Magox

As if Biden really contributed to that article. Voting for Biden is voting for a generic Democrat. If he were to win, he wouldn't be the one making the decisions, it would be his unelected staff.

Do you remember the Salena ZIto article on Trump back in 2016, the Taking Trump Seriously, but not literally ? I openly admit that I used to be one of those people just like the media. I used to rant constantly about all the crap that came out of Trump's mouth, because if you take him literally, lots of things that come out of his mouth are simply not true. But after a while, I began to understand his allure. It's not my sort of person, personally I like straight shooters and he's not one of those kind of guys. But, I began to see that in his underlying message of what he was saying did make sense. In other words, if you can get by the clutter of the distractions of lots of his words and focus on the underlying message, you'd see there are actually lots of solid things that are being promoted. The media to this day continues to keep chasing the minutia of his words. Just sort of reminded me of your response to GB. You can't take much of what Trump says literally, but you should be able to take what Dr. Fauci says literally. He's not a Trump sort of guy and what he says should be taken literally.

I think that is a fantastic take on the matter. I do think Fauci is an honest broker and that he is a true patriot and loves this country. With that said, it does seem like he does get a little mixed up with his dates and things that he has said. And as you astutely put it, he's not a political creature at all. And I do believe there is a level of naivete as you put it when he's conducting these interviews. I don't think he quite understands the level of gotcha sort of questions that these "journalists" try to get him to say and the ramifications of what he says. Of course the media is going to make this a "Trump bad" statement, but if people are going to be truly honest with themselves and are familiar with the facts, it's more of a confused and contradictory subset of communications from Fauci. I hope he gets the chance to clarify today. Exactly!

Was it disbanded? Not that it would have mattered anyway. It's not as if what a bureaucrat would have recommended would have superseded Fauci's or the CDC's view on the matter. If you read that Fact check from the WAPO, Obama essentially did the same and dissolved it in 2009 to only reinstate back in 2016. This is a red herring argument. If the Media was going to be an honest entity (which they won't), they would press Fauci on his apparently contradictory comments. I'm hoping Trump doesn't do anything stupid and allows him to clarify in today's briefer.

Who is Bill Mitchell? Out of my own personal curiosity and also to gauge whether or not your reasonable about things, do you think some clarification is in order from Dr. Fauci regarding his March 6th statement and Yesterday's Tapper interview? That's basically what I just asked.

Wow! That certainly does not jive with his comments in Tapper's interview......He's got some explaining to do.

Today's press briefing should be interesting to say the least. My thoughts on Fauci's comments: 1) If you listen to the interview with Tapper it does not fully reflect the selected quotes that are circulating. You can listen to the entire interview here. 2) With that said, he certainly did suggest that if social distancing occurred in Late February, that we would have less lives lost. 3) What Fauci is saying here he also communicated to all the governors, at least the risks of the Virus. Why is this important? It's not to blame the other governors. The first case of "community spread" in the U.S until late February. Just put yourself in the shoes of the President and the governors of each of these states. California was one of the first states to issue a stay-at-home order until March 19th. New York even later than that. The idea, that Trump or the governors were going to begin shutting down the economy before a single case or a handful of cases was never going to happen. Europe didn't do it and North America either. 4) Fauci is not a stupid guy. I'm not sure if this is a CYA for his reputation or something broader than that. He has said a couple things where it made initial news and then he went on to clarify it later on. 5) Trump retweeting a "fire Fauci" hashtag is interesting. Clearly there is a level of friction and he is getting pressure from his right wing base to minimize Fauci's role. I think that is a terrible idea. Or, it could be his way of sending a brushback pitch to Fauci. Who knows? But without doubt that will be the most anticipated question in today's briefing. Will Fauci even be there? If so, will he clarify?

You’re probably correct that the holiday may have undercount the numbers some. But the numbers in Italy and Spain are much lower than they were a week ago. I suppose in about 10 days or so from now we will be at around half of where we peaked out. I doubt Florida will peak in 3 weeks. The population areas have been on lock down for weeks now. This fascination with the national media is way overblown. The numbers have been remarkably stable for weeks.

A really good day for the country. A substantial drop in deaths from yesterday. Approximately about 450 less than the previous day. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

You were watching CNN?

What did he say?

