Growing outrage over Santee shopper wearing KKK-style hood
By: Jennifer Kastner
Posted at 6:16 PM, May 04, 2020 and last updated 9:52 AM, May 05, 2020
SANTEE, Calif. (KGTV) — Outrage continues to grow over a shopper at a Santee Vons who appeared to be wearing what resembled a KKK-style hood. Monday, a San Diego County Sheriff's detective said that the man has not been identified yet but deputies are reviewing surveillance video. The detective added that they’ve been fielding calls all day from members of the community who are concerned for their safety.
………
So, are masks mandatory, or are masks illegal Are all masks equal, or are some masks more equal than others? Someone please let me know, because the so-called legitimate information I've been getting about this situation shows me that the media are as approximately consistent as (and have roughly the attention span of) a swarm of flies hovering over a pile of dog shit.
PC Culture Samaritan’s Purse, Excluded from NYC for the Sake of ‘Inclusion’
By John Hirschauer
May 6, 2020 4:34 PM
In 2012, a Pakistani woman named Walaiha Arafat was accused of desecrating the Koran. Court documents claim that Arafat was found sleeping atop pages of the Islamic scripture, prompting her arrest on blasphemy charges. Arafat was detained for almost 42 months in Central Jail Lahore, a detention facility in the province of Punjab, before being released on bail in what amounted to a rare display of leniency from the nation’s supreme court. New York treats its blasphemers better than Pakistan does, but neither society seems eager to tolerate those who offend its most basic religious convictions. Since the coronavirus pandemic began, the volunteers for Samaritan’s Purse, an Evangelical relief organization run by the televangelist Franklin Graham, have been the most notable heretics in New York City. After weeks of protest from the city’s diversity clerics, the volunteers are at last collapsing the group’s field hospital, disinfecting its tents, and leaving New York City in apparent disgrace. In two weeks, the volunteers will return home, shunned by the city whose sick they treated free of charge without regard to race, religion, or sexual preference. The city officials who usher them out offer the group nothing but scorn: A statement released by New York City council speaker Corey Johnson instructed Samaritan’s Purse to leave Central Park, calling the group’s presence in the city “an affront to our values of inclusion.” New York is an inclusive city, he says: Get the hell out. The demonstrations outside the Samaritan’s Purse COVID-19 field hospital have been covered, perhaps too closely. Many of the protesters were clearly disturbed. Their anger at an innocuous group of religious volunteers provided a window into some of the excesses of LGBT politics and the desperation for enemies in a moment in history when enemies are scarce. But the protesters were a small, if vocal, group without much pull. The way in which the presence of Samaritan’s Purse has exercised the organs of government, however — the city council, the mayor’s office, and even the federal government — is another issue entirely. As the volunteers prepare to depart, it is worth pondering what this entire debacle says about the state of religion and culture in New York City. It is now clear — if it wasn’t before — that the leaders of our cultural revolution are not interested in coexisting with their perceived enemies. So appalled were the city’s leaders by the mere presence of volunteers with traditionalist views on marriage and sexuality that they refused their help in the middle of a lethal pandemic. Johnson conceded that the “battle against COVID-19 is still ongoing,” and the city “still needs support” in defeating the virus. Even with lives on the line, Johnson resolved that “a city that values diversity and compassion for all” could not, in effect, defile itself by coexisting with the ideologically unclean. Metaphors abound, but practically speaking, what message are Johnson and New York’s elected officials sending to the observant Jews, Christians, and — yes — Muslims in the city who hold beliefs identical to those espoused by Samaritan’s Purse? One marvels at the abuse of language by protesters and elected officials. State senator Brad Hoylman, for instance, claimed that the city’s mere “association with Franklin Graham and Samaritan’s Purse” inflicted “reputational harm with LGBTQ New Yorkers and the wider public.” The suggestion that Samaritan’s Purse — an organization that brought volunteers to the front lines of a collapsing hospital system at no charge to the city — was somehow inflicting harm on New York was remarkable. The “harm,” here, was forcing LGBTQ New Yorkers to endure the thought that somewhere in the city of New York, someone might have had an opinion about their sex lives. In this telling, the charity’s offense was requiring its volunteers to affirm the Samaritan’s Purse statement of faith, which contained blasphemous views on LGBT issues. New York City effectively banished Samaritan’s Purse for failing to adhere to its own de fide commitments. Most striking was Johnson’s decision to defend “inclusion” and “diversity” by excluding those with unfashionable views from the city. This Orwellian sense of “inclusion” recalls Herbert Marcuse’s essay on “repressive