Dr. Anthony Fauci hems and haws as he dances around the question of whether to open schools. He is trying his best not to anger the touchy Trump, not to provoke an angry tweet. He is worried about the death threats that follow when he takes issue with Trump’s bombast. He thinks children should be in school, except when they shouldn’t be. He has become the Delphic Oracle of COVID-19. Interpret his responses as you wish.
From an article in the Washington Post:
POWER UP’S FAUCI INTERVIEW: The nation’s top infectious-disease expert wants kids to be able to return to school under certain conditions, even though the novel coronavirus is worsening in many states across the country.
In an interview with Power Up, Anthony S. Fauci cautiously supported the Trump administration’s push to reopen elementary and secondary schools — and in some cases, college campuses — this fall.
But he leavened his advice by explaining sending kids back into classrooms depends on how bad the virus is in various places. • “The default principle should be to try as best you can to get the children back to school,” Fauci told us. “The big, however, and qualifier in there is that you have to have a degree of flexibility. The flexibility means if you look at the map of our country, we are not unidimensional with regard to the level of infection.” •
“The bottom line is everybody should try within the context of the level of infection that you have to get the kids back to school, but the primary consideration … should be the safety, health and the welfare of the children, as well as the teachers and the potential secondary effects on parents and family members,” he added.
Fauci explained the need to protect the psychological and physical well being of children — especially those “who rely heavily on school for proper nutrition” — and to prevent a “negative downstream ripple effect” of parents being overburdened if schools remain shuttered.
“As you know, there are some sections of the country — where the infection is really quite well controlled and there are others in which it’s smoldering a little and there are others in which we’re clearly having a surging of infection,” Fauci added.
Here’s what the doctor recommends:
• States with minimal virus: “So if you’re in one of those areas, generally referred to as the green states … with some overlap with others and generally, you can get back to school with the kinds of precautions that you do in general society,” he said.
• States with “smoldering infections”: “You might want to tighten that up a bit and do things like, you know, the hybrid models where you have part online, part in person,” he said.
•States with high infections: In consultation with local authorities, and the Centers for Disease Control, “they may want to pause before they start sending the kids back to school for a variety of reasons.”
Outdoor learning: “I’ve spoken to superintendents and principals, and recommend if possible, outdoors, better than indoors. If possible, keep the classrooms well ventilated with the windows open if possible, wearing a mask, physical separation, desks that are put further apart, if you could possibly, physically do that,” Fauci said.
Fauci’s analysis of the virus — and how it influences school openings — is a far cry from his boss’s recent forecasts. President Trump continues to maintain the novel coronavirus that has killed at least 156,000 Americans will just “go away.”
And though there’s still no national testing strategy, he continues to push for school reopenings — though it isn’t ultimately up to the president whether they do so. His Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has also downplayed the risks of the virus among children, falsely claiming children are “stoppers” of the virus. [Ed. note: they’re not.]
The school showdown comes as the academic year is already starting in some states, and infections are being discovered.
• In Corinth, Miss., for example, after six students and one staff member were infected, 116 students were sent home to quarantine. Few were spotted wearing masks in Dallas, Ga., after a photo of a packed hallway at North Paulding High School went viral, where masks are not required but strongly encouraged.
Most American parents think it is unsafe to send their children back to school, according to a Washington Post-Schar School survey conducted by Ipsos released on Thursday, with over 80 percent of parents preferring to resume school at “least partly online.”
Fauci also weighed in on the other big issue facing Americans this fall – whether it’s safe to physically go to voting booths in November. The doctor, who Trump has sidelined in recent months because of conflicting opinions and a more popular public profile, said Americans could go to voting booths if they’re careful. • “Universal wearing of a mask, maintain physical distance of at least six feet, avoid crowds, outdoors better than indoors. And then if the other is avoid situations like going to bars and places where you know infection is spread pretty easily,” said Fauci.
When pressed on whether he’d recommend mail voting as safer during a pandemic, Fauci declined to answer “because that almost certainly is going to be used as a soundbite.”
“It’s a sport now in Washington to pit me against the president and I don’t really want to do that,” Fauci said. “But someone will take a quote and bingo, it’ll be me against the president and I don’t want to do that,” Fauci explained.
