South Dakota is one of a very few states that has refused to take steps to protect their citizens from the pandemic. The governor said it’s a rural state and doesn’t need extraordinary measures.
She was wrong. One of the nation’s largest meat processors is located in South Dakota and it is closing down because so many of its employees have the coronavirus. Smithfield employees account for half the coronavirus cases in the state.
The owner of the plant says that other plants are in the same trouble and warns of a threat to the nation’s food supply.
One of the country’s largest pork processing facilities is closing until further notice as employees fall ill with Covid-19. The closure puts the country’s meat supply at risk, said the CEO of Smithfield, which operates the plant.
“The closure of this facility, combined with a growing list of other protein plants that have shuttered across our industry, is pushing our country perilously close to the edge in terms of our meat supply,” the meat processor’s chief executive, Kenneth Sullivan, said in a statement Sunday.
“It is impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our plants are not running,” he said. “These facility closures will also have severe, perhaps disastrous, repercussions for many in the supply chain.”
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/12/business/meat-plant-closures-smithfield/index.html
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Memo to Smithfield CEO and Board: I will not ever consider buying your products until you, 1) correct your current malfeasance and unconditionally take care of your employees and, 2) honestly confess and publicize your past misinformation. Otherwise, I will celebrate your bankruptcy as I hope to support your employees who had nothing to do with your lies.
Greg, as you probably know, working in a meat processing plant is one of the dirtiest jobs imaginable. And low-wage.
The worst jobs in the country. Low pay, horrific conditions. And part of a system that is killing people and the planet. And both the Goerge Bush, Jr., and Trump administrations have changed regulations over such plants in ways that would put you off ever eating any meat again. I won’t go into the details, but they are pretty disgusting.
BTW, if you ever wondered whether plants supply enough protein, ask a gorilla. Or a cow.
Here’s hoping that someone sues these companies for funds to care for these workers.
Yes, Smithfield is notorious, opening the world’s largest hog slaughter plant in NCarolina with 5000 employees all of whom have to be replaced each year b/c the work is brutal. Smithfield even had to send job recruiters to urban areas to recruit new workers.
You can’t live on plants so easily in dry, cold places like much of Montana, where we get 12 inches of rain per year and have a short growing season. That’s why meat was the core of their diet for indigenous people here. Eat Local.
I buy organic meat from local ranchers or am given meat from hunters.
This is the argument that the Dalai Lama makes about Tibet. And it’s also the argument that is made by certain indigenous peoples who used to live off the land in places inhospitable to agriculture (made, for example, by the Inuit). There is merit in such arguments, though delivery of plant foods is as far away as Amazon/Whole Foods delivery or the local grocery store for almost all people in the U.S. today.
To connect this horror to the original expose, take a look at my biography of Upton Sinclair. Not only did he draw attention to the connection between working conditions and the food we eat, he wrote two books about corruption in education! My biography is published by University of Nevada (paperback, 2019).
A great man! And here is a link to Ms. Coodley’s biography of him: https://www.amazon.com/Upton-Sinclair-California-Socialist-Intellectual/dp/0803243820
This is one more example of the ‘greatness’ of Republicans who follow Trump’s “leadership”. I don’t eat beef or pork but if this food isn’t available, then they will eat chicken and then it will be difficult to obtain.
I wonder how many church goers had services yesterday? Many Megachurch people wanted to attend in person. Good for them. That is one way to have fewer Trump supporters in the future.
ONE check for $1200 is supposed to help people? I read that 18 million have lost their jobs and that many can’t apply for unemployment insurance because the system is overloaded. Free food is being given out but not enough and many go away with nothing.
What happens in the future when crops have been rotting because they haven’t been picked?
Trump is now saying that there are hospital beds available.Trump the magnificent needs to shut his mouth and let ONLY medical experts speak. This country has endured his denials and delays and now many are getting ill and dying from his lack of leadership. Disgusting.
