Tag: pandemic

I’m a public health researcher, and I’m dismayed that the CDC’s missteps are causing people to lose trust in a great institution

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been the premier U.S. public health agency since its founding on July 1, 1946. 

The CDC is responsible for assuring the health of all Americans and promoting evidence-based public health practice. It also is responsible for researching the causes of death and illness as well as working on ways to prevent them. Americans have come to trust it for accurate information. 

However, recent actions by the CDC have led many in public health to call into question the integrity of the CDC’s leadership as they ignore the science and bow to political pressure. Their actions have hurt public health efforts and led to confusion and mistrust by the public at large. Continue reading.

MN GOP Embarks on COVID Across Minnesota Bus Tour

Maskless, indoor campaign stops come despite rising COVID-19 levels in MN

St. Paul, MN – Today, the Minnesota Republican Party kicked off another bus tour featuring numerous maskless, indoor campaign stops. This tour comes despite the massive potential to spread COVID-19 at maskless, indoor events and despite the fact that Minnesota is seeing more new COVID-19 cases per day than at almost any other time during this pandemic.

The tour launched in Preston, Minnesota where attendees gathered indoors, in close proximity to one another, and without almost any masks:

Source: Twitter

Continue reading “MN GOP Embarks on COVID Across Minnesota Bus Tour”

Born in grief

A mother’s death highlights pandemic’s racial disparities.

She would have turned 36 in August, but for COVID-19.

Family decided to gather for her birthday anyway, coming together on a sunny evening to decorate the grave of Aurora Chacon-Esparza with balloons and flowers.

Alongside the plot marked with a simple white cross, they placed a bassinet with the most precious gift of all — the baby girl she was carrying when she was struck by the virus.

“We never thought my wife would have gotten this sick,” Juan Duran-Gutierrez said softly, his eyes shielded by sunglasses. Continue reading.

Trump’s rush for a covid vaccine could make it less likely to work

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The president has spent years undermining the agencies working on ‘Operation Warp Speed.’

President Trump clearly sees the coronavirus pandemic as a threat to his reelection and wants to show that he is making progress against it. He promised at the Republican National Convention to “produce a vaccine before the end of the year, or maybe even sooner,” boasting: “Nobody thought it could be done this fast. Normally it would be years, and we did it in a matter of a few months. We are producing them in advance so hundreds of millions of doses can be quickly available. We have a safe and effective vaccine this year, and together we will crush the virus.” 

The Food and Drug Administration is considering whether to allow a vaccine against the coronavirus to be used on an emergency basis before its formal approval process is finished, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has told states to be ready to distribute doses by Nov. 1 — two days before the election. 

But wanting a vaccine to be ready by the time the polls open and getting one that is safe, effective and accepted by the American people are two very different things. And the Trump administration’s attempts to make government agency leaders support the president’s political positions this year have undermined public trust in the very institutions needed to evaluate and distribute the immunizations. Now the same impulses that have led Trump to downplay the virus and latch onto imagined miracle cures could also get in the way of an effective vaccine.  Continue reading.

GOP uses debunked theory to downplay COVID-19 death toll

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Top Republicans are seeking to downplay the heavy toll of the coronavirus, in part by pointing to a conspiracy theory that the number of deaths is much lower.

President Trump, along with Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Rep. Roger Marshall(R-Kan.), who are both in competitive Senate races, have all pointed in recent days to the widely debunked theory that COVID-19 deaths in the United States total just 10,000 instead of the more than 180,000 recorded by health officials.

The speculative remarks come at a time when about 1,000 people a day are dying from the virus, providing a grim backdrop to the final sprint to Election Day. Trump, meanwhile, has been trying to project an optimistic message, frequently pointing to rapid progress toward a vaccine and saying he thinks the virus is “going away.” Continue reading.

Trump fixates on the promise of a vaccine — real or not — as key to reelection bid

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President Trump is so fixated on finding a vaccine for the novel coronavirus that in meetings about the U.S. pandemic response, little else captures his attention, according to administration officials.