Trump has repeatedly, and baselessly, bashed mail-in voting as fraudulent as many states ramp up their mail voting systems to provide options for those people who prefer not to physically go to to the polls due to the coronavirus. Fauci said polling places should operate like grocery stores and shops. • “
We see a big X and then six feet away is another big X speed away is another big X,” Fauci told Power Up. “I don’t see any reason why, if people maintain that type of physical distancing, wearing a mask and washing hands – why you cannot, at least where I vote, go to a place and vote.”
Plead the fifth: Fauci also declined to respond to calls for Congress to implement rapid covid-19 testing on Capitol Hill. The doctor’s reticence to answer questions that could be perceived as political highlights the fraught relationship between the president and his team of medical experts.
Fauci, who has received death threats against him and his family, says he is shocked by the polarized response to public health guidance during the pandemic.
“Of all the outbreaks that I’ve been involved with way back from the day of, of HIV and Ebola, Zika, pandemic, flu, and anthrax — there’s always a little bit of people that might push back on a message, but it was never with threats against you and your family, your wife, and my daughters,” said Fauci. “I mean, harassing my daughters? Wow. No, I never would have ever imagined that.” •
“It’s a highly divisive situation,” he added. “But as long as I’m able to go out there and give the kinds of messages that I’ve been giving, I don’t feel constrained because I give a message to the public about what they need to do … I think that we might be able to prevent people from acquiring infection if they listened to my public health message and I could do that effectively without getting into the political divisiveness.”
Fauci’s longtime friend and colleague, Deborah Birx, has also recently been on the receiving end of Trump’s attacks after months of favor. Trump this week went after his White House coronavirus task force coordinator for last weekend describing the virus as “extraordinarily widespread” across the nation.
Birx is drawing criticism from old allies who blame her for being too close to Trump and helping to mismanage the virus. In our interview, Fauci signaled support for Birx and endorsed her recent recommendation to wear masks at home — “it should be seriously considered” — to limit the spread, especially if people live with someone who is older or has preexisting medical conditions.
“What we’re seeing, as Dr. Birx described, is that we’ve had a flare and a surge in certain Southern states, which thankfully, in several of them we’re starting to turn the corner and come down,” Fauci told us.
I am fully supportive of my colleague, Dr. Birx. I have been a colleague and a friend for over three decades. And that hasn’t changed one bit. She’s a very talented person and she’s an extremely hard worker and I support her fully.”
The problem with using state boundaries as the arbitration for whether to open or close society is that we need to pin down the virus to its precise geography. Since virus citizens do not respect political lines drawn on a map, I suggest we build a wall, a beautiful wall, and make the Covid pay for it.
Clever, Roy, very clever. You made me laugh on a day I haven’t been laughing enough. Thanks.
I think a memoir from Fauci in about 5 years will be fascinating. His diplomatic ability is certainly an interesting thing, highlighting the divisiveness we see in the nation today. The interesting thing is that the left of center was bemoaning the divisiveness for years while the right of center was blaming Obama for the worsening condition. Now the left has given up and pushing back. Where will all of this go?
The first thing I think we can agree on is that it doesn’t help, as we seek the least-bad courses of action, either to minimize the risks or to exaggerate them.
Complacency — like Trump’s — has proven disastrous.
But neither is it helpful to exaggerate the risks.
In tweet after tweet, the head of the teachers union is leads with “risking the lives of children.” What parent can think rationally in the face of such an awful threat? Yet the head of the CDC says that the risk of a school-age kid losing his or her life to COVIS is one in a million. Even that one is, of course, one too many. But it’s far lower than the (still extremely low) risk of kids dying of the ordinary flu . . . a risk we’ve always just lived with, because we had to. (What were we going to do: shut down all the schools?)
As concerned as parents should be for themselves — and for school staff and grocery clerks and UPS drivers and anyone else who leaves the house — at least they should be comforted that the risk of losing their kids is “one in a million.” As I’ve suggested before, that’s good news that no one, regardless of political leanings, should feel compelled to reject.
Still, it leaves two big questions.
The first I am not remotely competent to answer: what if, a year or ten or thirty from now, kids who were seemingly unharmed by contracting COVID turn out to suffer some long-term damage? Certainly something to worry about. But so is the enormous damage to kids not going to school — especially kids from low-income families.
