Brian Kemp Suggests Workers at Nail Salons Don’t Own Their Own Lives
Fox News’ Martha MacCallum did a good job last night pushing Georgia Governor Brian Kemp to justify his order to reopen non-essential businesses like hair and nail salons and gyms. The order supersedes any city-wide orders, meaning even devastated cities like Albany must comply.
The entire thing is worth watching. The same guy who claimed neither he nor his health commissioner understood that COVID-19 can be spread by asymptomatic people three weeks ago — and in this clip suggests temperature screening could be effective to stop the spread — now claims that, “our people in our state have learned a lot … we’ve all been, learned how to do” social distancing and that’ll be enough to open businesses that require close proximity for extended periods.
He also suggested that the data on Georgia cases and fatalities are dated by as much as six days, meaning he’s claiming that Georgia passed its peak already.
But the real tell came when he explained that,
We’re talking about a few businesses that I closed down to help flatten the curve which we have done in our state. But for us to continue to ask them to do that while they lose everything, quite honestly, there are a lot of civil repercussions of that … When you close somebody’s business down, and take the livelihood of that individual and those employees, and they are literally at the face of losing everything, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Kemp treats small businesses — not life itself — as “everything.” And he doesn’t consider that, for people who work in these small businesses, their health and their life is what they own. Effectively, he’s stripping them of their ability to work in safety.
And, as many people have suggested, he’s also stripping people who choose not to work in unsafe conditions of unemployment benefits.
Kemp went on to suggest that “if you take Albany out of the situation right now our state is a much different place,” correctly noting that it has more deaths (but not more cases) than Atlanta but, in making the suggestion, imagining he could take Georgia’s rural black population out of the state’s general condition.
Kemp cited Trump repeatedly in this interview, even claiming that this move complies with his guidelines on reopening (it is being done before cases decline adequately and in businesses not included even in Trump’s irresponsible list, which includes gyms). He didn’t, however, say that if the Trump Administration hadn’t botched the PPP, then these small businesses wouldn’t have to choose between reopening or their lives.
Typo: Blurb on main page has “is” where it should have “if”
Kemp: if you take Albany out of the situation right now our state is a much different place
That’s quite a turn of phrase.
The question of who counts in this country is foundational…
I keep thinking lately of that famous “compromise” in 1787.
Money. It’s about the money.
Small business are not paying rent… because they are closed. You can bet that ten minutes after the Gov announced they will ‘reopen’ landlords were on the phone demanding payment. Plus scrapping employees off unemployment insurance, as mentioned above.
It is a cynical, disgusting ploy for a few dollars.
Yep. And, again, if Trump’s policies weren’t implemented incompetently, this wouldn’t need to happen.
down here folks believe this is indeed about making it difficult to apply for or continue to receive unemployment insurance.
one thing you can say for kemp, he has got the sorrowful, concerned teevee facial expression down pat. it just happens though that there are few more hard-hearted, ruthless son-of-bitches in american politics than brian kemp.
Exactly, you have a choice, be forced to go back to work and get infected, perhaps die, or quit and then be ineligible for unemployment. A lot of people are in that seam right now. If they get called back and go and are lucky not to get infected they reset the unemployment clock. Georgia is also not going to expand medicaid and rural hospitals closing is also a factor.
yeah.
the long-standing refusal to expand medicaid (despite substantial federal incentives) coming from a state where 1 in 6 live in poverty is hard to understand.
ignoring the long-coming, slow-motion collapse of rural health care is willful blindness.
poverty statistics for georgia. down near the bottom is a list of cities and poverty. eye opening.
https://www.welfareinfo.org/poverty-rate/georgia/
oh, did i mention race as a factor in governor kemp’s decision?
no? good? because everybody in georgia understands that race is never an issue in georgia politics:
“… In a state where African Americans make up more than32% of the population but account for an estimated 54% of known coronavirus deaths, the decision pitted a white Republican governor against mostly black Democratic mayors and critics.
“By trying to push a false opening of the economy, we risk putting more lives in danger,” Stacey Abrams, the Democrat who lost to Kemp in a controversial election in 2018, told MSNBC…”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/22/georgia-reopening-kemp-governor-mayors
The blob on the map in the SW corner tells it all. As far as understanding race as a factor it’s hard to make a man understand something when his job depends on his not understanding it. Lot of cognitive dissonance down here. No wonder Trump changed his permanent address to Florida, he fits right in.
Yes a creepy dude.
I think that money is a piece of it, but I think that it is important to think about other factors.
There is a deep reactionary impulse infecting the country which overrides economic calculations. A lot of current policy failures arise from pure hatred of the rational thinking and planning that led to stay at home policies.
Peter Navarro made an explicit economic argument for action to the White House in January, but the dollar signs got no traction. I think in large part it is because conservative institutions are now fundamentally aligned against any kind of mobilization, and this is abetted by defeatism in mainstream institutions which assumes anything comprehensive, even with clear economic benefits, is doomed — antivirus programs, national healthcare, climate change laws.
Probably the best comparison is the addiction to segregation in the Jim Crow era. Southern economic interests could see evidence everywhere how it put them at a competitive disadvantage, but they remained committed to Jim Crow anyway.
nicely argued.
put succinctly – bullet-headed saxon mothers’ sons (at least down here).
bit then you always want to check where robert mercer is at any time of social unrest:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-the-conservative-networks-backing-anti-quarantine-protests/2020/04/22/da75c81e-83fe-11ea-a3eb-e9fc93160703_story.html
robert mercer spends his millions generating social unrest. one would think he might be concerned that his purchased activism might come home to bite him in the ass. apparently not.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage
I wish Ms. MacCallum had asked the Governor to demonstrate how to give someone a manicure, a haircut, or a massage from six feet away.
Perhaps I’m misconstruing the Governor’s words or intended meaning, but at one point he referred to hospitals “bleeding money” because of their “record vacancies”. So the collateral windfall for the hospitals from an upsurge in COVID-19 cases will be that they can make money by virtue of their beds filling up with new patients?
Yesterday when Dr. Birx was asked how social distancing could happen in, say, a nail salon, her response was that they would get creative…. sheesh! I had thought she was one of the sensible ones, silly me.
Sounds like Kemp is making his own Modest Proposal, yikes!
Each day, Birx looks more and more like the educated political shill.