Trump has pressed health officials to speed up the vaccine timeline and urged them to deliver one by the end of the year. He has peppered them with questions about the development status and mass-distribution plans. And, in recent days, he has told some advisers and aides that a vaccine may arrive by Nov. 1, which just happens to be two days before the presidential election.

Trump’s desire to deliver a vaccine — or at least convince the public that one is very near — by the time voters decide whether to elect him to a second term is in part a campaign gambit to improve his standing with an electorate that overwhelmingly disapproves of his management of the pandemic. Continue reading.

Trump Again Mocks Biden For Wearing Mask, Protecting Others

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have repeatedly called on Americans to wear a mask in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19. “All Americans have a responsibility to protect themselves, their families, and their communities,” said the CDC director. Wearing a mask doesn’t primarily protect the mask-wearer—it protects others. As Joe Biden has made clear, wearing a mask isn’t just a symbol, it’s an active part of good citizenship. 

“Every single American should be wearing a mask when they’re outside for the next three months, at a minimum. Every governor should mandate mandatory mask-wearing,” said Biden. Doing so could save at least 40,000 American lives, according to the latest estimates.

So, of course, Donald Trump is mocking Biden for wearing a mask. Because, after all, why would anyone do something for other people? Trump is attacking Biden because he’s simply incapable of inconveniencing himself in the slightest to protect American lives. Continue reading.

Pandemic Kills More Police Officers Than All Other Causes Combined

On Aug. 31, Democratic nominee for president Joe Biden made a speech in Pittsburgh where he said: “More cops have died from COVID this year than have been killed on patrol.” Very quickly conservatives everywhere wondered whether or not that could be true. Weren’t police officers mostly being gunned down by unarmed Black men or as a result of antifa-related soup can bludgeonings? But it turns out that sadly, the complete failure of our current administration to properly protect the health of Americans from the pandemic has predictably extended towards the state’s law enforcement apparatus.

According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF) and the Officer Down Memorial Page, at least 101 law enforcement deaths through September have been connected to COVID-19. Gunfire makes up around 35 of the deaths while 33 deaths were connected to vehicular-related accidents. But the false narrative that the Trump administration protects law enforcement first and that police are under fire from the civilian population, not the current administration’s greed and inaction, is further undermined by a dip into those numbers.

For one, the COVID-19 deaths recorded, according to NLEOMF, are based on only 20 states’ reporting. That means there are potentially considerably more coronavirus-related law enforcement deaths across the country. They also show a decrease of 14 percent in law enforcement deaths from 2019 to 2020—outside of COVID-19. Chief amongst those decreases is a reduction of law enforcement firearm-related deaths. In fact, since the 1970s, law enforcement fatalities have steadily decreased, with spikes correlating pretty directly with times of economic hardship. Continue reading.

America’s real hoax: Record highs on Wall Street as millions of jobless people can’t pay rent

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The shocking disconnect between a thriving U.S. investor economy and its millions of unemployed as a recipe for even worse social unrest.

Don’t blame Lisa Scott, a 43-year-old certified nursing assistant who lives in the Oxford Circle section of Philadelphia, for not celebrating this week as the Standard & Poor’s 500 index soared to yet another record high, as Wall Street’s unbelievable — in every sense of the word — summer stretches into a new month.

On Wednesday afternoon, as the Dow was rising yet another 454 points, Scott — who hasn’t worked since the coronavirus turned her world upside down in March — was far too busy worrying why Pennsylvania still hasn’t processed her unemployment claim, whether her landlord will keep allowing her to pay whatever rent she can and how she’d be able to seek new work with her 12-year-old at home for virtual schooling. Continue reading.

Gerald Ford Rushed Out a Vaccine. It Was a Fiasco.

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Trump should keep that in mind as he pushes for a coronavirus shot.

Last week, news arrived that President Trump had lurched into what may be his most reckless obsession yet: His administration would probably seek an “emergency use authorization” for a Covid-19 vaccine long before some scientists believe it would be safe to do so.

A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services immediately addressed the obvious suspicion: “Talk of an ‘October surprise’”— an attempt to manufacture good news just before the November election — “is a lurid Resistance fantasy.”

As he does often, however, the president proudly admitted to the exact thing his underling insisted was inconceivable. Continue reading.