The second is the risk of infecting vulnerable adults, spreading a virus that’s already out of control in many parts of the country.
That risk argues for thinking differently in places like New York, that at least for now have low rates of infection, versus places where the numbers are much worse.
Several of you sent me the New York Times piece headlined, “When Covid Subsided, Israel Reopened Its Schools. It Didn’t Go Well.” And for sure there are some good lessons to be learned from their experience (ventilation!). But only when you get to the end of a very long article do you encounter this:
But Israel is plunging ahead. Only one option has been ruled out: closing the schools.
I think it’s fair to say that Israelis care about their kids. And that they’re pretty smart about a lot of things. So while the headline suggests we shouldn’t reopen our schools, based on their experience, that’s not the conclusion they’ve drawn.
I think that’s worth noting, as we struggle to find the least-bad way forward.
(Also worth noting, from the U.K.: No known case of teacher catching coronavirus from pupils, says scientist. There have definitely been staff deaths here in the U.S., but few — and few still among staff without comorbidities. And I’m not sure we know that even those tragic infections came from the kids.)
Yes, vulnerable staff should be paid to work from home until going to work is safe. For sure! But it’s not clear to me that healthy young staff are anything but “essential” workers with a crucial role to play.
Yes, vulnerable parents should have the option to keep their kids home, if they deem it necessary.
Yes, older kids should wear masks, and windows should be kept open, and smart teachers and administrators should come up with other risk-mitigating strategies, like “pods.”
But I think that’s what the discussion should be about: the kids are not at risk . . . what are the smartest ways to mitigate the risk to vulnerable adults?
Lots more to say, but let me end with something that can’t be said often enough:
We never should have been forced to make these tough trade-offs in the first place. A competent administration would never have pulled back the forward-deployed CDC teams designed to “fight diseases there, so we don’t have to fight them here” — or ignored more than a dozen urgent warnings.
The idea that anyone would vote not to fire the incompetents who let this happen simply staggers me.
From Andrew Tobias
No, kids are very effective transmitters of the infection: https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2020/07/31/new-evidence-suggests-young-children-spread-covid-19-more-efficiently-than-adults/#28c6fd6719fd
The idea that anyone would vote not to fire the incompetents who let this happen simply staggers me.
Agreed.
The population of NY is 19 million . Why it is nothing short of a miracle that NY has managed to bring its case rate down to 702 new cases as of August 6th. The actual undetected infections at least 35% higher.. So the miracle in NY infects a thousand a day . Infects them with a virus that short of extreme public health capability and or measures goes from a few infections to 10s of thousands in weeks.
Germany a nation who seemingly has controlled the virus a nation with 83 million people. Germany hit the Panic button over a week ago when they had 684 new infections on July 28th . On August 6th they had 1045 new cases.
NY no longer looks so good .
Joel, thanks for this heads-up. I found this Reuters story showing how seriously Germany takes this rise in new cases. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-germany-cases/germanys-confirmed-coronavirus-cases-rise-by-1045-to-213067-rki-idUSKCN252074 You don’t even need the 1.35 multiplier to see that Germany has 4-1/3X NYS population– & cracks down w/ immediate policy response when their #new cases is a mere 1.5X NYS’ # new cases. “NY no longer looks so good” is right. I wish the graphs at J Hopkins [– the ones showing NYS among the lowest 5 viral-spread states–] plotted the world’s countries right in there with our 50 states.
What is the basis of “The actual undetected infections at least 35% higher”? Is that a NYS estimate, or a national average? (Do we know that doesn’t also apply to Germany?)
bethree5
35% to 50% are asymptomatic . So that’s a tough call. How likely are people to get tested if they show no symptoms. I imagine this is the results of positive tests in people who have been tested but have no symptoms . The unknown is how many symptom-less people never get tested.
So much of what you say seems to be behind the eight-ball on scientific info. Bob has already pointed out the falsity that kids are not vectors. Check out GA sleep-away camp CDC report. Kids may get less severe symptoms, but the initial reports that they seemed not to spread it were skewed by the fact that studies were done while they were at home & had very limited social contacts. Most studies noted that as a caveat. The few that claimed zero child-to-adult spread were conducted in countries that had virtually zero community spread.
