CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk

[Bookman 4639]

Fucking morons

9 hours ago, Aqua Buddha said:

Two people are dead and four of their coworkers were hospitalized after a Covid-19outbreak swept through a government building in Manatee County, Florida.

The outbreak began in the IT department, according to Manatee County Administrator Scott Hopes, who is also an epidemiologist. Another person who worked on the same floor but in a different department also tested positive for coronavirus last week.

 

Of the six people infected, five were hospitalized. One employee who was in the hospital died and another employee who was not hospitalized also died, Hopes told CNN's Erin Burnett.

The only exposed employee in the IT office who was vaccinated did not get infected, Hopes said.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/22/us/florida-manatee-county-coronavirus-outbreak/index.html

Morons.

[WhatTheBuck 28783]

12 hours ago, lmao said:

I demonstrated it and you ran away.

No you didn’t. Go reread the Politico article you posted a link to and quote any conclusive statement it made. Here, let me make it easy for you:

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/26/facebook-ban-covid-man-made-491053

Edited June 23, 2021 by WhatTheBuck

[WhatTheBuck 28783]

I should add, this is what lmao thinks is conclusive proof that the virus came out of a Wuhan lab. Some of the people who believe that now were bitching about bats and wet markets before. I have no problem admitting that I don’t know. And I’m not sure we’ll ever know. And if we know, how does that change anything? What are we going to do about it?

We’ve been building a military to fight the Russians and the Chinese since before I was born. Is it time to put it to use? I’m ready to take the risk. Are you?

Anything we say about how China should behave is meaningless. We can talk all we want. As if they give a fuck. They’re a huge market and we’re thirsty for their money and cheap labor and nothing is going to change any of that. Unless we want to get serious and put millions of lives on the line. 

[TwiceHorn 31480]

On 6/19/2021 at 11:00 AM, 4th&Five said:

Just another dumb blonde from SMU. 

You can take the boy out of Little Elm, but you can't take the Little Elm out of the boy.  

For reference, Little Elm is rural-ish Denton County on the north side of Lake Lewisville.  It's prime Trump Country.

[horn4life 3760]

Well here is a nice snapshot of what is coming to our heavily red voting areas.  You know the areas I am talking about, where many people voted for Donald Trump, thought masks were for pussies, and they personally do not need a vaccine dose.

Manatee County in Florida gives us a nice snapshot of where this level of endless stupidity will land you.  I am not the biggest Huffington Post fan (don't worry dotards you can attack the messenger, media, or whatever helps keep your delusions intact) but these numbers seem significant. Only person not killed or hospitalized in county office was vaccinated   Manatee Country voted 57% for Trump in 2020.  

Quote

Two people are dead after a recent COVID-19 outbreak in the IT department of a county government building in Manatee County, Florida ― leaving only one person, who was vaccinated, unscathed.

Of the six known exposures that occurred around the same time, at least four people have reportedly been hospitalized and two have died. One of those people died last week in the hospital, while the other one died at home, Dr. Scott Hopes, a county administrator and epidemiologist, told CNN’s Erin Burnett.

“That’s a 40% case fatality rate,” Hopes told Bay News 9. “That’s a high fatality rate.”

In all, five of the six people got sick ― and none of them were vaccinated, according to Hopes. “This particular outbreak demonstrates the effectiveness, I believe, with the vaccine,” he said. “All of the cases were non-vaccinated. They were unvaccinated.”

Three additional county workers tested positive for the virus over the weekend, after the county closed the building Friday afternoon for an emergency deep cleaning. According to Fox 13 News, none of them were vaccinated either.

About 700 people work in the nine-story building each day.

And Don't worry Republicans, the guy that died at home will not be counted as a Covid death by DeSantis' Health department. So you can get excited about that!

Edited June 23, 2021 by horn4life

[Neonmoon 38129]

Curious about liability

Let’s assume the family of dead man sue. if I was the judge I would dress up in a gritty costume and dismiss the case. But let’s also assume the judge isn’t an asshole like me. Would the company be liable for not enforcing vaccinations? Or can they be covered by a some kind of signed waiver saying you accept the risks if you’re not vaccinated?

