DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus COVID-19 pt4

I don't think it can be argued, Dewine has done a fantastic job doing what he is paid to do. Make tough decisions to protect the people he represents. No matter how small a story it will end up, history will look favorably on Mike Dewine.

It was not overblown, there is enough evidence that without intervention the death rates would be far greater. The projections without intervention were between 1-2 million.

Trump said that as well, and I had seen similar projections elsewhere.

States that have intervened sooner, have had better outcomes.

I have no idea what you are talking about. I made a comment to Bad about perhaps wanting to be a bit more tasteful. I'll stand by that comment and not get sucked into a debate I never started.

I hear you, I do. I feel as if that, in of itself is proof positive that it was handled well. It worked like it should, individual states protecting their citizens at THEIR discretion. Ohio's Mike Dewine is proof positive. He saw the threat, acted early and it was either a crushing success or what you'd expect the norm to be.

I think some States handled it better than others. Those who were first to shut things down have fared better.

There are so many things that President Braggadocios said that were that had to be backtracked or clarified, it should be great political fodder as we have already seen.

Experience is that thing you get right after you needed it.

And we’re all the passengers.

Yeah. ...Thank god trump didn’t listen to the experts and shut down the country before California did. He would have been a huge hero right now. The greatest president of all time, by saving thousands of lives with a stroke of a pen. We would all have to kneel at his feet. Whew

I usually check in on worldometers.com and look at the new daily cases graph. It's starting to look positive. I understand that that's basically just a graph for NY and the surrounding states (that region is driving the figures for the US). I saw something really interesting in the notes section at the bottom. I know everyone is hailing Cuomo as a hero right now, but the notes section for yesterday or today shows that there was a 21-day gap in between the first NY case, and their shutdown. I don't think history will look at that favorably.

I think it's getting to all of us. I know I've been much more edgy as of late. Not sleeping well, family stress, tired, Doc says I'm hyperventilating from anxiety, stress and lack of sleep (went because I've been having breathing issues).

It's not so much the virus, but for me, the lack of freedom to just go out to Lowes, or meet up with my buddies for a quick lunch and beer. Being trapped at home, I'm bored and frustrated.

And to top it off, the wife seems to just want to talk and ask questions constantly, especially when I just want to chill and tune out.

If you feel trapped at home, then go for a drive. It will get you out of the house for a bit and you won't be around people. Plus it helps to see that the world still exists.

I've said this on here and everywhere multiple times:

It does not matter who was in that Oval Office when this hit. Not even if DeWine and Amy were there... this thing was coming here simply because in order to have had ANY hope at all in preventing it, we would have had to have shut ourselves off from the world as early as the first week of January. Additionally, we'd have had to have kept ourselves closed off forever because as soon as we opened back up, it would be here.

NOBODY, and I absolutely mean NOBODY, would have gone for that. No governor, no CEO, no Senator, no airline, no cruise line, no barber shop, no restaurant. NOBODY. Here it is April and you STILL have people saying that it's all unnecessary.

Furthermore, the reality is simple: once this thing left China, it was going everywhere. WHO hoped a useless hope about containing it, but this one cannot be contained because you cannot get ahead of it. The nail in the coffin of trying to keep it out was Italy. Once that cluster bloomed, it was a giant beacon of "you're screwed" for the entire world because once that cluster was visible there, that was our notification that it had already spread everywhere during the prior weeks.

Did it really matter what trump did? .. seriously ... if he shut us off from the world in January they’d be saying he over reacted and it was an over reach ...

He makes a lot of mistakes ... but the folks on this board can be no gauge at all for those mistakes since everything he does is a mistake to them ...

There a joke when it comes to that ... they make chicken little look credible ..

That's exactly what I'm saying. It did not matter at all. This thing was coming here, period.

The REAL problem with this wasn't Trump, but the CDC and their decision to not use the WHO's tests and instead develop their own. That cost us a boatload of precious time. 50+ days, if I'm not mistaken.

