Wuhan Virus Watch: Cuomo Praises Federal Response to Pandemic as ‘Phenomenal Accomplishment’
Testing capacity has been completely overhauled. Dealing nearing for $450 billion including monies for small business. Giuliani: China Sent Death ‘Ambassadors.’
During Sunday’s briefing, it was quite apparent that the American media’s narrative about President Donald Trump’s response to the pandemic, including providing adequate warnings or enough testing capabilities, has been full of failure.
However, it will be hard to sustain this narrative in light of real reports. For example, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo praised the federal response to the state’s struggles with the pathogen as a “phenomenal accomplishment.”
New York Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo was asked on Sunday whether or not he has faith in President Trump when it comes to handling the Wuhan coronavirus. Gov. Cuomo made it clear that he not only trusts the president but that what Trump and his administration have done was nothing short of a “phenomenal accomplishment.”
“What the federal government did working with states was a phenomenal accomplishment,” the governor marveled. “We bent the curve. We flattened the curve. Government did it. People did it, but government facilitates people’s actions, right?”
Dr. Birx: President Trump Completely Overhauled Old Testing System To Increase Capacity
Testing is an essential component to starting Phase One of the Coronavirus Reopen, and the White House insists there are enough tests available.
The White House on Friday said that states have enough coronavirus tests to be able to enter the first phase of its plan for reopening the economy.
…”Our best scientists and health experts assess that states today have enough tests to implement the criteria of phase one if they choose to do so,” Vice President Pence told reporters at a news briefing Friday.
Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, gave some backup to Pence’s argument.
He acknowledged a “problem” with the initial rollout of the tests, but said problems are being fixed.
During ABC’s This Week With George Stephanopoulos, Coronavirus Task Force member Dr. Deborah Birx noted that Trump completely overhauled the old testing system to increase capacity for coronavirus testing to a massive nationwide level. Governors should be utilizing the seven new platforms that are available that can help hospitals and clinics do the testing they need.
White House steers withheld WHO funds to other organizations
The White House budget office has told federal agencies to redirect World Health Organization funds to other groups, including the Red Cross and Samaritan’s Purse.
The US provided roughly 10 percent of the WHO’s $4.8 billion annual budget. Most US contributions were “voluntary.” Annual US dues were just $58 million, with the next installment not expected until September.
Trump administration officials have ceased “voluntary” contributions from agencies including USAID, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services — totaling about $300 million-$400 million a year.
An administration official told The Post that efforts were underway to redirect “every single pot of money” from the WHO to other organizations. Large international relief organizations already are in many cases doing similar work, they said.
Congress, White House nearing agreement on $450B aid package
Reports indicate that the Trump administration and Congress are nearing an agreement on an aid package of up to $450 billion to boost a small-business loan program that has run out of money and add funds for hospitals and COVID-19 testing.
President Donald Trump said Sunday, “We’re getting close to a deal.”
Along with the small business boost, Trump said the negotiators were looking at “helping our hospitals,” particularly hard-hit rural health care providers.
A deal could be announced Monday, the president said at a White House briefing.
Rudy Giuliani: China Sent Death ‘Ambassadors’ Around World
Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani had some harsh words for China’s pandemic response.
China not only unleashed the deadly coronavirus pandemic on the world, but they “protected themselves” while doing it, closing down travel in their country from the city of Wuhan but permitting it internationally, according to former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
“They sent over a million people around the world – 1.5 million – almost like ambassadors carrying the disease,” Giuliani told host John Catsimatidis on Sunday’s “The Cats Roundtable” on 970 AM-N.Y.
“What’s wrong with them, John? They have no conscience. It’s really a tragedy. This is directly caused by the Chinese Communist government, and by the choices they made. Almost all of this could have been avoided, John.
“The whole world is kind of shut down for three weeks because of them,” he added.
Medical detection dogs being trained to diagnose COVID-19
Now, this is a testing platform most people will love.
These dogs are to be trained to sniff out the coronavirus and, if the world-leading project is a success, they could screen 750 people an hour.
Medical detection dogs have already been trained to detect diseases such as cancer, Parkinson’s and malaria.
The Covid-19 project, the only one of its kind in the world, is a collaboration between the Medical Detection Dogs charity, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Durham University.
Professor James Logan, Head of the Department of Disease Control at the LSHTM, said: “It’s exciting because the project could move at speed as there are six dogs ready to be trained.”
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Poor Rachel Maddow, this will give her the vapors for sure.
This pretty well sums up Madcow and the journa-listers.
