The Next Pandemic: SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19

[Buffalo_Gal]

3 minutes ago, GG said:

 

The understatement of the interview though wasn't Fauci's commentary, but the Today anchor asking him about a case where NBC reporter came back from covering the spread in Lombardy, but wasn't asked any questions upon landing.  Fauci was surprised, because the procedures were in place to question arrivals about their travels. 

 

So, while everyone is getting their panties in a wad about lack of response from the higher ups, the truth is more likely that plain old on-the-ground incompetence at JFK or Newark may have stoked the spread in the NYC area.

What date? I reported what happened at all the border crossings I went through from Jan-March (including the US three times).

 

[KRC]

17 hours ago, Chef Jim said:

Maybe they were.  How were they?  And we are the best! By a long ***** shot.  The best team in football is not always the best in the league in offense, defense, AND special teams. 

 

Wait.  Did I just use a sports analogy?  

 

Your banned.

[Tiberius]

13 minutes ago, Magox said:

 

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.

We all should see dismantling the pandemic committee in the NSC was a major mistake, though, right? 

 

Just seems like Trump makes so many mistakes that he and his supporters just try and muddy the water with this or that so people forget the really big mistakes he made. 

 

Is their a logical explination for disbanding the NSC pandemic committee? 

[KRC]

22 hours ago, Deranged Rhino said:

 

I was asleep when it started. The banging woke me up. I ran downstairs and used my "man" voice to ask him what the F he wanted (in more colorful language) and the guy took off. My guess is that he either saw my girl on our porch from outside and assumed she was alone/easy target and the sound of a second person inside changed his calculus. She got his description, we gave it to the cops (I didn't get a visual, he was gone by the time I got to the door) but she didn't think he lived in our building. 

 

You use your "man voice." I use the cycling of a shotgun.  My way works too.  

 

Glad you and your better half are safe.

[Buffalo_Gal]

 

[Magox]

1 minute ago, Tiberius said:

We all should see dismantling the pandemic committee in the NSC was a major mistake, though, right? 

 

Just seems like Trump makes so many mistakes that he and his supporters just try and muddy the water with this or that so people forget the really big mistakes he made. 

 

Is their a logical explination for disbanding the NSC pandemic committee? 

 

Was it disbanded?

 

 

Quote

 

The Pinocchio Test

One can see the dueling narratives here, neither entirely incorrect. The office — as set up by Obama — was folded into another office. Thus, one could claim the office was eliminated. But the staff slots did not disappear and at least initially the key mission of team remained a priority. So one can also claim nothing changed and thus Biden’s criticism is overstated.

The question that cannot be answered — at least perhaps until a congressionally mandated commission examines the U.S. preparation for this crisis — is whether a separate directorate would have had more clout to bring the issue immediately to the president’s attention. That might have helped buy time to stem the spread of the disease by focusing the full attention of government on the emerging problem. (One example: China refused to let American experts into Wuhan — a discussion kept at the agency level. But early presidential pressure might have swayed Beijing to cooperate.)

For that reason, we will leave this unrated.

 

 

 

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.

6 minutes ago, Buffalo_Gal said:

 

 

 

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.

[Troll Toll]

People claiming Trump should have shut everything down in January are nuts.  Deaths in Europe didn’t look out of the norm for one of these China diseases until mid-March. China has a new illness emerging every couple years. Should we immediately shut everything down EXCEPT infected travelers (because it would be racist/xenophobic) every time China causes another disease? Should people gets used to losing their jobs every 2-3 years because of China? That appears to be the Dem position if you follow their talking points. Good luck at the voting booths with that viewpoint!

[billsfan1959]

40 minutes ago, Magox said:

Wow!

 

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

 

My take on Fauci, FWIW, is that he is a very smart guy in the medical field; however, he is not terribly skilled in navigating politically motivated interviews and gets trapped very easily.