That is why it was unchecked here for so long. That is why there was no testing for so long. One stupid bureaucracy-driven decision did it all.

The fact that he stopped anyone coming in from China was a good move. The fact that's all he did was a bad move.

And yes, when being briefed this thing was coming to the U.S. back in January, ramping up production of PPE and ventilators would have been a wise thing to do, Waiting until it was a borderline pandemic to act was a terrible mistake that has caused those on the front lines to pay for it with, at least in many cases, with their life.

Trump didn't cause this virus. But the damages could have been mitigated had he acted when the experts told him this was coming. Those are just the simple facts of the matter. I'm sure you'll label them with something about hating him which is the normal response for those who refuse to address any and every fact posed to them.

and even when he stopped people coming from China, he was criticized for overreacting. Heck, even when things kicked off for real and he blocked travel from Europe he was criticized for it. Seriously, it's a Lose-Lose deal.

As for the PPE.... one overlooked problem is that one of the largest manufacturing regions in the world for PPE is Wuhan, China.

Ditto for ventilators: one of the largest worldwide manufacturers and suppliers is in Lombardy, Italy.



The end result is that yes, there are LOTS of decisions that could have and should have been different, but in the end, I honestly don't believe they would change our current reality at all.

I mean that sincerely and apolitically. Where we are was coming no matter what. The inability to catch incoming cases in NYC sooner was in large part because we *had* to make our own tests. The same bad decision led to the creation of the Washington cluster, and the spread that resulted from it.

In the end, the fact that there is so much asymptomatic spread GUARANTEED that unless we tested EVERYONE, it was not only coming here, but it was going EVERYWHERE. Period.

Where we are now was 100% inevitable.

Do you mean 60% of the population wants to see coronavirus updates? I'm sure they do. But unfortunately you are right about the politics of it. But not from the angle you present it.

Trump doesn't "just give conronavirus updates". And let me tell you what that 60% you claim want to see, don't want to see......

They don't want to see the My Pillow guy out there kissing trump's ass. They don't want to see the CDC recommend people wear masks and then trump go on to say over and over again that it's voluntary and he isn't going to wear one. Which works to undermine what the CDC, you know, "the experts" just said to America.

They don't want to hear Trump bragging about his ratings. How his ratings matched The Bachelor finale. And let me explain something to you. Only 5.7 million people watched The bachelor season finale. That's not 60% of Americans.

They don't want to watch him attack every reporter who asks trump a tough question about the virus like some petulant child.

They don't want to watch Trump patting himself on the back so much it's a wonder he hasn't broken his own arm.

They don't want to see him use a time slot that blocks their local news and network national news that actually shows them what's going on i the fight against the virus in their area, the state and the nation. But this does help block anything that pushes nack against the Trump narrative he pushes on the country that certainly doesn't accurately depict what's going on in our nation.

They don't want to see the daily endorsements of corporations.

No, 60% of the people do not wish to see trump's daily campaign rally. Maybe if Trump would quit playing politics with these daily pressers and stop putting them in a time slot to try and obstruct our daily local and national news, more people would clamor to hear them.

But since he insists on playing politics, not many do. So you are right. People are tired of seeing politics being played in this time of a horrible problem.

U.S. exported millions in masks and ventilators ahead of the coronavirus crisis

U.S. exports of surgical masks, ventilators and other personal protective gear to China skyrocketed in January and February, when the coronavirus was wreaking havoc in the country where it began and as U.S. intelligence agencies warned it would soon spread.

American companies sold more than $17.5 million worth of face masks, more than $13.6 million in surgical garments and more than $27.2 million in ventilators to China during the first two months of the year, far exceeding that of any other similar period in the past decade, according to the most recent foreign trade data available from the U.S. Census Bureau.

USA TODAY’s analysis of the trade numbers comes as medical professionals on the front lines of the nationwide crisis say they are being forced to reuse or go without personal protective equipment like surgical masks and face shields to account for a shortage. Some states also are scrambling to find ventilators to prepare for a crush of patients expected to need them.

he White House and congressional intelligence committees were briefed on the scope and threat of the coronavirus in January and February, but President Donald Trump has not stopped exports of key medical equipment – a move taken by at least 54 other countries so far.

