CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk

[Anastasis 23469]

9 minutes ago, Wanker Bob said:

Turn the corner or just a plateau in available testing?

I think that testing availability would result in more targeted testing and would bend the curve upwards.  Broader testing with less intensive screening should should turn the curve downward. 

 

ETA: link with historical testing counts: https://covidtracking.com/data/state/texas#historical

 

Edited April 20, 2020 by Anastasis

[Francisco 2.0 32394]

Gee, imagine someone with A&M ties running the national coronavirus testing efforts.  What could possibly go wrong.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/brett-giroir-trumps-testing-czar-was-forced-out-of-a-job-developing-vaccine-projects-now-hes-on-the-hot-seat/2020/04/19/b061b968-7e89-11ea-8de7-9fdff6d5d83e_story.html

Quote

Brett Giroir, the federal official overseeing coronavirus testing efforts, says that his experience working on vaccine development projects at Texas A&M University helped prepare him for this historic moment. He once said that his vaccine effort was so vital that “the fate of 50 million people will rely on us getting this done.”

But after eight years of work on several vaccine projects, Giroir was told in 2015 he had 30 minutes to resign or he would be fired. His annual performance evaluation at Texas A&M, the local newspaper reported, said he was “more interested in promoting yourself” than the health science center where he worked. He got low marks on being a “team player.”

 

Quote

Now President Trump has given Giroir the crucial task of ending the massive shortfall of tests for the novel coronavirus. Some governors have blasted the lack of federal help on testing, which they say is necessary to enact Trump’s plan for reopening the economy.

That criticism has focused attention on Giroir and whether he can deliver results under pressure. His years as director of the Texas vaccine project illustrate his operating style, which includes sweeping statements about the impact of his work, not all of which turned out as some had hoped.

During two recent interviews with The Washington Post, Giroir blamed his ouster on internal politics at the university, not on any problems with the project.

 

Quote

“If you’re not familiar with academic politics, it makes politics in Washington look like a minor league scrimmage,” he said. He said he was “heartbroken” to leave the position before his work was done, but he said that the vaccine projects have proved valuable — and might contribute to the development of a coronavirus vaccine.

As for the evaluation, Giroir, 59, said, “I’m a team player. But not to people who act inappropriately, who are misogynistic and who are abusive to other people. I don’t have a loyalty to that. I have a loyalty to my faculty and my students. And that’s what I care about. . . . It’s better to be independent and stand your ethical ground.” Asked to explain his comment, he said, “I’ll just leave it at that.”

 

Spoiler

The combative response is classic Giroir, according to those who have worked with him over the years.

Robin Robinson, who as the director of the federal Biological Advanced Research and Development Authority oversaw a major grant for the Texas vaccine project, said in an interview that Giroir “over-promised and under-delivered.” He said, “I always had a good relationship with Brett. I know he has a temper and he sometimes has a very difficult time controlling it.”

Still, Robinson, like other former associates interviewed for this report, said that he has confidence in Giroir and praised Trump’s decision to pick Giroir for the job informally known as the nation’s virus testing czar.

“He does get things done,” Robinson said. “Sometimes it’s a little different than what one might expect. But I feel confident that he will do the job where he is right now.”

Giroir serves as the assistant secretary for health in the Department of Health and Human Services, making him the top medical and science adviser to HHS Secretary Alex Azar. He oversees the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, which has 6,200 officers and is playing a major role in fighting covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.

On March 13, a week after Trump said falsely that “anybody that wants a test can get a test,” Giroir was given the responsibility of coordinating the federal government’s widely criticized virus testing programs, which initially included a faulty product from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While he is not a formal member of the White House coronavirus task force, he is a regular presence at its meetings and often confers with Trump and Vice President Pence.

Although testing has increased since Giroir took over, some state officials continue to complain that the federal government lacks a coherent plan.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) said on NPR last week that “the truth is that the federal government has really been more of a hindrance than a help in most of the testing issues. . . . We got very little help from the federal government.”

New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) said Wednesday on brother Chris Cuomo’s CNN show that he wasn’t familiar with Giroir. Asked by his brother about the man “in charge of the most important component” of dealing with the virus, the governor responded: “I'll take your word that he exists, but I wouldn't know otherwise.”

A Giroir spokeswoman said he has been on task-force calls to governors. A spokesman for the New York governor did not respond to a request for comment.

As for the complaints from some governors that they still lack testing capabilities, Giroir said in the interview that anyone who “needs a test” can get one.

“That does not mean at this point in time that anyone who wants a test gets a test,” Giroir said. “There may be tens of millions of people who want a test, but they really have no indication [of the virus] for that test.”

Giroir said testing must be increased to ensure that the virus does not resurge. He said the current capability of 3.5 million tests per month needs to increase to 6 million to 8 million for a “gradual reopening” of the economy to occur, and he said such capacity is growing quickly.

