Coronavirus

[Nodack]

Not just me..

Trump removes independent watchdog for coronavirus funds, upending oversight panel
The move comes as Trump makes a broad push against inspectors general scrutinizing his actions.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/0 ... nel-171943
President Donald Trump has upended the panel of federal watchdogs overseeing implementation of the $2 trillion coronavirus law, tapping a replacement for the Pentagon official who was supposed to lead the effort.

A panel of inspectors general had named Glenn Fine — the acting Pentagon watchdog — to lead the group charged with monitoring the coronavirus relief effort. But Trump on Monday removed Fine from his post, instead naming the EPA inspector general to serve as the temporary Pentagon watchdog in addition to his other responsibilities.

Trump has also begun sharply attacking Health and Human Services Inspector General Christi Grimm, following a report from her office that described widespread testing delays and supply issues at the nation’s hospitals.

“Another Fake Dossier!” Trump tweeted, mentioning Grimm’s tenure as inspector general during the Obama administration. He didn’t mention, though, that Grimm has been serving as a federal watchdog since 1999, spanning administrations of both parties.

The move follows several steps Trump has taken to combat oversight of the bailout fund. After signing the relief package into law last month, the president issued a signing statement saying he would not allow the special inspector general for the relief program to report to Congress without his supervision.

And last week, he nominated one of his own White House lawyers, Brian Miller, for the special inspector general position.

[Superbone]

The man is downright dangerous.

[ShelC]

This is going to be the biggest heist in history. And no one will do anything about it and his supporters won't even care. But hey, at least they're all owning the libs right?

[Nodack]

That’s what’s important.

[Nodack]

Trump announces, then reverses, freeze on funding for World Health Organization
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/0 ... ing-171859
“We‘re going to put a hold on money spent to the WHO. We're going to put a very powerful hold on it and we‘re going to see,“ Trump said at the outset of a coronavirus task force briefing at the White House.

Minutes later, though, the president walked back the declaration, telling reporters that he was “looking into it” and conceding that a global pandemic was “maybe not” the best time to freeze funding for the international organization.

“I mean, I‘m not saying I‘m going to do it, but we are going to look at it,” Trump said, denying his comments from minutes earlier when pressed by reporters. “I said we’re going to look at it. We’re going to investigate it, we're going to look at it. But we will look at ending funding.”

[3rdside]

Trying to work it out about his supporters and this article goes someway to explaining it.

Everyone's born with a lean (liberal, conservative etc), then nurtures that lean through life experiences.

These leans become so ingrained that it actually doesn't matter who represents their side when voting, so long as their side wins.

https://hongkongfp.com/2020/03/31/why-d ... like-ours/

[3rdside]

I was like this growing up - a Liberal-National voter in Australia, Tory in UK (both more or less the same party, just different countries), whereas these days I'll vote for the individual and not the party.

Reason being is that I view being tied to a 'side' a surefire way to blinkered thinking and bad-behaviour tolerating ("anything goes so long as the other side doesn't win").

[3rdside]

Not a perfect approach of course, but could be a decent starting point when considering how to bridge the polarisation gap, not least as e.g. Republicans historically were the fiscally responsible party, which is total bullsh*t these days, likewise the Democrats originally opposing the abolition of slavery.

In other words, parties' beliefs change, so one logically shouldn't be so tied to a party.

[Flagrant Fowl]

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/ ... s-supplies

Hospitals say feds are seizing masks and other coronavirus supplies without a word

Hospital and clinic officials in seven states described the seizures in interviews over the past week. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is not publicly reporting the acquisitions, despite the outlay of millions of dollars of taxpayer money, nor has the administration detailed how it decides which supplies to seize and where to reroute them.

...

In response to questions from The Times, a FEMA representative said the agency, working with the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense, has developed a system for identifying needed supplies from vendors and distributing them equitably.

The representative said the agency factors in the populations of states and major metropolitan areas and the severity of the coronavirus outbreak in various locales. “High-transmission areas were prioritized, and allocations were based on population, not on quantities requested,” the representative said.

But the agency has refused to provide any details about how these determinations are made or why it is choosing to seize some supply orders and not others. Administration officials also will not say what supplies are going to what states.

[Nodack]

The father of a friend of mine just died of Covid-19. My other friend who is a Republican let me know and said China killed her. I said “Thanks FOX” and we haven’t spoken since.

[Superbone]

The father of a friend of mine just died of Covid-19. My other friend who is a Republican let me know and said China killed her. I said “Thanks FOX” and we haven’t spoken since.

Wow. Sorry for your one friend’s loss and your other friend’s ignorance.

