Please say it ain't so.

[homersapien 11,400]

3 hours ago, SaltyTiger said:

No doubt, the economy will not recover by November. We are glad to hear that you will do fine. Many people with differing views than yourself will be fine likewise. Everyone that disagrees with you or supports Trump is not a stumbling, bumbling idiot Brother Homer. Been great if Trump had taken steps as early as say January to slow this spread. Been interesting to count the opinion articles  you and others would have posted regarding "impeachment distraction". 

Thanks for your concern. 

On the other hand, I could always get infected and die, as I am in the high risk group. 

I sure would hate wasting the investment I recently made in two new knees. It cost me over a year of my time plus a lot of pain. I will admit I have a personal stake in doing this right.

[homersapien 11,400]

11 hours ago, I_M4_AU said:

I really don’t think Trump has mismanaged this pandemic at all.  It was something that no one, with any authority, knew about until January 30th when the WHO finally called it an medical emergency.  If you compare Trump’s response by what he could have done with 20/20 hindsight you are reciting the media narrative and that is not objective.

If you compare his response by other countries, it appears more in line with the world’s view.  Germany has done a decent job in their response and America is higher in the % of infected and deaths, but if you take NY out of the data, we are very close to Germany.  Of course, you can’t take NY out of the data, but realize the Cuomo has managed this pandemic as about as bad as someone could.  His slow start was a key factor in how NY became the epicenter in this country.  Listen to his remarks to CNN’s Jake Tapper on March 17th:

Even da Blasio wanted to shut down the schools and Cuomo was slow on the uptake.  He was saying, in this clip, that stay at home order is not going to work and he feels the health care system would be overwhelmed in 45 days. Neither were true because of the mitigations suggested by the CDC.  If it wasn’t for the Trump administration, NY would be a lot worse off, because they provided the ventilators and hospital beds needed.

It’s interesting to me that a lot of the media is in NY and have been panicked while reporting the news from there, disregarding what was actually happening in the rest of the country.  The media also held Cuomo as the leader the country needed and nothing could be further than the truth.

I mentioned earlier that Cuomo was panicking by negotiating in the NY press what he needed and cooler heads knew that he didn’t need 30,000 ventilators or the amount of hospital beds he was screaming about.  In March, he also made it a requirement to send “stable Coronavirus patients” to nursing homes and accompanied them with body bags.  He has mentioned several times that we need to protect the most vulnerable, WTF.  That is panic, when you just do things just to do things.  NY has handled this worse than any other state and will be proven when this thing is over.

Your claim of mismanagement by the Trump Administration is misguided.  The bad thing is, if people listen to most of the MSM, they won’t know it until it is too late.

I won't bore you with the history of all the times he has lied, contradicted himself, dismissed the threat, wasted valuable time, over promised, didn't mobilize resources or  tried to blame others.  (Many of which are ongoing.)

Apparently you are just like him and are more interested in blaming others than accepting responsibility (which he also specifically refused to do).

Instead I will provide you an example of his current mismanagement:

Trump uses White House events to project return to normalcy while relying on testing that public lacks

By

David Nakamura 

May 1, 2020 at 6:20 p.m. EDT

At the White House this week, President Trump sat less than six feet from New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) in the Oval Office. He invited small-business owners to crowd behind the Resolute Desk for a photo shoot. His vice president toured a medical research center without a face mask in defiance of its policy.

The daily images projected a sense of confidence that life, at least for the nation’s most prominent resident, is returning to a semblance of normalcy during the coronavirus pandemic — a visual cue to the public that conditions are improving as Trump pushes to restart sectors of the economy.

Yet even as Trump aides have signaled that he could soon begin regular travel, the reality is that the White House has created a picture of security that is propped up by special access to the kind of wide-scale testing for covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, that most of the nation remains without.

Trump, Vice President Pence and their aides are tested regularly, and all who enter the White House campus to meet with them are required to undergo on-site rapid tests developed by Abbott Laboratories, which provide results within 15 minutes.

“As vice president of the United States, I’m tested for the coronavirus on a regular basis, and everyone who is around me is tested for the coronavirus,” Pence told reporters, amid a public backlash after he visited the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and violated its rules requiring all visitors to wear a mask.

It is a cocoon of safety that does not exist almost anywhere else in the country. Governors and municipal leaders have scrambled for basic supplies; hospitals and elderly care facilities, dealing with the most vulnerable, have cried out for more testing; and workers at grocery stores and manufacturing plants are risking their health to keep open critical businesses.

