Trump Administration Halts Document Giving Guidance on Reopening
I’m not sure what this means, but it is worth looking into:
The Trump administration has shelved a document created by the nation’s top disease investigators with step-by-step advice to local authorities on how and when to reopen restaurants and other public places during the still-raging coronavirus outbreak.
The 17-page report by a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention team, titled “Guidance for Implementing the Opening Up America Again Framework,” was researched and written to help faith leaders, business owners, educators and state and local officials as they begin to reopen.
It was supposed to be published last Friday, but agency scientists were told the guidance “would never see the light of day,” according to a CDC official.
I’m sure this decision was driven by concerns over how best to give accurate guidance on matters of health in a pandemic, and not by politics or the whims of Donald Trump.
I am sure, next time Trump decides to hold one of those coronavirus updates, a series of female reporters will ask him about the specific recommendations from the report and what the states should be following. Let’s see the man melt down.
Appalled (1a17de) — 5/7/2020 @ 8:52 amThat is the most basic common sense set of recommendations there could be. There’s not a thing in there that is controversial.
Wait, it’s the Trump administration, if common sense starts getting used as policy they are FUUHHH…going to have problems in the election if they some how remind their superfans that common sense is a thing, not magical “fake news” or “conspiracy delusions”.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (9878f6) — 5/7/2020 @ 9:05 amIf you like your virus, you can keep your virus.
Dave (1bb933) — 5/7/2020 @ 9:14 amThis has all the hallmarks of Trump’s glandular, seat-of-the-pants decision making. The guidelines are more than reasonable, and they’re just guidelines.
Paul Montagu (b3f51b) — 5/7/2020 @ 9:18 amI’m sure Trump had the final word in shutting this particular box, but I’m unsure of just how much “consensus” there is on these recommendations among the credentialed experts.
Climate change deniers = covid-19 deniers…?
Gryph (08c844) — 5/7/2020 @ 9:18 amObviously, it was driven by the feeling it made re-opening too hard. Trump and his people recoiled at what it said. It will take too long!
They want to be more lenient. (this could be extreme foolishness, if they’re not careful. You can’t negotiate with a virus. They can get the same results if they do more things to contain the virus, and they can recalculate, of course.)
Sammy Finkelman (375edc) — 5/7/2020 @ 9:37 amThat seems right. The last time they released common sense reopening guidelines, they looked like it would take a few weeks to start counting the 14 day Phase 0 period, so Trump actively worked to get guvs to ignore it. So this time, just don’t publish the common sense guide, so there’s nothing specifically to contradict Trump, or some governors, moving to reopen things into increasing infection.
This reopening process in these early states is why the death toll models are double the earlier ones, 2 months sooner. Because even a week more of stay at homes would have dramatically shifted the course out months. Iowa, Nebraska, Texas, Georgia, Florida, are going to get hit pretty hard in June, since they closed down late, and opened early.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 5/7/2020 @ 9:46 amI get the feeling that the new playbook is to just pretend nothing is happening. Question the death count, deny there are shortages, pretend Hospitals aren’t overcrowded. I give it a 50/50 chance or working.
Manotaur (e632fa) — 5/7/2020 @ 9:54 amO, they don;t lie about the present.
They make very optimistic predictions about the future.
Now eventually, this will run into Novmber, and there’s no more time, although what can be reasonably be forecast for the following three or four months will also factor into the equation..
They also seem to be trying to get things so that they will act like nothing is happening
Trump is desperate for the virus to disappear, or at least appear about to disappear, by October at the latest, and he won’t consider any other scenario.
Sammy Finkelman (375edc) — 5/7/2020 @ 10:06 amWhat a damned, bleeding shame. We have a moral coward as POTUS, and so many of us did everything possible to warn voters about this thug.
Ragspierre (d9bec9) — 5/7/2020 @ 10:12 amIf Trump wants to go back to those ghastly coronavirus briefings, every reporter should ask him about the specific things he disagrees with. And he should give a reason why (or get the same question again.)
There is an argument for letting politicians, rather than risk adverse health bureaucrats, run this thing. If Trump believes that, he should be able to articulate the argument, and take the burden of the potential additional deaths upon himself.
