distancing isn’t possible.

The governor also called on county leaders to double down on efforts to slow the spread of the virus. DeWine said his team will meet with county leaders via Zoom to discuss what each community is doing and what it can do in the future. The meetings will start with counties on the level 4 watch list, Clark, Cuyahoga and Hamilton, and then by counties with the highest incidence rate.

“Our goal will be to bring people together to learn what we can do to help the community, and for the community to chart a course to safely get them through this winter,” he said.

More than 2,500 cases of coronavirus were reported in Ohio Tuesday, bringing the total to 202,740, according to the ODH.

Ohio has doubled its positivity rate in the last month. As of Sunday, the state’s seven-day positivity rate average is 5.7% compared to 2.8% on Sept. 25.

On Monday, Ohio broke 200,000 total cases of coronavirus. The state added 2,116 cases, bringing the total to 200,231.

Over the weekend the governor called for Ohioans to come together to slow the spread of the virus.

“We’re seeing in Ohio a huge increase in cases - much more than we saw in the spring and summer,” DeWine said. “Ohioans rallied together two other times, and I’m asking them to rally again now.”

He noted that though small events, such as birthday parties, bonfires, sleepovers and family get-togethers, seem innocent, they’re helping spread coronavirus.

“What’s so dangerous is that some people are carriers but don’t know it,” the governor said.

https://www.daytondailynews.com/news/cor...JIMQOBWEZ2UFDI/

Where's that frickin' corner Trump keeps lying about? Over 225,000 dead Americans and counting. No national plan to combat Covid, a VP who should be in quarantine out campaigning, and people are going out and voting for this idiot.

Trump's Farewell Super Spreader Tour 2020!

Murica!

White House science office says Trump ended COVID-19 pandemic as US hits record cases
BY NATHANIEL WEIXEL - 10/27/20 03:37 PM EDT



The White House science office listed "ending the COVID-19 pandemic" as the top accomplishment of President Trump's first term, even as the U.S. has set records for new daily infections and numerous hospitals across the country are stretched to their breaking points.

According to a press release intended to highlight the administration's science accomplishments, the Trump administration said it "has taken decisive actions to engage scientists and health professionals in academia, industry, and government to understand, treat, and defeat the disease."

The rosy outlook flies in the face of reality and underscores Trump's efforts to continuously downplay the severity of the pandemic that continues to rage nearly uncontrolled across the country.


As of Tuesday, more than 226,000 people in the U.S. have died from COVID-19. The seven-day average of new cases is nearly 70,000, a record number that is only expected to get worse. Hospitalizations and deaths are also climbing steadily upward. According to the COVID Tracking Project, there are more than 42,000 people hospitalized with COVID-19, up from about 30,000 just a month ago.

Overnight Health Care: Trump testing czar says rise in cases is real...
Researchers link severe COVID-19 cases to mental decline equal to...
Meanwhile, Trump has been holding rallies with thousands of people and minimal physical distancing or mask-wearing. He says the country is "rounding the turn," has attacked the media for focusing too much on COVID-19 and claimed the rise in cases is merely because the U.S. is testing more people.

The office of Vice President Pence is dealing with a COVID-19 outbreak a week before the election, and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is under fire for saying the country is not going to control the virus.

Public health experts say that as the fall and winter progress, the situation is going to get much worse. Former Food and Drug Administration chief Scott Gottlieb said on CNBC Monday that the U.S. was at a "tipping point" of exponential spread in much of the country.


https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/52...01wc8VF1vN-5k1o

The most telling line....
“ Researchers link severe COVID-19 cases to mental decline...”

donny didn’t have much upstairs to hold onto anyway. His COVID obviously stripped away the last couple remaining brain cells.

At this point donny’s presidency is a bigger plague on this country than COVID. I’ve never wanted a man out of office so badly. What complete lack of reason. A complete garbage human. Stacked trash in a bad red tie.

AWESOME NEWS, THE WHITE HOUSE TASK FORCE SAYS THEY HAVE ENDED COVID. WE CAN ALL CELEBRATE

Are you saying that the 'Fake News' comes out of the White House?

So my son, his wife, and three boys have covid and are in what is going to be a longer than two week quarantine because they each got it at later times passing it between each other. Well today, both of my daughter-in-laws parents tested positive. Grandpa A. has symptoms and 3 time cancer survivor with her most recent bout only months ago, Grandma A., is asymptomatic. Grandpa A. and my daughter-in-law are the only ones with symptoms beyond the sniffles. All seem like they will fully recover with no issues at this point.

My wife's coworker and a guy she ride shared with for 6 years pre covid has his family all coming together tomorrow to see his mom and say their goodbyes through the glass at the nursing home she is in... dozens of active cases make in person goodbyes impossible and doctors don't expect her to live through the weekend with her case.

damn.

My God that's awful. D:

This s# is real, Eve.

Please stay safe.
Listen to the Browns online for awhile.

We can all get back together down the road a pace or two.
I'd hoist a brew or two with you, when it's safe for us to do.

Keep the faith...

Damn that is horrible to hear, just gut wrenching. You stay safe - wishing you and yours safety and health and speedy recoveries.

So sorry to hear this OCD.. Very sad.... My prayers to all.

Wishing yours a safe and quick recovery

Does this mean I don't have to finish my quarantine.

Wow thats a large group. So sorry to hear. Wishing them all the best.

It makes me so angry when I hear people say its a hoax and I wont wear a mask. People can be so stupid and they are thinking that because their pathetic excuse for a leader told them so. trump has killed US citizens. I lost a dear friend very early on. This is no joke and its not over. We need a really leader to get us out of this with as few more deaths as possible. and trump repeatedly proves he is not that guy.

Wow, as if he didn't have enough on his plate, my son's employer just laid him off. He knew they were going out of business at the end of the year but since he caught covid it seems they decided to lay him off early. He's an electro mechanical robotics engineer, so he will find new employment but damn they are kicking him while he is down...

Sorry to hear the things your family is going through OCD.

That's awful.

On the plus side, I can tell you that the job market for engineers and the sort are definitely starting to open back up.

