[!@#$%!]

merci bertrand pour les nouvelles

et désolé aussi parce-qu’ils son mauvaises

a language note for our anglophone friends:

deputies = députés = delegates (legislators @ national assembly)

[Bytor Peltor]

This thread is two weeks old today:

Wednesday, March 25, 2020
933 Deaths From Coronavirus In America

Originally Posted by Bytor Peltor

Monday, March 16, 2020 - U.S. death toll tops 70

Almost 900 deaths in America in the past nine days. Unfortunately, the death total should be close to 1500 by Friday afternoon.

[Skuj]

And two weeks ago you were saying what about this virus? (Mirroring your hero.) Both of you seem to have come to your senses a little bit, but someone please explain to Trump that Easter is in April.

[Skuj]

You cannot make this shit up: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/g7-...rump-1.5510329

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by Skuj

You cannot make this shit up: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/g7-...rump-1.5510329

Pieces of shit, him and Agent Orange. Who the fuck cares, just call it Disease X as scientists predicted in 2018, and do your fucking JOB.

Update from the (geographical, for now) end of the world: seven counties in Santiago quarantined LAMF starting Thursday 26 at 22:00 (21:00 Noo-Yawk time), including (ain't this great) the one in which I live and the one where the office is (they're adjacent). NOBODY CAN GO OUT unless they get a "temporal [3-4 hours] permit" granted online by our incompetent brutal cops.

Heard of a van that is loaded with weapons
Packed up and ready to go
Heard of some grave sites, out by the highway
A place where nobody knows
The sound of gunfire, off in the distance
I'm getting used to it now
Lived in a brownstone, lived in the ghetto
I've lived all over this town

This ain't no party, this ain't no disco
This ain't no fooling around
No time for dancing, or lovey dovey
I ain't got time for that now

Transmit the message, to the receiver
Hope for an answer some day
I got three passports, a couple of visas
You don't even know my real name
High on a hillside, the trucks are loading
Everything's ready to roll
I sleep in the daytime, I work in the nighttime
I might not ever get home

This ain't no party, this ain't no disco
This ain't no fooling around
This ain't no Mudd Club, or C.B.G.B
I ain't got time for that now

Heard about Houston? Heard about Detroit?
Heard about Pittsburgh, P. A.?
You oughta know not to stand by the window
Somebody'll see you up there
I got some groceries, some peanut butter
To last a couple of days
But I ain't got no speakers, ain't got no headphones
Ain't got no records to play

Why stay in college? Why go to night school?
Gonna be different this time
Can't write a letter, can't send no postcard
I ain't got no time for that now

Trouble in transit, got through the roadblock
We blended in with the crowd
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines
I know that that ain't allowed
We dress like students, we dress like housewives
Or in a suit and a tie
I changed my hairstyle so many times now
I don't know what I look like
You make me shiver and I feel so tender
We make a pretty good team

Don't get exhausted, I'll do some driving
You ought to get you some sleep
Burned all my notebooks, what good are notebooks
They won't help me survive
My chest is aching, burns like a furnace
The burning keeps me alive

[The Soup Nazi]

From The Washington Post (slightly outdated, only because this fucking thing moves so fast):

U.S. could be world's next outbreak hot spot, says World Health Organization

A surge of infections across the United States that has seen a tripling in the number of coronavirus cases could make the country the world's next outbreak hot spot, World Health Organization spokeswoman Margaret Harris said on Tuesday.

"We are now seeing a very large acceleration in cases in the U.S. So it does have that potential," she said, according to Reuters.

The United States has more than 46,500 positive cases of coronavirus, though experts believe there to be more. Only China and Italy have recorded more cases, according to Johns Hopkins University and Medicine.

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by Robert Schunk

Concerning the guy in Arizona, his self-medication was clearly at odds with President Trump's commitment to place possibly effective medications into the hands of MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS, and NOT an invitation to self-treat with dangerous substances.

The man who died in Arizona was clearly an idiot (sorry not sorry), but that's exactly what presidents, who are NOT supposed to be idiots, should factor in heavily: "There are millions of idiots out there who will hear me saying that POISON 'looks very, very good' to cure this shit and will take it before the deep state FDA approves it, so I better SHUT THE FUCK UP". See? It doesn't take much, does it.

What I find most extraordinary about this dipshit is that there isn't a single redeeming quality about him. Apocryphal stories say Hitler at least never looked at another woman after meeting Eva Braun. Trump, well...

[The Soup Nazi]

Meanwhile, other people do contribute positively however they can. From "composer, live performer and electronic artist" Sarah Angliss:

Help during lockdown - free ad hoc maths sessions for kids

If someone in your family needs help with their school maths, get in touch. I'm offering free ad-hoc teaching sessions on Zoom.

If you're a parent and would like to mug up on maths so you can teach your kids at home - let's try that too.


Like many other musicians, as venues close and festivals are cancelled, I've been facing a succession of heartbreaks. I'm still composing and determined to keep my live music going somehow and will be saying more about that soon. But that's all for another day. Right now, as I talk to friends and family, I realise the most useful thing I can share with you is this:

I love maths and have already helped a few reluctant teenagers, younger kids and maths-phobic adults get on top of their homework and scrape through exams. While we're in lockdown, I'm offering free, ad-hoc tutorials to school students in lockdown who could do with some extra support. Get in touch if you have a 15 minute maths query or an area of maths for which you need more extensive help. We'll sort something out.


I have Zoom set up here, plenty of pens and scrap paper and a recent Enhanced DBS check (from Arts Emergency).

I'm also up for teaching musicianship, music theory and a few instruments if people have them at home (just for fun): piano, keyboard, recorders (with classy tunes - none of that London's Burning / Bobby Shafto rubbish!); tin whistle (Gaelic jigs and laments) and musical saw (if you have a bow). But right now, I'm focussing on maths.

I'm also aware that few families have worked out the logistics of getting through the day together, let alone how to get school-aged kids to focus on any school work. So this offer is open for the forseeable i.e. until we're all out together in the daylight again.

Stay safe and well
Sarah x

 

www.sarahangliss.com

[Bytor Peltor]

Originally Posted by Skuj

And two weeks ago you were saying what about this virus? (Mirroring your hero.) Both of you seem to have come to your senses a little bit, but someone please explain to Trump that Easter is in April.

Skuj, our Canadian buddy, I’ve explained this before, but I’ll do so once again for you. Just a reminder, I was answering _slavo’s_ question:

Originally Posted by _slavo_

How's the situation in the country where you live?

My response at 6:56 AM that Wednesday morning was (MY) perspective early that morning:

Originally Posted by Bytor Peltor

Here in the United States, personally, I feel people are over reacting.

For those who re-read the entire post, I point out that schools and major sporting events had yet to be canceled. While in Houston less than six hours later, I posted:

Originally Posted by Bytor Peltor

Things can change in a hurry: Houston Rodeo is expected to shut down over coronavirus concerns, sources say

Things did change in a hurry, the world as we knew that Wednesday morning wasn’t the same world later that night......or two weeks later!!!

Looking back, my comments may appear foolish, but it was an honest assessment at that time!

****************

Tuesday morning we departed at 7am, our first stop was Bucees in Katy, Texas. I put on disposable gloves before pumping gas. At Bucees, you can enter without needing to use your hands to open door enter the store or bathrooms. Water at sink turns on without having to touch a handle, same for paper towel dispenser. We made no purchases in the store (first for my family) and continued on our way. Speaking of, I’ve never made it through Houston and Austin without any slow ups due to traffic or construction......the roadways were mostly empty.

Arrived at the rest area adjacent to the LBJ Ranch. We enjoyed our picnic lunch at a covered picnic table like families did way back in the day......the weather was cool and perfect!