[TwiceHorn 31480]

7 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

I should add, this is what lmao thinks is conclusive proof that the virus came out of a Wuhan lab. Some of the people who believe that now were bitching about bats and wet markets before. I have no problem admitting that I don’t know. And I’m not sure we’ll ever know. And if we know, how does that change anything? What are we going to do about it?

We’ve been building a military to fight the Russians and the Chinese since before I was born. Is it time to put it to use? I’m ready to take the risk. Are you?

Anything we say about how China should behave is meaningless. We can talk all we want. As if they give a fuck. They’re a huge market and we’re thirsty for their money and cheap labor and nothing is going to change any of that. Unless we want to get serious and put millions of lives on the line. 

There's a big thread here dealing with recent theories about the origin of the virus.

You are correct that it's not proven either way.  Probably never will be.

I think there are some legitimate questions raised that should be investigated.  Like where is "gain of function" research occurring if it is?  Should it be shut down?  Did US government money fund any such research and should it?  Do we have adequate knowledge and control of "sub-agencies" like EcoHealth Alliance that distribute NIH money?

But, as is consistent with the timeline, the main origin of the recent "controversy" is an attempt to prove tRuMp was right and FaUcI was wrong.  Which is stupid.

[Anastasis 23471]

46 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

But, as is consistent with the timeline, the main origin of the recent "controversy" is an attempt to prove tRuMp was right and FaUcI was wrong.  Which is stupid.

I don't think that this is an accurate representation of the events on the time line.  If anything Trump's bumbling reflexively suppressed broad and careful consideration of the evidence.  and Fauci was part of that reflexive response at the time, yes. But the re-emergence of the discussion in broader circles at this time is the result of actions by a number of different scientists that have stepped forward, and either modified their prior hastily taken positions or newly piped in to tell people to slow their roll with the blanket dismissiveness.  Then the major media outlets started to ramp it up, and here we are.  I don't think that any of those individuals are driven by a desire to prove Trump right and Fauci wrong.  

[HenryJames 66058]

 

[WhatTheBuck 28783]

2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

There's a big thread here dealing with recent theories about the origin of the virus.

You are correct that it's not proven either way.  Probably never will be.

I think there are some legitimate questions raised that should be investigated.  Like where is "gain of function" research occurring if it is?  Should it be shut down?  Did US government money fund any such research and should it?  Do we have adequate knowledge and control of "sub-agencies" like EcoHealth Alliance that distribute NIH money?

But, as is consistent with the timeline, the main origin of the recent "controversy" is an attempt to prove tRuMp was right and FaUcI was wrong.  Which is stupid.

There’s also a thread on UFO’s with people who think “unidentified” means “alien.” As much as I’d like that to be true (unless they’re here to eat us), I can’t reach that conclusion. And the probability of them being extra-terrestrial is so low as to make it virtually impossible.

One thing I feel pretty confident about when it comes to the virus is that it’s highly unlikely that it was engineered as a bio-weapon because that just wouldn’t make any sense. It killed too many Chinese people. There’s no reason to create a bio-weapon that is as dangerous to you as anyone else. The worst comic book villain wouldn’t do that. 

[C-Man 27230]

On 6/18/2021 at 9:12 PM, lmao said:

Not sure why you're mad but I'm talking about people 18 & under. The flu ravaged my district when I was a freshman in hs. It seems crazy looking back they didn't really implement any flu prevention or push for the flu vaccinr. I'm arguing that they're should have been a push to get young people vaccinated, similar to what they're doing with covid. 

How many died?

 

On 6/21/2021 at 9:47 AM, Continental Op said:

Foo Fighters is lame dad rock.  

[babysdaddy 2724]

1 hour ago, HenryJames said:

 

well this is fucking stupid

[Brisketexan 105144]

3 minutes ago, babysdaddy said:

well this is fucking stupid

"do your research" may be the most glaring "I'm a complete dumbass" flag in modern history.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13512]

As horrible as the Tuskegee Study (crime) was, the analogy is completely off.  A hypothetical analogy would be the govt refusing or withholding COVID vaccines or treatment from a community and studying the results. It is fair for the African-American community to be wary of govt health programs but spreading misinformation is dangerous.

