Tag: Trump botched COVDI-19 response

Nearly 900 Secret Service members were infected with the coronavirus. A watchdog blames Trump.

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Almost 900 Secret Service members have tested positive for the coronavirus since March 2020, according to a watchdog report, and many of those infected had protection assignments that included the safety of the president and vice president.

The nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington published a report Tuesday detailing how 881 Secret Service employees had tested positive between March 1, 2020 and March 9, 2021. The data, which came from a Freedom of Information Act request to the Secret Service, found that 477 members of the special agent division had been infected. Described by the Department of Homeland Security as “the elite agents you see protecting the President and Vice President,” special agents are also responsible for a number of safety assignments overseas and in the United States, such as protecting the president and vice president’s families, presidential candidates and visiting foreign leaders.

CREW said it’s unclear “whom the special agents who tested positive were assigned to protect or when, exactly, they tested positive.” Continue reading.

The Virus Surges in North Dakota, Filling Hospitals and Testing Attitudes

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As Covid-19 cases grow in the Great Plains, one official said residents need to know “how perilously close we are to the edge.”

BISMARCK, N.D. — When Tammy Gimbel called to check on her 86-year-old father two weeks ago, he sounded weak. He was rushed to Sanford Medical Center in North Dakota’s capital, where doctors said he had the coronavirus. But all the hospital beds in Bismarck were full, his relatives were told, and the only options were to send him to a hospital hours away in Fargo, or to release him to be monitored by his daughter, who was herself sick with the virus.

Ms. Gimbel and her father hunkered down in a 40-foot camping trailer in her backyard to try to recover. He only got worse.

“There I sat in my camper, watching my dad shake profusely, have a 102 temperature with an oxygen level of 86,” Ms. Gimbel recalled. “I am sicker than I had been the whole time, and I wanted to cry. What was I going to do? Was I going to watch my dad die?” Continue reading.

Schumer rips ’emaciated’ Republican coronavirus relief plan

As Senate Republicans eye a narrow aid package, the Democratic leader is urging his caucus to remain united in opposition.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer derided Senate Republicans’ new coronavirus relief proposal in a letter to Democratic colleagues Thursday, signaling the difficult challenge of reaching a deal in the coming weeks.

The Senate is set to return from its summer recess next week, with no clear path forward on a coronavirus relief package. Schumer’s letter, provided first to POLITICO, comes as talks between the White House and Democratic leaders have been stalled for weeks. Senate Republicans, meanwhile, are working to craft a narrower relief bill and eyeing a potential floor vote when the Senate is back.

In his letter Thursday, Schumer accused Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) of “planning another round of partisan games” and said Republicans are “moving even further in the wrong direction.” Continue reading.

The head of the FDA is forbidden from speaking to press without a Trump ‘minder’

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The New York Times has a long look questioning whether Food and Drug Administration head Stephen Hahn is being forced into giving the nation subpar advice on the demand of the anti-science, anti-reality narcissistic idiot manchild posing as the current president. It is full of the usual back and forth, both-siding quotes while laying out reams of evidence that actually this is not a question at all. The plain history shows that Dr. Hahn has absolutely been mealymouthing FDA pandemic advice to dodge contradicting Donald Trump’s most egregiously ignorant and magic-minded proclamations. It’s the sort of piece where you get the subject, Hahn, assuring the reporter that he is absolutely not feeling “squeezed” before the reporter casually throws in:

“On the line as he spoke was Michael Caputo, a deputy to Dr. Hahn’s boss, Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. […] Dr. Hahn is not allowed to speak to the press without Mr. Caputo or another official on the phone.”

There you go, America. Question answered. The head of the Food and Drug Administration is forbidden from talking to the press about the pandemic, period, unless an administration minder is present. Continue reading.

Fauci amplifies Birx’s warning about ‘new phase’ of coronavirus spread in U.S.

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Washington Post logoAnthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, defended and amplified Deborah Birx’s statements about what she characterized as a “new phase” of the pandemic in the United States.

