DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus COVID-19: Fright Night

I don't think we are as close to being out of this as some might think and any treatment that can act as a bridge to a vaccine would be invaluable.

I don't think it is smart to just toss every treatment in with hydrochloroquine category, nor do I understand the motivation for doing so. There is a clear political divide on this that I do not understand.

There are some treatments that have been backed by the FDA and some that haven't. I think the important things is that this is evaluated and either put in the things that work bucket or things that don't work bucket. Right now, doctors do not have a single affordable treatment that they can subscribe to patients during the early onset of the disease. Instead, we are waiting until patients get worse and have to be hospitalized. Then we give them an expensive cocktail of approved drugs, but by that time, it is usually too late. The only people that are getting early treatments are rich and influential individuals.

Ivermectin clearly shows promise and I cannot find a single fact check or study that disagrees with this. The problem is that no private company is going to fund clinical trials because it is dirt cheap and there is no money to be made in production. So I hope that the Government would fund some clinical trials and give it a thumbs up or down.

BTW, Vitamin D, C, and zinc are important and will help reduce the likelihood of getting hospitalized should you contract Covid. They may not prevent getting Covid, but if you are deficient in any of these, then that can make you at greater risk. Given that multivitamins are cheap, I say 'better safe than sorry'.

Actually the company that makes it would be the ones who would fund clinical trials. If they refuse to fund their own trials for a drug they are proposing is an answer, that speaks volumes to me.

Here's what I don't understand:

Generally speaking, once you've had a virus, you won't get the exact same virus again........at least for years.

I'm now hearing even if you had covid, you are only immune to getting it again for some 30-90 days - even if you CONFIRMED had it. You can still get it again after a month to 3 months.

Okay, so, what is so different about a covid vaccine that they say it will last a year?

The problem with corona viruses is they mutate a bit more than others. Not quite as often as the common cold virus, but at about the same rate it so as Influenza.

They’ve found there’s been many mutations of covid-19 but none that are significantly different that our current vaccine candidates won’t work on. The vaccines create antibodies that target the spike protein which injects covid-19 into the cells. There may have been a mutation on the spike protein back in the spring which may have made Covid-19 more infectious. Crazy thing is the vaccines may have not taken this mutation into account as the vaccine was designed before this mutation, but the spike mutation is still neutralized by the first vaccine iteration.

In other past events such as this, there have been reinfections of people who have come down with whatever pathogen. It’s the same statistical probability of a vaccine not working for a certain small statistical percentage.

It’s too early to tell how long Covid-19 immunity lasts but the immunity date seems to keep increasing as the months go on.

What is key is that people stop exposing themselves to potential events where the virus can mutate into a form that can evade the antibodies in the vaccines.

Jester and Lyuokdea can speak a bit more on this, too. They’ll give you a more science mixed with laymans answer.

I don't think there is any evidence that it is common to get Covid-19 twice within 90 days (or even within a year).

Most people seem to have a pretty robust immunity, at least for 6 months to a year (obviously, hard to tell for longer than a year at present).

I think we're just paying a lot of attention to edge cases. If 10% of people can get Covid-19 twice in 6 months, that isn't super important (in terms of long-term immunity or vaccines). However, with ~45M cases in the US now, that is a lot of people!

This is the same argument made for HCL back in the spring. It turned out to be a dud.

They’ve been looking at Ivermectin for as long as they were HCL. Both came to the same conclusion that neither are particularly effective along with potential impacts that will negatively impact humans if used.

Please be aware of the information and sources you use for medical advice. Don’t get caught up in dangerous grifts.

Interesting... So you wouldn't take a drug if you found out the clinical trials were funded by someone other than the company that is producing the drug?

If you had a heart attack and your doctor recommended taking daily aspirin to prevent a second heart attack, would you not take it?

The reality of the world is that drug companies don't spend money on clinical trials for generic drugs that are not patent protected. They cannot recoup their investment.

You would probably be surprised at the number of clinical trials performed with government or charitable funding versus private company funding. I don't have statistics to back me up, but it has to be over 50%.

If a company wants to add an indication to their label ("take this pill to treat this illness/issue"), then they, and almost only they, have the motivation to pay for a clinical trial.

Yep, Clinical trials are expensive, so having a profit motive definitely helps get them done quickly. In fact, companies want to move through trials quickly so that they can be first to the market and take advantage of their patent protections for as long as possible

When drugs are not patent protected and can be a long, slow battle to get them approved for new uses.