Appalled (1a17de) — 5/7/2020 @ 10:30 amSpeaking of pushing out the scientists as is relates to reopening, the AZ governor pulled a Trump.
Scientists, schmientists.
Paul Montagu (b3f51b) — 5/7/2020 @ 10:31 am10. I can’t argue that point one bit, Rags. But beyond the fact that Donald Trump is a moral coward, I think it’s worth noting that many mayors, county commissioners, governors, numerous other elected officials (including sheriffs), and indeed the vast majority of American voters — are all cowards as well. The politicians couldn’t have done this without help.
Gryph (08c844) — 5/7/2020 @ 10:32 amThis is the reason, as Richard Stengel sees it:
Hard to dispute that, when we’ve got a prez who says things like: “In a way, by doing all this testing we make ourselves look bad.”
Because making Trump look good is all that matters to Trump.
Radegunda (354236) — 5/7/2020 @ 10:33 amTrump is no leader. He couldn’t guide a Boy Scout across the street. He’d talk about it a lot, though.
nk (1d9030) — 5/7/2020 @ 10:38 amDr. Rick Bright, an expert in developing and producing vaccines, was fired because his whistle-blower report exposed the cronyism and self-dealing and recklessness of the administration’s Covid-19 response.
But who needs experts when you’ve got Jared Kushner gathering a bunch of young Trump loyalists to figure things out?
Radegunda (354236) — 5/7/2020 @ 10:39 amHere’s what the fly on the White House wall witnessed…
Paul Montagu (b3f51b) — 5/7/2020 @ 10:46 amCDC guy: “Mr. President, we’re presenting to you a 17-page plan for safely reopening the economy while combating the Xi Virus. It’s the best of both worlds because we can put people back to work while containing this pandemic.”
Trump: “Hey, ‘Xi Virus’, I like that. Wait, did you say seventeen pages? Too many! No one will read it, believe me.
CDC guy: “But, sir, we have recommendations for schools, churches, businesses, public spaces. We’ve already pared it down to the bare essentials.”
Trump: “Make it a one-page summary! With bullet points! And maybe a graph!”
CDC guy: “Mr. President, we cannot condense all of this to a single page for a nation of 330 million.”
Trump: “Look, who am I kidding, I’m not going to read the one-pager anyway. Scrap the whole thing. Put it all on the states. Their problem, not mine, but throw a few billion over to Arizona. Their governor said very nice things about me.”
…many mayors, county commissioners, governors, numerous other elected officials (including sheriffs), and indeed the vast majority of American voters — are all cowards as well.
All but the Brave Sir Gryph.
Ragspierre (d9bec9) — 5/7/2020 @ 10:57 amOne of Trump’s personal valets has tested positive for coronavirus
A member of the US Navy who serves as one of President Donald Trump’s personal valets has tested positive for coronavirus, CNN learned Thursday, raising concerns about the President’s possible exposure to the virus.
The valets are members of an elite military unit dedicated to the White House and often work very close to the President and first family. Trump was upset when he was informed Wednesday that the valet had tested positive, a source told CNN, and the President was subsequently tested again by the White House physician.
In a statement, the White House confirmed CNN’s reporting that one of the President’s staffers had tested positive.
“We were recently notified by the White House Medical Unit that a member of the United States Military, who works on the White House campus, has tested positive for Coronavirus,” deputy White House press secretary Hogan Gidley said in a statement. “The President and the Vice President have since tested negative for the virus and they remain in great health.”
Valets assist the President and first family with a variety of personal tasks. They are responsible for the President’s food and beverage not only in the West Wing but also travel with him when he’s on the road or out of the country. Past presidents have relied on them not only for these matters, but also as confidants. The valets have an inside view to a president’s personal life like few others.
RipMurdock (d2a2a8) — 5/7/2020 @ 11:01 am…….
The valets have an inside view to a president’s personal life like few others.
Ewww… And ick….!!!
