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:
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.
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.
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.”
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.
“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
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.