I thought Kemp was reading the tea leaves and doing what he thought Trump wanted. But Trump’s “LIBERATE” tweets were aimed at his opposition; i.e. foment unrest in states with governors who are Democrats. Now I’m reading that Trump and Pence had long conversations with him. I’m not sure if Kemp was blindsided by Trump’s statement that he “strongly disagreed” with his decision or if is all part of the massive distraction everyone’s been subjected to.
This year has been so surreal, I feel as though I am residing in a small corner of the Twilight Zone.
btw, I love the “Modest Proposal” reference — I hadn’t read Swift’s essay, nor heard reference to it, since the early 70’s.
Surreal indeed… and thanks for the Twilight Zone reference – I think I’m in the cornfield at this point.
Yeah, the cornfield is a good image. Trump is just like Billy Mumy’s character, Anthony Fremont.
This quote from Lucian Truscott IV sums it up nicely:
‘People talk about Trump’s ‘lack of empathy,’ but as the bodies pile up, I think what we see in Trump is the delight of a dictator in the making. For every dead body wheeled into the back of a refrigerated truck, Trump sees a hundred frightened voters who can be manipulated into adoration of their fearless leader.”
I can’t find exactly what you are referring to from Kemp, but broadly speaking, I think he’s talking about the general financial situation of a lot of hospitals. I know from conversations with medical folks around KC that many hospitals depend on elective surgeries and other non-emergency procedures for the income that covers other things the hospital does that lose money (such as a lot of emergency care for un- and under-insured folks).
A year ago, your doctor might have told you “You need to get your hip replaced, so let’s find a date that will work.” Today, the second half of that sentence would be “so after this epidemic is more under control, I’ll call you to talk about scheduling it.” That’s why the hospitals have “record vacancies” – no one is coming in that doesn’t absolutely positively have to come in. And that has big financial consequences for the hospitals.
Add to that one more thing: some hospitals are taking those choices out of the hands of doctors and patients, as they have either postponed all these elective procedures or dramatically scaled them back, especially if they have an outbreak of COVI-19 to cope with. “We don’t want folks with non-COVID-19 conditions to face potential exposure by coming in right now, so if they can wait a while or go somewhere else, that’s what they need to do.” Many hospitals in rural areas were running on fumes before COVID-19 raised its head, and having to cancel the procedures that bring in a sizable chunk of their revenue is an ugly ugly thing to contemplate.
The economics of medical care are a nightmare of competing incentives and pressures. From what I can see, hospitals do not make money from a COVID-19 outbreak – they lose it hand over foot from the increased expenses (more staff needed, more PPE — and prices for PPE are orders of magnitude above what they were 6 months ago, more equipment, the costs of converting regular rooms and spaces into COVID-19 treatment areas, etc.) and they cannot cover these new expenses with revenue from elective procedures because they had to scale them back or eliminate them entirely due to the epidemic.
I wonder also if part of the problem is that hospitals apparently rely on contracted ER staff and the for-profit venture-capital-funded companies that contract these staff are cutting salaries and limiting benefits.
Strange that in these times the very people you would want to have available can’t (or won’t) work under these conditions.
I can’t imagine anybody intelligently constructing a more dysfunctional healthcare system than that in the US. Venture capitalists running the ER. What could go wrong?
Kemp made his remarks about hospitals around the five minute mark of the interview. As I said, I may have misunderstood his meaning and I appreciate the extra information and clarification you provided.
Is there an underlying conclusion here that hospitals shouldn’t be in the business of making a profit anyway?
New information:
Coronavirus Death in California Came Weeks Before First Known U.S. Death
The earliest U.S. deaths publicly attributed to the virus had been on Feb. 26, when two people died in the Seattle area. Santa Clara County said an autopsy showed a Feb. 6 death was also related.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/us/coronavirus-first-united-states-death.html
April 22, 2020 Updated 8:51 a.m.
From the beginning the States/Counties/Municipalities were HAMSTRUNG by the Federal Government IN ORDER TO MOLLIFY TRUMP:
I know we knew this, but just from today, in the above linked article with regard to the new information about earlier deaths:
This is ALSO a story about who counts/ who gets counted…and WHY.
Quote: “Effectively, he’s stripping them of their ability to work in safety.
And, as many people have suggested, he’s also stripping people who choose not to work in unsafe conditions of unemployment benefits.”
Amazingly, these two sentences back-to-back encapsulate the unspoken Republican platform since at least 1980 – strip labor of any power; and undo the social safety net.
Remember Brian Kemp said this on April 2, 2020:
‘Finding out that this virus is now transmitting before people see signs, so what we’ve been telling people from directives from the CDC for weeks now that if you start feeling bad, stay home … those individuals could’ve been infecting people before they ever felt bad. But we didn’t know that until the last 24 hours. And as Dr. Toomey told me, this is a game changer for us.’
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/georgia-gov-brian-kemp-admits-he-just-learned-asymptomatic-people-n1174976
Linked in the post.
Thanks Marcy. I missed it. Too much wine and cheese last night.
This opinion piece appeared in WaPo yesterday. To say it is stunning would be an understatement:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-saw-the-best-of-america-at-a-peaceful-reopen-rally/2020/04/21/566909b0-8416-11ea-878a-86477a724bdb_story.html
I’m not sure how PA state representative Mike Jones was persuaded to write the piece, but the comments from 99.9% of the readers suggest that he may have let his ego and political naivety get ahead of him.
I doubt he wrote the piece at all, probably accepted some cash to put his name on something he hadn’t read.
Jones is probably a useful idiot. But there is a lot of money going elsewhere in the process.
The conservative joke Stephen Moore has been talking for a while about how funders are pushing the anti-virus control movement. The press has sporadically talked about some of the funders, but they have erased a key part of the dynamic.
Billionaires don’t direct these photo ops themselves. They hire PR companies to do it, and these same companies handle the pitches to the media — assembling the officials who sign their names, writing the press releases, handling the distribution. There are all kinds of concrete steps needed, and the press can see a lot of them.
But they cooperate in hiding this from the public, because there is an unwritten agreement by the press that PR flacks are never a part of the story.
The press knows that this is astroturfed, they know the names of the companies and flacks behind it, but the club will never talk about who belongs to the club.
Yep, the ghost of Edward Bernays and CPI.
