2019-nCoV Coronovirus (COVID-19]

"Stories about what exactly happened in the Trump administration are coming out, and they are not pretty. Politics trumped everything for members of the administration, even our lives.
Today (12/16/20) Representative James Clyburn (D-SC), who chairs the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, revealed documents from senior appointees in the Trump administration overriding the work of the career officials in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those documents show that the political appointees at the Department of Health and Human Services called for dealing with the coronavirus crisis by pursuing a strategy of “herd immunity,” deliberately spreading the coronavirus to try to infect as many people as possible, with the theory that this approach would minimize the dangers of the pandemic. While doing so, they downplayed what they were doing, tried to hide the dangers of the virus, and blamed the career scientists who objected to this strategy for the rising death rates.
Although the White House has tried to distance itself from senior Health and Human Services Adviser Paul Alexander, last summer he was widely perceived to speak for his boss Michael Caputo, the Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs whom Trump had appointed, and for the White House itself. Alexander, a part-time university professor from Canada, defended Trump against scientists, accusing CDC Principal Deputy Director Dr. Anne Schuchat of lying when she provided accurate public information about the worsening pandemic. When she suggested everyone should wear a mask, he claimed: “her aim is to embarrass the President.” Alexander attacked Anthony Fauci for his attempts to protect Americans. “He just won’t stop!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” wrote Alexander on July 3, 2020; “does he think he is the President???”
Alexander advocated spreading the infection to younger Americans: “So the bottom line is if it is more infectiouness [sic] now, the issue is who cares? If it is causing more cases in young, my word is who cares…as long as we make sensible decisions, and protect the elderely [sic] and nursing homes, we must go on with life….who cares if we test more and get more positive tests.”
Alexander wrote to Caputo: “There is no other way, we need to establish herd, and it only comes about allowing the non-high risk groups expose themselves to the virus. PERIOD.” On the same day, he wrote: “Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk….so we use them to develop herd…we want them infected.…”
On July 24, he wrote to FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn and Caputo: “it may be that it will be best if we open up and flood the zone and let the kids and young folk get infected” as a strategy to get “natural immunity…natural exposure,” an argument that illuminates Trump’s insistence this summer that schools and colleges must open.
But the idea that young people are safe from the virus is wrong. Today, an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that while Americans older than 65 have borne the brunt of the coronavirus, young adults are suffering terribly. From March through July, there were almost 12,000 more deaths than expected among adults from 25 to 44. Young Black and Hispanic Americans make up not just a disproportionate number of that group of victims; they are a majority. Those extraordinary death rates have continued. Younger adults are indeed endangered by the coronavirus; the idea it is harmless to them “has simply not been borne out by emerging data,” doctors Jeremy Samuel Faust, Harlan M. Krumholz, and Rochelle P. Walensky—Biden’s pick to run the CDC-- wrote in the New York Times today.
Another report today showcases two former CDC political appointees who are now speaking out to call attention to the silencing of career scientists at the agency. Kyle McGowan, a former chief of staff at the CDC, and his deputy Amanda Campbell watched as political appointees in Washington ignored scientists, censored doctors’ messages to the public, and cut the agency’s budget. “It was… 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,” McGowan told New York Times reporter Noah Weiland. “Every time that the science clashed with the messaging, messaging won.”
Politifact, the Pulitzer Prize winning fact-checking website from the Poynter Institute, named the downplaying and denial of the seriousness of coronavirus its “Lie of the Year.”
Heather Cox Richardson

 

This is how the richest nation in the world with 4.8% of the global population came to suffer 25% of the world's infections and deaths.
It wasn't negligent manslaughter, it was premeditated mass murder

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

 

The vaccine met both primary efficacy end points, with more than a 99.99% probability of a true vaccine efficacy greater than 30%. These results met our prespecified success criteria, which were to establish a probability above 98.6% of true vaccine efficacy being greater than 30%, and greatly exceeded the minimum FDA criteria for authorization.

 

Meanwhile in Australia, a year later we are still panicking over a number like 17

"People travelling from Sydney to Perth Thursday afternoon were on the receiving end of some shock news on-board as WA changed its quarantine rules for NSW visitors mid-flight.

NSW travellers to WA are now required to self-quarantine under changes that have immediately come into effect following a COVID-19 outbreak in the eastern state.

A cluster in Sydney’s Northern Beaches has now ballooned to 17 cases, prompting WA Premier Mark McGowan to announce the changes on Thursday afternoon."