“I read that 18 million have lost their jobs and that many can’t apply for unemployment insurance because the system is overloaded.”
There have been almost exactly 6.5 million new unemployment claims each of the last three weeks. It would be extraordinarily co-incidental if exactly 6.5 million people lost their job each week. What it presumably means is that the system can only handle about 6.5 million new unemployment claims per week. So we have no clue how many people have actually lost their jobs. Only the number of people who have been able to successfully file for unemployment.
Hah! Thanks for that insight, Dienne. Should be reported as __million were able to get through & file an uninsurance claim this week.”
It would be interesting to see the breakout by state. No doubt they vary by budget/ staffing, hoops to jump tho, computer platforms et al.
Bear in mind that the actual unemployment numbers are far higher than the reported number because undocumented workers don’t apply and are not counted. They were working in hotels, restaurants, as maids and nannies, and in the construction industry, meat processing industry, and in agriculture. They can’t be counted because they will
Be deported if identified. Meanwhile they have no income and no support.
Superb points, Dienne and Diane.
The Orange Menace never does anything wrong. Now, Dr. Fauci must be fired and Trump is blaming China, WHO, Obama, nation’s governors, Congress, Democrats and the news media.
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
·
11h
Sorry Fake News, it’s all on tape. I banned China long before people spoke up. Thank you
@OANN
…………………………..
Trump Lashes Out at Fauci Amid Criticism of Slow Virus Response
The president retweeted a post calling for the government’s top infectious disease specialist to be fired after the doctor acknowledged that shutting down the country earlier could have saved lives.
WASHINGTON — President Trump publicly signaled his frustration on Sunday with Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the federal government’s top infectious disease expert, after the doctor said more lives could have been saved from the coronavirus if the country had been shut down earlier.
Mr. Trump reposted a Twitter message that said “Time to #FireFauci” as he rejected criticism of his slow initial response to the pandemic that has now killed more than 22,000 people in the United States. The president privately has been irritated at times with Dr. Fauci, but the Twitter post was the most explicit he has been in letting that show publicly….
The tweet came amid a flurry of messages blasted out by the president on Sunday defending his handling of the coronavirus, which has come under sharp criticism, and pointing the finger instead at China, the World Health Organization, President Barack Obama, the nation’s governors, Congress, Democrats generally and the news media…
In reposting the message, Mr. Trump added: “Sorry Fake News, it’s all on tape. I banned China long before people spoke up.”
Mr. Trump did not “ban China,” but he did block foreign nationals who had been in China in the past 14 days from coming into the United States starting on Feb. 2. Despite the policy, 40,000 Americans and other authorized travelers have still come into the country from China since then…
A small chloroquine study in Brazil was halted over the risk of fatal heart complications. Coronavirus patients who started taking a higher dose of the drug being touted by Trump developed irregular heart rates that increased their risk of a potentially fatal arrhythmia. (NYT)
This medication can also hurt your eyes:
https://www.rxlist.com/plaquenil-side-effects-drug-center.htm#consumer
It never ends.
The names of businesses that receive billions in taxpayer money may never be disclosed.
“The $2.2 trillion Cares Act approved by Trump last month requires that the names of recipients of some forms of federal aid be published, but those requirements do not extend to significant portions of the relief. Chief among the omissions is the $349 billion expected to be doled out to small companies in chunks as large as $10 million. The rescue legislation does not compel the Small Business Administration to disclose the identity of the recipients. So far, the agency has said it received about 487,000 applications totaling $125 billion in requests,” Peter Whoriskey and Heather Long report.
“A potentially even larger gap involves the trillions going out to businesses under the auspices of the Federal Reserve. … Proponents of withholding the information argue that identifying coronavirus aid recipients could make firms hesitant to apply out of concerns for privacy, especially if they are small. … On the other hand, according to critics, if the names of the beneficiaries of the aid are withheld, it will be difficult to gauge how much of the relief money is being wasted, fraudulently obtained or reaching places it was intended to go, experts and watchdog groups say.”
