Tag: pandemic

Walz: Most will recover, but 40-80% of Minnesotans will get the coronavirus

Walz discussed at length the possibility of a stay-at-home order for Minnesota.

Gov. Tim Walz said Monday that millions of Minnesotans should expect to get the novel coronavirus before the pandemic is over, but also making the critically important note that the vast majority of those who get it will recover.

“Before we’re done with this, each and everyone of us will be touched by this, probably very personally,” said Walz, speaking from the governor’s mansion in self-quarantine after being exposed to a member of his security detail who has COVID-19.

“The numbers run pretty high that over the course of this that between 40 and 80 percent of Minnesotans will have become infected with COVID-19,” he said. “The vast majority will recover without hospitalization. Those that need it, we need to ensure they’re able to get it. This whole battle is about bending the curve, lengthening out the time of an infection rate.” Continue reading.

Trump Has Given Unusual Leeway to Fauci, but Aides Say He’s Losing His Patience

New York Times logoThe president has become increasingly concerned as Dr. Anthony S. Fauci has grown bolder in correcting his falsehoods about the spread of the coronavirus.

President Trump has praised Dr. Anthony S. Fauci as a “major television star.” He has tried to demonstrate that the administration is giving him free rein to speak. And he has deferred to Dr. Fauci’s opinion several times at the coronavirus task force’s televised briefings.

But Dr. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, has grown bolder in correcting the president’s falsehoods and overly rosy statements about the spread of the coronavirus in the past two weeks — and he has become a hero to the president’s critics because of it. And now, Mr. Trump’s patience has started to wear thin.

So has the patience of some White House advisers, who see Dr. Fauci as taking shots at the president in some of his interviews with print reporters while offering extensive praise for Mr. Trump in television interviews with conservative hosts. Continue reading.

How the House Democrats’ stimulus plan compares to the Senate’s

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled her bill, offering some distinct contrasts to the GOP version in the Senate.

Democrats are following through on their threat to go rogue with their own stimulus plan, unveiling a more than 1,400-page bill Monday night, packed with policy differences compared to the proposal Senate Republicans laid out.

After the GOP’s latest measure tanked twice during test votes in the Senate, House Democrats wrote a competing proposal to save the country from economic destruction at the hands of the coronavirus. The House measure would boost emergency funds for agencies, mandate “green” rules for airlines, eliminate a payroll tax suspension, kick in additional help for hospitals, schools and food banks, and more.

Here’s what House Democrats have included in their bill and how it contrasts with the latest proposal from Senate Republicans: Continue reading.

‘My first question every time I see a new patient now is: Could this be COVID-19?’ A Seattle doctor on the frontlines

The Conversation is running a series of dispatches from clinicians and researchers operating on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic.

Inside, as usual, patient beds are near capacity, and the emergency department is filled with not only the usual mix of patients with trauma, stroke, chest pain and other concerns, but also dozens of people worried they might have COVID-19.

I am an emergency and critical care physician who cares for patients in the emergency department and intensive care units at Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center, a public hospital with 413 beds owned by King County and staffed by doctors from the University of Washington School of Medicine.

UW Medicine has seen dozens of COVID-19 cases since the first patient arrived here in late February. Continue reading.

Criticized For His Coronavirus Response, Trump Returns To The ‘Blame Obama’ Standby

The president has been in office for three years and two months, but still blames his predecessor for his own administration’s lagging response to the coronavirus pandemic.

WASHINGTON — After seven weeks of downplaying the threat of a looming pandemic, President Donald Trump has gone back to a favorite well: blaming his predecessor, Barack Obama.

“We inherited a broken, obsolete system,” Trump said Sunday, the third straight White House briefing in which he has blamed his administration’s slow response to the coronavirus pandemic on Obama, even though Trump has been in office now a full three years and two months.

“We took over an obsolete, broken testing system that wouldn’t have worked for even a small problem, let alone one of the biggest pandemics in history,” Trump said Saturday, a day after claiming: “We inherited a broken, old — frankly, a terrible system.” Continue reading.