WA slaps new border rules on NSW travellers after COVID outbreak

 

French President Emmanuel Macron has tested positive for COVID-19 after a week of meetings with European leaders.

French President Emmanuel Macron tests positive to coronavirus - ABC News


Masks worked for him

 

Italy is on lockdown again

What is that? Third or Fourth time?

Covid: Italy latest European country to order Christmas lockdown

 

They are starting to tear each other apart in Sydney now, and all over a whole 30 cases in Summer

Local cover band receiving furious messages for northern beaches virus cluster
"A local cover band who played at the RSL where Sydney’s virus cluster started have become the punching bag for furious northern beaches residents facing scuppered plans in the lead-up to Christmas.

Nothing Too Serious, a group comprising of northern beaches residents, have borne the brunt of frustrated locals after they were named by Health Minister Brad Hazzard in a press conference this week and mistakenly labelled “superspreaders”.

One particularly strong comment written in caps lock beneath the Facebook event for the Avalon RSL Club gig last Friday reads:“HOW DARE YOU!!!!! BECAUSE OF YOU COVIDIOTS, I CAN’T FLY TO SYDNEY TO SEE ME SISTER WHO IS FIGHTING CANCER. I HOPE KARMA GETS YOU!!!!!!!”

Band viciously trolled for COVID cluster

 

India hits 10 million coronavirus cases but pace slows | Reuters

Possible herd immunity

But some health experts say the fall in cases suggests many Indians may have already developed virus antibodies through natural infection.


“Herd immunity is a huge part of it ... which is helping us to break the transmission,” said Pradeep Awate, a senior health official in India’s worst-hit state of Maharashtra, home to Mumbai.

 

Oh dear, the pink poodle is shitting bricks over the increased numbers of covid 19 victims.

 

Coronavirus UK: Terrifying new mutant virus strain found in London

A terrifying new strain of COVID-19 is ravaging London and southeast England, scuppering the UK’s chances of returning to normal by Christmas.

Authorities are blaming the surge in UK coronavirus cases — which almost doubled in the past seven days — on VUI2020/12/01, a mutant strain.

Early data suggests the new VUI2020/12/01 strain could be “up to 70 per cent more transmissible” than previous COVID-19 strains, according to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in a televised briefing yesterday.

Terrifying new mutant virus strain

 

Mutant strain? Met a few of those.

 

I think that women with children should be the last to get the vaccine.
If your wee bairn can eject it's binkie onto the floor beneath a pub table, and you can retrieve it, pop it in your mouth, and return it to said bairn with the alacrity and deftness borne of long experience, I think it perfectly reasonable to assume that you have an immune system capable of fending off a school of voracious piranhas.

 

COVID-19 relief package: $600 stimulus checks, $300 bonus for federal unemployment benefits in the new deal

 

You do realize the US mail is still all fucked up... Some people will never see those checks.

As it is, some people never got the first one.

 

USPS shipping delays spoil holiday gifts by mail as Pa. post offices face backups (inquirer.com)
Thousands of delayed packages are piled up at Pa. Postal Service facilities: ‘You’re not gonna get your Christmas presents’

Huge backlog at USPS means millions of holiday packages might not arrive by Christmas – Postal Employee Network
Huge backlog at U.S. Post Office means millions of holiday packages might not arrive by Christmas | wthr.com

 

in addition, every check that gets mailed out will include the words "From the office of the President of the United States'
which by that time will be Joe Biden, but stamped with Donald Trump's personal signature......Now that's fucked up.

 

It's all continents now


Covid cases recorded in Antarctica for first time – reports
Isolated continent reportedly registers first infections after 36 Chileans fall ill at research base

Covid cases recorded in Antarctica for first time – reports

 

It’s a good thing it’s summer in Antarctica so they shouldn’t have any difficulty in transporting the severely ill to NZ for treatment.

Unless NZ declines

 

Survey in Mississippi that says close contact in the family home with a Covid patient twice as likely as any other reason for children under 18 getting infected

Factors Associated with Positive SARS-CoV-2 Test...

 

My understanding of the virology - or the communicability rather, is that I'm much safer outdoors than in.

I go to the cafe lots.... mornings when I work, but on weekends afternoons too. And lately my go-to cafe has been the outdoor Starbucks at a neighboring factory outlet mall. They have an outdoor format for the layout of the entire place; Starbucks included. Of course, I wear my mask, but everything is touch free, so I save my gloves for work when I'll have to touch stuff.

I think it's better because the air is circulating or something...