 

As an example, look at this exchange In the interview with Al Sharpton:

 

Fauci: “You know it occurred, well there was always this thought that there was some danger. But when we got to the point where it was clear that some of the misinformation that we initially got from China–because remember, their first cases were reported at the very end of December, December 31st. They said it was something like 24 cases in this wet market where these exotic animals are sold and there’s a human-animal interface. And, and The proposal that was made by the authorities in China where this was just jumping from an animal to a human, and it wasn’t spread from human-to-human. Then it became clear when you look back that it was likely in China that there was human-to-human spread. By the time we got that information and we started getting cases here, it was, ‘well, it’s not efficiently spread from human-to-human.’ But as soon as it became clear that there was community spread, which means that it isn’t just a travel-related case, that there are cases that are in the community under the radar screen, then it became clear that we were in real trouble.”

 

Sharpton: “When was that? Around when was that?”

 

Fauci: “Well, that was probably towards the middle to end of January.”

 

Sharpton: “Okay. And, and what did you begin advising the administration and those authorities that we were in fact seeing something different here and this could be a major problem at that time?”

 

Fauci: “You bet. And then, then that’s when it became clear that there are a couple of ways of addressing that. You could either prevent or try to block the influx of new cases from out of the country, and already cases had come in from China, to try and say, ‘That’s it, we got to stop that because now we already have cases here.’ And then it switched to Europe. And when Italy had their outbreak, it became clear that that became a danger. So that’s when cases were cut off from coming in from Europe and then ultimately the U.K. But by that time we had enough cases in our own country that the ability to do the containment slipped then into the need for mitigation and we saw what happened in New York.”

 

---------------

In the interview above, Fauci states he advised Trump in mid to late January about the seriousness of the virus; however he is conflating events that took place from late January until early March. The WHO declared the virus a global emergency on Jan 31st. That is when Trump banned foreign nationals from entering the US if they were in China within the prior two weeks. I'm sure Fauci advised Trump on the potential seriousness of the virus at that time - as evidenced by the travel ban.

 

However, the rest of the information Fauci stated took place in February and March. The WHO was still sticking to their "no human to human transmissions outside of China all through January and released a statement to that effect on January 23rd. It wasn't until February 6th when the first human to human transmission outside of China was reported. There wasn't a community spread case identified in the US until February 28th. The European travel ban occurred on March 11.

 

I like Fauci and I don't think he is contradicting the president at all. I think he is a bit naive in these interviews and I think the media takes every advantage to misconstrue what he is saying. It is clear, when Fauci states above, "as soon as it became clear that there was community spread, which means that it isn’t just a travel-related case, that there are cases that are in the community under the radar screen, then it became clear that we were in real trouble,” he is talking about mid to late February as it isn't until mid to late february that the "community spread" he is referring to took place.

 

 

Edited April 13, 2020 by billsfan1959

[Doc]

7 minutes ago, Tiberius said:

We all should see dismantling the pandemic committee in the NSC was a major mistake, though, right? 

 

Just seems like Trump makes so many mistakes that he and his supporters just try and muddy the water with this or that so people forget the really big mistakes he made. 

 

Is their a logical explination for disbanding the NSC pandemic committee? 

 

Ah, the magical pandemic response team that wasn't dismantled and wouldn't have changed anything had it been kept in its bloated state.  But what we do know is that Dems would kept the border open as long as possible so as to not seem "racist," allowing thousands more cases in initially.

[meazza]

3 minutes ago, billsfan1959 said:

 

My take on Fauci, FWIW, is that he is a very smart guy in the medical field; however, he is not terribly skilled in navigating politically motivated interviews and gets trapped very easily.

 

As an example, look at this exchange In the interview with Al Sharpton:

 

Fauci: “You know it occurred, well there was always this thought that there was some danger. But when we got to the point where it was clear that some of the misinformation that we initially got from China–because remember, their first cases were reported at the very end of December, December 31st. They said it was something like 24 cases in this wet market where these exotic animals are sold and there’s a human-animal interface. And, and The proposal that was made by the authorities in China where this was just jumping from an animal to a human, and it wasn’t spread from human-to-human. Then it became clear when you look back that it was likely in China that there was human-to-human spread. By the time we got that information and we started getting cases here, it was, ‘well, it’s not efficiently spread from human-to-human.’ But as soon as it became clear that there was community spread, which means that it isn’t just a travel-related case, that there are cases that are in the community under the radar screen, then it became clear that we were in real trouble.”