Gottlieb pretty much validates what Dr Fauci and Dr Birx have been saying but actually puts some additional meat on the bones. He says that if China had provided genetic viral strains earlier than it did and not withheld it, it would have allowed us to get more of a head start to be able to develop our testing sooner rather than later. He also heavily faults China and WHO to an extent for their roles in this https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-scott-gottlieb-china-world-health-organization-face-the-nation/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab6a&linkId=86395483

It’s not the first time that I misinterpreted things and won’t be the last. That I promise. In regards to Sweden, they are somewhat of anomaly but it will be a fascinating case study and it’s still relatively early in the virus process and there could be valuable tidbits to learn from them if indeed they end up managing this well.

It certainly plays a large role.

That’s what I was saying. Maybe I didn’t communicate that as well as I could have. That the mandatory quarantining could be what states do but not actual travel restrictions. At least not now.

I think each state will have to get specific about how they go about this. Restricting State by state travel I don’t see in the cards, at least now. They may do some mandatory quarantining from one state to another in certain circumstances but I think that is as far as it will go at least initially.

It’s not just Italy. For Northern Hemisphere countries I believe the US will fall in the top 25% of countries in the deaths per million and the mortality rates will be in the top 15%. When you consider that more travel comes through the US than any of these countries and the logistical issues with the size of the country that would make it even more impressive. Your issue seems to always come back to Trumps words and the early hiccups in the testing. It’s established and documented that the system that was in place was not designed for this sort of pandemic. It’s been established that Chinas coverup, WHO’s failures and the lack of transparency from China in regards to their true infection and mortalities influences the US’s approach to this early on. This is undeniable And also, I find it amusing that you are able to get inside the heads of Dr Fauci and Dr Birx and know what they are thinking. So when it fits your narrative we should believe what they say but when they don’t it’s to cover up for the Trump administration? That doesn’t cut it. My general philosophy in most things is the relativity approach. Measure success and failure based off of your peers. Its been established that all the governors were informed by Trumps task force of the potential threats and hardly any of them took action. And when you judge it on a relative basis vs Europe, the US’s response and results are much better than the means.

@TPS The curve and deaths per million I believe is the best gauge that governments response should be judged. Look at the above illustration.

I misread what you wrote. I was looking at Austria and they have one of the lowest Confirmation infection rates of all of Europe. So it’s logical to assume that they haven’t developed any sort of herd immunity. Places like Spain, Italy, France, Belgium, New York and other population zones would have considerably higher infection rates. Even in Germany in a small town where their outbreak started there was antibody testing that took place and discovered 15% infection rate. And Germany has been one of the countries with the lowest infection rates. In regards to opening up, it wouldn’t be a full throttle approach but more of a staggered phasing in based off of geography. Also another fascinating test case is to see what is happening in Sweden. They have had a more surgical approach to the social distancing and for weeks now there have been grim predictions regarding what they thought they would go through. It still hasn’t happened yet. That could change but they are faring considerably better than most of Europe.

One major problem with your faulty take. Australia is in the Southern Hemisphere, not only is it in the Southern Hemisphere but it’s way down south. And not only is it way down south but their population centers are on the southern side. Why do you think this is important? Let me give you a hint, the Southern Hemisphere are not in their flu seasons. More heat and humidity. Recorded Infection rates in the Southern Hemisphere are Over 10,000% less than the Northern Hemisphere. You aren’t even comparing apples to oranges but rather apples to turnips

The point TPS is that they all didn’t take the measures as seriously as they could have. Which means on a relative basis they are pretty much in the same boat. I see that you are pointing fingers to Trump and not the other governors who were even more reckless than the Federal government response. People tend to confuse Trumps words with the Federal governments response. I also find it bizarre that you rarely mention anything about China. I don’t doubt you made reference to it but that is where the obsession should lie in regards to people’s anger. Dr Fauci just last night on Waters world said that the US response was about as good as it could have been based on the data they had coming from China, which was faulty data. Dr Birx made similar comments about a week ago. Now one could argue that the CDC had a one week issue with the testing and that certainly was an issue. But the Federal response was strong and competent. Not one person according to Cuomo died because of lack of ventilators or hospital bed shortages. Your anger is misplaced. Turn your ire to China, that would be more logical.

It’s not a dangerous drug unless you take too much of it or if you have certain other medical conditions . Just like every other Freaking drug.

Why should anyone trust anything coming from China? They have discredited themselves and the only way that any government should believe what they have to say is if they can somehow verify it for themselves.

Terrible idea. Hopefully they reject this abomination of a proposal.

I have been thinking about this today. Again, this could end up being another terrible unforced error. If Trump ends up being right she’s going to look terrible. I don’t get who is advising these people. I would be very interested to hear someone ask Biden what he thinks of Trump promoting HCQ