Separately, Giroir promised that “tens of millions” of serology tests will be available within a few weeks that enable people to determine whether they have had the virus.

Publicly, Giroir has been in sync with Trump, appearing alongside him at briefings in the admiral’s uniform he is entitled to wear as as head of the U.S. Health Service Commissioned Corps. In private, Giroir said, he has no hesitation about being blunt with the president.

“His scientific advisers, including me, provide him very frank advice every single day,” Giroir said. “Any thought that does not happen, or he does not listen, is blatantly false. . . . It’s one of the most productive working environments at a senior level I’ve been involved in.”

Giroir, born in Louisiana and educated at Harvard University and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, began his career as a pediatrician and became chief medical officer at Children’s Medical Center in Dallas. He grew interested in how to develop new technologies, and in 2004 he joined the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, where he oversaw efforts such as the development of a ventilator that could be carried onto battlefields.

He wanted to find new ways to fight deadly pandemics, whether a virus occurred naturally or as a weapon of war. He concluded that new technology was needed to quickly make massive amounts of vaccines. “I realized the challenges were not just biological but engineering,” Giroir said.

Giroir returned to Texas in 2008 and eventually became vice chancellor at Texas A&M University, vowing to transform the region into one of the world’s hubs for vaccine development. He pushed the idea of creating mobile labs that could produce vaccines where they were most needed, and promoted a facility that would enable a pharmaceutical partner to quickly produce millions of doses of vaccine for a crisis such as an influenza pandemic.

“My job is to facilitate transformational projects that benefit lots of people,” Giroir said at the time. “I would like to be part of something that can save millions of lives worldwide.”

He told the Houston Chronicle in 2010 that “If this works, we'll have a billion-dose-per-month vaccine facility in Texas, which would be by far the largest and most capable center in the world.”

In 2012, Giroir played a major role in obtaining a federal grant that enabled the university to become one of several U.S. centers that would be prepared to quickly produce vaccines in a pandemic. “Once it's implemented, it really will solve the pandemic crisis,” he said at the time.

The university partnered with GlaxoSmithKline, a leading vaccine manufacturer. In a 2013 news release, Giroir said the company’s cell-based vaccine program was “the most promising near term influenza vaccine technology” to improve upon the traditional methodology of using eggs.

When there was fear of an outbreak of Ebola virus cases in Texas, then-Gov. Rick Perry (R) in 2014 appointed Giroir as chairman of a task force overseeing an effort to fight the disease.

In mid-2015, a new president, Michael Young, arrived at Texas A&M. Young asked some senior officials at the university to resign, while offering to keep them in their jobs for at least a year, Giroir told The Post. Giroir said he refused to sign the letter.

Giroir was summoned to a meeting at which he said he was told he had 30 minutes to resign or he would be fired. Declaring himself “heartbroken” over having failed to complete his mission, he resigned. Young, who is still university president, declined to comment.

Giroir, in response to questions about his ouster, sent The Post an editorial published at the time in the local newspaper, the Bryan Eagle. The editorial chastised Young for having forced out Giroir, saying Giroir had increased federal research grants to the university’s Health Science Center by 65 percent and was “treated badly” by the school.

Separately, the Eagle reported that the university said in a statement, “It is inaccurate and disingenuous at best to attribute growth in this area solely to Dr. Giroir.” The Eagle, which obtained Giroir’s evaluation, said that while Giroir had a grade of 4 or 5 for his management and related skills, on a scale in which 5 is the highest mark, he had a 2 or 3 in areas of “loyalty/commitment” and “team player.”

The vaccine manufacturing center was completed after Giroir’s departure, but his prediction that it would enable GlaxoSmithKline to produce a groundbreaking vaccine did not pan out. The company said in a statement that the “research underpinning the Texas A&M project did not prove fruitful,” leading federal authorities to halt funding.

The facility was acquired by a U.S. subsidiary of a Japanese company, Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies, which has agreed to respond promptly if there is a federal request to develop a vaccine.

John White, who as chairman of the Board of Regents recruited Giroir to the university, said in an interview, “Brett was the architect of all these wonderful things we had put in place.” Asked to assess Giroir’s impact, he said, “It is just difficult to sum it up because the journey continues. . . . Do I wish everything would have gone faster with more tangible results? Sure, but I’m not disappointed at all where it’s been and where it’s going.”

Giroir defended the projects. He said the Fujifilm facility is available to rapidly produce a vaccine if one is requested by the federal government, just as originally envisioned, and he said his work has laid the foundation for such work, possibly including a vaccine for covid-19.

Of his vaccine work in Texas, he said, “It’s not entirely responsible for where we are by any means. But the work has really led to our ability to get a vaccine up to scale potentially in a year or a year and a half instead of five or seven years.”