[lmao 178]

2 hours ago, C-Man said:

How many died?

 

Under 18 flu deaths are in the thousands each year. Seems like that would be enough to push the vaccine to that demo.

[jimmyjazz 45958]

1 hour ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

As horrible as the Tuskegee Study (crime) was, the analogy is completely off.  A hypothetical analogy would be the govt refusing or withholding COVID vaccines or treatment from a community and studying the results. It is fair for the African-American community to be wary of govt health programs but spreading misinformation is dangerous.

I wonder, should we hold Tim Crowder to a higher or lower standard than Cole Beasley?

(That's not a real question.)

[HenryJames 66058]

 

[Neonmoon 38129]

My favorite part is when they SS had to fly to Colorado during the height of the pandemic so Pence could go skiing. 

[C-Man 27230]

1 hour ago, lmao said:

Under 18 flu deaths are in the thousands each year. Seems like that would be enough to push the vaccine to that demo.

As somebody else pointed out to you, the flu vaccine isn't as effective as the COVID-19 vaccine. We are also up over 600,000 deaths due to COVID (that we know of) in slightly more than a year. The worst flu season kills 80,000 tops.

[Willfully Horn 8017]

Folks have had over a year to figure out why the rona is a greater threat than the flu. It isn’t difficult. They ain’t gonna learn what they don’t want to know.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

 

[PenelopeWitherspoon 19101]

17 hours ago, lmao said:

Under 18 flu deaths are in the thousands each year. Seems like that would be enough to push the vaccine to that demo.

You sure about that?

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html

Seems to me, in only one year were the deaths under 18 greater than 1,000, and that was in 2012-2013 and the number was 1,161.  That was out of 43k deaths from the flu from 34M symptomatic cases.  

Maybe check your facts before making baseless arguments.

[Bookman 4639]

How many kids would have died of Covid if we hadn't closed schools?

[Guest Lobo]

Probably several hundred, maybe a few thousand.  But the community spread back to parents/grandparents in the home...would have been measured in the high five figures, possibly higher.  Also, it would have killed tens of thousands of teachers and staff.  Based on that crap coming from many parents in my district, apparently our schools are staffed entirely with 25 year old cross-fitters.  In reality, you could call our district, "Comorbidity Independent School District."  70% of the staff was either over 55, obese, or both.  

[cactusflinthead 27598]

18 hours ago, lmao said:

Under 18 flu deaths are in the thousands each year. Seems like that would be enough to push the vaccine to that demo.

Fuck off. Stop making shit up.

[Anastasis 23471]

38 minutes ago, Bookman said:

How many kids would have died of Covid if we hadn't closed schools?

Are you referring to March - May 2020?  Cause we didn't close schools here outside that timeframe. 

[Neonmoon 38129]

Life comes at you fast .
 

Also, what an asshole. Earlier in article she says she’s not against vaccines, but feels this was one rushed. The it says she applied for a religious exemption. 

Quote

On Tuesday, a hospital spokesperson said 153 employees either resigned during a two-week suspension period that began June 8 or were terminated this week.

Blank said she is not against vaccines, but she said she feels uncomfortable with a vaccine that she thinks went through a rushed process.

 

When asked if she'll get more comfortable with taking the shot as more people get vaccinated, Blank said that will likely deter her even more, saying she's hearing about more negative side effects as time goes on. However, according to experts, the likelihood of severe side effects are extremely rare, and are outweighed by the risk of a Covid-19 infection. 
 

"I'm relieved," she said, reflecting on her decision. "I don't want to work for people like that. Don't take away my choice. You're not going to turn away a patient and give them care if they don't have a vaccine. Don't take away my choice." 
 

She says she applied for a religious exemption but was denied.

 

 

Judge rules in favor of a Houston hospital requiring employees to be vaccinated against Covid-19

Blank said she has not received her termination papers but is locked out of the employee intranet. She told CNN she still wants to work in the medical field, but for a company that doesn't require people to get the vaccine. 
 

