Tag: Trump mishandling pandemic crisis

National Parks reopen without release of plan or infection data

Most parks were closed in March after being inundated with guests who were not observing CDC guidelines

The Interior Department is reopening national parks across the country even as the agency withholds data on COVID-19 cases among its employees.

Last week, some of the most visited national parks, including Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina and Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, became the latest among dozens of parks reopening. Parks had been mostly closed since March after being inundated with guests who were not observing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines to minimize the spread of the novel coronavirus.

A spokesperson for Interior didn’t elaborate on how decisions to reopen were being made or whether the agency was tracking coronavirus cases among Park Service staff. The spokesperson referred CQ Roll Call to a prior statement that the “health and safety” of visitors, employees, volunteers and partners continues to be the agency’s “highest” priority. Continue reading.

Trump’s medical judgment is wrong. The example he’s setting is worse.

Washington Post logoOnce again, President Trump is playing doctor in chief. Once again, his medical judgment is wrong, and the example he is setting by his behavior is worse.

Trump announced that he began taking hydroxychloroquine and zinc to prevent covid-19 after a White House staffer tested positive for Sars-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus. Simultaneously, he and Vice President Pence have consistently ignored the advice of their own experts to wear face masks.

Trump’s confidence notwithstanding, hydroxychloroquine, most often used to treat malaria, has never been shown to lower the rate of transmission of the coronavirus. Nor has it been shown to improve symptoms or speed recovery among those infected. Continue reading.

Mask shortage for most health-care workers extended into May, Post-Ipsos poll shows

Washington Post logoFront-line health-care workers still experienced shortages of critical equipment needed for protection from the coronavirus into early May — including nearly two-thirds who cited insufficient supplies of the face masks that filter out most airborne particles, according to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll.

More than 4 in 10 also saw shortages of less protective surgical masks and 36 percent said their supply of hand sanitizer was running low, according to the poll. Roughly 8 in 10 reported wearing one mask for an entire shift, and more than 7 in 10 had to wear the same mask more than once.

The dire shortage of personal protective equipment for health-care workers emerged in March as one of the earliest signals of the country’s lack of preparation for the coronavirus pandemic. Nurses and others have said they were forced to put their own health at risk caring for highly infectious patients because they lacked adequate supplies, in particular N95 masks, which filter out 95 percent of airborne particles. Continue reading.

Tensions flare over GOP’s Obama probes

The Hill logoTensions are flaring in the Senate as Republicans prepare to ramp up their investigations into Obama-era officials.

Amid public and private pressure from President Trump, GOP senators are increasingly embracing calls to use their congressional power to investigate some of Trump’s biggest grievances stemming from the Obama administration, including the origins of the Russia investigation, the court established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and Hunter Biden.

Democrats argue Republicans are using their committee gavels to probe Trump’s political enemies, an effort they say is designed to hunt for political fodder against former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, while inadvertently spreading Russian misinformation. Continue reading.

Trump’s new bombshell in the ‘Obamagate’ farce turns out to be another bust

AlterNet logoIn an apparent Senate and Team Trump effort to something something a new Trump-demanded Obama “scandal,” the Trump administration has declassified an additional portion of a previously disclosed email from Ambassador Susan Rice to herself documenting an Obama meeting with FBI Director James Comey and other top officials over the potential national security threat posed by Trump transition member Michael Flynn’s “frequent” private contacts with the Russian ambassador.

What’s the new disclosure show, then? That intelligence leaders were extremely alarmed by Flynn’s behavior, with Comey informing Obama that Flynn “potentially” represented a security risk severe enough that the Obama administration should avoid passing him sensitive information. While Obama wanted law enforcement and intelligence communities to handle their concerns “by the book,” Obama told Comey to “inform him” if anything came up that “should affect how we share classified information with the incoming team.”

The declassified portion can be found at Politico: Continue reading.