Giroir also noted that a separate facility he helped develop, which uses plant-based technology to produce vaccines, is working on a possible product for the coronavirus. “It may work, it may not work,” he said. “But if you want a billion doses in a short time, plant-based is the only way to get it done.”

Giroir, after being ousted from Texas A&M, took a variety of positions, including chairing a commission that reviewed the health-care system at Veterans Affairs. With Trump’s election, Giroir found a new opportunity.

Trump nominated him in 2017 to be assistant secretary for health at HHS. The nomination languished for months as some Democrats questioned Giroir’s commitment to women’s health issues, but he was confirmed.

Trump named Giroir as acting commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration in late 2019, a position he held for two months while a new leader awaited confirmation.

Until now, some of Giroir’s most prominent work in the administration revolved around fetal stem cell tissue research, which some scientists think could be needed to find a treatment for the coronavirus. Some conservatives have urged a ban on the use of fetal tissue.

Giroir said during a 2018 meeting at the National Institutes of Health that an alternative must be as reliable as fetal tissue. But HHS later announced restrictions on the ability of some researchers to get federal funding for fetal tissue research, saying the importance of “promoting the dignity of life from conception to natural death is one of the very top priorities of President Trump’s administration.” The announcement pleased Trump’s political advisers but dismayed scientists. Giroir’s views on the issue appear to put him at odds with White House policy.

“I think it’s very clear that we don’t have models that completely recapitulate what the fetal tissue does,” Giroir told The Post. “And I just mean this honestly, what I advise the president, or what happens, that’s executive privilege. And I think it was widely reported that this was the president’s decision on the way to go. This was a presidential decision. And he’s the president; he gets to make those decisions.”

 

[achooloco 1072]

nevermind, covered. this thread moves fast

Edited April 20, 2020 by achooloco

[Mo Horn 8843]

I don't want people to die. I'm sure his family is truly grieving, but sometimes karma is a bitch. 

[Tuco 5076]

25 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

I think that testing availability would result in more targeted testing and would bend the curve upwards.  Broader testing with less intensive screening should should turn the curve downward. 

 

ETA: link with historical testing counts: https://covidtracking.com/data/state/texas#historical

 

Broader testing should reduce the % positive, but increase the total numbers being confirmed per day. 

[ChuckNorrisActionJeans 2676]

5 minutes ago, Mo Horn said:

I don't want people to die. I'm sure his family is truly grieving, but sometimes karma is a bitch. 

His brave sacrifice was all for nought since he can't now contribute to herd immunity. SAD

[henrygandorf 29191]

28 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

His annual performance evaluation at Texas A&M, the local newspaper reported, said he was “more interested in promoting yourself” than the health science center where he worked. He got low marks on being a “team player.”

welcome to the trump administration, mr giroir, you'll fit right in here.

[kevwun 15789]

Damn, that Biden ad is real good.

Edited April 20, 2020 by kevwun

[Pasken 1309]

11 minutes ago, Mo Horn said:

I don't want people to die. I'm sure his family is truly grieving, but sometimes karma is a bitch. 

Going to be a lot of these in a month from people who have been at those dumb rallies across the county. 

[AngryDragon 270]

2 hours ago, Anastasis said:

I think that among the bundle of claims related to the China travel restrictions, the claims worth critical focus are the ones where he puts specific numbers to the number of lives saved.  I've seen claims he put out saying that the travel restriction saved 100s of thousands. That is nonsensical on its face.    

Those 100s of thousands of lives are inconsequential considering he's saved billions of lives just by being president.

[Wanker Bob 379]

12 minutes ago, Mo Horn said:

I don't want people to die. I'm sure his family is truly grieving, but sometimes karma is a bitch. 

Every one of these stories needs to be fleshed out and hammered home in tv ads, fox news ads, social media ads. See if their stupidity and death can save someone else including those of us who aren't idiots. 

[henrygandorf 29191]

56 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

I posted on that a while back. Reporters need to abbreviate or eliminate their lengthy pre-ambles and get right to the question.

What is the point to declaring a national emergency if you put all responsibility on the states? What other former national emergencies do believe now are soley problems of the states?

Why do you lie all the time, Mr. President?

on the topic of "what i'd like to see the press do", i had a thought a few days ago about his constant need to bring up obama, seemingly for no reason.  someone asked him about testing and tracking websites (i think?) and after 3 min of rambling, he brought up the obamacare website that cost $5bb but should've been made for peanuts, or some such.

next time he brings up obama out of nowhere, i would love to see a reporter follow up and act like they somewhat agree with him, "mr president, you mentioned the obamacare website, besides the cost, can you expand on all the problems it had?"

because then you put him in the situation where he can do one of two things.  either (1) he dismisses it entirely because it's completely irrelevant, which of course begs the question - hey dipshit, then why did you bring it up?  or (2) he continues on and spends more minutes shitting himself with excitement that he gets to trash obama on live tv.  which of course he thinks is great, but likely doesn't realize what a terrible look that is, especially considering the timing.

right now, he gets to have his little tangents with no follow-up.  just once, i would like to see someone set him up for this.

