It’s Not The Flu
Headlines all over the place: Trump’s chief of staff says “we are not going to control the pandemic.”
No shoot, Sherlock. Mark Meadows is flying the white flag on his beanie cap today. He gives up.
But, he goes back to the flu …
Pressed by Tapper on why the US isn’t going to get the pandemic under control, Meadows said: “Because it is a contagious virus just like the flu.” He added that the Trump administration is “making efforts to contain it.”
Let’s quit calling it the flu. It is not the flu. It’s more like leprosy, except more deadly. How come everybody in the world has it more under control than we do?
Now we find out that five members of Mike Pence’s staff is sick with it.
Most administrations, crooked or middlin’ honest, tend to fill themselves with people of intelligence, even though their motives may not be the best. The Trump administration seems to be full of the bloody stupid, the deluded, those unable to make the simplest logical connections.
1Pence and his mommy will likely test positive soon, but he says he’s essential (to spread coronavirus around more, for the sake of herd immunity. That’s all they have left). Hope his staff were around Mitch and the rest of the repugnantican senators when they were contagious last week.
2Lincoln Project should have a field day with Meadow’s comments. Maybe another time square billboard.
“we are not going to control the pandemic.”
Isn’t that the exact mindset which creates not just an outbreak and localized spread of the virus, but an uncontrollable national level pandemic?
The only thing the Trump Administration has built in four years is a deadly epidemic, and we’re going to pay for it.
3Sit down, Mark. your fu king moron flew that flag of surrender back in January while Princess Sparkletwat’s precious Jughead Kushner made all due speed to profiteer off the pandemic, and the Vice Poodle .. oh I dunno … was probably off bathing in the blood of virgin boys.
There’s “victim blaming” then there’s flat out st00pid. FTR Covid-19 is not a victim, it’s a pandemic, Mark.
We could still flatten the curve, albeit with more difficulty, and prevent additional thousands of needless deaths. Quarantining the entire maladministration and grounding Air Force 1 & 2 to prevent from flying off to more super spreader events. Little things, baby steps, Mark.
But no, you morons prefer to wait for herd immunity. This is what herd immunity looks like, Mark: https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/9d15978bbaf4a94f64ebf266e3baa0117f4b4e52/0_0_3054_1850/master/3054.jpg?width=940&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=078653c19c114ab6a057027fd186013e
4I’m sorry but I have to correct you JJ. Leprosy [Hansen’s disease] is nothing like COVID19.
I’m from one of the few US areas where leprosy, and many other exotic diseases and parasites, are endemic, Texas’ Rio Grande Valley. A close kin actually had leprosy when young.
COVID19 is nothing like leprosy in any respect except it is [mildly] contagious and spread similarly. Leprosy is bacterial, not viral, requires long close contact to transmit, and it’s symptoms are vastly different.
COVID19 is in a unique group of RNA retroviruses, of which there are many, some relatively harmless, many dangerous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leprosy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus
5And you wonder why the Orange Moron complains about Uncle Joe harping on the pandemic and the maladministration’s incompetence on it. Hey, it’s working for him, so shaddup already.
6Dangnabbit, forgot to mention that another major leprosy vs. COVID19 difference is that leprosy is, and has been, 100% curable for a long time; which COVID19 certainly isn’t.
7Just saw a reference to when Joe in Oct 2019 said we were not ready for a pandemic ‘cause the big Mr. Stooopid had torn down the infrastructure Obama had put in place to protect us.
8Prescient…since the Trump Virus had not come here at that time.
Anyone associated with, or who voted for, the Trump Regime are murderous lying sonsabitchs. And should be treated as such after 20 Jan 2021.
One of Kamerad Donnei’s goto talking points is always how the Obama-Biden administration screwed up medical affairs, especially that brief but dangerous H1N5 flu outbreak.
Fact is that the Obama-Biden admin acted quickly to quell it. And put in place governmental policies, mechanisms, and task groups to recognize and react quickly to any future threats.
Which the Trump Regime made a top priority to destroy.
Joe Biden had the foresight to point this out one year ago today [I’m going the quote the entire DKos article about it here, it’s that important, not that long, and by the great ‘Hunter’]:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/10/25/1989478/-One-year-ago-Biden-warned-America-was-not-prepared-for-a-pandemic
“One year ago today:
— Joe Biden
@JoeBiden
We are not prepared for a pandemic. Trump has rolled back progress President Obama and I made to strengthen global health security. We need leadership that builds public trust, focuses on real threats, and mobilizes the world to stop outbreaks before they reach our shores.