Thanks everyone for the well wishes etc.

I know oober, he won't have a problem finding a job. Factory/line automation is a booming field.

I wouldn't expect him (or you) to agree with me at this point in time... but when I was laid off, that was the best thing that could've happened to me. It got me out of a crappy work environment, allowed me to get back to (briefly) get back to what I was really good at, and allowed me to stop and assess my career and eventually switch things up. Ended up being a "1 step back, a bunch of steps forward" type of junction in my career.

Getting laid off sucks, but if he's emotionally/mentally able... make the most of it.

Oh it's not that big of a deal. He has known since July that they are closing operations in January and has already been seeking a better job. One of those Trump victory companies moving some jobs out of the country doing away with others. But he was supposed to be one of the last laid off due to his job. I guess getting covid changed that.

ocd...obviously, your family is being challenged from many directions...

I hope for nothing but the best for everyone within your family...keep fighting...!

...and remember, there are people you have never met that are hoping for and praying for you and your family.

I just know I wanted to punch people in the face that were saying to me at the time, "hey, this could be a good thing". Turned out to be totally true, and I can say that now.

Now Don Jr. is claiming the death count is "almost down to nothing".

Donald Trump Jr. Gets Instant Fact Check After Most Brazen Coronavirus Lie Yet

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-tr...rce=politics_fb

Someone should punch junior in the neckbeard.

I swear that guy is on drugs no joke. Not by what he says but by how he acts and looks.

Someone? Go for it!

jc

$5,000 find or up to 18 months in jail for going to a friends house. Tell me, whats the point of beating coivd if we end up like north korea?

You can go to a restaurant, hangout with a group of 6-10 people without masks and thats ok. If you go to a friends house and have 6-10 people hanging out in the backyard, social distant with masks, you can go to jail.

Another county put a curfew into place from 10pm - 5am. I wasn't aware that covid only spread during those hours...

Both of these are county level policies. All levels of the government are doing stupid things in regards to covid.

That's why often times voting in local elections may be the most important vote you can make.

Let's face it, we have extremes on both sides. We also have places doing basically nothing as Covid ravages their area and death rates are rising.

We have no moderation in today's society. Common sense dictates that risking spreading a disease and the possibility of someone becoming infected and dying because people refuse to wear a damned mask isn't about their "personal freedom".

That is a consequence of the lack of Federal leadership.
Instead of a single unified message, every State, County, and City is left to create their own from scratch. Some will be good and some will be stupid.

One size fits all is not a good solution. There might be covid where you live, but it is not raging here. So why should my town be subjected to your economic shutdown or curfews.

Not saying it should be one size fits all.

How about if the Federal government used all their resources to come up with a game plan for high, medium, and low affected areas instead of each having to come up with it on their own.

I would rather have local government tailor fit the appropriate policy for my town than the Fedeal Government. The local government is in the best position to know the needs.

One size fits all would never work.

Sadly a viral infection spreads to the entire country, over and over again actually. You sound just like the people is states like the Dakota's, Nebraska and other less populated states who at one time were saying the same thing.

This "Wait until it's my turn" thinking is what's helped get us to where we are now. Yeah, let's wait until corpses are piling up in an area to do anything. How's that working out right now?

Your feelings dont count. I'm glad my local government is making the decisions. They have consistently made the right call.

We all see how well that has worked, or more correctly hasn't worked.

And what's with the harping on one size fits all? No one is saying that.

And again, you and your little bubble.
Even if your little area has been correct so many others have not.

Its worked fine for my state. In fact, my state has gone against all the liberal crybaby agenda. We had our second wave and now we are doing well.
Its not my fault your local government is incompetant.

We'll see. Since neither you nor your local officials are experienced virologists I find none of you are qualified to make such a call.

You were saying this same thing all along. At that point, Georgia was stable. Now their cases are going up again. If it traveled from other states back into your state, how much longer do you think it will be before it travels from other parts of your own stated into your county?

What will happen? Your county will wait until it's too late and has overrun your county before they take actions. that's what happens when people are reactionary rather then preventative.

Sadly your area will be badly effected again by this virus. and an ounce of prevention will be worth a pound of cure. And those aren't "feelings".

__________________________________________________________________

Fall surge feared as Georgia COVID-19 cases rise again

Coronavirus cases are again on the rise in Georgia, sparking fears among some health experts that the expected autumn surge gripping states across the nation has arrived in the Peach State.

The seven-day rolling average of new cases in Georgia has climbed about 42% since bottoming out Oct. 2, and current hospitalizations have started to climb after weeks of improvement, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of state data shows.

In a worrying sign, the latest White House Coronavirus Task Force report, dated Sunday and obtained by the AJC Wednesday, said more than 80% of Georgia hospitals reported having fewer than three days' worth of N95 masks, surgical gowns and gloves.

For now, cases in Georgia remain well below the summer surge that strained the state’s health care infrastructure and led to thousands of deaths. Georgia’s current rate of spread also is not as severe as the outbreaks seen in the Upper Midwest and Northwest.

Georgia started this latest surge in cases at nearly double the level that preceded the summer wave. And health experts said the cooler months ahead could be bleak in Georgia if residents do not heed warnings to wear masks, practice social distancing, wash hands, get a flu shot and avoid gatherings, particularly in poorly ventilated spaces.

“We’re starting off in a bad position,” said Dr. Lynn Paxton, director of the Fulton County Board of Health.

‘Signs of deterioration’

Georgia remained in the orange zone, or the second most severe level, for new cases in the latest White House coronavirus report. The state also remained in the yellow zone for test positivity last week.

Georgia ranked 34th nationally in new cases at 93 per 100,000 people, just under the red zone. The state ranked 29th for test positivity, for the seven days that ended Friday.

But the state’s outbreak is likely worse than the official data because the results of rapid antigen tests are not included in the White House assessment. And an AJC analysis of new confirmed cases over the past seven days shows Georgia would now be in the White House’s red zone for the first time since last month.