The data show how U.S. manufacturers stepped up production and cleared out inventory to supply protective medical equipment to China for weeks, even as the threat of the coronavirus became clear. The CDC reported its first case in the United States on Jan. 20. Within the next two weeks, the World Health Organization and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had declared the disease a public health emergency.

More than 213,000 people have been infected and more than 5,600 have died in the U.S. as of Thursday, the CDC reported.

“Clearly there was a surge in demand going on in China, and fundamentally this was a free market" decision, said Michelle Connolly, a Duke University economist. “What was in the U.S. was clearly going out, and specifically to China.”

The U.S. exported more than $1.7 million worth of surgical masks to China in January alone – more than double the previous January. In February, shipments surged to $15.8 million, the data show.

Jesse [censored], co-founder of LuggEasy, a company that provides shipping services to Chinese residents in the U.S., confirmed the surge of masks exports in February. His company exported 14,000 to 15,000 pounds of masks from the U.S. to China in early 2020 alone.

At a retail price of roughly 50 cents a mask – which is likely higher than what wholesale customers would have paid – that meant more than 31.6 million surgical masks were shipped to China during the second month of the year, based on the trade data.

Taken together, the numbers add up to well over the 28.5 million face masks that mayors of nearly 200 U.S. cities told a trade organization they need to combat the coronavirus outbreak.

Ventilators, too, saw a spike. The U.S. exported $11.4 million worth of the breathing machines to China in the first two month of last year compared with $27.2 million in the first two months of this year, just weeks before states and hospitals started begging the federal government to send them more.

The price of ventilators vary from about $20,000 to $50,000 depending on the model, meaning the U.S. sent anywhere from 540 to 1,360 of them to China in January and February alone.

The U.S. Department of State also donated 17.8 tons of medical equipment to China in February. The mass donation included “masks, gowns, gauze, respirators, and other vital materials.”

The Census Bureau collects the data as a dollar value representing the product’s sale price. The total exports of these items could be greater, because the Census data does not capture small, private shipments that family members may have sent to China, or small packages that are exempt from certain filing requirements.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Domestic demand soars

Health care professionals across the nation have said on social media and in news reports that they fear for their lives because they are being forced to ration disposable protective equipment for the entire week.

Private citizens are sewing masks themselves to donate to local hospitals as a makeshift solution so workers don’t have to tie bandanas around their faces. On Wednesday, a New Jersey man was the first emergency room doctor to die from the coronavirus since the outbreak. A nurse in Houston is also fighting the infection.

Exports of other protective garments, like surgical suits, skyrocketed, too. The U.S. shipped more than $271,000 worth of such supplies to China in January – nine times more than the previous January, the data show. In February, those shipments reached $13.4 million.

Jared Moskowitz, Florida’s emergency management director, said his team started placing orders for respirators, masks, gowns and other supplies from private vendors more than a month ago but received only about 10% of what it ordered as of Thursday.

“I’m now hearing from distributors that foreign governments are showing up with cash at these factories and bumping everybody else down the line who had orders pending,” Moskowitz told USA TODAY, referencing conversations with brokers who serve as supply chain middlemen.

"This is going to have to be looked at to figure out how we allowed a U.S. company, the maker of perhaps the most important pieces of personal protective equipment, to feed the globe but not their home country,” Moskowitz said.

Moskowitz is not alone. The mayors of 192 cities across the country said in a survey released Friday that they do not have sufficient face masks for their first responders and medical personnel, and 186 cities said they faced a shortage of other personal protective equipment.

The survey said the cities need 28.5 million face masks, 24.4 million other types of personal protective equipment and 139,000 ventilators. The respondents did not include mayors of some of the nation’s largest cities, like New York and Chicago.

On Wednesday, Trump said the Strategic National Stockpile – a collection of vaccines and various medical supplies kept for emergencies – is almost out of personal protective equipment.