Trump calls on U.S. to ‘protect our Asian American community’ hours after referring to ‘Chinese virus’

The chairwoman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus said Trump’s comments would not “be necessary if he and his supporters had not already endangered so many by spreading this toxic xenophobia.”

President Donald Trump tweeted Monday that people should look out for “our Asian American community.”

In the tweet, the president advised Americans to protect those of Asian descent “in the United States, and all around the world.” He posted the message hours after he once again referred to COVID-19 as the “Chinese virus,” a term he’s used multiple times that some experts say has led to hateful attacks on those of Asian descent.

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

It is very important that we totally protect our Asian American community in the United States, and all around the world. They are amazing people, and the spreading of the Virus….

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Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

 ·

It is very important that we totally protect our Asian American community in the United States, and all around the world. They are amazing people, and the spreading of the Virus….

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

….is NOT their fault in any way, shape, or form. They are working closely with us to get rid of it. WE WILL PREVAIL TOGETHER!

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“They are amazing people, and the spreading of the Virus …is NOT their fault in any way, shape, or form,” he wrote on the platform. “They are working closely with us to get rid of it. WE WILL PREVAIL TOGETHER!” Continue reading..

India announces nationwide lockdown to stop spread of coronavirus

Axios logoIndia’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Tuesday that the entire country will be locked down for three weeks beginning at midnight in an effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

Why it matters: With 1.3 billion people, India is the second-most populated country in the world. India currently has 519 confirmed cases.

Between the lines: Modi hopes to avoid a crisis on the scale of China’s or Europe’s, but his new measures will have a massive economic cost. Continue reading.

He Was Wrong On ‘Contained’ Coronavirus, But Larry Kudlow Says Trust Him On Social Distance

Trump’s top economic adviser insists that keeping the “economy going” is the “important point” while COVID-19 cases rise.

President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, finally admitted Monday he was wrong about coronavirus being “contained” a month ago. But now he wants America to trust him on easing social distancing — for the good of the economy.

Kudlow was making the interview rounds apparently preparing the nation for Trump’s reported intention to lift social distancing restrictions in just days as the president desperately seeks a strategy that might boost the economy. Kudlow spoke as conservative British Prime Minister Boris Johnson took the opposite tack and for the first time enacted strict national “lockdown” requirements in a bid to stem the spread of the virus there.

Kudlow said on Feb. 25 that coronavirus in the U.S. was “contained pretty close to airtight.” Now, with at least 41,000 cases and more than 500 deaths from the virus, he told CNBC: “I’ve changed my view.” Continue reading.

‘Uh oh’ – Trump backs away as official says she had fever

President Donald Trump practises some instant social distancing as White House coronavirus task force co-ordinator Deborah Birx mentions she had a fever at the weekend.

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Trump Won’t Order Vital Coronavirus Supplies Because Corporate CEOs Asked Him Not To

They’re worried it could be bad for business.

One of the most mind-boggling aspects of the coronavirus crisis in America is the fact that one of the wealthiest countries in the world doesn’t have the basic medical supplies necessary to deal with the situation. In addition to a lack of beds, hospitals across the nation have nowhere near the number of ventilators and masks doctors require to both do their jobs and protect themselves. While governors have pleaded with Donald Trump to help them obtain such equipment, he’s literally told them they’re on their own, seemingly forgetting the fact that he’s the one with the power here. For instance, Andrew Cuomo can’t invoke the Defense Production Act, which allows the federal government to take some control of the private sector to ensure production of materials relevant to national defense, but Trump can. And yet he’s chosen not to. Why? Because corporate CEOs don’t like the idea, and the president is more concerned with keeping big business happy than keeping Americans alive.

Yes, according to the New York Times, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and heads of major corporations have “lobbied the administration against using the act,” arguing that it could impose “red tape” on companies at a time when they need the government out of their hair. Unsurprisingly, free market die-hard Larry Kudlow, i.e., Trump’s never–right National Economic Council director, was “persuaded” by such arguments, as was Trump’s not-very-bright son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Instead the Trump Brain Trust has insisted that it can just convince businesses to help bridge the shortfall of vital medical supplies without making a formal demand, an initiative that thus far has had predictable results: Continue reading.