The Washington Post
@washingtonpost
None of these 195 countries — the U.S. included — is fully prepared for a pandemic, report says https://wapo.st/361AXE3
3:32 PM · Oct 25, 2019
127.3K 60.4K people are Tweeting about this —
In October of last year, COVID-19 had yet to be discovered. Biden was referring to the systemic quashing of Obama-era pandemic preparedness efforts, part of the Trump team’s obsessive dismantling of government and, in particular, any government action taken by President Barack Obama during his own eight-year tenure.
*** A month before Biden’s warning, the Trump administration had canceled a 2009-created pandemic early warning program that specifically included work on potential novel coronaviruses. ***
Trump and his team also dismantled the National Security Council’s global health section, halted Department of Homeland Security pandemic preparedness simulations, and ignored a pandemic strategy playbook left to them by the outgoing Obama team.
The first COVID-19 hospitalizations began in Wuhan, China, less than two months after Biden’s tweet. It wasn’t that the nation’s experts did not anticipate the arrival of a deadly new pandemic: the experts knew. It was Trump’s team of arch-conservative government saboteurs who laughed off those preparation efforts in pursuit of the longstanding conservative dream of paring down government to the point where it could be drowned in a bathtub. “
9Yup, the all mighty Trump and Republicans can’t control this devastating pandemic.
All the ‘Benghazi’s!!!, Clinton’s emails and Socialist name calling ain’t putting a dent in the damn thing.
If only they knew, if only they had a plan, what in the world could a civilized nation do?
Oh but wait, they did!
‘Trump dismantles our Infectious Disease Infrastructure.’
10https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o7SffOCaxg&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2i9jbblXHxE58fFUvTRqCcmMFevmSB6ssTgpVqoljPupVi9W_yBq5MhM4
I’m offering a wager though I doubt anyone will take me up on it. I’m betting Mike Pence and Mother both have it and will never, ever, ever cop to it as they’re not fond of the view from under the bus.
Any takers?
11lex @ 9:
Yeah. Who the hell could ever have seen this coming?
Oh, wait, President Obama’s staff did.
Obama-did-it. That’s as good a reason as any to refuse to do anything about it, I guess.
12Sandrige @ 8:
13Believe it or not, there are people who plan to vote for Trump for a second time who believe he’s done a great job with the virus.
smh.
It’s true, though. I’ve seen interviews. They actually claim to believe that 220K dead is a testament to how well Trump has done by the American people.
Sandridge, you’re right about leprosy. We need a new go-to disease to refer to conditions that are dangerous, contagious, cause disgusting symptoms, and would require the victim to ring a bell and shout “Unclean!” to warn others away. Maybe we can call it Republicanitis. Like leprosy it is curable (with facts and reason instead of antibiotics) but for some victims it is too late to help them.
And it’s one of those diseases that should be excluded from the ban on covering pre-existing conditions. Surely a lack of brains is pre-existing?
14twocrows @13, You’re right about those cretinous Trumpanzees. I saw a couple interviewed this morning on the Sunday political shows [and recently].
Particularly this one large woman [iirc, on This Week], who went on about how she agreed 100% with Dijiot, and always did lots of ‘research’ to verify his drivelous utterings; whilst babbling with her MAGAotty peer group.
.
15The Surly Professor @14,
How about Republicanosy? Republicabies? Republipox? Republicholera? MAGAot fever?
Or just plain old Republicephaly? Which perhaps fits best, since they’ve lost most of their brain tissue.
Alaska indulged in bragging rights for quite awhile, but here are the figures for the last three days…242 on the 23rd, 355 on the 24th and 526 today.
16RePoxlicans?
17Didn’t mean to hit submit comment quite so soon. Due to the vast distances between Alaska communities, we were doing all right. At the rate of increase now, I shudder to think what the next few days/weeks will bring. Guess our Republican governor isn’t bragging anymore.
18Meanwhile, Zeta is now Tropical Storm Zeta, will likely be a hurricane tomorrow.