CNN Journalist Cries Under the Strain of His Pathetically Soft Wokeness…
Posted by sundance
As a nation the Wuhan Virus has framed a re-evaluation of priority: faith, family, community and freedom. Seeing totalitarian Blue state governors so easy dispatch liberty and individual rights reminds us to rekindle the flickering flame of freedom.
Modern journalists, no more essential to life than scripted narrative engineers dancing as puppets on strings in boxes, are inconsequential. The true American story is not built upon celebrity; but rather grit, callouses and dirty fingernails. Farmers, truck drivers, stock clerks and supermarket cashiers are essential; …dancing puppets, not so much.
Facing this reality a generation of pathetically soft and feeble sorts; lemmings from the spine-harvesting indoctrination machines that turn bone into jelly-fish membrane; collapse as they recognize just how pathetic they are. Inconsequential gnats carrying a life-skill as useful as sand in the Sahara……….
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/04/18/cnn-journalist-cries-under-the-strain-of-his-pathetically-soft-wokeness/comment-page-1/#comments
“Modern journalists, no more essential to life than scripted narrative engineers dancing as puppets on strings in boxes, are inconsequential.”
Wow. Best thing I’ve seen written out here on these innarwebs in a month. Brilliantly crafted, top marks all round.
The Son of Mario the Pious is in a tight spot. YOu have to give the feds credit for giving you more than the rest of the country yet you still have to trash Trump. The founder of the feast so to speak.
He has to spread the credit around, because when the smoke clears, New York is going to have the highest number of cases with the highest per capita death rate in the whole US. That’s going to make a lot of blame to spread around, and the more spreading-around practice he gets, the more likely he will have a job when this is all over.
There is a piece of equipment used on farms that does that. It’s called a manure spreader.
Andy, I’m sick of you, go jump in the Hudson.
But, if he swam in the Hudson, he might acquire some herd immunity (stolen from George Carlin, who we desperately need right now).
Are they training Labradors? That would be cool! 🙂
Are there any Chinese breeds of dogs they could train?
Train, eat…whichever.
“The White House on Friday said that states have enough coronavirus tests to be able to enter the first phase of its plan for reopening the economy.”
Correct me if I am wrong, but we were all supposed to be quarantined until the “curve is flattened”, now that it has flattened, weren’t we supposed to be out and about, with a roaring economy? The goalposts have shifted to where we all need to be tested before we can go back to work?
Moving the goal posts. That’s how they’re working it to keep their unconstitutional and illegal powers during this “emergency”. That and base all of your decisions on faulty numbers and even more faulty modeling predictions. We’ve given up our fundamental rights during this so-called pandemic emergency and the PTB aren’t going to easily relinquish that power. So they move the goal posts. Again, and again, and again. This was our Reichstag fire, and I”m afraid there is no going back to the way it was pre-pandemic. And that’s the truth.
I think you guys should relax just a bit on that stuff.
There’s no point in restarting if we are just going to turn that curve back up again. Testing is a good step, but I don’t think much will fundamentally change until we have a vaccine.
Testing for antibodies is largely BS and testing for exposure, which is what most of the current testing encompasses is total BS.
Clinically, an antibody teat, which currently has a fairly high false result rate, only tells us if a person has contracted the virus in the near term. It does not tell us if the person is infectious nor if the person is immune to mutated strains of the virus. It is useful for diagnostic purposes and statistical purposes, but is of little value otherwise. The nasal swab testing only indicates if a person has been recently exposed to the virus and, without symptoms or the serum test, gives no indication that the person has contracted the disease. And, in both tests, if a person tests negative, the test has to be regularly reapplied, until the person tests positive for antibodies.
this push for testing for antibodies is simply another stall tactic to keep the economy shutdown. 60,000 US deaths from influenza last year, with both a vaccine and proven therapeutic treatments, and no one shut down the economy and demanded antibody testing. Nearly 80,000 us dead the year before, from the same cause and, again, NO shutdown and NO demand for antibody testing. And we run up a body score, from influenza of from 15,000 to 80,000 US deaths a year and no one bats an eye.
So, why do we need to shut down the economy and keep it shut down until the population tests positive for COVID antibodies? Would anyone in the medical profession like to take a shot at explaining that?
I am in the medical profession. “Because Trump.” But you already knew that.
I now keep my copy of the Osler Medical Handbook on the picnic table outside the closed coffee shop. When passer-bys try to shame me for not wearing a mask, I point to it and give them an FU glare with my eyes. If I went “baaaaaaaaaaa” it would /r/whoosh right over their heads.