“We’re giving massive amounts of medical equipment and supplies to the 50 states,” Trump said Wednesday. “We also are holding back quite a bit,” he said, referring to ventilators that are being saved to meet peak demand.

“We will fairly soon be at a point where we have far more than we can use, even after we stockpile for some future catastrophe, which we hope doesn’t happen,” Trump said. “We’re going to be distributing to countries around the world. We’ll go to Italy, we’ll go to France, we’ll go to Spain.”

Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday that the U.S. has distributed across the country “more than 11.6 million N95 masks, more than 8,100 ventilators around the nation, and millions of face shields, surgical masks and gloves.”
Trade issues

As domestic firms kept exporting lifesaving equipment elsewhere, the Trump administration kept putting barriers on similar imports.

According to Chad Bown, a senior researcher at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the government continued placing tariffs on Chinese imports of many medical products into the U.S. even as the coronavirus reached our shores.

The Trump administration announced on March 10 and March 12 that they would relax those tariffs.

Bown called the move an acknowledgement that the administration’s trade policies were endangering public health. By the time they were relaxed, he said, tariffs already affected “nearly $5 billion of U.S. imports of medical goods from China, about 26% of all medical goods imported from all countries.”

A week later, Trump issued an executive order invoking the Defense Production Act that gives the federal government the power to force companies to produce medical equipment and fulfill needs related to national defense before any other contracts.

The language in the order also allows the administration to control distribution in civilian markets of “personal protective equipment and ventilators.” It’s not clear what the president will do with this authority.

Economists are now warning that countries are using protectionist trade policies such as export bans and tariffs in an effort to keep medical supplies in their countries, and that these could backfire for hospitals and health professionals who need the supplies.

A team at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland said in a March 23 study that any tariffs on items will increase the prices that hospitals and health professionals pay for these products. The team recommended that governments reassess their restrictions to meet the social challenge of COVID-19.

Bown generally supports free trade as an economic policy, but he also said it will benefit the public health response. There is too much uncertainty, he said, about which parts of the world will be hit hard by the coronavirus to cut off any areas of the world from production.

“What the pandemic has revealed to the world is that nowhere is safe,” Bown said. “Keeping open to international trade right now, in a time of pandemic, gives you many, many more options about where you might be able to source this kind of material from.”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/inve...rus/5109747002/

Federal Support Ends For Coronavirus Testing Sites As Pandemic Peak Nears

Some local officials are disappointed the federal government will end funding for coronavirus testing sites this Friday. In a few places those sites will close as a result. This as criticism continues that not enough testing is available.

In the Philadelphia suburbs, Montgomery County has a drive-through site that has tested 250 people a day since March 21.

"It has been a very successful site. We are hoping by the time it closes Friday afternoon that we will have tested a little over 5,000 individuals," says Dr. Valerie Arkoosh, who chairs the commission in the county of more than 825,000 people.

Montgomery County has been hit hard by the pandemic. By Tuesday the county identified 1,294 positive cases and reported 32 COVID-19-related deaths.

Arkoosh says local officials staffed the site and the federal government provided much-needed testing supplies and access to a lab. "This site came with a contract with LabCorp, who accepted 250 samples from this site every day," and she says the county is not able to secure the supplies and tests on its own.

Arkoosh says the site, located on a local college campus, will shut down Friday. Similar announcements have been made in Colorado Springs, Colo., and nearby Philadelphia.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services tells NPR, "Many of the Community-Based Testing Sites (CBTS) are not closing, but rather transitioning to state-managed sites on or about April 10."

The agency and a spokesperson for FEMA say the CBTS program originally included 41 sites. It was intended as a stop-gap to bring testing to critical locations, especially for health care facility workers and first responders.

"The transition will ensure each state has the flexibility and autonomy to manage and operate testing sites within the needs of their specific community and to prioritize resources where they are needed the most," the HHS spokesperson said.

But that doesn't satisfy Arkoosh in Montgomery County, who says, "I am understandably disappointed that the supplies and federal contract for lab testing is ending just as we are heading into the surge here in southeastern Pennsylvania."