tolerance” — a defense of a “liberating tolerance” that requires “intolerance against movements from the Right and toleration of movements from the Left” to facilitate “progress in civilization” (my emphasis). G. K. Chesterton said that the “thought that stops thought” was “the only thought that ought to be stopped.” German political theorists from Karl Loewenstein onward have spoken of streitbare Demokratie: militant democracy, the notion that the liberal (or “inclusive”) order requires taking illiberal (or “exclusive”) action against those who would subvert it. Would-be excluders must themselves be excluded for inclusion’s sake. In a 1968 postscript to “Repressive Tolerance,” Marcuse wrote, There are issues where either there is no “other side” in any more than a formalistic sense, or where “the other side” is demonstrably “regressive” and impedes possible improvement of the human condition. To tolerate propaganda for inhumanity vitiates the goals not only of liberalism but of every progressive political philosophy. The ill-treatment of Samaritan’s Purse and its selfless volunteers demonstrates that officials in New York no longer view the “other side” of the marriage and sexuality debates as anything but obstacles to the “inclusive” society — a goal apparently more precious even than the lives of New York City’s COVID patients.
I’ve seen some people portray it as a conflict between epidemiologists and economists, but that’s all wrong. Serious economists know what they don’t know — they recognize and respect experts from other disciplines. A survey of economists found almost unanimous support for “tolerating a very large contraction in economic activity until the spread of infections has dropped significantly.”
No, this push to reopen is coming not from economists but from cranks and cronies. That is, it’s coming on one side from people who may describe themselves as economists but whom the professionals consider cranks — people like Navarro or Stephen Moore, who Trump tried unsuccessfully to appoint to the Federal Reserve Board. And on the other, it’s coming from business types with close ties to Trump who suffer from billionaire’s disease — the tendency to assume that just because you’re rich you’re also smarter than anyone else, even in areas like epidemiology (or, dare I say it, macroeconomics) that require a great deal of technical expertise.
The COVID-19 pandemic is at once threatening American lives, the sustainability of our nation’s health care system, and our economic prosperity. Our paramount concern at this moment should be to slow the spread of this virus and equip our health care system to effectively respond. Saving lives and saving the economy are not in conflict right now; we will hasten the return to robust economic activity by taking steps to stem the spread of the virus and save lives.
Public and private sector actors must work together to provide more tests, more ventilators, more personal protective equipment, and more support for hospitals and health care facilities. Only when we have made progress on these fronts will US businesses and consumers be able to resume normal economic activity without inducing a resurgent spread that leads to even more severe health and economic effects.
We are deeply troubled by the prospect of a sustained recession that would erode the economic livelihood of millions of Americans. While Americans practice social distancing and medical professionals work to save lives, policy makers should put measures in place to support households and businesses through this difficult period. These collective efforts will allow more businesses to get up and running again as soon as possible and minimize the severity of the economic hardship on the American people.
A new whistleblower complaint by a former US health official details how the Trump administration's COVID-19 response was hampered by cronyism and denial about the virus's severity. The 89-page complaint filed by Rick Bright, an immunology expert who led the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) until he says he was forced out of his position, provides an inside look at the Trump administration's approach to public health before and during the pandemic.
From spring 2017 until his "involuntary removal" last month, "HHS [Health and Human Services] leadership pressured Dr. Bright and BARDA to ignore expert recommendations and instead to award lucrative contracts based on political connections and cronyism," the complaint said. "Dr. Bright repeatedly clashed with [Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response Robert] Kadlec and other HHS leaders about the outsized role played by John Clerici, an industry consultant to pharmaceutical companies with a longstanding connection to Dr. Kadlec, in the award of government contracts."
. . .
Bright's whistleblower complaint, which cites many internal emails and events from in-person meetings, was filed with the US Office of Special Counsel. Among other things, the complaint delves into the curious case of hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug President Donald Trump repeatedly promoted as a coronavirus treatment despite a lack of evidence. (The FDA has since issued a warning about the drug, saying it "should be limited to clinical trial settings or for treating certain hospitalized patients.")