This struck me as false: “but it’s not clear to me that healthy young staff are anything but essential workers with a crucial role to play.” If you mean 20-somethings, “healthy young” people in my relatively-safe state [NJ] have been bumping up town/ county community spread throughout July w/their indoor parties and crowded shore gatherings. The last people we want running in-person classes, infecting kids who spread it to other school staff & parents/ grandparents/ from there to community. If you mean 37-42yo’s, check out recent JAMA study where 78 of 100 infected, despite mild-to-asymptomatic, had heart involvement during recovery; 60 of those had ongoing heart inflammation.
You take the conclusion of the NYT piece on Israel out of context. That statement follows many paras on how Israel plans to “forge ahead” on “reopening schools” by in fact sharply limiting the # of kids gathered, alternating age groups present & remote-educating others, forming pods & using distancing & PPE for the few that are gathered (none of which happened in May).
And there’s another aspect to the fiasco in Israel [infection rate increased by a factor of 56 in 6 wks] that needs to be noted– a parallel to what many red states are embarking on now, despite Israel’s example. Israel [like many S/SW states] had already opened indoor-dining, gyms, et-al close-contact activities, thus setting the stage for sudden ramp-up of community spread. In their case, they immediately added school reopening to the mix, so got a ballooning of viral spread. Our S/SW states seem to be doing this in two stages–1st stage has already tripled their infection rate. Odds are stage 2 [fully reopening schools] will bring them abreast w/Israel’s record of 5-fold increase.
(Responding to Robert Ruderman)
“But neither is it helpful to exaggerate the risks.” Nor is it helpful to minimize the risks or belittle those who will not by using words like “exaggerate.”
I’ll listen to real scientists. First, look up the word “uncertainty” to understand what every reputable scientist has been saying since day one of knowledge of the virus. Second, understand the importance of testing and what needs to be done as described in this article…by scientists, not ignorant members of the peanut gallery:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/radical-shift-testing-strategy-needed-reopen-schools-and-businesses-researchers-say?utm_campaign=news_weekly_2020-08-07&et_rid=295352711&et_cid=3439103
Fauci also had a long conversation with Randi about opening school. He said states with low infection rates can open with strict precautions. States with higher infection rates should consider alternatives to reopening.
While he did not say teachers should wear full PPP gear, he recommended masks, gloves and eye protection. They should either wear a gown that can be discarded or clothing that can be washed daily Lots of doctors and nurses undress in the garage before entering their homes where they head to the shower. Here’s a summary of the interview. https://www.aft.org/news/dr-anthony-fauci-calls-safety-paramount-reopening-schools
This is the only way left to us– having labor & industrial orgs use Fauci’s expertise directly theough consultation, then publishing the results. Trump & clone-car have crippled his or any other prominent epidemiologist’s ability to communicate unadulterated public health info to public at large via govt. Joel’s example above showing Germany’s immediate policy response to rise in daily cases shows how it’s done in countries where the govt’s goal is actually to tame the virus in order to restart economy. In the US our govt is in thrall to a”leader” whose only aim is to look good long enough to get re-elected, via lies & subterfuge– the guy, unbelievably, could give a rat’s a** about how we’ll survive this.
He has become the Delphic Oracle of COVID-19. Interpret his responses as you wish.
Oh my Lord, that’s good! LOL.
What’s she saying? Can you interpret it?
I don’t know. “I’m really high?” perhaps?
https://www.livescience.com/4277-theory-oracle-delphi-high.html
Agreed about the Oracle. As for the morons that support Trump you have to be high to argue with them, a shame I am not .
Ah, but Joel, social sanction is highly effective over the long run. I say, call them out. Every time.
I agree I do daily. The conventional wisdom is that Trump supporters should not be humiliated. Like the seen from West Side Story they need understanding . That would be true if the deplorable s were motivated by economics other than their loss of white privilege.
Good luck to anyone that tried to reason with Trump’s hardcore support base so they learn to understand reality instead of the dark, twisted dystopian world Trumpists are feeding them.
I agree I do so daily. The conventional wisdom is that Trump supporters should not be humiliated. Like the seen from West Side Story they need understanding . That would be true if the deplorable s were motivated by economics other than their loss of white privilege. They are perfectly willing to be “On the caboose of the train” … only a pawn in their game.”