This is a doublel-edged sword. I feel very bad for both the workers who have the virus and those who are losing their already low wage jobs. And, yes, there is concern for the nation’s food supply
However, Smithfield is notorious for animal abuse. They are one of the worst about packing their animals in such tight confines that they can’t even turn around or lay down. Female animals routinely trample their young and have great difficulty suckling them. No living creatures should be treated like that.
drumph has got to go. he truly is a national security risk and it’s getting worse.
drumph has lost the rest of his pea brain mind.
If there one thing that drumph can do and he does it well is …. LIE, LIE, LIE. How many lies has he spouted?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veracity_of_statements_by_Donald_Trump
How fortunate we are that Trump is NOW taking the situation seriously. HIs administration has provided SO MUCH specific assistance to doctors and other professionals. [BARF!] I would like a detailed report on what this assistance was. There were at least 40,000 people who came from China to the US after Trump ‘closed down’ the border. Trump keeps bragging about this marvelous feat that accomplished nothing of substance.
Here is ‘news’ from the WH:
“As we medical professionals brace for the influx of patients and make the necessary preparations, I am reassured by the seriousness with which President Donald Trump is taking the situation and by the specific assistance his administration has provided doctors and other professionals on the front line of this pandemic,” Robin Armstrong writes in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
I thought immediately of my rural upbringing. We frequently drove 15min or so to. a friend’s market, where the family sold pork products from animals raised on their farm and slaughtered/ butchered at their small onsite facilities. We always brought some to our grandparents on holidays. They lived in suburbs where they did no have access to such delicious meats. Those were the days.
Reading the full article between the lines, it seems there’s little immediate danger of meat shortage. Of more concern were notes on increasing issues with the food supply chain in general. Thoughts then wander to the decades-long decline in nearby family-run farms, which finally surfaced to mainstream consciousness via a few big ’80’s movies (just 40 yrs ago!). To what degree is our Big-Ag system– including global trade– necessary to feed our ever-increasing population?
If pandemic viral spread becomes more frequent, changes will be in order: back to the future. My grandmother used Depression-era methods [backyard garden/ canning/ root-cellar] even as a middle-aged suburbanite in the 1950’s. In the ’80’s I used to make a year’s worth of pesto when basil was in season & keep it in a jar under a layer of oil. Even today, the delights of apricot tart or peach melba or rhubarb pie can only be enjoyed in season… Fresh veggies in the cabbage family need be trucked only 350mis to feed hungry NY’rs in the dead of winter. We’ll need lots of little goat & sheep & pig farms to get around the cattle-pasturing issue– & a diet more like you see in Europe… In my rural ’50’s village, many folks with 3 or 4-acre lots raised a few head of whatever for extra income or own use– something I observed was still common in German towns of the 1970’s.
The extent that a few Big Ag companies (most significantly, Monsanto) control so much of our nation’s food supply should be truly harrowing, especially (a) the fact that seeds are patented and (b) standard meat-raising procedures such as packed confines and high antibiotic use. If we had a patchwork of small and medium farms, it would be easier to support those that are struggling, and it wouldn’t be catastrophic if a few of them went under. And, because of the variety of methods they’d be likely to use, it would be less likely that significant numbers would fail. Also, the fact that the farm hands might be more likely to be known by and cared for by the farm owners might encourage the owners to take precautions and use safer methods to protect their employees. Not to mention, smaller farmers have to work more directly with their animals and thereby come to care for them more and take better care of them.
But since so much of our land is controlled by so few corporate farm owners, it’s all capitalist/industrialist profits over people, too big to fail nonsense that could cause devastating effects nation- (and maybe world-)wide. Which would then leave us the unpalatable choice of bailing out these big companies at taxpayer expense or starving. Oh, who am I kidding? We’d bail out the big farm corporations and they still wouldn’t produce enough to feed us all because half of the bailout would go to executive bonuses. Heckuva job, Brownie!