In order for a doctor to prescribe an already FDA approved, safe prescription drug for a new condition, the FDA still requires multiple clinical trials showing it is effective against that condition.

That is why we now use cheap aspirin for heart disease. A series of clinical trials have been performed with funding from sources such as the NIH, the VA, or American Heart Association. Aspirin was never intended for heart disease and without government or charitable funding, we probably would still not be using it for heart disease.

You can go to https://clinicaltrials.gov and see all sorts of information on studies that have been performed and how they were funded. You won't see many examples of private companies testing drugs that they do not have a monopoly on.

And that argument still holds because no industry source funded clinical trials on Hydrochloroquine or any other generic. We can verify that using the clinicaltrials.gov database. There are 136 active or completed clinical trials funded by industry. 100% of them involve proprietary drugs.

Secondly, what you said about them (I assume you mean FDA/NIH) looking at these drugs and coming to the same conclusion is something I disagree with.
The NIH lists multiple antiviral treatment options that they are reviewing or have reviewed. Of those antivirals, they only funded clinical trials on Remdesivir and Hydrochloriquine. Remdesivir was marginally useful, Hydrochloriquine was not. The other drugs: Ivermectin and Lopinavir were not recommended against because they were useless or harmful, the NIH recommended that clinical trials be performed with these drugs. That appears to me to be a good decision if the only information available to them at that time were from trials not performed on humans. Now, new data from clinical trials with human subjects are emerging and they should take a second look.

I think it is worth being optimistic about. I hope the NIH looks at this drug and at the very least decides to fund whatever needs to be funded.

Now you're bringing some hypothetical situation into things that has nothing to do with the topic. I didn't say that taking a drug due to who funded clinical research would enter into whether I would take it or not.

And yes, I realize that American taxpayers fund a lot of R&D and then turn around and pay the highest drug costs of any nation on the planet.

It's just one part of what's wrong with the for profit medical business and yet just more proof that Americans are being fleeced by it.

Jc

Man I’m really hurting for the kids out there. Grades all around the country has dropped. Suicides up. So many districts doing online school, which is an absolute crap show.

Trying to really keep my daughters focused, especially my oldest. She’s 12 and right now having the toughest time with all this. Can’t go to school, can’t see friends, etc.

I get so frustrated with my fellow Americans due to the fact that if we did the right thing, maybe the numbers wouldn’t be so bad.

But the flip side is that while frustrated with my fellow Americans, I’m extremely ticked off at our elected official in DC, and my anger is growing by the week.

A lot of these clowns in both parties seem to be so disconnected from reality that they don’t realize that you can’t ask people to stay at home, end their routines, stop doing the one thing bringing in money, and yet be slow as hell with passing bailout and protection packages. They are so quick to bailout businesses But are slow as hell to bailout the ones that spend money in said businesses.

And then the small businesses who need the money the most get crumbs. For a lot of these small businesses, it is their life. It’s all they got. They literally put blood sweat and tears into their shops.

There’s so many people who lost their business. So many more people who aren’t getting their jobs back.

And yet the death toll is only growing. You can’t ask people to sacrifice so much and then expect them to be on their own.

And then I’m seeing these clowns still trying to fight the election results. Like damn man when will you fight this hard to actually take care of your people?

I’m so disappointed man. I spent all this time trying to convince my wife that this country is dope, that my kids will have great opportunity and be able to unite.

And yet in the worst crisis in modern history, our country, led by our trash ass government, has proved completely opposite.

Our American society is so freaking selfish, led by a government that supports the every man for himself mentality, and supported by a system that enforces it.

We live in a country where people HAVE to choose money over life.

Because without money, there is no life.

I followed the link. It was posted by Senator Ron Johnson, the Trump waterboy. I stopped there.

Try a non-partisan source, if you want a non-partisan assessment.

230k + cases, over 3300 deaths yesterday.

Death toll of 9/11 is happening everyday in this country.

The Civil War's Battle of Antietam, 3,650 died; the Battle of Gettysburg; and the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, both killed more than 2,900 people, 1906 San Francisco earthquake, killed an estimated 3,000 people. We’re losing a major battle of casualties everyday. And our wartime president is tweeting out maga hate about losing an election for a job he failed at previously. Losing 700K American lives and still climbing faster than ever. Pffff trump

700K?

remember when the numbers were below 100K and the cult of trump scoffed and mocked the predictions? sick twisted buggers need to look at themselves in the mirror.