 

We drove around Stonewall, stopped and took pics of the family homestead, enjoyed the beauty of the Pedernales river. We arrived at the cemetery about 1:20pm and the hearse rolled up at 1:30. There was no pomp or circumstance, heck, there was no memorial program that are usually handed out at such events. One son, a son-in-law and a couple of us who married into the family along with a couple of grave diggers served as pallbearers moving the casket to the tented area (we didn’t expect a tented area). We FaceTimed the ceremony to three family in California, Ohio and Beaumont. 12 family members in total at the graveside, her oldest son, a retired Reverend, said a few words and a simple prayer. Cousins posed for pics and then it was time to return home......we pulled in the driveway at 8pm.

 

[GravitySlips]

Originally Posted by Bytor Peltor

Looking back, my comments may appear foolish

True.

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by The Soup Nazi

Update from the (geographical, for now) end of the world: seven counties in Santiago quarantined LAMF starting Thursday 26 at 22:00 (21:00 Noo-Yawk time), including (ain't this great) the one in which I live and the one where the office is (they're adjacent). NOBODY CAN GO OUT unless they get a "temporal [3-4 hours] permit" granted online by our incompetent brutal cops.

There's a short number of exceptions, one of which is they give you 30 minutes to walk the dog. I'm betting many of them dogs have several owners now...

[nicfit]

Originally Posted by The Soup Nazi

There's a short number of exceptions, one of which is they give you 30 minutes to walk the dog. I'm betting many of them dogs have several owners now...

Dunno if the (lighthearted, but still kinda worrying) news arrived outside my country, but a few days ago here in italy one of the municipalities explicitly added to their ordinance that you can walk the dog but:


"the dog must necessarily be alive"


...I guess people started going for walks with stuffed animals hoping nobody would notice...

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by nicfit

Dunno if the (lighthearted, but still kinda worry) news arrived outside my country, but a few days ago here in italy one of the municipalities explicitly added to their ordinance that you can walk the dog but:


"the dog must necessarily be alive"


...I guess people started going for walks with stuffed animals hoping nobody would notice...

HAHAHAHA funniest post on this thread so far bar none.

 

[greenlight]

Slavo is finaly a home. reunited with his faimily. I thought I might give him lift back home, but ministry of internal affairs took care of it and send a bus for people traveling to capital.

still not an update on whether he is negative, but he must be, because he was let go.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by greenlight

Slavo is finaly a home. reunited with his faimily. I thought I might give him lift back home, but ministry of internal affairs took care of it and send a bus for people traveling to capital.

still not an update on whether he is negative, but he must be, because he was let go.

that is the best news!

[The Soup Nazi]

From Politico:

Trump team failed to follow NSC’s pandemic playbook
The 69-page document, finished in 2016, provided a step by step list of priorities – which were then ignored by the administration.


The Trump administration, state officials and even individual hospital workers are now racing against each other to get the necessary masks, gloves and other safety equipment to fight coronavirus — a scramble that hospitals and doctors say has come too late and left them at risk. But according to a previously unrevealed White House playbook, the government should’ve begun a federal-wide effort to procure that personal protective equipment at least two months ago.

“Is there sufficient personal protective equipment for healthcare workers who are providing medical care?” the playbook instructs its readers, as one early decision that officials should address when facing a potential pandemic. “If YES: What are the triggers to signal exhaustion of supplies? Are additional supplies available? If NO: Should the Strategic National Stockpile release PPE to states?”

The strategies are among hundreds of tactics and key policy decisions laid out in a 69-page National Security Council playbook on fighting pandemics, which POLITICO is detailing for the first time. Other recommendations include that the government move swiftly to fully detect potential outbreaks, secure supplemental funding and consider invoking the Defense Production Act — all steps in which the Trump administration lagged behind the timeline laid out in the playbook.

“Each section of this playbook includes specific questions that should be asked and decisions that should be made at multiple levels” within the national security apparatus, the playbook urges, repeatedly advising officials to question the numbers on viral spread, ensure appropriate diagnostic capacity and check on the U.S. stockpile of emergency resources.

The playbook also stresses the significant responsibility facing the White House to contain risks of potential pandemics, a stark contrast with the Trump administration’s delays in deploying an all-of-government response and President Donald Trump's recent signals that he might roll back public health recommendations.