Good afternoon Diane and everyone,
Remember the apotheosis of Governor Cuomo a few months back?? Of all the dodging and punting he did today at his phoned in new conference of a few minutes, here is the sentence that sticks in my mind the most and I quote, “Indoors is what you want to avoid.” And this is in a state that has about a 1% positive rate.
Fauci is walking a tightrope that Trump controls. One misstep and Trump will let go and Fauci will fall, follow all the others that have resigned or been fired because they were not “totally” loyal to his Un-Royal Highest, the Emperor of Lies, TrumpityEekThinlySkin.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39826934
Once all the educated experts are gone, who will be left to run the country and deal with its growing, festering challenges that were planted and spawned by the Orange-Stained Buffon’s endless lies and trolling?
The answer is Jarek Kushner. Dull Witted Emperor Tengujo will put his son-in-law in charge of every federal department even the DOD, NSA, CIA, and the CDC.
I like oranges and now the word “orange” has been tainted by Trumpty Dumpty, the rotten egg that will one day fall off the Great Wall of Trump and shatter into a billion pieces that his army: William Barr, Glenn Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh, Steve Bannon, and all the KKK members, the neo-Nazi militias, and White Surpemisist skinheads won’t be able to stick together again with all of the toxic secreted prostate fluid they can discharge while using a Njoy Pure Wand to stimulate their G-spot.
Fauci can not be fired by Trump . He can be marginalized . Hasn’t that already happened ?
I had to fact check and you were right. That is a good thing.
“Under federal law, Trump doesn’t have the power to directly fire Fauci, a career civil servant, and remove him from government. And while Trump could try ordering his political appointees to dismiss the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Fauci could appeal — a time-consuming process.
“The President does, however, have the power to sideline Fauci, keeping him away from press briefings and media interviews — as has happened in recent weeks, though Fauci has proven adept at pushing his message through different channels.”
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/13/politics/can-trump-fire-fauci/index.html
I wonder what the bounty on Fauci’s life and his family’s lives are worth to tRump via Putin?
NYC Educator hit it out of the park with his article on this issue, with the hypocrisy of those politicians and others holed up in their homes while talking at computer screens — rather than going in person to a TV news studio — and then blathering about how teachers are derelict if they don’t return to schools where untested students & staff are stuffed into hallways and classrooms.
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
NYC EDUCATOR:
“It’s remarkable to turn on the TV and see people broadcasting from their home computers. More remarkable still is when they speak from isolation demanding we open school buildings. Though it’s too risky for them to get off their butts and go to a TV station, though it’s too dangerous for the interviewers to be in the same room with these authorities on education, it’s okay for over one million kids to visit NYC school buildings.
“In fact, in New York City, indoor dining is considered too dangerous, so New Yorkers may only eat outside of restaurants. The city, in fact, started a program to enable and expand this. They don’t seem to have bothered preparing this much for school next year. We’ve got an outlandish program that proposes two teachers for every class, one online and one in person. Guess what? The city doesn’t have enough teachers to accomplish that.
“We get hopeful letters from the chancellor, saying they care about our health and that of the students. This notwithstanding, it’s simply inevitable that there will be new cases of Covid. And while we may have contained it for a while by being extremely careful, this particular experiment will move us precisely in the opposite direction. Eleven Kansas educators just went to a Branson educational retreat, and six came back infected. I’m pretty sure hotels in Branson are cleaner than NYC schools. ”
” … ”
“So go ahead, talking head. Sit in your living room, broadcast from your laptop, and tell me and hundreds of thousands of my UFT brothers and sisters why we have to go into filthy, decrepit, neglected buildings. Tell us why we should trust Mayor Bill de Blasio to monitor infected schools when he plainly failed to do so last March. Tell us why he’ll close schools as per his promise when he simply placed them in a bureaucratic purgatory last year.
“Tell us, Governor Cuomo, from your socially distanced, sparsely attended press conference, why young children and teenagers will obediently observe the conditions as the governor of New York.
“Go ahead, Atlantic editor, and find health care workers to ridicule and vilify us, and make believe that we’ll have PPE just like they have in hospitals. Pretend that unions didn’t have to go to ridiculous lengths to secure PPE for hospital staff. Pretend schools are cleaned as hospitals are.