Even Congress is facing a dilemma with a lack of adequate testing to ensure a safe working environment as the Senate prepares to resume session on Monday. Only senators and staffers who become ill with symptoms similar to those of covid-19 will be eligible for testing, according to the Capitol’s attending physician. Some congressional leaders, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), have worn a face covering while working in the Capitol.

The scenario has illustrated the contradictions at the core of Trump’s push to reopen businesses, schools and other avenues of public life even as the virus has continued to kill thousands of Americans each week: At the White House, normalcy is returning — but only because the president has adequate testing to protect him.

“Is that what the whole country needs to go back to work?” asked Simon Rosenberg, founder of the liberal NDN think tank. “Why does he get things we don’t get? He’s reinforcing a version of, ‘Let them eat cake.’ Trump is saying, ‘I’m an uber-man. I can do whatever I want because I get testing and you little people can get the virus.’ Because they have not set up the testing regime.”

On Capitol Hill, some Democrats have been wary about pushing for increased testing for lawmakers because it would send the wrong message to the public. One congressional official said the White House is the “only place that is happening — they’re living in a dream world.”

This person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversations of lawmakers, acknowledged that special precautions should be in place for the president and vice president.

“But they shouldn’t throw it in people’s faces,” the official said. “They should not be bragging that they’re tested constantly and everyone around them is tested constantly. That sends the wrong message when they promised everyone 27 million tests.”

Trump stated in mid-March that any American who wanted a test could get one, and administration officials pledged that 27 million test kits would be available by the end of that month. Instead, just 1 million had been conducted by that date.

As of the end of April, a total of 6.2 million tests had been conducted in the United States, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

Public health experts have said that millions of tests per day could be necessary to safely begin to restart broad sectors of society, with wide-scale testing to identify and contain local outbreaks.

Though Trump said this week that his administration would help boost testing to 5 million per day, Brett Giroir, the administration’s assistant secretary of health, has said that number is virtually impossible and has pledged to increase the number to 8 million per month. The highest single-day total has been just over 314,000.

Trump has falsely stated that the United States has conducted “more tests . . . than every other country combined,” as he asserted at the White House this week. He said South Korean President Moon Jae-in complimented the Trump administration’s testing efforts in a recent phone call.

“So the testing and the masks and all of the things, we’ve solved every problem,” Trump said.

That might be true at the White House, where the mandatory testing program has led to an environment where the president and most of his top aides feel comfortable enough to eschew face masks, even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that everyone wear them.

With Trump pushing to reopen the country, “we’re in this very murky transition point where the signals are quite conflicting about what behavior is sought after,” said J. Stephen Morrison, a global health policy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “In that sense, what Pence did at the Mayo Clinic was very deliberate as a sign of defiance against the authorities — thumbing his nose at the medical authorities who run that institution and signaling to others watching you don’t have to buy into this.”

This week, Trump convened three events at the White House. Two were in the East Room, with 10 small-business owners and five executives of organizations representing the elderly, and one took place in the Blue Room, where Trump honored citizens, including a mail carrier from Cincinnati, for their work during the pandemic.

Each of the guests had their temperature taken upon entering the White House grounds, then was led to a medical office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building for the coronavirus test, according to several people who attended.

Chairs were placed farther apart to observe social distancing guidelines, but Trump brought the small-business executives into the Oval Office to take photos and he presented certificates to the honorees while standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them in the Blue Room.

“I felt safer going to the White House than anywhere else, even here in western Pennsylvania where we are under quarantine,” said Ali Mills, executive vice president of Plum Contracting, a highway construction company, who participated in Tuesday’s event for small businesses.

Katie Smith Sloan, the chief executive of LeadingAge, a nonprofit association that advocates for the elderly, said she had never been tested before undergoing the Abbott exam at the White House.

“So many of our members can’t get access to testing and to get results in 30 minutes is unheard of around the country,” she said. “There’s such a disparity in terms of access. It’s really a problem.”

During the event in the East Room on Thursday, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) pledged that his state would test every resident and staff at 700 nursing homes across the state.

“Right now, I think it’s perhaps an aspiration, but what we need is a plan,” Smith Sloan said. “There’s only so much to go around.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-white-house-events-coronavirus-testing/2020/05/01/21a9b5bc-8bbe-11ea-ac8a-fe9b8088e101_story.html

 

Trump cannot even lead by example.  He is gambling on the political benefits with opening the economy before we have the tools to do so even with relative safety.  But he's gambling with peoples lives - other people of course.