Ragspierre (d9bec9) — 5/7/2020 @ 11:07 amWisconsin chief justice sparks backlash by saying covid-19 outbreak is among meatpacking workers, not ‘the regular folks’
…..In the middle of oral arguments Tuesday about the legality of the state’s stay-at-home order, an attorney for Gov. Tony Evers (D) had just pointed to Brown County, Wis., as an example of how fast the novel coronavirus can spread. The county, home to the JBS Packerland meatpacking plant, had its coronavirus cases surge more than tenfold, from about 60 cases to almost 800, in just two weeks, the lawyer said.
That’s when Roggensack interjected.
“These were due to the meatpacking, though,” she said. “That’s where Brown County got the flare. It wasn’t just the regular folks in Brown County.”
As one Wisconsin native questioned on Twitter: “What kind of folks are they then?”
……
The justice made the remark toward the end of Tuesday’s hearing in the politically divisive case, Wisconsin Legislature vs. Andrea Palm, in which GOP legislators are challenging the executive powers of Evers and the state health chief. Conservative justices, who are in the majority, were highly skeptical of Palm’s authority to issue emergency public health orders. Justice Rebecca Bradley questioned whether her actions didn’t amount to “tyranny” and even compared the restrictions to Japanese internment campus during World War II.
Brown County entered the picture when Assistant Attorney General Colin Roth used its situation to show why it’s important that the executive branch be able to use emergency powers to address a health crisis quickly, rather than through a drawn-out rulemaking process that the Wisconsin Legislature would prefer. Roth said an outbreak in the meatpacking industry exploded across the community in just two weeks, but in response to Roggensack, he suggested that the source of the outbreak was beside the point.
RipMurdock (d2a2a8) — 5/7/2020 @ 11:08 am…..
Smartphone data shows out-of-state visitors flocked to Georgia as restaurants and other businesses reopened
One week after Georgia allowed dine-in restaurants, hair salons and other businesses to reopen, an additional 62,440 visitors arrived there daily, most from surrounding states where such businesses remained shuttered, according to an analysis of smartphone location data.
Researchers at the University of Maryland say the data provides some of the first hard evidence that reopening some state economies ahead of others could potentially worsen and prolong the spread of the novel coronavirus. Any impetus to travel, public health experts say, increases the number of people coming into contact with each other and raises the risk of transmission.
“It’s exactly the kind of effect we’ve been worried about,” said Meagan Fitzpatrick, an assistant professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
……
In the week after Georgia businesses reopened April 24, a total daily average of 546,159 people traveled there from other states. That included 62,440 more trips daily than in the week before the reopenings — a 13 percent increase, said Lei Zhang, the lead researcher and institute’s director. The trips were measured using anonymized location data in smartphone apps.
The vast majority — 92 percent — came from four adjacent states: Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee and Florida.
RipMurdock (d2a2a8) — 5/7/2020 @ 11:12 am……
I doubt they found a lot open when they streamed in.
Appalled (1a17de) — 5/7/2020 @ 11:19 am@23-
From the article:
At the time, Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee had started to allow most “nonessential” retail stores to reopen, with limitations and requirements to continue social distancing. Tennessee also had begun to allow gyms and most sit-down restaurants to reopen. However, only Georgia had permitted the reopening of dine-in restaurants, gyms, hair salons, barber shops and entertainment venues, such as bowling alleys and movie theaters.
So apparently there was a lot to do in Georgia.
RipMurdock (d2a2a8) — 5/7/2020 @ 11:47 am14. Radegunda (354236) — 5/7/2020 @ 10:33 am
He means, by testing an ever increasing higher percentage of people, you are detecting a higher percentage of those infected, and that can make the trend look worse than if you instead used numbers more comparable from one time period to another, like hospitalizations or deaths.
Trump said “in a way” because this argument that I just made can be pointed out. The effect is not so great that he’s going to want to slow down on testing. So he’s still for more testing.
The only thing is hospitalizations can be thrown off because it might be easier to get hospitalized than when there were more cases; and survival might be higher and deaths lower because with fewer patients the quality of the treatment is better, and there is less virus around in the hospital to increase the viral load in infected people, and the things they do in the hospital have changed for the better.
