Tag: Trump mishandling pandemic response

Scoop: Trump administration plan to provide millions of free face masks fizzled

Axios logoTop Trump administration officials had been developing a plan to give cloth masks to huge numbers of Americans, but the idea lost traction amid heavy internal skepticism.

The big picture: The scale of this undertaking would have been extraordinary, mobilizing an enormous public-private partnership to deliver protective cloth masks to millions of people — in one iteration of the idea, maybe even to every American.

Details: Administration officials had considered a partnership in which Hanes and Fruit of the Loom manufactured millions of cloth face masks and the U.S. Postal Service would have helped deliver them. Continue reading.

WHO chief calls for ‘unity’ after Trump funding threat

“With unity, with solidarity, at a national level and global level, resources will not be a problem,” Tedros said.

The World Health Organization pushed back on Wednesday against growing criticism from the United States and Taiwan, with top officials defending their handling of the coronavirus pandemic against accusations that they were too quick to accept China’s view of the outbreak.

The WHO’s Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus largely deflected questions about the threat by U.S. President Donald Trump to cut off funding to the U.N.-linked global health body, expressing his hope that American support would continue.

“With unity, with solidarity, at a national level and global level, resources will not be a problem,” Tedros said, going on to thank the United States for its long history of support for global health, which he called “a bipartisan proposition.” Continue reading.

Here’s the poll that proves Republicans are dangerous for your health

AlterNet logoThe latest Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll highlights how disruptive the COVID-19 crisis has been to people’s daily lives, and how unhappy the populace is becoming with Donald Trump’s response to it. Writing at Axios, Drew Altman, president and CEO of KFF, highlights the disconnect the American public is experiencing: 60% say that the federal government should be primarily responsible for the response to the crisis, but 52% say it’s their state government that’s leading the response.

The poll also shows the incredible partisan divide created by everything Trump touches. While Trump has publicly stated, again and again, that the states are on their own, they are responsible, and that he’ll just provide back up (when the governors kiss his ass), 53% of Republicans say that Trump is leading the response. A shocking 89% of Republicans say that they trust Trump to provide reliable information on the coronavirus, essentially the same percentage (90%) as trust the CDC. They’re utterly delusional. But they’re also dangerous.

If you want to really hate Republicans, look at their actions: “Democrats are still more likely than Republicans to report sheltering in place (90% vs. 74%) and stocking up on food, supplies, or medications (72% vs. 50%).” If you’re not stocking up on food and supplies and going out to get them, you’re not doing a very good job of sheltering in place. “But at least nine in ten Democrats (95%), independents (91%) and Republicans (91%) now report engaging in some form of social distancing.” Is that like how conservative evangelical churches are practicing “social distancing”? Continue reading.

The one way to tell Trump didn’t take coronavirus seriously

Focusing on threat earlier could have derailed impeachment

After weeks of minimizing the novel coronavirus, President Donald Trump now claims that he took it seriously from the beginning and knew about the pandemic before anyone else. There’s one key piece of evidence that shows that is not true.

If Trump had taken the coronavirus more seriously, more quickly, he could have avoided the Senate impeachment trial and maybe even impeachment altogether.

Republicans and the president blame Democrats for focusing government resources on impeachment while the outbreak was occurring in China, when it’s Trump who could have essentially stopped the process in its tracks. Continue reading.

The one way to tell Trump didn’t take coronavirus seriously

Focusing on threat earlier could have derailed impeachment

After weeks of minimizing the novel coronavirus, President Donald Trump now claims that he took it seriously from the beginning and knew about the pandemic before anyone else. There’s one key piece of evidence that shows that is not true.

If Trump had taken the coronavirus more seriously, more quickly, he could have avoided the Senate impeachment trial and maybe even impeachment altogether.

Republicans and the president blame Democrats for focusing government resources on impeachment while the outbreak was occurring in China, when it’s Trump who could have essentially stopped the process in its tracks. Continue reading.

Fox News is ‘lawyering up’ and readying for battle over potential coronavirus lawsuits: report

AlterNet logoBack in January and February, Fox News’ coverage of the coronavirus pandemic often downplayed the severity of the virus and claimed that Democrats, liberals and the mainstream media were exaggerating the dangers as a way of attacking President Donald Trump. Critics of Fox News, however, are divided on what is and isn’t an appropriate response to its abysmal coverage of the pandemic: some view Fox News’ coronavirus coverage as appalling but constitutionally protected speech, while others are asserting that lawsuits are appropriate. And journalist Caleb Ecarma, this week in Vanity Fair, reports that Fox News’ legal department is ready to go to battle if necessary.