Exposure feared after New Hampshire speaker dies of COVID-19

The speaker of the New Hampshire House of Representatives died of COVID-19, a medical examiner ruled Thursday, a day after the Republican’s unexpected death, raising concerns that other members of one of the world’s largest legislative bodies might have been exposed at their swearing-in last week.

Dick Hinch, who was sworn in Dec. 2 as leader of the state’s newly Republican-led, 400-member Legislature, died Wednesday. He was 71 and had been starting his seventh two-year term in the state House.

His death was announced Wednesday night by his office, which did not give details of what it called “this unexpected tragedy.” Hinch is the first New Hampshire speaker to die during the session, according to House Clerk Paul Smith.

The swearing-in of the House and the 24-member state Senate was held outdoors at the University of New Hampshire because of the coronavirus pandemic. Hinch was photographed wearing a mask, though it did not cover his nostrils.

More than a quarter of House members, most of them Democrats, skipped the ceremony after learning the day before that several Republican lawmakers had tested positive for the virus after attending a Nov. 20 indoor GOP caucus meeting where many attendees weren’t wearing masks.

At least one Republican blamed Hinch’s death on a culture pushed by anti-mask forces.

“I believe the peer pressure exerted by those in the Republican Party who refuse to take reasonable precautions is the ultimate cause of Speaker Hinch’s passing,” Republican Rep. William Marsh, a retired doctor, said in an email to The Associated Press.

Acting Speaker Sherman Packard and Senate President Chuck Morse issued a statement Thursday saying they were “committed to protecting the health and safety of our fellow legislators and staff members who work at the statehouse in Concord.”

They said they will consult with the state Department of Health and Human Services and the legislature’s administrative office regarding any additional steps needed beyond the current contact tracing and COVID-19 protocols in place “to ensure the continued protection of our legislators and staff.”

Health Commissioner Lori Shibinette would not say whether Hinch had tested positive for the coronavirus before his death and couldn’t say when he began showing symptoms. The state will investigate, she said, including tracking down people whom Hinch might have exposed.

“Part of the case investigation is to investigate the date of onset of symptoms, and then we go back a couple of days from there and do all of the contact tracing,” Shibinette said.

Republican Gov. Chris Sununu told reporters that Hinch’s death was a “just a stark reminder, unfortunately, that this virus doesn’t care if you’re in a long-term care facility, or if you’re an elected official.”

“No one is immune. It’s spreading in our community; it doesn’t affect the elderly, it affects everyone, everywhere, and we have to stay vigilant,” he said.

Democrats called on Sununu’s office to provide testing for all statehouse staffers, as well as any lawmakers who attended the swearing-in ceremony last week. A spokesperson for Sununu said the Department of Health and Human Services has told legislative leaders that the necessary resources will be made available for testing.

The House held several sessions inside an arena last spring to allow for appropriate social distancing — with about four dozen Republicans who refused to wear masks in a separate area.

Packard, who represents Londonderry and is serving his 15th term in the House, will remain the acting speaker until the full House membership meets Jan. 6.

Republicans won majorities in both chambers in November. Hinch previously served as majority leader for the 2016-17 session and as minority leader when Democrats were in control the past two years.

In an emotional speech when he was elected speaker Dec. 2, Hinch urged lawmakers to view each other as “friends and colleagues,” rather than members of opposing parties, particularly during a pandemic.

The speaker of the New Hampshire House of Representatives died of COVID-19, a medical examiner ruled Thursday, a day after the Republican’s unexpected death, raising concerns that other members of one of the world’s largest legislative bodies might have been exposed at their swearing-in last week.

Dick Hinch, who was sworn in Dec. 2 as leader of the state’s newly Republican-led, 400-member Legislature, died Wednesday. He was 71 and had been starting his seventh two-year term in the state House.

His death was announced Wednesday night by his office, which did not give details of what it called “this unexpected tragedy.” Hinch is the first New Hampshire speaker to die during the session, according to House Clerk Paul Smith.

The swearing-in of the House and the 24-member state Senate was held outdoors at the University of New Hampshire because of the coronavirus pandemic. Hinch was photographed wearing a mask, though it did not cover his nostrils.

More than a quarter of House members, most of them Democrats, skipped the ceremony after learning the day before that several Republican lawmakers had tested positive for the virus after attending a Nov. 20 indoor GOP caucus meeting where many attendees weren’t wearing masks.