And what is so maddening about reporters and editors today is that they are much more savvy about the machinery of the PR industry than they were in the earlier days of Bernays. But that savvy has only hardened their commitment to never talking about the machinery in public.
You have a greater likelihood of seeing the word “fuck” in the NY Times than you do of seeing them report on a PR firm pitching the media on astroturf. PR campaigning is even a greater taboo than saying Trump is a racist — they might at least allude to that in a couched way.
“You will never lose money betting on the stupidity of Americans”
No clue who said that, but it’s fitting
Kemp is promoting a game of chicken that any reasonable person has to realize will end up being mostly show.
It’s the oldest and most overused play in the The Trump playbook.
When are people going to learn to not to take the bait?
Sure, some of the give me liberty or give me covid” idiots will be setting their alarms so they can be first in line to get a tattoo of Trump or Kemp on their foreheads, but seriously, can’t anyone see the power in pointing out in a reasonable way that logistically it just isn’t going to work?
Is it just more fun for the media to convince viewers that enough business owners are so stupid and desperate that they will really risk everything because Kemp has given them permission to?
When the federal government just added more money to the payroll loan program?
“Nobody ever went broke under-estimating the intelligence of the American public.” Attrib. P.T. Barnum. Long time since I looked this up. Might have got it wrong.
I believe it was H.L. Mencken who said that. P.T. Barnum said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Trump’s mantra for life.
Trump has stated that P.T. Barnum was his favorite author.
Compelling statement from a man who can barely read, but kept a compendium of Hitler’s speeches by his bed.
Thank you Governor Kemp, but I plan on cutting my own hair for perhaps forever.
I’ve been doing it for years.
Buzz it myself here since 1999.
The harvests will not be good unless blood is sacrificed to the golden calf.
It used to be that the ruler got plowed in to ensure good harvests.
Ooooooo! Good one, Craige! Will steal that for upcoming use.
It is worth noting that Trump’s backing is getting softer over time, and I have little doubt it will get worse.
One key demographic is senior citizens, and polling indicates that anger, disapproval and fear is growing everywhere, including the deep South. Fox News is influential, but Steve Doocey’s appeal is wearing thin as news worsens. This time is different.
Senior citizen take particular notice of what happens in assisted living communities. Either they live in one, their friends live in them, or they are aware that they might be living in one down the line some time.
Watching horror stories from these places lead the news, followed by mindless “we need to reopen” from folks like Kemp, is not likely to calm down the anger, disapproval and fear that many senior citizens are feeling.
Seniors are scared. Really, really scared.
Should we start with the image of dying alone?
How about the fact that there are hints everywhere that they are expendable?
It has to rattle even the healthiest and most confident elder..
Look at how much help they need from others now, how their independence has been stolen. You don’t think that they know they will continue to be a drag when everyone else is ready to get back at it?
These are horrific times for our seniors, if you know any ( I was going to say give em a squeeze but you can’t even do that) send them a treat or give them a call and let them know you have their back.
I had a conversation yesterday with a pharmacist at Seattle VA hospital. I asked how they were doing an if she had to be onsite. She does as an essential woker. They observe the standard precautions she said. But a bit too late for her it seems. We compared notes on flu-like illnesses, she in December, me in late March. Both had seasonal flu shots at the VA, both had classic Covid19 symptoms. Neither were tested. Her case sounds much worse than mine, with spiking fever alternating with way sub-normal, followed by pneumonia for two weeks. “We didn’t know what it was in December.” I didn’t either until I read about people coughing up bits of lung tissue. I had called the rural clinic to see about a test. “You don’t fit the pattern. Call us if it gets worse. The treatment is the same either way.” It did get worse. I finally quit coughing this week. After nearly a month. I wouldn’t wish this on any hairstylist or bartender and I’m badly in need of a haircut and a drink. Neither the pharmacist nor I was knowingly exposed and we both lived to tell the tale. Clearly many others weren’t so fortunate.
Saw this last night. Might be of interest. How all this unfolded in Washington state.
PBS – Frontline: Coronavirus-Pandemic – A Tale of Two Washingtons
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/coronavirus-pandemic/
SEASON 2020: EPISODE 16
How did the U.S. become the country with the worst known coronavirus outbreak in the world? FRONTLINE investigates the American response to COVID-19 — from Washington state to Washington, D.C. — and examines what happens when politics and science collide.
Jenny,
Thanks for the link. I’m really interested in this as I think Frontline generally does a good job reporting their stories.
The good white folk Mr. Kemp knows don’t work at those bidnesses. They have home gyms and monthly subscriptions to streaming workout videos, whose model-athletes provide better T&A than the local gym. They can pay their stylists to come to them, so they don’t need the local neighborhood salons. Kemp is happy to sacrifice those who didn’t vote for him (in an election he stole). so that he can appease Trump and make it look like he’s helping even the lowly get back to work. He’s happy, too, to rain down fire and brimstone on those who selfishly value their lives over his economy.
Kemp is also appeasing his neoliberal patrons, who tell hoi poloi that their government is the problem, not the cure. (True for them, except when it comes to tax treatment, legal imminuties, and security for themselves and their property).
Mystery solved!
Von Miller had no clue how he got the virus. “He only left his house 4 times and never got out of the car”
Perhaps it wasn’t his hair stylist that infected him but surely a man that just added a 2000sq ft closest to his home has needs that can only tended to by multiple people coming and going?
Which leads to why Trump is playing games with testing?
Could it be as simple as he doesn’t like people telling him what to do?
Does the constant pressure put on him about it, trigger some teenage response to a nagging adult?
For Trump to admit there’s a problem with testing right now would require Trump admitting that he has failed to address this problem over the last three months.
Trump admitting failure is not ever, ever, ever going to happen.
Other people fail, but not Trump. Ever.
All those business failures and bankruptcies? They were the fault of Trump’s contractors and customers and politicians and government regulations and unforeseeable market conditions — not Trump.
All those failed marriages and personal relationships? They were the fault of his ex’s and the media and his enemies — not Trump.
All those convicted campaign officials and senior Trump administration folks who left under clouds of failure? They were the fault of those people and the Deep State and the Lamestream Media and Trump’s enemies — not Trump.
Like I said, Trump admitting failure is not ever, ever, ever going to happen.