“While politicians and TV talking heads do their work from the comfort and safety of highly controlled environments, let’s play pretend and hope for the best regarding New York City’s 1.1 million students and 80,000 teachers, not to mention administrators, office staff and custodians.
“After all, we all know, “Children First” really means all the adults can drop dead.
“And when that begins to really happen, what are you going to say, Mayor de Blasio, Governor Cuomo, and Chancellor Carranza? It’s unfortunate? We had no way of knowing? We’ll do better next time? History suggests otherwise.
“I know what I’ll say. I’ll say you’ve yet to clean the blood on your hands from March, and now there’s more.”
… at
http://nyceducator.com/2020/08/two-way-street.html
Thanks for this great article, Jack. & the 2 paras you excised are worth reading too. I am sick to death of media pundits bloviating from their safe living rooms via zoom on how others should dine/ shop indoors, go to the gym & the barber & back to onsite work. Their dumpy, pale, poorly-coiffed appearance says they’ve been sitting on their butts working from home, getting contactless delivery & making do grooming-wise. Every single one of them promoting reopening in-person schooling should be asked where their child will be attending in September.
Not safe to open schools. Any school district, which does not heed science and math can’t teach science and math.
Who knows if this will help. (See below.) We have the dumpster who is EVIL and rePug-nicans who cannot stand up to this monster potus.
Tell Congress: Block DeVos from punishing schools that choose not to reopen!
https://sign.moveon.org/petitions/tell-congress-block-devos-from-punishing-schools-that-choose-not-to-reopen?akid=270723.19285343.A1Pf5k&rd=1&source=mo&t=6
nice line: any district unwilling to heed science and math cannot TEACH science and math
ciedie aech: Gee, wonder why the E.U., Canada and Mexico don’t want U.S. travelers? Could it be that the U.S. no longer respects science? Nah. We have Trump to guide us. He is a known fan of using “clean coal”, denies climate change, still says nobody has to wear a mask and that hydroxychloroquine heals COVID-19.
“Nobody has ever done so much in the first two years of a presidency as this administration. Nobody. Nobody.”
……………………..
The European Union has barred U.S. travelers, and Canada and Mexico have closed their land borders: It’s understandable, then, that with all of the rules and restrictions about which countries allow what, one of the biggest questions on American travelers’ minds is where can I go, if anywhere?
On August 6, the U.S. lifted its global coronavirus travel advisory, which had been in place since March and recommended U.S. citizens avoid all international travel due to the global coronavirus pandemic. In a press release about the decision, the U.S. State Department said it would be “returning to our previous system of country-specific levels of travel advice (with levels from 1-4 depending on country-specific conditions), in order to give travelers detailed and actionable information to make informed travel decisions.” The decision to lift the sweeping travel advisory was made with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the most up-to-date country-specific advisories are listed on the State Department website…
https://www.afar.com/magazine/where-can-americans-travel-right-now?utm_medium=email&utm_source=sshare
“Nobody has ever done so much in the first two years of a presidency as this administration. Nobody. Nobody.”
If you take into consideration these facts, that statement is true in an infamous way.
Anyone else is welcome to add to this deplorable list for anything I missed or did not think of.
To quote Trump, “It is what it is,” and he bears no responsibility. The buck stops somewhere else.
Reactions to above – – –
Any parent in any school in America who complains their kid is not in school needs to be told (because they won’t figure it out) that 6 months of inaction, mixed messages, silencing scientists, no plan, and baiting leaders to “reopen” is the ONLY REASON THEIR KID IS NOT IN SCHOOL.
What would Dr. Fauci be saying if he didn’t have test every word before it came out of his mouth? It’s a no-win situation (in-school physical health v. at home mental/social health AND physical/emotional health) compounded by a bully censor with a tv station
If this were a corporation, school district, or major employer, the CEO would have been fired in May. And, if s/he survived that with a warning “get it together and work on this,” they’d have been fired in July. And, as customers and employees were exposed and ill, the law suits would be endless.
Vote the fool out? That’s what is shocking. To know there are people (sadly, friends for whom I have lost respect) who in spite and of three years of lies, corruption, secrecy, profiteering from the WH, sending billions of relief funds overseas, to corporations, wealthy friends, and private schools, pardoning crooks, teargassing silent protesters, fueling protests (literally)…. people who can ignore that and say “Oh, but Democrats will tax and spend… oh, the values of those Democrats… or whatever their issues.. and vote for him is shocking.
