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Sorry Fake News, it’s all on tape. I banned China long before people spoke up. Thank you @OANN https://t.co/d40JQkUZg5— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 12, 2020
April 13, 2020
"Trump retweets #firefauci tweet, raising speculation of a frayed relationship..."
Fox News reports.
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Coronavirus task force another example of Trump administration's lack of diversity | Analysis https://cnn.it/2GCpbED
11:28 AM - 30 Jan 2020
@ nob490 9:34 AM
Exactly.
Mr. Farmer : all you did was elaborate on your knit-picking criticism. At least you owned up to it. But it is still a knit-picking criticism. Pretty meaningless commentary as far as I am concerned.
But carry on my good fellow. The day is still young and I am going to work.
Pointing out that other people got other things wrong isn't a defense of Trump.
This is true, but it highlights the fact that everyone screws up stuff.
The White House's coronavirus task force made the recommendation to close the border with China, and Trump agreed to it. There was already debate within the administration about the potential such a move would have on its negotiations with Beijing. Anyone publicly opposing the move was foolish. The task force was also pushing for travel restrictions from Italy and other EU nations, but others, led by Mnuchin, were concerned with the economic impact such a move would have. The decision was made not to restrict travel from Europe, a decision that was reversed a month later.
So long as we're going to deride "experts" for getting things wrong, then surely we should deride Trump for saying on February 26th, "And again, when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done." That was the same day the CDC was saying that community spread was a matter of if and not when.
4/13/20, 8:46 AM
But Donald Trump, whatever his other virtues, is not a medical expert. Medical experts at the WHO made many public pronouncements not only minimizing the disease, but in January insisted that it was not made through human to human transmission (?!?!). If the President wanted to arrest the WHO's leadership globally for gross, gross negligence, he'd have a strong case. He'd have to include the Surgeon General for saying masks don't work, but hey. The point is, even someone without exceptional medical knowledge correctly suspected China was acting in bad faith, and responded accordingly. That decision was controversial enough to spark the entire Democratic Party and the media, BIRM, to act against it. Shutting down the economy or locking down all European travel in February would have been attacked even more viciously, to the point routine lockdown violations would be common. Idiots were on spring break despite the actual national emergency, for God's sake!
https://globalnews.ca/news/6597717/coronavirus-covid-19-how-to-prepare-travel/
The fact there were major Western media outlets who offered any travel advice besides "don't, you goddamned retards" is certainly a sign that their own prescience is vastly overblown- usually by themselves. You can certainly try to scream about Republican reactions, but given that a near majority of American coronavirus cases/ deaths are in New York and New Jersey, the President couldn't be blamed for simply walling them both off and ordering all New Yorkers in the country quarantined for four weeks (no matter where they are). Do you like that idea? I certainly do.
And if atheists have the typical "you people are going to hell" reaction they normally offer to Christians during a crisis, that only speaks to their own frailty. As Christians, we know that Jesus died FOR our sins, and we commemorate his rejection of Satan and triumph over death. We did so yesterday, in point of fact. By contrast, our millennia-old scholarship confirms that those who reject God will be burning in hell, and you will be screaming "JESUS IS LORD!" for eternity nonetheless. I'm looking forward to it, and while I would be quite ready to offer support for commuting that eternal sentence, it's entirely superfluous in the face of the eternal and perfect mercy that Jesus Christ offers.
@Michael K:
Farmer is angry that Trump doesn't agree with him that America is doomed and we should give up.
Actually, I made specific criticisms about specific actions. As usual, you attacked a strawman that had nothing to do with anything I said.
For some reason, Michael, you seem interested in identifying my emotional state and my hidden motivations. How Freudian of you. I guess I should be flattered that you take such an interest in the inner workings of my brain.
"A curious scientist would have a nagging feeling in his tummy, that two different "things" are happening in California and New York”
A week ago the CDC began antibody testing, both nationwide, and with a special focus on California to understand what is going on there. I linked to the story then.
I think that the main outbreak came through NYC from Italy. But that’s just the opinion of a web rando, but it would explain it and why there is something going on in LA.
ONE person from the CDC said that, Rod Rosentstein's sister, and she turned out to be more right at that time than Fauci and Birx, who were advising Trump. BUT as I said, Trump never took action to oppose the recommendation of the task Force, set up in early FEB. He did speak hopefully about controlling the spread, but his actions were consistently oriented toward addressing the problem. Since you bring her up, did Nancy Messoinier come out and praise Trump and publicly call for more stringent actions when he shut the border with China? Did she do anything beyond that February 24th statement from the CDC? What was her boss at the CDC saying?
I appreciate you locating the ONE VOICE in the wilderness crying BEFORE Trump took action. But then what? Did she encourage MORE action when Trump shut down the border? Why didn't the Media make her the star and put her on TV?
Because by then the media was all-in on calling it a nothingburger and saying Trump was overreacting, trying to distract from impeachment. Trying to push the "Trump called it a hoax" hoax. Yep, whatever happened to old Nancy Rosenstein Messonier?
ARM’s another guy who apparently never read the constitution.
Almost all the public health and quarantine restrictions were enacted by governors because only they have the legal authority to do so.
ARM’s TDS approaches the level of madness. He is acutely stricken by jealousy over the president’s financial and sexual success.
