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Covid-19 Coverage

• “As COVID-19 hospitalizations in the US approach the highest levels seen in the pandemic so far, national efforts to track patients and hospital resources remain in shambles after the federal government abruptly seized control of data collection earlier this month.”

Medicyical note: Incompetence at every level of the executive branch. If Trump involves himself you can be sure the outcome will be incoherent, dishonest and self-serving. Over 150,000 dead.

“The current U.S. outbreak is especially stark when compared to other large, high-income countries. All have few cases today compared to the United States.”

Medicynical note: Trumps ignorance has been on parade for months. His refused to listen to and follow informed medical advice. He actively undermined informed medical policy. He proudly hired and promoted the unqualified. Meanwhile people who should have known better in the Republican Party showed sheep-like obeisance as this stupid man undermined American democracy in four short years. And it’s sad to me that the best the other side can do is a geriatric placeholder who without question will be an improvement but who also does not inspire great confidence in the future.

Were the ideals of the postwar generation and after a mirage? I’m beginning to think so.

“But their ultimate goal was to shift responsibility for leading the fight against the pandemic from the White House to the states. They referred to this as “state authority handoff,” and it was at the heart of what would become at once a catastrophic policy blunder and an attempt to escape blame for a crisis that had engulfed the country — perhaps one of the greatest failures of presidential leadership in generations.” (emphasis Medicynic)

It’s worse then that because after the “handoff” the president and his feckless vice president actively undermined the states’ public health messages.  Think of that our government at war with………itself.

Medicynical note:  Trump’s instinct is to first engage in magical thinking and when that doesn’t work blame somebody, anybody at all, else.  His scapegoats so far are an honor roll of competent people and organizations who were right. 

Trump’s campaign slogan should rightfully include “the worst ever.”

Ignored experts.  Crippled the CDC.  Politicians in charge of pandemic response.  What in the world could possibly happen?

“President Trump and his top aides decided to shift primary responsibility for the coronavirus response to the states during a critical period of weeks in mid-April, eagerly seizing on overly optimistic predictions that the pandemic was fading so the president could reopen the economy and focus on his re-election, a Times investigation found.”

“The investigation revealed that key decisions about the handling of the virus during that crucial period were made not by the better known coronavirus task force, but by a small group of White House aides who convened each morning in the office of Mark Meadows, the president’s chief of staff.”

“One of their goals: to justify declaring victory in the fight against the virus. In that effort they frequently sought validation from Dr. Deborah L. Birx, a highly regarded infectious diseases expert, who was the chief evangelist in the West Wing for the idea that infections had peaked and the virus was fading quickly.”

Medicynical Note:  With the best experts in the world at his disposal what does Trump do?  He ignores warnings from the previous administration. He stops funding the pandemic response team.  He cuts funding to the CDC and WHO.  He ignores the advice of international experts and our own U.S. based experienced epidemiologists and scientists.  He engages in magic thinking–it will go away like a miracle.  And wouldn’t you know he selects the least competent to provide advice–Jared, Navarro, Azar and yes Birx (to be clear Birx is probably a competent self-promoting medical bureaucrat but appears by all the information available to be an incompetent inexperienced epidemiologist).

Bad choices and the worst results in the industrialized world.  Trump’s confederacy of dunces.

“In particular, he condemns the decision by Raoult’s team to exclude from the study’s final results six patients who took hydroxychloroquine, including four whose condition worsened, one of whom eventually died during the study period (none in the control group died). There were also other inconsistencies, such as supplemental material mentioning that a number of asymptomatic patients were included for study while the study’s actual language claimed that it was an examination of hospitalized patients (people without symptoms are unlikely to have been hospitalized for covid-19).”

Medicynical note: Trump’s favorite study was crap……..how fitting.

“Late last month, Carsyn Leigh Davis turned 17 in an intensive care unit bed in Naples, Florida. Two days later, at 1:06 p.m. on June 23, she died at a children’s hospital across the state, in Miami, where she’d been transferred for last-ditch “heroic efforts” at saving her life. She was the latest of 3,281 deaths in the state from Covid-19 at the time; as I write this, less than two weeks later, the toll is now 3,841.”

Medicynical note: Over 130,000 have died, with several hundred more dying each day. Our president is out playing golf or over-ruling his experts. The U.S. is like no other place, ignorance rules and money wins…..

“Since at least February, and possibly as early as March 2019, the United States has had compelling intelligence that a committed adversary, Russia, paid bounties to Taliban-linked fighters to kill American troops in Afghanistan. American service members were reportedly killed as a result.”

“To this day, the president of the United States has done nothing about it.”

Medicynical note: How do you excuse such incompetence. First you deny that there were ever reports on Russian targeting of U.S. servicemen in Afghanistan. If that fails you maintain that if there were reports all of the responsible parties in government didn’t see them or weren’t briefed on them. And then when it turns out they were printed in presidential briefing materials, you say they were never fully proven……all this while the President promoted Russian interests several times…….over U.S. interests. Is this incompetence, Or treason?

Trump’s election strategy relies on non-stop, repetitive, redundant, obvious, grotesque, blatant lying. It worked before, why stop now.

“Mike Pence is the guy you’d want in your foxhole. You might be out of ammo, bleeding profusely and about to be run over by a tank, but the hard-praying vice-president would assure you that total victory is assured and it will all be over by Christmas.”

“The Baghdad Bob of Washington was on top form on Friday, reassuring an anguished nation that up is down, square is round and an all-time high of daily coronavirus infections is proof positive that America has flattened the curve.”

Medicynical note: States that took few if any precautions and then prematurely stopped even doing the minimum are dealing with the massive spread of the COVID-19 infections. Their patients with serious infections are increasing dramatically increasing hospital ICU use to capacity.

Yet Pence is unimpressed. In his Pence/Trumpian dream-like narcotized state he calls the explosions of ICU cases a statistical anomaly from increased testing. As death rates increase, despite better treatments, he makes the argument that Trump has handled the epidemic……you guessed it,…….purrfectly.

The nearly 130,000 dead, are piously prayed for and “honored,” with little regard for the thousands more coming. We’re in a Twilight Zone of sorts where more illness and deaths are good signs and precautions and prevention are signs of weakness. That’s the Trump/Pence delusion.

Each day another insult to our intelligence.

“In 1980 the federal deficit was soaring and Ronald Reagan campaigned on a singular promise: He planned to cut taxes on everyone, but especially the rich. He insisted that those benefits would quickly trickle down to everyone and supercharge the economy. Throw in some social safety net cuts, Republicans said, and the whole plan would pay for itself.“

“They were wrong. The rich got lower taxes all right, but the economy flatlined and the deficit skyrocketed. I should know: I graduated from college the same summer the tax cut passed, and I spent the next three years managing a Radio Shack waiting for the economy to get back on its feet. In 1982 Reagan was forced to raise taxes to make up for his cuts, and he continued raising them throughout his presidency.“

Medicynical note: Trump’s dead end. If re-elected it will only get worse. We can expect cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. We can expect millions more uninsured with the demise of the Affordable Care Act. And so on. We’ve become an autocracy with wealthy supporters buying their way into government contracts. A corruptocracy…….Trumpism. Vote.