Employees who complied with the mandatory vaccination policy during the suspension period returned to work the day after they became compliant, hospital spokesperson Gale Smith told CNN in an email Tuesday night.

 

Houston Methodist said it did not have information on how many employees resigned and how many were fired.

Houston Methodist CEO Marc Boom said earlier this month that 24,947 employees were fully vaccinated and that the hospital had reached almost full compliance with the mandate, with fewer than 200 suspended for not yet complying. 
 

The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in December said companies can legally mandate that all employees re-entering the workplace and new hires be vaccinated for Covid-19. The only exceptions allowed are for disabilities and religious reasons.

 

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

RIGHT TO WORK

Isn't that a choice too?

 

[jimmyjazz 45958]

48 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Are you referring to March - May 2020?  Cause we didn't close schools here outside that timeframe. 

True, but a significant percentage of kids attended online this school year.

[Anastasis 23471]

4 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

True, but a significant percentage of kids attended online this school year.

Absolutely.  Would be interesting to see percent of kids in person by school district across the state. Out here, after first block in the fall, virtual seemed like the exception rather than the norm. 

Edited June 24, 2021 by Anastasis

[jimmyjazz 45958]

5 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Absolutely.  Would be interesting to see percent of kids in person by school district across the state. Out here, after first block in the fall, virtual seemed like the exception rather than the norm. 

I can't recall your district, but this story seems to indicate that AISD in-person attendance was below 44% for the vast majority of the year.  An October "snapshot" put that number at 23.6%.

AISD in-person attendance

 

[The Dog 44054]

Anyone got a WaPo sub who can post some of this?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/06/24/nightmare-scenario-book-excerpt/

Most people suspected that Trump's COVID was a lot more severe than the White House was reporting - turns out they were right.

[jimmyjazz 45958]

8 minutes ago, The Dog said:

Anyone got a WaPo sub who can post some of this?

Sorry for poor readability:

Quote

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar’s phone rang with an urgent request: Could he help someone at the White House obtain an experimental coronavirus treatment, known as a monoclonal antibody?

If Azar could get the drug, what would the White House need to do to make that happen? Azar thought for a moment. It was Oct. 1, 2020, and the drug was still in clinical trials. The Food and Drug Administration would have to make a “compassionate use” exception for its use since it was not yet available to the public. Only about 10 people so far had used it outside of those trials. Azar said of course he would help.

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Azar wasn’t told who the drug was for but would later connect the dots. The patient was one of President Donald Trump’s closest advisers: Hope Hicks.

A short time later, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn received a request from a top White House official for a separate case, this time with even greater urgency: Could he get the FDA to sign off on a compassionate-use authorization for a monoclonal antibody right away? There is a standard process that doctors use to apply to the FDA for unapproved drugs on behalf of patients dealing with life-threatening illnesses who have exhausted all other options, and agency scientists review it. The difference was that most people don’t call the commissioner directly.

The White House wanted Hahn to say yes within hours. Hahn, who still did not know who the application was for, consulted career officials. The FDA needs to go by the book, the officials insisted. Hahn relayed the message back to the White House. They kept pressing him to effectively cut corners. No, we can’t do that, Hahn told them several times. We’re talking about someone’s life. We have to actually examine the application to make sure we’re doing it safely.

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When Hahn later learned the effort was on behalf of the president, he was stunned. For God’s sake, he thought, it’s the president who’s sick, and you want us to bend the rules? Trump was in the highest-risk category for severe disease from covid-19 — at 74, he rarely exercised and was considered medically obese. He was the type of patient with whom you would want to take every possible precaution. As it did with all compassionate-use applications, the FDA made a decision within 24 hours. Agency officials scrambled to figure out which company’s monoclonal antibody would be most appropriate given the clinical information they had, and selected the one from Regeneron, known simply as Regen-Cov.

A five-day stretch in October 2020 — from the moment White House officials began an extraordinary effort to get Trump lifesaving drugs to the day the president returned to the White House from the hospital — marked a dramatic turning point in the nation’s flailing coronavirus response. Trump’s brush with severe illness and the prospect of death caught the White House so unprepared that they had not even briefed Vice President Mike Pence’s team on a plan to swear him in if Trump became incapacitated.

For months, the president had taunted and dodged the virus, flouting safety protocols by holding big rallies and packing the White House with maskless guests. But just one month before the election, the virus that had already killed more than 200,000 Americans had sickened the most powerful person on the planet.

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Trump’s medical advisers hoped his bout with the coronavirus, which was far more serious than acknowledged at the time, would inspire him to take the virus seriously. Perhaps now, they thought, he would encourage Americans to wear masks and put his health and medical officials front and center in the response. Instead, Trump emerged from the experience triumphant and ever more defiant. He urged people not to be afraid of the virus or let it dominate their lives, disregarding that he had had access to health care and treatments unavailable to other Americans.

It was, several advisers said, the last chance to turn the response around. And once the opportunity passed, it was the point of no return.

An ill president
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President Trump and then-Supreme Court Justice nominee Amy Coney Barrett greeted scores of mostly maskless guests Sept. 26 in a White House gathering called "a superspreader event" by infectious-disease expert Anthony Fauci because so many became infected. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
The week leading up to Trump’s infection was frenzied, even by his standards. On Saturday, Sept. 26, he had hosted a party with scores of maskless attendees to announce Amy Coney Barrett as his pick for Supreme Court justice. The celebrations had continued indoors, where most people remained maskless. By that time, the virus was surging again, but Trump’s contempt for face coverings had turned into unofficial White House policy. He actually asked aides who wore them in his presence to take them off. If someone was going to do a news conference with him, he made clear that he or she was not to wear a mask by his side.

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The day after the Supreme Court celebration, Trump had also hosted military families at the White House. At Trump’s insistence, few were wearing masks, but they were packed in a little too tight for his comfort. He wasn’t worried about others getting sick, but he did fret about his own vulnerability and complained to his staff afterward. Why were they letting people get so close to him? Meeting with the Gold Star families was sad and moving, he said, but added, “If these guys had covid, I’m going to get it because they were all over me.” He told his staff that they needed to do a better job of protecting him.

Two days after that, he flew to Cleveland for the first presidential debate against his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden. Trump was erratic that whole evening, and he seemed to deteriorate as the night went on. The pundits’ verdicts were brutal.

Almost 48 hours later, Trump became terribly ill. Hours after his tweet announcing he and first lady Melania Trump had coronavirus infections, the president began a rapid spiral downward. His fever spiked, and his blood oxygen level fell below 94 percent, at one point dipping into the 80s. Sean Conley, the White House physician, attended the president at his bedside. Trump was given oxygen in an effort to stabilize him.

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The doctors gave Trump an eight-gram dose of two monoclonal antibodies through an intravenous tube. That experimental treatment was what had required the FDA’s sign-off. He was also given a first dose of the antiviral drug remdesivir, also by IV. That drug was authorized for use but still hard to get for many patients because it was in short supply.

Typically, doctors space out treatments to measure a patient’s response. Some drugs, such as monoclonal antibodies, are most effective if they’re administered early in the course of an infection. Others, such as remdesivir, are most effective when they’re given later, after a patient has become critically ill. But Trump’s doctors threw everything they could at the virus all at once. His condition appeared to stabilize somewhat as the day wore on, but his doctors, still fearing he might need to go on a ventilator, decided to move him to the hospital. It was too risky at that point to stay at the White House.

Many White House officials and even his closest aides were kept in the dark about his condition. But after they woke up to the news — many of them were asleep when Trump tweeted at nearly 1 a.m. on Friday that he had the virus — Cabinet officials and aides lined up at the White House to get tested. A large number had met with him the previous week to brief him about various issues or had traveled with him to the debate.

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It was unclear even to Trump’s closest aides just how sick he was. Was he mildly ill, as he and Conley were saying, or was he sicker than they all knew? Trump was supposed to join a call with nursing home representatives later that day as part of his official calendar. Officials had been scheduled to do it in person from the White House, but that morning they were informed the call would be done remotely. Trump’s aides insisted that he would still be on it.

As one aide waited in line for a coronavirus test, she saw Conley sprint out of his office with a panicked look. That’s strange, the aide thought. An hour or two later, officials were informed that Pence would be joining the nursing homes call. Trump couldn’t make it.