I hope none of you missed ARM’s declaration that he’s an expert on clinical trials. The delusions of grandeur are very deep in this guy. He really thinks he should be standing in Trump’s place and lying in bed with Melania.
But, of course, we’ve got tens of thousands of little farts like ARM suffering that delusion. And are they ever pissed!
@rightguy:
Mr. Farmer : all you did was elaborate on your knit-picking criticism. At least you owned up to it. But it is still a knit-picking criticism. Pretty meaningless commentary as far as I am concerned.
When Trump's opponents get things wrong, it is evidence of their incompetence and a sign that we should not trust what they say. When Trump gets things 180 degrees wrong, it is nitpicking and "meaningless commentary." Gotcha.
p.s. I ignored it the first time, because I thought it was a typo, but it's "nitpicking" not "knit-picking."
"A curious scientist would have a nagging feeling in his tummy, that two different "things" are happening in California and New York”
The different thing is that New York is one of the most densely populated, interconnected cities in the world where most people commute via public transportation. The virus has spread more widely there than elsewhere in the US. Probably 10-20% of the people in the city are infected. That infection rate, I think, is part of what's driving the declining numbers of new infections in the city.
DISPATCHES FROM THE MANCHURIAN MEDIA
Who knew what when?
"An expert team from the central government arrived in Wuhan and took samples for testing. Within a day they shut down the food market and labs around the country isolated the virus from the samples. On 5 January, the World Health Organization was notified and the results were soon posted to open source databases worldwide. This is world-class public health, and most probably the reason that the World Health Organization has praised China’s actions fulsomely." ( I agree the world, like Twain, should have been distrustful of anything coming form China.)
As a result, Twain restricted travel on 26 Jan, and Trump followed suit on 31 Jan with a limited travel ban, over 40.000 more arrived, but as late as 27 Feb he claimed, "it's going to disappear. One day--it's like a miracle--it will disappear."This in spite of warnings from staff including Azar on 30 Jan. So now we are doing the best we can.
Retweeted to disagree. Big nothing.
Remember- we are not allowed to be upset with Italy. Not sure why - I guess dumm Americans who watch CNN cannot hold other thoughts.
Can's blame China, or WHO. NOPE.
Farmer: “ I ignored it the first time, because I thought it was a typo, but it's "nitpicking" not "knit-picking."”
No it’s knot.
@doctrev:
But Donald Trump, whatever his other virtues, is not a medical expert. Medical experts at the WHO made many public pronouncements not only minimizing the disease, but in January insisted that it was not made through human to human transmission (?!?!).
I agree with that, but it has nothing to do with the statement of mine you quoted. My point was that Trump's task force was raising concerns about spread and social distancing that Trump was resisting. The market was signaling moves downward over coronavirus concerns that Trump considered to be a result of hype. Trump resisted these concerns and opted instead to say that the numbers were going to zero and getting the markets back up. A couple of weeks later he was saying that it was very serious and that trillions of dollars of stimulus were needed.
We reacted incredibly fast as a nation to confront what appeared to be a highly dangerous threat, and we should be proud of ourselves for organizing and executing the Plan, in many cases long before our individual governors made it an order to do so. For some reason, the virus proved to be both more virulent and less virulent than expected, with extreme regional differences. This is a mystery that ongoing antibody testing will help us answer, but it is very clear that some unknown factor slowed community spread in CA, OR, WA, and perhaps other sparsely populated states. There are plenty of stories to be written that will offer fascinating insight. If reporters are interested.
For some reason, few have been interested in what drove Americans to reject the leadership class in 2016 and elect a stranger to DC, at the same time such rejection of the status quo was observed in Brexit, the Arab Spring, the conservative wins in Ukraine and the Netherlands. Salena Zito made a name just by seeking out people in the heartland and asking why they voted for Trump. It's a mystery to me why so many alleged "reporters" have had no interest in how it came to be that our FBI was turned into the Watergate Burglars Part 2, or how a secret court was misused to spy on Americans.
Donald Trump Impeachment Trial Update, January 30, 2020
Great collection of photos and recap of the impeachment trial the same say CNN was bitching about the white people on Trump's coronavirus task force.
Take a trip down memory lane...
Here's St Fauci on February 29, 2020 on the Today Show:
TODAY SHOW: So Dr. Fauci, it’s Saturday morning in America, people are waking up right now with real concerns about this; they want to go to malls, and movies, maybe the gym, as well. Should we be changing our habits, and if so, how?
FAUCI: No. Right now at this moment, there is no need to change anything that you’re doing on a day-by-day basis. Right now the risk is still low, but this could change. I’ve said that many times, even on this program. You got watch out, because although the risk is low now, you don’t need to change anything you’re doing. When you start to see community spread, this could change, and force you to become much more attentive to doing things that would protect you from, spread.
Source: Breitbart
So, as of Feb 29, 'ole Fauci was in "wait and see" mode. Sounded reasonable then, sounds reasonable now.
@Mike (MJB Wolf):
ONE person from the CDC said that, Rod Rosentstein's sister, and she turned out to be more right at that time than Fauci and Birx, who were advising Trump. BUT as I said, Trump never took action to oppose the recommendation of the task Force, set up in early FEB.