Asking for consistency from Trump is maybe going a bit far. I think it’s more likely that he made a calculation that herd immunity before November was his only chance, no matter what the cost. Being unable to empathize with anyone, he probably doesn’t see mass graves as anything more than a Democratic talking point, once the threat of infection has passed. He wouldn’t consider mourning anyone for more than a few seconds so why would anybody else?
The crazy part is, that for a guy as lazy as Trump, the easy way (not resisting, listening to the experts) could have made him a real hero.
He could have for one of the few times in his time as president been given credit instead of taking it.
He knew exactly what was going on and it’s potential for chaos and he chose to do nothing. I suspect that Trump is a guy who is pretty dead inside and the only way he feels alive is through the chaos and pressure cooker world he forces other into. At some point the question of whether his complete lack of urgency despite everything he knew was at some level, intentional
MALICE…with TRUMP it’s always MALICE.
Amanda Marcotte over at Salon has an idea. It may be a bit cynical, but it could be the reason.
https://www.salon.com/2020/04/22/trump-doesnt-want-coronavirus-testing-his-instinct-is-always-to-hide-the-truth/
Can’t read, behind a paywall!
She says that Trump lies about everything, all the time, and his only play is to say whatever will make him look good for the next few minutes. Sort of a Markov process that has no memory and no concept of the future, he just reacts with whatever makes him look good in the moment.
I had no issues after I turned of my adblocker. Try opening in incognito mode, if you have that option (Chrome, etc.) It’s an amusing article, altho’ I think perhaps a little simplistic …
It truly is a no-win problem. No wonder the ‘Pubs are in a tizzy.
If quarantine continues, there are two options: craft widespread, meaningful financial rescue for the 90 percent; or continue to spout the dogma, be churlish and allow small businesses to fail and their owners see their hard work evaporate. Individual workers will go bankrupt and be cast into the streets to starve and die, (think of the video) or even worse, march. The inadequacy of the of the safety net will be exposed and there will be vocal cries for significant change.
And that doesn’t bode well for the GOP or their decades long project to deconstruct government and any regulations that prevent rapacious use of resource be it natural or human.
If the country opens up prematurely, the second wave gathers height and rushes farther up the shore, destroying more lives. That only delays the reckoning.
Is the end game that perhaps the ‘economic relief’ provided by early opening delays the second wave to after the election, thereby allowing the GOP to plausibly claim that they are taking decisive action to mitigate the crisis?
It’s very possible the end game is out of control; right now it’s a small manipulated minority in the streets, but there’s no telling what will happen if systemic failure and financial collapse along with food shortages rupture any pretense of normality. The US is becoming destabilized in the same way we have destabilized other countries since WW2 and one could argue they are getting even. For another time,
Moreover internal power interests are not backing down and manipulating people into potential armed confrontations. It’s only a matter of time before an Archduke situation occurs and things get really out of control. Fracturing into regional or state polities becomes a real possibility. It’s just not that long ago when that happened to Russia. For us an article in the Atlantic by George Packer sums up a lot. It’s hard to see where up is from there.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/underlying-conditions/610261/
I am guessing that the somewhat more realistic ones among the GOP are aiming for a repeat of 2009-10 — count on the GOP survivors to block as much as they can, build a tacit alliance with establishment Dems and the press against serious progressives, and saddle passive Democrats with blame for a slow recovery.
I am hopeful Democrats have learned lessons from 2010 and that demographic changes have further undercut the GOP base, but we’ll see.
But another possibility is that current Republicans have sowed the seeds of their own destruction, but only to open the door to even worse people, and then we will see the Balkanization reasonable people fear. I think staving that off will require a shift in the establishment away from systemic preference for extreme stasis. I don’t know if they are there, even now.
What’s slipped out of much of the news is that of Putin putting Trump in power in the US. Everything Trump has done over the last 3½ years has been to the detriment of the US. He’s still doing it. The coronavirus pandemic us only making his easier for him, simply doing nothing will be destructive. This is paying Putin back. Putin meanwhile sees a retaliation for his childhood beloved Soviet block being broken up, in a goal of seeing similar in the US and Europe.
We can prevent this perhaps only by continuing to work together and fully sidelining the Trump administration?
I’ve been thinking too that the Rs in government/power do not want ‘the people’ to come together and see/remember they have collective power. So they manufacture these protests and push to ‘reopen’ the states and work to make the conversation about cures being worse than the disease, etc. Those in the locked castles do not want the villagers to notice the sharp pitch forks and flaming torches leaning against the castle walls.
Also, about hair dressers and nail salons opening, those are largely female occupations and female customers. So if the media reports new Covid-19 cases having female names/faces, American misogyny says a lot of most folks won’t take it as seriously as male names/faces getting Covid-19.
Female occupations filled mostly by minority/immigrant women. Doubly invisible for the GOP-T.
These businesses have female customers, some quite well off. If they start dying like flies–and infecting their husbands and children…I’m not sure anyone has really thought the consequences through to the ultimate end.
I can see the pubs choosing premature opening to delay the reckoning: it might give enough time to help them steal the election– or at least they’re willing to bet on that.
Mr. Whoopee and his 3DBB are of no use with this lot. It is sad..
Lever Levity….
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_KjHk2a7jtk
Bottom line here is…
Like viruses, certain folks don’t care. The divisions of labor will alway serve monied interests, even if it kills the goose and golden eggs.
Liberty and pursuit of happiness do not exist for those without, Life..
Bassackwards thinking and lack of preparation are one in the same.
Some in the Antebellum Senate, simply placed business interests over life.
“Amity Isle” tourists interests did not do well $$$ wise after Alex Kintner become Jaw’s midday lunch snack.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.tmz.com/2020/04/05/jaws-actress-lee-fierro-mrs-alex-kintner-mom-dead-dies-coronavirus/
I decided to do some research about Georgia’s economy, and learned a few things.
As I am sure everyone knows, Atlanta has the world’s busiest airport. Or at least, it was in normal times. Hartsfield-Jackson generates 65-85 billion dollars in revenue.
http://www.atl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/ATL-2016-2017-Economic-Impact-Study-Executive_Summary.pdf
https://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2020/04/14/hartsfield-jackson-cares-act-funds-coronavirus.html
The economy of Georgia generates about 600 billion dollars a year:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GANGSP
Which means that the airport generates between 10-15% of Georgia’s revenue.
