Tag: Trump botched COVID-19 response

Even Asymptomatic People Carry the Coronavirus in High Amounts

New York Times logoResearchers in South Korea found that roughly 30 percent of those infected never develop symptoms yet probably spread the virus.

Of all the coronavirus’s qualities, perhaps the most surprising has been that seemingly healthy people can spread it to others. This trait has made the virus difficult to contain, and continues to challenge efforts to identify and isolate infected people.

Most of the evidence for asymptomatic spread has been based on observation (a person without symptoms nevertheless sickened others) or elimination (people became ill but could not be connected to anyone with symptoms).

A new study in South Korea, published Thursday in JAMA Internal Medicine, offers more definitive proof that people without symptoms carry just as much virus in their nose, throat and lungs as those with symptoms, and for almost as long. Continue reading.

Doctor tells Nicolle Wallace why ‘the worst is yet to come’ — and it ‘scared the bejesus’ out of the MSNBC anchor

AlterNet logoSpeaking to MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace on Friday, two foreign policy experts explained the shocking ways in which President Donald Trump has ignored the continued attacks on the American election at the hands of Russia. Trump has spoken to Vladimir Putin five or six times since it was discovered that Moscow was paying bounties for the deaths of Americans. He didn’t address any of it; he confessed because he believes the report was a hoax.

But when Wallace turned to the doctor on her panel to ask about the next steps of the coronavirus, things looked even worse.

“President Trump is in a dilapidated political state because of his inactions and failures to lead the country through a global pandemic,” Wallace began. “You said, we would stop being America if things got much worse — you said a few weeks ago. You first raised my attention to the disinformation being spread around the pandemic and vaccines. What strikes you about this intel report that Russia is now actively working to hurt Biden to help Trump with the specter of disinformation spread around the pandemic and vaccines. Facebook and Twitter both took down some of Trump’s disinformation as it pertained to infection risks for children. It’s probably like whack-a-mole if you had to pull it all down.” Continue reading.

Coronavirus talks collapse as negotiators fail to reach deal

The Hill logoBipartisan talks aimed at finding a deal on a fifth coronavirus bill collapsed on Friday, all-but-guaranteeing Congress and the White House will not be able to reach a compromise despite a steady uptick in cases and lingering economic aftershocks.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows met for less than two hours with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi(D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) as part of a Hail Mary effort to revive the negotiations on a fifth coronavirus bill, which already appeared to be on life support.

But they emerged with no progress. Instead, the GOP negotiators and Democratic leadership traded blame over the impasse, and the administration officials said they will recommend President Trump move forward with executive orders as soon as this weekend. Continue reading.

300,000 Deaths By December? 9 Takeaways From The Newest COVID-19 Projections

By Dec. 1, the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 could reach nearly 300,000. That’s the grim new projection from researchers at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation — one of the more prominent teams modeling the pandemic. The new forecast, released Thursday, projects that between now and December, 137,000 people will die on top of the roughly 160,000 who have died so far.

NPR spoke with the head of IHME’s team, Chris Murray, as well as with Nicholas Reich, of University of Massachusetts Amherst, who has set up a system for comparing 26 different U.S. forecasts.

Here are nine takeaways to help make sense of the projections: Continue reading.

How COVID-19 might increase risk of memory loss and cognitive decline

Of all frightening ways that the SARS-COV-2 virus affects the body, one of the more insidious is the effect of COVID-19 on the brain.

It is now clear that many patients suffering from COVID-19 exhibit neurological symptoms, from loss of smell, to delirium, to an increased risk of stroke. There are also longer-lasting consequences for the brain, including myalgic encephalomyelitis /chronic fatigue syndrome and Guillain-Barre syndrome.

These effects may be caused by direct viral infection of brain tissue. But growing evidence suggests additional indirect actionstriggered via the virus’s infection of epithelial cells and the cardiovascular system, or through the immune system and inflammation, contribute to lasting neurological changes after COVID-19. Continue reading.

