bicentennial
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Post by bicentennial on Mar 14, 2020 0:00:48 GMT -5
As a primary care doc, the failure to test is stunning. We have 50 states and each state has only had an average of 55 patients tested. Despite statements multiple times in the past two weeks that testing would available doctors in my state cannot order the test despite Private national labs Quest and LabCorp having testing available. They are only able to run samples if they are told to do so by the Illinois State health lab and for outpatients only persons with known (more than 10 minute face to face) contact or who have returned from a level III country are to be tested. If such a person were to arrive at my office we are to call the State lab to inform them we believe we have a person who needs investigation. Almost 1 month ago physicians were told by the CDC that testing would begin on specimens from the influenza surveillance network. That program runs about 90,000 flu swabs each week from around the country. That data is used to estimate how many persons in the state have influenza each week. Even though those swabs continue to be tested for Flu each week, the CDC and teaching hospitals and state labs have not tested/reported any surveillance information for COVID-19. Meanwhile, young persons continue to have severe respiratory illnesses which may just represent a bad respiratory virus season but which all my colleagues suspect represents worsening respiratory illnesses with a new respiratory pathogen. Also, my office will likely run out of personal protective masks sometime next week. The government has not given us any notice if there is a way to access any stockpiles of masks since routine suppliers no longer have certified masks to sell.
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SSHoya
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Mar 14, 2020 5:12:46 GMT -5
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Post by SSHoya on Mar 14, 2020 5:12:46 GMT -5
In the midst of this public health crisis the Trump Administration still pushes for HHS, CDC, budget cuts. Russ Vought, the acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, told Rep. Matt Cartwright, D-Pa., during a congressional hearing on Tuesday that the administration does not plan on amending its 2021 budget. That budget proposes reducing Health and Human Services funding by $9.5 billion, in the process cutting $1.2 billion from the CDC's budget (a reduction of 15%) and eliminating $35 million from the Infection Diseases Rapid Response Reserve Fund. www.salon.com/2020/03/12/trumps-budget-director-stands-firm-on-plan-to-cut-cdc-budget-by-15-percent/
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2020 8:44:15 GMT -5
Off course it wouldn't be a Trump news conference if he didn't tell a few lies and make up some facts.
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DanMcQ
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Mar 14, 2020 8:52:43 GMT -5
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Post by DanMcQ on Mar 14, 2020 8:52:43 GMT -5
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SSHoya
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Post by SSHoya on Mar 14, 2020 10:00:16 GMT -5
Compilation by a friend: January 22: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. It’s going to be just fine.” February 2: “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.” February 24: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA… Stock Market starting to look very good to me!” February 25: “CDC and my Administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus.” February 25: “I think that's a problem that’s going to go away… They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we’re very close to a vaccine.” February 26: “The 15 (cases in the US) within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.” February 26: “We're going very substantially down, not up.” February 27: “One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.” February 28: “We're ordering a lot of supplies. We're ordering a lot of, uh, elements that frankly we wouldn't be ordering unless it was something like this. But we're ordering a lot of different elements of medical.” March 2: “You take a solid flu vaccine, you don't think that could have an impact, or much of an impact, on corona?” March 2: “A lot of things are happening, a lot of very exciting things are happening and they’re happening very rapidly.” March 4: “If we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work — some of them go to work, but they get better.” March 5: “I NEVER said people that are feeling sick should go to work.” March 5: “The United States… has, as of now, only 129 cases… and 11 deaths. We are working very hard to keep these numbers as low as possible!” March 6: “I think we’re doing a really good job in this country at keeping it down… a tremendous job at keeping it down.” March 6: “Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. They’re there. And the tests are beautiful…. the tests are all perfect like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good.” March 6: “I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it… Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.” March 6: “I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault.” March 8: “We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus.” March 9: “This blindsided the world.” March 13: [Declared state of emergency]
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2020 13:03:37 GMT -5
Trump’s first instinct is to protect his chances at re-election, the stock market, and corporate interests. It's more than clear public safety is somewhere behind those three.