The airport has had business drop by 85% of its passengers, and lost 50-60% of its revenue:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/13/atlanta-hartsfield-jackson-coronavirus-airport-shut-down
I went to the trouble of looking up these statistics and sources to point out the obvious: the economy of Atlanta and Georgia is heavily based around the airport there, and the airport has contracted drastically.
As much as Kemp might talk about “getting things back to normal”, and as much as he can put on a show of opening up bowling alleys or barber shops, Georgia’s economy is tied into the world economy, especially long distance travel, which is most likely going to be the last sector of the economy to recover. So the point to me is not that Kemp is heartless, it is that he is totally ignoring the basic structural problems around him.
(NB: economic impact studies of things like airports tend to overstate their importance, so these numbers might be fuzzy around the edges, but the basic picture, that Hartsfield-Jackson is important, and that it has declined drastically, are pretty intuitive and obvious)
Thanks for the analysis. I think Atlanta like Detroit Metro area has both relied on business supporting their airports but also suffered from the international traffic which brought COVID-19 to these cities.
I’m not in agreement with this, though: “So the point to me is not that Kemp is heartless, it is that he is totally ignoring the basic structural problems around him.”
I think Kemp knows the airport traffic won’t resume and he wants to increase revenues which don’t rely on the airport. BUT his drive to reopen the service economy rather than manufacturing tells you a lot: the people who are the means of production, the lowest paid workers, are just fungibles. Disposable.
And that may be the entire point. Make the noisy white upper-to-middle class with disposable income happy, while installing the most covert poll tax on the working poor who in Atlanta are likely black.
Get back to work, service serf, risk your health. Maybe you’ll be healthy enough to vote this November.
I lost all faith in Dr. Birx when she showed that chart the other day about country deaths per 100,000, which had the US as the lowest after China. That chart was no doubt produced at Trump’s request as PR and Birx knew it. What it did not take into account was each countries population density. If that had been adjusted for, the US would have been number one. Population density is everything in a pandemic.
cases and deaths per hundred thousand is used so that numbers can be compared across jurisdictions with different populations. Deaths per square mile isn’t really useful….
Kind of like those maps in red and blue used to defend why the Electoral College is so necessary, eh?? Empty land mass doesn’t vote either.
cows, corn, and cotton don’t vote – but people do
Since I was a little kid, Arizona touted its “Five C’s”. Arizona’s Five C’s are: Copper, Cattle, Cotton, Citrus and Climate
Tell that to New York City, the Smithfield plant employees, the nursing homes and prisons. They might beg to differ. You can be a lot more successful in Wyoming fighting a pandemic than you can in Detroit from a standing start.
I’m in L.A. You want to talk density???
Seriously? Unless your “Smithfield plant” is in South Dakota, which is pretty much as stark as Wyoming. Please, don’t be silly.
Interesting that just yesterday, JHU switched statistical modes on their SPH Covid19 website — to a population density model from an absolute numbers stack. Some statistician there must have been pissed off with Birx using their numbers. At any rate, it’s density based now.
Tests vs tests per capita. Same thing.
It is simple physics. Transmission requires contact. Increased density = increased contact = increased transmission = increased infection = increased death. Decreased density = decreased contact = decreased transmission = decreased infection = decreased death. That is the purpose of social distancing, to decrease localized density. Definition of a hot spot = dense infection site. If you are going to judge which countries or states have done a successful job of mitigating death (which was the purpose of the chart), population density is the most important risk factor which needs to be factored in. Ask any epidemiologist. It is always telling when someone resorts to an ad hominem attack (Don’t be silly), that they have failed logically to address an argument.
South Korea = 1,339 per sq mile
UK = 710 per sq mile
Italy = 518 per sq mile
US = 87 per sq mile
[FYI, line returns added to last 3 lines to improve readability for comparison of countries’ population density./~Rayne]
Well golly Andy, thanks for the smarmy explainer of the patently obvious. For the record, it may have been a while, but I had multiple courses in physics in college including university physics and quantum mechanics. I can grasp the basics just fine, thank you. You know what is really “telling” Andy? When some holier than thou short term interloper wanders into this site and assumes everybody else is an idiot.
I did not “fail logically” whatsoever. And your own smarmy explainer proves it. Density is relative. A Smithfield plant in South Dakota can be a dense spot even though it is in one of the least overall population dense states in the union. On the flip side, California is, by far, the most populated state in the union, and Orange County is one of its most densely populated areas, and, yet, has a shockingly low infection and mortality rate.
So, Andy, there is more going on, and the dynamics more complex, than your holier than thou but simplistic “density” explanation. Ergo when I said “don’t be silly”, it was not an “ad hominem attack”, it was the truth. The real scourge here is when interlopers blithely and frivolously whine about being ad hominem attacked. Thanks for your input Andy.
Controlling for population density in evaluating and comparing different pandemic mitigation efforts is beyond non-controversial. It is a primary risk factor for spread. You really need to get control of yourself. Your reactions are outsized and not normal. You can disagree without being demeaning and name calling. I can’t even imagine how you would react if someone referred to your comment as silly.
Ad hominem – An argument or reaction directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.
Trust me, I won’t be back.
Hey Andy! Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. And I addressed your simplistic, even if holier than thou, argument on the merits not just once, but twice. You, however, never addressed my initial, and continuing, posit that “population density” is too simplistic and is somewhat relative. So, take your whiny ad hominem bullshit and stuff it.
“That chart was no doubt produced at Trump’s request as PR and Birx knew it.” I agree that Trump wanted a favorable graphic. A fun read on the subject is the book “How to Lie with Maps” by Mark Monmonier. It’s easily understood by the non-professional cartographer.
He is brilliant.
I’m just surprised that it wasn’t produced via Sharpie.
After reading and watching the info below, part of me can’t help but think that we might be in the midst of a systemic evolutionary paradigm shift. But, also, relative to this specific virus, maybe this info will inspire some creative thought:
“How an Ancient Virus Spread the Ability to Remember” | MedPage Today, 12/13/19
“Jason Shepherd, PhD, explains how his curiosity spurred an unexpected finding as he studied the biology behind memory storage, encoding, and retrieval. Exploring the gene called ARC, which is essential to the synaptic plasticity that facilitates learning and cognition, Shepherd discovered that, at a biological level, the process of memory storage strongly replicates that of viral transmission.”