Arkoosh says local hospitals do have their own testing sites set up now, but it's not yet clear if they will be able to handle the extra testing now that the federal help is being withdrawn.

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus...up6oYCSSPjZmM1A

I blame China and the WHO for this ... plenty in line behind them like the CDC and its not like Mr. President was perfect ...

On 12/30 Taiwan reported to the WHO that they had proof covid could be spread by humans ...

On or about 1/14 The WHO says there’s no evidence of human to human transmission ..

Around 1/121 The Who has an emergency meeting to determine if this is an international crisis ... a week later they decide no and were going to china to see for ourselves ..

End of Jan beginning of feb after the trip to china the WHO says it is an international crisis but u don’t have to suspend trade or travel from China ...

By then it was far to late and it had been dispersed almost to the entire world ...

Mr. President bans travel and Tetris (who head) rips him for overreacting .. not sure if he took the lead of left and it also made him a racist ...

There’s where the fault lies ... china and the who ...

WHO has lost ALL credibility in my eyes.
They are a trainwreck.

This sums up my thoughts

j/c...

Yikes.

If only we had started ramping up PPE and ventilator production at the end of January......

Cleared that up quickly...

Covid 19 part 4, no catchy title?
how bout, Jason Takes Manhatton,
4th Blood, Terminator fights Ivan Drago,
The Enterprise returns to earth,
Covid19 part 4, The Shark swallows Fonzi,
Marty visits Doc's grave
Inspector Calahan tracks down misusers of Handicap parking spots. "Do you feel lucky," well do ya!

Covid19 part 4, the Florida Recount revisited!

Happy Easter, Stay safe. (... Peak was March 30th! heard it here first)

^ In the wrong forum, but doesn’t realize it.....just the tip of the iceberg of confusion.

It’s a given that the first cases of the virus in NY and the surrounding area came from Italy. I’m in New Hampshire and the first case reported came from Italy. And the jackass didn’t self quarantine and went to a friggen party. trump was still allowing open travel in and out. History? favorably? trump? lol Pffft

wow.
America actually had a nice thing. Someone took it away.

Just curious, Clem. Did you say something similar when George Bush warned about the same thing? There have been decades of these warnings, and although they warn about it, which president actually put measures in place to protect the country?

To be honest, I didn't at the time. When the commission was assembled, I really had no strong opinion about it at all. It seemed like a valuable thing to invest in, but it was mostly an idle curiosity at the time.

"Hmmm... never thought of that. Might be of value."

Later, when 44 was in office, it came back into the news. Expanded. We'd dealt with H1N1, and now Ebola was in the news. I was finally starting to take some notice. "Good thing we have people in place to handle something like this."

Ebola/2014 was the first time I'd ever heard of the concept of 'social distancing,' though at the time, it didn't have the name we all know now. I remember BBC reports of people dying because they refused to abandon their traditional burial rituals, wherein the deceased's body lay in state in the homes of family, thus speeding the viral spread.

"It's hard to get people to give up the things they've always known-"

So... at the time, I didn't think of it as a nice thing, but it was something I could at least appreciate. I do remember losing my composure when it was announced in 2017 that the commission was being dismantled. I thought that was dumb, short-sighted and senseless. Especially when I heard the rationale: "I'm a businessman. I don't like seeing people get paid to do nothing."

Sometimes you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.
(apologies, Joni Mitchell)

Good thing that idiot depleted the supplies.

Great first post! Welcome to the board, I can see you will bring invaluable insight already...

...and in Michigan.....

I’d be curious to know what O did about it other than talk in his last year plus ...

Anyone know what actions he took to get the ball rolling?

good thing you believe everything trump says

j/c:

CUOMO: Every Coronavirus Projection Has ‘Been 100% Wrong At This Point’

https://nationalfile.com/cuomo-every-coronavirus-projection-has-been-100-wrong-at-this-point/

These pictures always come across as totally tone-deaf.