They retreat to those mantras because they don’t want to feel sad or scared, so they plug their ears & are in major denial about the pandemic. They find it easiest to turn the repressed sorrow/ fear into anger, & their rigid thinking means “Dems tax & spend” & the like are comforting platitudes to hide their heads in. They won’t be able to hear even the most conservative economists demanding immediate lavish fed outlays to stave off another Great Depression. Trump has their # & feeds them daily anger-triggers & anachronistic conservative axioms via twitter. Such folk were attracted to Trump in the first place because he seemed to be giving their anger a voice, & standing up for conservative ideals– but it’s too hard for them to acknowledge that Trump didn’t bring back mfg jobs, rein in spending, or whatever their gripe was.
Even harder to admit Trump has screwed up the pandemic response– they’ll downplay it rather than admit we’ve got a global threat w/ no leader in sight. People like that haven’t got the courage to face big challenges, so they are no help, because you have to at a minimum acknowledge reality before you can start thinking about possible solutions. Even the simplest of possible solutions, like voting for the party that has a better track record on improving Average Joe’s life [in a pandemic or otherwise].
It sounds like a lot of ‘tippy-toeing back and forth’ to avoid enraging the Orange Moron.
They should be able to speak out with more force. Back and forth is not giving a STRONG unified message, which is what this country needs.
I watched part of a press conference given by Gov. Pritzker. He spoke about the need for masks and unveiled a plan that businesses would get fined after two other charges. He is insisting that establishments don’t let anyone in without wearing a mask. He then had a teacher, the president of AFT and some other fellow…all telling why wearing a mask is necessary. IT WAS A UNIFED FRONT.
Trump is a walking disaster for this country. “LOCK HIM UP!”
Your post is making me think about how strange it is that we have no unified front– no national leadership– amidst the biggest threat to our populace since, I don’t know, WWII?– & why that might be. I’m no presidential historian (& my history is weak), but clearly the last time we were in a similar plight– the Great Depression– we were able to get behind a strong president and let him lead us out of what had become mass joblessness & starvation via unprecedented fed investment in our future. (The country then dithered and resisted fighting Euro/ Asian fascism until it was at our doors, but ultimately allowed the same strong leader to unify us.) What has changed us so?
I suppose the difference is that FDR was elected after the economy had collapsed. We understood then that we needed something very different than Gilded Age capitalism if we were to survive. We are at a similar juncture: a novel global virus is afflicting us much worse than other OECD nations because of wrong-headed govtl leadership. I
can only hope and pray that Americans understand that a very different sort of leadership is reqd now.
Insanity. n. Putting 66 million people in small, enclosed rooms for 7 hours a day in the middle of a deadly, airborne, viral pandemic when most of those people are particularly effective vectors of the virus and the protections available to them (e.g., cloth masks) are only minimally effective
NB: This is also the definition of Trump-level heedlessness
Students social distancing in a Georgia school hallway. Note that the distance between students is a very large number as measured in nanometers. https://dailyprogress.com/news/national/georgia-teens-suspension-dropped-over-images-of-crowded-school/article_b1ee1ac6-37bb-5212-933c-e7a5f188572b.html
I have this theory about the transmission of the virus. I had to develop it to answer a few Trumpanzees who wanted to know why no one seems to have been infected at BLM demonstrations Their theory the demonstrations caused the surge in viruses . Of course they cant explain how cases did not surge in NYC other than democrats lied. . There were up to 10,000 NY residents at a few demonstrations and yet there were few infections. Most people wore masks and were socially distant and it was outside. And many may have already been infected in February , March and April.
All of that aside , the opportunity to come in contact with the virus was relatively small. They had to be in close contact with someone who had it and statistically one or both had to have no mask on.
Compare even the largest of those demos to when the virus spread like a brush fire in Metro NYC. 3.5 million people a day took mass transit many on crowded trains and buses for long periods 5 days a week( That ridership is down 80% ) . They then piled into crowded elevators and offices 5 days a week . (Those offices have boat loads of people working from home, which is why the ridership is down . They aren’t taking cars. American corporations are more risk averse than than the politicians who opened the City. ) .Lastly they poured into 29 k restaurants and bars . If they each served 50 patrons a day on average . That is well over a million contacts .
