COVID-19 (f/k/a "the Coronavirus")

[shoothoops]

Nueces County, TX.

85 infants under the age two, have tested positive for COVID-19. (Majority under age one)

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1234293

[TSmith34, Inc.]

This seems inexplicable...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Trump administration is trying to block billions of dollars for states to conduct testing and contact tracing in the upcoming coronavirus relief bill, people involved in the talks said Saturday.

The administration is also trying to block billions of dollars that GOP senators want to allocate for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and billions more for the Pentagon and State Department to address the pandemic at home and abroad, the people said.

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/trump-administration-seeks-to-block-money-for-testing-tracing-cdc-in-upcoming-virus-relief-bill/

Nah, not inexplicable at all. Trump is all about perceptions, it why he was so focused on the ratings during his daily briefings. I mean, he has repeated said the quiet part out loud about this, too: he wants less testing. Less testing will result in a lower number of confirmed cases.
It goes all the way back to the beginning when he didn't want the cruise ship to dock because he "liked the numbers" where they were. Its why he told his people to slow the testing and undoubtedly why they are trying to obfuscate the data from hospitals.

[GooooMarquette]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/uk-may-already-enough-herd-183015155.html

That would be nice...but current estimates of the overall infection rate in the US range from 1% to 5%. Most of the numbers I have seen are under 2%. But even if we generously assume we're at 5%, and if we generously assume that it only takes 20% for herd immunity (a best-case scenario matched with another best-case scenario), we would still only be a quarter of the way there.

[GooooMarquette]

Baseball in the era of COVID. Phillies player hits HR @ Washington. Crew accidentally plays the piped-in cheering intended for the home team.

https://apnews.com/e9e671f02d6b81742f06749b7bc1406b

Welcome to 2020.

[Mutaman]

Baseball in the era of COVID. Phillies player hits HR @ Washington. Crew accidentally plays the piped-in cheering intended for the home team.

https://apnews.com/e9e671f02d6b81742f06749b7bc1406b

Welcome to 2020.

Didi hit one while wearing a mask. Off Scherzer. Several foreign leaders stated that they felt it was a poor optic.

[Frenns Liquor Depot]

A summary of an interview with Fauci.  Some amazing investments placed with speed surrounding testing/vaccines.  Also, some good general commentary the situation.   

https://twitter.com/erictopol/status/1284503774338314241?s=21

[pbiflyer]

Dr Birx told President Trump in April that the coronavirus would soon be gone and influenced the administration's push to reopen the economy and lift lockdown
https://www.businessinsider.com/dr-birx-told-trump-april-coronavirus-was-going-away-nyt-2020-7

r Deborah Birx, the chief medical officer on the White House coronavirus task force, told the Trump administration in April that it was not a long term problem for the US, reported The New York Times.

[pbiflyer]

There are no ICU beds available at 49 Florida hospitals
https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-07-19-20-intl/h_4568646d74f57c7a13f0215b05bb0054

[Pakuni]

There are no ICU beds available at 49 Florida hospitals
https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-07-19-20-intl/h_4568646d74f57c7a13f0215b05bb0054

It is what it is.

[Frenns Liquor Depot]

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.15.20154294v1
May suggest why essentially all of the global hot spots that got hit hard in the first wave are all now doing amazingly well.

If I held this view I would look to a place like New Orleans to see if they have some protective qualities in the midst of
LA epidemic. 

[MU82]

Dr Birx told President Trump in April that the coronavirus would soon be gone and influenced the administration's push to reopen the economy and lift lockdown
https://www.businessinsider.com/dr-birx-told-trump-april-coronavirus-was-going-away-nyt-2020-7

r Deborah Birx, the chief medical officer on the White House coronavirus task force, told the Trump administration in April that it was not a long term problem for the US, reported The New York Times.

That was in that long, outstanding NYT piece that another Scooper posted.

I came out of it thinking that Birx will be a big-time scapegoat to be sacrificed.

While Fauci was the "bad cop," Birx was saying a lot of stuff the WH occupant desperately wanted to hear ... though even she had to draw the line when the discussion of injecting disinfectant was brought up.

[pbiflyer]

Bahamas closes borders to U.S. tourists after COVID-19 cases spike; others still welcome

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/article244340147.html

Less than three weeks after reopening its borders to international visitors, the Bahamas on Sunday announced that it is closing all of its airports and seaports to tourists from the United States, effective Wednesday.

[Jockey]

That was in that long, outstanding NYT piece that another Scooper posted.

I came out of it thinking that Birx will be a big-time scapegoat to be sacrificed.

While Fauci was the "bad cop," Birx was saying a lot of stuff the WH occupant desperately wanted to hear ... though even she had to draw the line when the discussion of injecting disinfectant was brought up.