The NHC has bumped Zeta’s US Gulf Coast landfall to a stronger level [still only Cat 1], and nudged the landfall further west on the Louisiana Delta [it previously was on Biloxi/Mobile, before that the Florida Panhandle]. It could end up near where Laura and Delta went in…
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/
19Sandridge: I hear you can buy prime ocean view property pretty cheap right through there.
20Trumpf keeps saying “we’ve rounded the corner.” I agree, we’ve rounded the corner going further “right” into his abyss. Even if he loses (rephrase- accepts he lost), we’ll have 11+ more weeks until we can begin to see an actual federal response including honesty. Guessing till then, nothing will come out including from the senate because they’ll want to turn the country over in as bad a situation as possible to punish those that didn’t vote repugnantican.
21Mr. Meadows is just promoting herd immunity. Just let people get sick and die with no solution in the hopes most will not die and have immunity. Who cares about everyone else. I can see how an already overwhelmed health care system will handle this. What idiots. Keeping my two masks on no matter what. I think it is outrageous and so many fools are ready to give it a go. How did we get to this insanity??
22Now here’s Utah doctors talking about weeding out COVID patients depending upon age and severity of infection, and if they can or cannot be helped.
OMG.
23slipstream @20, Yeah but, the beach keeps moving inland.
.
linda M Lester @22, The MAGAots have all latched on to another RWNJ ‘herd immunity, etc.’ theory described in a paper called the “Great Barrington Declaration”.
They’ve all gotten woodies reading it, and it has become a de facto sub rosa governing principle of the Trump regime.
The local Trumpanzees around here have even been writing LTEs to the RWNJ newspaper about it, and against ‘masks’; freedum and all.
Great Barrington Declaration
24https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrington_Declaration
WA skeptic, I guess that’s what turning the corner means to Trumpf and pence. Sounds a lot like death panels but the reason is this is out of control. Down the street, round the corner. Many states are getting to the same point and meadows thinks a future vaccine and Trumpf drugs, which most can’t get, is the solution. Herd immunity.
25I was reading about a nurse locally that was in her 40’s, healthy, got the virus because of her work and by the time she went to the hospital, it was too late. She died in 12 hours. No helicopter ride, untested drugs. Just her family crying. Damn.
We are experiencing, simultaneously, a pandemic, and epidemic(s?).
One is the COVID-19 induced disease, and the other(s?) are from willful ignorance. IF we can, we should try to hold political leaders liable (criminally?) for the indifference to human life; not unlike the poisoned water of Flint. This loss of life is largely due to incompetence and corruption. We have generic methods (masks, distancing, sanitary hygiene) that allow most communicable diseases to be stopped, but *purposeful* decisions have been made to defeat those efforts.
For decades our society has been “driving without insurance” in the face of the most devastating agents to our existence as a species. Why? Because it, like most insurance, is expensive. Not as expensive as a potential outcome from ignoring the possibilities though. The slopes of Mount Vesuvius are still heavily populated after all…
26Mark Meadows MUST be an Aggie, and as we all know…
“You can always tell an Aggie, but you can’t tell him much.”
27I think I’m gonna call him mark tillage. An offshoot of the Radon clan.
28It’s not yet known whether the uncontrollable appetite for gaslighting is a product of genetics or environment.
Sandridge, until recently I lived in one of he 2 counties that still as a leprosarium. Now that it is easily curable, the historical associations with incurable loathsome illness are a subject of correction for Hansen disease patients.
Hansen disease is also a disease of poverty (not tropical). I begin to think that in the lengthening run that will be true of Covid-19.
29Harry Eagar @29, COVID45 is going to get everybody, but especially the poor [which it already is].
My kin spent time at Carville. I’m slightly familiar with Molokai [used to overfly it], as it’s sometimes mentioned on my favorite radio station, KKCR, Hanalei [try listening, great Hawaiian music and lots of other stuff, a very unique radio station in today’s godawful airwaves/streaming].
30If you lived in Maui County, that facility is actually in it’s own very small county, Kalawao County, on the Kalaupapa Peninsula, not in Maui County/Molokai.
Mahalo.
Yeah. Five staffers stricken but still at work. Seriously. This office thing sounds like something straight out of Charles Dicken’s Christmas Carol with Pence playing Scrooge and ll the sick ones playihg the part of poor Bob Cratchit who MUST work or he and his family will starve to death. But in this fable, Orange Scrooge and the Stooge will not repent or anything else. They will stay permanently super spreaders until the virus does them all in along with most of the U.S. of A.
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