 

[SaltyTiger 7,830]

11 minutes ago, homersapien said:

Thanks for your concern. 

On the other hand, I could always get infected and die, as I am in the high risk group. 

I sure would hate wasting the investment I recently made in two new knees. It cost me over a year of my time plus a lot of pain. I will admit I have a personal stake in doing this right.

And most of us wished you well with your knees . Continue to do so. Certainly hope you do not become infected and die.

I am also high risk. Had a spontaneous Pneumothorax a while back that resulted in lung surgery.

Getting old ain't for sissy's. 

[homersapien 11,400]

And just to clarify, I am not saying Trump directly caused the condition we are in.  As other's have pointed out, it was going to happen here (which Trump did deny)

I am saying that there is a LOT of history that shows how our response - Trump's response - could have been far better.  He should have commissioned an effective federal effort to respond far earlier and more effectively in terms of supplies and testing.  He has yet to do so - in spite of the myriad people who come and go on the coronavirus response team(s) (or whatever he calls it).  But hey, Jarrad Kushner's involved, so how bad could it be?

And he hasn't improved.  His mismanagement continues.

Bottom line, there are a lot of people who have been devastated financially and they are going to be receptive to this history. And as we all know, a POTUS pretty much "owns" whatever happens on his watch, fair or not.

That's why I think he will lose the election.

 

 

[homersapien 11,400]

On 5/1/2020 at 7:09 AM, McLoofus said:

I cannot imagine how much different and how much better off this country would be if the Republicans had nominated Kasich.

Most astute and concise post of the thread. 

Oh what could have been.

[wdefromtx 3,159]

55 minutes ago, SaltyTiger said:

And most of us wished you well with your knees . Continue to do so. Certainly hope you do not become infected and die.

I am also high risk. Had a spontaneous Pneumothorax a while back that resulted in lung surgery.

Getting old ain't for sissy's. 

I’m only 40 and high risk. Recovering from a heart attack that left me with an EF of 30%. 

Can I get an AARP discount already!! Lol 

[homersapien 11,400]

The path to reopening is clear. Our national strategy is not.

By Editorial Board 

May 2, 2020 at 7:30 a.m. EDT

MAY DAY brought expiration of the federal social distancing guidance, and as more than half the states began to lift their restrictions, the United States plunged forward in the pandemic without a national strategy. Instead, we have an uneven patchwork of local decisions and a population divided, fatigued, wary and still highly susceptible to the novel coronavirus while suffering massive economic losses. This is a moment to remember what we know, what works and the right way forward.

What works is social distancing to break the chains of transmission of a virus that leaps from person to person. We know it works because the early, explosive growth of new infections has slowed. But new infections and deaths are not yet on a downward slope. Every day, 2,000 lives are being lost. It is too soon to return willy-nilly to crowded places or to drop vigilance about masks, hand-washing and discretionary travel.

President Trump, who should be guiding a national response to the pandemic, has instead abdicated responsibility, shifting it to governors and local leaders. This will be remembered as a dark hour of the presidency during which the call for an inspiring leader with a coherent strategy went unanswered. Instead, the public was told by Mr. Trump not to expect help: “You know, we’re not a shipping clerk.” Just as irresponsibly, his son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, is raising expectations that the pandemic will vanish like spring rains. He announced breezily that, “by June, a lot of the country should be back to normal. And the hope is that by July the country is really rocking again.” Such ungrounded happy talk will lead only to more discouragement and disillusionment later.

The economic distress is genuine, but it requires a calibrated reopening so as not to risk flare-ups that would be only more costly later. Absent a vaccine or therapy, the path to this reopening is clear: a process of testing, contact tracing, isolating the sick and returning to work in ways that will not endanger the healthy. Unfortunately, the tools for managing the next phase are not yet fully in place. Diagnostic testing is still running behind the levels needed, and contact tracing is just getting off the ground.

The complex choreography of reopening now falls to governors and mayors. Already, they are headed in different directions, some holding to the same restrictions as in April, but many others loosening the reins now. They must tell a restive public — as Mr. Trump is loath to do — not to expect a sudden return to normal as we knew it before. Those who are taking the risk of relaxing restrictions now must be prepared to retreat if infection rates begin to spike again. The virus will relentlessly exploit any gaps. If some jurisdictions allow it to regain momentum, it could ignite a second wave of disease for others as well as for them.