The task force warned of “signs of deterioration in the Sunbelt, now including Georgia, as mitigation efforts were decreased over the last month.”

“Georgia must expand mitigation in the counties with rising cases and new hospital admissions,” the task force said. “Mitigation efforts should continue to include mask wearing, physical distancing, hand hygiene, avoiding crowds in public and social gatherings in private, and ensuring flu immunizations.”

In recent weeks, President Donald Trump held a large campaign rally in Macon in violation of Gov. Brian Kemp’s 50-person gathering limit. Trump’s campaign rallies frequently run counter to the advice of his own task force.

Residents have complained of bustling bars, nightclubs and house parties.

A recent AJC survey of law enforcement agencies across the state found few issued any citations for gatherings of more than 50, though many said they issue warnings and attempt to educate homeowners and businesses about COVID-19 restrictions.

The task force also warned of potential viral spread from Halloween parties and said signs remain of “community spread initiated by social friends and family gatherings.”

“People must remember that seemingly uninfected family members and friends may be infected but asymptomatic,” the report said. “Exposure to asymptomatic cases can easily lead to spread as people unmask in private gatherings."

Allison Chamberlain, an epidemiologist and professor who leads the Emory COVID-19 Response Collaborative at Emory University, said as the weather gets cooler, people will do more indoors, posing high risks of transmission. She said indoor Halloween parties, and holiday gatherings such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukah and New Year’s, are concerning.

The more that can be done outdoors, she said, the better.

“As people move into the holiday season and we have this innate desire to be around our loved ones we have to keep in mind we are the ones that transmit this virus,” Chamberlain said.

Amber Schmidtke, a public health researcher and former Mercer University professor who tracks Georgia’s epidemic on her widely read blog, said hospitals need to be prepared for a surge.

“We are in a vulnerable position,” she said.

‘Virus fatigue’

On Wednesday, Georgia reported 1,734 net new cases and 34 net new deaths attributed to COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. To date, the Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) has reported 355,025 confirmed cases and 7,876 deaths attributed to the disease.

The state said 1,419 people are currently hospitalized with the coronavirus and the rolling average of current hospitalizations is up nearly 10% in the past two weeks.

Paxton, the Fulton health director, attributed the rise in cases in part to people not following health guidance or consistently wearing masks.

“We’ve got virus fatigue. But the virus does not care,” she said.

Paxton said her agency will distribute 500,000 reusable masks, beginning with giveaways at polling places. The agency is also offering flu shots at most testing centers.

Same day appointments for testing are available and results are typically returned within 48 hours, a vast improvement over the summer when the state’s testing infrastructure was pushed to its breaking point.

On Tuesday, DPH published its latest weekly statewide COVID-19 update. The state reported 123 outbreaks last week, 30 more than a week earlier.

Twenty-five were at schools, 24 were at long-term care homes, 19 were listed as outbreaks in workplaces and five were at detention facilities.

Nancy Nydam, a spokeswoman for DPH, urged Georgians to follow health guidelines and to cooperate with disease detectives known as contact tracers who help isolate exposed individuals to curtail spread.

“We are beginning to see an uptick in COVID testing — testing and contact tracing can help prevent further spread of COVID-19, but we need people to participate in the contact tracing process,” Nydam said.

https://www.ajc.com/news/fall-surge-fear...JMTGGMDWVKOKCQ/

The article I posted states plainly you are not "doing well". But I understand actual evidence means nothing.

For the record, where I live has been doing great. Where I work (about a 25 minute drive) has not. But just because one small local municipality is doing a good job there should be not leadership from the federal government because of course since your area is doing fine well the rest of the country must be just as competent. Got it.

I can look at our chart and see Georgia is doing good. Its been going up a little bit. Maybe you missed the part of your article that says Georgia is 34th in new cases. So, as good as we are doing, there are other states doing even better.

But by all means keep making trash posts about how the sky is falling.

Your one size fits all solution will never work, and the absolute last thing I want is the Feds trying to make decisions for my town. This is why we elect local 0fficials. If your local officials suck then elect someone new.

Providing leadership and guidance is not the same thing as one size fits all.
Just because you keep saying it over and over does not make it so.

I gave you facts. You don't like facts so you throw back trash. In Georgia the cases are rising twice as fast as they were during your first wave. So keep ignoring that and throwing trash. At this point that's all you got.

Stanford Study Links Trump Rallies to 700 COVID-19 Deaths

Eighteen Trump rallies may have led to more than 700 COVID-19 deaths, including among people who did not attend the rallies, according to a new working paper from Stanford University researchers.

While Joe Biden has tailored his presidential campaign toward smaller, more socially distanced events during the pandemic, President Donald Trump has made a selling point of his packed rallies, where mask use is often scarce. The Stanford paper studied 18 Trump rallies this year, and linked them to a significant spike in COVID-19 cases—approximately 30,000—in surrounding counties.

The paper, from the school’s economics department, has not been peer reviewed, leading epidemiologists to raise some caveats about its findings. However, one such infectious disease expert told The Daily Beast that the study’s broader findings do suggest a post-Trump COVID bump, and further illustrate the effect of wearing a mask.

The study’s authors wrote that their findings affirmed previous warnings about large gatherings.

“Our analysis strongly supports the warnings and recommendations of public health officials concerning the risk of COVID-19 transmission at large group gatherings, particularly when the degree of compliance with guidelines concerning the use of masks and social distancing is low,” they wrote. “The communities in which Trump rallies took place paid a high price in terms of disease and death.”

Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, an infectious diseases expert at UCLA who was not involved with the study, said it “does indeed raise the possibility that these outdoor rallies increased the incidence of COVID in counties where they occurred.”

Klausner raised several caveats, noting that the study’s authors had not individually counted deaths, but looked at post-rally COVID surges, applied COVID death rates in the affected counties and predicted the number of deaths that had resulted from the rallies. The method meant researchers could not control for certain demographic factors, like the age of the affected people, he said. (Old age appears to be a significant factor in COVID death rates.)

Other epidemiologists, like Michael Mina of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, also urged caution in extrapolating too much from the study.