What about areas which haven’t had a curve to flatten? My town in CT has had 30 confirmed cases (pop. 40,000) and only 10 deaths in the entire county.
The state puts out updated info every day complete with a bar graph of cases and deaths by county. 3 counties have sizable bars but you have to massively enlarge the graph to see the other 5.
You are being “flattened” as part of the “Plan-demic”. I think Trump is getting caught in a Jimmy Carter like hostage crisis mode relying upon a medical solution instead of a war solution now. It is war… war against needless deaths, destroyed economies and against the twins of the CCP and the Progs (comrades in arms).
Agreed that the hyperbole is misplaced. However, waiting until a vaccine is available isn’t workable. IMO, a phased transition to reopening is inevitable. The lowest risk individual go back to work and hopefully develop a herd immunity. Followed by slightly older folks and so on. If the most vulnerable frail elderly, are kept safe then it should work while keeping hospitalization to a manageable level.
IMO, the status quo is untenable.
You propose a valid and would-be workable middle ground solution. However, as long as we have ranters like these above calling everything bs and pretending that we don’t need to take smart measures, then a gradual reopening is in jeopardy of disaster. Be smart and find the middle ground, people!
Healthguy, this crisis Is BS. And that is becoming clearer and clearer every single day. Now, explain to me why we shut down the entire global economy for COVID and not for influenza, which kills more people than COVID in nearly every single year for the last three decades. Why? Give me the scientific medical explanation for this discrepancy. I love to learn something new.
Now, every single day that the economy is shutdown, it will take several times as long to bring it back. Oil, the lifeblood of the current world economy, is now in negative value. It has become worthless, because the economy is shut down. And, this is not confined to just the US. When we reopen the economy, there is no burgeoning global consumer market in existence. It has been shutdown and the consumers are running out of money. There are NO MORE VIABLE MARKETS OUT THERE. Many people might starve or die for other reasons, not due to COVID but to the fact that the economy is essentially GONE. But, let’s not worry about that. The Kung Flu is going to kill us all anyway, right?
Thank you for your concern.
Figures do not lie, but Liars figure.
“Medical detection dogs being trained to diagnose COVID-19
Now, this is a testing platform most people will love.”
Assuming they aren’t trained to rip the infected to shreds once detected. Just sayin’….
I don’t see how a dog’s nose can detect an asymptomatic carrier or a person who was exposed that is now immunized.
If the virus is active, I would think they should be able to sniff out asymptomatic carriers. Unless asymptomatic means a really low viral load, which would also mean much lower chance of spreading the virus too.
Dogs are olfactory symptom detectors (coming from compromised cells). That’s how their cancer-sensing works. I don’t think that translates to asymptomatic carriers, but I could be wrong. Regardless, a dog sniff test is not going to be as accurate as a molecular assay. It could be a pre-screen tool I suppose, but the training and validation will take a while.
The error rate on that must be huge. I know one issue drug-sniffing dogs have is the Clever Hans problem, where the dog tends to react to his handler over time instead of chemical cues. Of course it doesn’t help that 90% of dog walkarounds for cars are for owners who don’t consent to a search, and the cops *want* the dog to alert, so it does and gets rewarded for it regardless if drugs are found. (and the police get to rip up the car as retaliation for the citizen standing on his rights.)
Oooh, that must tick the usual suspects right off. Good move, Mr President.
Samaritan’s Purse set up a field hospital in Central Park, with the city’s full cooperation — after all, how could they say no? — and the usual suspects were livid. How could De Blasio betray them like that?
And you know the Republicans will have collapsed like a flan in the oven and the legislation will be full of more Pelosi Pork(tm) that doesn’t have any other reason for being int the legislation but to further the liberal democrat agenda and Pelosi will be trumpeting to the masses how she “won the battle against Pres. Trump”. Guaranteed.
Imagine if this whole federal effort had been run by the party who ran the Iowa caucus? Only China would be happy…and the Dems of course.
Senator Barrasso: ‘Schumer And Pelosi’ Have ‘Slowed Down’ Helping America To Get Their Wishlist Met
(((Jason Rantz))) on KTTH Radio
✔
On FOX News, @SenJohnBarrasso (also a doctor) says “it’s time to re-open America” with a smart, science-backed approach. He notes it’s nonsensical to treat WY the same as NJ. Energy, agriculture, construction can be opened right away, he says, while still being safe.
Unlike Bush and Obama, Trump Succeeded in Crisis by Decentralizing Power
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/04/18/demuth-unlike-bush-and-obama-trump-succeeded-in-crisis-by-decentralizing-power/
Trump pulling off the impossible again
By Lloyd Marcus
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/04/trump_pulling_off_the_impossible_again.html
Physics Geek: This Isn’t About Controlling a Virus.
This Is About Controlling the Deplorables.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DaPojqMKG51M&ved=2ahUKEwj_3Z_RwvfoAhVPR60KHTh1DKYQo7QBMAd6BAgJEAE&usg=AOvVaw0yhtrSHoPvI3PSEjpnjU0B
Ibid. & Ace of Spades
The “let them eat cake” crowd doesn’t like being disobeyed and gets big tech to takedown free speech posts about peaceful demonstrations because said demonstrations oppose government edicts. Uh huh.
I enjoy studying history, but I have no interest in seeing the French Revolution part deux in this country. All y’all who think you can condescendingly lecture people who are genuinely worried about keeping their homes and feeding their families are trying to light that match.
Things are quite possibly going to get very ugly very soon unless some pull their heads out of their collective asses. Here’s hoping the head pulling happens instead of the other thing.
“The ‘Let Them Eat Cake’ crowd doesn’t like being disobeyed.” This explains 95% of the behavior of the Democrat Media Complex and the Professional Managerial Class and the NeverTrump Establishment Cux.
Would be rulers need people who will agree to be ruled over.
They get very angry when people say “Go…..
That’s a valid point. Lots of smaller scale mom and pop kinds of places that require foot traffic in their business are and should be concerned. IMO, they should be directing that concern towards the local politicians making arbitrary decisions as to necessity and to the folks saying we must keep this up until a vaccine is produced.
The US can not survive a $450 BILLION dollar bailout. It can not do it and remain solvent. How long will it take to pay off this deficit spending, when combined with all the other deficit spending the feds do every year? How will this effect the economy? Somebody has to pay it all back and guess who that will be. And, when you expand the economic fallout from the COVID reactions to the entire Global economy, it is a disaster. These actions have effectively hamstrung the US and global economy for years to come. And for what? 2.5 million cases and 160,000 dead, worldwide, out of a worldwide population if 7.5 BILLION. Can we say statistically insignificant?
According to Investopedia, as of January China owned about $1.1 T of US debt. I suppose if we unilaterally cancelled that, as a downpayment on what China owes us for the intentional damage they have done by sharing this virus with the world, that ought to cancel out at least a part of these bailouts.
Of course the economy is a complex system and I’m not an economist. The results of cancelling might be worse, though at this point I’m not sure how.
Mac45,
I get your budgetary concerns, I share them to an extent. As I have stated before the debt horse is out of the barn. Maybe, just maybe the only hope will be when the nation’s credit is maxed out and hard choices will be required to constrain spending.
So the $450 Billion package. Of that $350 Billion is for PPP, so it is intended to help small businesses restrain workers on their payroll, thus limiting what would have been spent on unemployment. Well intended, time will tell on execution.
Another $75 Billion is for hospitals, which have lost revenue during this mess from being shut down for most procedures. I would expect many if not most smaller and rural hospital are teetering on the brink of permanent closure. We really don’t need more rural hospital closures.
The remaining $25 Billion is to help facilitate testing. Maybe the antibody test will do nothing other than reveal the penetration of this. If not at least we gain that information. Hopefully, those with antibodies will have some immunity, even if short lived so that there is some limited here immunity prior to a vaccine, but maybe not.
Think about this. If a business, such as a hospital shuts down, voluntarily, why should I have to pay for that? If NYC or LA shuts down their economy, why should I have to pay for that? If a state fails to stockpile enough medical supplies to handle a local epidemic, why should I, as a citizen of another state, pay to bail them out? How many times have we bailed out NYC in the last 40 years?
As for people being out of work, whose fault is that? It is the fault of local politicians, the media and the people themselves. Why should I have to pay for that?
People will make the argument that people are already out of woirk and have depleted their savings because of the ridiculous response to the COVID virus. We have to do something. Sure, how about lifting all restrictions tomorrow and let every one go back to work, if the business for which they worked survived, of course. If not, well that is what the states have unemployment insurance funds for.
People had better wake up. Their elected politicians and the news media stabbed them in the back, en mass. They stole their jobs. They stole their savings. They stole their children’s education. They have put the entire world at risk for a disease which has not proven itself to be any more dangerous than seasonal flu. There is an enemy out there, folks. And, it is not the COVID virus. It is not the Chinese government. It is not terrorists. It is our own homegrown political leaders and news media. They are the ones who shut down both the economy and society.