[DixonHur 11305]

15 minutes ago, Mo Horn said:

I don't want people to die. I'm sure his family is truly grieving, but sometimes karma is a bitch. 

And I'm sure his grandchildren are just happy he was able to die for a cause he truly believed in...the economy.

[jimmyjazz 45957]

6 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

next time he brings up obama out of nowhere, i would love to see a reporter follow up and act like they somewhat agree with him, "mr president, you mentioned the obamacare website, besides the cost, can you expand on all the problems it had?"

because then you put him in the situation where he can do one of two things.  either (1) he dismisses it entirely because it's completely irrelevant, which of course begs the question - hey dipshit, then why did you bring it up?  or (2) he continues on and spends more minutes shitting himself with excitement that he gets to trash obama on live tv.  which of course he thinks is great, but likely doesn't realize what a terrible look that is, especially considering the timing.

I think this would be a great strategy to trap a normal person speaking to a normal audience.

With Trump, I think the primary goal should be to get his head to explode.

[HenryJames 66055]

5 minutes ago, Wanker Bob said:

Every one of these stories needs to be fleshed out and hammered home in tv ads, fox news ads, social media ads. See if their stupidity and death can save someone else including those of us who aren't idiots. 

They should do an In Memoriam like the Oscars does for all the Hollywood people who died that year. But with the ‘Curb You Enthusiasm’ theme.

[RomaVicta 29908]

32 minutes ago, Mo Horn said:

I don't want people to die. I'm sure his family is truly grieving, but sometimes karma is a bitch. 

Is the death of a fucking idiot as sad as that of a responsible citizen? Are all deaths really tragic?

He wrote his own ironic end. Maybe these obituaries will convince a few fucking idiots to not be so fucking idiotic. Otherwise, his passing is no more to me than my passing would have been to his dumb as.

Better him than anybody he infected if I had any say in it. But I don't.

 

ps Oh yea, to steal someone else's line: Say hi to Karen.

Edited April 20, 2020 by RomaVicta

[Lagunamadre 1975]

30 minutes ago, Mo Horn said:

I don't want people to die. I'm sure his family is truly grieving, but sometimes karma is a bitch. 

I don't want people to die either, but as long as people are going to die I'd much rather it be people like him. 

[DixonHur 11305]

1 minute ago, Lagunamadre said:

I don't want people to die either, but as long as people are going to die I'd much rather it be people like him. 

I suppose I have psychopathic tendencies, because every one of these fuckers could drop dead tomorrow and I wouldn't lose a wink of sleep.

[HenryJames 66055]

[Brisketexan 105142]

This Atlantic piece -- sweet mother of God, it's awful....and accurate.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/underlying-conditions/610261/?utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_source=facebook&utm_term=2020-04-20T11%3A00%3A55&utm_medium=social&utm_content=edit-promo&fbclid=IwAR1_MwP-fmna4lcRiVxOcrbAWCNXXRxGPT-6aIzzgxSXp5UDjjGZmJvJxvA

Quote

When the virus came here, it found a country with serious underlying conditions, and it exploited them ruthlessly. Chronic ills—a corrupt political class, a sclerotic bureaucracy, a heartless economy, a divided and distracted public—had gone untreated for years. We had learned to live, uncomfortably, with the symptoms. It took the scale and intimacy of a pandemic to expose their severity—to shock Americans with the recognition that we are in the high-risk category.

The crisis demanded a response that was swift, rational, and collective. The United States reacted instead like Pakistan or Belarus—like a country with shoddy infrastructure and a dysfunctional government whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering. The administration squandered two irretrievable months to prepare. From the president came willful blindness, scapegoating, boasts, and lies. From his mouthpieces, conspiracy theories and miracle cures. A few senators and corporate executives acted quickly—not to prevent the coming disaster, but to profit from it. When a government doctor tried to warn the public of the danger, the White House took the mic and politicized the message.

Every morning in the endless month of March, Americans woke up to find themselves citizens of a failed state. With no national plan—no coherent instructions at all—families, schools, and offices were left to decide on their own whether to shut down and take shelter. When test kits, masks, gowns, and ventilators were found to be in desperately short supply, governors pleaded for them from the White House, which stalled, then called on private enterprise, which couldn’t deliver. States and cities were forced into bidding wars that left them prey to price gouging and corporate profiteering. Civilians took out their sewing machines to try to keep ill-equipped hospital workers healthy and their patients alive. Russia, Taiwan, and the United Nations sent humanitarian aid to the world’s richest power—a beggar nation in utter chaos.

.......

