NBC News is reporting that Trump was not diagnosed with COVID-19 on Thursday night but on Wednesday morning. KNOWING he was infected, Trump held rallies in Minnesota and New Jersey and was a walking super spreader. More to come.
Oh, yeah. It’s just perfect – Trump’s and McConnell’s rush to pack the court with anti-choice, anti-American, and religious ideologues to protect the 2020 election just backfired. The rushed up and non-masked ceremony to announce Amy Coney Barrett as RBG’s replacement is becoming the most prominent US super-spreader event so far. With over 150 unprotected guests, Trump and Barrett flouted public health policy, recklessly exposing staff, press, Secret Service, and many others to the deadly Coronavirus. The result? Trump has contracted the virus and is at Walter Reed Hospital as doctors use experimental treatments on him to counter his inherent risks of old, fat, terrible condition, and just fucking stupid. Others infected are Melania, Trump Best Girl Hope Hicks, Utah Senator Mike Lee, RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, Rev. John Jenkins (president of Notre Dame), Thom Tillis, NC Senator, three unnamed reporters, Kellyanne Conway, and God knows who else. The stupidity of Trump and his minions was on public display and now many are paying the price. Many more are at risk.
It seems that RBG just won her first case from the Great Beyond, wherever that is. Trump should have paid attention to her request.
Karma is a bitch.
Donald Trump is a dumbass. We all know that. He’s also narcissistic, cruel, self obsessed, and utterly devoid of human emotion. We’ve come to expect the worst in him through pure personal experience. Now let’s look at Greg Abbott; he graduated from UT and Vanderbilt Law. He served on the Texas Supreme Court and as Attorney General of Texas. Greg Abbott is smart. His problem is that he’s also a partisan hack. He sued a tree trimming company after a tree fell on him after a storm, paralyzing him from the waist down resulting in an insurance settlement that pays him for life, though he can freely practice law. After he got his, of course, he spent years trying to undo the very system that supported him when injured. That makes him a hack, and a hypocrite. But he’s worse than that. As governor since 2015, he’s continued Rick Perry’s dismantling of Texas reputation for good education and a fair government. He’s participated in the culture wars and even sicced the Texas State Guard on the US Army after goofy conspiracy theorists raised hell about how the military exercises are going to “take away their guns”. It was stupid, and he knew better, but still pandered to screwballs. He’s now continued that pandering all the way through Trump’s disastrous presidency, and now Texans are actually dying because of that pandering.
Against all common sense and medical experts, Abbott ordered the reopening of businesses and government agencies even though no criteria for reopening had been met. Trump called for immediate reopening to save his reelection bid, and Abbott happily complied. He even overruled safety precautions put in place in cities all over the state. The result? COVID-19 cases have overwhelmed the hospital systems; medical staff is either exhausted or sick themselves. People are dying waiting for a hospital bed, or at home, terrified to come to a hospital. Yesterday, Texas hit a new record of over 11,000 new cases and 131 deaths, overwhelming the previous death record by over 100%. Total deaths since the beginning of this disaster now total over 3,000.
This catastrophe is all on Abbott, period the end. When he overruled adults like Sylvester Turner and Lina Hidalgo, he took the entire responsibility on himself. The real tragedy? Unlike Trump, Abbott is not a dumbass; he knows better. He’s just a corrupt and cynical politician, and this year should spell the end of his political career and a place in polite society (if that even exists anymore).
As we’ve already reported, the Texas Medical Center halted reporting all COVID-19 data after some kind of agreement with Greg Abbott to continue allowing elective surgeries even after his statewide order that shut down those elective surgeries to free hospital capacity for infected patients. TMC halted that reporting just as it reached 100% base capacity and forecast overrunning surge capacity in days.
Well, TMC started reporting the data again last night, but OMITTED ICU and hospital capacity data. A before and after example is below. Doctors in
Before and After
TMC have been ringing the alarm bells for weeks, and management was accurately reporting data and also sounding the alarm until everything stopped Thursday. The Houston Chronicle has now picked up the story as well as other local media. Frankly, this entire episode is shameful; corruption has moved from Austin and the governor’s mansion to the largest medical center in the world.
Our legacy will be determined by how we respond to this crisis. I’m not hopeful as the cancer of Trump has metastasized from Queens to Houston.
In an alarming turn of events, management of the Texas Medical Center in Houston has halted the reporting of real time COVID-19 data. They haven’t reported new data since Thursday. That’s right, folks; as COVID-19 new case rate goes almost vertical and ICUs are being overrun, TMC has halted real time data reporting. Why, you ask? Apparently, the heads of TMC cut a deal with Greg Abbott. As we know, Abbott awoke from his Stupid Coma on Thursday and shut down all elective surgeries in the state to relieve the load on hospitals in the state. He also ordered bars throughout the state to close again after he had stupidly allowed them to reopen starting in May.
Doctors within TMC have been ringing the alarm bells for weeks as new case rate increased. Leadership also provided public warnings about capacity, reporting that they were going to exceed surge ICU capacity by the first week of July. Late Thursday, though, TMC management reversed themselves, saying they had plenty of capacity. What happened? I’m hearing that Abbott built in a huge loophole in his shutdown policy to allow elective surgeries in TMC and affiliates as long as the hospitals have “enough capacity”. Apparently “enough capacity” is pretty damn vague. Methodist Hospital even sent out a “don’t worry, be happy” post on Thursday that they had plenty of room and elective surgeries (translated “very profitable”. As I’m sure is a complete coincidence, TMC simultaneously halted realtime reporting of COVID-19 case rates and ICU capacity utilization in Houston. Hmm.
All of this is going on as ICU capacity at TMC and other is overrun. TMC hospitals are even moving adult patients into Texas Children’s hospital, turning kids away. It’s like we’ve fallen down the rabbit hole into the Greg Abbott version of Trumpland. I continue to shake my head at the willful ignorance and magical thinking coming from our elected leadership. It’s an alternate reality where Abbott/Patrick/Paxton & Company run us into a brick wall at 100 miles an hour only for them to say, “Oops, that didn’t work.” My jaw is aching from dragging on the floor.
Jesus.
Every once in a while, the Gameshow President inadvertently blurts out the truth during his streams of unconsciousness. It happened again this last week, when he admitted this:
“If we did very little testing, [America] wouldn’t have the most cases. So, in a way, by doing all of this testing, we make ourselves look bad.”
There it is. Trump has been promising millions of “beautiful tests” since February. It’s mid-May, and we’re still testing at extremely anemic rates. In Texas, for example, our current testing rate is 2%, and that rate ignores possible multiple tests who have already tested positive. Every single medical expert I’ve heard speak repeats the mantra that massive testing is mandatory for opening economies. Without it, we’re all flying blind.
The problem? Trump is playing a gameshow and in this game, the smallest number wins. The prize is another 4 years to tear the US apart and avoid felony indictments from the State of New York. We’ve been calling this for months, and, once again Trump admits that he doesn’t want testing. He’s literally risking millions of lives for a win.