Did you see FOOD INC.?
No, I haven’t. I’ll check it out. Thanks for something else to keep me busy while I’m on house arrest.
It might be online.
Two amazing documentaries:
FOOD INC.
GASLAND (shows the dangers of fracking)
And a tear jerker movie for dog lovers called “Hachi.” Bring tissues.
A cousin’s millennial daughter & husband raise some food animal on a little green-oriented family farm in VT, going to track her down on FB right now! Over the yrs in densely-populated central NJ I’ve come across slowfood networks & food coops near at hand [being close to Rutgers is a plus]. There’s a base to build from… The Monsanto thing is so creepy I’ve resisted researching it further, after getting an earful from nextdoor neighbor chemist/ backyard farmer a decade ago… Guess I’ll have to bite the bullet & watch FOOD INC.
One lesson we must learn from this crisis is the dangers of animal agriculture.
Confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, aka “factory farms” supply most of our meat today, but these are breeding grounds for the worst bacterial and viral pathogens, which TYPICALLY pass from wild animals to farmed animals to humans. This has been true of many varieties of flu, of SARS, of MERS, and of SARS-CV-2 (which passed from bats to animals sold, for eating, in wet markets).
We use in CAFOs well over half of the antibiotics we produce, and eating meat from those animals creates antibiotic resistance in humans and creates the conditions in the CAFOs for the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogens. Imagine a future with lots of bacterial diseases that cannot be treated by antibiotics–that’s the one CAFOs are creating.
After transportation, meat production is the single greatest contributor to greenhouse gases. So significant is the contribution that if people switched to eating mostly plant-based foods, we could meet our worldwide carbon emission reduction goals.
Since 1975, the average vertebrate wildlife species has been reduced in population by 58 percent, according the the UN Council on Biodiversity, which publishes an annual report about this. The major culprits there are loss of habitat, agricultural pesticides, and nitrogen run-off from artificial fertilizers, all due to animal agriculture.
70 percent of our agricultural land is used to grow feed crops for farmed animals. When we eat those animals instead of eating the crops directly, 90 percent of the calories are lost (they went into the life processes of the animal), which is like leaving your tap running all the time so you can occasionally stop by and wash your hands. If we switched to eating mostly plants, we could return 63 percent of the agricultural land we use to wild habitat while producing the same amount of calories.
Most of the diseases of affluence (cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, diabetes, high blood pressure) that plague people in wealthy countries like the U.S. are directly attributable to high levels of meat consumption.
Animal agriculture is inhumane and extraordinarily costly and horrific for the environment and for people’s health. We cannot continue to ignore these facts. Eating other animals is NOT sustainable, and stopping eating them is the single most important thing that you can do for the environment.
Most traditional societies have a couple of staple plant foods that, in combination, supply all the essential amino acids (ones that the body cannot itself create), and amino acids are, ofc, the building blocks of proteins. A balanced diet of plant foods is sufficient, according to the American Society of Dieticians, to supply one’s protein needs, provided one supplements with B12.
And, btw, the fern Azolla filiculoides and various other plants fix nitrogen and can be used in agriculture in lieu of artificial nitrogen-supplying fertilizers, which run off into waterways and feed algae and bacteria that deplete oxygen in the water and cause massive die-offs of fish and other creatures.
I’m NOT trying to sow anti Asian sentiment here, but wasn’t Smithfield purchased by a large Chinese corporation several years ago (but to be US managed)? Wasn’t there a blog post on here about an automotive (or air conditioning parts) parts company that was Chinese purchased and was hiring/firing unfairly and over working it’s employees? Do we see an emergence of a problem here? The Chinese (and S Korea) treat their citizens as working chattel so that they will have robust economies. We have allowed the US to be bought out by foreign influence and trade and there is very little we can do now to bring it back to local ….or to now keep Unions safe and viable entities for workers’ rights. Union busting at the international level.