The only sustainable way back to normal is for everyone to stick with social distancing, hold realistic expectations, and carefully manage the easing, step by step, tested and traced, until the day when an effective, safe vaccine arrives.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-path-to-reopening-is-clear-our-national-strategy-is-not/2020/05/01/1ebad4f2-8bd3-11ea-ac8a-fe9b8088e101_story.html

[I_M4_AU 7,905]

1 hour ago, TexasTiger said:

My grocery chain was on it before our government was. We were sending tons of PPE to China with no plans for it spreading here. There have been ample reasons to be better prepared than we were. We wouldn’t have stopped it. We would have underestimated it. But we had zero preparation despite intel to at least have minimal prep for the possibility. We should have least been as in tune as a regional grocery chain.

You probably missed my qualifier of *anybody with any authority*. I’m sure your grocer was seeing it as was a few others, but the difference is when you are responsible for more than one thing, there are other considerations like the economy.  No one is going to shutdown the economy over, what seemed to be, the flu.  It wasn’t the flu, but this would have been the narrative of the media if we had a lock down at that time.

The headline of January 15th is when the Wuhan’s Municipal Health Commission said it was spreading from human to human fits the timeline as the WHO was saying it wasn’t transmitted that way up until then.  I know the WHO had discussed deeming it as a medical emergency but didn’t until January 30th.  It was evident that the CDC was paying close attention to the WHO, not Wuhan.  When the WHO finally stated that it was a medical emergency is when things started to happen.

Being prepared with ventilators and PPE’s, yes it could have been handled better and sending PPE’s to China is what the U.S. does in times of global emergencies.  Remember that most of the PPE’s were produced in China and they hoarded those even when we needed them.  Still could have been better, however, it’s not how you get into it, it’s how you react and it’s been good with PPE’s and ventilators.

A lot of times good ideas come from the bottom up.  We are talking about government here.  They are NOT all knowing and that is why government should stay out of the way most of the time.  

[I_M4_AU 7,905]

1 hour ago, homersapien said:

Apparently you are just like him and are more interested in blaming others than accepting responsibility (which he also specifically refused to do).

I was not blaming Cuomo, I was comparing the response from Trump with the response from Cuomo, but you know that.  The amount of tests we need to open up the economy is fluid.  Only time will tell. 

[TexasTiger 12,969]

22 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

You probably missed my qualifier of *anybody with any authority*. I’m sure your grocer was seeing it as was a few others, but the difference is when you are responsible for more than one thing, there are other considerations like the economy.  No one is going to shutdown the economy over, what seemed to be, the flu.  It wasn’t the flu, but this would have been the narrative of the media if we had a lock down at that time.

The headline of January 15th is when the Wuhan’s Municipal Health Commission said it was spreading from human to human fits the timeline as the WHO was saying it wasn’t transmitted that way up until then.  I know the WHO had discussed deeming it as a medical emergency but didn’t until January 30th.  It was evident that the CDC was paying close attention to the WHO, not Wuhan.  When the WHO finally stated that it was a medical emergency is when things started to happen.

Being prepared with ventilators and PPE’s, yes it could have been handled better and sending PPE’s to China is what the U.S. does in times of global emergencies.  Remember that most of the PPE’s were produced in China and they hoarded those even when we needed them.  Still could have been better, however, it’s not how you get into it, it’s how you react and it’s been good with PPE’s and ventilators.

A lot of times good ideas come from the bottom up.  We are talking about government here.  They are NOT all knowing and that is why government should stay out of the way most of the time.  

It’s clear now our government had more intel than H-E-B. Again, I think politicians of all stripes underestimated the rapidity and severity of the spread. But Trump was largely in denial and more interested in offering irrational false assurances than preparing for what might happen. He’s distracted by every negative comment and spends all day tweeting about any unfavorable news story. He’s hardly consumed by problem solving.

[I_M4_AU 7,905]

3 minutes ago, TexasTiger said:

It’s clear now our government had more intel than H-E-B. Again, I think politicians of all stripes underestimated the rapidity and severity of the spread. But Trump was largely in denial and more interested in offering irrational false assurances than preparing for what might happen. He’s distracted by every negative comment and spends all day tweeting about any unfavorable news story. He’s hardly consumed by problem solving.

I agree that we underestimated the spread of this virus, no doubt.  Trump’s style is abrasive and he would be hard to work for, but he seems to listen to the people around him.  The CNN clip about Cuomo was on March 17th, which was the first day on the national lock down announced by the White House, and Cuomo took it upon himself to not lock down until later even though de Blasio disagreed.

If Trump was so easily distracted, he wouldn’t have made it through Russia, Russia, Russia.  It’s a game to him, not very Presidential, but he gets a kick out of it and it could cost him the election.