“There are better ways to look at this data through actual infectious disease epidemic lenses,” Mina told Politico. “It offers a data point, but nothing I would want to draw any strong conclusions from. It is also so overtly political that it makes it hard to distinguish if there were decisions made out of perhaps unrecognized bias.”

Klausner and another epidemiologist who spoke to Politico said the study’s methods seemed generally sound, if a little speculative.

Fifteen of the 18 Trump rallies (held from June to September across multiple states) were held outside. COVID-19 research has suggested outdoor events with good ventilation are safer than indoor events with poor air circulation. Despite that, the researchers recorded a notable uptick in COVID-19 cases in surrounding areas after the rallies. Meanwhile, similar studies on outdoor Black Lives Matter rallies this summer did not find a notable outbreak among protest participants.

The difference might have been mask use, Klausner noted.

Although Black Lives Matter rallies “had crowding, a lot of people yelling, and other attributes we associate with COVID, you had a much higher percentage of mask-wearing,” compared to Trump rallies where fewer people were photographed in protective gear, he noted.

“Lack of masks may have been the key difference between Black Lives Matter rallies and Trump rallies,” Klausner said.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/stanford-study-links-trump-rallies-to-700-covid-19-deaths?ref=scroll

‘A whole lot of hurt’: Fauci warns of covid-19 surge, offers blunt assessment of Trump’s response

By
Josh Dawsey and
Yasmeen Abutaleb
Oct. 31, 2020 at 7:00 p.m. EDT


President Trump’s repeated assertions the United States is “rounding the turn” on the novel coronavirus have increasingly alarmed the government's top health experts, who say the country is heading into a long and potentially deadly winter with an unprepared government unwilling to make tough choices.


“We’re in for a whole lot of hurt. It’s not a good situation,” Anthony S. Fauci, the country’s leading infectious-disease expert, said in a wide-ranging interview late Friday. “All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors. You could not possibly be positioned more poorly.”

Fauci, a leading member of the government’s coronavirus response, said the United States needed to make an “abrupt change” in public health practices and behaviors. He said the country could surpass 100,000 new coronavirus cases a day and predicted rising deaths in the coming weeks. He spoke as the nation set a new daily record Friday with more than 98,000 cases. As hospitalizations increase, deaths are also ticking up, with more than 1,000 reported Wednesday and Thursday, bringing the total to more than 230,000 since the start of the pandemic, according to health data analyzed by The Washington Post.


Some voters said the coronavirus pandemic was their top concern as President Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden made final 2010 campaign stops. (Reuters)
Fauci’s blunt warnings come as Trump has rallied in states and cities experiencing record surges in infections and hospitalizations in a last-ditch effort to convince voters he has successfully managed the pandemic. He has held maskless rallies with thousands of supporters, often in violation of local health mandates.

Even as new infections climb in 42 states, Trump has downplayed the virus or mocked those who take it seriously. “Covid-19, covid, covid, covid,” he said during one event, lamenting that the news media gives it too much attention. In another rally, he baselessly said that U.S. doctors record more deaths from covid-19, the disease the coronavirus causes, than other nations because they get more money.

“I mean our doctors are very smart people. So what they do is they say, ‘I’m sorry but everybody dies of covid,’&#8201;” Trump said Friday at a rally in Waterford Township, Mich., without offering any evidence.


Since the start of the coronavirus outbreak, President Trump has repeatedly said that the virus will disappear. (Video: JM Rieger/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
By contrast, former vice president Joe Biden and Kamala D. Harris have consistently worn masks in public, and have held socially distanced events. When two people around Harris tested positive for the coronavirus in October, she canceled all travel for several days. Asked about the difference between their approaches, Fauci said Biden’s campaign “is taking it seriously from a public health perspective.” Trump, Fauci said, is “looking at it from a different perspective.” He said that perspective was “the economy and reopening the country.”



Fauci, who once took a starring role in the response and briefed the president almost every day as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, described a disjointed response as cases surge. Several current and former senior administration officials said the White House is almost entirely focused on a vaccine, even though experts warn it is unlikely to be a silver bullet that ends the pandemic immediately since it will take months under the best of circumstances to inoculate tens of millions of people to achieve herd immunity.

Officials told governors on a call Friday that they hoped to begin distributing a vaccine by the end of the year, giving some specific guidance on how states would receive their first doses. Fauci focused on the rise in cases, according to people familiar with the call.



Fauci said the White House coronavirus task force meets less frequently and has far less influence as the president and his top advisers have focused on reopening the country. “Right now, the public health aspect of the task force has diminished greatly,” he said.

Fauci said he and Deborah Birx, coronavirus task force coordinator, no longer have regular access to the president and he has not spoken to Trump since early October. “The last time I spoke to the president was not about any policy; it was when he was recovering in Walter Reed, he called me up,” he said. Fauci said he phones into meetings of other staffers but largely avoids the West Wing because “of all the infections there.”

He also lamented that Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist and Trump’s favored pandemic adviser, who advocates letting the virus spread among young healthy people and reopening the country without restrictions, is the only medical adviser the president regularly meets with.


“I have real problems with that guy,” Fauci said of Atlas. “He’s a smart guy who’s talking about things that I believe he doesn’t have any real insight or knowledge or experience in. He keeps talking about things that when you dissect it out and parse it out, it doesn’t make any sense.”

Fauci said he actually appreciated chief of staff Mark Meadows saying last weekend on CNN that the administration was not going to control the pandemic. “I tip my hat to him for admitting the strategy,” he said. “He is straightforward in telling you what’s on his mind. I commend him for that.”

At one point during the interview, Fauci said he needed to be careful with his words because he would be blocked from doing appearances in the future.

Judd Deere, a White House spokesman, offered blistering criticism of Fauci for his comments in a statement to The Washington Post on Saturday. Deere said Fauci “knows the risks [from the coronavirus] today are dramatically lower than they were only a few months ago.”



