Monday, March 16, 2020

No shit, Sherlock !










The picture above was taken at the local Safeway grocery store this morning. Like most grocery stores, the shelves for paper towels and toilet were empty. When I was in the local Fry’s store a few days ago, the paper products were cleaned out, the laundry soap was almost entirely eliminated, and the canned goods aisle was much reduced. Our son was at Sprouts this morning, and discovered that they were completely out of cereal, frozen food, and meat. Our daughter was also there this morning,  and discovered that ALL of the bulk food was gone.

The picture below was taken this afternoon in the bread aisle of Fry's:




All of the shortages, of course, are caused by the COVID-19 virus, and folks started stockpiling essential items due to the fact that the CDC had advised people to make sure that they had a 30 day supply of essentially items on hand – which naturally led to hoarding, and some price gouging , as well as a few fights in the toilet paper aisles.

A man in Tennessee bought more than 17.000 bottles of hand sanitizer, and managed to sell a few (at highly inflated prices) before he got caught. The Department of Consumer Affairs (1-800- 352-8431) has the ability to fine gougers $10,000 for a first offense. Faced with that prospect, the man donated his supply to charity, which will at least give him a tax deduction instead of a fine.

Nationwide, chaos has erupted.

The NCAA March Madness Basketball tournament will be held without the thousands of fans usually in attendance. Cactus league baseball ended early, and both the NBA and the NHL have put a pause on their seasons.

St. Patrick’s Day parades in Boston and Chicago were cancelled.

Hotels are experiencing cancellations at a terrifying rate. Within the last week, one hotel in Flagstaff had 230 cancellations, and the trend is happening all over the country. A lot of those cancellations are Europeans, who are no longer permitted to enter the United States for the next 30 days following Wednesday's order from the Trump administration. If you've ever been to the Grand Canyon, you would have noticed there are people from all over the world at the site - and now they aren't there anymore.

On Tuesday, all the schools in Boston will be shut down, and will not reopen until April 27. Chicago has also closed all of its schools, as well as civil and criminal courts. The Chicago archdiocese is cancelling all masses. Over the weekend, Governor Ducey of Arizona announced that all schools will be closed until March 30.

Starting tomorrow, Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker has ordered all bars and restaurants to stop dine-in operations until April 6. 
Many states are banning gatherings of more than 50 people. Bars and Restaurants are closing public service, with restaurants filling only to go or delivery meals. The amount of people  not getting a wage is an issue that will worsen an already bad situation.
Even as the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread, Republicans have blocked Senate Democrats' bill that would require companies to offer up to 14 days of paid sick leave in times of health emergencies. In addition, the White House is not planning to delay cuts to the food stamp program, now slated to start in April.
So, what’s the cause of all this craziness?
The current crisis started in Wuhan, China, and quickly spread from there. Early on, many of the patients in the outbreak in Wuhan, China reportedly had some link to a large seafood and animal market, suggesting the virus likely emerged from an animal source. Analysis of the genetic tree of this virus is ongoing to know the specific source of the virus. SARS, another coronavirus that emerged to infect people, came from civit cats, while MERS, another coronavirus that emerged to infect people, came from camels.
However, the origins of the current crisis goes back even further.

During the Ebola crisis , the Obama administration set up pandemic crisis centers in 47 countries- including China. The Global Health Security Agenda, a pact between over 60 nations that began in 2014, had been funded by a five-year, nearly $600 million supplemental package that was dwindling. That one-time funding, which Congress originally appropriated in response to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa in 2014, ran out at the end of September 2019. If the funding had not been extended, the number of countries would have been reduced to 10. Although it is NOT true that the Trump administration caused the reduction (funding was eventually extended and expanded), it IS true that he shut down the health care directorate on the National Security Council.


The Obama administration set up a National Security Council directorate at the White House that was charged with preparing for when, not if, another pandemic would hit the nation.


Compared to other countries, the United States is woefully unprepared for a pandemic.We are currently far behind other countries in terms of the number of people tested (per million people), our out of pocket medical costs are MUCH higher than other developed countries, and the number of hospital beds per 1,000 population is MUCH less.


On February 29, Trump held his second press conference about the coronavirus. This time, the main speaker was Dr. Anthony Fauci, who actually knows what he is talking about when it comes to infectious disease. The look on Trump's face speaks volumes. Either he has suddenly realized that he himself is at risk for the disease, or he is simply angry that the truth is actually being revealed to the public.
Dr. Fauci was appointed director of NIAID in 1984. He oversees an extensive portfolio of basic and applied research to prevent, diagnose, and treat established infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, respiratory infections, diarrheal diseases, tuberculosis and malaria as well as emerging diseases such as Ebola and Zika. NIAID also supports research on transplantation and immune-related illnesses, including autoimmune disorders, asthma and allergies. The NIAID budget for fiscal year 2020 is an estimated $5.9 billion.
Dr. Fauci has advised six presidents on HIV/AIDS and many other domestic and global health issues. He was one of the principal architects of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a program that has saved millions of lives throughout the developing world.
Naturally, Trump designated Mike Pence (who knows nothing about medicine) as the public voice for the administration about the disease.
Congress is working toward a $7.5 billion emergency spending package for the COVID-19 response, and it was supposed to have been made public last week, but there's a hurdle: Republicans who don't like language in it that would keep drug companies from price gouging on vaccines and treatments.
The Trump Administration is woefully unprepared for the coronavirus pandemic (due to his own fault), so they are stealing $139 million from programs that help the poor—and zero from his border wall. They are taking $37 million from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program that pays for heating & cooling assistance for the poor, $4.9 million from Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services, $4.2 million from Aging & Disability Services, and many more – but nothing from Trump’s border wall.
In contrast, in 2009, the government purchased large quantities of the swine flu vaccine so that it could be provided to the public without cost.
Last Friday, the House of Representatives passed the Families First Coronavirus Response Act with bipartisan support. The Families First Coronavirus Response Act offers some important initial steps that would offer immediate relief to countless families across the country, including: FREE coronavirus testing for everyone who needs a test (including those without insurance), paid emergency leave, enhanced unemployment insurance, strengthened food security initiatives (to ensure that everyone has the food they need), and increased federal funds for Medicaid (to help states pay for increased costs due to the outbreak).
There’s a problem, though. The act still needs to get passed by the senate, and it’s hard to tell what Moscow Mitch plans to do.
Trump is proposing drastic cuts to the Centers for Disease Control’s budget — a 16% haircut, to be exact. He also wants to reduce the Department of Health and Human Services’ budget by a whopping 10% and lower our contribution to the World Health Organization by $65 million, or 40%. That’s on top of a proposed 7% cut to the National Institutes of Health’s budget.