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Aides say President Trump was much sicker than they acknowledged when he was transported to Walter Reed Military Medical Center on Oct. 2, 2020 (Amanda Voisard/for The Washington Post). (Amanda Voisard/for The Washington Post)
‘Like a miracle’
Trump’s condition worsened early Saturday. His blood oxygen level dropped to 93 percent, and he was given the powerful steroid dexamethasone, which is usually administered if someone is extremely ill (the normal blood oxygen level is between 95 and 100 percent). The drug was believed to improve survival in coronavirus patients receiving supplemental oxygen. The president was on a dizzying array of emergency medicines by now — all at once.

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Throughout Trump’s time in the hospital, his doctors consulted with the medical experts on the White House coronavirus task force whom the president had long ago discarded. They talked to Hahn, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony S. Fauci and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield, seeking input about his treatment.

Trump and his aides had ignored numerous warnings from the task force doctors that they were putting themselves and everyone in the West Wing at risk by their cavalier behavior. Over the past eight months, Trump had come dangerously close to the virus a number of times. Those repeated escapes had made the White House more careless, constantly tempting fate. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator, and Redfield wrote to top aides after every White House outbreak, warning them that 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was not safe. Birx took her concerns to Pence directly. This is dangerous, she told him. If White House staff can’t or won’t wear masks, they need to be more than 10 feet away from one another. This is just too risky.

Their warnings had gone unheeded, and now some would pay a price. Trump hadn’t wanted to go to the hospital, but his aides had spelled out the choice: He could go to the hospital Friday, while he could still walk on his own, or he could wait until later, when the cameras could capture him in a wheelchair or gurney. There would be no hiding his condition then.

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At least two of those who were briefed on Trump’s medical condition that weekend said he was gravely ill and feared that he wouldn’t make it out of Walter Reed. People close to Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, said he was consumed with fear that Trump might die.

It was unclear if one of the medications, or their combination, helped, but by Saturday afternoon Trump’s condition began improving. One of the people familiar with Trump’s medical information was convinced the monoclonal antibodies were responsible for the president’s quick recovery.

Throughout the day Saturday, Oct. 3, the restless Trump made a series of phone calls to gauge how his hospitalization was being received by the public. In all likelihood, the steroid he was taking had given him a burst of energy, though no one knew how long it would last. Perhaps buoyed by that, Trump continued to post on Twitter from the hospital, anxious to convey that he was upright and busy. At one point Trump even called Fauci to discuss his condition and share his personal assessment of the monoclonal antibodies he had received. He said it was miraculous how quickly they made him feel much better.

“This is like a miracle,” Trump told his campaign adviser Jason Miller in another one of his calls from the hospital. “I’m not going to lie. I wasn’t feeling that great.”

Image without a caption
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows (left), who colleagues say was consumed with fear the president might die, talks with Sean Conley, the president's physician, at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Waiting for a sign
Redfield spent the weekend Trump was sick praying. He prayed the president would recover. He prayed that he would emerge from the experience with a newfound appreciation for the seriousness of the threat. And he prayed that Trump would tell Americans they should listen to public health advisers before it was too late. The virus had begun a violent resurgence. Redfield, Fauci, Birx and others felt they had limited time to persuade people to behave differently if they were going to avoid a massive wave of death.

There were few signs that weekend that Trump would have a change of heart. It had already been a battle to get him to agree to go to Walter Reed in the first place. Now, he was badgering Conley and others to let him go home early. Redfield heard Trump was insisting on being discharged and called Conley on the phone. The president can’t go home this early, Redfield advised the doctor. He was a high-risk patient, and there were no guarantees that he wouldn’t backslide or experience some complication. (Many covid-19 patients seemed to be on an upswing and then quickly deteriorated.) Trump needed to stay in the hospital until that risk had passed. Conley agreed but said the president had made up his mind and couldn’t be convinced otherwise.