The bulletin I am referring to was released by Nancy Messonier, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. It was then that she revealed that the CDC considered community spread imminent and that social distancing measures would need to be implemented. This briefing was blamed for causing a fall in stock market prices, and the White House tried to get on top of the messaging to reassure that the markets. Trump said the next day that he expected the numbers to go down to zero.
It was not just the opinion of one person but was part of the CDC's telebriefing on Covid-19 update.
I appreciate you locating the ONE VOICE in the wilderness crying BEFORE Trump took action. But then what?
Trump could have agreed with the findings and recommendations. Instead, he directly contradicted them and prioritized reassuring the financial markets that there was no cause for concern. And then three weeks later, he agreed with them and supported spending trillions of dollars to help the economy.
@Bay Area Guy:
So, as of Feb 29, 'ole Fauci was in "wait and see" mode. Sounded reasonable then, sounds reasonable now.
It wasn't reasonable. It was the wrong call. All we ended up doing was waiting three weeks to do what was recommended in the first place.
CNN is such a fucking joke.
@Bumble Bee:
J Farmer... To exemplify your concept of Trump's inaction, I'd recommend you complete a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle, in the dark, with 28 pieces missing from the box, with a starving Bouvier des Flanders tugging on your pant leg. Against a clock.
If you're trying to say that Trump was under immense pressure to make consequential decisions about the welfare of the nation, that's kind of in the job description for being president.
When the CDC gave its briefing, Trump could have agreed with it and implemented the recommendations. Instead, he contradicted it and said that there wasn't a concern. That ended up being the wrong decision. And he changed his mind a few weeks later.
@Pookie Number 2:
This is true, but it highlights the fact that everyone screws up stuff.
Exactly right, which is why I find it so perplexing that so many here have a hard time acknowledging it about Trump.
Dr. Pangloss said...
We reacted incredibly fast as a nation to confront what appeared to be a highly dangerous threat, and we should be proud of ourselves for organizing and executing the Plan
Links from the guy who broke the Monica Lewinsky story:
Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus
They saw it coming: Inside the Trump administration’s failures on coronavirus
Signs missed and steps slowed in Trump’s pandemic response
8 Key Exchanges on the Faltering Response to the Coronavirus
The Senate Republicans must be kicking themselves. They had the opportunity to go into the next election with Pence, who would now have similar numbers to Newsom and Cuomo.
The single worst decision of this crisis thus far was de Blasio’s call to not close NYC schools for more than a week over concerns about the school lunch program and how to replace it. An aside: Cuomo’s weekend comments that it is not de Blasio’s call to keep the schools closed is a sign that he is still putting politics ahead of safety.
The fact that people are debating Trump’s decisions while letting de Blasio off the hook is a sign that the media is still setting the terms of the debate.
That De Blasio is a dumbass doesn't make Trump any less of a dumbass, and Trump had a vast network of Federal agencies feeding him information. De Blasio chatted with a few guys at his gym.
Tim in vermont
This is from gilbar at 8:06
Dr. Qualls, who was involved in creating the original pandemic graph illustrated above, notes that it is. “Important to remember that #Covid-19 epidemic control measures may only delay cases, not prevent. However, this helps limit surge and gives hospitals time to prepare and manage.”
This is the stuff that is out there, but not in headlines, making simple searches difficult. The reason I didn't waste hours Sunday trying to dig up the quotes is because if I had, you would have moved the goal posts. Called my character into question, and still go on believing only you have true vision, for the rest of us lower life forms.
Not sure why you refuse to answer a simple question.
tim: "I don’t buy that we should just allow the vulnerable to die already so the rest of us can get on with our lives"
Says who?
Anyway, you also say, I believe, that it is impossible to isolate them effectively.
If so, then short of a full Chinese-style universal lockdown, we will in effect be "allowing" some of the vulnerable to die already.
On my end, I think we can and should do more to isolate the vulnerable -- no old people in the stores or any public spaces, better delivery services, separate facilities for the old and sick, or for their families, so they can separate for a while, and so on. Most nursing homes are already closed to outsiders. None of that guarantees survival, particularly in nursing homes, but it amounts to a reasonable effort to protect the vulnerable. The point is not to "just allow"; at the same time, it does accept a large number of deaths of old, sick overweight people with very limited life expectancy -- just as we all do every year, all the time, when we "allow" flu plus respiratory disease to take down 100 to 200K.
Immunity Passport?
I'm told minorities can't get voter id cards, how in the hell are they going to get immunity passports?
CNN Politics
Verified account @CNNPolitics
Coronavirus task force another example of Trump administration's lack of diversity
Trump is not racist, sexist, etc. Unlike CNN et al, he does not indulge diversity (i.e. color judgments).
I'm told Americans are now incapable of showing up at a polling place to vote and need mail in ballots. How in hell are we going to get to the immunity passport office?
