Coronavirus Tidbits #90 Growing insanity

October 11, 2020 /

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Announcements:

First, there is now a Resources Page here for the most commonly asked questions I’m getting.

Happy to continue to answer your questions/concerns as best I can, so don’t be shy about that.

News 

“Dying in a Leadership Vacuum”

“In an unprecedented move,” the New England Journal of Medicine has published an editorial “condemning the Trump admin for its response to the Covid-19 pandemic – and calling for the current leadership in the US to be voted out of office.”

…Our leaders have failed that test. They have taken a crisis and turned it into a tragedy.

The magnitude of this failure is astonishing…Why has the United States handled this pandemic so badly? We have failed at almost every step. We had ample warning, but when the disease first arrived, we were incapable of testing effectively and couldn’t provide even the most basic personal protective equipment to health care workers and the general public. And we continue to be way behind the curve in testing…number of tests performed per infected person, a rate that puts us far down the international list, below such places as Kazakhstan, Zimbabwe, and Ethiopia,..

the federal government has undermined them (tools). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which was the world’s leading disease response organization, has been eviscerated and has suffered dramatic testing and policy failures. The National Institutes of Health have played a key role in vaccine development but have been excluded from much crucial government decision making. And the Food and Drug Administration has been shamefully politicized,3 appearing to respond to pressure from the administration rather than scientific evidence. Our current leaders have undercut trust in science and in government,4 causing damage that will certainly outlast them. Instead of relying on expertise, the administration has turned to uninformed “opinion leaders” and charlatans who obscure the truth and facilitate the promulgation of outright lies.

Anyone else who recklessly squandered lives and money in this way would be suffering legal consequences. Our leaders have largely claimed immunity for their actions. But this election gives us the power to render judgment. Reasonable people will certainly disagree about the many political positions taken by candidates. But truth is neither liberal nor conservative. When it comes to the response to the largest public health crisis of our time, our current political leaders have demonstrated that they are dangerously incompetent. We should not abet them and enable the deaths of thousands more Americans by allowing them to keep their jobs.”

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2029812?

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Severity of Covid in young adults (age 18-34)

over one-fifth of the patients (21 percent) required intensive care, 10 percent required mechanical ventilation and 2.7 percent died.

57 percent of the young people hospitalized for COVID-19 were Black or Hispanic, a finding consistent with other reports about the disproportionate burden the disease has had on these demographics.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-10/bawh-yph100820.php

Diagnostics:

still an incredible, negligent lack of rapid, accurate testing.

Trump’s Antigen Testing Fail

Eschewing evidence, the White House has favored antigen testing for COVID-19 over the more reliable PCR tests, Kaiser Health Newsreported, citing one potential reason for the disease outbreak there. BinaxNOW, the new antigen test now used in the White House, has not been independently verified for accuracy and reliability. BinaxNOW received an FDA emergency use authorization in August.

The White House does not report antigen test results to the Washington, D.C., health department — “a potential violation of federal law under the CARES Act, which says any institution performing tests to diagnose COVID-19 must report all results to local or state public health departments,” the article stated.

Drugs:

Trump touts Regeneron as a “cure” for Covid

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‘Covid is all about privilege’: Trump’s treatment underscores vast inequalities in access to care

https://www.statnews.com/2020/10/06/covid-is-all-about-privilege-trumps-treatment-underscores-vast-inequalities-in-access-to-care/

Devices:

PPE – (and why is this still a problem???)

health care workers who didn’t have adequate PPE had a 30% greater chance of infection than colleagues with enough supplies. Black, Hispanic and Asian staffers had the highest risk of catching COVID-19, they found.

A University of California, Berkeley study estimated that at least 35% of health care and other essential workers in California who tested positive for COVID-19 were infected at work, amid shortages.

…90% of U.S. medical masks were being made overseas….many of them counterfeit

Scathing story and history of US lack of preparedness

Now we have a shortage of needles and syringes to give flu shot

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/us-medical-supply-chains-failed-and-covid-deaths-followed/2020/10/06/411d93b4-07dd-11eb-8719-0df159d14794_story.html

 

Epidemiology/Infection control:

1)Trump HASNT been tested daily. That’s why they won’t reveal last negative. He found them uncomfortable, so stopped tests weeks ago. He thought it was safe with everyone else tested instead.

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The White House has refused to involve the CDC or to do contact tracing after the Rose Garden superspreader event…

So people are crowdsourcing it. See http://www.whcovidtrack.com/ to follow what we know about #TrumpCovid

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https://twitter.com/StevenJDuffield/status/1315031470797451265?s=20

https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/321698/covid-responses-men-women.aspx

Tips, general reading for public:

StayAtHome

Wash your hands.

Rinse and repeat.

Politics:

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https://twitter.com/zachdespart/status/1313573995715981314?s=20

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Thought provoking article: Will German Americans again put Donald Trump over the top in the presidential election?

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/10/will-german-americans-again-put-donald-trump-over-the-top-in-the-presidential-election/

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https://twitter.com/JCTheResistance/status/1315094843161481216?s=20

Feel good du jour:

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Comic relief:

https://twitter.com/MerriamWebster/status/1314029128266416130?s=20

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Anderson Cooper: Harris “had a smile on her face and he had a bloody eye and a fly on his head.”

Perspective/Poem

Bits of beauty:

 

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2 Comments

  • lydia A.P. Martin

    October 11, 2020 at 7:24 pm

    DearJudy,

    Thank you for all your news and bits of beauty and humor too!!!! Thank you for all your energy, thoughts, and work you put into these!!!! Lydia.

    • Judy Stone

      October 15, 2020 at 1:50 pm

      I appreciate your continued support and encouragement very much, Lydia. So very kind of you…but you have always been that way.