Like a wanton boy throwing matches in a parched field, Trump began to immolate what was left of national civic life. He never even pretended to be president of the whole country, but pitted us against one another along lines of race, sex, religion, citizenship, education, region, and—every day of his presidency—political party. His main tool of governance was to lie. A third of the country locked itself in a hall of mirrors that it believed to be reality; a third drove itself mad with the effort to hold on to the idea of knowable truth; and a third gave up even trying.

Trump acquired a federal government crippled by years of right-wing ideological assault, politicization by both parties, and steady defunding. He set about finishing off the job and destroying the professional civil service. He drove out some of the most talented and experienced career officials, left essential positions unfilled, and installed loyalists as commissars over the cowed survivors, with one purpose: to serve his own interests. His major legislative accomplishment, one of the largest tax cuts in history, sent hundreds of billions of dollars to corporations and the rich. The beneficiaries flocked to patronize his resorts and line his reelection pockets. If lying was his means for using power, corruption was his end.

This was the American landscape that lay open to the virus: in prosperous cities, a class of globally connected desk workers dependent on a class of precarious and invisible service workers; in the countryside, decaying communities in revolt against the modern world; on social media, mutual hatred and endless vituperation among different camps; in the economy, even with full employment, a large and growing gap between triumphant capital and beleaguered labor; in Washington, an empty government led by a con man and his intellectually bankrupt party; around the country, a mood of cynical exhaustion, with no vision of a shared identity or future.

How fucked are we?  All the fucked.

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301]

these re-open the state rallies have pushed me over the edge. i'm rooting for the virus.

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

4 hours ago, Dbeasy said:

 

Small world. I have relatives that live in Hastings.

 

 

4 hours ago, kevwun said:

And in another coincidence, armybrat fought at the Battle of Hastings.

Key takeaway from this is that armybrat probably made his own ammo and survived (obviously) but all the other big burly soldiers would have had to flatter the king and beg and cry for arrows or try and get some from the fallen only to see them confiscated by the king's personal protection army.

 

@RomaVicta--only if it gets reported as such. Perhaps other families are also having the cause of death listed as something other than COVID-19.

[Chooky 13307]

"It shouldn't keep those of us from Living our Lives."

[Bama Chick 28596]

“Shoot that virus, Cletus! Shoot it dead!”

[Pig Bellmont 8719]

 

[BrickHorn 18236]

7 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Like a wanton boy throwing matches in a parched field,

[Pig Bellmont 8719]

3 minutes ago, Chooky said:

"It shouldn't keep those of us from Living our Lives."

The sad part is that people like this man still won’t change their minds. They are broken

[AngryDragon 270]

6 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

This Atlantic piece -- sweet mother of God, it's awful....and accurate.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/underlying-conditions/610261/?utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_source=facebook&utm_term=2020-04-20T11%3A00%3A55&utm_medium=social&utm_content=edit-promo&fbclid=IwAR1_MwP-fmna4lcRiVxOcrbAWCNXXRxGPT-6aIzzgxSXp5UDjjGZmJvJxvA

How fucked are we?  All the fucked.

When did you start writing for the Atlantic?

Not quite as nihilistic as you but I'll be a Korean citizen the next time we go through this. 

[Bama Chick 28596]

Dear God

[Gap03 3308]

Just now, AngryDragon said:

When did you start writing for the Atlantic?

Not quite as nihilistic as you but I'll be a Korean citizen the next time we go through this. 

I've been reading good things about New Zealand.  I'm too old to learn a new language + I like the idea of being out of the way when the nuclear dictatorships / idiocracies throw down in the wake of this. 

[Biff Tannen 45687]

1 minute ago, Gap03 said:

I've been reading good things about New Zealand.  I'm too old to learn a new language + I like the idea of being out of the way when the nuclear dictatorships / idiocracies throw down in the wake of this. 

Yeah, unfortunately they are extremely selective about who they let in.

[DixonHur 11305]

7 minutes ago, AngryDragon said:

Not quite as nihilistic as you but I'll be a Korean citizen the next time we go through this. 

North or South?

[BrickHorn 18236]

9 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

these re-open the state rallies have pushed me over the edge. i'm rooting for the virus.

Keep in mind: it’s fake. These aren’t real protests. 

[AngryDragon 270]

Just now, Gap03 said:

I've been reading good things about New Zealand.  I'm too old to learn a new language + I like the idea of being out of the way when the nuclear dictatorships / idiocracies throw down in the wake of this. 

It's a beautiful country from everything I've been told from my friends who've visited(both US and international) and their government seems to care about its people which is always a plus. You can always learn a new language though. Trying to pick up a 3rd and 4th during this down time. 