At least one Republican blamed Hinch’s death on a culture pushed by anti-mask forces.

“I believe the peer pressure exerted by those in the Republican Party who refuse to take reasonable precautions is the ultimate cause of Speaker Hinch’s passing,” Republican Rep. William Marsh, a retired doctor, said in an email to The Associated Press.

Acting Speaker Sherman Packard and Senate President Chuck Morse issued a statement Thursday saying they were “committed to protecting the health and safety of our fellow legislators and staff members who work at the statehouse in Concord.”

They said they will consult with the state Department of Health and Human Services and the legislature’s administrative office regarding any additional steps needed beyond the current contact tracing and COVID-19 protocols in place “to ensure the continued protection of our legislators and staff.”

Health Commissioner Lori Shibinette would not say whether Hinch had tested positive for the coronavirus before his death and couldn’t say when he began showing symptoms. The state will investigate, she said, including tracking down people whom Hinch might have exposed.

“Part of the case investigation is to investigate the date of onset of symptoms, and then we go back a couple of days from there and do all of the contact tracing,” Shibinette said.

Republican Gov. Chris Sununu told reporters that Hinch’s death was a “just a stark reminder, unfortunately, that this virus doesn’t care if you’re in a long-term care facility, or if you’re an elected official.”

“No one is immune. It’s spreading in our community; it doesn’t affect the elderly, it affects everyone, everywhere, and we have to stay vigilant,” he said.

Democrats called on Sununu’s office to provide testing for all statehouse staffers, as well as any lawmakers who attended the swearing-in ceremony last week. A spokesperson for Sununu said the Department of Health and Human Services has told legislative leaders that the necessary resources will be made available for testing.

The House held several sessions inside an arena last spring to allow for appropriate social distancing — with about four dozen Republicans who refused to wear masks in a separate area.

Packard, who represents Londonderry and is serving his 15th term in the House, will remain the acting speaker until the full House membership meets Jan. 6.

Republicans won majorities in both chambers in November. Hinch previously served as majority leader for the 2016-17 session and as minority leader when Democrats were in control the past two years.

In an emotional speech when he was elected speaker Dec. 2, Hinch urged lawmakers to view each other as “friends and colleagues,” rather than members of opposing parties, particularly during a pandemic.
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“I’ve been working with members of our caucus in good times and in bad for a number of terms. Long nights, stressful days, but charging ahead for what we believed was the proper course,” he said. “Through that time, I’ve worked to ensure that everyone has a seat at the table.”

https://apnews.com/article/legislature-n...be4dec956534f40

‘We want them infected’: Trump appointee demanded ‘herd immunity’ strategy, emails reveal

https://www.yahoo.com/news/want-them-infected-trump-appointee-171003633.html

To much of the ruling class we’re just cannon fodder.

https://news.yahoo.com/hand-grasping-trump-appointees-describe-133636121.html



'Like a Hand Grasping': Trump Appointees Describe the Crushing of the CDC

Noah Weiland
Wed, December 16, 2020, 8:36 AM EST
Amanda Campbell was deputy chief of staff at the Centers for Disease Control. (Audra Melton/The New York Times)
Amanda Campbell was deputy chief of staff at the Centers for Disease Control. (Audra Melton/The New York Times)

ATLANTA — Kyle McGowan, a former chief of staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and his deputy, Amanda Campbell, were installed in 2018 as two of the youngest political appointees in the history of the world’s premier public health agency, young Republicans returning to their native Georgia to dream jobs.

But what they witnessed during the coronavirus pandemic this year in the CDC’s leadership suite on the 12-floor headquarters here shook them: Washington’s dismissal of science, the White House’s slow suffocation of the agency’s voice, the meddling in its messages and the siphoning of its budget.

In interviews this fall, the pair decided to go public with their disillusionment: what went wrong, and what they believe needs to be done as the agency girds for what could be a yearslong project of rebuilding its credibility externally while easing ill feelings and self-doubt internally.


“Everyone wants to describe the day that the light switch flipped and the CDC was sidelined. It didn’t happen that way,” McGowan said. “It was more of like a hand grasping something, and it slowly closes, closes, closes, closes until you realize that, middle of the summer, it has a complete grasp on everything at the CDC.”

Last week, the editor-in-chief of the CDC’s flagship weekly disease outbreak reports — once considered untouchable — told House Democrats investigating political interference in the agency’s work that she was ordered to destroy an email showing Trump appointees attempting to meddle with their publication.