 

Sharpton: “When was that? Around when was that?”

 

Fauci: “Well, that was probably towards the middle to end of January.”

 

Sharpton: “Okay. And, and what did you begin advising the administration and those authorities that we were in fact seeing something different here and this could be a major problem at that time?”

 

Fauci: “You bet. And then, then that’s when it became clear that there are a couple of ways of addressing that. You could either prevent or try to block the influx of new cases from out of the country, and already cases had come in from China, to try and say, ‘That’s it, we got to stop that because now we already have cases here.’ And then it switched to Europe. And when Italy had their outbreak, it became clear that that became a danger. So that’s when cases were cut off from coming in from Europe and then ultimately the U.K. But by that time we had enough cases in our own country that the ability to do the containment slipped then into the need for mitigation and we saw what happened in New York.”

 

---------------

In the interview above, Fauci states he advised Trump in mid to late January about the seriousness of the virus; however he is conflating events that took place from late January until early March. The WHO declared the virus a global emergency on Jan 31st. That is when Trump banned foreign nationals from entering the US if they were in China within the prior two weeks. I'm sure Fauci advised Trump on the potential seriousness of the virus at that time - as evidenced by the travel ban.

 

However, the rest of the information Fauci stated took place in February and March. The WHO was still sticking to their "no human to human transmissions outside of China all through January and released a statement to that effect on January 23rd. It wasn't until February 6th when the first human to human transmission outside of China was reported. There wasn't a community spread case identified in the US until February 28th. The European travel ban occurred on March 11.

 

I like Fauci and I don't think he is contradicting the president at all. I think he is a bit naive in these interviews. It is clear, when Fauci states above, "as soon as it became clear that there was community spread, which means that it isn’t just a travel-related case, that there are cases that are in the community under the radar screen, then it became clear that we were in real trouble,” he is talking about mid to late February as it isn't until mid to late february that the "community spread" he is referring to took place.

 

 

 

I agree with you.  He's a doctor not a politician. Seems like Dr Birx does a better job of managing the minefield known as the press.

[Magox]

2 minutes ago, billsfan1959 said:

 

My take on Fauci, FWIW, is that he is a very smart guy in the medical field; however, he is not terribly skilled in navigating politically motivated interviews and gets trapped very easily.

 

As an example, look at this exchange In the interview with Al Sharpton:

 

Fauci: “You know it occurred, well there was always this thought that there was some danger. But when we got to the point where it was clear that some of the misinformation that we initially got from China–because remember, their first cases were reported at the very end of December, December 31st. They said it was something like 24 cases in this wet market where these exotic animals are sold and there’s a human-animal interface. And, and The proposal that was made by the authorities in China where this was just jumping from an animal to a human, and it wasn’t spread from human-to-human. Then it became clear when you look back that it was likely in China that there was human-to-human spread. By the time we got that information and we started getting cases here, it was, ‘well, it’s not efficiently spread from human-to-human.’ But as soon as it became clear that there was community spread, which means that it isn’t just a travel-related case, that there are cases that are in the community under the radar screen, then it became clear that we were in real trouble.”

 

Sharpton: “When was that? Around when was that?”

 

Fauci: “Well, that was probably towards the middle to end of January.”

 

Sharpton: “Okay. And, and what did you begin advising the administration and those authorities that we were in fact seeing something different here and this could be a major problem at that time?”

 

Fauci: “You bet. And then, then that’s when it became clear that there are a couple of ways of addressing that. You could either prevent or try to block the influx of new cases from out of the country, and already cases had come in from China, to try and say, ‘That’s it, we got to stop that because now we already have cases here.’ And then it switched to Europe. And when Italy had their outbreak, it became clear that that became a danger. So that’s when cases were cut off from coming in from Europe and then ultimately the U.K. But by that time we had enough cases in our own country that the ability to do the containment slipped then into the need for mitigation and we saw what happened in New York.”

