Coronavirus

[O Really]

In much of the world, like India, they don't even use TP at all. Just a hole in the floor, a bucket of water, a scoop, and some soap.

Well, yeah, but that's because they don't have to eat ribs and use both hands.

You're supposed to eat the ribs, not wipe your ass with them.

Funny, but you do know Indians consider the left hand "unclean" and not suitable to eat with, yes?

[GoCubsGo]

We're Number 1!

Cheetohead should be so proud! #MAGA

[O Really]

Orangie, you're doing a heck of a job.

[GoCubsGo]

Adding fuel to the effed up fire, handling it perfectly, a ten!


This is potentially very scary. How totally unprepared we may be and our inability to manufacture much needed supplies on any sort of timely basis.


Am I the only one who thinks this is alarming?

Massive failure in the making?

How many thousands in a many? Did we buy them from China?

[Whack9]

1 = one.
2 = couple.
3+ = many.

Many!

[Vrede too]

Massive failure in the making?

How many thousands in a many? Did we buy them from China?

Whiny PINO is not helpless in this matter.

Nurses in garbage bags?
Why the Trump administration must use the Defense Production Act to mobilize production of critically needed hospital protective equipment immediately

On Tuesday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo spent much of his coronavirus press conference imploring President Trump to use the Defense Production Act (DPA) now to force factories to manufacture essential medical equipment such as masks, gloves, gowns, and ventilators.

Trump has continually refused to do so, saying that the acquisition of medical supplies is a job for governors: “You know, we’re not a shipping clerk.” Yet, on a conference call last week, Republican governor Charlie Baker (Mass.) told Trump that his state had been denied three major orders for medical equipment because the federal government had outbid him....

The Act is a Korean-war-era law that has been used many times to help the federal government respond to emergencies ranging from war and national disaster to terrorism prevention. Prior to the coronavirus crisis, Trump invoked the law in 2017 to mobilize the industrial base for his latest fantasy, the Space Force. The act allows the president to require companies to prioritize government contracts and orders needed for national defense, including national emergencies....

The economics of the DPA are straightforward—volume buying is cheaper and more efficient. Moreover, a mandated order from the government can displace other less essential production. Rather than having 50 state governors, plus thousands of mayors and hospitals, competing with each other for scarce resources, the purchasing power of the federal government can and should be used to maximize production, minimize costs, and allocate supplies to areas of greatest need, just as in wartime....

Trump’s opposition to invoking the DPA can be distilled into two words: profits and politics. The Chamber of Commerce has opposed its use for the COVID-19 crisis, saying “invoking [the DPA] may do more harm than good in sectors such as pharmaceuticals and medical equipment.” The reason why is clear. The Chamber’s members can maximize profits by playing desperate states, cities, and medical facilities off against each other and sending supplies to those with the deepest pockets rather than the greatest need. This is no way to run an economy in a national crisis.

The federal government should contract for all needed supplies, pay for them directly, and prioritize shipments to areas of greatest need. The Department of Defense and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have vast experience in large-scale contracting and logistics, and they should be immediately tasked with these responsibilities. Magsamen, Mulligan, and Kendall of the Center for American Progress have outlined six immediate steps Trumps should take to implement the DPA. In addition, President Trump should limit exports of critically needed medical supplies and equipment....

The current shortages are being exacerbated by the centralization of decisions in the White House and the unwillingness or inability to delegate authority to the relevant government agencies. Unfortunately, the unconscionable lack of decisive action has put the lives of the millions of Americans at risk....

As usual, 45SHOLE chooses blaming over action.

[GoCubsGo]

And this asshole fancies himself a "leader".

[billy.pilgrim]

... I notice too that the same escambia county that closed all beaches to everyone is still running countywide bus service - including to Pensacola Beach.

That's a tough one. I saw a pic of a crowded NYC subway, but what are people without cars supposed to do?

Buses and subways could undo all other efforts.

Another daycare infant in my county. This time it's a child under one who goes to Daycare.
I don't understand pretending that you are solving the problem by shutting down schools and beaches while leaving daycare and public transportation business as almost usual.

https://amp.pnj.com/amp/2922534001#aoh= ... 20%251%24s

[Vrede too]

Cost benefit? I read it as "we're going to run out of life saving stuff and we can't make life saving stuff fast enough".

