COVID-19 Megathread 5: The Trumps catch COVID-19

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/KHayhoe/status/1242817345069998080

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/blakehounshell/status/1256755084303761410

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

^ And we wonder why the US has been the worst hit by this pandemic.    Funny how a constitution written in the 18th century doesn't seem to jive with a virus spreading during the 21st.

Americans: "Give me liberty or give me death!"
Coronovirus: *shrug* "Ok."

Ah, but you're missing the detail that makes this so quintessentially modern American. The odds of death any specific individual who is not at high risk are pretty low. So it's really more like,

Republicans: "Give me liberty and kill someone else!"

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

The Coronavirus Is Rewriting Our Imaginations

argaret Thatcher said that “there is no such thing as society,” and Ronald Reagan said that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” These stupid slogans marked the turn away from the postwar period of reconstruction and underpin much of the bullsh**t of the past forty years.

We are individuals first, yes, just as bees are, but we exist in a larger social body. Society is not only real; it’s fundamental. We can’t live without it. And now we’re beginning to understand that this “we” includes many other creatures and societies in our biosphere and even in ourselves. Even as an individual, you are a biome, an ecosystem, much like a forest or a swamp or a coral reef. Your skin holds inside it all kinds of unlikely coöperations, and to survive you depend on any number of interspecies operations going on within you all at once. We are societies made of societies; there are nothing but societies. This is shocking news—it demands a whole new world view. And now, when those of us who are sheltering in place venture out and see everyone in masks, sharing looks with strangers is a different thing. It’s eye to eye, this knowledge that, although we are practicing social distancing as we need to, we want to be social—we not only want to be social, we’ve got to be social, if we are to survive. It’s a new feeling, this alienation and solidarity at once. It’s the reality of the social; it’s seeing the tangible existence of a society of strangers, all of whom depend on one another to survive. It’s as if the reality of citizenship has smacked us in the face.

As for government: it’s government that listens to science and responds by taking action to save us. Stop to ponder what is now obstructing the performance of that government. Who opposes it? Right now we’re hearing two statements being made. One, from the President and his circle: we have to save money even if it costs lives. The other, from the Centers for Disease Control and similar organizations: we have to save lives even if it costs money. Which is more important, money or lives? Money, of course! says capital and its spokespersons. Really? people reply, uncertainly. Seems like that’s maybe going too far? Even if it’s the common wisdom? Or was.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/observerlk/status/1256799141637681153

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1251185023459483653

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-03/pompeo-says-enormous-evidence-links-virus-to-wuhan-laboratory

the Chinese gov must pay!

Trish Regan of Fox Business Interviews Donald Trump in Manchester, NH - February 10, 2020

Well, I think China is very, you know, professionally run in the sense that they have everything under control. I really believe they are going to have it under control fairly soon. You know in April, supposedly, it dies with the hotter weather. And that's a beautiful date to look forward to. But China I can tell you is working very hard.

We're working with them. You know, we just sent some of our best people over there, World Health Organization and a lot of them are composed of our people. They're fantastic. And they're now in China, and we're helping them out. We're in very good shape. We have 11 cases and most of them are getting better very rapidly.

I think they'll all be better. But, no. Our relationship with China, you know, we made a -- a great deal, a great trade deal, and our relationship on top of that is probably better with China. They respect us now. What they were getting away with was murder.

Was Mr. Trump a collaborator with the PRC government, or is he just too stupid to serve in office?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1257344749784137732?s=20

We're not going to be able to stop the Flu Klux Klan until we get rid of their Chief Cheerleader.

Trump calls protesters who carried guns into the Michigan Capitol 'very good people' and says the governor should 'make a deal' with them

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Will Donald Trump have Australia's back if we enter a spat with China over the Corona-virus?

I'm going to say, "no".

https://twitter.com/emilyrauhala/status/1257455813720977408

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/JonIsAwesomest/status/1257736569370247169

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

More assaults by people who love freedom. Two teenage employees of McDonald’s were shot by people upset the restaurant was take-out only.

https://www.koco.com/article/suspects-in-custody-after-2-employees-shot-at-mcdonalds-in-southwest-okc-police-say/32395365#

The Founding Fathers would be so proud of this use of the Second Amendment.

It is beyond my understanding how a country just assumes that incidents like these just happen once in a while because the Founding Fathers were apparently some infallible demi-gods whose opinions can never be questioned, never.

 The price of freedom¹ is that teenagers working a fast food job should expect to be shot by disgruntled customers. That's just the price we have to pay!

¹For purposes of this slogan, freedom is defined as billionaires and their enablers continuing to get richer, live well, and escape consequences. Outcomes for anyone else are highly likely to be negative. Use of the word freedom is for advertising purposes only and should not be considered an expressed or implied guarantee of, or advocacy for, actual freedom of any sort. Other terms and restrictions may apply.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1258433129905340416

I believe this is the test the White House is using to regularly test the President and VP, and those who come into contact with them.

One of Trump's personal valets has tested positive for coronavirus

A member of the US Navy who serves as one of President Donald Trump's personal valets has tested positive for coronavirus, CNN learned Thursday, raising concerns about the President's possible exposure to the virus.

The valets are members of an elite military unit dedicated to the White House and often work very close to the President and first family. Trump was upset when he was informed Wednesday that the valet had tested positive, a source told CNN, and the President was subsequently tested again by the White House physician.

In a statement, the White House confirmed CNN's reporting that one of the President's staffers had tested positive.

"We were recently notified by the White House Medical Unit that a member of the United States Military, who works on the White House campus, has tested positive for Coronavirus," deputy White House press secretary Hogan Gidley said in a statement. "The President and the Vice President have since tested negative for the virus and they remain in great health."

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

A Broadband Engineer Was Spat on by a 5G Conspiracy Theorist. Then He Got Coronavirus: In UK the attacks on network workers are getting more frequent, brazen, and violent.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/4ayg8g/a-broadband-engineer-was-spat-on-by-a-5g-conspiracy-theorist-now-he-has-coronavirus?utm_source=reddit.com

These people need to be arrested and brought up on terrorism charges.

The mindset that the mainstream political right embodies and relies on requires a mindset that is different from the 5G coronavirus craziness only in the specifics; the general lack of reasoning and critical thinking, the appeals to instinctive patterns, the rejection of science, evidence, and objective truth are all shared between "mainstream" Republicans and the right-wingnuts. I think that's a big part of why this sort of dangerous insanity is tolerated. To reject it is to implicitly reject the entire Republican (or "populist" right-wing) worldview. And that, in turn, means coming to terms with the reality that a good portion of your neighbors and fellow citizens are barely-human maniacs who might kill you for no comprehensible reason.  And that is a pretty hefty load of cognitive dissonance for even the most reasonable and intelligent non-Republicans to swallow.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1258829831879430149

So, the implication is that "it will go away without tests", so... no increase in testing after the first wave to keep track of where/when a second wave might be starting? This clown doesn't take a day off, it's just 24/7 carnival music.

It's ever more apparent that everyone has been giving Mr. Trump far too much credit for his handling of the pandemic. It's not just that he's incompetent, it's that has no true comprehension of anything involving the pandemic or the response to it, and lacks the self-awareness to even recognize that he doesn't know what he's talking about. Donald Trump is indistinguishable from a poorly programmed Chinese room.

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1258853971164368896

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1258782599918637057

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Very bad news.

It was abruptly reported today that three boys died of Covid-19. A four year old in New Jersey, a five year old in New York City, and a seven year old in Westchester. Symptoms apparently don't start for up to six weeks after exposure which is why we're only seeing it now. Now 73 children are being treated. This follows similar reports recently in the U.K. and Italy.

Here are some links:
At least 85 kids across U.S. have developed rare, mysterious COVID-19-linked illness

Top NYC Pediatrician Warns of ‘Alarming New Information’ About COVID-19 and Kids

I doubt it'll have much impact. Sacrificing children to Mammon isn't exactly novel behavior for the GOP.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

AP Exclusive: Docs show top WH officials buried CDC report

The decision to shelve detailed advice from the nation’s top disease control experts for reopening communities during the coronavirus pandemic came from the highest levels of the White House, according to internal government emails obtained by The Associated Press.

The files also show that after the AP reported Thursday that the guidance document had been buried, the Trump administration ordered key parts of it to be fast-tracked for approval.

The trove of emails show the nation’s top public health experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spending weeks working on guidance to help the country deal with a public health emergency, only to see their work quashed by political appointees with little explanation.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

A private report by a group called MACE based on cell phone location data says that there was no activity in a high security section of the Wuhan Institute of Virology between Oct. 7 and 24 of last year. Further it appears there is additional evidence that there may have been an accident at the lab between Oct. 6 and 11, rather specific dates. If this is true then there has been a half-year long coverup of how this thing started. Just breaking on NBC now.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/report-says-cellphone-data-suggests-october-shutdown-wuhan-lab-experts-n1202716

These people's heads should be on f**king spikes.

Whose heads should be on spikes? The ones who reported that there might have been a shutdown at the Wuhan lab due to lack of cellphone activity? While these reports might turn out to be incorrect in the end (as the NBC News article you were replying to does in fact indicate, beginning with its headline), I happen to think that it would be premature to already resort to such harsh measures.

Obviously Grassr00ts means the foreigners, who speak a funny language and look different, and who are alleged by a near conspiracy-theory to have possibly screwed-up big time and then covered it up. Absolutely not the rich right-wing white guys who have very publicly and obviously lied and lied and lied while also showcasing their continuing utter failure, corruption and incompetence. 

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Yesterday:

No masks and little social distancing at White House meeting, despite two aides testing positive for virus

Two White House aides may have tested positive for the coronavirus in the past two days, but President Donald Trump still held public events Friday with limited social distancing and without requiring participants to wear masks.

Two dozen House Republicans gathered with Trump and other administration officials in the State Dining Room at the White House on Friday afternoon to discuss the country's economic recovery from the pandemic. None of the attendees wore a mask.