Trump continues to flout social distancing guidelines even as he urges others to follow them

Washington Post logoTwo weeks ago, President Trump held an event at the South Court Auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on lowering prescription drug prices. That facility is larger than conference spaces in the White House, providing room for guests to spread out and safeguard against the coronavirus.

As the president spoke, he invited several guests, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), to speak at a lectern set apart from his own to observe social distancing guidelines. All of the speakers had been required to undergo a rapid test for the virus at the White House.

Yet after his remarks, Trump invited a dozen people to crowd behind him shoulder-to-shoulder as he signed several executive actions and handed out ceremonial pens. Four wore face masks, while the others did not, including the president and four doctors in white medical smocks. Continue reading.

Virus keeps spreading as schools begin to open, frightening parents and alarming public health officials

Washington Post logoCOLUMBUS, Miss. — Even before President Trump admonished his top coronavirus adviser for saying the country was entering a “new phase” of widespread infection, patients at Mississippi’s only Level 1 trauma hospital were already on a wait for ICU beds.

“Our ICUs have been full for weeks,” LouAnn Woodward, a vice chancellor at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, said Thursday. “It’s a very acute issue we’re facing here.”

Mississippi, now experiencing the country’s highest rate of positive tests, is emblematic of the pandemic’s new reality. The virus is no longer principally an urban problem: It is present throughout every state, and those infected often don’t know it, leading to what top public health officials call “inherent community spread.” Continue reading.

The Unique U.S. Failure to Control the Virus

New York Times logoSlowing the coronavirus has been especially difficult for the United States because of its tradition of prioritizing individualism and missteps by the Trump administration

Nearly every country has struggled to contain the coronavirus and made mistakes along the way.

China committed the first major failure, silencing doctors who tried to raise alarms about the virus and allowing it to escape from Wuhan. Much of Europe went next, failing to avoid enormous outbreaks. Today, many countries — Japan, Canada, France, Australia and more — are coping with new increases in cases after reopening parts of society.

Yet even with all of these problems, one country stands alone, as the only affluent nation to have suffered a severe, sustained outbreak for more than four months: the United States. Continue reading.

 

New report accuses Trump of ‘intentional disregard’ and attack on democracy throughout failed COVID-19 response

AlterNet logoA new report published Wednesday details months of wilful failures to confront the coronavirus pandemic by the White House and paints President Donald Trump’s authoritarian tactics during that national crisis as an overt assault on the nation’s democratic institutions ahead of elections in November.

The report by Common Cause—titled “Intentional Disregard: Trump’s Authoritarianism During the Covid-19 Pandemic,” (pdf)—highlights Trump’s coronavirus response as part of a larger effort by the president to attack U.S. democracy.

As evidence to support its thesis, Common Cause points to the president’s repeated claim that mail-in voting—favored by 58% of Americans according to a Politico/Morning Consult poll released Wednesday—will result in a “rigged” election. The report also shows how the administration is actively undermining the U.S. Postal Service by naming a top GOP donor with no USPS experience as postmaster general. Continue reading.

Democrats demand Postal Service reverse new rules that have slowed the delivery of absentee ballots

Washington Post logoDemocratic leaders on Capitol Hill told negotiators for President Trump on Wednesday that preserving funding for the U.S. Postal Service and removing new rules that have slowed delivery times are essential ingredients of a new coronavirusrelief bill in a year when millions of Americans plan to vote by mail.

“Elections are sacred,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), told reporters after a meeting with Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. “To do cutbacks when ballots, all ballots, have to be counted — we can’t say, ‘Oh, we’ll get 94 percent of them.’ It’s insufficient.”

Schumer said he and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told DeJoy, along with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, that their demands regarding the Postal Service are necessary to striking a deal on broader relief bill that may also include new unemployment benefits and a payroll tax cut. Continue reading.