First time my wife saw her at one of the daily “briefings”, she just said” she’s a poser, a trump wannabe”. I’ve seen nothing to convince me otherwise. She loves the attention and isn’t bright enough to know that she will be a scapegoat-as you said.

[Frenns Liquor Depot]

Dr Gottlieb is a self professed libertarian and a former trump appointee.  This opinion should be contemplated with that backdrop.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/behind-the-hhs-cdc-disagreement-11595193843

[Lennys Tap]

First time my wife saw her at one of the daily “briefings”, she just said” she’s a poser, a trump wannabe”. I’ve seen nothing to convince me otherwise. She loves the attention and isn’t bright enough to know that she will be a scapegoat-as you said.

Four months ago, crickets. And follow the science, including Dr Birx.

Now? She not really a scientist, doncha’ know? Me and the wife had her pegged from the jump.

Sure.

[JWags85]

First time my wife saw her at one of the daily “briefings”, she just said” she’s a poser, a trump wannabe”. I’ve seen nothing to convince me otherwise. She loves the attention and isn’t bright enough to know that she will be a scapegoat-as you said.

Good lord. You wonder why people write you off as totally biased and lacking objectivity.

Birx has made mistakes in reporting to an irrational and impetuous leader, sure. But now she’s a poser wannabe lacking in intellect and always has been? Despite a long and distinguished medical career filled with expertise and appointments by Obama? Ok got it

[TSmith34, Inc.]

First time my wife saw her at one of the daily “briefings”, she just said” she’s a poser, a trump wannabe”. I’ve seen nothing to convince me otherwise. She loves the attention and isn’t bright enough to know that she will be a scapegoat-as you said.

I think the article was a little more nuanced. It seemed that her too rosy projections were based on assuming people would continue to "do the right thing" and continue to socially distance and that the U.S. would re-open based on scientific benchmarks.

In hindsight those were clearly a bad assumptions, but as I shared here a while back, a highly-respected epidemiologist that I work with made the same assumptions.

I don't think this exonerates her, just that it was not quite as straight a line. I have no doubt she fell into the same strange, disastrous downward spiral that so many seem to when they get captured in the Trump orbit.

[GooooMarquette]

I think the article was a little more nuanced. It seemed that her too rosy projections were based on assuming people would continue to "do the right thing" and continue to socially distance and that the U.S. would re-open based on scientific benchmarks.

In hindsight those were clearly a bad assumptions, but as I shared here a while back, a highly-respected epidemiologist that I work with made the same assumptions.

I don't think this exonerates her, just that it was not quite as straight a line. I have no doubt she fell into the same strange, disastrous downward spiral that so many seem to when they get captured in the Trump orbit.

It may have been partly her naive hopes of people doing the right thing, but I believe she also tried way too hard to tell POTUS what he wanted to hear. As a professional and one of the WH’s resident ‘experts,’ she has an obligation to tell people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear.

[MU82]

Here are the "nut grafs" in that article relating to Birx IMHO ...

Dr. Birx would roam the halls of the White House, talking to Mr. Kushner, Ms. Hicks and others, sometimes passing out diagrams to bolster her case. “We’ve hit our peak,” she would say, and that message would find its way back to Mr. Trump.

Dr. Birx began using versions of the phrase “putting out the embers,” wording that was later picked up by the press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, and by Mr. Trump himself.

By the middle of May, the task force believed that another resurgence was not likely until the fall, senior administration officials said.

The New York region appeared well on its way to driving new infections down to levels it could handle — it was the one area of the country that did resemble the Italian model. But the models and analysis embraced by the West Wing failed to account for the weakening adherence to the lockdowns across the country that began even before Mr. Trump started urging governors to “liberate” their residents from the methodical guidelines his own government had established.

Later, it was clear that states that rushed to reopen before meeting the criteria in the guidelines — like Arizona, Texas and Alabama — would have among the worst surges in new cases.

Dr. Birx’s belief that the United States would mirror Italy turned out to be disastrously wrong. The Italians had been almost entirely compliant with stay-at-home orders and social distancing, squelching new infections to negligible levels before the country slowly reopened. Americans, by contrast, began backing away by late April from what social distancing efforts they had been making, egged on by Mr. Trump.

The difference was critical. As communities across the United States raced to reopen, the daily number of daily cases barely dropped below 20,000 in early May. The virus was still circulating across the country.

[wadesworld]

I did appreciate that they used keefe’s model to get this all wrong.

[Jockey]

Good lord. You wonder why people write you off as totally biased and lacking objectivity.

