As we move a day closer to overwhelming the medical system, Donald spent the afternoon attacking Peter Alexander and the press.
These are campaign rallies, not public health briefings. Propaganda, not information. Don’t show them live.
Twitter to capture the moment: Pence: "I just cannot emphasize enough about the incredible progress we have made on testing." Fauci and Brix with the ‘OMG, I have to put up with the propaganda for the good of the nation’ in the back.
Wash Examiner:
Inflexible, bureaucratic FDA is dragging its feet on coronavirus response
President Trump is extolling his administration's coronavirus response effort. To that end, Trump says he has massively cut red tape to maximize the government's efficiency
It sounds good, but Trump hasn't done enough on this score.
At this very moment, stockpiles of masks, hand sanitizer, and other supplies are sitting in warehouses waiting for FDA inspectors to get around to them. Where other nations are expediting these deliveries, trusting proven suppliers in their deliveries, the FDA has resorted to its favorite fetish: bureaucratic lethargy.
The problem here is not simply that the FDA is insisting that its box-checking comes before exigent needs of public health, but also that the agency doesn't have enough inspectors to get the job done quickly.
Helen Branswell/STATnews:
Understanding what works: How some countries are beating back the coronavirus
None of the other countries has been as aggressive as China, which put tens of millions of people into forced quarantine for weeks. And these other locales have not all adopted an across-the-board checklist of measures. While kids in Hong Kong haven’t been in school since late January, class continues in Singapore.
Here’s a look at some of the techniques these governments employed, and how they stack up to steps being taken in the United States as well as the United Kingdom, which has come under heavy scrutiny for its approach, fairly or not.
NY Times:
‘Chilling’ Plans: Who Gets Care as Washington State Hospitals Fill Up?
Fearing a critical shortage of lifesaving resources as the coronavirus spreads, Washington State is engaged in grim discussions to determine which dying patients would get priority.
Ms. Sauer stressed that several things, including more hospital beds and equipment, could reduce the need to make such decisions. “This country has resources,” she said.
The state has been urgently seeking ventilators for patients and protective masks for health care workers, including from the Strategic National Stockpile, a repository of critical medical supplies for public health emergencies. Officials have also been looking to have the U.S. Navy hospital ship Mercy, which has 80 intensive care beds, dock near Seattle to handle seriously ill patients other than those who have contracted Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.
CNBC:
Three pillars of Trump’s case for reelection are collapsing all at once
- President Trump’s reelection campaign was designed under the premise that the economy would be strong through November, but that’s not true anymore.
- Trump also planned to make socialism a central focus of his attacks. But without Bernie Sanders to run against, this argument becomes a lot less potent.
- Trump campaigned on “draining the swamp” of big government. Now he wants Americans to trust in big government to fight coronavirus and save the economy.
Daily Beast:
Congress Wanted Answers From Trump on Coronavirus. He Blew Them Off.
Health experts look back now and wonder just how much damage was done by the public not knowing sooner how ill prepared we were
The morning of Feb. 12, members of the Senate Homeland Security Committee filed into their Capitol Hill committee chambers for a scheduled hearing about the rapidly growing outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
On that day, the number of total coronavirus cases in the world had crossed 60,000 and more than 1,000 were dead from the disease, nearly all in mainland China. But there were 14 cases in the United States, and top officials from the Centers for Disease Control were warning the coronavirus could “gain a foothold.”
Against that backdrop, the leaders of the Senate panel—its chairman, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), and its top Democrat, Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI)—invited officials from the CDC and Department of Homeland Security to come testify in public about the dangers posed by the virus and what the federal government was doing to prepare for it.
The Trump administration ignored the request. The only current government official who testified was with the independent Government Accountability Office, a congressional watchdog with no real role in public health operations.
NBC:
'This system is doomed': Doctors, nurses sound off in NBC News coronavirus survey
More than 250 health care workers responded to a social media survey seeking first-person accounts from those on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic.