My favorite headline today is at the Atlantic: There Are No Libertarians in an Epidemic. Peter Nicholas writes, “In the 2020 election, Donald Trump’s aim is to brand his opponent an avatar of socialism, whether it’s Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders. But the COVID-19 outbreak demonstrates the emptiness of these sorts of ideological labels. Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, in a national emergency, there’s no truly laissez-faire government.”
Trump is only concerned about the economy, of course, and he is thrashing around trying to come up with a big-government economic response. The Holy Free Market (blessed be It) isn’t going to do the job. CNBC:
The White House is not ready to roll out specific economic proposals in its response to the widening impact of the coronavirus outbreak, administration officials told CNBC.
The revelation comes as U.S. stock futures pointed toward a sharp rebound at the open Tuesday following the Dow’s 2,013-point drop Monday and President Donald Trump’s suggestion that a payroll tax cut and other stimulus measures may be in the works to mitigate economic damage from the virus’ spread. Trump has also invited Wall Street executives to meet at the White House on Wednesday to discuss the response.
However, inside the administration, some officials were stunned by Trump’s claim Monday that he would hold a press conference Tuesday to announce an economic plan. “That was news to everyone on the inside,” one official said.
Trump did meet with Republican senators today and tossed out some proposals, but I take it nothing was agreed upon. Trump wants to use emergency funds to goose the economy. Obviously, he worries that a weakening economy will hurt his re-election chances. He seems less concerned for what is likely to happen if the virus starts spreading through more nursing homes.
And the Trumpers might consider using emergency funds to goose our virus testing capabilities. To review:
A February 28 ProPublica report describes how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “lost valuable weeks that could have been used to track [the coronavirus’s] possible spread in the United States,” because the agency insisted on developing its own tests for the virus instead of adopting those provided by the World Health Organization.
Then the CDC-developed tests proved to be unreliable, setting the agency back in its effort to enable widespread testing and squandering precious time needed to prepare for the virus’s arrival. On top of that, early federal guidance provided only for testing of people returning from international travel—and even after those restrictions were loosened, story after story surfaced of potential COVID-19 patients who had been denied testing despite their symptoms. Private labs and companies have only recently been allowed to run tests. As a result, only about 4,300 people in the United States had been tested for the virus as of March 9. Compare this with South Korea’s numbers, which total as many as 10,000 people tested a day.
See also The Dangerous Delays in U.S. Coronavirus Testing Haven’t Stopped and True number of U.S. coronavirus cases is far above official tally, scientists say. We really have no bleeping idea how many Americans have this disease already and how far it has spread.
Other countries are doing a much better job dealing with the crisis. See, for example, Taiwan has millions of visitors from China and only 45 coronavirus cases. Here’s how. In brief, that had an epidemic crisis management task force already in place, and it began to respond to the spread of the virus in December. Taiwan began testing on December 31. It has had only one death so far.
Oh, and The Intercept reports that the Health and Human Services department just requested bids on contracts for manufacturing 500 million face marks, since there’s a shortage. The bids are due March 18.
And I still haven’t seen anything like a comprehensive plan for enabling the uninsured to get tested, assuming we ever get our testing capabilities up to standards. See 5 million Texans lack health insurance. Here’s how that complicates the coronavirus response in today’s Texas Tribune.
The good news is that this virus seems not to be dangerous to healthy children and adults under age 60. The fatality rate for elderly Covid-19 patients in China was over 20 percent, however. If you have any health issues such as heart disease or diabetes, take great care.
Yes, trump is concerned about economy but not only the economy. He cares about the economy only because a diving economy makes him look bad. He doesn't give a shit about how it impacts actual citizens. Also, it isn't just the economy but also his how the outbreak makes him look to the public. That's why he was so insistent on the cruise ship not docking because it would "make [his] numbers look bad" and he hates to have evidence undermine his propaganda.
No matter how you look at anything that happens with this administration it is always and forever only about trump and how he is doing personally and politically. Everyone else is basically SOL.
With Michigan called for Biden, it looks like it's over for Sanders. I've read that Biden's handlers are limiting the amount of time Biden speaks, as a way to prevent gaffes. Pathetic. It's also a shame that the most vocal proponents of socialism – Sanders and Warren are edged out of the public space, just as our stripped bare safety net has to cope with the pandemic.
As I think most of you know, I'm 62 (effective March 2nd), with a bum heart that's affecting my breathing.
I'm also in an Assisted Dyin… Assisted LIVING facility. My Mom's with me, and she's 88 (also effective March 2nd – I was her 10 pound birthday present 🙂 And she also has a bad heart – and diabetes.
So, both of are potentially prime victims of catching The tRUMP Flu.