The same day, the outlines of the CDC’s future took more shape when President-elect Joe Biden announced a slate of health nominees, including Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the chief of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital, as the agency’s new director, a move generally greeted with enthusiasm by public health experts.

“We are ready to combat this virus with science and facts,” she wrote on Twitter.

McGowan and Campbell — who joined the CDC in their early 30s, then left together in August — said that mantra was what was most needed after a brutal year that left the agency’s authority crippled.

In November, McGowan held conversations with Biden transition officials reviewing the agency’s response to the pandemic, where he said he was candid about its failures. Among the initiatives he encouraged the new administration to plan for: reviving regular — if not daily — news briefings featuring the agency’s scientists.

McGowan and Campbell, both 34, say they tried to protect their colleagues against political meddling from the White House and Department of Health and Human Services. But an agency created to protect the nation against a public health catastrophe like the coronavirus was largely stifled by the Trump administration.

The White House insisted on reviewing — and often softening — the CDC’s closely guarded coronavirus guidance documents, the most prominent public expression of its latest research and scientific consensus on the spread of the virus. The documents were vetted not only by the White House’s coronavirus task force but by what felt to the agency’s employees like an endless loop of political appointees across Washington.

McGowan recalled a White House fixated on the economic implications of public health. He and Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the CDC director, negotiated with Russell T. Vought, the White House budget director, over social distancing guidelines for restaurants, as Vought argued that specific spacing recommendations would be too onerous for businesses to enforce.

“It is not the CDC’s role to determine the economic viability of a guidance document,” McGowan said.

They compromised anyway, recommending social distancing without a reference to the typical 6-foot measurement.

One of Campbell’s responsibilities was helping clear the agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports, a widely followed and otherwise apolitical guide on infectious disease renowned in the medical community. Over the summer, political appointees at the health department repeatedly asked CDC officials to revise, delay and even scuttle drafts they thought could be viewed, by implication, as criticism of President Donald Trump.

“It wasn’t until something was in the MMWR that was in contradiction to what message the White House and HHS were trying to put forward that they became scrutinized,” Campbell said.

Dr. Tom Frieden, the CDC director under President Barack Obama, said it was typical and “legitimate” to have interagency process for review.

“What’s not legitimate is to overrule science,” he said.

Often, McGowan and Campbell mediated between Redfield and agency scientists when the White House’s requests and dictates would arrive: edits from Vought and Kellyanne Conway, the former White House adviser, on choirs and communion in faith communities, or suggestions from Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and aide, on schools.

“Every time that the science clashed with the messaging, messaging won,” McGowan said.

Episodes of meddling sometimes turned absurd, they said. In the spring, the CDC published an app that allowed Americans to screen themselves for symptoms of COVID-19. But the Trump administration decided to develop a similar tool with Apple. White House officials then demanded that the CDC wipe its app off its website, McGowan said.

Campbell said that at the pandemic’s outset, she was confident the agency had the best scientists in the world at its disposal, “just like we had in the past.”

“What was so different, though, was the political involvement, not only from HHS but then the White House, ultimately, that in so many ways hampered what our scientists were able to do,” she said.

Top CDC officials devised workarounds. Instead of posting new guidance for schools and election officials in the spring, they published “updates” to previous guidance that skipped formal review from Washington. That prompted officials in Washington to insist on reviewing updates.

Brian Morgenstern, a White House spokesman, said that “all proposed guidelines and regulations with potentially sweeping effects on our economy, society and constitutional freedoms receive appropriate consultation from all stakeholders, including task force doctors, other experts and administration leaders.”

A CDC spokesman declined to comment.

McGowan and Campbell both attended the University of Georgia and saw their CDC positions as homecomings. McGowan said the two institutions he revered most during his Georgia childhood were the CDC and Coca-Cola.

He arrived with a résumé that made the agency’s senior ranks suspicious, he said. Like Campbell, he worked for former Rep. Tom Price, first in his House office, then when he was health secretary under Trump. When he arrived at the CDC, McGowan told his new colleagues that he was there not to spy on or undermine them, but to support them.

McGowan and Campbell, who have since opened a health policy consulting firm, said they saw themselves as keepers of the agency’s senior scientists, whose morale had been sapped. Redfield, whose leadership has been criticized roundly by public health experts and privately by his own scientists, was rarely in Atlanta, consumed by Washington responsibilities.