Birx has made mistakes in reporting to an irrational and impetuous leader, sure. But now she’s a poser wannabe lacking in intellect and always has been? Despite a long and distinguished medical career filled with expertise and appointments by Obama? Ok got it

There is a reason she is now the head of the task force and why Fauci is not even allowed to appear on TV. She gave her allegiance to Trump. Fauci didn’t.

Her job is to guide this country in fighting Covid. If she gave Trump the advice that she is reported to have given, she was derelict in her duty, dare I say, a poser.

What is it that Birx has done that makes you defend her? Instead of bowing before trump, shouldn’t she be out front fighting for masks? Shouldn’t she be fighting for the CDC rules for school openings?

[JWags85]

There is a reason she is now the head of the task force and why Fauci is not even allowed to appear on TV. She gave her allegiance to Trump. Fauci didn’t.

Her job is to guide this country in fighting Covid. If she gave Trump the advice that she is reported to have given, she was derelict in her duty, dare I say, a poser.

What is it that Birx has done that makes you defend her? Instead of bowing before trump, shouldn’t she be out front fighting for masks? Shouldn’t she be fighting for the CDC rules for school openings?

She has been clearly in favor of masks. This is from a month and change ago.

“What we have said to people is there is clear scientific evidence now, by all the droplet experiments that happened, and that others have done, to show that a mask does prevent droplets from reaching others," Birx said on "Fox News Sunday" when asked what she would tell people who say they have a right not to wear a mask in public.
"Out of respect for each other, as Americans that care for each other, we need to be wearing masks in public when we cannot social distance," she said.

“ And this is unusual in the case of respiratory diseases in many cases. So, you don't know who's infected. And so we really want to be clear all the time that social distancing is absolutely critical. And if you can't social distance and you're outside, you must wear a mask. These are items that really critical to protect individuals," she said.”

She also just praised the CDC guidelines for school reopening earlier this month and stressed the challenge on applying them to varied localities that experience COVID differently at the moment.

Have you noticed her presence in media has fallen off a cliff? She used to be on TV daily, now she has a handful of public statements since May.  Hell, she gave an interview with a magazine a month ago where she mentioned to the writer that schools need to remain closed while we gather more information and plan and the next day Trump fired off his all caps SCHOOLS MUST OPEN tweet.  She’s only as vocal and available as the White House lets her be.  Not everyone thinks it’s best to be fired if they still feel they can do any good within.

Like TSmith said, she made some overly positive assumptions and miscalculated just how hard it is to manage and/or navigate Trump, she’s not perfect. But your households smug assumption that shes some silly patsy and not “bright” is insulting and demeaning, but whatever. Just more if the tribal partisan BS.  Thank god Obama didn’t view her with such dim regard like you do.

[forgetful]

Four months ago, crickets. And follow the science, including Dr Birx.

Now? She not really a scientist, doncha’ know? Me and the wife had her pegged from the jump.

Sure.

I can't speak for others on here, but if you want to go back and look, about 3-months ago, I indicted I was concerned about Birx, as she was proving to be a politician and disregarding the science for more political power.

I know the turning point for me being sure of this was the press conference involving "heat" killing the virus, and a suggestion of injecting bleach. The science there was terrible, and she trumped up the results as game changers.

[GooooMarquette]

I can't speak for others on here, but if you want to go back and look, about 3-months ago, I indicted I was concerned about Birx, as she was proving to be a politician and disregarding the science for more political power.

I know the turning point for me being sure of this was the press conference involving "heat" killing the virus, and a suggestion of injecting bleach. The science there was terrible, and she trumped up the results as game changers.

Agreed. Fauci has earned his reputation through decades of experience and performance, while Birx came into this as a relative unknown. She probably had a good pedigree to get to her current position, but she seemed to fall off the wagon around the time Fauci was warning that we were reopening too soon and she just smiled along when POTUS said something absurd. Now we know that behind the scenes, she was actively enabling POTUS with her overly optimistic expectations.

[JWags85]

Agreed. Fauci has earned his reputation through decades of experience and performance, while Birx came into this as a relative unknown. She probably had a good pedigree to get to her current position, but she seemed to fall off the wagon around the time Fauci was warning that we were reopening too soon and she just smiled along when POTUS said something absurd. Now we know that behind the scenes, she was actively enabling POTUS with her overly optimistic expectations.

To whom? The American public? Sure. But it’s not like Fauci was a household name.  She was a Director at the CDC and headed up their AIDS/HIV work and was tasked by Obama with ending the AIDS/HIV epidemic, a position that required Senate confirmation and vote. She’s not some random physician plucked from obscurity to be a pawn in the Trump game.  I don’t know why suddenly everyone is rushing to tear down her bonafides and make her out to be some under qualified bumbling Pollyanna