[3rdside]

The father of a friend of mine just died of Covid-19. My other friend who is a Republican let me know and said China killed her. I said “Thanks FOX” and we haven’t spoken since.

At a guess, what % of Trump's time do you think he spends actually governing the country vs working out how to get re-elected via deception? I'm going with about 20:80.

Anyway ..

China did just take a massive sh*t in the swimming pool so there is absolutely some responsibility to bring in stricter regulation around wet markets and wild animal trading, which they've started to do.

I'm of the view that they get a pass on this one, but if it happens again they may need to pay reparations because we can't be doing this again.

[3rdside]

This ignores other factors of course like global warming, which can't be discounted as a contributing cause:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/get-ready ... ate-change

Counter point being that if another country, say the USA, was the source of an outbreak (Floridian swamps, see article) would they be required to make the same reparations? What about if broke-ass Africa was the source?

So maybe it's about taking the necessary precautions - wet markets can be regulated, unlike Floridian swamps - or maybe reparations is not a good idea full stop.

Anyway, I'm certain we're going to pay a price for what we're doing to the world with fossil fuels as - and sorry to use a two reference again - you can't keep taking a dump in your back yard and not expect repercussions, and I do wonder if the coronavirus is the first serious sign of things to come.

[Superbone]

China did just take a massive sh*t in the swimming pool so there is absolutely some responsibility to bring in stricter regulation around wet markets and wild animal trading, which they've started to do.

I'm of the view that they get a pass on this one, but if it happens again they may need to pay reparations because we can't be doing this again.

I saw on the news that some of these exotic animal markets have started to re-open in China. They need to shut these things down.

[3rdside]

China did just take a massive sh*t in the swimming pool so there is absolutely some responsibility to bring in stricter regulation around wet markets and wild animal trading, which they've started to do.

I'm of the view that they get a pass on this one, but if it happens again they may need to pay reparations because we can't be doing this again.

I saw on the news that some of these exotic animal markets have started to re-open in China. They need to shut these things down.

Wet markets is a blanket term / they're sort of like normal markets found in the rest of the world so can't just be shut down as it is where a lot of people buy their food.

It's how they're run, with no hygiene requirements, that's the problem as well as how the illegal trade of wildlife is mingled up in them, and this has to change.

[Nodack]

I just found this scientific link. It’s definitely a little over my head but, answers a lot of questions for me.

ORIGINS OF MAJOR HUMAN INFECTIOUS DISEASES
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK114494/

From reading this I have concluded that Humans, animals and insects interacting is the source of the vast majority of diseases and it has been that way since there were humans, animals and insects. You can’t ban people from interacting with animals and insects and you can’t kill everything that could be a threat. It might have been a bat this time. The next time it will be something else. I read most of that article and in conclusion the scientists idea was..

A global early warning system. Most major human infectious diseases have animal origins, and we continue to be bombarded by novel animal pathogens. Yet there is no ongoing systematic global effort to monitor for pathogens emerging from animals to humans. Such an effort could help us to describe the diversity of microbial agents to which our species is exposed; to characterize animal pathogens that might threaten us in the future; and perhaps to detect and control a local human emergence before it has a chance to spread globally.

In our view, monitoring should focus on people with high levels of exposure to wild animals, such as hunters, butchers of wild game, wildlife veterinarians, workers in the wildlife trade, and zoo workers. Such people regularly become infected with animal viruses, and their infections can be monitored over time and traced to other people in contact with them. One of us (N.D.W.) has been working in Cameroon to monitor microbes in people who hunt wild game, in other people in their community, and in their animal prey (Wolfe et al., 2004). The study is now expanding to other continents and to monitor domestic animals (such as dogs) that live in close proximity to humans but are exposed to wild animals through hunting and scavenging. Monitoring of people, animals, and animal die-offs (Kuiken et al., 2003) will serve as an early warning system for disease emergence, while also providing a unique archive of pathogens infecting humans and the animals to which we are exposed. Specimens from such highly exposed human populations could be screened specifically for agents known to be present in the animals they hunt (for example, retroviruses among hunters of non-human primates), as well as generically using broad screening tools such as viral microarrays (Wang et al., 2003) and random amplification polymerase chain reaction (PCR) (Jones et al., 2005). Such monitoring efforts also provide potentially invaluable repositories, which would be available for study after future outbreaks in order to reconstruct an outbreak's origin, and as a source of relevant reagents.

[3rdside]

I just found this scientific link. It’s definitely a little over my head but, answers a lot of questions for me.