That often left McGowan and Campbell as the agency’s most senior political appointees in Atlanta — two of only four at an 11,000-person agency.

McGowan, who talked to Redfield throughout the day by phone, worked in the office next to Dr. Anne Schuchat, a 32-year career staff member who is the agency’s principal deputy director and one of the country’s most respected scientists, and became a sounding board for her.

Earlier this year, Schuchat was targeted by political appointees at the health department, who began interrogating CDC officials about her public comments acknowledging the seriousness of the pandemic. Schuchat asked McGowan whether she would be fired.

“I don’t know,” McGowan recalled telling her. “Not yet.”

McGowan said he was especially unnerved last winter when officials in Washington told the CDC that regular telephone briefings with another senior scientist, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, were no longer needed because Trump had his own daily briefings. Messonnier angered the White House in late February when she issued a public warning that the virus was about to change Americans’ lives.

“There’s not a single thing that she said that didn’t come true,” McGowan said. “Is it more important to have her telling the world and the American public what to be prepared for, or is it just to say, ‘All is well’?”

“It’s demoralizing to spend your entire career preparing for this moment, preparing for a pandemic like this. And then not be able to fully do your job,” McGowan said. “They need to be allowed to lead.”

Agency scientists have privately fretted about the pandemic permanently damaging the CDC’s authority, with the public as well as state and international health partners. The CDC was wounded by its initial struggles to develop reliable tests for the coronavirus. Scientists have discussed resigning, including some in the senior ranks who told McGowan that even though they flirted with leaving, they would have a hard time walking away from the agency at its lowest point.

Frieden said the agency had done “a lot of good work that they haven’t been able to tell anyone about,” including investigating outbreaks in prisons and meatpacking facilities. But he said its leaders had to speak out more.

“CDC has a big podium,” he said. “You have to tell people what you know, when you know it. Otherwise you get a lack of alignment. It’s not just the public. When you do those briefings, the public health departments and the doctors also learn.”

This fall, senior CDC officials turned bolder. They resumed regular news media briefings by agency scientists. Without seeking permission from Washington, they revised guidance documents on schools and asymptomatic testing, health officials said.

Fears of mixing politics and science linger, like when Vice President Mike Pence visited the agency this month with Georgia’s Republican senators, who are in critical runoff campaigns. Dr. Jay Butler, a top agency official, told a colleague that he worried that if Pence discussed the campaign, CDC employees at the event might violate the law prohibiting federal workers from engaging in political activities on the job, according to someone with knowledge of his concern. A White House lawyer wrote Butler to say that the event was unrelated to a campaign stop later in the day, and would not be political.

Among the obvious targets for reform is the agency’s budget, which has been micromanaged, especially by Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, who has argued against CDC funds in coronavirus stimulus negotiations.

Dr. Barry R. Bloom, an infectious disease expert and public health professor at Harvard, said the CDC’s money problems could help explain its predicament. Unlike some federal health agencies, such at the National Institutes of Health, the CDC typically receives what public health experts see as paltry funding — a reflection of its often low-profile work.

“They track down everything from pollution to outbreaks in prisons,” Bloom said. “That’s the daily work of CDC. If it’s well done and tracked down, it will not appear in the pages of your newspaper.”

The funding the CDC did receive this year was cannibalized. Redfield told lawmakers that $300 million was steered from the CDC’s budget to a vaccine public relations campaign that recently collapsed under scrutiny from reporters and lawmakers.

The redirecting of the funding was just one more blow to an agency brought low by a pandemic it was alerted to only a year ago. McGowan has held on to the email thread from Dec. 31, 2019, about a “cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan, China,” a haunting artifact.

“Damage has been done to the CDC that will take years to undo,” he said. “And that’s terrible to hear, because it happened under my time there.”

Pomeo tries to have another White House super spreader event and the Trumpsters refused to show up. Are they actually starting to figure this out?

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Report: Of the hundreds of people invited to Mike Pompeo's indoor holiday party, a few dozen showed up

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo found out what happens when you send out 900 invitations to an indoor holiday party during a pandemic that has killed at least 300,000 Americans: not that many people show up.

The Tuesday event for the families of diplomats in high-risk locations was hosted by Pompeo and his wife, Susan, in Washington, D.C. As of Monday night, only about 70 people had accepted their invitations, and even fewer showed up, two U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter told The Washington Post. Pompeo had been scheduled to speak, but canceled his address and had someone else deliver a message in his place, the Post reports.