"In an apparent effort to score a short-term political victory for the Administration during the escalating health crisis, the Office of the ASPR [Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response] pressured BARDA to promote the malaria drug chloroquine as a therapeutic for COVID-19, despite a clear lack of scientific support," the whistleblower complaint said.
. . .
Bright's complaint continued:
On April 4, 2020, hours after President Trump once again touted hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19 during a White House press conference, HHS Assistant Secretary for Health Adm. Brett Giroir, M.D., instructed FEMA Administrator Peter Gaynor, Vice Director for Logistics of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Rear Adm. John Polowczyk, and Dr. Kadlec to mobilize the nation's supply chain to "flood NY and NJ with treatment courses [of hydroxychloroquine]." Admiral Giroir issued this instruction based on orders from the White House. Mr. Gaynor likewise had received instructions from FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn to distribute hydroxychloroquine to pharmacies nationwide, even though the EUA did not provide for outpatient use of the drug.
. . .
In addition to pursuing questionable chloroquine treatments, the Trump administration was accused in Bright's complaint of ignoring warnings about the seriousness of the virus and ignoring warnings of shortages of medical supplies like masks and the drug remdesivir.
Bright provided numerous examples of his early warnings about the pandemic not being taken seriously. For instance, on January 23, 2020, "Dr. Bright attended a meeting with HHS senior leadership across all agencies to brief Secretary Azar on COVID-19. Anticipating the urgency and magnitude of the threat and knowing the lead times needed to develop new drugs, diagnostics, and vaccines, Dr. Bright pressed for urgent access to funding, personnel, and clinical specimens, including viruses, which he emphasized were all critically necessary to begin development of lifesaving medicines needed in the likely event that the virus spread outside of Southeast Asia. Secretary Azar and Dr. Kadlec responded with surprise at Dr. Bright's dire predictions and urgency, and asserted that the United States would be able to contain the virus and keep it out of the United States. Secretary Azar further indicated that the CDC would look at the issue of travel bans to keep the virus contained. Dr. Bright responded that [the] virus 'might already be here. We just don't have the tests to know one way or the other.' Dr. Bright's comments were met with skepticism and were clearly not welcome."
President Trump in recent weeks has sought to block or downplay information about the severity of the coronavirus pandemic as he urges a return to normalcy and the rekindling of an economy that has been devastated by public health restrictions aimed at mitigating the outbreak.
His administration has sidelined or replaced officials not seen as loyal, rebuffed congressional requests for testimony, dismissed jarring statistics and models, praised states for reopening without meeting White House guidelines and, briefly, pushed to disband a task force created to combat the virus and communicate about the public health crisis.
Several Republican governors are following Trump’s lead as an effort takes shape to control the narrative about a pandemic that has continued to rage throughout a quickly reopening country. With polls showing most consumers still afraid to venture out of their homes, the Trump administration has intensified its efforts to soothe some of those fears through a messaging campaign that relies on tightly controlling information about a virus that has proven stubbornly difficult to contain.
“If the message were to go out with complete objectivity, it would be disastrous for Trump,” said Max Skidmore, a political science professor at the University of Missouri at Kansas City and the author of a book on presidential responses to pandemics. “So he is doing his best to prevent experts from speaking out or using their expertise, and he’s simply trying to divert attention.”
Trump’s information-control tactics are being replicated in states across the country, where governors are lifting stay-at-home orders against the advice of public health officials.
It's obviously not safe enough, so the only way to restart the economy is to fool people into thinking it is and hope they spend enough before they die.
Heretic
Posts : 3520
Subject: Re: COVID-19 5/8/2020, 8:58 pm
Heretic
Posts : 3520
Subject: Re: COVID-19 5/8/2020, 8:59 pm
TRUMP: “Katie, she tested very good for a long period of time, and then all of the sudden she tested positive ... this is why the whole concept of tests aren't necessarily great ... today, I guess, for some reason, she tested positive." pic.twitter.com/xNFEJn3W9s
More than 1,000 workers from Tyson Foods’ largest pork processing plant in the U.S. have tested positive for COVID-19, the Des Moines Register reports.
Local officials Thursday identified 1,031 workers from Tyson's Waterloo, Iowa plant who tested positive for coronavirus or for antibodies that show they were previously infected. The news came the same day the facility resumed operations following a two-week closure prompted by the coronavirus.
The number includes workers who were tested at the plant during the shutdown as well as at private health care providers and includes workers who were asymptomatic, the Des Moines Register reports.
On Wednesday, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) said 444 workers from the Waterloo plant tested positive.
Joshua Pikora, a disease surveillance and investigation manager in Black Hawk County where the Waterloo plant is located, said the numbers reported by the governor did not include tests done at health facilities outside the Tyson plant, the Des Moines Register reports.
The plant employs about 3,000 people and was one of several meat packing plants forced to shut its doors in recent weeks due to coronavirus outbreaks among workers.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine called it a “great Ohio day” Thursday as he announced plans to reopen bars, restaurants, beauty salons and barber shops in the coming weeks. This comes after factories and other businesses have already opened and retail stores are set to open on Tuesday.
But statewide and nationally, infections and deaths from coronavirus continue to rise, the ability to test for the disease remains woefully inadequate and masks and other personal protective equipment remain in short supply.
Meanwhile, Ohio prisons are among the most intense coronavirus hot spots in the country, and deaths from disease in the state’s nursing homes are rising sharply.
Despite his optimistic talk, DeWine was pretty blunt about the grim calculus behind his decision to ease restrictions in response to the pandemic: Assume greater risk to the public health, or catastrophically damage the state economy.
“As we open up the economy, let me just state the obvious and not shy away from it,” DeWine said during his Thursday press conference. “The risk is up. The more contacts we have, the more people do, the more risk there is.”
As he discussed the increased risk, the governor was clear that allowing people to go out and shop and dine and drink and get haircuts would increase the incidence of COVID-19.
He did so by speaking in terms of the “R-naught” statistic: the number of people a coronavirus-positive person infects. That number in Ohio currently is one and DeWine said with the new opening measures, it will rise.
Nor did he dispute the inevitable implication — the reopening means more Ohioans will die.
“This is a gamble,” DeWine said, later adding, “This has raised the danger significantly.”
But the governor said those considerations have to be balanced against the deep economic damage restrictions from the shutdown have been doing to Ohio businesses and their employees.
“I don’t think many people think we can keep this economy shut down for a year or more,” he said. “The social consequences and health consequences would be astronomical.”
DeWine stressed that it’s important for Ohioans not to see the reopening announcements that the state is “ringing a bell” giving the all-clear from proper social distancing measures. If that happens, he said, “then we’ll be in big trouble.”
The governor was, in essence, leaving it up to individual Ohioans to guard against further spread of a disease that disproportionately affects the old, the sick, the poor and minorities.
Again, there is no data to suggest that there's enough stupid people willing to risk death in numbers large enough to power the economy. It's a fantasy; a very grim one.
In appearances this week, Trump has defended the U.S. record on testing, calling it the “greatest testing in the world,” while playing down the importance of testing for the disease.
The president said he didn’t think “you need that kind of testing or that much testing,” he called testing “somewhat overrated,” and he told reporters that “in a way, by doing all of this testing, we make ourselves look bad.”
During a White House event with admiring Republican House members, Trump also returned to a widely criticized prediction that the coronavirus pandemic will disappear on its own.
“I feel about vaccines like I feel about tests. This is going to go away without a vaccine,” Trump said, a statement at direct odds with the physicians on his coronavirus task force. “It’s going to go away and it’s, we’re not going to see it again, hopefully, after a period of time. You may have some, some flare-ups,” in the fall or later, the president said.
“They die too,” Trump said of viruses.
Testing? We don't need no stinkin' testing! Vaccines? We don't need no stinkin' vaccines!
This would be actually be funny if it wasn't so deadly serious.
This is why nothing you post needs to be taken seriously.
happy jack
Posts : 6988
Subject: Re: COVID-19 5/10/2020, 3:57 pm
Heretic wrote:
happy jack wrote:
Don't know why you chose to lie about this...
I call 'em as I see 'em. Tens of thousands dead, tens of thousands more to come, and you're still obsessing over bathroom use and, presumably, abortion. Haven't criticized this administration's response at all, offering only a lazy and easily debunked "but Obama..." as if that justified deaths three fucking years after an explicit warning.
You've continually downplayed the risks and deaths due to climate change, lack of gun regulations, healthcare, etc over and over again no matter how many studies and real world examples I cite. The only thing that can categorize such inconsistencies is a "They ain't fetuses, so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯..." If I'm wrong, then by all means, let's have an honest conversation about what's currently happening and how bad it will be if that muppet and his protesters get their way and reopen long before the science says its safe. But I highly doubt you're willing or capable.
Scorpion wrote:
Sometimes, I just need a break from all the bad news. I'm posting a video that provides a temporary escape... especially when coupled with a proper set of headphones and substance of your choice . For first time listeners, I suggest dropping in at about the 8 minute mark. Hopefully, you'll enjoy!
Shit, this was fantastic. How do you find this stuff? I had limited exposure to techno in the early 2000s thanks to a close friend of mine. Hybrid, DJ Sasha (Airdrawndagger is one of my faves), a little Oakenfold... this lower tempo stuff has always been my favorite.
It was Jan. 22, a day after the first case of covid-19 was detected in the United States, and orders were pouring into Michael Bowen’s company outside Fort Worth, some from as far away as Hong Kong.
Bowen’s medical supply company, Prestige Ameritech, could ramp up production to make an additional 1.7 million N95 masks a week. He viewed the shrinking domestic production of medical masks as a national security issue, though, and he wanted to give the federal government first dibs.
“We still have four like-new N95 manufacturing lines,” Bowen wrote that day in an email to top administrators in the Department of Health and Human Services. “Reactivating these machines would be very difficult and very expensive but could be achieved in a dire situation.”
But communications over several days with senior agency officials — including Robert Kadlec, the assistant secretary for preparedness and emergency response — left Bowen with the clear impression that there was little immediate interest in his offer.
“I don’t believe we as an government are anywhere near answering those questions for you yet,” Laura Wolf, director of the agency’s Division of Critical Infrastructure Protection, responded that same day.
. . .
“We are the last major domestic mask company,” he wrote on Jan. 23. “My phones are ringing now, so I don’t ‘need’ government business. I’m just letting you know that I can help you preserve our infrastructure if things ever get really bad. I’m a patriot first, businessman second.”
In the end, the government did not take Bowen up on his offer. Even today, production lines that could be making more than 7 million masks a month sit dormant.
Heretic
Posts : 3520
Subject: Re: COVID-19 5/10/2020, 7:24 pm
Peter Daszak is a British-born American PhD who’s spent a career discovering dangerous viruses in wildlife, especially bats. In 2003, he warned 60 Minutes a pandemic was coming. Two weeks ago, NIH funding for his virology research was killed. https://t.co/dnEmFCF1MIpic.twitter.com/pKnnffNNOH
This demonstrates exactly why misinformation is so dangerous during a pandemic: An NIH-funded virology research program that was helping to understand and treat COVID19 was just defunded because of a false rumor in the right-wing media that the money was being given to China. https://t.co/2R3Zi6G95Y
New coronavirus hotspots are emerging in Republican heartland communities across multiple states, contradicting Donald Trump’s claims that infection rates are declining across the nation.
At a fraught press briefing on Monday, the president declared: “All throughout the country, the numbers are coming down rapidly.”
Yet county-specific figures show a surge in infection rates in towns and rural communities in red states such as Texas, Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky and North and South Dakota, according to data tracking by the New York Times.
Trump’s claim is also contradicted by data used by the White House’s own pandemic taskforce to track new and emerging hotspots.
The coronavirus crisis and the administration’s halting response to it have cost President Trump support from one of his most crucial constituencies: America’s seniors.
For years, Republicans and Mr. Trump have relied on older Americans, the country’s largest voting bloc, to offset a huge advantage Democrats enjoy with younger voters. In critical states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida, all of which have large older populations, Mr. Trump’s advantage with older voters has been essential to his political success; in 2016, he won voters over the age of 65 by seven percentage points, according to national exit poll data.
But seniors are also the most vulnerable to the global pandemic, and the campaign’s internal polls, people familiar with the numbers said, show Mr. Trump’s support among voters over the age of 65 softening to a concerning degree, as he pushes to reopen the country’s economy at the expense of stopping a virus that puts them at the greatest risk.