Add to list Trump describes medical researchers as enemies because he doesn’t like their results

Washington Post logoThe team that studied the coronavirus in veterans found no positive effect from hydroxychloroquine

There was a specific reason for President Trump’s sudden announcement on Monday that he was taking the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine. His goal was to undermine a whistleblower who had raised questions about the administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, a whistleblower who claimed that it was his skepticism about the utility of the drug that led to his firing. How could hydroxychloroquine be as dangerous as former top vaccine official Rick Bright suggested, Trump offered, given that he himself was using it?

The revelation quickly prompted reporters to ask what evidence Trump had that the drug was at all efficacious in addressing the virus and disease it causes, covid-19. Simple, Trump replied: Lots of people called him and said it worked.

“The only negative I’ve heard was the study where they gave it — was it the VA?” Trump said, referring to the Department of Veterans Affairs. “With, you know, people that aren’t big Trump fans gave it.” He then went on to express surprise at this perceived disloyalty from VA, given the legislation he had signed to support it. (The legislation he mentioned was in fact first signed by President Barack Obama.) Continue reading.

Trump blames Democrats for his grounded campaign, even as bipartisan restrictions ban his signature rallies

President Trump, approaching his longest stretch without a political rally since he announced his candidacy five years ago, has taken to blaming Democrats for grounding his campaign.

But even as several states begin relaxing their coronavirus restrictions, Trump has not scheduled any rallies in Republican-led states — and his campaign has not reached out to governors in swing states to inquire about holding large political events.

The claim of politically motivated closures was outlined most directly by Trump’s son, Eric, who accused Democrats of trying to strip the president of his greatest reelection weapon. Continue reading.

Fact-checking Trump’s letter blasting the World Health Organization

Washington Post logoIn previous administrations, a letter to an international organization signed by the U.S. president generally would have been carefully vetted and fact-checked. But President Trump’s May 18 letter to World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus contains a number of false or misleading statements. Here’s a sampling, as well as a guide to some of his claims:

“The World Health Organization consistently ignored credible reports of the virus spreading in Wuhan in early December 2019 or even earlier, including reports from the Lancet medical journal. The World Health Organization failed to independently investigate credible reports that conflicted directly with the Chinese government’s official accounts, even those that came from sources within Wuhan itself.”

Richard Horton, the Lancet’s editor in chief, said no such study existed. “Dear President Trump — You cite The Lancet in your attack on WHO,” Horton tweeted. “Please let me correct the record. The Lancet did not publish any report in early December, 2019, about a virus spreading in Wuhan. The first reports we published were from Chinese scientists on Jan 24, 2020.” Continue reading.

CDC guidelines, released at last, offer low-key guide to reopening

Washington Post logoThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week laid out its detailed, delayed road map for reopening schools, child-care facilities, restaurants and mass transit, weeks after covid-weary states began opening on their own terms.

The CDC cautioned that some institutions should stay closed for now and said reopening should be guided by coronavirus transmission rates.

For schools, the CDC recommended a raft of social distancing policies: desks at least six feet apart and facing the same direction, lunch in classrooms, staggered arrival times, cloth masks for staff and daily temperature screenings for everyone. Continue reading.

Add to list Asian American doctors and nurses are fighting racism and the coronavirus

Washington Post logoAcross the country, Asian Americans have reported a sharp increase in verbal abuse and physical attacks

Lucy Li tries not to let fear dictate her interactions with patients as she makes the rounds in the covid-19 intensive care unit. But the anesthesiology resident at Massachusetts General Hospital cannot erase the memory of what happened after work at the start of the pandemic.

A man followed the Chinese American doctor from the Boston hospital, spewing a profanity-laced racist tirade as she walked to the subway. “Why are you Chinese people killing everyone?” Li recalled the man shouting. “What is wrong with you? Why the f— are you killing us?”

Stunned at first, then relieved she was not physically attacked, Li is now saddened and angered by the irony that she spends her days and nights helping save lives. Her work inserting tubes in patients’ airways has grown riskier since the coronavirus emerged — each procedure releasing droplets and secretions that could carry viral particles. Continue reading.