America's pandemic dead deserve accountability after Birx disclosure

[Jeffrey Brown + 207]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/29/politics/coronavirus-deborah-birx-donald-trump-joe-biden/index.html

Excerpt:

(CNN)The hundreds of thousands of citizens whose deaths from Covid-19 could have been avoided are owed national and political accountability, but the polarization of America that exacerbated the pandemic threatens to deprive them of their due.

A haunting admission by Dr. Deborah Birx in a new CNN documentary that after last year's first infectious wave, the death toll could have been substantially reduced, will prove harrowing for those who lost loved ones. It also throws new scrutiny on the negligent management of the pandemic by former President Donald Trump and his willingness to put economic and political goals above science and the public well-being.

Revelations by Birx, a highly respected international health expert before she became coronavirus response coordinator for the Trump White House, and by her colleagues who spoke to CNN in "COVID WAR: The Pandemic Doctors Speak Out," which aired Sunday night, represent the most intimate view yet inside Trump's chaotic and feudal White House when Covid-19 struck.

"I look at it this way. The first time we have an excuse," Birx told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. "There were about a hundred thousand deaths that came from that original surge. All of the rest of them, in my mind, could have been mitigated or decreased substantially."

[Jeffrey Brown + 207]

Re:  COVID-19, Are Governors like Abbott spiking the ball on the 10-yard line, as the CDC Director Warns of "Impending Doom?"

https://www.aol.com/news/cdc-director-speaks-impending-doom-153120133-155036670.html

Excerpt:

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with emotion in her voice, urged public officials and others to spread the word about the seriousness of the situation in an effort to prevent a fourth surge.

She said the United States surpassed 30 million cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, and that the seven-day average of new cases was slightly less than 60,000 cases per day - a 10 percent increase compared with the prior seven-day period. Hospitalizations also increased and deaths started to rise.

"I'm going to lose the script and I'm going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom," Walensky told a briefing with reporters. "Right now I'm scared."

Officials cited states opening up their economies and loosening COVID restrictions prematurely, along with an increase in travel, as reasons for the uptick.

 

Edited March 29, 2021 by Jeffrey Brown

[Jeffrey Brown + 207]

WSJ: Covid-19 Variant Rages in Brazil, Posing Global Risk
https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-variant-rages-in-brazil-posing-global-risk-11616845889

Excerpt:

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil—Brazil is in the throes of a battle against the new Covid-19 variant from the Amazon that threatens to send shock waves across the globe.

Home to less than 3% of the world’s population, Brazil currently accounts for almost a third of the daily global deaths from Covid-19, driven by the new variant. More than 300,000 have died, and daily deaths now top 3,000, a toll suffered only by the far more populous U.S.

“We’re in the trenches here, fighting a war,” said Andréia Cruz, a 42-year-old emergency-ward nurse in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre. In the past three weeks alone, the surrounding state of Rio Grande do Sul has seen nearly 5,000 people die from Covid-19, more than in the final three months of last year.

The spread of the virus in Brazil threatens to turn this country of 213 million into a global public-health hazard. The so-called P.1 strain, present in more than 20 countries and identified in New York last week, is up to 2.2 times more contagious and as much as 61% more able to reinfect people than previous versions of the coronavirus, according to a recent study.

The P.1 is now responsible for the majority of new infections in Brazil, with many doctors here saying they are seeing more young and otherwise healthy patients falling ill. About 30% of people dying from Covid-19 are now under 60, compared with an average of about 26% during Brazil’s previous peak between June and August, according to official figures analyzed by The Wall Street Journal.

Public health researchers warn this isn’t just Brazil’s crisis, pointing to what they say is widespread complacency in the U.S. and elsewhere over the risks stemming from Latin America and other unvaccinated swaths of the globe. Brazil has fully vaccinated only 1.8% of its population.