ORIGINS OF MAJOR HUMAN INFECTIOUS DISEASES
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK114494/

From reading this I have concluded that Humans, animals and insects interacting is the source of the vast majority of diseases and it has been that way since there were humans, animals and insects. You can’t ban people from interacting with animals and insects and you can’t kill everything that could be a threat. It might have been a bat this time. The next time it will be something else. I read most of that article and in conclusion the scientists idea was..

A global early warning system. Most major human infectious diseases have animal origins, and we continue to be bombarded by novel animal pathogens. Yet there is no ongoing systematic global effort to monitor for pathogens emerging from animals to humans. Such an effort could help us to describe the diversity of microbial agents to which our species is exposed; to characterize animal pathogens that might threaten us in the future; and perhaps to detect and control a local human emergence before it has a chance to spread globally.

In our view, monitoring should focus on people with high levels of exposure to wild animals, such as hunters, butchers of wild game, wildlife veterinarians, workers in the wildlife trade, and zoo workers. Such people regularly become infected with animal viruses, and their infections can be monitored over time and traced to other people in contact with them. One of us (N.D.W.) has been working in Cameroon to monitor microbes in people who hunt wild game, in other people in their community, and in their animal prey (Wolfe et al., 2004). The study is now expanding to other continents and to monitor domestic animals (such as dogs) that live in close proximity to humans but are exposed to wild animals through hunting and scavenging. Monitoring of people, animals, and animal die-offs (Kuiken et al., 2003) will serve as an early warning system for disease emergence, while also providing a unique archive of pathogens infecting humans and the animals to which we are exposed. Specimens from such highly exposed human populations could be screened specifically for agents known to be present in the animals they hunt (for example, retroviruses among hunters of non-human primates), as well as generically using broad screening tools such as viral microarrays (Wang et al., 2003) and random amplification polymerase chain reaction (PCR) (Jones et al., 2005). Such monitoring efforts also provide potentially invaluable repositories, which would be available for study after future outbreaks in order to reconstruct an outbreak's origin, and as a source of relevant reagents.

Easier to read once past the intro, and raises the point I made about how we're at the cross roads of how we move forward from here - do we retreat into isolationist policies like America First and Brexit or do we try to become better global citizens, working together for the common good.

It is, sadly, at this intersection of obvious answers and counter-to-these political behaviours that we're literally dying.

[Superbone]

China did just take a massive sh*t in the swimming pool so there is absolutely some responsibility to bring in stricter regulation around wet markets and wild animal trading, which they've started to do.

I'm of the view that they get a pass on this one, but if it happens again they may need to pay reparations because we can't be doing this again.

I saw on the news that some of these exotic animal markets have started to re-open in China. They need to shut these things down.

Wet markets is a blanket term / they're sort of like normal markets found in the rest of the world so can't just be shut down as it is where a lot of people buy their food.

It's how they're run, with no hygiene requirements, that's the problem as well as how the illegal trade of wildlife is mingled up in them, and this has to change.

<redacted for brevity>

3rdside, thanks for the lesson on wet markets. I see now that it's not a cut and dried issue. From Wikipedia:

"The term wet market is often used to signify a live animal market in which vendors slaughter animals upon customer purchase."

[pickle]

Honestly, I think there's too much emphasis on wet markets in particular. Anything illegal needs to stop, but that is obviously easier said than done.

Also... this disease did not begin with the wet market, there were plenty of documented cases of infection that had no contact to the wet market. Did the wet market make it worse? Sure it did. But if it weren't the wet market, it would've been something else. If it turns out a bunch of people that were jam packed in a subway car proved to be the source of a major infection, do we outlaw subway cars?

I don't think illegal trade of exotic animals and game meat is good, and I think they should be put to a stop. But let's not make that logical leap.

Also I find the whole notion of reparations really hard to understand. What is the logic behind reparations? To punish people for making mistakes? Does that apply to everything? Who defines what is a mistake?

[3rdside]

Honestly, I think there's too much emphasis on wet markets in particular. Anything illegal needs to stop, but that is obviously easier said than done.

Also... this disease did not begin with the wet market, there were plenty of documented cases of infection that had no contact to the wet market. Did the wet market make it worse? Sure it did. But if it weren't the wet market, it would've been something else. If it turns out a bunch of people that were jam packed in a subway car proved to be the source of a major infection, do we outlaw subway cars?

I don't think illegal trade of exotic animals and game meat is good, and I think they should be put to a stop. But let's not make that logical leap.

Also I find the whole notion of reparations really hard to understand. What is the logic behind reparations? To punish people for making mistakes? Does that apply to everything? Who defines what is a mistake?

So we're all in agreement then, though I didn't realise the virus might not have come from wet markets .. in which case reparations for not regulating them doubly doesn't make sense.