 

---------------

In the interview above, Fauci states he advised Trump in mid to late January about the seriousness of the virus; however he is conflating events that took place from late January until early March. The WHO declared the virus a global emergency on Jan 31st. That is when Trump banned foreign nationals from entering the US if they were in China within the prior two weeks. I'm sure Fauci advised Trump on the potential seriousness of the virus at that time - as evidenced by the travel ban.

 

However, the rest of the information Fauci stated took place in February and March. The WHO was still sticking to their "no human to human transmissions outside of China all through January and released a statement to that effect on January 23rd. It wasn't until February 6th when the first human to human transmission outside of China was reported. There wasn't a community spread case identified in the US until February 28th. The European travel ban occurred on March 11.

 

I like Fauci and I don't think he is contradicting the president at all. I think he is a bit naive in these interviews. It is clear, when Fauci states above, "as soon as it became clear that there was community spread, which means that it isn’t just a travel-related case, that there are cases that are in the community under the radar screen, then it became clear that we were in real trouble,” he is talking about mid to late February as it isn't until mid to late february that the "community spread" he is referring to took place.

 

 

 

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.

2 minutes ago, meazza said:

 

 

I agree with you.  He's a doctor not a politician. Seems like Dr Birx does a better job of managing the minefield known as the press.

 

Exactly!   

[GG]

27 minutes ago, Buffalo_Gal said:

What date? I reported what happened at all the border crossings I went through from Jan-March (including the US three times).

 

 

They didn't give the exact date, but since the interview was on March 6 it must have been within that week.

29 minutes ago, Gary Busey said:

 

Literally inconsistent yes, but figuratively he's had the same message

 

That's a baloney argument.  Once again, unless you are Trump, your literal statements don't mean crap.

[njbuff]

I think we should take a poll on which threads are the worst...........

 

This one or all the Josh Allen sucks threads in TSW?

[Magox]

7 minutes ago, GG said:

 

They didn't give the exact date, but since the interview was on March 6 it must have been within that week.

 

That's a baloney argument.  Once again, unless you are Trump, your literal statements don't mean crap.

 

Do you remember the Salena ZIto article on Trump back in 2016, the Taking Trump Seriously, but not literally ?

 

Quote

"The press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him 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.

[GG]

1 minute ago, Magox said:

 

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.

 

Yup, this is an ongoing farce, 

[Boatdrinks]

35 minutes ago, Tiberius said:

We all should see dismantling the pandemic committee in the NSC was a major mistake, though, right? 

 

Just seems like Trump makes so many mistakes that he and his supporters just try and muddy the water with this or that so people forget the really big mistakes he made. 

 

Is their a logical explination for disbanding the NSC pandemic committee? 

There is tons of duplication and overlap in government, so perhaps that was a reason ? Anyway, I don’t think having another 50 Obamaczars on some committee was going to make any difference. No one was locking down the USA any earlier. Going forward, though it is imperative that Trump serves another term with the rough economic road ahead. If entrusted to a sleepy Joe or some other lefty, America could soon be unrecognizable ; a veritable economic wasteland. 

[Chef Jim]

45 minutes ago, KRC said:

 

Your banned.

 Best news I've heard all day! 

[B-Man]

4 minutes ago, Boatdrinks said:

There is tons of duplication and overlap in government, so perhaps that was a reason ? Anyway, I don’t think having another 50 Obamaczars on some committee was going to make any difference. No one was locking down the USA any earlier. Going forward, though it is imperative that Trump serves another term with the rough economic road ahead. If entrusted to a sleepy Joe or some other lefty, America could soon be unrecognizable ; a veritable economic wasteland. 

 

 

THE MONUMENTAL FAILURE OF THE CDC.

 

The lack of preparedness at every level of government (federal, state, and local) has nothing to do with a lack of funding or inadequate staffing. Instead, it has everything to do with governments’ bloat, mismanagement, cronyism, and poor focus.