…..
“It’s fascinating to think that some of the most complex processes in the brain may have been the result of an ancient viral infection.”
https://www.medpagetoday.com/tedmed/tedmed/83872
Our paper (SJ Mercury News) publishes a daily Coronavirus Tracker for California, county by county (SF online link for similar info is
https://projects.sfchronicle.com/2020/coronavirus-map/ ),
and with some idle time, I plotted the growth charts for the Bay Area (now at 236 deaths) and SoCal (now 1591 deaths) since they’ve been publishing them.
Although SoCal (LA to San Diego) has 3x the number of people, the # of deaths is >6x more, and the growth slope is significantly higher than in the Bay Area.
I expect that’s because the Bay Area ordered shelter-in-place just a few days earlier.
A few days.
Nearly 1000 fewer deaths when adjusted for population; ~1,350 more in raw numbers.
Alive here because we locked down early.
Opening up too soon will just start the trend all over again, unless there is a fool proof way to catch and stop the spread. The numbers are sobering.
I know both are small compared to the situation in NYC, but the Bay Area and LA are far more alike than the Tri-State area, so much more of an apples to apples comparison.
And it was only a few days difference. Leading to 1000+ lives saved.
Sobering.
… should be “~1,350 fewer”, not “~1,350 more” …
Still new here; is there a way to edit my own post?
Edit works intermittently (and unpredictably).
Ooof, sorry. Our edit functions sometimes get obviated by security protocols. Sorry about that. But thank you for joining in, and please do so more often!
Yesterday, Marcy retweeted Steve Silberman:
https://twitter.com/stevesilberman/status/1252692687339175936
4:16 PM · Apr 21, 2020
Links to:
Director of U.S. agency key to vaccine development leaves role suddenly amid coronavirus pandemic
https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/21/rick-bright-out-at-barda/
APRIL 21, 2020
Today, Dr. Bright has something to say:
https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/1253049457924542464
3:54 PM · Apr 22, 2020
why am I not surprised by this? /s
trump at today’s (oops – yesterday’s) coronaviris campaign rally denied knowledge of or hearing of the situation or ever meeting Dr. Bright. His demeanor was less than truthful about that and, of course, most else.
That’s a tell that he wanted his opposition out.
And then, there’s this…which Dan Diamond tweeted out three hours before Silberman’s tweet:
https://twitter.com/ddiamond/status/1252643918375727105
1:02 PM · Apr 21, 2020
More deaths, no benefit from malaria drug in VA virus study
https://apnews.com/a5077c7227b8eb8b0dc23423c0bbe2b2
4/20/20 [I don’t know what time this was published]
From AP:
Here’s NPR:
NIH Panel Recommends Against Drug Combination Promoted By Trump For COVID-19
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/21/840341224/nih-panel-recommends-against-drug-combination-trump-has-promoted-for-covid-19
April 21, 2020 4:15 PM ET
TRUMP: What do you have to lose? 4/5/20
I commented on this earlier today in a different post. The AP story is by Marilynn Marchione and I think it was it was posted on 4/20/20 or yesterday.
Mispelled my name above
No worries, you are good.
Thank you! I’ve found the tweet and posted it above.
You are most welcome. Thanks for connecting the rest of the dots.
The DATE above is incorrect.
Correct:
https://twitter.com/APHealthScience/status/1252632250686083073
12:16 PM · Apr 21, 2020
1] Politico, 4/20/20:
Trump tones down the hydroxychloroquine hype
His public statements regarding the drug have diminished significantly over the past week for reasons that remain unclear.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/20/trump-hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus-196191
04/20/2020 01:30 PM EDT Updated: 04/20/2020 02:15 PM EDT
2] Media Matters, 4/21/20
Fox News mentions of hydroxychloroquine have significantly dropped off
Fox personalities once touted the drug for an alleged “Lazarus effect” on COVID-19 patients, but starting around April 16, mentions of the treatment plummeted by over 75%
https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/fox-news-mentions-hydroxychloroquine-have-significantly-dropped
PUBLISHED 04/21/20 3:44 PM EDT
“Trump’s Job Rating Slides; U.S. Satisfaction Tumbles”, April 16, 2020
…..
“These data are from an April 1-14 Gallup poll.
The six-point decline in the president’s approval rating is the sharpest drop Gallup has recorded for the Trump presidency so far…”
https://news.gallup.com/poll/308675/trump-job-rating-slides-satisfaction-tumbles.aspx
Oh, yeah! That’s probably a good guess.
I was thinking that maybe the loss in the 4/13 WI Supreme Court election might also have made a strong impression on Trump and the GOP.
I wonder if they had an inkling about the results of this VA study a week ago.
Fauci, Bright, and Birx probably did.
Yes, I thought so. What about Kadlec and Azar?
Maybe it had to do with the publication of the RED DAWN emails on 4/11 I link to down further?
I can’t see Azar reading preprints.
Also on
April 14, 2020 The Government awards $21 million contract to Alchem, a Fl. lab to study: “combining hydroxychloroquine with intravenous doses of famotidine, an anti-heartburn drug known by the brand name Pepcid.”
See my comment about this further downthread.
I have not come across mention of the following trial testing Colchicine in non-hospitalized Covid-19 cases during Trump’s DIE FOR ME rallies. I take it already. The price has gone up over 400% from the previous refill. Hmm?
Because Trump is not mentioning it, I am inclined to feel safer taking it. Well, that, plus I have to for preexisting condition which excludes me the trial.
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04322565
Generally, if I hear a conservative campaign talking points which accuses liberals of something then It is processed with a grade school level filter of “I’m rubber and conservatives are glue…“
Now, there’s more about BRIGHT:
https://twitter.com/kaitlancollins/status/1253405562705936387
3:29 PM · Apr 23, 2020
Links to:
Bright’s ouster shines light on months of HHS turmoil
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/23/politics/rick-bright-health-and-human-services-coronavirus/index.html
Jeremy Diamond, Kaitlan Collins and Matthew Hoye, CNN
2:22 PM ET, Thu April 23, 2020
WHY MUST WE BE SUBJECTED TO THIS MIDDLE SCHOOL BULL SHIT?!?!?!?
Heh, of course they do. What a pathetic joke.