Luciana Borio once worked on President Donald Trump’s National Security Council, but she left last year after a purge of the global health unit.
So when she realized how bad the coronavirus outbreak was likely to get — and saw that the Trump administration was not taking the necessary steps to contain it — all she could do was take her case to the public.
“Act Now to Prevent an American Epidemic,” was the headline of her Jan. 28 op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, in which she called for widespread testing and beefing up hospital preparedness. “The Wuhan coronavirus continues to spread at an alarming rate,” she warned in a subsequent op-ed a few days later.
Trump saw the situation much differently. While he blocked some Chinese nationals from entering the country in late January, his public message was simple: This is no big deal.
“We only have five people. Hopefully, everything's going to be great,” he said on Jan. 30. A few days later, he said, “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.”
But in fact, the Trump administration hadn’t shut down the coronavirus. The testing that Borio and other experts called for never took place, even as Trump continued to downplay the risks and make a series of false statements that experts say muddied public understanding.
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LCPolo18
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Post by LCPolo18 on Mar 14, 2020 13:54:27 GMT -5
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SSHoya
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Mar 14, 2020 14:22:26 GMT -5
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Post by SSHoya on Mar 14, 2020 14:22:26 GMT -5
But the Trump administration’s zigzagging, defensive, inconsistent messages about the novel coronavirus continued Friday, breaking almost every rule in the book and eroding the most powerful weapon officials possess: Public trust. After disastrous communications during the 2001 anthrax attacks — when white powder in envelopes sparked widespread panic — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention created a 450-page manual outlining how U.S. leaders should talk to the public during crises. “Sometimes it seems like they have literally thrown out the book,” said Joshua Sharfstein, a former top FDA official and Johns Hopkins University professor who is using the CDC manual to teach a crisis communication class. “We’re studying what to do — and at times seeing what not to do — on the same day.” www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/14/cdc-manual-crisis-coronavirus-trump/
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Mar 14, 2020 18:35:46 GMT -5
When Trump was asked Friday why he disbanded the White House pandemic office, he denied it, saying, “I didn’t do it … I don’t know anything about it," and told the reporter it was a “nasty” question. He also said "I don't take responsibility at all” for the disastrous delays in testing. During that event, the president shook hands, patted backs and touched the microphone 31 times.
That reporter, who asked that "nasty" question was Georgetown grad Yamiche Alcindor of PBS.
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SSHoya
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Post by SSHoya on Mar 14, 2020 18:47:47 GMT -5
When Trump was asked Friday why he disbanded the White House pandemic office, he denied it, saying, “I didn’t do it … I don’t know anything about it," and told the reporter it was a “nasty” question. He also said "I don't take responsibility at all” for the disastrous delays in testing. During that event, the president shook hands, patted backs and touched the microphone 31 times. That reporter, was asked that "nasty" question was Georgetown grad Yamiche Alcindor of PBS. And the Director of the CDC is a double Hoya. Dr. Robert Redfield, C '73, M '77.
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tashoya
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Post by tashoya on Mar 14, 2020 20:28:59 GMT -5
Wait until you find out that Trump has a financial interest in the manufacturer of the tests that will be used here. That would make perfect sense. TBH, that's the only sure way to ensure that there would be enough tests. Oh, look: Color me shocked.
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DanMcQ
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Post by DanMcQ on Mar 14, 2020 21:07:03 GMT -5
I've been criticized elsewhere on this board for making this a political issue. It is not. It is a public health disaster created by a man whose arrogance blinds him to his ignorance. The actions of his administration, which takes its orders from him, have put hundreds of thousands of American lives needlessly at stake. No amount of lying will cover that up. It is simply tragic.