“The U.S. government will use all powers at its disposal to prevent, slow or mitigate the spread of an emerging infectious disease threat,” according to the playbook’s built-in “assumptions” about fighting future threats. “The American public will look to the U.S. government for action when multi-state or other significant events occur.”

The guide further calls for a “unified message” on the federal response, in order to best manage the American public's questions and concerns. “Early coordination of risk communications through a single federal spokesperson is critical,” the playbook urges. However, the U.S. response to coronavirus has featured a rotating cast of spokespeople and conflicting messages; Trump already is discussing loosening government recommendations on coronavirus in order to “open” the economy by Easter, despite the objections of public health advisers.

The NSC devised the guide — officially called the Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents, but known colloquially as “the pandemic playbook” — across 2016. The project was driven by career civil servants as well as political appointees, aware that global leaders had initially fumbled their response to the 2014-2015 spread of Ebola and wanting to be sure that the next response to an epidemic was better handled.

The Trump administration was briefed on the playbook’s existence in 2017, said four former officials, but two cautioned that it never went through a full, National Security Council-led interagency process to be approved as Trump administration strategy. Tom Bossert, who was then Trump’s homeland security adviser, expressed enthusiasm about its potential as part of the administration’s broader strategy to fight pandemics, two former officials said.

Bossert declined to comment on any particular document, but told POLITICO that “I engaged actively with my outgoing counterpart and took seriously their transition materials and recommendations on pandemic preparedness.”

The playbook was designed “so there wasn’t piecemeal thinking when trying to fight the next public health battle,” said one former official who contributed to the playbook, warning that “the fog of war” can lead to gaps in strategies.

“These are recommended discussions to be having on all levels, to ensure that there’s a structure to make decisions in real-time,” said a second former official.

An NSC official confirmed the existence of the playbook but dismissed its value. “We are aware of the document, although it’s quite dated and has been superseded by strategic and operational biodefense policies published since,” the official said. “The plan we are executing now is a better fit, more detailed, and applies the relevant lessons learned from the playbook and the most recent Ebola epidemic in the [Democratic Republic of the Congo] to COVID-19.”

A health department spokesperson also said that the NSC playbook was not part of the current coronavirus strategy. “The HHS COVID-19 response was informed by more recent plans such as the foundation of the National Biodefense Strategy (2018), Biological Incident Annex (2017),and panCAP (2018) among other key plans provided by the CDC, White House Task Force, FEMA, and other key federal departments and agencies,” the spokesperson said.

Trump has claimed that his administration could not have foreseen the coronavirus pandemic, which has spread to all 50 states and more than 180 nations, sickening more than 460,000 people around the world. “Nobody ever expected a thing like this,” Trump said in a Fox News interview on Tuesday.

But Trump’s aides were told to expect a potential pandemic, ranging from a tabletop exercise that the outgoing Obama administration prepared for the president’s incoming aides to a “Crimson Contagion” scenario that health officials undertook just last year and modeled out potential risks of a global infectious disease threat. Trump’s deputies also have said that their coronavirus response relies on a federal playbook, specifically referring to a strategy laid out by the Centers for Disease Control.
It is not clear if the administration’s failure to follow the NSC playbook was the result of an oversight or a deliberate decision to follow a different course.

The document rested with NSC officials who dealt with medical preparedness and biodefense in the global health security directorate, which the Trump administration disbanded in 2018, four former officials said. The document was originally overseen by Beth Cameron, a former civil servant who led the directorate before leaving the White House in March 2017. Cameron confirmed to POLITICO that the directorate created a playbook for NSC staff intended to help officials confront a range of potential biological threats.

->

[The Soup Nazi]

->

But under the Trump administration, “it just sat as a document that people worked on that was thrown onto a shelf,” said one former U.S. official, who served in both the Obama and Trump administrations. “It’s hard to tell how much senior leaders at agencies were even aware that this existed” or thought it was just another layer of unnecessary bureaucracy.

The NSC playbook would have been especially useful in helping to drive the administration’s response to coronavirus, given that it was intended to guide urgent decisions and coordinate the all-of-government approach that Trump so far has struggled to muster, said people familiar with the document.