See the documentary FOOD INC., which shows the horrible practices of agribusiness.
I was especially appalled to see the disgusting working conditions in chicken processing plants.
Blood and guts and dead chickens everywhere. Unhygienic.
See this and it will make you vegan, at least for a while.
Or buy organic, free-range.
See my note, below, about broiler hens. But one can write a similar piece about almost any group of farmed animals today.
On second thought, I did not share that passage. Too disgusting for this blog.
I’ll share one detail that catches the general “flavor.” In a typical broiler hen slaughter operation, the end of the automated slaughter line is a bath in chlorinated water that, given the vicissitudes of the contact of automated machinery with flesh, is full of viscera and fecal matter. Thus the chlorine, to kill bacteria. Chicken flesh is highly absorbent, so it soaks up this water. The George Bush, Jr. administration, I believe it was, changed the regs to increase the amount of time that the chicken can stay in the chlorinated fecal soup, thus adding poundage in the finished product. This single change was very, very valuable to the poultry industry, as it automatically added enormous value because the product is sold by the pound. If you’ve ever wondered why that chicken in the market looks a little grey. . . .
Yes it is Chinese owned, along with Farmland Brands.
University of Chicago Medicine begins study of plasma treatment for COVID-19
15 min ago
University of Chicago Medicine is seeking people who have recovered from COVID-19 to donate blood plasma for a clinical trial studying whether the plasma can be used to treat hospital patients with severe symptoms of the disease.
Dr. Maria Lucia Madariaga, a general thoracic and lung transplant surgeon at UChicago Medicine, said the study would involve the type of convalescent plasma therapy that has been used for diseases ranging from measles to influenza, SARS and MERS. She said the University of Chicago is well-positioned to perform the study, with its Biological Sciences Division, Blood Bank, Department of Medicine, Transplant Institute and Department of Surgery participating.
“We are really fortunate at UChicago Medicine we have all the players to get this project started and keep it running under one roof,” Madariaga said during an online news conference Monday. She said the hospital began reviewing potential donors Friday, and has scheduled several donations for this week.
The initial study, which will include 10 patients, will investigate the safety and feasibility of procedures for identifying donors, collecting plasma donations and administering transfusions, according to the study’s leaders. Additional trials would further determine its effectiveness…
https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/university-of-chicago-medicine-begins-study-of-plasma-treatment-for-covid-19/article_6855216a-f07b-562b-a466-a0a12b351378.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=email&utm_campaign=user-share
Without much more testing, we are all in the dark about who has had COVID, who has it now, who has it but is asymptomatic, who has not.
This is where we need some leadership from our government. People are without food and farmers are wasting what they grew.
………………………………
Dumped Milk, Smashed Eggs, Plowed Vegetables: Food Waste of the Pandemic
With restaurants, hotels and schools closed, many of the nation’s largest farms are destroying millions of pounds of fresh goods that they can no longer sell.
April 11, 2020
In Wisconsin and Ohio, farmers are dumping thousands of gallons of fresh milk into lagoons and manure pits. An Idaho farmer has dug huge ditches to bury 1 million pounds of onions. And in South Florida, a region that supplies much of the Eastern half of the United States with produce, tractors are crisscrossing bean and cabbage fields, plowing perfectly ripe vegetables back into the soil.
After weeks of concern about shortages in grocery stores and mad scrambles to find the last box of pasta or toilet paper roll, many of the nation’s largest farms are struggling with another ghastly effect of the pandemic. They are being forced to destroy tens of millions of pounds of fresh food that they can no longer sell.
The closing of restaurants, hotels and schools has left some farmers with no buyers for more than half their crops. And even as retailers see spikes in food sales to Americans who are now eating nearly every meal at home, the increases are not enough to absorb all of the perishable food that was planted weeks ago and intended for schools and businesses.