“It’s unacceptable and breaking with all norms for Dr. Fauci, a senior member of the President’s Coronavirus Task Force and someone who has praised President Trump’s actions throughout this pandemic, to choose three days before an election to play politics,” Deere said. “As a member of the Task Force, Dr. Fauci has a duty to express concerns or push for a change in strategy, but he’s not done that, instead choosing to criticize the President in the media and make his political leanings known by praising the President’s opponent — exactly what the American people have come to expect from The Swamp.”

Deere added that the president “always put the well-being of the American people first,” citing his decision to cut off travel from China, his early shutdown of the country and his mobilization of the private sector to deliver critical supplies and develop treatments and vaccines.

Fauci’s candid warnings about the threat of the virus have angered the president, who has mocked the scientist for his prognostications early in the outbreak — for instance, saying that masks were not necessary — and even for his baseball pitch. “People are tired of hearing Fauci and these idiots, all these idiots who got it wrong,” Trump said during one rally in October.



Some White House advisers have been leery of a public fight with Fauci — knowing his popularity is higher than that of the president. But they’ve also grown frustrated by his media appearances and complain he is too focused on his personal reputation and is “not on the team,” said one senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment. The doctor has become loathed among many Trump supporters, and Fauci has told others that he has experienced a surge in harassment and threats.

White House spokespeople did not offer comments from either Atlas or Birx despite being asked several times.


Several senior administration officials and outside advisers described a White House overwhelmed by the pandemic, with a feeling of helplessness over the inability to curb its spread without also throttling the economy or damaging the president’s reelection chances.



“People need to take a step back and be humble about this,” said Joe Grogan, the former head of the domestic policy council under Trump. “Nobody, regardless of political party or ideology, should be getting arrogant about how they have this figured out.”

However, the campaign trail message that life is returning to normal underscores how little the president and White House have focused on the pandemic beyond pushing for development and approvals of vaccines and treatments. With the clearance of a vaccine unlikely until year’s end, that raises questions about what happens after Election Day, during what is projected to be the worst stretch yet of the pandemic. The Trump administration will be in charge of managing the pandemic until at least Jan. 20, no matter who wins.

“We need to plan now for how we turn the corner in 2021, and one thing we should be doing is laying the foundation to get public schools reopened in the late winter or early spring,” said Trump’s former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, Scott Gottlieb. “If we don’t plan now, we’ll lose the opportunity to prioritize opening what should be most important to us, just as we lost that chance in the fall because we didn’t plan appropriately this summer.”



Without the ear of the president or other top White House officials, Fauci and other health experts believe the most effective thing they can do is get the public health message out through local and national television media interviews. Birx, the coronavirus coordinator, has traveled across the country in recent weeks delivering blunt advice to state and local leaders grappling with surges of infections, hospitalizations and deaths.

“The thing we can do is to try to get the message out,” Fauci said.

Earlier in the pandemic, Fauci said he and Birx would agree on a message that Birx, who works out of the White House and once met with the president almost every day, would deliver to Trump.

“All of a sudden, they didn’t like what the message was because it wasn’t what they wanted to do anymore,” he said. “They needed to have a medical message that was essentially consistent with what they were saying.

“And one of the ways to say the outbreak is over is [to say] it’s really irrelevant because it doesn’t make any difference. All you need to do is prevent people from dying and protect people in places like the nursing homes,” Fauci said. “And because of that, Debbie almost never ever sees the president anymore. The only medical person who sees the president on a regular basis is Scott Atlas. It’s certainly not Debbie Birx.”

Although Trump, Atlas and other top officials say their strategy is to “protect the vulnerable,” health experts say the administration has not done enough to protect those in nursing homes. The administration has sent tests to nursing homes and other hard-hit communities, but not nearly the number that experts say are needed. Many nursing homes are also experiencing shortages of personal protective equipment, personnel and other critical supplies that the administration has not sufficiently addressed.

While Atlas has publicly rebutted assertions that he promotes a herd immunity strategy, he recently endorsed the Great Barrington Declaration — a document named after the town in Massachusetts where it was unveiled on Oct. 4 at a libertarian think tank — that calls for allowing the coronavirus to spread freely at “natural” rates among healthy young people, while keeping most aspects of the economy up and running.

“He insists he’s not somebody who’s pushing for herd immunity,” Fauci said of Atlas. “He says, ‘That’s not what I mean.’ [But] everything he says — when you put them together and stitch them together — everything is geared toward the concept of ‘it doesn’t make any difference if people get infected. It’s a waste of time. Masks don’t work. Who cares,’ and the only thing you need to do is protect the vulnerable, like people in the nursing homes,” Fauci said.

Fauci said that many people who catch the virus recover “virologically” but will have chronic health problems.

“The idea of this false narrative that if you don’t die, everything is hunky dory is just not the case,” he said. “But to say, ‘Let people get infected, it doesn’t matter, just make sure people don’t die’ — to me as a person who’s been practicing medicine for 50 years, it doesn’t make any sense at all.”

A similar assessment was offered by Tom Bossert, the former homeland security adviser in the Trump administration. “It sounds alluring,” Bossert said. “It sounds so seductive. It’s not possible. Math makes it irresponsible to even try and say it.”

Fauci and other top health experts applauded the substantial growth in expertise about how to treat covid-19 since last spring that has led to a dramatic reduction in death rates.

“Even though we’re getting challenged with more cases,” he said, “the medical system is much better prepared to take care of seriously ill people, so that’s the reason why I think the surge of cases is going to be counterbalanced by better experience.”

Nonetheless, he and others said they are worried about regions of the country that may be ill-prepared to deal with a winter surge of infections, including Midwestern and Western states because they have limited intensive care beds, as well as nurses who can treat growing numbers of covid-19 patients.

“It’s much more about some of the states like Utah, Nevada, South Dakota, North Dakota, where … they never had a pretty good reserve of intensive care beds and things like that. I hope they’ll be okay, but it’s still a risk that, as you get more surging, they’re going to run out of capacity,” Fauci said.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/01/politics/donald-trump-anthony-fauci-2020-campaign/index.html

jc...

Is there anyone who believes trump even cares if someone dies of covid because of the way he is campaigning?