I am getting real tired of paying for incompetent boobs and malevolent mini-dictators and their actions. If other locales want to live with that, let them pay for it with their own money, not mine.
Mac45,
If we were starting from a clean slate then between the several dozen folks who frequently post on this site then we could design a more frugal federal budget in terms of scope and balance between states.
We are not at that point. We have a system cobbled together over decades, with political horse trading between big population and low population states, big geographic and smaller geographic states.
Hospitals are one example. Some states use certificate of need to, in effect, limit competition. Added to that are changes from ‘obomacare’, add to that how Medicaid funding is allocated. All this and now hospitals are forced to reduce treatment for routine conditions in order to social distance.
I get your point and mostly support it, but all the things I just listed were not the fault of rural 150 bed or less hospitals. Nor the fault of the folks who rely on them for care because that might be the last hospital standing in a several county radius.
Hopefully, in January, after a successful Presidential and Congressional election, a newly empowered majority of small government minded folks can begin to turn the course.
Please. This is not about some cobbled together urban/suburban/rural hospital system. What is important is that we did not have an economic problem, in this country, until the politicians, at the urging of government medical experts pushed by media hyperbole shut it ALL down. REMEMBER THIS!!! YOUR POLITICIANS STABBED THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE WORLD IN THE BACK, AT THE BEHEST OF THE NEWS MEDIA. Got it??? The Chinese did not close the world and destroy the global economy. It was our own politicians who did that. There was NO articuable reasons why these draconian measures were taken, in this case. It has never been done before, for any disease in modern history. NEVER. Yet, the entire leadership of the free world, except for Sweden, shutdown their societies and destroyed their economies.
There is only one way to save the economies of the world, and that is to open them up immediately. Not next month, not in the fall, not next year. NOW. But, as the shutdown of society and the collapse of the world economy was not done to save the lives of the populace, that is not likely to happen. I only hope that the populace wakes up and forces the opening of our economy before it is too late for it to come back. In the meantime, stop expecting ME to pay for the idiocy of our political class.
Mac45,
Dude I am one of the small business owners whose business was declared to be non essential. We have been without consumers and thus revenue since March 18.
Like you I believe that the politicians, in some locations, panicked and shut everything down too soon and didn’t use common sense in evaluations. Now they won’t change course for fear of looking like they initially panicked or maybe worse, in their own yes, would be seen as support in PDJT.
I get you are PO, many of us are. We didn’t create this mess, our voices don’t seem to be heard and we are bearing the burden.
Historically, what happens when the leaders of a country fail to listen to the people? Revolution. Armed revolt. It was what triggered the American Revolution and the French Revolution and a score of others. And, this country is moving closer to it everyday.
How long is $1200 dollars going to take a person living in a major city with no savings? What does one do when the money runs out? And it will run out. I’m far more than POed. I’m terrified for what could happen to this nation, if the politicians push enough of the common people over the edge. Itr is bad enough that the people have been betrayed by the media, the politicians and their masters. A 1920s depression with 25-30% of the population unemployed and no global economy to latch onto, is almost unimaginable. Can you even imagine what 15-20 years of such economic conditions could look like? And, if things get too bad, nations will attack nations. And we live in a nuclear age. The PTB have NO idea what they are doing or what they are playing around with. We might not have to worry about unemployment in NYC or LA, if they are reduced to smoking craters. People look at the COVID crisis and see it in one dimension. They see a disease which has to be destroyed. But, the actions taken which negatively impact the world and US economies, turn this into a two dimensional problem. And, when you factor in the actions of certain nations when faced with wide spread famine and citizen unrest due to a depression, it becomes a three dimensional problem. Unfortunately a one dimensional creature can not envision two dimensions and a two dimensional creature can not perceive three dimensions. Our leaders are either one dimensional creatures and can not see what they are creating or they know what they are creating and are doing it anyway. Either way, it is the common people who suffer the most. And, they will react more and more strongly as long as they perceive a threat exists from the political class. And, they are heavily armed. The future is not going to be pretty.
Congress, White House nearing agreement on $450B aid package
Pelosi only has to get one thing out of this maneuver, and it will count as a success. Which means the D’rats will do it again next time.
Whenever I here about dogs checking things I remember the scene from Top Secret when the dogs start barking at a guy carrying a package. The German guards take the guy out back and shoot him then the dogs rip open the package and it’s full of dog treats.