Coronavirus was hardly the “hoax” that Trump and Fox News claimed it was. According to researchers at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, the pandemic has killed more than 76,300 people worldwide and more than 10,900 in the United States alone (as of early Tuesday morning, April 7). In other words, MSNBC and CNN’s coverage of the dangers that coronavirus posed were much more accurate than what Fox News hosts Trish Regan, Sean Hannity, etc. claimed. And Ecarma notes that the Washington League for Increased Transparency and Ethics (WASHLITE) has filed a “consumer protection complaint” naming Fox News and others as defendants. The lawsuit asserts that the “defendants acted in bad faith to willfully and maliciously disseminate false information denying and minimizing the danger posed by the spread of the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, which is now recognized as an international pandemic.”

WASHLITE’s Arthur West told the Times of San Diego, “That’s the real evil of this type of programming. We believe it delayed and interfered with a prompt and adequate response to this coronavirus pandemic.” Continue reading.

Black, Latino communities suffering disproportionately from coronavirus, statistics show

The Hill logoEmerging statistics show black and Latino communities are being disproportionately affected by the coronavirus pandemic, leading to pressure from lawmakers and others that states release the racial breakdown of their cases and deaths.

Louisiana’s Department of Health on Monday became one of the latest state entities to begin reporting a racial breakdown of their cases. It showed black people account for 70 percent of coronavirus deaths in the state, despite making up just 32 percent of the population.

“That deserves more attention, and we’re going to have to dig into that and see what we can do to slow that trend down,” Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) said Monday, calling the figures in his state “disturbing.”  Continue reading.

Trump Says ‘Nobody’ Knew Pandemic Was Coming. His Adviser Warned Of It In January.

Peter Navarro, Trump’s trade adviser, reportedly penned two memos — in January and then February — warning of potential catastrophe because of COVID-19.

President Donald Trump said repeatedly in March that “nobody” could’ve predicted a crisis at the scale of the coronavirus pandemic wreaking havoc across the globe.

“Nobody knew there’d be a pandemic or an epidemic of this proportion,” Trump said March 19. A week later, he reiterated that “nobody would have ever thought a thing like this could have happened.”

But according to reports in The New York Times and Axios on Monday, at least one top official in Trump’s own administration sounded the alarm ― in late January and then again in February ― about the potentially catastrophic impacts of the virus that causes COVID-19 on the United States. Continue reading. Continue reading.

Outages and delays mar new small business loan program

The system the Small Business Administration is using to establish coronavirus relief loans was not functioning for most of Monday, banking executives said.

The electronic system the Small Business Administration is using to set up new coronavirus loans was down much of Monday, according to senior banking executives, making it impossible for many new loans to be guaranteed.

Billions of dollars in loans sought by small businesses trying to pay employees and keep their doors open were on pause as the SBA, supported by the Treasury, grapples with the demand on its system.

There are an estimated 30 million small businesses in America. Many are expected to apply for the program, which offers up to $10 million in loans that can turn into free grants if the businesses follow certain rules, which include using the money primarily for payroll. Continue reading.

Trump is handling a public health disaster like a mob boss

AlterNet logoThere is something bizarre going on with shipments of critical medical supplies.

  1. Three million N95 masks that had been ordered by the state of Massachusetts were confiscated in the port of New York.
  2. A shipment of 35,000 N95 masks headed for New Jersey was commandeered by the federal government.
  3. A shipment of 200,000 N95 masks headed for Germany were confiscated by the U.S. in Bangkok.
  4. Masks that France had ordered from China were bought for three to four times the going rate by the United States as they waited to be loaded onto cargo planes.
  5. A shipment of 20 ventilators ordered by the government of Barbados was seized by U.S. authorities.

Those are simply the cases that have been reported. Given the scope of these examples, it is safe to assume that there are others. Andreas Geisel, Berlin’s interior minister, suggested that what we are witnessing are acts of “modern-day piracy.” Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson said that states are competing in a “global jungle.”

In some of the cases listed above, it is unclear whether the U.S. government or a private entity confiscated the materials. But given the way that Jared Kushner has intermingled the roles of public and private enterprise, that could be a distinction without a difference. The real question comes down to what Kushner plans to do with these supplies. Continue reading.