The color-coded playbook contains different sections based on the relative risk — green for normal operations, yellow for elevated threat, orange for credible threat and red once a public health emergency is declared — and details the potential roles of dozens of departments and agencies, from key players like the Health and Human Services department to the Department of Transportation and the FBI. It also includes sample documents intended to be used at coordinating meetings.

“While each emerging infectious disease threat will present itself in a unique way, a consistent, capabilities-based approach to addressing these threats will allow for faster decisions with more targeted expert subject matter input from federal departments and agencies,” the playbook reads.

The playbook lays out different strategies for policymakers based on the severity of the crisis and shares lessons gleaned from past outbreaks. For instance, one section is devoted to addressing 34 “key questions” and 21 “key decisions” as soon as there is a “credible threat” — which in the case of coronavirus would have been early-to-mid January, as it raged in China and as the first U.S. case was detected on Jan. 20 — and calls on officials to move quickly.

“We recommend early budget and financial analysis of various response scenarios and an early decision to request supplemental funding from Congress, if needed,” the guide urges. But the Trump administration waited more than a month to ask for emergency funding after the timeline laid out in the playbook.

The playbook also repeatedly urges officials to question official numbers about the viral spread. “What is our level of confidence on the case detection rate?” reads one question. “Is diagnostic capacity keeping up?”But across January and much of February, Trump administration officials publicly insisted that their diagnostic efforts were sufficient to detect coronavirus. Officials now privately concede that the administration’s well-documented testing problems have contributed to the outbreak’s silent spread across the United States, and health experts say that diagnostic capacity is only now in late March catching up to the need.

In a subsequent section, the playbook details steps to take if there’s evidence that the virus is spreading among humans, which the World Health Organization concluded by Jan. 22, or the U.S. government declared a public health emergency, which HHS Secretary Alex Azar did on Jan. 31.

Under that timeline, the federal government by late January should have been taking a lead role in “coordination of workforce protection activities including… [personal protective equipment] determination, procurement and deployment.” Those efforts are only now getting underway, health workers and doctors say.

The whole document can be downloaded in pdf format here:
https://assets.documentcloud.org/doc...c-Playbook.pdf

More news sources:
https://news.google.com/stories/CAAq...S&ceid=US%3Aen

[Skuj]

I'm shocked that Team Trump did not follow the playbook. Truly SHOCKED!!

And Bytor, no amount of back pedalling will erase your Trumpian attitude/outlook in this thread from two weeks ago, when even then, others here were shaking their heads at you. (Thank you for not deleting those early posts.) So, how are things looking for Easter?

[!@#$%!]

I tried to post this earllier and deleted it and now I'm rewriting again to say...

I think all these well-deserved criticisms of the dotard and his acolytes as well as documented investigations of their shenanigans should rightfully move to the dotard's thread... so that he doesn't end up infecting everything.

Well, maybe too late for that, but perhaps we should keep this thread more around the pandemic itself, with some inevitable politics because it's part of the whole thing, but not make it all-dotard-all-the-time? Sick of that bastard. (This is also why I put the trumpkins on mute in my board settings.)

I know I'm guilty of this when I started complaining about the Easter nonsense, so mea culpa etc etc maxima etc., but maybe let's refocus here or something?

 

[The Soup Nazi]

We can multi-task. Dotard fucking up fight against Covid-19, here. Dotard on its way to four more years (Joe, you and your phonograph better get those 90K votes from the Rust Belt back, DO IT), on the Dotard thread. Dotard saying Kim Gordon is no longer a 10, Sonic Gossip.

Incidentally, you guys know Isha Sesay? She's a journalist who was mainly an anchor on CNN International (International Desk, NewsCenter, etc.) but also appeared on AC 360º. In mid-2018, she quit CNN saying basically that she'd had ENOUGH of talking about the motherfucking Dotard day in day out and that she'd actually DO SOMETHING, so she started a non-profit and has participated in several campaigns and events which actually, well, do stuff:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isha_Sesay#Leaving_CNN