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tashoya
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Post by tashoya on Mar 14, 2020 21:48:14 GMT -5
I've been criticized elsewhere on this board for making this a political issue. It is not. It is a public health disaster created by a man whose arrogance blinds him to his ignorance. The actions of his administration, which takes its orders from him, have put hundreds of thousands of American lives needlessly at stake. No amount of lying will cover that up. It is simply tragic. It IS a political issue. But you didn't make it so. The President did and continues to. But the health issue is separate from the political issue. The former matters far more. At this point, I'm hoping that individual people and communities proceed with what may seem like an absurd level of caution to help to offset the gross lack of preparedness and leadership at the federal level. I'm not in a "high risk" group as far as I know. But I am very much aware that my normal life entails frequent interactions and contact with those that are. As such, as best I can, I'm going to conduct myself as though I'm a high risk person as well. It seems to be the only thing I can actually do to help both myself and those in my vicinity.
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tashoya
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Post by tashoya on Mar 14, 2020 21:50:05 GMT -5
As a primary care doc, the failure to test is stunning. We have 50 states and each state has only had an average of 55 patients tested. Despite statements multiple times in the past two weeks that testing would available doctors in my state cannot order the test despite Private national labs Quest and LabCorp having testing available. They are only able to run samples if they are told to do so by the Illinois State health lab and for outpatients only persons with known (more than 10 minute face to face) contact or who have returned from a level III country are to be tested. If such a person were to arrive at my office we are to call the State lab to inform them we believe we have a person who needs investigation. Almost 1 month ago physicians were told by the CDC that testing would begin on specimens from the influenza surveillance network. That program runs about 90,000 flu swabs each week from around the country. That data is used to estimate how many persons in the state have influenza each week. Even though those swabs continue to be tested for Flu each week, the CDC and teaching hospitals and state labs have not tested/reported any surveillance information for COVID-19. Meanwhile, young persons continue to have severe respiratory illnesses which may just represent a bad respiratory virus season but which all my colleagues suspect represents worsening respiratory illnesses with a new respiratory pathogen. Also, my office will likely run out of personal protective masks sometime next week. The government has not given us any notice if there is a way to access any stockpiles of masks since routine suppliers no longer have certified masks to sell. This is an excellent post. Thank you very much for the information. And thank you for what you do. Here's to hoping that you stay healthy and that your patients do the same.
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cas92
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Post by cas92 on Mar 15, 2020 1:15:39 GMT -5
I've been criticized elsewhere on this board for making this a political issue. It is not. It is a public health disaster created by a man whose arrogance blinds him to his ignorance. The actions of his administration, which takes its orders from him, have put hundreds of thousands of American lives needlessly at stake. No amount of lying will cover that up. It is simply tragic. Have an MPH in Epidemiology from Emory ('96) after graduating from the Hilltop. Testing should have been proactively initiated after news eventually seeped out of China in early January. Preventative measures that are taken are analogous to insurance - you have it and you may never require it, but if and when you do, you're able to marshal the resources available in an expedient fashion. That these strategies were deemed to be superfluous (subsequently followed by the evisceration of funding and personnel) demonstrates a candid and cavalier disregard for the health for the populace. The virus has been circulating for @ least 2 months plus and as aforementioned (Bicentennial), previous bouts of respiratory distress (since the emergence of the virus) may have been discounted as isolated incidents that transpire during the winter instead of identifying them correctly, in the hopes of precluding the deaths that have and will follow in the wake of community transmission.
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DanMcQ
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Mar 15, 2020 6:47:13 GMT -5
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Post by DanMcQ on Mar 15, 2020 6:47:13 GMT -5
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DanMcQ
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Mar 15, 2020 6:48:13 GMT -5
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Post by DanMcQ on Mar 15, 2020 6:48:13 GMT -5
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DanMcQ
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Mar 15, 2020 6:48:51 GMT -5
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Post by DanMcQ on Mar 15, 2020 6:48:51 GMT -5
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DanMcQ
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Mar 15, 2020 7:01:01 GMT -5
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Post by DanMcQ on Mar 15, 2020 7:01:01 GMT -5
Speaking if politics, SMH...
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SSHoya
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Mar 15, 2020 7:15:39 GMT -5
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Post by SSHoya on Mar 15, 2020 7:15:39 GMT -5
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