In point of fact, JFarmer, I rather appreciate your intelligence. Everyone has emotional biases, but you're someone who can process data and modify your own opinions based on that. I haven't actually seen you talk about the specific actions President Trump has taken, and despite watching the press conferences my own knowledge of his actions isn't perfect. That's all fine, but let's focus on one particular contention- the idea that the President took a week after his meeting with Tucker Carlson to declare a national emergency. In point of fact, on February 26th VP Pence complimented the President for declaring a public health emergency... back in January.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-
pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-conference/
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/01/31/801686524/trump-declares-coronavirus-a-
public-health-emergency-and-restricts-travel-from-c
At the time, all known medical experts were assuring the world that the risk of coronavirus spread was low, mostly due to data published by China. While Tucker Carlson is clearly in love with his own legend, it's probably the WHO's belated declaration of a pandemic on March 11th that had a greater weight on the President's March 13th declaration. Even on March 3rd, however, the President's briefing with Dr. Fauci and Dr. Francis Collins (who I am extremely gratified to hear has been NIH Director since 2009) showed someone who was clearly taking the virus seriously- Dr. Fauci explained the high mortality rate from MERS, and that clearly had an effect on the President. Ironically, the President claimed that China took the original travel restriction well- certainly better than their lapdogs at the DNC.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/healthcare/page/21/
In general, I would say that if someone isn't basing their knowledge of the coronavirus strictly off the White House's archived briefings instead of self-interested media whitewashing, they're clearly not even in the game.
If it comes to pass that a majority of Americans believe Trump made mistakes and was incompetent in his handling the chicom wuhan plague, then he will be voted out of office in November.
If Dr Fauci acted the same, he will get a promotion and a pay raise...and, possibly a Nobel prize.
We will not get the opportunity to vote out (fire) the bureaucracy that runs the CDC and the FDA. They will live on to quarantine us indefinitely.
As for the specific criticism that the CDC offered advice on mitigation that was ignored by the President, this too drastically overstates things. From Robert Redfield:
'As February 28 – as we got into March – we recognized the different areas that mitigation was now important,' Redfiled told Today show host Savannah Guthrie. 'CDC sent recommendations to Washington, to California, to New York and to Florida recommending that they expand mitigation in those areas.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8214297/CDC-Director-Robert-Redfield-says-recommended-states-lock-February.html
Now, these are state governments. And clearly the recommendations were not followed in New York. In fact, the idiotic Governor Cuomo STILL hasn't banned New Yorkers from out of state travel, which has led to the outlying areas of New England and upstate NY taking up their own sanctions against New Yorkers that are found within their domains. He was intensely against the idea of quarantining New York even in late March!
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/03/28/coronavirus-gov-andrew-cuomo-rips-possible-new-york-travel-ban/2934494001/
But by all means, Democrats, make this preposterous left-wing jackass your candidate for President without actual primary votes.
Me: So, as of Feb 29, 'ole Fauci was in "wait and see" mode. Sounded reasonable then, sounds reasonable now.
Farmer: It wasn't reasonable. It was the wrong call. All we ended up doing was waiting three weeks to do what was recommended in the first place.
I echo what doctrev says about you above: "In point of fact, JFarmer, I rather appreciate your intelligence. Everyone has emotional biases, but you're someone who can process data and modify your own opinions based on that."
With one caveat -- on this particular issue, it's clear that you don't have a clue, so you should stop bluffing.
Yes, we know you like the lockdown. A lotta people are scared of cooties, too. But we usually don't make far-reaching policies that impact millions of lives and jobs based on their fears and panicked amateur thought.
Here's the gold standard for this discussion. Dr. John Ioannidis, Stanford Epidemiologist. Watch the video, see what parts make sense and what parts don't and then come back with comments.
most densely populated, interconnected cities in the world
How are things in Hong Kong and Tokyo?
MayBee said...
How are things in Hong Kong and Tokyo?
4/13/20, 11:25 AM
You need three things to have a major lethal outbreak of WuFlu:
1) High population density, like a megacity.
2) Poor local governance and health services combined with a substantial amount of poverty.
3) A relatively heterogenous society AND/ OR profoundly selfish behavior.
In areas which lack population density, even intense poverty usually doesn't have major death rates. (like Mississippi) Areas with effective local government and homogeneous societies enjoy low death rates (like Tokyo). Only the all-consuming selfishness, greed, population density, and incompetent local governments found in both China and New York cause major casualties that aren't even seen elsewhere in their regions.
Gov Whitmer did not just ban people in Michigan from going to their vacation homes in the UP. In fact, I would say most people's vacation homes are not in the UP. They are in the northern part of the lower peninsula, or on the lake fronts on the west coast, thumb area, or east coast. Or one of the inland lakes anywhere in the state.
So....someone from a less affected area can't travel to their home in another less affected area. And someone who has been locked down can't go to their own home on a remote property and lock themselves down there, having never come into contact with an additional person.
We can't take the load off grocers in Macomb county by letting some healthy people relocate to Lake County or Antrim County.
Our governor has actually told people they cannot go to their own homes in their own home state. That is unacceptable. Ask people to monitor themselves, sure. But we don't all know everyone's life stories enough to say they just cannot go to their own home in another part of the state.
@doctrev:
the idea that the President took a week after his meeting with Tucker Carlson to declare a national emergency. In point of fact, on February 26th VP Pence complimented the President for declaring a public health emergency... back in January.
Public health emergencies, which are issued by the HHS, are a much lower level of declaration than national emergencies, which entail a release of federal funds and increased power to the president.
At the time, all known medical experts were assuring the world that the risk of coronavirus spread was low, mostly due to data published by China.
Concerns that the Chinese were not being truthful were already being raised in mid-January. This information was not made public at the time because of concerns that it would cause a rift with the Chinese, who we were in the process of negotiating a trade deal with. It was the announcement of the Chinese lockdown that caught everyone by surprise. The public health emergency declaration and travel restrictions were announced over a week later.
It is pretty clear that from that point Trump adopted the position that the situation was under control and that the coronavirus did not pose a significant risk to America. He, like a lot of Republicans, and a lot of commenters here, took the attitude that the threat was minimal but was being hyped by the media in order to hurt Trump.
Disruptions in the financial markets were attributed to coronavirus panic. Given that Trump considered it panic over an overhyped threat, his primary concern became to decrease the panic and reassure the markets. By wedding himself to this strategy, Trump became much more skeptical to arguments or advice against it.
When the CDC announced that community spread was inevitable and that social distancing would need to be implemented, Trump blamed the announcement for a sudden drop in the market and responded by trying to get on top of the messaging and reassure the markets. He also contradicted the CDC's findings by saying that he believed the numbers would go to zero soon.
It was another couple of weeks before Trump finally abandoned that strategy and acknowledged that the strategies the CDC identified earlier would need to be implemented. He also finally agreed to implement a travel restriction for Europe. Such a restriction had been pushed by the task force in early February but was rejected as to disruptive to the economy.
Laslo has it right- Fauci got himself trapped by his reliance on WHO recommendations- whether he was fooled or deliberately took those shitty recommendations isn't clear.
However, I have absolutely no doubt that Fauci is a committed Democrat, and he will at a critical point try to stick the knife in Trump's back on this issue to sway the election, but he can't do that just yet- he does need the pandemic to abate before he can do that. I would start putting together every television appearance the man has made, and all his e-mails, too, because Trump is going to need them before November just to defend himself against Fauci. This tweet is a shot across the bow.
I just looked it up. Hong Kong has 1,010 cases and 4 deaths. In a highly and densely populated city with public transportation.
Koreatown in LA is considered one of the most densely populated cities, and it is not being hit like NY
Tokyo will always be an exception because it is an incredibly clean city.
I think something is going wrong in New York, and I think it has to do with airflow or sewage or something.
You can look at Trump and criticize, but there's no way you can imagine he believed that 9,000 people in NYC would die if he didn't shut down the nation back when he wasn't shutting down the nation.
He was doing what other presidents had done in the face of pandemics...plus stopping flights from China.
I guess I want to know if people really thought Trump was going to sacrifice New Yorkers for the stock market? If you don't think that, then to what do you attribute what you consider to be lax actions?
"all known medical experts were assuring the world that the risk of coronavirus spread was low"
Since we are looking back all of 3 months after this thing got started, what can we now say about "the risk," how it looked then vs. how it looks now?
After we got past the China/WHO denial of human-to-human transmission, I am not sure "all known" experts said the risk of "spread" was low. Did they? At any rate, it seems that most experts quickly treated Wuhan as an epidemic, likely to spread through much of the population.
But of course, the risk of "spread" is not the same as the risk of complications and death. The question, then, was: risk of spread to whom, and with what harm? That was and is a little harder to evaluate.
The Diamond Princess had a population of 3711, 712 infections (more than half asymptomatic), and 12 deaths, all elderly, for an infection rate of about 20% and a CFR of about 1.5. Bearing in mind that this was a closed environment with a predominantly elderly population initially without any infection control whatsoever, it seems reasonable, even now, to take it as close to a worst-case scenario. Is 20% infection rate and 1.5% CFR bad in that light? Even in retrospect, I find it reassuring. Experts that relied on this case were not unreasonable in assessing actual health risks as fairly low.
Italy represented a different kind of case, and for a while seemed much more worrisome, with higher infection rates and CFRs, and an overwhelmed hospital system. That reasonably reinforced a sense of the risk to the health system itself. At the same time, the complication profile was also reassuring: the real health risks were concentrated in particular groups. For them, the danger was great; for others, the danger was minimal.
The meta-lesson is that in evaluating "risk" we have to differentiate--by spread vs. hospitalization and death, by population and subgroups, and by locale and circumstance, at the very least. No politicians or experts who blithely generalize about "the risk," then or now, make sense.
The Diamond Princess had a population of 3711, 712 infections (more than half asymptomatic), and 12 deaths, all elderly, for an infection rate of about 20% and a CFR of about 1.5. Bearing in mind that this was a closed environment with a predominantly elderly population initially without any infection control whatsoever, it seems reasonable, even now, to take it as close to a worst-case scenario. Is 20% infection rate and 1.5% CFR bad in that light? Even in retrospect, I find it reassuring. Experts that relied on this case were not unreasonable in assessing actual health risks as fairly low
It’s not really very reassuring because the experiment only ran for 2 weeks. Conditions were somewhat similar to the current lockdown we have in the country- people were sheltering in their cabins while crew members were like the essential workers who are currently out and about.
If one infection led to a 20 % infection rate after 14 days, it stands to reason that it would have gotten much higher if the poeple hadn’t been taken off the ship.
J. Farmer said...
Public health emergencies, which are issued by the HHS, are a much lower level of declaration than national emergencies, which entail a release of federal funds and increased power to the president.
At the time, all known medical experts were assuring the world that the risk of coronavirus spread was low, mostly due to data published by China.