The World Health Organization offered coronavirus test kits to the Trump administration – which turned them down.

The stock market has been plummeting lately. Although the Federal Reserved reduced  interest rates close to zero over the weekend, the market tanked ANOTHER 13% today.

There are two causes that have caused the stock market to go through some wild gyrations recently:
1) the COVD19 virus and
2) the chaos in the oil and gas market because Trump's favorite dictators (Putin and MBS) are squabbling over the price and production of oil
In this country, there are two groups that have been adversely affected:
1) workers in companies that do not have paid sick leave
2) industry, primarily the oil and gas industry, airlines, and the cruise industry
Here's how each group is affected:
Workers - the percentage of workers that do not have paid sick leave varies slightly by industry, but it’s between 25 and 30%. This group has a choice of either going to work sick or not getting paid for taking time off to recoup
Industry- In 2019, the oil and gas industry had revenue of $181 billion, and profits of $28 billion. The airline industry had revenues of $240 billion, and profits of $28 billion. The largest cruise line, Carnival, has a net profit of $3 billion.
In addition, the oil and gas industry received government subsidies of $20 billion. 80% went to the oil and gas industry, and 20% to the coal industry. The airline industry received subsidies of $279 million, most of which went to subsidize airports in smaller cities.
The Trump administration is currently working on a plan to provide financial assistance to which group?
If you said, "industry", you get a gold star on your forehead.
On the morning of March 15, the airline industry (which had profits of $28 billion last year) issued a request for $50 billion in aid from the U.S. government.
Hours after two Democratic presidential candidates cancelled rallies and the White House suggested people "avoid crowding" due to the coronavirus, Trump's campaign announced an event that is to be held on March 19 in Milwaukee.
The president will attend a "Catholics for Trump" event at the Wisconsin Center in Milwaukee on March 19, his campaign said Tuesday. The event appeared to be different from one of Trump's rallies – which draw thousands of supporters to arena settings – but it was not immediately clear how many people the campaign expected.

When a reporter at a press conference recently asked him if he took responsibility for the lag in testing for the novel coronavirus, he said, “I don’t take responsibility at all.” When PBS White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor asked why he doesn’t take responsibility for the problems combating Covid-19 when the White House got rid of the pandemic team in 2018, he answered “I just think that’s a nasty question…. When you say me, I didn’t do it…. I don’t know anything about it.” He followed up with “We’re doing a great job.”

Since Trump is incapable of taking blame for anything, the latest person he is blaming for the fiasco is his son-in-law, Jared Kuchner.


The president is reportedly remorseful about taking his son-in-law’s advice to treat the outbreak like a public relations problem rather than as the public health emergency that experts such as the White House’s chief coronavirus adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, were advising him to do.
While Fauci and other health experts were urging Trump to take aggressive measures to stave off the rapid spread of the virus, one former White House official described Kushner as egotistically inserting himself into the high-level discussions as the go-to uber-mensch who could jump in to save the day.

Kushner apparently insisted that the president not declare a national emergency when he addressed the nation from the Oval Office last Wednesday out of fear that “it would tank the markets.

On the morning of March 15, David Leonhardt (of the New York Times) this morning published an article that listed all the ways that Trump has mishandled the crisis - and there are MANY.


This morning, Trump said that Americans could be hunkered down and practicing social distancing at least until July or August because of the coronavirus. In a tightening of voluntary guidelines on Monday, President Trump announced that federal officials were recommending that all Americans engage in home schooling when possible, avoid gathering in groups of more than 10 people, avoid eating out at restaurants, and avoid discretionary travel.

“With several weeks of focused action, we can turn the corner and turn it quickly,” Trump said.

Last nights debate between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders highlighted the fact that the best long term solution for our current health crisis is to replace as many Republicans as possible in November, starting with the White House.

As of this morning, there have been 182, 442 coronavirus cases worldwide, and 7158 deaths. China has the most cases, and the most deaths, so far, but the virus has spread to 162 countries so far (roughly 90% of all the countries in the world), so it definitely is a pandemic. 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

In the meantime, if you were slow getting out of the house the last few days, and got to the store to find that they are out of toilet paper, you know what that means.

No shit, Sherlock.