If they couldn’t keep him in the hospital, the advisers hoped that Trump would at least emerge from Walter Reed a changed man. Some even began mentally preparing to finally speak their minds. It would surely be the inflection point, they all thought. There’s nothing like a near-death experience to serve as a wake-up call. It was, at the end of the day, a national security failure. The president had not been protected. If this fiasco wasn’t the turning point, what would be?

Just as the country had been watching a few days before, many people tuned in again as Trump took Marine One back to the White House’s South Lawn on Monday night. They saw him step out in a navy suit, white shirt and blue-striped tie, with a medical mask on his face. He walked along the grass before climbing the steps to the Truman Balcony.

But Trump didn’t go inside. It was a moment of political theater too good to pass up — as suffused with triumph as his trip Friday had been humbling. He turned from the center of the balcony and looked back toward Marine One and the television cameras. It was clear that he was breathing heavily from the long walk and the climb up the flight of stairs.

Redfield was watching on television from home. He was praying as Trump went up the steps. Praying that he would reach the Truman Balcony and show some humility. That he would remind people that anyone could be susceptible to the coronavirus — even the president, the first lady and their son. That he would tell them how they could protect themselves and their loved ones.

But Trump didn’t waver. Facing the cameras from the balcony, he used his right hand to unhook the mask loop from his right ear, then raised his left hand to pull the mask off his face. He was heavily made up, his face more orange tinted than in the photos from the hospital. The helicopter’s rotors were still spinning. He put the mask into his right pocket, as if he was discarding it once and for all, then raised both hands in a thumbs-up. He was still probably contagious, standing there for all the world to see. He made a military salute as the helicopter departed the South Lawn, and then strode into the White House, passing staffers on his way and failing to protect them from the virus particles emitted from his nose and mouth.

Right then, Redfield knew it was over. Trump showed in that moment that he hadn’t changed at all. The pandemic response wasn’t going to change, either.

 

[Js1 85341]

13 minutes ago, The Dog said:

Anyone got a WaPo sub who can post some of this?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/06/24/nightmare-scenario-book-excerpt/

Most people suspected that Trump's COVID was a lot more severe than the White House was reporting - turns out they were right.

Yeah have you seen that fat fuck now?  COVID hit him fucking hard.  He looks bad. 

[lmao 178]

3 hours ago, cactusflinthead said:

Fuck off. Stop making shit up.

?? CDC keeps track of these things. Do you think flu deaths are a hoax I'm confused.

 

 

Edited June 24, 2021 by lmao

[jimmyjazz 45958]

Here's a fun fact:  65% of American deaths from covid happened after Trump fell ill.  A little humility and an admission that it is a very dangerous disease which must be taken seriously would likely have had a great effect on the American public.  But, Trump.

Edited June 24, 2021 by jimmyjazz

[lmao 178]

20 hours ago, C-Man said:

As somebody else pointed out to you, the flu vaccine isn't as effective as the COVID-19 vaccine. We are also up over 600,000 deaths due to COVID (that we know of) in slightly more than a year. The worst flu season kills 80,000 tops.

Jesus Christ I'm saying the flu vaccine and prevention should be pushed a litter harder & they shouldn't just let it run through. 80k+ is a lot. I give up.

[jimmyjazz 45958]

1 minute ago, jimmyjazz said:

dp

 

Edited June 24, 2021 by jimmyjazz

[Aqua Buddha 14597]

Reading that story about Trump’s covid treatment, I couldn’t find anything about Hydroxy chlorine.  That’s odd.  Must have left that part out……

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

30 minutes ago, lmao said:

Jesus Christ I'm saying the flu vaccine and prevention should be pushed a litter harder & they shouldn't just let it run through. 80k+ is a lot. I give up.

I understood it. Sometimes folks read too fast. I agree that the flu vaccine could be better utilized as well. Our family receives one every season.

[C-Man 27230]

30 minutes ago, lmao said:

Jesus Christ I'm saying the flu vaccine and prevention should be pushed a litter harder & they shouldn't just let it run through. 80k+ is a lot. I give up.