Concerns that the Chinese were not being truthful were already being raised in mid-January. This information was not made public at the time because of concerns that it would cause a rift with the Chinese, who we were in the process of negotiating a trade deal with. It was the announcement of the Chinese lockdown that caught everyone by surprise. The public health emergency declaration and travel restrictions were announced over a week later.
It is pretty clear that from that point Trump adopted the position that the situation was under control and that the coronavirus did not pose a significant risk to America. He, like a lot of Republicans, and a lot of commenters here, took the attitude that the threat was minimal but was being hyped by the media in order to hurt Trump.
Disruptions in the financial markets were attributed to coronavirus panic. Given that Trump considered it panic over an overhyped threat, his primary concern became to decrease the panic and reassure the markets. By wedding himself to this strategy, Trump became much more skeptical to arguments or advice against it.
When the CDC announced that community spread was inevitable and that social distancing would need to be implemented, Trump blamed the announcement for a sudden drop in the market and responded by trying to get on top of the messaging and reassure the markets. He also contradicted the CDC's findings by saying that he believed the numbers would go to zero soon.
It was another couple of weeks before Trump finally abandoned that strategy and acknowledged that the strategies the CDC identified earlier would need to be implemented. He also finally agreed to implement a travel restriction for Europe. Such a restriction had been pushed by the task force in early February but was rejected as to disruptive to the economy.
4/13/20, 11:34 AM
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/press-briefing-members-presidents-coronavirus-task-force/
I doubt the President declaring a national emergency at the height of the impeachment crisis would have been taken terribly well by anyone outside his own base. Tom Cotton among others was calling attention to China's duplicity then, but there were no actual medical authorities saying the risk was anything but low- certainly not Dr. Redfield or Dr. Fauci.
The President simply can't be blamed for not putting the country in lockdown when state authorities were refusing, and refuse to this day, to take necessary measures like banning interstate travel. If he had gone against expert advice before March 11th, no one would have tolerated it. The President began the European lockdown on March 11th, only after the WHO declared a pandemic and identified sustained transmission in much of the Schengen area. Who else could diagnose that? What actual expert are you asserting the President needed to listen to? Because what's most interesting about the ass-covering of the American press is that I can't find them carrying ANY interest in Europe before March 11th, despite the fact they had quite a bit of access to the President.
By the way- the cases the President was talking about on Feb. 26th were the 15 cases diagnosed at the time. Under the circumstances, he could hardly be blamed for thinking that could go to zero, especially with career officials at NIH and CDC reassuring America during the Feb. 26th press conference. I'm going to have to insist you find the recommendation from the task force back in early February: I went to some trouble to dig up my links, now you can manage the same courtesy. Because I can't find any such recommendation from that period from the archived briefings.
The main problem that is going to arise for the Democrats in trying to use this issue politically is going to be the predictions made by the epidemiologists of 2-11 million dead Americans depending on whether we act or don't act. Trump didn't buy on the first offer, but he did once the "price" fell to 200,000 dead. He embraced that number, and if the deaths come in under that, he will declare victory, and that declaration gets stronger the further under 200,000 dead we get. It will do the Democrats no good to try to rewrite this history of the expert's projections- the internet is forever.
Yancey Ward said...
Laslo has it right- Fauci got himself trapped by his reliance on WHO recommendations- whether he was fooled or deliberately took those shitty recommendations isn't clear.
However, I have absolutely no doubt that Fauci is a committed Democrat, and he will at a critical point try to stick the knife in Trump's back on this issue to sway the election, but he can't do that just yet- he does need the pandemic to abate before he can do that. I would start putting together every television appearance the man has made, and all his e-mails, too, because Trump is going to need them before November just to defend himself against Fauci. This tweet is a shot across the bow.
4/13/20, 11:35 AM
While he's certainly a Democrat, I doubt he's going to SUCCESSFULLY backstab the President. His own position is simply too weak to survive without considerable support from the Administration, and he needs to be the first one shouting that China's perfidy is what damned the world- or his own credibility is utterly shot. After years of seeing how the Democrats have failed at every shot against the President, and seeing the very weak state-level response in contrast to the very strong response for the federal shutdown of borders, Dr. Fauci would be sawing off his own branch to turn on the President any time soon.
He could do it anyways, of course, but I think Donald Trump is prepared for that eventuality.
Trump needs punishment and ridicule because I see something that would have saved us at this time that could have been done in the past if he had predicted it. One of the most unserious arguments one can make. Applied to your enemies, never brought up to your friends.
No leader from Washington to Trump foresaw every consequence. Leaders go into an uncertain world and execute the best plan they have, and all fail. Ankle biters impress me little. Judge leaders in the arc of history, the critics sound like Joe Biden in his basement.
I haven't read the thread above.
I would think that Fauci's real problem with Trump would be that he used the bad--borderline absurd--projections to persuade Trump to go farther with the national emergency than Trump wanted to go. Trump must feel that he got hustled by Fauci and Birx.
Fauci is now saying that Trump didn't listen to Fauci in February, but Fauci was saying to the public that there was nothing to worry about as late as February 29.
I would say that, at least metaphorically, Fauci is a dead man walking...and with good reason.