The amount of waste is staggering. The nation’s largest dairy cooperative, Dairy Farmers of America, estimates that farmers are dumping as many as 3.7 million gallons of milk each day. A single chicken processor is smashing 750,000 unhatched eggs every week…
This is mindbogglng. People are not eating less food, they are simply eating less of it at restaurants, etc. and more at home. These farmers can’t sell to grocery stores instead? Or at the very least, donate to food pantries and shelters?
Incidentally, I’m finding it hard to believe that schools are requiring that much less food. In some places like New York, they may be requiring more. Nearly every school district is continuing to provide free lunch (and usually breakfast) for all children of the community (including private and homeschool kids whom they weren’t previously serving) and some districts are serving all comers, including adults.
At Christmas time I was discussing with one of my hippie nephews about how the vegan crowd uses vinyl (plastics) for shoes and belts etc. I thought vegans should use leather products from the meat industry instead of polluting the environment to make plastic. I was schooled……the meat industry will not use or sell the hides to make clothing as it is a competing business. There is a whole separate animal industry for leather/suede production and they won’t compete with the food industry. That is just insane to me. It wasn’t that long ago that if an animal was used for food, that ALL of it’s parts were used for useful purposes….hide, bones, intestine etc….
Wow, I didn’t know that either. It was said of the Chicago Stockyards (certainly no model of Green), that they used every part of the pig except the squeal. It figures that capitalism has changed all that, although it certainly seems that the food people and the clothing people would both be money ahead sharing the same animals.
This nephew sells leather goods at festivals. This is the reason that all of the belts, pocketbooks and other leather items are shipped to the US from China and other Asian countries where…. they don’t have this type of nonsense of competition from other similar businesses. It’s just stupid to have this kind of waste.
In 2018, the US imported 117.8 million dollars worth of personal leather goods from India, of all places, despite that country’s traditional reverence for cattle. Tanning, there, is often done by child laborers standing in the tanning chemicals. You can imagine the consequences.
Trump the Magnificent is Tweeting:
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
For the purpose of creating conflict and confusion,
some in the Fake News Media are saying that it is the
Governors decision to open up the states, not that of
the President of the United States & the Federal
Government. Let it be fully understood that this is
incorrect….
10:53 AM – Apr 13, 2020
Good lord, look at the testosterone flowing. We’ve got Cuomo bullying DeBlasio, and now Trump is going to out macho him.
This really should be a local decision, ideally collaborating with other local communities and state officials. The conditions on the ground in Sweetwater Station, Wyoming are vastly different than New York City, New York. Communities need to do what they feel is best to balance the local threat of disease spread against the threat of economic collapse and other factors.
Agreed.
Incidentally, there were several states still open even after Trump issued his stay at home order through April 30. I don’t recall him forcing those states to close. I certainly don’t see how he has the authority to order any state to open.
Incidentally, as FLERP! has pointed out, what is routinely missing from these pissing contests, is what the purpose of this shutdown is and how will we know if we have achieved our goal. If we’re only trying to “flatten the curve”, it looks like the curve is flattening, so maybe in a couple more weeks it will be time to restart the economy before any more jobs and businesses are lost. Or at least we need to be talking about how long the curve needs to be flat.
Or are we trying to get to a point of no further new cases (which will likely never happen)? Or are we waiting for a vaccine/treatment (which is at least a year, more likely 2 years away)? In which case, what is the plan for keeping people housed, fed, medically cared for, etc. as the economy completely tanks and federal bailouts go to big corporations and executives? What’s the plan for staving off mass rebellion and bloodshed?
Or are we aiming for something in between, in which case what, how will we know and who decides?
dienne77: “In which case, what is the plan for keeping people housed, fed, medically cared for, etc. as the economy completely tanks and federal bailouts go to big corporations and executives?”
This is what I’m worried about. The current administration is only thinking about helping big businesses and possibly some smaller businesses. Many people are now struggling to survive….lack of food, no money for rent, no decent healthcare, no jobs, etc. What is going to happen?