Turns out the GOP's "shut up and die, grandma" message isn't going over very well with... grandma.
You're walking around with an erection all the livelong day, aren't you?
Heretic
Posts : 3520
Subject: Re: COVID-19 5/13/2020, 4:06 pm
happy jack wrote:
You're walking around with an erection all the livelong day, aren't you?
No, not everyone responds to avoidable epidemics they way you respond to avoidable deaths from firearms. But how is such a prolifer like you handling it? Did you see the returns from all those dead Americans in your paycheck or do you still need another 80,000 to make it worthwhile? Maybe one or more of your own children? How much will be enough for "the economy?" Will you remind your family members that it's #worthit as they're choking to death in their own fluids? Give them a direct dollar amount? Will you tell them how #prolife you are as they're dying? #FireFauci
Daniel Arlein has already had COVID-19. In March, the 36-year-old small business owner and DJ, who lives in Brooklyn, tested positive for the viral infection and suffered through two weeks of flu-like symptoms.
Arlein has since recovered, and while he’s still being careful — avoiding leaving the house, washing his hands more often and wearing a face mask — he can’t help feeling a bit relieved to have already had the infection.
“The only way it’s helping me is psychologically, to be able to go out in the world and still be careful but not be freaked out that I’m going to get sick,” he said. “I have no idea if I will get sick again. I feel like I won’t, but I have no idea if I can get it again.”
Most people understand immunity to mean that once a person has been exposed to a disease, they can’t get it again. It’s an easy concept to grasp, and some people have hoped that widespread immunity could be the way out of this pandemic: If enough of the population becomes immune to the disease, the spread would be stopped, since the virus would run out of new, susceptible targets. The “herd” of immune people would protect everyone.
But getting to herd immunity without a vaccine isn’t as simple as the idea itself. A number of variables can affect when herd immunity is reached — and what it costs to get there — and they vary depending on the disease. How infectious is the disease? How deadly is it? And how long do people stay immune once they’ve gotten it? Adjusting any of these variables can drastically change the outcome of this equation. You can probably sense where this is heading …
But if we wish hard enough...
happy jack
Posts : 6988
Subject: Re: COVID-19 5/14/2020, 8:33 am
Heretic wrote:
No, not everyone responds to avoidable epidemics they way you respond to avoidable deaths from firearms.
Not sure what one has to do with the other, and I'm afraid to ask, since your explanation would come from a place somewhere in that special little world you inhabit. (But if you do respond, don't forget to throw in the obligatory lecture about straw men.)
happy jack
Posts : 6988
Subject: Re: COVID-19 5/14/2020, 9:49 am
And yet another reason to trust, unequivocally, the mainstream media's expertise and advice on all things COVID-19. Good lord.
Greta Thunberg added to CNN’s expert coronavirus panel, Twitter erupts
By Hannah Sparks
May 13, 2020 | 2:39pm | Updated
An upcoming CNN town hall on the coronavirus pandemic will feature 17-year-old Greta Thunberg alongside a panel of medical experts. The program, “Coronavirus Facts and Fears,” also includes CNN broadcaster Sanjay Gupta, 50, former Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, 71, and former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Richard Besser, 60. CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, 52, will host alongside Gupta. However, social media watchdogs are foaming at the mouth over the choice to place a teen climate activist on a panel with public health experts. “What place does Greta Thunberg have in this town hall?” asks Twitter rabble-rouser Yashar Ali to his 618,000 followers. His rhetorical question was liked by more than 12,000 since this morning. Her name is a top trending term on Twitter, with some 30,000 mentions on the platform in just a few hours. In a follow-up tweet, Ali clarified his rhetorical tweet with an explanation: “I understand that but this is a panel of top health experts and administrators. A climate activist would be better suited on a different panel. She’s not a climate scientist. It’s a matter of placement.” CNN’s social media was soon served with an onslaught of virtual eye-rolls. “Greta Thunberg? Now, she’s a COVID expert? @CNN is a joke!” reads a top response to the network’s Wednesday announcement. “Not picking on the kid,” said another. “Picking on a ‘news’ network for featuring a child to inform the public.” “I remember when my thread about E. coli in Romaine lettuce went viral and trended on Twitter only to have CNN put Food Babe on the air to discuss the issue,” tweeted Dr. Eugene Gu, referring to another controversial health “expert” in the media. “Greta Thunberg on this panel is an improvement from that at least.” Some have come to Thunberg’s