“There is a rush to declare this pandemic is over, and it’s not,” said William Hanage, a Harvard University epidemiologist. “I dread to think what will happen when P.1 manages to get to [places] that are not likely to get vaccinated for quite some time.” . . . . 

In the mining state of Minas Gerais, many doctors note a rise in younger and more critically ill patients in comparison to the country’s surge of cases in the middle of last year.

“The virus is claiming parents and their children,” said Eduardo Lopes, 47, an assistant nurse at one of the main hospitals treating Covid-19 patients in Belo Horizonte.

In Porto Alegre, where at least 60% of new Covid-19 infections are caused by P.1, the number of patients between 40 and 69 years old dying in the city has risen 125.5% since December, while total fatalities rose only 102.7%, according to official data analyzed by Álvaro Krüger Ramos, a mathematician at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul.

Edited March 29, 2021 by Jeffrey Brown

[Jeffrey Brown + 207]

TRUMP'S DEPRAVED INDIFFERENCE*

I’m sure everyone has heard about Bob Woodward’s book.  Following is a link to the Washington Post article:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bob-woodward-rage-book-trump/2020/09/09/0368fe3c-efd2-11ea-b4bc-3a2098fc73d4_story.html

Carl Bernstein, who of course, along with Woodward, exposed Nixon’s crimes during the Watergate investigation, called Trump’s actions regarding the virus “Homicidal negligence,” and “The worst presidential felony in US history.”

“This will be the biggest national security threat you face in your presidency,” and “This is going to be the roughest thing you face,” national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien told Trump on January 28, according to Bob Woodward.

Again, according Bob Woodward, Matthew Pottinger, the deputy national security adviser, agreed. He told the president that after reaching contacts in China, it was evident that the world faced a health emergency on par with the flu pandemic of 1918, which killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide.

Trump can be heard on a recording telling Woodward on February 7 that the virus was airborne and at least five times more deadly the seasonal flu, describing the Coronavirus as "Deadly stuff."  Note that using the 5% COVID-19 fatality number that Trump used in early February, the COVID-19 fatality rate would actually be about fifty (50) times more deadly than the seasonal flu.

On March 25, 2020, Trump told the American public that he wanted the US economy fully reopened by Easter, on April 12.  He also publicly described the concern over the virus as a “hoax” and publicly asserted that it was no worse than the flu.

On March 19, Trump admitted to Woodward that he deliberately minimized the danger. "I wanted to always play it down," the president said. Trump told Woodward in the same interview that he understood young people could also suffer severe symptoms from COVID-19.  Trump said, on March 19, “Just today and yesterday, some startling facts came out. It’s not just old, older. Young people too, plenty of young people,”

President Trump on August 5, 2020 publicly said the exact opposite of what he told Woodward, stating, “If you look at children, children are almost — I would almost say definitely — but almost immune from this disease.”

Given the emerging evidence of a possible short-term to long-term cardiac health risk to younger people as a result of exposure to the Coronavirus, the disconnect between Trump's private and public statements regarding the risks to young people may be the most egregious example of his indifference to the health and welfare of American citizens.

Note that South Korea and the US had their first diagnosed COVID-19 cases at the same time.  Adjusted for population differences, if we had the same death rate as South Korea, we would have had total COVID deaths to date of about 10,000, instead of approaching a total death count of 550,000. 

Trump asserted that he declined to tell the truth about the Coronavirus because he didn’t want to cause panic, and he is comparing his response to Churchill’s response to the Nazi threat in the Second World War, quoting the phrase, “Keep calm and carry on.”

There are at least two problems with this  analogy.  First, as the Washington Post pointed out, the phrase was actually not used in Great Britain during the war and second, Churchill was brutally honest about the threat posed  by the Nazis.  For example, in May, 1940 Churchill said, "If this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each one of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground".