And, here we get to the real issue, I think:
[And Harpie is exactly right!]
heh! :-}
[harpie gets SO steamed….]
Bright wants the HHS Inspector General to:
So it is, as Lurie said, about “something larger than hydroxychloroquine”
1] Dan Levinson, the former inspector general resigned last year. Then
2] Joanne Chiedi, the acting inspector general who retired last year. Now
3] Christi Grimm, became principal deputy earlier this year, and took over from Chiedi.
Also, this:
Christi Grimm, who has worked in both Republican and Democratic administrations since 1999, became principal deputy earlier this year. She took over for Chiedi replaced Trump clashed with Grimm after she published a report this month detailing shortages in hospitals across the country.
[That last partial paragraph should have been deleted…OY!]
Kadlec was in the the RED DAWN e-mail chain published 4/11 by NYT here:
He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus
An examination reveals the president was warned about the potential for a pandemic but that internal divisions, lack of planning and his faith in his own instincts led to a halting response.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-response.html
April 11, 2020 Updated 4:33 p.m.
80 pages of DOCUMENTS:
https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/6879-2020-covid-19-red-dawn-rising/66f590d5cd41e11bea0f/optimized/full.pdf#page=1
One place we talked about that Red Dawn e-mail chain is here:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2020/04/10/what-a-reopening-the-economy-story-would-look-like/#comment-837728
E-mail exchange between
Dr. Robert Kadlec, Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services and
Eva K Lee: American operations researcher who applies combininratorial [???] optimization and systems biology to the study of healthcare decision making at GeorgiaTech.
On Sunday, February 23, 2020 11: 35 PM , Kadlec, Robert (OS ASPR > wrote:
On Monday, February 24, 2020 12: 07 AM, Dr. Eva K Lee > wrote:
This is the JAMA article Lee links to:
Presumed Asymptomatic Carrier Transmission of COVID-19
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762028
February 21, 2020
MORE on Dr. BRIGHT:
https://twitter.com/DavidCloudLAT/status/1253518669382025216
10:58 PM · Apr 23, 2020
Links to:
Government scientist felt pressured to approve contract for work on drug Trump touted
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-04-23/government-scientist-pressured-trump-lab-contract
APRIL 23, 2020 7:42 PM
More about Alchem, from the LA TIMES article:
…wonder if the name comes from the word ALCHEMY.
Famotidine is sometimes one of the drugs in the reaction-control mix for chemotherapy. So it’s certainly possible to get it via IV – but why for this, I don’t know..
Thanks, PJ. What does reaction-control mix mean?
Keep your reactions to the chemo drugs controlled: anti-anxiety (lorazepam), anti-nausea (Emend and Aloxi), anti-emetic and anti-inflammatory (dexamethasone), Benadryl, famotidine.
Thank you!
The linked comment about William Bryan may be related to this Bright thread:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2020/04/24/trumps-medical-quackery-exposes-the-press-both-sides-quackery/#comment-840009
I follow some Atlanta hip-hop artists on Insta and even though some of them are prone to some of the weaknesses of the extremely online (contrails conspiracies, loopy health/diet ideas etc), they pretty solidly called bullshit on this move by Kemp. “Salons and barbershops??” The account owners and their followers were pretty clear-eyed about who the target of this effort was going to be.
Yeah, it looks like Floridians have better sense than the Gov and Prez, too.
“Joe Biden leads Donald Trump in latest Florida poll” – Miami Herald, April 22, 2020
…..
“The poll also showed that Floridians are in no hurry to end social distancing, at least until public health experts say the state is safe enough to reopen, with 72% of voters saying that Florida should not loosen social distancing rules before the end of April. Nearly three-quarters of voters say Florida’s economy should not reopen until public health officials say it’s safe, compared to 17% who say it should reopen even if public health officials warn against it.”
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article242201786.html
Between 5 and 90 million American Christians now believe it is their duty, to Jesus and Trump, to infect as many people as possible with the Covid 19 virus. With often thinly veiled admissions that it amount to culling the inferiors. Just as Jesus taught.
Ultimately each person is going to have to decide how much risk they need to take or are willing to take, and not coincidentally how much risk they are willing to subject others too. There will be tragedies on a huge scale, in any case. The fracturing of households and lives, their health and security.
I am finding it almost universal among the ‘open the country’ up crowd, a towering contempt for those who say they are thinking of others or of helping others. They are too savvy for that. Then know that nobody does anything that is selfless. This is what Christianity has become in America.
It seems to be mostly the white fundies – the ones who are all “independent” churches. The mainline denominations pretty much shut down. (The Southern Baptists among them. But not, AFAICT, the Seventh Day Baptists, who are very much northern. Their first church, in Providence, RI, had a sign out front: “Hadn’t Planned On Giving Up This Much For Lent”.)
+1 I’ve been indulging in some troll fighting on the local news site and it’s amazing what the ‘open the country’ up crowd are willing to admit, as in, “they’re gonna die anyway” and “statistically, 100K dead isn’t that much”, etc.
As an aside, it might be amusing that the site prohibits and is pretty good about deleting offensive posts and even name-calling (at times) so I’ve gotten pretty good at using “redhat” as an adjective and even a verb. It’s a pretty effective trigger of that cohort …
The following tweet has a screenshot embedded from a WKRN newscast about the “LET THEM DIE” rabble in Nashville, Tenn:
https://twitter.com/ConorBlenner/status/1252870171422715907
4:01 AM · Apr 22, 2020
I guess they don’t mean the weak-minded.
Trump giving Kemp an out tonight. Maybe he will be smart and take it.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/22/trump-kemp-georgia-reopen-coronavirus-202117
Kemp has clearly been telegraphing that he is following Trump’s lead for the past few weeks, which yet again demonstrates the danger of attempting to appease the Orange one. He’ll knife you in the back in public, without a second thought. Yet the GOP keeps lining up.
Governor Kemp’s situation reminds me of that night scene in “Jurassic Park” where the pathetic little rain drenched goat is staked out as an appetizer for the T-Rex.
Or the lawyer in the loo.
Nah, I think he’s Nedry. Looking for profit and getting lost in the rain on the way to the boat.
…..lolol!!! And they were such cute little devils, too!
In an interview, Joseph Stiglitz said that the number of people going to food banks looks like a third-world country. Someone should explain to Mr. Stiglitz that when you elect a third-rate president….