defense, including more than a few public figures, arguing that the voice of youth, who will come to inherit an Earth doomed by future pandemics and climate disaster, may actually have something to add to the conversation. “Unqualified men appear on cable all day every day, bloviating endlessly, but Greta Thunberg is a bridge too far? Ok,” tweeted writer Roxane Gay. “She’s has extraordinary knowledge and she is the next generation that is left to clean this mess we’ve made. They wouldn’t have her there if she wasn’t a powerful voice,” wrote Oscar-winning actor Patricia Arquette. “It’s a town hall, not a meeting of scientists,” another follower noted. “Some of their previous guests have been chef Jose Andres, director Spike Lee, author Laurie Garrett, etc etc.” Thunberg has, perhaps wisely, been mum throughout this erupting social-media showdown. But she hasn’t spent the past three months lounging in lockdown. On April 30, UNICEF said the young activist had launched a children-first campaign to help protect young lives against COVID-19, pledging a grant of €92,000 ($100,000), awarded to her by Danish NGO Human Act, toward the effort. “Like the climate crisis, the coronavirus pandemic is a child-rights crisis,” said Thunberg. “It will affect all children, now and in the long-term, but vulnerable groups will be impacted the most. I’m asking everyone to step up and join me in support of UNICEF’s vital work to save children’s lives, to protect health and continue education.”
A barber who continued to cut hair at a shop in New York over the past few weeks in violation of the state's stay-at-home order has tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, according to the Ulster County Department of Health and Mental Health.
In a statement Wednesday, the county health commissioner advised anyone who received a haircut in the past three weeks at a barbershop on Broadway in the city of Kingston, about 20 miles north of Poughkeepsie, to seek testing for the coronavirus.
In the decades following its founding in 1946, the CDC became a national pillar of public health and globally respected. It trained cadres of applied epidemiologists to be deployed in the USA and abroad. CDC scientists have helped to discover new viruses and develop accurate tests for them. CDC support was instrumental in helping WHO to eradicate smallpox. However, funding to the CDC for a long time has been subject to conservative politics that have increasingly eroded the agency's ability to mount effective, evidence-based public health responses. In the 1980s, the Reagan administration resisted providing the sufficient budget that the CDC needed to fight the HIV/AIDS crisis. The George W Bush administration put restrictions on global and domestic HIV prevention and reproductive health programming.
The Trump administration further chipped away at the CDC's capacity to combat infectious diseases. CDC staff in China were cut back with the last remaining CDC officer recalled home from the China CDC in July, 2019, leaving an intelligence vacuum when COVID-19 began to emerge. In a press conference on Feb 25, Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, warned US citizens to prepare for major disruptions to movement and everyday life. Messonnier subsequently no longer appeared at White House briefings on COVID-19. More recently, the Trump administration has questioned guidelines that the CDC has provided. These actions have undermined the CDC's leadership and its work during the COVID-19 pandemic.
There is no doubt that the CDC has made mistakes, especially on testing in the early stages of the pandemic. The agency was so convinced that it had contained the virus that it retained control of all diagnostic testing for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, but this was followed by the admission on Feb 12 that the CDC had developed faulty test kits. The USA is still nowhere near able to provide the basic surveillance or laboratory testing infrastructure needed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
But punishing the agency by marginalising and hobbling it is not the solution. The Administration is obsessed with magic bullets—vaccines, new medicines, or a hope that the virus will simply disappear. But only a steadfast reliance on basic public health principles, like test, trace, and isolate, will see the emergency brought to an end, and this requires an effective national public health agency. The CDC needs a director who can provide leadership without the threat of being silenced and who has the technical capacity to lead today's complicated effort.
The Trump administration's further erosion of the CDC will harm global cooperation in science and public health, as it is trying to do by defunding WHO. A strong CDC is needed to respond to public health threats, both domestic and international, and to help prevent the next inevitable pandemic. Americans must put a president in the White House come January, 2021, who will understand that public health should not be guided by partisan politics.
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