Trump voters who believe Trump gives a damn about them...they are living in some "fairy tail" world.

If Trump calls our soldiers "suckers and losers"...what does that make YOU, the Trump supporter?

Will Trumpies realize that they are the "real suckers and losers"?

He reminds me of the crazy eyed preacher man that will justify anything to get you to send in your cash (or vote as the case may be).

Who, Biden?

And there you have it, we are expected to rely on the common sense of trump and his GOP leadership as long as they hold control.

Yeah, he's the one who acts like a cult leader. Telling the FBI that his supporters trying to run someone off the road did nothing wrong and are patriots. Who says the DOJ should arrest his opponents. You don't actually pay attention do you?

Are you talking about the black truck or the white SUV?

I'm talking about the black truck intentionally hitting the white SUV. Twice.

So the black truck hit the white SUV while maintaining its lane? The camera panned away, but when it snapped back, the white SUV was well into the black truck's lane.

So you can't see that the black truck turned into the white SUV not once, but twice? You can argue that the white SUV encroached on the black trucks lane. That much seems obvious.

What you would then have to do is explain how ramming that vehicle twice was the proper response. It's not and you know that.

Trump admin funds plasma company based in owner's condo

An Associated Press investigation has found that the Trump administration awarded emergency coronavirus funds to a well-connected Republican donor's company to test a possible COVID-19-fighting blood plasma technology

WASHINGTON -- When the Trump administration gave a well-connected Republican donor seed money to test a possible COVID-19-fighting blood plasma technology, it noted the company’s “manufacturing facilities” in Charleston, South Carolina.

Plasma Technologies LLC is indeed based in the stately waterfront city. But there are no manufacturing facilities. Instead, the company exists within the luxury condo of its majority owner, Eugene Zurlo.

Zurlo's company may be in line for as much as $65 million in taxpayer dollars; enough to start building an actual production plant, according to internal government records and other documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The story of how a tiny business that exists only on paper has managed to snare attention from the highest reaches of the U.S. military and government is emblematic of the Trump administration’s frenetic response to the coronavirus pandemic.

It's also another in a series of contracts awarded to people with close political ties to key officials despite concerns voiced by government scientists. Among the others: an ill-conceived $21 million study of Pepcid as a COVID therapy and more than a half billion dollars to ApiJect Systems America, a startup with an unapproved medicine injection technology and no factory to manufacture the devices.

In addition, a government whistleblower claimed that a $1.6 billion vaccine contract to Novavax Inc. was made over objections of scientific staff.

At the center of these deals is Dr. Robert Kadlec, a senior Trump appointee at the Department of the Health and Human Services who backed the Pepcid, Novavax and ApiJect projects. Records obtained by the AP also describe Kadlec as a key supporter of Zurlo’s company.

In one government email obtained by the AP, an official said Kadlec, whose job as assistant secretary for preparedness and response is to help guide the nation through public health emergencies, was “all in” on Plasma Technologies.

This was the case despite misgivings from the scientists he oversees. One of them said the company would be just another “mouth to feed” that would distract from other important work on the pandemic. An HHS spokesperson said Kadlec “does not have a role in technical review of proposals nor in negotiating contracts.”

Kadlec has come under pressure from the White House to act with more urgency and not be bound by lower-level officials whom Trump has castigated as the “deep state” and accused of politically motivated delays in fielding COVID-19 vaccines and remedies. This pressure has led to investments in numerous untested companies.

The AP reached out to more than a dozen blood plasma industry leaders and medical experts. Few had heard of Zurlo’s company or its technology, and would not comment.

Zurlo, the company’s founder and a former pharmaceutical industry executive, told the AP in an email that the renewed interest in his company is being driven by COVID and other diseases.

“It is increasingly clear that the collection of adequate supplies of plasma is not possible; the answer being the adoption of new process technology that fully utilizes the scarce plasma currently available,” he said.

But whether Zurlo’s technology, which claims to increase the amount of disease-fighting plasma harvested from human blood, will be an improvement over other methods is still anyone’s guess.

A FORMER SENATOR ON BOARD

Top government officials began to take notice of Plasma Technologies after Rick Santorum, a former Republican senator from Pennsylvania and two-time presidential candidate, became part-owner, according to the records and AP interviews.

After Congress supplied hundreds of billions of dollars to combat the pandemic, Santorum stepped up his sales pitch for the company’s method of turning human plasma into a therapeutic product — a process the company has described as a game changer. In mid-August, the federal government awarded Plasma Technologies a $750,000 grant to demonstrate that it could deliver on its promises.

Santorum, who’s held no elective office since 2007, remains influential among social conservatives, a key part of President Donald Trump’s political base. Santorum has extolled the president’s handling of the pandemic on national television in his job as a CNN commentator, arguing that the nation’s response would have been worse under a Democratic administration.

Trump "didn’t botch it,” Santorum said recently in response to charges that the president had done a poor job leading the country through COVID-19. “I mean you guys keep blaming Trump. This is a local decision.”

HHS would not comment when asked whether Santorum’s public backing of the president led to a company he has a financial stake in getting a government contract.

Zurlo has deep ties to the Republican Party. He has contributed thousands of dollars to Santorum’s campaigns and to other GOP campaigns and political action committees. He entertained Santorum and his family at the mansion Zurlo used to own on Kiawah Island, an exclusive golf resort in South Carolina. They would play golf during the day and enjoy evenings overlooking the Atlantic, according to Michel “Mitch” LaPlante, a former business associate of Zurlo’s who attended several dinners with Santorum and Zurlo.

The business relationship between Zurlo and LaPlante turned ugly after those days of hobnobbing on Kiawah. A real estate deal they had invested in together fell into foreclosure, leading to a suit seeking more than $700 million by their mortgage lender. Each man sued the other for fraud and severed their business ties acrimoniously.

Zurlo founded Plasma Technologies in 2003, according to articles of organization and other records filed with South Carolina’s secretary of state. The company’s most recently listed address is Zurlo’s condominium in Charleston’s French Quarter.