“I do want to advise our media friends before they write stories about how we didn’t wear masks and we didn’t possibly socially distance adequately, that you saw to it that we had tests, and that nobody in here had the coronavirus unless it's somebody in the media,” said Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, during the meeting.

“So the only reason we would wear masks is if we were trying to protect ourselves from you in the media. And we're not scared of you. So that's why we can be here like this,” Gohmert continued.

Today:
Three top U.S. health chiefs enter self-quarantines

Three top-ranking Trump administration health officials are in some form of quarantine after possible exposure in the White House — forcing them to self-isolate from a disease they are responsible for fighting.

CDC Director Robert Redfield and Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, on Saturday evening disclosed plans to isolate over the next two weeks after “low-risk” contact with an infected person. A day earlier, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn began two weeks of self-quarantine after coming in contact with White House spokesperson Katie Miller, who tested positive for Covid-19 on Friday.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/60Minutes/status/1259621162163855361

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

‘Scary to Go to Work’: White House Races to Contain Virus in Its Ranks

The discovery of the two infected employees has prompted the White House to ramp up its procedures to combat the virus, asking more staff members to work from home, increasing usage of masks and more rigorously screening people who enter the complex.

It is not clear how many other White House officials Ms. Miller or the valet might have come into contact with in recent days, but many members of the West Wing staff who were most likely in meetings with Ms. Miller before she tested positive are still coming to work, according to senior administration officials.

Late Sunday, the White House put out a statement saying that Mr. Pence would not alter his routine or self-quarantine. The vice president “has tested negative every single day and plans to be at the White House tomorrow,” said Devin O’Malley, a spokesman for Mr. Pence.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/AshleyRParker/status/1260034852616671232

It's like J.G. Ballard and Stanislaw Lem co-wrote a dark comedy TV show.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Badger seems to have nailed the Trump administration response in this post from two months ago:

Donald standing up when needed.

To continue to maintain the lowest infection rate of Coronvirus in the northern hemisphere, this is a very wise move.

Immediate payroll tax relief is necessary for people losing income.

I am not sure whether he is going to stop it, but it is a very strong initial move to stop the influx of Europeans into the USA.

For gods sake! You can’t officially have a high infection rate if you don’t damn test people!

Good God. Just dawned on me that could be the , and I use this term very very Loosely, strategy of Trumps Administration? Think about it. The administration shares 3 near ubiquitous modus operandi. 1, nothing is ever ever ever President Trump's fault. Two, if there's a problem which arguably can't be passed on to someone else, the problem doesn't exist. Three, the full weight of the executive Branch's power will always be brought to bear for reinforcing and supporting modus operandi 1 and 2. Examples of this third modus operandi include Using taxpayer dollars to subsidize farmers stupid screwed by Trump shooting himself in the country in the foot with his idiotic protectionist trade policies. Or doing everything humanly possible to bully the Federal Reserve to stimulate the economy , when just about every professional economist says that would be a stupid idea, just to get us through November's election and damn the consequences afterwards.

One does not need a tin foil hat to realistically hypothesize that the Administration's reluctance to free coronavirus testing goes hand-in-hand with everything and anything the Trump Administration has ever done to deny any problems whatsoever in Donnie's Fantasyland America Beyond bad unfair Democrats and fake media, plus immigrants from s******* countries of course. And being able to claim, Plus have Fox News and Facebook memes continually repeat, that there is a low infection rate by making sure it stays level with a paucity of testing, is all too consistent with everything and anything coming out of the White House for the last three years.

Of course this begs the argument that if widespread testing isn't done then the virus will spread and cause Trump further political damage in the long run than addressing the problem the first place. However this also goes to the 4th and 5th most common modus operandi from the Trump Administration. One absolutely zero futurd planning as opposed to making s*** up as they go along in an inevitably dumpster fire fashion, and then blaming things on Democrats and fake news when things go wrong. Finally of course complete and total indifference to what happens to anyone other than they and their immediate circle of friends and family.

Today:
https://twitter.com/ErinBanco/status/1260558346786136064
https://twitter.com/briantashman/status/1260567599231967235

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Looking at the responses to the WI supreme Court decision on Twitter really has me thinking. The left is so out of touch these days, it is unbelievable.  They are appealing to emotions and flat out accusing conservatives of murder without thinking of the true consequences of keeping these lockdowns in place. The death models overestimated this, which is good, and we need to open up, badly, ASAP. The economic toll this will have for the next decade is already immense. The authoritarian precedent this sets is also really bad. But you look at which party is advocating for what and maybe you start to see who is for freedom and who is for tyranny.

Freedom to die for the profits of your ultra-wealthy owners and their henchmen.

It is useful to watch how the right didn't blink at doing whatever was necessary to keep the market and big business propped up, but they draw the line and get angry at the prospect of doing the same for small business and the general public. (Not that the Democrats are perfect - our whole nation is dominated by the interests of a hyper-wealthy elite. But at least Democrats don't openly call for sacrificing our fellow citizens to Mammon.)

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/RepDonBeyer/status/1260691091881369602

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/amerindependent/status/1261009511621558272