[gmr548 16580]

Gee, imagine someone with A&M ties running the national coronavirus testing efforts.  What could possibly go wrong.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/brett-giroir-trumps-testing-czar-was-forced-out-of-a-job-developing-vaccine-projects-now-hes-on-the-hot-seat/2020/04/19/b061b968-7e89-11ea-8de7-9fdff6d5d83e_story.html

Brett Giroir, the federal official overseeing coronavirus testing efforts, says that his experience working on vaccine development projects at Texas A&M University helped prepare him for this historic moment. He once said that his vaccine effort was so vital that “the fate of 50 million people will rely on us getting this done.”
But after eight years of work on several vaccine projects, Giroir was told in 2015 he had 30 minutes to resign or he would be fired. His annual performance evaluation at Texas A&M, the local newspaper reported, said he was “more interested in promoting yourself” than the health science center where he worked. He got low marks on being a “team player.”

 

Now President Trump has given Giroir the crucial task of ending the massive shortfall of tests for the novel coronavirus. Some governors have blasted the lack of federal help on testing, which they say is necessary to enact Trump’s plan for reopening the economy.
That criticism has focused attention on Giroir and whether he can deliver results under pressure. His years as director of the Texas vaccine project illustrate his operating style, which includes sweeping statements about the impact of his work, not all of which turned out as some had hoped.
During two recent interviews with The Washington Post, Giroir blamed his ouster on internal politics at the university, not on any problems with the project.

 

“If you’re not familiar with academic politics, it makes politics in Washington look like a minor league scrimmage,” he said. He said he was “heartbroken” to leave the position before his work was done, but he said that the vaccine projects have proved valuable — and might contribute to the development of a coronavirus vaccine.
As for the evaluation, Giroir, 59, said, “I’m a team player. But not to people who act inappropriately, who are misogynistic and who are abusive to other people. I don’t have a loyalty to that. I have a loyalty to my faculty and my students. And that’s what I care about. . . . It’s better to be independent and stand your ethical ground.” Asked to explain his comment, he said, “I’ll just leave it at that.”