In New York we were seeing at one pint hospitalizations going up, and deaths going down at the same time but that could also be because hospitalizations anad deaths represent different distances in time from the start of the infection.
Sammy Finkelman (375edc) — 5/7/2020 @ 11:55 am#23
I live in Atlanta. The bowling allies were closed, some nail salons and hair salons were open, but by appointment only. In my area, I have only seen one restaurant open. All the tables were outside and social distancing respected. The tattoo parlors, on the other hand, are doing business. (Go figure)
The media hates Kemp because he arguably stole votes to win in 2018, and he is a little Trump wannabe. I am skeptical of the reporting about Georgia, because the animus is so palpable.
Appalled (1a17de) — 5/7/2020 @ 12:07 pm. “The President and the Vice President have since tested negative for the virus and they remain in great health.”
The odds were in his favor that it wouldn’t be transmitted but it broke his perfect record of not letting anyone who tests positive go near him or Mike Pence. They use instant tests from Abbott Laboratories but don’t test everybody every day. (That;s the test that Congress turned down)
Maybe they should try dogs. Dogs can test more people.
https://www.livescience.com/dogs-smell-covid-19.html
https://www.baynews9.com/fl/tampa/news/2020/05/06/can-dogs-detect-coronavirus–manatee-county-non-profit-is-researching
They are talking like this is an experiment. There is no question this can be done, just like dogs can detect low blood sugar or ovarian cancer or when someone is about to have an epileptic seizure.
(Dogs can detect and identify different kinds of cancer, not just ovarian cancer, but ovarian cancer is otherwise very hard to screen for. But, as usual with game changing medical developments, although this was proven as far back as 2013, you still don’t see cancer detecting dogs in urgent care centers. Diabetics are a known group of people, and more involved in their own care and use of dogs to detect low blood sugar emergencies in diabetics is now routine.
https://k94life.org/diabetes-alert
https://www.diabeticalertdogsofamerica.com/
Apparently, this is not paid fr by Medicare, Medicaid or insurance.
The question is how reliably can you train dogs to detect this. But that’s basically a question that has been solved.
Sammy Finkelman (375edc) — 5/7/2020 @ 12:17 pm@26-
RipMurdock (d2a2a8) — 5/7/2020 @ 12:27 pmAs far as I am concerned, Kemp didn’t go far enough. He should have ended social distancing and face mask wearing.
Off topic, but this just in:
DOJ Dropping Criminal Case Against Michael Flynn
https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-doj-dropping-criminal-case-against-michael-flynn
Must have been something embarassing there. This is rarely done, unless some new witness shows up (did not happen here) or the Supreme Court upends your legal theory (which happened today in the Bridgegate case, but not for Flynn.)
Bored Lawyer (56c962) — 5/7/2020 @ 12:36 pmBTW, here is the Bridgegate decision.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-1059_e2p3.pdf
What is amazing, at least to me, is that SCOTUS unanimously held that the government’s legal theory of wire fraud was defective, and contrary to its prior holding in a 1987 case.
So how did the government’s case get past the district court and the Third Circuit court of appeals?
Criminal statutes are supposed to give clear notice of the proscribed activity. Four lower court judges said, yeah, what you did is the crime. Nine SCOTUS judges just said, nope, it isn’t. And we already told you that decades ago.
Pretty embarrassing.
Bored Lawyer (56c962) — 5/7/2020 @ 12:44 pmI understand that as a statistical proposition. But Trump has made it abundantly clear in many ways that how something makes him look is more important to him than consequences for anyone else. E.g., he once declared publicly that he wanted to keep a bad employee in the White House because “she said GREAT things about me!” He didn’t understand why that rationale might not be something to boast about. In his mind, that was the best possible reason to keep someone on the public payroll.
He recently fired a highly competent vaccine specialist because that person’s candor and seriousness about his responsibility reflected badly on Trump. And in Trump’s mind, that’s worse than messing up a response to a pandemic.
Why people can’t see this fundamental trait of Trump, or see why it matters, is a mystery.
Radegunda (354236) — 5/7/2020 @ 2:38 pm