Government health officials have urged people not to attend indoor gatherings amid the pandemic, and several lawmakers and the American Foreign Service Association, a nonpartisan union representing diplomats, asked Pompeo to cancel the party over concerns it would be a super-spreader event. The State Department had said masks would be required and social distancing enforced; photos obtained by the Post show a masked Santa greeting children, with maskless people sitting down to eat around him.

One woman, the wife of a diplomat now overseas, told the Post she RSVPed no on her invitation over worries that if she became sick, there wouldn't be anyone to take care of her children. "It was a completely irresponsible party to throw," she said.

https://news.yahoo.com/report-hundreds-people-invited-mike-050400901.html

The turnout was so poor he wouldn't even come out and speak as was scheduled. Much like high school, nobody wants to go to the mean kids party.

Pompeo, trump and his supporters want as many people to get infected as possible. It shows by all their actions. It’s that obvious. Deplorable.

Has Warp Speed slowed to a crawl?

Pfizer says 'millions' of vaccine doses are waiting to be shipped — but the government hasn't told them where to go

It's no secret that there aren't enough Pfizer vaccine doses for every American who wants one. But there are at least a few million more sitting in a warehouse, waiting for the government to decide where they're headed, Pfizer said.

After receiving emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration last week, Pfizer said Thursday that it has since shipped out the 2.9 million vaccine doses the U.S. government told the company to distribute. But Pfizer "has millions more doses sitting in warehouses awaiting instructions for where to ship" Bloomberg reports. Pfizer also denied it was the cause of shipping delays some states complained about, saying it's the federal government causing the holdup.

The vast majority of Americans have said they'll get the coronavirus vaccine, with many ready to take it as soon as possible. So far, there are only enough doses available to start vaccinating people in nursing homes and frontline health care workers, whom the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention agreed to prioritize.

The U.S. bought 100 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine over the summer. But the Trump administration reportedly turned down Pfizer's offer to sell the U.S. more doses a few months later, meaning Pfizer may not be able to get another shipment to Americans until summer 2021. The U.S. did buy another another 100 million Moderna vaccine doses last week.

https://news.yahoo.com/pfizer-says-millions-vaccine-doses-190400512.html

j/c

Sweden's King and Prime minister say Sweden failed.

Many posters here and friends I know railed against the restrictions and lockdowns. Many said that Sweden had it right - Sweden basically said if you were in a high risk category, stay home and isolate, everyone else carry on but be responsible.

I've seen posters here say lockdowns don't work, despite Australia and NZ having great success and being two examples of where they had the strictest lockdowns and now have economies out of recession.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55347021

I guess facts and real world proof doesn't always carry enough weight to counter misinformation and lies.

My buddy living in Thailand says life is pretty much normal there. Though there are fewer tourists so it’s been cheaper for him to travel to the southern islands for his own vacations.
... but they don’t gots gunz and bibles so are they even free?!...

New Zealand PM offers COVID-19 help to U.S. President-elect Biden

SYDNEY (Reuters) - New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday she offered President-elect Joe Biden assistance with tackling the rampant outbreak of COVID-19 in the United States.

During the first talks between the two since Biden was elected as the next U.S. president, Ardern said she offered access to New Zealand’s most senior health officials.

“I offered to him and his team access to New Zealand health officials in order to share their experience on things we’ve learnt on our Covid-19 journey,” Ardern told reporters in Wellington.

New Zealand is widely heralded as one of most successful countries in suppressing COVID-19. It has recorded just over 2,000 cases and 25 deaths, a feat achieved through strict lockdowns.

New Zealand has eliminated COVID-19 from the community twice, and currently has just 58 active cases of the virus, all in managed isolation facilities.

In contrast, the United States over the weekend recorded its 12 millionth case.

The COVID-19 epidemic has claimed more than 255,000 lives in the United States - more than in any other nation - according to a Reuters tally - and a recent surge in cases has prompted more than 20 states to impose sweeping new restrictions this month to curb the virus.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-healt...n-idUSKBN2830VR

Only those willing to listen can learn.

They gotz that big round guy with the happy face. They be a'right.

We’re clearing 3k a day in deaths now.

It didn't have to be this way.

I keep seeing Cult of Trump (and some friends) say this thing is no worse / just like seasonal flu.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2019-2020.html#:~:text=aged%20%3C18%20years.-,Conclusion,405%2C000%20hospitalizations%2C%20and%2022%2C000%20deaths.