80,000 also doesn't happen but once every 40-50 years. I'm with you, though. I get a flu shot nearly every year. (I didn't this past year.) But they're not nearly as effective if they guess wrong on the formula. Believe me if flu killed 600,000 Americans even once every couple of decades, there'd be just as much pressure to get the flu shot as the COVID-19 vaccine. The world was basically crippled by COVID-19 for more than a year and a viable vaccine is one of the major tools in getting the world back to normal.

[C-Man 27230]

1 hour ago, jimmyjazz said:

Sorry for poor readability:

 

From the WaPo:

At Trump’s insistence, few were wearing masks, but they were packed in a little too tight for his comfort. He wasn’t worried about others getting sick, but he did fret about his own vulnerability and complained to his staff afterward. Why were they letting people get so close to him? Meeting with the Gold Star families was sad and moving, he said, but added, “If these guys had covid, I’m going to get it because they were all over me.” He told his staff that they needed to do a better job of protecting him.

 

A true POS. I wish COVID would've done us all a favor and taken his fat ass out.

 

27 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

Reading that story about Trump’s covid treatment, I couldn’t find anything about Hydroxy chlorine.  That’s odd.  Must have left that part out……

My PCP is a bit on the Trumpy side -- and a little bizarre to boot -- but he's been pushing hydroxy since last summer as a preventative. I know he personally takes it, probably still is, and also prescribed it to my former in-laws who were patients of his until recently. They still got COVID, though, and received the "Trump drug cocktail" in Palm Springs.

[PenelopeWitherspoon 19101]

1 hour ago, lmao said:

Jesus Christ I'm saying the flu vaccine and prevention should be pushed a litter harder & they shouldn't just let it run through. 80k+ is a lot. I give up.

Holy shit, you are fucking obtuse.

[Longhorn_Fan68 33871]

33 minutes ago, PenelopeWitherspoon said:

Holy shit, you are fucking obtuse.

and you're acute.... 

[Bookman 4639]

4 hours ago, Anastasis said:

Are you referring to March - May 2020?  Cause we didn't close schools here outside that timeframe. 

I’m referring to schools closing due to the pandemic. It was all over the news.

[horn4life 3760]

I have been saying for about 15 years we are going to have something scrape off a good percentage of the population.  Maybe those choosing not to get vaccinated are doing nothing more than affirming Darwin's theory of Natural Selection. Although in Darwin's theory the "natural" part of the selection process was to exclude human decision making.  In this case human decision making is creating the opportunity for the virus to "naturally select."

I hate for folks to lose their lives, or be debilitated forever.  But damn, there is a free shot that removed you nearly completely from both those categories.  It's crazy.

99 Percent of covid deaths in May, were unvaccinated

Edited June 24, 2021 by horn4life

[bolverk 29681]

1 hour ago, horn4life said:

I have been saying for about 15 years we are going to have something scrape off a good percentage of the population.  Maybe those choosing not to get vaccinated are doing nothing more than affirming Darwin's theory of Natural Selection. Although in Darwin's theory the "natural" part of the selection process was to exclude human decision making.  In this case human decision making is creating the opportunity for the virus to "naturally select."

I hate for folks to lose their lives, or be debilitated forever.  But damn, there is a free shot that removed you nearly completely from both those categories.  It's crazy.

99 Percent of covid deaths in May, were unvaccinated

 

[4th&Five 41554]

That may just be the quickest way to turn this state blue. 

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

Plus this (SIAP):

 

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20400]

You can't fix stupid: 


"The daughter of an unvaccinated county employee in Florida who died after COVID-19 swept through the government office building where she worked says she and her family are steadfast in refusing their shots, even though their mother’s inoculated coworkers did not get sick at all.

“No one in my family will be getting the vaccine,” Molly Hart told The Daily Beast.

Hart’s mom, 58-year-old Mary Knight, passed away last week from complications related to COVID-19, Manatee County authorities announced. An IT customer service supervisor, Knight had worked for the county on and off for 15 years. A second unvaccinated member of the IT department, 53-year-old systems analyst Alphonso Cox, also died last week after coming down with COVID-19. Three others in the office who were unvaccinated and contracted the virus were ill enough to be hospitalized, but survived.

 

None of their vaccinated coworkers were affected at all, County Administrator Dr. Scott Hopes said in a statement.