 
Spoiler

The combative response is classic Giroir, according to those who have worked with him over the years.
Robin Robinson, who as the director of the federal Biological Advanced Research and Development Authority oversaw a major grant for the Texas vaccine project, said in an interview that Giroir “over-promised and under-delivered.” He said, “I always had a good relationship with Brett. I know he has a temper and he sometimes has a very difficult time controlling it.”
Still, Robinson, like other former associates interviewed for this report, said that he has confidence in Giroir and praised Trump’s decision to pick Giroir for the job informally known as the nation’s virus testing czar.
“He does get things done,” Robinson said. “Sometimes it’s a little different than what one might expect. But I feel confident that he will do the job where he is right now.”
Giroir serves as the assistant secretary for health in the Department of Health and Human Services, making him the top medical and science adviser to HHS Secretary Alex Azar. He oversees the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, which has 6,200 officers and is playing a major role in fighting covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.
On March 13, a week after Trump said falsely that “anybody that wants a test can get a test,” Giroir was given the responsibility of coordinating the federal government’s widely criticized virus testing programs, which initially included a faulty product from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While he is not a formal member of the White House coronavirus task force, he is a regular presence at its meetings and often confers with Trump and Vice President Pence.
Although testing has increased since Giroir took over, some state officials continue to complain that the federal government lacks a coherent plan.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) said on NPR last week that “the truth is that the federal government has really been more of a hindrance than a help in most of the testing issues. . . . We got very little help from the federal government.”
New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) said Wednesday on brother Chris Cuomo’s CNN show that he wasn’t familiar with Giroir. Asked by his brother about the man “in charge of the most important component” of dealing with the virus, the governor responded: “I'll take your word that he exists, but I wouldn't know otherwise.”
A Giroir spokeswoman said he has been on task-force calls to governors. A spokesman for the New York governor did not respond to a request for comment.
As for the complaints from some governors that they still lack testing capabilities, Giroir said in the interview that anyone who “needs a test” can get one.
“That does not mean at this point in time that anyone who wants a test gets a test,” Giroir said. “There may be tens of millions of people who want a test, but they really have no indication [of the virus] for that test.”
Giroir said testing must be increased to ensure that the virus does not resurge. He said the current capability of 3.5 million tests per month needs to increase to 6 million to 8 million for a “gradual reopening” of the economy to occur, and he said such capacity is growing quickly.
Separately, Giroir promised that “tens of millions” of serology tests will be available within a few weeks that enable people to determine whether they have had the virus.
Publicly, Giroir has been in sync with Trump, appearing alongside him at briefings in the admiral’s uniform he is entitled to wear as as head of the U.S. Health Service Commissioned Corps. In private, Giroir said, he has no hesitation about being blunt with the president.
“His scientific advisers, including me, provide him very frank advice every single day,” Giroir said. “Any thought that does not happen, or he does not listen, is blatantly false. . . . It’s one of the most productive working environments at a senior level I’ve been involved in.”
Giroir, born in Louisiana and educated at Harvard University and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, began his career as a pediatrician and became chief medical officer at Children’s Medical Center in Dallas. He grew interested in how to develop new technologies, and in 2004 he joined the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, where he oversaw efforts such as the development of a ventilator that could be carried onto battlefields.
He wanted to find new ways to fight deadly pandemics, whether a virus occurred naturally or as a weapon of war. He concluded that new technology was needed to quickly make massive amounts of vaccines. “I realized the challenges were not just biological but engineering,” Giroir said.
Giroir returned to Texas in 2008 and eventually became vice chancellor at Texas A&M University, vowing to transform the region into one of the world’s hubs for vaccine development. He pushed the idea of creating mobile labs that could produce vaccines where they were most needed, and promoted a facility that would enable a pharmaceutical partner to quickly produce millions of doses of vaccine for a crisis such as an influenza pandemic.
“My job is to facilitate transformational projects that benefit lots of people,” Giroir said at the time. “I would like to be part of something that can save millions of lives worldwide.”
He told the Houston Chronicle in 2010 that “If this works, we'll have a billion-dose-per-month vaccine facility in Texas, which would be by far the largest and most capable center in the world.”
In 2012, Giroir played a major role in obtaining a federal grant that enabled the university to become one of several U.S. centers that would be prepared to quickly produce vaccines in a pandemic. “Once it's implemented, it really will solve the pandemic crisis,” he said at the time.
The university partnered with GlaxoSmithKline, a leading vaccine manufacturer. In a 2013 news release, Giroir said the company’s cell-based vaccine program was “the most promising near term influenza vaccine technology” to improve upon the traditional methodology of using eggs.
When there was fear of an outbreak of Ebola virus cases in Texas, then-Gov. Rick Perry ® in 2014 appointed Giroir as chairman of a task force overseeing an effort to fight the disease.
In mid-2015, a new president, Michael Young, arrived at Texas A&M. Young asked some senior officials at the university to resign, while offering to keep them in their jobs for at least a year, Giroir told The Post. Giroir said he refused to sign the letter.
Giroir was summoned to a meeting at which he said he was told he had 30 minutes to resign or he would be fired. Declaring himself “heartbroken” over having failed to complete his mission, he resigned. Young, who is still university president, declined to comment.
Giroir, in response to questions about his ouster, sent The Post an editorial published at the time in the local newspaper, the Bryan Eagle. The editorial chastised Young for having forced out Giroir, saying Giroir had increased federal research grants to the university’s Health Science Center by 65 percent and was “treated badly” by the school.
Separately, the Eagle reported that the university said in a statement, “It is inaccurate and disingenuous at best to attribute growth in this area solely to Dr. Giroir.” The Eagle, which obtained Giroir’s evaluation, said that while Giroir had a grade of 4 or 5 for his management and related skills, on a scale in which 5 is the highest mark, he had a 2 or 3 in areas of “loyalty/commitment” and “team player.”
The vaccine manufacturing center was completed after Giroir’s departure, but his prediction that it would enable GlaxoSmithKline to produce a groundbreaking vaccine did not pan out. The company said in a statement that the “research underpinning the Texas A&M project did not prove fruitful,” leading federal authorities to halt funding.
The facility was acquired by a U.S. subsidiary of a Japanese company, Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies, which has agreed to respond promptly if there is a federal request to develop a vaccine.
John White, who as chairman of the Board of Regents recruited Giroir to the university, said in an interview, “Brett was the architect of all these wonderful things we had put in place.” Asked to assess Giroir’s impact, he said, “It is just difficult to sum it up because the journey continues. . . . Do I wish everything would have gone faster with more tangible results? Sure, but I’m not disappointed at all where it’s been and where it’s going.”
Giroir defended the projects. He said the Fujifilm facility is available to rapidly produce a vaccine if one is requested by the federal government, just as originally envisioned, and he said his work has laid the foundation for such work, possibly including a vaccine for covid-19.
Of his vaccine work in Texas, he said, “It’s not entirely responsible for where we are by any means. But the work has really led to our ability to get a vaccine up to scale potentially in a year or a year and a half instead of five or seven years.”
Giroir also noted that a separate facility he helped develop, which uses plant-based technology to produce vaccines, is working on a possible product for the coronavirus. “It may work, it may not work,” he said. “But if you want a billion doses in a short time, plant-based is the only way to get it done.”
Giroir, after being ousted from Texas A&M, took a variety of positions, including chairing a commission that reviewed the health-care system at Veterans Affairs. With Trump’s election, Giroir found a new opportunity.
Trump nominated him in 2017 to be assistant secretary for health at HHS. The nomination languished for months as some Democrats questioned Giroir’s commitment to women’s health issues, but he was confirmed.
Trump named Giroir as acting commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration in late 2019, a position he held for two months while a new leader awaited confirmation.
Until now, some of Giroir’s most prominent work in the administration revolved around fetal stem cell tissue research, which some scientists think could be needed to find a treatment for the coronavirus. Some conservatives have urged a ban on the use of fetal tissue.
Giroir said during a 2018 meeting at the National Institutes of Health that an alternative must be as reliable as fetal tissue. But HHS later announced restrictions on the ability of some researchers to get federal funding for fetal tissue research, saying the importance of “promoting the dignity of life from conception to natural death is one of the very top priorities of President Trump’s administration.” The announcement pleased Trump’s political advisers but dismayed scientists. Giroir’s views on the issue appear to put him at odds with White House policy.
“I think it’s very clear that we don’t have models that completely recapitulate what the fetal tissue does,” Giroir told The Post. “And I just mean this honestly, what I advise the president, or what happens, that’s executive privilege. And I think it was widely reported that this was the president’s decision on the way to go. This was a presidential decision. And he’s the president; he gets to make those decisions.”