[wdefromtx 3,159]

17 minutes ago, TexasTiger said:

It’s clear now our government had more intel than H-E-B. Again, I think politicians of all stripes underestimated the rapidity and severity of the spread. But Trump was largely in denial and more interested in offering irrational false assurances than preparing for what might happen. He’s distracted by every negative comment and spends all day tweeting about any unfavorable news story. He’s hardly consumed by problem solving.

HEB had also been planning for a pandemic since 2005. Don’t get me wrong, Trump downplayed the severity in the beginning as did a lot of us. But as you said all politicians underestimated this virus. But frankly the unpreparedness goes far beyond Trump. Our country was caught flat footed and it was years if not decades in the making. 

 

[SaltyTiger 7,830]

1 hour ago, wdefromtx said:

I’m only 40 and high risk. Recovering from a heart attack that left me with an EF of 30%. 

Can I get an AARP discount already!! Lol 

 Best wishes with the recovery wdetx. You can take the discount.

[TexasTiger 12,969]

13 minutes ago, wdefromtx said:

HEB had also been planning for a pandemic since 2005. Don’t get me wrong, Trump downplayed the severity in the beginning as did a lot of us. But as you said all politicians underestimated this virus. But frankly the unpreparedness goes far beyond Trump. Our country was caught flat footed and it was years if not decades in the making. 

 

It absolutely goes beyond Trump. He's not responsible to the lack of preparation that preceded him. But he is responsible for his own weak leadership on the issue. His daily briefings are pathetic.

 

 

[SaltyTiger 7,830]

35 minutes ago, TexasTiger said:

It’s clear now our government had more intel than H-E-B. Again, I think politicians of all stripes underestimated the rapidity and severity of the spread. But Trump was largely in denial and more interested in offering irrational false assurances than preparing for what might happen. He’s distracted by every negative comment and spends all day tweeting about any unfavorable news story. He’s hardly consumed by problem solving.

And I do not understand this it all. Had two physicians, one a family member and the other an acquaintance, express grave concerns about this developing as it has when we initially heard about it.

[wdefromtx 3,159]

1 minute ago, TexasTiger said:

It absolutely goes beyond Trump. He's not responsible to the lack of preparation that preceded him. But he is responsible for his own weak leadership on the issue. His daily briefings are pathetic.

 

 

His daily briefings are just a way for him to hear himself talk. We don’t need a daily update for one thing. 

[SaltyTiger 7,830]

1 minute ago, TexasTiger said:

His daily briefings are pathetic

That is being kind.....and according to some folks I am a "Trumpbot".

[SaltyTiger 7,830]

34 minutes ago, wdefromtx said:

His daily briefings are just a way for him to hear himself talk. We don’t need a daily update for one thing. 

"we have xx,000,000 beautiful wonderful mask and complex computerized ventilators in production, we have the greatest brilliant smartest people at work, best in the history of all of history, no other administration..........."

[wdefromtx 3,159]

1 minute ago, SaltyTiger said:

"we have xx,000,000 beautiful wonderful mask and complex computerized ventilators in production, we have the greatest brilliant smartest people at work, best in the history of all of history, no other administration..........."

“Everyone loves my masks, they are terrific! All other masks are just a disaster!!” 

[wdefromtx 3,159]

For all the folks that really think he was talking about bleach or Lysol. For his next briefing you can get the “Trump Disinfectant Bundle!” 

[Texan4Auburn 1,626]

5 hours ago, TexasTiger said:

It’s clear now our government had more intel than H-E-B.

No one has more intel than the HEB!

[wdefromtx 3,159]

15 minutes ago, Texan4Auburn said:

No one has more intel than the HEB!

Clearly not enough though. They dropped the ball with the toilet paper supply. 😂😂😂

[ShocksMyBrain 9,368]

5 hours ago, SaltyTiger said:

That is being kind.....and according to some folks I am a "Trumpbot".

Considering you have an affinity to support/defend Trump and his idiocy, I can understand that presumption. 🤷‍♂️

[SaltyTiger 7,830]

7 minutes ago, ShocksMyBrain said:

Considering you have an affinity to support/defend Trump and his idiocy, I can understand that presumption. 🤷‍♂️

I can understand that presumption myself Shocks. Thanks

[TexasTiger 12,969]

53 minutes ago, wdefromtx said:

Clearly not enough though. They dropped the ball with the toilet paper supply. 😂😂😂

Beyond their control!