A uga graduate….that said if someone is vain enough to go get a tattoo or their nails done.now they might not value their life that much.
MALICE
https://twitter.com/ewarren/status/1253161965150756864
11:21 PM · Apr 22, 2020
Links to:
Elizabeth Warren Demands Investigations Into Trump’s Shambolic Coronavirus Response
For instance, why has Jared Kushner been allowed anywhere near this thing?
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/04/elizabeth-warren-trump-coronavirus-investigations
BESS LEVIN APRIL 22, 2020
Shambolic is NOT the same as mislead.
1] shambolic adjective https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shambolic
2] mislead verb https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mislead
Should have said a shambolic effort is NOT the same as a misleading one.
Recent Examples on the Web [From the MW links]
[These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word ‘shambolic.’ [‘mislead’]
Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. [LOL]]
Shambolic:
Mislead
Via bmaz:
They lived in a factory for 28 days to make millions of pounds of raw PPE materials to help fight coronavirus
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/04/23/factory-masks-coronavirus-ppe/
April 23, 2020 at 6:22 a.m.
Its amazing to read about what regular Americans are doing to support OUR country!
BUT it’s also infuriating.
Tens of millions of people, TOGETHER, are sacrificing as much as they EACH can
so that OUR country can somehow make it through this challenge
that DID NOT HAVE TO BE the CATASTROPHE it is.
[I’m very sorry for screaming, but I find I can not help myself]
And now TRUMP and his RABBLE are
MILITATING to UNDERMINE
any PROGRESS we may have made and
ALL THAT SACRIFICE of
ALL of those
TENS OF MILLIONS of PEOPLE.
Sometimes it’s just too much.
The Braskem story is truly amazing. And it illustrates perfectly the issues with the “supply chain”. It also illustrates perfectly the kind of coordinated and accelerated production that could have been triggered by early and intelligent application by the President of the DPA. Still could and should be. That is how you get ahead of things instead of always being behind the curve.
I saw video of them clocking out and heading home. There were people driving by holding signs thanking them.
Cool. They deserve that thanks.
As someone acting “as if” while anxiously waiting for the test results of a member of my household my obsession with testing is even more jacked up.
This administration is only moronic when it serves their leader, and I believe it’s reasonable to conclude that the people around the president are being tested daily.
Every person on that stage today needs to be asked directly how often they are getting tested and the person doing the asking needs to be ready with the even more important follow up question. imho these should cover either the national security issues revolving around the president of the United States not being protected in situations where the virus can easily be transmitted or if the answer is they aren’t being tested or a solid wtf?
I ran across this earlier, be warned its from Brookings, from William Frey. It is a pretty insightful piece analyzing how the Covid spread into Republican enclaves is growing over time, and how it is changing the statistics of infection. His analysis tracks counties with high Covid infection rates >100 in 100,000.
The prevailing view is that most infections are in urban, blue communities of color. That isn’t the case with the most recent reported infections. https: //www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/04/22/as-covid-19-spreads-newly-affected-areas-look-much-different-than-previous-ones/
I’m seeing suggestions that tracking devices be put into shipments of masks, PPE, and other equipment, and that lot numbers be recorded on invoices for tracking purposes – because a lot of them seem to be paid for by states, counties, cities, and hospitals, and then they get hijacked by the feds.
Latest on Georgia, Kemp issues 20 rules for business opening, seems to me you might have to redesign certain businesses from scratch. Some of the twenty are obvious, like wash your hands and provide disinfectant, social distancing etc. Depending on the business, bowling alleys come to mind, preventing social gathering may be pretty difficult.
https://www.wjbf.com/news/georgia-news/georgia-governor-kemp-clarifies-which-businesses-can-engage-in-minimum-basic-operations/
Lysol and Clorox both issued press releases this morning with directions NOT to inject, ingest, or use their products for medicinal use. They don’t want any part of the White House’s liability after the presser yesterday.
Here is a transcript of the
F#CKING OBVIOUSLY
F#CKING INSANE
F#CKING DANGEROUS stream-of-consciousness comments
made last night by the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1253448500676898818
6:19 PM · Apr 23, 2020 [VIDEO]
https://twitter.com/Daniel_Lewis3/status/1253482576699969537
8:35 PM · Apr 23, 2020
I’ve been wondering since I saw this ridiculous light+disinfectant therapy bullshit whether Trump has had any specific reason to suggest these. Haven’t come up with any idea where he pulled the disinfectant nonsense from, though some stupidity on Fox News isn’t out of the question. He may have seen UVC used to disinfect surfaces and lacked the understanding that UVC will destroy human tissue just as it does pathogens.
But I wonder if he’s also been subjected to light therapy of another kind and we’re hearing his projection about it.
I was wondering if he understands that disinfectant =/= antiviral =/= antibiotic.
I think whatever comprehension he had in January 2017 has degraded. I doubt he has a consistent grasp on anything now — maybe he understands the difference first thing in the morning but after four hours of Fox News combined with his increasing cognitive deficit, I doubt he grasps it by noon.
A possible explanation
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/24/trump-wants-us-inject-bleach-he-must-have-odd-hydroxychloroquine/
OMG …
correction to transcript:
DOCTORS…not vouchers.
Have there been any sales or significant investment in UVC manufacturers lately?
Asking for a friend …
The Trump administration fired Bright because he resisted awarding $21 million to a Florida lab to study
See my comment upthread:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2020/04/22/brian-kemp-suggests-workers-at-nail-salons-dont-own-their-own-lives/#comment-839809
That’s so disturbing; famotidine just sounds off the wall, even more so than hydroxychloroquine. If the ileum is second in population of ACE2 receptors next to lung tissue, reducing stomach acid production may make the ileum more likely to be attacked by SARS-CoV-2 if it survives stomach acid.
I want to know who dreamed this bullshit up and what the approval chain looked like up to Bright’s desk. It’s just plain goofy.
Case study in why restaurants will be operating at way below capacity if at all, one diner infects 9 others at one meal.
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0764-f1
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0764_article
Case study in call center transmission. over 90 cases and only 4 were asymptomatic during study, and 4 went from asymptomatic to symptoms.
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/8/20-1274_article
Credit to above… https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/1251556084424347649
and https://twitter.com/DKThomp/status/1253763954310078464