 

"We didn't botch the response, we just ran out of tests"

[AngryDragon 270]

5 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

North or South?

Only the South will let me in.

[SameSame 1704]

18 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

these re-open the state rallies have pushed me over the edge. i'm rooting for the virus.

What is still so crazy is that the President of the country is not telling people to be careful, use caution and pay attention to local leaders.

Nope.  He's completely encouraging these dipshits.

[yoladu 4094]

50 minutes ago, kevwun said:

Damn, that Biden ad is real good.

which Biden ad? did i miss something?

 

[DixonHur 11305]

1 minute ago, AngryDragon said:

Only the South will let me in.

I moved to Europe at the end of January, so I barely made it over the proverbial wall before the lock-down. 

4 years ago I could never of imagined saying this, but I can't see myself ever moving back.

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

8 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

Keep in mind: it’s fake. These aren’t real protests. 

If you're going to send out a work order for protestors, at least get ones that can spell. (may have to click on the pics)

 

[kevwun 15789]

7 minutes ago, yoladu said:

which Biden ad? did i miss something?

 

This one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=15&v=PmieUrXwKCc&feature=emb_logo

[henrygandorf 29191]

11 minutes ago, SameSame said:

What is still so crazy is that the President of the country is not telling people to be careful, use caution and pay attention to local leaders.

Nope.  He's completely encouraging these dipshits.

to be fair, after all the self-congratulating, he doesn't have that much time left to update the public on responsible behavior.

[cactusflinthead 27598]

 

[pyrohornIII 4814]

1 hour ago, henrygandorf said:

on the topic of "what i'd like to see the press do", i had a thought a few days ago about his constant need to bring up obama, seemingly for no reason.  someone asked him about testing and tracking websites (i think?) and after 3 min of rambling, he brought up the obamacare website that cost $5bb but should've been made for peanuts, or some such.

next time he brings up obama out of nowhere, i would love to see a reporter follow up and act like they somewhat agree with him, "mr president, you mentioned the obamacare website, besides the cost, can you expand on all the problems it had?"

because then you put him in the situation where he can do one of two things.  either (1) he dismisses it entirely because it's completely irrelevant, which of course begs the question - hey dipshit, then why did you bring it up?  or (2) he continues on and spends more minutes shitting himself with excitement that he gets to trash obama on live tv.  which of course he thinks is great, but likely doesn't realize what a terrible look that is, especially considering the timing.

right now, he gets to have his little tangents with no follow-up.  just once, i would like to see someone set him up for this.

I think the questions themselves are the more important things.  What he says doesn't matter that much.  It's just putting things in straight forward terms that will make a good soundbite when it's over.  Short blunt question, his blathering response.  "Did you hear what that reporter asked??"  "Yeah, they are finally calling out his bullshit, and all he has to counter with is more bullshit."  

Like I said we should start a Gofundme page for rewarding the best reporter weekly at exposing his lame ass at these corona rallies.

 

[tchookem 3900]

Yeah, unfortunately they are extremely selective about who they let in.

Most of the Americans they let in are super wealthy people looking to escape apocalypses...

https://apple.news/AXlFKKoLKQc6f4vvwEGrlrQ

[Player 4575]

[Biff Tannen 45687]

5 minutes ago, tchookem said:

Most of the Americans they let in are super wealthy people looking to escape apocalypses...

https://apple.news/AXlFKKoLKQc6f4vvwEGrlrQ

Well looks like I'm in good shape then.  Good luck to the rest of you schmucks!

[yoladu 4094]

36 minutes ago, kevwun said:

This one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=15&v=PmieUrXwKCc&feature=emb_logo

we need to start seeing ads like this on the major networks.

 

[yoladu 4094]

41 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

I moved to Europe at the end of January, so I barely made it over the proverbial wall before the lock-down. 

4 years ago I could never of imagined saying this, but I can't see myself ever moving back.

where in Europe? I am looking to live vicariously... its my coping mechanism.

[TheStoicPaisano 9922]

18 minutes ago, Player said:

 

 

Edited April 20, 2020 by TheStoicPaisano