Tag: COVID-19

White House says it will conduct temperature checks on those close to Trump, Pence

The Hill logoThe White House on Saturday started taking the temperatures of individuals “in close contact” with President Trump or Vice President Pence, including reporters attending a briefing on the coronavirus.

“Out of an abundance of caution, temperature checks are now being performed on any individuals who are in close contact with the President and Vice President,” deputy press secretary Judd Deere said in a statement.

An official with the White House physician’s office went around the press workspace on Saturday morning and took the temperatures of reporters in the building for a noon news conference with Pence and members of the coronavirus task force. Continue reading.

 

US reaches moment of truth on coronavirus

The Hill logoPresident Trump concluded his address to the nation at 9:12 p.m. on Wednesday, seeking to reassure a nervous public that the government was doing everything it could to stave off the worst effects of the coronavirus. Two days later, he declared a national emergency.

The past week was marked by a whirlwind of cancellations, restrictions on travel and public gatherings, and increasingly grim warnings from public health officials.

Five minutes after Trump’s Wednesday speech, news broke that actor Tom Hanks had the virus, the most high-profile American to contract it to date. Twenty minutes after that, the NBA announced its season had been suspended after first one and then multiple players tested positive. Continue reading.

Trump Won’t Be Getting a Coronavirus Test, His Doctor Says

New York Times logoThe statement from President Trump’s physician came just hours after Mr. Trump himself said he would be tested “fairly soon.”

WASHINGTON — There was one big question looming on Friday over the Rose Garden, where President Trump held an afternoon news conference and announced new emergency measures to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

As Mr. Trump introduced a line of chief executives and public health officials, praising their efforts and those of his administration, the mystery was the president’s own health. Would Mr. Trump, 73, be tested after interacting with a Brazilian official who tested positive for the virus just days after meeting with him in Florida?

On an issue that seemed cut and dry, yes or no, Mr. Trump hedged. Continue reading.

Trump Parrots Hannity’s Lies About Obama Response To 2009 Swine Flu Outbreak

While speaking to reporters Thursday afternoon at the White House, President Donald Trump made a false claim about the Obama administration’s handling of the H1N1 flu (also commonly known as “swine flu”) back in 2009. And there’s a good bet that he’s learned this latest fiction from Fox News — and his favorite host, Sean Hannity.

“If you go back and look at the swine flu, and what happened with the swine flu,” Trump said, “you’ll see how many people died, and how actually nothing was done for such a long period of time, as people were dying all over the place. We’re doing it the opposite. We’re very much ahead of everything.”

As Media Matters has previously documented, Hannity and other right-wing personalities and outlets have circulated a lie that the Obama administration had done nothing about H1N1 — waiting six months to declare a national emergency, they say — while Americans died in vast numbers. In fact, this is totally false, and it also relies on obfuscations based around bureaucratic terms of art and specific effects on government regulations. Continue reading.

Why outbreaks like coronavirus spread exponentially, and how to “flatten the curve”

Washington Post logoAfter the first case of covid-19, the disease caused by the new strain of coronavirus, was announced in the United States, reports of further infections trickled in slowly. Two months later, that trickle has turned into a steady current.

This so-called exponential curve has experts worried. If the number of cases were to continue to double every three days, there would be about a hundred million cases in the United States by May.

That is math, not prophecy. The spread can be slowed, public health professionals say, if people practice “social distancing” by avoiding public spaces and generally limiting their movement. Continue reading.

House Passes Bipartisan Pandemic Relief Bill Overnight

With an overwhelming bipartisan majority, the House of Representatives approved coronavirus relief legislation early Saturday morning. The bill provides tens of billions of dollars for free testing, paid sick leave, unemployment insurance, and other measures to assist those affected by the pandemic.

Following two days of negotiations between Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin — and much carping from House and Senate Republicans as well as President Trump — the 363-40 vote occurred just before 1 a.m. ET. According to the Washington Post, Pelosi and Mnuchin spoke by phone 13 times on Friday to clinch the relief agreement.

Trump then tweeted his endorsement of the bill, presumably ensuring Republican support as it goes to the Senate. Continue reading.

Hackers are making malware-infected coronavirus maps to harvest your personal information

A journalist with expertise on cybercrime reported on Thursday that hackers are trying to take advantage of the public’s concern about the COVID-19 pandemic to infect users’ computers with malware.

AlterNet logo“In one scheme, an interactive dashboard of Coronavirus infections and deaths produced by Johns Hopkins University is being used in malicious Web sites (and possibly spam emails) to spread password-stealing malware,” Brain Krebs, a former reporter for The Washington Post who now writes for the blog Krebs On Security, explained in an article on Thursday. “Late last month, a member of several Russian language cybercrime forums began selling a digital Coronavirus infection kit that uses the Hopkins interactive map as part of a Java-based malware deployment scheme. The kit costs $200 if the buyer already has a Java code signing certificate, and $700 if the buyer wishes to just use the seller’s certificate.”

The Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 map described by Krebs is an interactive dashboard of coronavirus infections and deaths available on the Johns Hopkins University website. The frequently-updated interactive map has been a popular online resource for those following the ongoing pandemic. Continue reading.

I ran the White House pandemic office. Trump closed it.

Washington Post logoThe federal government is moving too slowly, due to a lack of leadership.

When President Trump took office in 2017, the White House’s National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense survived the transition intact. Its mission was the same as when I was asked to lead the office, established after the Ebola epidemic of 2014: to do everything possible within the vast powers and resources of the U.S. government to prepare for the next disease outbreak and prevent it from becoming an epidemic or pandemic.

One year later, I was mystified when the White House dissolved the office, leaving the country less prepared for pandemics like covid-19.

The U.S. government’s slow and inadequate response to the new coronavirusunderscores the need for organized, accountable leadership to prepare for and respond to pandemic threats. Continue reading.

Trump faces toughest crisis of presidency in coronavirus

President Trump is staring down the steepest crisis of his presidency and his handling of it could define his time in office.

The coronavirus outbreak presents a test unlike any other Trump has faced thus far. Past crises — mass shootings, white nationalist riots in Charlottesville and government shutdowns — faded out of the news cycle over time or were swallowed up by political machinations.

But the virus shows no signs of abating, and Trump and his administration are under constant scrutiny for their response.

Jared Kushner revealed as brains behind Donald Trump’s “half-baked” coronavirus response

“Haphazard and helter-skelter”: The president’s son-in-law inserted himself into the tumult this week

The president’s son-in-law and senior advisor was the focus of a hard-hitting Washington Post deep-dive titled, “Infighting, missteps and a son-in-law hungry for action: Inside the Trump administration’s troubled coronavirus response.”

“The economy was grinding to a halt. Stocks were in free fall. Schools were closing. Public events were being canceled. New cases of the novel coronavirus were popping up across the country,” the newspaper reported. “And then, on Wednesday, the day the World Health Organization designated the coronavirus a pandemic, Jared Kushner joined the tumult.”

“President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser — who has zero expertise in infectious diseases and little experience marshaling the full bureaucracy behind a cause — saw the administration floundering and inserted himself at the helm, believing he could break the logjam of internal dysfunction,” The Post reported. Continue reading.