The international equivalent of hey man, can you spare a square?

It depends on the alternatives chosen. In an ideal world our disaster readiness would be perfect and the military and prison industrial complexes would be holding bake sales. Irl the money would often come from immediate, non-disaster human or environmental needs.

Coincidental, somewhat, timing:

Pandemic Reveals Misplaced Priorities

For decades, national security and health experts have warned of the risks of global threats that are simply too big for one country to handle, such as disease pandemics, climate change, and nuclear war. For many years, the response of our national and global leaders has fallen short....

Unfortunately, U.S. spending priorities and modes of thinking about security have been become increasingly defined in military terms. Congress provided a record $746 billion for national defense in fiscal year 2020. U.S. arms manufacturers dominate the global arms trade and help fuel regional conflicts that undermine human development. In recent years, the Trump administration’s nationalist “America First” foreign policy has made it even more difficult for the world’s leading nations to work together on the toughest global challenges.

Today, the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which threatens the lives and livelihoods of millions worldwide, has laid bare the terrible human cost of these misplaced policy choices.

As the scope and scale of the coronavirus threat began to reveal itself in January and February, the Trump administration focused on other matters. For example, the administration in February asked Congress for $44.5 billion in fiscal year 2021 for programs to maintain and upgrade the U.S. nuclear arsenal, a 19 percent increase above the previous year.

The U.S. government spends tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to maintain a massive nuclear arsenal capable of destroying the planet many times over. Meanwhile, it does not have a stockpile of masks large enough to protect front-line health care workers who are battling COVID-19 and is proposing to cut programs that help provide for early disease detection....

The U.S. stockpile of medical supplies includes 12 million medical-grade N95 masks and 30 million surgical masks, which is only about 1 percent of the 3.5 billion needed in a year to deal with a disease pandemic. At the price of $0.50 a mask, it would cost approximately $1.75 billion to build up the N95 stockpile and about $350 million a year to replace expired masks, according to a report published by The War Zone. That is less than the $3.2 billion increase above fiscal year 2020 levels that the Pentagon is seeking for its multiyear programs to sustain and rebuild the U.S. triad of nuclear-armed missiles, submarines, and bombers.

Meanwhile, the administration is proposing to slash by 37 percent the budget request for the Defense Department’s Biological Threat Reduction Program, which “seeks to facilitate detection and reporting of diseases caused by especially dangerous pathogens.” As a result of that program’s previously provided threat reduction training efforts, local officials in Thailand detected the first case of the novel coronavirus there, only days after its initial discovery in Wuhan, China.

Now is the time for Congress to radically scale back the existing plan to replace and upgrade the already excessive U.S. nuclear arsenal, particularly plans for new missiles and bombers, new nuclear warheads, and production infrastructure. This would save billions of taxpayer dollars that should be spent on addressing higher priority human and health security needs.

Making matters worse, the United States has become part of the problem rather than helping to find viable solutions to counter the most serious global threats.

While the Trump administration is seeking to expand U.S. nuclear capabilities at the expense of programs that address human security needs, it is turning its back on hard-won agreements that have effectively reduced the nuclear threat.

President Donald Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal with no viable plan to replace it creates the potential for a new nuclear crisis. Iran’s leaders have retaliated to the reimposition of U.S. sanctions by breaching key limits on their nuclear activities.

In addition, the post-Cold War progress toward reducing the role and number of nuclear weapons has stalled. To date, Trump has failed to take up Russia’s offer to extend the only remaining treaty that limits the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals, the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. The global nonproliferation and disarmament regime, the best prophylactic against a nuclear pandemic, is under serious threat.

The unfolding COVID-19 outbreak will not only take away the lives of people, but it will change our personal lives, and it will very likely force changes in the international system. If we are to survive well into this century, there must be a profound shift in the way we deal with global security challenges and how we align our scientific, economic, diplomatic, and political resources to address the health, climate, and nuclear dangers that threaten us all.

CV-19 may kill 80,000 Americans, more than died actually in Vietnam, though less than the tally that includes suicides and other post-conflict but related deaths.

[bannination]

Starting to sound like Hendersonville, NC is getting ready to go on full lock down lasting up to May?

I've already been on personal lock down for two weeks.