‘Keep calm and carry on’: Trump compared himself to Brits in the Blitz. But that phrase was never used in WWII.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/09/11/trump-churchill-covid-calm/

Excerpt:

Jon Meacham, the author of “Franklin and Winston,” a history of Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s friendship, suggested a Churchill quote that might be more apt to Trump’s situation: “The British people can face any misfortune with fortitude & buoyancy as long as they are convinced that those in charge of their affairs are not deceiving them, or are not dwelling in a fool’s paradise.”

End Excerpt.

Since President Trump has invoked the Second World War, following is a relevant quote from that time period, by Joseph Goebbels:

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

 

*A former federal prosecutor has stated that Trump basically confessed to second degree depraved indifference murder regarding the pandemic. 

[Jeffrey Brown + 207]

WSJ:  How South Korea Successfully Managed Coronavirus (9/25/20)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/lessons-from-south-korea-on-how-to-manage-covid-11601044329

Excerpt:

“South Korea appears to have cracked the code for managing the coronavirus. Its solution is straightforward, flexible and relatively easy to replicate. . . .As a result, South Korea never had to mandate a lockdown, so restaurants and business were able to stay open, cushioning the blow to the economy.”

 

[Jeffrey Brown + 207]

Covid Hospital Cases Rise in 25 States as CDC Sees Fourth Wave

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-29/covid-hospital-cases-rise-in-25-states-and-patients-are-younger

Excerpt:

Hospitalizations related to Covid-19 are climbing in half of the U.S., the latest sign that the nation’s fourth upswing in infections is underway. Patients are younger, and their numbers are rising even in places with high levels of vaccine penetration and past infections.

Rochelle Walensky, head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fought back tears at a press briefing Monday as she outlined warning signals, saying she was frightened about such a fourth wave. “We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are and so much reason for hope,” she said, “but right now I’m scared.”

The seven-day average of hospital admissions with confirmed or suspected Covid-19 increased in 25 states plus the nation’s capital and Puerto Rico last week, compared with same period a week earlier, according to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services data through Saturday.

The nationwide seven-day average rose by 1.8% from a week earlier to 10,115. The numbers began rising last week -- albeit subtly -- for the first time since Jan. 11.

The most dramatic surge has come in Michigan, with admissions up 50%, to an average of 379 a day. The situation isn’t as bad as what the state saw in November and December, but it’s deteriorating quickly.

The next-worst momentum was in South Dakota, where daily admissions rose by 40% to an average of 28, according to the HHS data, which includes both adults and pediatric hospitalizations.

South Dakota’s new upswing should end speculation about whether herd immunity is near. The state has given at least one shot of a Covid-19 vaccine to 34% of the population, and more than 47% of the state had already been infected as of late February, according to estimates by independent data scientist Youyang Gu. North Dakota, another state with exceptionally high levels of vaccination and past estimated infections, is also seeing an upswing in hospitalizations.

Nationwide, about two in three patients with laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 are now younger than 65, according to data updated Friday from Covid-Net, a surveillance network covering 14 states.

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

1 hour ago, Jeffrey Brown said:

"I'm going to lose the script and I'm going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom," Walensky told a briefing with reporters. "Right now I'm scared."

As I look around on my college campus and don't see a damned soul that would die from this virus, or who hasn't already had it. 

[EDIT] If you're old, stay home. I'm at SDSMT. This is Kristi Noem's solution to the problem, and frankly we've done just fine. Of course the authorities in academia are cowards, meaning that campus is the only place in Rapid City where masks are required. 

Edited March 29, 2021 by KeyboardWarrior

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

Buffalo feathers

 

Edited March 29, 2021 by Ward Smith

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

And There's this, Texas not falling for the buffalo feathers and dropping their case count. No wonder the brown stains are panicking

[Symmetry + 109]

1 minute ago, Ward Smith said:

And There's this, Texas not falling for the buffalo feathers and dropping their case count. No wonder the brown stains are panicking

Or, you know, vaccines work.

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

2 minutes ago, Symmetry said:

Or, you know, vaccines work.