The company has no other presence in South Carolina — or any other state — even though a U.S. government spokeswoman told the AP that Plasma Technologies has “manufacturing facilities” in Charleston.

“Fairy tale,” LaPlante said when asked if Plasma Technologies operates any commercial space in South Carolina’s most populous city.

OUTSIDE, LOOKING IN

Granting tens of millions of dollars to Plasma Technologies would track with Trump’s support for treating COVID-19 patients with convalescent plasma. Plasma, the yellowish liquid part of blood, harbors various antibodies, the soldiers of the body’s immune response that can target specific intruders such as viruses. Studies are underway to see if plasma taken from people who have recently recovered from COVID-19 can help those newly diagnosed fight the infection.

Zurlo has spent years trying to break into a sector of the pharmaceutical industry that manufactures therapies using antibodies called immunoglobulins, which are taken from healthy people to treat immune disorders. But routine immunoglobulin treatments are only one part of the field.

During the pandemic, many plasma companies are focusing on “hyperimmune globulin,” a therapy that pools and purifies plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients. The result is a powerful “potential global treatment for people at risk for serious complications from COVID-19,” according to the CoVIg-19 Plasma Alliance, an industry group that includes the world’s largest plasma companies. Hyperimmune globulin produced by several companies is being tested in new COVID-19 patients.

The process for making these plasma-based therapies is called fractionation, and Plasma Technologies markets its approach as a “disruptive and transformative” technology that makes for a more potent product, according to the records. A document prepared by Plasma Technologies in late May that outlines the company’s business strategy is focused on how much better its method is than a World War II-era process named for its developer, Edwin Cohn.

Dr. Jeff Henderson, an infectious disease specialist at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, said it is very likely that many companies have already developed improvements over the decades-old “Cohn” method. They just don’t discuss them publicly because they are trade secrets.

“There may be 50 technologies in use that are an improvement over Cohn fractionation,” Henderson said.

But Santorum described the plasma fractionation industry as more interested in keeping shareholders happy than adopting new technologies that would require expensive modifications to their manufacturing lines.

“You’ve got companies that are doing really well and don’t want to change anything,” Santorum said in an interview with the AP.

“We’re the little guy trying to fight City Hall.”

Plasma Technologies seemed to be on its way in 2014. The company had licensed its system to Dallas-based Access Pharmaceuticals, according to financial records filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

One filing described Zurlo as a trailblazer whose technology would “fundamentally change the economics of plasma fractionation.” Under the terms of the licensing agreement, Plasma Technologies was to be paid $1 million in cash with an additional $4 million in cash or stock to come.

But three years later, the agreement ended abruptly, according to the SEC records.

Now named Abeona Therapeutics, the company was grappling with crushing deficits — $346 million in June 2017. It’s unclear whether any of that red ink was due to the deal with Plasma Technologies. But by the end of 2017, “the agreement was terminated and the technology was returned” to Zurlo’s company, according to an Abeona SEC filing.

A spokesman for Abeona Therapeutics declined to comment on the licensing agreement with Plasma Technologies.

Santorum blamed the deal’s demise on onerous regulatory hurdles imposed by the Food and Drug Administration to ensure patient safety.

“They basically killed the product,” he said.

Santorum rejected any suggestion that Zurlo’s innovation is unproven, even though his company has never made an FDA-approved product. Plasma Technologies, he declared, is on the verge of transforming the industry, and for a fraction of the cost to develop a coronavirus vaccine.

“I’m just telling you, it’s gonna happen,” Santorum said.

A LINE IN

Zurlo brought Santorum aboard after the agreement with Abeona fell through. “We’ve got an FDA problem. Can you help me?” Santorum recalled Zurlo telling him.

Zurlo’s close relationship to Santorum offered a direct line into the FDA. The former senator had built a connection with Dr. Peter Marks, a senior FDA official, according to the documents obtained by AP.

In September 2019, Marks introduced Santorum at an FDA workshop held to explore the development of therapies for a rare disease. Santorum told the group about his youngest child, who was born with a life-threatening condition known as Trisomy 18, according to a transcript. Immunoglobulin treatments had saved her life, he told the audience.

Santorum’s personal story about his child’s illness was intertwined with a promotion of Plasma Technologies. Santorum said Zurlo, whom he called “a good friend,” had invented a groundbreaking technology for better plasma-based therapies to help his child and others.

Santorum credited Marks, director of FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, for pledging to remove barriers that have kept Plasma Technologies on the outside, looking in. “All I’m saying is, we have an opportunity because of Dr. Marks and what he has laid forward,” Santorum said at the workshop.

The former senator told the AP it would have been a “crime” if he hadn’t used his influence to get Plasma Technologies recognized.

“Shame on me if I hadn’t,” he said.

A SMALL SHAREHOLDER

In mid-April, a few weeks after Trump declared the coronavirus pandemic a national emergency, Santorum described Marks as an enthusiastic backer of Plasma Technologies, according to an email routed to multiple officials in the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, an HHS office Kadlec oversees.

Calling himself a “small shareholder” in Plasma Technologies, Santorum wrote, “Dr. Marks said I should communicate to you that he is ‘excited about this process and looks forward to working with us to get our process adopted by the industry.’”

The FDA declined a request to interview Marks and also declined to answer questions about whether he’s been helping Plasma Technologies secure a commercial foothold.

“Dr. Marks’ enthusiastic nature should not be mistaken for support for any specific product or technology," FDA spokeswoman Stephanie Caccomo said.

Federal ethics rules ban government employees from giving preferential treatment to any private organization or individual, according to Scott Amey, general counsel at the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight.

“Public trust in government decisions and a level playing field is essential to good government, so this situation deserves a look,” Amey said.

Santorum confirmed that he communicated directly with Kadlec, whom he described as “very supportive” of Plasma Technologies.

But Santorum’s initial pitch at HHS failed to gain traction among the agency’s scientists, who didn’t see Zurlo’s technology as worthy of millions in emergency pandemic funding, according to the emails and Rick Bright, the former BARDA director. They were focused on COVID-19 vaccines and treatments that could be delivered quickly, and saw the Plasma Technologies project as a longer-term effort.