 

That’s particularly true of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). In theory, the prevention of diseases like this one is the agency’s entire reason d’être. It is right there in its name “Disease Control.” Its mission statement page also makes the centrality of this goal clear. It states as its priority “confronting global disease threats through advanced computing and lab analysis of huge amounts of data to quickly find solutions.”

 

Apparently, not really.

 

While there is a lot of blame to go around, it is no secret how much the CDC is to blame for the country’s lack of preparedness to take on the coronavirus (followed very closely in ineptitude by the Food and Drug Administration). The agency’s failure to understand the severity of this virus, to provide useful advice to the American people and to political leaders, and to deliver appropriate testing capabilities has been widely documented.

 

As I wrote last week, emails reveal that weeks after the virus started roaming freely in the U.S., CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield told his employees that “the virus isn’t spreading in the US at this time.” But a month later, the CDC was still telling state and local officials that its “testing capacity is more than adequate to meet current testing demands.”

 

It wasn’t.

 

 

Related: The CDC was Fighting Racism and Obesity Instead of Stopping Epidemics.

 

Flashback: You had one job, CDC.

 

 

 

 

No, the United States Does Not Lead the World in Coronavirus Cases or Deaths.

 

 

 

 

 

ROGER KIMBALL: Herd Immunity vs. Herd Mentality. 

 

“Even in New York City, where hospitals have had to scramble to keep up with the cataract of patients, there is no crisis. Told that there would be, the president had Manhattan’s Javits Center converted into a 1,000-bed hospital and brought the Navy medical ship Comfort with its 500 beds to dock in Manhattan. As I write, Comfort has a total of 60-odd cases, while the Javits Center’s impromptu hospital has only 225 patients. Both are “mostly empty.” How long will it be before both follow the lead of the Army field hospital in Seattle? It was hastily erected to deal with the predicted surge in COVID-19 patients. But the surge never came. Over the course of nine days, it never saw a patient. Now it is leaving.”

 

 

 

[billsfan1959]

2 minutes ago, B-Man said:

ROGER KIMBALL: Herd Immunity vs. Herd Mentality. 

 

“Even in New York City, where hospitals have had to scramble to keep up with the cataract of patients, there is no crisis. Told that there would be, the president had Manhattan’s Javits Center converted into a 1,000-bed hospital and brought the Navy medical ship Comfort with its 500 beds to dock in Manhattan. As I write, Comfort has a total of 60-odd cases, while the Javits Center’s impromptu hospital has only 225 patients. Both are “mostly empty.” How long will it be before both follow the lead of the Army field hospital in Seattle? It was hastily erected to deal with the predicted surge in COVID-19 patients. But the surge never came. Over the course of nine days, it never saw a patient. Now it is leaving.”

 

 

Well, I'm sure, at some point, the NYT will explain to us that those beds are empty now because the people that would have needed them are all dead because Trump refused to give Cuomo the 30,000 ventilators he was screaming for....

[Q-baby!]

6 hours ago, 3rdnlng said:

Gene, you've always been a lefty but generally an honest lefty. Your recent posts have been disingenuous. Fauci basically said in that interview that Trump and others got on the virus as soon as they found out that it was going to be a problem. Could it have helped to anticipate what it might do? Of course, but the WHO and China did an effective job of not only hiding the extent of the virus but its very nature. They outright lied. China shut down all of its movie theaters while still claiming that the virus could not be passed from human to human. WHO had to have known this but the only conclusion is that they helped cover up the seriousness of the virus. I would have liked that Trump could have anticipated this virus 6 months ago and agree if he had reacted to it then we would have been much better off. What you are saying is equivalent to saying that if FDR had only anticipated the attack on Pearl Harbor in October of 1941 we would have had less carnage. The only way to judge Trump (and FDR) is their reaction to the task at hand. Simply put, once they knew about the problem, what did they do about the problem?  

? No moron. It would be like FDR was saying there was no attack, during the attack.  You sir, are the definition of a Dr. Trump balllicker.