Your stupidity on full Display today. Now explain New Jersey buckwheat. Total lockdowns, increasing cases and deaths, same vaccine. Oops

I'm no doctor but your mental illness is apparent to anyone

[Symmetry + 109]

Poor reading and writing skills brings out all the memes. It's so much easier than using your own thoughts and words.

 

Edited March 29, 2021 by Symmetry

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

Poor @Wombat Living in the land of Oz

[Symmetry + 109]

Whatever happened to the head of covid misinformation Tom?

Probably caught the covid and them promptly STFU or killed himself with a quack treatment like breathing peroxides.

 

Now remember @Ward, Trump is your leader (despite him not holding any position of wealth or power) and he loves the vaccine -  therefore so do you!  Keep your narratives straight.

Is Trump Stupid; or are vaccines good?  You can't have it both ways.

 

 

Edited March 29, 2021 by Symmetry

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,539]

6 minutes ago, Symmetry said:

Whatever happened to the head of covid misinformation Tom?

Probably caught the covid and them promptly STFU or killed himself with a quack treatment like breathing peroxides.

 

Now remember @Ward, Trump is your leader (despite him not holding any position of wealth or power) and he loves the vaccine -  therefore so do you!  Keep your narratives straight.

Is Trump Stupid; or are vaccines good?  You can't have it both ways.

 

 

 

[Symmetry + 109]

Making my point there buddy.  Try using words (not a link).

Edited March 29, 2021 by Symmetry

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

Poor eejitss, can't compete because the Left can't meme. 

[Symmetry + 109]

24 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

Poor eejitss, can't compete because the Left can't meme. 

 

Perfect example of conservatives; referencing outdated materials.

New variants Ward...  you probably don't believe in evolution despite all the evidence.

 

"The left can't meme" as if that is an insult.  No we use words not the thoughts of others.

 

 

 

Edited March 29, 2021 by Symmetry

[Symmetry + 109]

Ward should also look up the definition of pandemic. 

I would say he used the word incorrectly himself, but he didn't; he gets his opinions / propaganda memes from the cult leaders.

[surrept33 + 609]

38 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

Poor eejitss, can't compete because the Left can't meme. 

Coronavirii were hardly studied till SARS, similar to how many retrovirus were not well studied till AIDS. 

[Symmetry + 109]

HIV?  Does that kill quickly and noticeably or could it spread silently and with few symptoms?

Remember, symptom free diseases do not exist according to meme logic. They are not "real."

[surrept33 + 609]

7 minutes ago, Symmetry said:

HIV?  Does that kill quickly and noticeably or could it spread silently and with few symptoms?

Remember, symptom free diseases do not exist according to meme logic. They are not "real."

The germ theory is a lie!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1854_Broad_Street_cholera_outbreak#Background

[Jeffrey Brown + 207]

Former federal prosecutor: Trump admitted to '2nd degree murder' in Woodward interview (September, 2020)

https://news.yahoo.com/former-federal-prosecutor-trump-admitted-190200145.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9uZXdzLnlhaG9vLmNvbS9taWtlLXdhbGxhY2Utc3VzcGVuZGVkLWluZGVmaW5pdGVseS1ieS1uYXNjYXItZm9yLXNvY2lhbC1tZWRpYS1wb3N0LTIyMDkzNDI1Ni5odG1sP2d1Y2VfcmVmZXJyZXI9YUhSMGNITTZMeTl1WlhkekxubGhhRzl2TG1OdmJTOXVaWFpsY2kxelpXVnVMV0Z1ZVhSb2FXNW5MVzl5WldkdmJpMTBiM2R1Y3kweE5UUTROVEE1T0RJdWFIUnRiQSZndWNlX3JlZmVycmVyX3NpZz1BUUFBQUFUb3Q5MFhHRWFFRkZvNjJrRnozN3ZSTFBjV1kzVzQ0SDlPWmJiMTJNT1Y1WFRFT3NTV19wS1BDYmhrMThUekQxc2VpZG1oQldWeURtTHFmRVREd2NlWFpiMXV4MTJEUkVXel9rR0JHWjI1LWd6eTFiejRmSDZZU1ZneWU1S3JMV0k5WUxaWkxfREdUX1JKV2JRYU0yU1p4bjJfcWlvbVdKX2FjWUUxN1oxOA&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAMdckgbmlYsXWHn-gmhjHbdB7WTOmF1itUapXFSdQCBg5kZUZxeKuDs0kZ8tsyx0347-ToN_oJ0lxY0gGTvzc1zvm1MogNOX-RTuNPxGJNWKVFhJYNyl3Y_f_uF95Dv7fLjM2MAnbl9x6TR71xLDjYUi1r9RfVgijAWDn-t6rRBv

Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner thinks President Trump's coronavirus admissions should land him in prison. . .

"There are only two elements for second-degree murder. The first is you caused the death of another," Kirschner said Thursday. That factor was fulfilled because Trump "was lying to the American people about the danger this virus posed," and now 190,000 people are dead, Kirschner said.

"The second element is the intent element," which would "get tricky if we didn't have Trump's incriminating admissions," he continued. But "in my opinion as a career prosecutor," Trump admitted to "conscious disregard" of the risk his coronavirus downplay created, thus admitting to "second-degree murder" that he "must be held accountable" for, Kirschner finished.

[Jeffrey Brown + 207]

5 hours ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

As I look around on my college campus and don't see a damned soul that would die from this virus, or who hasn't already had it. 

I haven't seen any dead bodies on my street either, but I don't think that means that about 550,000 people haven't died from COVID-19, most of them unnecessarily dead because of Trump's depraved indifference lies about the virus. 

BTW, an excerpt from the WSJ article up the thread on the P1 variant:

In Araraquara, 19 people under the age of 40 have died from Covid-19 this year, or 8.75% of all fatalities from the disease, compared with only one person in 2020, representing 1.1%.

One of them was Jorge Carbone, a 35-year-old store manager with no previous health problems. Less than two weeks after complaining of a sore throat, he was dead.

“The pain of losing him is unbearable,” said Luzia Abud, his 50-year-old aunt. “People are just disappearing,”

Marcos Oling, 47, an Uber driver in Porto Alegre, became infected with P.1 and has been hooked up to oxygen for more than a week, most of which he spent on a wheelchair for lack of spare beds. He said he is frustrated by those not taking the virus seriously.

“People think nothing will happen to them,” he said.

Edited March 30, 2021 by Jeffrey Brown

[Jeffrey Brown + 207]

Why are more young people getting sick with Covid-19 in Brazil?

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/24/americas/brazil-youth-covid-19-intl-latam/index.html

Excerpt:

São Paulo (CNN)It took only 10 days from start to finish, from the time 28-year-old Graciane da Silva got sick to the time she died.

She was alone when she passed away in a Rio de Janeiro Hospital -- her mom, Maria da Penha da Silva Siqueira, thinks about that often.

"It never crossed our mind that it would happen to her," said da Silva Siqueira. "It was too fast. This virus does not let us say goodbye."

Da Silva, who left behind a 4-year-old son, died of Covid-19 in June of last year. At the time, hers was a slightly more unusual death.
 
During the first part of Brazil's struggle with the coronavirus, it was the elderly who made up the majority of those who were getting sick and dying from Covid-19.

But since the new year, Brazil has descended into its worst days of this pandemic so far. Daily death and case numbers have shattered previous records.

And amid that surge, a worrying pattern has emerged—more young people seem to be getting severely ill and dying from Covid-19, doctors tell CNN.

The question is why: Is a new variant infecting more young people and making them sicker? Are young people behaving in ways that make them more likely to become infected? Could it be some combination of both?

Edited March 30, 2021 by Jeffrey Brown