So what was the goal we were all striving for? Saving lives? I remember Althouse predicting 3 million deaths early on. Later predictions after some data was in were close to 1 million. So if saving lives was the goal I'd say we have had a resounding success. Or was it to cause the least amount of damage to the economy possible? More of a mixed result on that. 6 weeks of partial lockdown hasn't helped, and trillions added to the debt is a big negative, but a hit of some sort to the economy was inevitable. It's hard to judge the end result of the fiscal outcomes until we see what type of recovery we have. ARM as usual is just doing his anything Trump does is wrong screed. Farmer is criticising him for not threading the needle correctly. Different day, same shit. There will be a lot of hindsight is 20/20 (actually more like 20/100 in this case) critique as we go along.
'He could have saved more people. He could have not wrecked the economy.'
I think it's good that the press is giving Trump quadruple rations of shit.
He seems to operate much better when he's under tremendous pressure. A dancer needs music.
Someone pointed out that "Pointing out that other people got other things wrong isn't a defense of Trump."
Other people's failure is usually independent of a single person's failure, but that hard fact is another route to unseriousness.
If others fail at similar tasks do we dispose of the current failure in search of others who will fail on some points also, perhaps in worse ways? If all are failures, we need to quantify failure not just make a binary decision he failed she failed.
We call people failures in an absolute, because that is easy. Yet it is well known that a person who has one good idea out of 6 can be a great success.
The only decision we can make is, is this leader so hopeless that replacing her with a new candidate is worth the loss of momentum. I think many are at this point with Trump, but I am not always sure they can argue the case without the ad hominem.
I think we should change the “Fire Fauci” campaign to simply “Fuck Fauci”.
If all are failures, we need to quantify failure not just make a binary decision he failed she failed.
I’m not trying to be cute, but the widespread tendency for people to fail (especially when their only demonstrated skill is winning elections, which is to say telling people stuff they want to hear) is one of the reasons that libertarianism appeals to me.
"Fauci was trying to sidestep a "gotcha" question and wasn't as rah-rah Trump as Breitbart wanted. He wasn't attacking Trump" I have noticed this a lot over the last 2 weeks in some conservative media. Fauci supposedly saying something that "undermines" Trump in either Gateway Pundit of Breitbart and then actually seeing the entire quote in context and see its pretty benign or part of a much larger answer that is in no way critical of Trump. What will the media do once this click fest is over? Feh.
@MayBee:
I guess I want to know if people really thought Trump was going to sacrifice New Yorkers for the stock market? If you don't think that, then to what do you attribute what you consider to be lax actions?
No, I think it's pretty clear that Trump believed the virus would not pose a significant risk. He was saying in late February that he expected the numbers to go to zero. What led him to this conclusion is anyone's guess.
plus stopping flights from China.
Stopping flights from Europe would be even more effective. Members of the task force were pushing this along with the China restriction, but it was rejected as being too economically disruptive.
I realize it is just shooting fish in a barrel at this point, but
CDC director says he recommended some states lock down in February as reports indicate White House knew of coronavirus threat before they let on
And Jared and Ivanka are the ones deciding when to reopen the economy.
I will decide when to re-open the country - and Javanka will help me: Trump says HE is in charge of ending shutdown as he unveils ANOTHER 'taskforce' with Ivanka and Jared and says governors will have to follow his lead
It's such a complete farce that not even Trump's most strident critics could have predicted this dumpster fire.
@Yancey Ward:
I would start putting together every television appearance the man has made, and all his e-mails, too, because Trump is going to need them before November just to defend himself against Fauci. This tweet is a shot across the bow.
Fauci is one of only 22 members of the White House's task force. His role is primarily as a spokesperson, and the task force is not the sole source of advice or recommendations for the president.
Concerns over China's honesty and transparency were already being raised within the administration in mid-January. These were not expressed publicly because of the fear they may cause problems with trade negotiations. It was Trump's decision to say publicly that the Chinese were handling the situation well and to complement Xi's role. It was Trump's decision to say at a press conference that he soon expected the numbers to go to zero.
"remember Althouse predicting 3 million deaths early on"
11 million. Cuz we had "real calculations." And for anyone who did not fall in line with The Panic of 2020: vengeance.
That's where we were, just a few short weeks ago.
@doctrev:
If he had gone against expert advice before March 11th, no one would have tolerated it.
The CDC's briefing on February 25th said that community spread was inevitable and that people needed to prepare for social distancing. Trump reacted by saying that he expected the numbers to go to zero and by having the administration downplay the threat, which he blamed for a sudden drop in the markets.
Stopping flights from Europe would be even more effective. Members of the task force were pushing this along with the China restriction, but it was rejected as being too economically disruptive.
Thanks for your answer. I'd suppose rather than more effective, they would have been additionally effective. But economically disruptive is a real thing....as we are seeing now.
I also have to say, I am not and cannot imagine myself being in favor of keeping US Citizens from coming back into this country from abroad.
So, Farmer, why weren't these anonymous CDC people advocating for action back in December when the virus first hit the news?
We can play this game all day long, but the fact is there are no true Cassandras- Trump acted when the evidence was clear enough to act- to have acted before that point require prescience, which no one has.
Here is the choice Trump faced, and no one was going to make a different choice in his position- shut down 50% of the economy or face the viral apocalypse. You can't make that decision on predictions alone.