This facility is doing the best it can to isolate us from The tRUMP Flu, but not completely quarantining us. At least not yet. That day may come soon. Or not. There's not much they can do, really. The staff has to come in, and food, mail, and packages have to be delivered, etc…
Ulster County just got a couple of cases – but thankfully, no fatalities yet. But that situation will change sooner or later. We have NO TESTING here because we couldn't get any of the limited supply of tests!
tRUMP and the GOP made a fuster-cluck out of an already bad, and getting worse fast, situation. Had they started sooner, The tRUMP Flu could have been contained and potentially minimized – BUT NOOOOOOOOO!!!!! tRUMP was too worried about his reelection and the stock market.
I hope THIS situation effectively stops his reelection chances, and he loses in a landslide!
Btw: I told my sister that if it looks like I'm dying, to tell me that tRUMP lost in said landslide, or died from this virus, so that I can die happy! Maybe even ECSTATIC!
Actually, that might actually give me a reason to live! I may even recover!!!
Of course, if I find out that that stupid, ignorant, bigoted, cruel, and narcissistic psychopath is still alive, it might kill me!
In which case, my sister should rinse and repeat this procedure until either tRUMP or I are dead! 😉
Stay safe, all!!!!!
It is in the prisons –
https://twitter.com/rustbeltradio
Sounds like they don't plan to test for it or treat it.
The rich in this country have run up quite a bit of debt, as they amass fortunes on the back of the commonwealth. They continue to capitalize their way to a bigger piece of the pie while starving all things and people which generate the wealth they hoard.
A limited health care system, based on greed, with high priced insurance, co-pays, and big deductibles is worthless for containment of a pandemic. A political climate dominated by right-wingers, libertarians, and capitalism idolaters exists in a narrowed, distorted reality which is also worthless for containment of a pandemic. Or as was delightfully stated in this post, "The Holy Free Market (blessed be it) isn't going to do the job".
So the pandemic job needs to get done where more and more work needs to get done. And that pile of work, the one that is unpaid, underpaid, and considered low status work by the profit obsessed. It is that pile of work that just keeps getting bigger and bigger. It is getting to the point that the rich have become so indebted to those who will do such work they are becoming a credit risk.
As it is in this country our health care system and certainly our mental health care system relies on unpaid caregivers. They do a huge part of the work, make time, emotional, and financial sacrifices, and are the most essential part of the system. Oh, and they get little if any credit. How can we expect them to add this health problem to their excessive present work load? The least we can do is have a government that works with them and not against them. That starts by having a government that knows how things really work not a governing ideology that ignores large chunks of reality.
The way you take care of the economy is to take care of the virus. The horse must go in front of the cart. This is hard to grasp for a leader who repeatedly states a totally botched and corrupt phone call was perfect. Things do look strange when viewed in a gaslighted environment. If we could just get him a little better light.
Trump's payroll tax cut sounds a lot like a way to perpetuate the old GOP "entitlements funding crisis". Social Security and Medicare are directly funded by payroll taxes. If there's anything worthy of being called a god paying attention, it should make sure Trump contracts Covid-19 from one of the CPAC wingnuts.
I too am one of the vulnerable, 80+ and a heart condition. Living in a 55+ apt. facility, there are a lot of oldies. Not being a social person, it is not difficult for me to hibernate as much as possible in my den with my soulmate, my dog, Mr. Spock. Having worked as a RN, maybe that makes me a little more paranoid than others. However, I think we all know we should listen to the health experts not the acting president. Since I am also a weird person, I like to imagine that this virus is the thing that will bring down the liar in chief. Viruses are very small and not considered alive. Trump believes he is invulnerable to any and everything that he determines is not a threat to him. He cannot believe something so small could be a danger and he doesn't have a way to fight it anyway. What is he going to do, call it a name on twitter? The virus doesn't care what he says or does. It can sneak in and bring him down. IMO, that would be true justice. I heard that someone who was on Air Force One has tested positive. We can only hope!!! Yes, these are evil thoughts but I have to be honest with myself and I want Trump to just go away. He has said one day this virus will just disappear. Maybe it will take him with it.
I live in Washington state and according to reports, we have the most cases of any state and probably the most deaths from this virus. I believe a lot of those were in a assisted care facility in the Seattle area. People from that side of the state like to come to Walla Walla and go winetasting. As of last week, there were 2 cases at our local hospital. There may be more by now. I can't keep up.
Anyway, as I said, I am hibernating and going out only when necessary. I just wish everyone who reads this is safe and stays as healthy as possible.
Peter Nicholas is dead wrong. As any atheist (or anyone who knows an atheist) can tell you, there are lots of atheists in foxholes.