During the 2019-2020 influenza season, CDC estimates that influenza was associated with 38 million illnesses, 18 million medical visits, 405,000 hospitalizations, and 22,000 deaths.

CDC and facts - outweighed by lies and misinformation by Trump and his Cult.

Ohio Family Court Judge Bans Mother From Getting Covid Test for Her Children, because he believes Covid is a Hoax...

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-f...2bNraUi-_JBajGs

Less of a judge, more of a Tyrant. This article read like a horror story.

Lol man I see the same crap on social media. I thought we were past trying to compare this to the flu.

But I guess they just can’t help themselves.

In this case, the kid had lung problems and the hospital actually needed to conduct a Covid test in order to know how to handle his case. This is twisted.

California has activated a mass fatality program.
Their average deaths per day was 41 per day on average a month ago. Their average death per day for a 7 day period ending last Monday was 163. Their average death per day for the period ending next Monday probably will be between 250-300

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/cal...-climb-n1251713

Hey, Lindsey and Marco got their vaccines, at least...

j/c

To fight new COVID strain, PM Johnson reverses Christmas plans for millions

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Boris Johnson imposed an effective lockdown on over 16 million people in England and reversed plans to ease curbs over Christmas, saying Britain was dealing with a new coronavirus strain up to 70% more transmissible than the original.

Although Johnson and his scientific advisors believe vaccines will still be effective, and the new strain is not more deadly or more serious in terms of the illness caused, he said on Saturday the government had to take urgent action.

The number of cases in England has soared in the last two weeks because of the virus variant.

Johnson tore up plans to allow three households to mix indoors for five days over the festive period, and said London and southeast England, which are currently in the highest level of a three-tier system of rules, would now be placed in a new Tier 4 level, similar to those of a recent national lockdown.

“It is with a very heavy heart I must tell you we cannot continue with Christmas as planned,” Johnson told a news conference. “I sincerely believe there is no alternative open to me.”

People in Tier 4 - 16.4 million and about a third of the population of England - will be required to stay at home except for essential reasons such as work, and non-essential retail will close, as will indoor leisure and entertainment.

Social mixing will be limited to meeting one other person in an outdoor space. The new rules will come into effect from midnight on Saturday.

Johnson, whose initial response to the pandemic has been criticised for being too slow, had resisted calls to change plans for the Christmas relaxation, saying on Wednesday it would be “frankly inhuman” to ban it.

However, those now in Tier 4 will not be allowed to mix with others over Christmas. And everyone else in England will now be allowed to see friends and family only on Christmas Day itself, Dec. 25.

‘CONFUSION’

“At this time of national crisis, the British people want clear, decisive leadership,” opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer said on Twitter. “All we get from Boris Johnson is confusion and indecision.”

Within minutes of Johnson’s announcement, shoppers hit the streets for a final attempt to stock up on Christmas presents and supplies.

“It was fairly quiet all day, then suddenly there was this mass of people,” said one sales assistant at a large department store at Westfield shopping centre in West London, one of Europe’s largest.

The UK’s other nations, whose response to the pandemic differs from that of England at times, also took action.

Scotland said on Saturday it would impose a ban on travel to the rest of the United Kingdom, and the Christmas easing would be limited to Dec. 25 only. All of Wales will go into Tier 4 from midnight, but two households can mix on Christmas Day.

Business leaders said the government needed to provide emergency financial support.

“The consequences of this decision will be severe,” said Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium.

Like other countries in Europe, Britain is battling to contain new waves of the virus. It reported 27,052 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday, taking the total over 2 million, and 534 more deaths, taking the overall official toll to more than 67,000.

There has been a surge in infections sparked by the new virus strain - VUI202012/01.

“This virus has taken off, it’s moving fast and it’s leading inevitably to a sharp increase in hospital admissions,” Britain’s Chief Scientific Officer Patrick Vallance said.

England’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty said the authorities had alerted the World Health Organization and were continuing to analyse the data.

“There’s no evidence to suggest it is more lethal or causes more severe illness,” Johnson said. “There’s no evidence to suggest the vaccine will be any less effective against the new variant.

Other countries have also reported variants of the virus. South Africa said on Friday one such strain was driving a second wave of infections there.

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-healt...a1f440001bed8e2

j/c:

You can’t sue Pfizer or Moderna if you have severe Covid vaccine side effects. The government likely won’t compensate you for damages either

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/16/covid-vaccine-side-effects-compensation-lawsuit.html