[GoCubsGo]

Starting to sound like Hendersonville, NC is getting ready to go on full lock down lasting up to May?

I've already been on personal lock down for two weeks.

Da whole county. Joining Buncombe.

[Vrede too]

Starting to sound like Hendersonville, NC is getting ready to go on full lock down lasting up to May?

I've already been on personal lock down for two weeks.

Da whole county. Joining Buncombe.

The Gov just shut down NC for 30 days this afternoon. Everyone, other than MS, is listening to the experts and ignoring PINO's Easter folly.

[GoCubsGo]

This damn virus has really got to be screwing up trump's golf game.

[.Oomba.]

Is it possible to have a worse actor in the
role of POTUS at a time of existential crisis?

[O Really]

Is it possible to have a worse actor in the
role of POTUS at a time of existential crisis?

I don't like Trump. Could you have guessed? So it would be very easy for me to just answer "no" without thought. But I took your question seriously - or at least as seriously as could be expected from an anonymous entertainment forum. I considered all previous US Presidents and found none that would have handled this so badly. Not even the horrid Andrew Johnson. Then I considered if some fringe wannabe's might do worse. Nope - even George Wallace would have managed it at least as well as he managed school integration and if you're a white supremacist he did a pretty decent job with that. I thought about leaders of other countries. People think Stalin was pretty harsh, but he had an absolute disaster of a country after WW I, and by the time he was done, the USSR was a world power. Everybody I thought of who might be considered evil or dictatorial was at least competent. Everybody else would have had the decency to at least pretend to be concerned about the populace. So the answer is still no. Hell no.

[.Oomba.]

Is it possible to have a worse actor in the
role of POTUS at a time of existential crisis?

I don't like Trump. Could you have guessed? So it would be very easy for me to just answer "no" without thought. But I took your question seriously - or at least as seriously as could be expected from an anonymous entertainment forum. I considered all previous US Presidents and found none that would have handled this so badly. Not even the horrid Andrew Johnson. Then I considered if some fringe wannabe's might do worse. Nope - even George Wallace would have managed it at least as well as he managed school integration and if you're a white supremacist he did a pretty decent job with that. I thought about leaders of other countries. People think Stalin was pretty harsh, but he had an absolute disaster of a country after WW I, and by the time he was done, the USSR was a world power. Everybody I thought of who might be considered evil or dictatorial was at least competent. Everybody else would have had the decency to at least pretend to be concerned about the populace. So the answer is still no. Hell no.

Remarkable, that.

May each of your children have the requisite digits.

[Vrede too]

Massive failure in the making?

How many thousands in a many? Did we buy them from China?

Whiny PINO is not helpless in this matter.

Nurses in garbage bags?

As usual, 45SHOLE chooses blaming over action.

And this asshole fancies himself a "leader".

Trump invokes defense powers to order GM to produce ventilators

It should be more companies than just GM and more products than just ventilators, but still - Cuomo 1, PINO 0.

[neoplacebo]

Is it possible to have a worse actor in the
role of POTUS at a time of existential crisis?

I venture to say that Gary Busey would be doing about as well as trump has been doing.

[neoplacebo]

All this pandelirium that's prevalent lately makes me wonder why in hell Rudy isn't out with his talking skull. Looks to me like he would be all over this.....rounding up tens of thousands of ventilators from Ukraine that had been stored in the basement at Burisma in spite of how Hunter Biden tried to keep them locked up so he could make more money. The only thing I can figure is that Rudy has run out of King Kong amyl nitrates, which were entirely responsible for his bug eyed visage, his frantic hand flapping and waving, and his "truth is not truth" gibberish.

[billy.pilgrim]

Massive failure in the making?

How many thousands in a many? Did we buy them from China?

Whiny PINO is not helpless in this matter.

Nurses in garbage bags?

As usual, 45SHOLE chooses blaming over action.

And this asshole fancies himself a "leader".

Trump invokes defense powers to order GM to produce ventilators

It should be more companies than just GM and more products than just ventilators, but still - Cuomo 1, PINO 0.

I read somewhere that he directed Ford and GM. Both were already making the transition and the order didn't change anything.
Tesla is already producing and delivering ventilators and masks. I'm sure trump will order them to make what they are already producing.