Tag: Trump botched COVID-19 response

F.D.A. ‘Grossly Misrepresented’ Blood Plasma Data, Scientists Say

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Many experts — including a scientist who worked on the Mayo Clinic study — were bewildered about where a key statistic came from.

At a news conference on Sunday announcing the emergency approval of blood plasma for hospitalized Covid-19 patients, President Trump and two of his top health officials cited the same statistic: that the treatment had reduced deaths by 35 percent.

Mr. Trump called it a “tremendous” number. His health and human services secretary, Alex M. Azar II, a former pharmaceutical executive, said, “I don’t want you to gloss over this number.” And Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said 35 out of 100 Covid-19 patients “would have been saved because of the administration of plasma.”

But scientists were taken aback by the way the administration framed this data, which appeared to have been calculated based on a small subgroup of hospitalized Covid-19 patients in a Mayo Clinic study: those who were under 80 years old, not on ventilators and received plasma known to contain high levels of virus-fighting antibodies within three days of diagnosis. Continue reading.

Paul Krugman explains how life is getting ‘rapidly worse’ for millions of Americans as the GOP cheers the stock market

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Although the coronavirus crisis has brought double-digit unemployment to the United States, some affluent Americans are continuing to prosper in the stock market. Liberal economist Paul Krugman addresses that disparity in his New York Times column this week, noting how the wide gap between the haves and have-nots continues during the pandemic.

Krugman points out that earlier this week, the S&P 500 “hit a record high” — and Apple “became the first U.S. company in history to be valued at more than $2 trillion.” He quickly adds, however, that “the economy probably doesn’t feel so great to the millions of workers who still haven’t gotten their jobs back and who have just seen their unemployment benefits slashed.”

“The $600-a-week supplemental benefit enacted in March has expired, and Trump’s purported replacement is basically a sick joke,” Krugman explains. “Even before the aid cutoff, the number of parents reporting that they were having trouble giving their children enough to eat was rising rapidly. That number will surely soar in the next few weeks. And we’re also about to see a huge wave of evictions, both because families are no longer getting the money they need to pay rent and because a temporary ban on evictions, like supplemental unemployment benefits, has just expired.” Continue reading.

Trump administration limits FDA review of some coronavirus tests

The policy change has been a major point of tension for weeks between HHS and FDA.

The Trump administration will allow coronavirus tests developed by individual laboratories — including commercial facilities run by Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp — to be used without an FDA review, a decision that public health experts warn could lead to broad use of flawed tests.

The Department of Health and Human Services outlined the decision in a notice published Wednesday.

The majority of coronavirus tests used now in the U.S. are made by device manufacturers, who still must seek FDA permission to market their products. But the lab-developed tests affected by the new policy are also in wide use. Continue reading.

School reopenings with COVID-19 offer preview of chaotic fall

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Thousands of students and teachers across the country are quarantining just days into the new school year, highlighting the challenges of resuming in-person instruction during a pandemic.

While many schools aren’t scheduled to reopen until later this month or September, those that have are offering a preview of the chaos that awaits districts this fall, particularly in hot spots in the South and Midwest where the virus is spreading uncontrollably.

In Georgia’s Cherokee County School District, where students are not required to wear masks, nearly 2,200 students — mostly high schoolers — are quarantining after coming into contact with one of 116 students or 25 teachers and staff members with COVID-19. Another 53 teachers and staff members are also quarantining. Continue reading.

Memo exposes Trump’s unemployment insurance plan as a farce

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Though the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has approved funding which will allow seven states to provide a $300 weekly supplement to existing unemployment benefits — a policy implemented by President Donald Trump through an executive order earlier this month — a recent memo from the same agency implies that states are only guaranteed three weeks of federal funding for the important economy-rescuing subsidy.

“FEMA will use data from the Department of Labor, as well as state data received on applications to project the overall funding distributions,” FEMA explained in a recent memo. “Approved grant applicants will receive an initial obligation of three weeks of needed funding. Additional disbursements will be made on a weekly basis in order to ensure that funding remains available for the states who apply for the grant assistance.”

The CARES Act, which provided $600 per week of federal unemployment benefits, expired in July, and Trump’s executive order was intended as a partial extension of the relief provided in that bill. Trump’s new executive order was reported as creating a $400-a-week supplement, but the federal government is responsible for only $300 of that supplemental payment. The remaining $100 per week is covered by states themselves. FEMA is overseeing the disbursement of the supplemental funds. Continue reading.

Trump’s unemployment extension may only provide three-week boost, federal guidance reveals

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Out-of-work Americans may see only a three-week boost to their unemployment benefits, as state and federal officials scramble to stretch out a limited pot of money and implement President Trump’s recent policy order.

The Trump administration offered the new details about its directive Monday, pledging additional aid would reach workers in a matter of weeks — even as its guidance quickly rekindled criticismthat the White House’s actions alone are insufficient to help people weather the economic crisis wrought by the pandemic.

Under Trump’s order, the U.S. government aims to front the money for jobless Americans who would get at least an extra $300 in weekly payments. The dollars will come from a federal disaster relief fund managed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which will initially dispatch an amount to the states meant to cover three weeks’ worth of payments, the Trump administration said. Continue reading.

Oleandrin is a deadly plant poison, not a COVID-19 cure

With COVID-19 cases and deaths rising in the U.S. and globally, identifying new therapies to prevent and combat the virus is a top priority. Natural products from plants are an attractive option in the search for a cure. Approximately 374,000 plant species are on Earth; humans have used more than 28,000 of them as a form of medicine. 

But not all that is natural is necessarily safe. Scientists have not yet explored most of these species for their chemical makeup or therapeutic potential. 

As a medical ethnobotanist, I study the traditional uses of medicinal plants to discover promising leads for new drugs to fight infectious diseases. It’s vital to consider both the potential benefits and risks of plant extracts in such research. I am concerned by recent reports that a chemical found in the oleander plant is being touted as a potential treatment for COVID-19. Continue reading.

Dozens of public health officials are quitting during pandemic

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Health officials across the country are calling it quits in the midst of a global pandemic as otherwise below-the-radar public servants become the targets of anger and frustration in a hyperpartisan age.

In some cases, government health officials have quit or been removed from their jobs after clashing with elected leaders.

New York City Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot resigned this month after feuding with Mayor Bill de Blasio (D). Health officials in Texas, Indiana and Montana have quit in recent weeks after politicians overrode their advice on requiring masks and prohibiting public events. Continue reading.

Trump trades in hydroxychloroquine advocacy for flower oil after meeting with MyPillow guy: report

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President Donald Trump has come up with another “cure” to the coronavirus pandemic. According to Axios, Trump thinks that the oil from a flower could help save people.

“Trump has expressed enthusiasm for the Food and Drug Administration to approve an extract from the oleander plant as a dietary supplement to cure COVID-19, despite lack of proof that it works,” said Axios in the Sunday report.

According to the report, Trump got the idea from an Oval Office meeting with the My Pillow guy and Dr. Ben Carson, a brain surgeon who runs the Department of Housing and Urban Development. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell owns a financial stake in the company developing the flower oil. Continue reading.