“They were not excited,” recalled Bright, a vaccine expert who’s been sharply critical of Kadlec’s tenure at HHS. “They did not jump all over this and say, ‘We’ve got to get this going right away.’”

Bright filed a whistleblower complaint in May that alleges the Trump administration failed to prepare for the onslaught of the coronavirus.

With HHS scientists unconvinced, Plasma Technologies submitted a proposal dated May 28 to the Defense Department, which also is heavily engaged in the government’s COVID-19 response.

The detailed proposal, obtained by the AP, sought $51.6 million to build a plasma fractionation facility in Atlanta or Raleigh, North Carolina.

With a military audience in mind, the proposal emphasizes the national security implications of the coronavirus pandemic, stressing the need to churn out sufficient doses of antibody-rich hyperimmune globulin “to bolster force health protection for members of our military who are at especially high risk of infection, or whose performance is critical to national security and safety.” The proposal adds these plasma-derived proteins can be used as a treatment for viral infections until a vaccine is available.

The pitch fell flat. At first.

ANOTHER MOUTH TO FEED

In a June 12 email to HHS scientists, Army Lt. Col. Kara Schmid wrote that the price tag for Plasma Technologies was too high, even for the Pentagon, and that key parts of the company’s proposal were too vague.

“I’m just unclear if it has $50M worth of value,” Schmid wrote, adding she was “lukewarm at this point.”

Brian Tse, a BARDA health scientist, told Schmid that his office had passed on Plasma Technologies. With no production facility, Zurlo’s company intended to get COVID-19 patient plasma from blood donation centers that were already under heavy stress because of the pandemic.

“I believe that adding one additional ‘mouth to feed’ to the same source is more likely to induce delays to the projects already underway than it is to solve problems,” Tse wrote.

Despite the doubts, Kadlec didn’t lose interest in Plasma Technologies, according to the emails. “Dr. Kadlec has specifically asked us to take a closer look,” an early July message read.

Over the rest of July, the messages among his staff expressed misgivings about Zurlo’s technology, yet the company remained in play.

Several days later, an HHS contracting officer rejected the idea that Plasma Technologies might partner with one of the plasma companies that the government was already working with.

“The connection is not viable from a contractual standpoint,” the officer wrote in a July 16 email.

Still, a week later, Plasma Technologies had a champion at the Pentagon.

Santorum said he was contacted by Steven Morani, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for materiel readiness. Defense Department officials were drawn to the idea of a U.S.-owned and operated fractionation facility, according to Santorum.

It’s not clear what changed, but messages from late July show Morani and other defense officials had conferred and would support the Plasma Technologies project. An initial $750,000 in emergency coronavirus spending would be used to prove the concept, a move backed by HHS, with as much as $65 million in government money to come later to build a commercial facility and to purchase plasma and other materials, according to the emails. That’s more even than Plasma Technologies requested.

The messages don’t say where that money would come from or why the additional $13.4 million is required.

Morani referred AP’s emailed questions about the company and the contract to a Defense Department spokeswoman, Jessica Maxwell, who declined to discuss future funding for Plasma Technologies.

“The $750,000 is currently the total amount of government funding planned for the effort,” Maxwell said.

Santorum, who criticized a reporter for writing what he termed a “political hit piece,” said Zurlo intends to donate any profits Plasma Technologies generates to charities that support the mission of the Catholic Church.

But Santorum had different plans for any returns on his investment.

“I have made no such claims as a father of seven who has three weddings this year,” he said. “If any money were to come, I would welcome that money to help pay my bills.”

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/trump-admin-funds-plasma-company-based-owners-condo-73954807

I saw that he turned into the white SUV at the very end. Didn't see the first time, but arch gave a synopsis on all of the poor driving going on in that clip.

What I'm taking issue with is the characterization that there were certain cars intentionally ramming. I see a whole lot of distracted and reactionary driving, without much intent.

Man I’m starting to think we got some racist truck people in here.

Well you've had people stanning for Andy Ngo all summer, a bunch of white people telling you all summer on the right way to protest, countless articles from the dailystormer and Breitbart, and others going on about an impending civil war.

You may be on to something here.

I wonder if Q will grace us with his presence here shortly?

Who's Q?

The leader(s) of QAnon. They're a group who believe that Hillary, Biden, and other prominent Dems are running a global pedophile cabal. They also believe the cabal are Satan worshippers who are consuming bodily fluids of their victims to reach immortality. The Q group has been behind the "this was a planned pandemic with a manufactured virus" rhetoric, too. They're the most ardent anti-maskers, too.

This group believes JFK Jr. faked his death in the plane to fight this group. They believe Donald Trump is now the main agent to take down this cabal. The group has unfortunately tried to co-opt child trafficking narratives to support their conspiracy.

I'm glad you're not part of them, arch. Be aware of those in your circle who start saying some of that nonsense. Stay away from it.

Thanks.

Where do you get this stuff?

And why would Q post on here?

I'm a fairly savvy guy, much to the chagrin of 2 posters.

I’ve been tangentially following the happenings of their cult since 2017. Hannity and Carlson connected Seth Rich. The Seth Rich story got intertwined in QAnon and the dude who stormed Comet Pizza in DC. They believed Comet Pizza contained a Satan worshipping child sex dungeon for Hillary and Podesta.

There’s been numerous profiles and investigation into the group since then. They’ve exploded in popularity during the pandemic.

QAnon followers tend to be those who identify with right-wing leaning policies. A lot of people have been sucked in recently with the #SaveTheChildren hashtag flying around. Q followers have co-opted that hashtag to spread their nonsense about satanic pedophile cannibal cabals.

I think you're saving the best part for last (?). Q is a person, and that is what separates QAnon from your run-of-the-mill crazy conspiracy folks. Q is a person or group of people that are sending messages and/or dropping hints to the followers, and it's up to them to decode and interpret that (do I have that right?).

And Trump has even retweeted some of their message. There are also Republican Q supporters that are now being elected. It's a sickness.