Speaking to reporters Monday, Fauci said that the kind of spread some states are experiencing is extremely difficult to contain. “When you have community spread it’s insidious, there are people who are spreading it who have no symptoms at all … It’s difficult to do identification, isolation and contact tracing,” Fauci said.

Fauci’s comments came the same day President Trump lashed out at Birx, seemingly over her weekend remarks on CNN in which she warned that even rural areas would suffer. “It is extraordinarily widespread,” Birx said. Continue reading.

Officials dispute Trump’s claim that military is preparing COVID vaccine distribution

President Donald Trump says the U.S. military has an elaborate plan to distributed coronavirus across the country at rapid speed.  But defense and administration officials say otherwise.

It is unlikely the military will be involved, either in the distribution of a vaccine or in deciding who gets those precious initial deliveries, officials from both the White House and Defense Department said.

Two defense officials told McClatchy on the condition they not be identified that the military commands most likely to have a stake in establishing a delivery strategy – including U.S. Northern Command, which is responsible for homeland defense, or the U.S. National Guard – had not been asked to plan or preparer for distribution. Continue reading.

Trump Shared a COVID-19 Video Full of Lies and Misinformation. Twitter Just Deleted It.

Facebook took hours to remove the video, showing once again that the company simply cannot control the spread of disinformation on its network.

President Donald Trump helped propel a viral disinformation video on Monday night, sharing with his 84 million followers the false claims that no one needs to wear a mask and that hydroxychloroquine is a cure for coronavirus.

The video, featuring a group calling themselves “America’s Frontline Doctors,” was viewed tens of millions of times on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube on Monday before all three networks took action and removed it from their networks.

Twitter deleted the posts Trump had shared, saying the video was “in violation of our COVID-19 misinformation policy.” Continue reading.

White House pushes for slashing expanded jobless benefits despite rises in unemployment, coronavirus

Republicans have pushed to cut the expanded unemployment benefits in upcoming legislation because they claim it discourages people from working.

Top Trump administration and White House officials on Sunday said they want to replace the soon-expiring expanded unemployment benefits with a system that pays those out of work 70 percent of lost wages because they feel the current system gives people a reason not to return to the job.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told “Fox News Sunday” he believed 70 percent of wage replacement from the federal government, as opposed to the additional $600 per week, “is a very fair level.”

“I think workers and Americans understand the concept that you shouldn’t be paid more to stay home than to work,” he said. “That the fair thing is to replace wages and it just wouldn’t be fair to use taxpayer dollars to pay more people to sit home than they would get working and get a job.” Continue reading.

FEMA Sends Faulty Protective Gear to Nursing Homes Battling Virus

New York Times logoThe controversy over inadequate protective equipment has come to embody what critics describe as a haphazard federal effort to protect the 1.5 million Americans who live in nursing homes.

Expired surgical masks. Isolation gowns that resemble oversize trash bags. Extra-small gloves that are all but useless for the typical health worker’s hands.

Nursing home employees across the country have been dismayed by what they’ve found when they’ve opened boxes of protective medical gear sent by the federal government, part of a $134 million effort to provide facilities a 14-day supply of equipment considered critical for shielding their vulnerable residents from the coronavirus.

The shipments have included loose gloves of unknown provenance stuffed into unmarked Ziploc bags, surgical masks crafted from underwear fabric and plastic isolation gowns without openings for hands that require users to punch their fists through the closed sleeves. Adhesive tape must be used to secure them. Continue reading.

Fox News Viewers Increasingly Believe Covid-19 Conspiracy Theory

A new Axios/Ipsos poll finds that people who get their news from Fox News are more likely to buy into a conspiracy theory that has frequently been spread by right-wing media since the pandemic began: The false and baseless idea that the coronavirus death count has been inflated.

The poll found that 62 percent of Fox News watchers said the real number of coronavirus deaths is lower than the official number, closely aligning with 59 percent of Republicans. By contrast, only 9 percent of Democrats and 31 percent of Americans overall professed this view.

And this figure is going up, too: When the poll previously asked this question in May, it showed 44 percent of Fox News watchers and 40 percent of Republicans thought the deaths were over-counted, compared to just seven percent of Democrats and 23 percent of Americans overall. Continue reading.