$1200 won’t last very long and where are the members of Congress who care?
The good news, relatively speaking, is that governors of the worst-hit states are starting to talk about how to restart their economy. We’ll see what they come up with. But it appears they’ve realized that the public cannot bear the economic consequences of indefinite shutdowns.
The Chicago Tribune has a Q&A about who has authority for opening and closing states. I’ve reached my quota of free articles, but the headline indicates that states have most of the authority: https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-nw-coronavirus-states-shut-down-reopen-20200413-rtgy452hqjbxdkhr6tkr4cx5dm-story.html
dienne77: Trump left it up to states to determine when schools would close, when to lock down, when to wear masks but now Trump decides that he is now in charge.
Where is he now that states have to bargain against each other for a scarcity of needed medical supplies? Where is he when farmers’ produce is being thrown away while people are starving? Where is he when medical experts disagree with his false statements? Where is he when people are struggling to survive? Where is he when people are worrying and he has no real compassion or soothing words?
He is no leader.
Trump lacks the capacity for compassion or empathy. Accept it. He can’t change. He is a malignant narcissist.
I just watched something on TV and Trump was talking about his “friend” who recently died from Covid 19. No compassion, no sadness….just some cold, hard statements that this man wasn’t a person in good health. He was a good business man, but he didn’t take care of himself. IQ 45 has no heart…..he’s the Tin Man and needs to go to Oz for a heart.
Fraud and favoritism sounds like Trump is once again winning.
………………………………
The names of businesses that collectively will receive hundreds of billions of dollars in stimulus funds may not be disclosed publicly, which critics say could lead to fraud and favoritism.
Chomsky does not have good words about Trump.
…………………………..
Noam Chomsky: Coronavirus – What is at stake? | DiEM25 TV
Premiered Mar 28, 2020
wisdom, sorely needed now
Good grief. She is listening to Trump on medications and is a fan of Jared. Such brilliance.
………………………………………………………………..
The South Dakota Medical Association sent Noem a letterlast week asking her to issue a stay-at-home order but there’s no indication she has any plans to reverse course.
South Dakota’s governor resisted ordering people to stay home. Now it has one of the nation’s largest coronavirus hot spots
…But now South Dakota is home to one of the largest single coronavirus clusters anywhere in the United States, with more than 300 workers at a giant pork-processing plant falling ill. With the case numbers continuing to spike, the company was forced to announce the indefinite closure of the facility Sunday, threatening the U.S. food supply.
Increasingly exasperated local leaders, public health experts and front-line medical workers begged Noem to intervene Monday with a more aggressive state response.
“A shelter-in-place order is needed now. It is needed today,” said Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken, whose city is at the center of South Dakota’s outbreak and who has had to improvise with voluntary recommendations in the absence of statewide action.
But the governor continued to resist. Instead, she used a media briefing Monday to announce trials of a drug that President Trump has repeatedly touted as a potential breakthrough in the fight against the coronavirus, despite a lack of scientific evidence.
“It’s an exciting day,” she boasted, repeatedly citing her conversations with presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/south-dakotas-governor-resisted-ordering-people-to-stay-home-now-it-has-one-of-the-nations-largest-coronavirus-hot-spots/2020/04/13/5cff90fe-7daf-11ea-a3ee-13e1ae0a3571_story.html
NYT:
If hydroxychloroquine becomes an accepted treatment, several pharmaceutical companies stand to profit, including shareholders and senior executives with connections to the president. Mr. Trump himself has a small personal financial interest in Sanofi, the French drugmaker that makes Plaquenil, the brand-name version of hydroxychloroquine.
Carol,
It would not be the first time he has benefited financially directly from his position. The Trump family has a money-seeking gene. They believe they are above the law. As Trump Said yesterday in his news briefing, his power as president is “Absolute.” He thinks he is King Louis XIV or Henry the 8th.
He is becoming really unhinged. When will it become a “Lonesome Rhode’s” moment?