Trump banned travel from Europe on March 11th, and yet people say he should have banned it in February. Do you know how many new cases of COVID-19 Italy, the frontrunning European country in this pandemic, had February 26th, the day of Trump's first big news conference? It was 147 new cases. Italy only crossed the 1000/day threshold on March 7th.
Seriously, which politician would have acted sooner than March 11th? It is ridiculous to think any president would have acted sooner. You tell me which politician in Trump's place would take actions that raise unemployment to even 15% before having harder data?
@Yancey Ward:
We can play this game all day long, but the fact is there are no true Cassandras- Trump acted when the evidence was clear enough to act- to have acted before that point require prescience, which no one has.
Once community spread was determined, and without the ability to do mass testing and contact tracing, old-fashioned distancing was the strategy we were left with. Concerns about the threat were basing raised throughout January and February, and Trump dismissed them as hype. On what basis did he make that determination? On what basis did he believe that cases would go to zero, in direct contradiction of the CDC's data?
old-fashioned distancing was the strategy we were left with.
What we are doing is not old-fashioned distancing at all. It's a whole new lockdown for these United States of America.
p.s. One thing Trump could have told people was that the coronavirus posed a serious risk and should take precautions. This advice was already being promulgated before Trump's declaration. Instead, he continued to say that the situation was under control and there was nothing to worry about. He promulgated the idea that the threat was basically made up in order to hurt his presidency.
The tweeter was right. On February 29, Fauci said that more severe measures weren't necessary.
Fauci: "No. Right now, at this moment, there’s no need to change anything that you’re doing on a day by day basis. Right now the risk is still low, but this could change. I’ve said that many times even on this program. You’ve got to watch out because although the risk is low now, you don’t need to change anything you’re doing. When you start to see community spread, this could change and force you to become much more attentive to doing things that would protect you from spread."
"Fact checkers" are saying the blogger's claim was "mostly false" because Fauci didn't say that "there was nothing to worry about." I'd say it was substantially true: in February Fauci said that more serious measures weren't necessary at that time, and now the implication the media draws is that he was recommending such measures at the time, which he wasn't. Another example of why you should never trust people who claim to be a "fact checker."
J. Farmer said...
The CDC's briefing on February 25th said that community spread was inevitable and that people needed to prepare for social distancing. Trump reacted by saying that he expected the numbers to go to zero and by having the administration downplay the threat, which he blamed for a sudden drop in the markets.
4/13/20, 1:30 PM
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-conference/
You're going to have to have to point out where the CDC called for social distancing in that press conference. I only see Dr. Schuchat calling for the disinfecting measures one associates with the flu. Which are excellent precautions, to be sure, but absolutely nothing like the scale of social distancing we've seen since. If the CDC or NIH disagreed with those suggestions, I have no doubt Dr. Fauci among many others would have brought it up many times since. The first time I've seen "social distancing" brought up in at a China Flu briefing was March 2nd, because Dr. Fauci was extremely leery of shutting down major cities or internal travel. "(S)omething that I don’t think would tenable in this country," were his exact words.
The President did think the stock market was taking a hit from the pandemic discussions and from the supply chain disruptions from China. That's just common sense. While we did have a 10000 point crash, the DJIA has recovered half of the losses, and the lockdown isn't even over yet.
I understand your confusion, just about ANYONE would eventually succumb to repeating some media lies, but the fact is that's a misrepresentation of how the President and the bureaucracies under his control have been addressing the situation. Even a private discussion would have turned into public conflict, with stakes this high- if it actually happened, which it didn't.
The current overwhelming caseload actually came here not from China but from Europe, as was reported five days ago. Trump waited two months longer than he was advised to in enacting that travel ban.
Like I said yesterday, J Farmer is very self-confident. He never admits to anything. He just slices the baloney thinner. It is never him. It is you.
Blogger Muzzled by Meade and Ann said...
The current overwhelming caseload actually came here not from China but from Europe, as was reported five days ago. Trump waited two months longer than he was advised to in enacting that travel ban.
No wonder you were muzzled, this kind of fact based argumentation is not helping.
No wonder you were muzzled, this kind of fact based argumentation is not helping.
Definitely not helpful to those more preoccupied with protecting the president's image, support and reputation among his flock than about all the Americans he's helped (and is helping) to kill.
But luckily America is not like China. Yet. However, my treatment at the hands of the authorities here can at least be attested to by my avatar.
Anyone more interested in protecting the leader's image than in allowing speech to flow freely should ask themselves who they're helping.
I care about the American people, and the facts. If they are disturbing or unhelpful to the leader then people should ask themselves which is more important and declare their preference openly.
tim from vt,
I'll go ahead and say, and I do so right from Snowflake Central: it would have all been fine (where "fine" is defined as no worse than a bad flu year) if we hadn't been overwhelmed by snowflakes panicing, most notably our Snowflake-In-Chief Jay Inslee. His very original order (no gathers exceeding 250 people) made some sense as a statewide thing; everything else has been pure nonsense because not applied in a targeted fashion.
Bob and Howard,
Good grief, no! Hindsight is never 20/20 either, and never less so than in a politicized arena. Even where there are no significant political pushes, e.g. seasonal flu, the CDC's authoritative figures lag two years behind the event; and that doesn't include the uncertainty inherent in the figures. (Not that the CDC is being dishonest about that, their decade report about the flu includes their best estimate plus high and low bounds.)
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