Is it any wonder antibody tests revealed that upwards of 20% of NYC residents were infected.
Of course the Fox news commentators sitting in their basements all say open the schools in NYC. Yup take a million children throw them into rooms for 6 hours a day 5 days a week . Exposing the teachers other students and all their families as contacts . Then on buses and trains. Is Fauci at all serious . Sounds like a plan . A plan for a major disaster.
Yup you are right. And don’t forget the thousands of airplane travelers arriving in NYC from Italy et al Euro locations who seeded NYC viral transmission– at a time when US was barely aware that the “China virus” had just spread bigtime to Europe. All eyes were on the spread from China to WA. Figuring on the usual West-to-East transmission of e.g. avian flu, SARS, et al. No one yet understood the high degree of infectiousness of this novel virus, so no one was even imagining that visitors from China to Europe during the same time period as China to our NW could trigger infection so quickly that it could simultaneously spread to NE ports of entry.
BTW your theory of transmission is well-documented by now as I’m sure you know. It’s all about groups gathered inside, aerosolized droplets, amount/ right type of ventilation, amount/ type of breathing– silence best; talking, singing or panting worst in that order– extra cu-ft of space/ distancing/ masks can ameliorate; the less time one is exposed to such transactions the better. In-person teaching à la pre-covid conditions combines the worst, highest-risk of all these scenarios.
The thing that fries me: corporations aren’t doing conf-rm mtgs– for any length of time. That’s all online now. And I read a detailed article by a nurse in the worst-affected Queens hospital [in March] that got their healthcare-provider infection down to zero in 2 wks by, among other measures, eliminating group mtgs. On grand rounds, e.g., one doctor in full PPE would be in the room w/a covid patient while the rest of them videoconferenced remotely on their iPhones.
bethree5
Actually I was referring to the sheer number of contacts with a disease that spreads exponentially . So certainly the individual is at a risk when he attends an indoor event . But that risk is relatively low. But have hundreds of indoor events and the risk of increased transmissions spikes. The risk in any classroom may be low the risk in a system with a million children 50 thousand teachers …
Certainly thousands of air travelers from Europe brought the virus to NY . But this is a virus that spread stealth in China and then stealth in Europe and then stealth in Metro NY . It starts with a very small number of zoo-otic transmissions in late November or very early December . Yet it isn’t till late December that a small but significant number of cases show up in Wuhan Hospitals and it is the second week of January before the first fatality occurs.
The virus was in NYC in late January according to genetic analysis of the virus. Yet Doctors at Presbyterian Westchester are clueless when patient one shows up March 2nd. . He sits in a regular room un-diagnosed for 5 days . He wasn’t patient one . By the sheer number of people showing up at NYC emergency rooms within a few weeks ; he was more likely one of a 100 thousand. We didn’t need thousands of infections seeded from Europe to cause the epidemic a few infections is all it takes.
Since many of us readers are retired, thought I’d throw this at you. [It was sent to me by a friend.]
Fed policy could leave retirees broke after crisis
At a 5 per cent yield, a $1m nest egg delivered $50,000 a year. You need a fivefold larger egg to produce that at 1 per cent.
https://www.ft.com/content/5856d1c7-3174-4695-9e79-785bf88810e5
Thanks, carol. & I’m sure you know there’s been an upheaval at TRS.
Read Fred Klonsky’s Blog–the (very) little news coming out isn’t promising…
retiredbutmissthekids: I do read Fred Klonsky’s blog and get news from IRTA.
Silence is not good.
Some retirees that belonged to labor unions lie NEA are AFT and earned retirement plans like from the California Teachers Retirement System, the 2nd largest retirement plan in the country.
These retirees might not be hit by younger retirees that didn’t have a labor union retirement plan but had to save money in tax-free/sheltered accounts of some kind.
I did that, too, (saved money in a couple of those tax-free things) and two of them went bankrupt taking more than $40k from my retirement plans while I was still teaching. Retirement accounts like 401k plans come with risks when someone like a Trump finds a way to bleed them dry.
To joel herman at 7:26 AM:
I was in New Orleans in mid-January, late January & then the week after Mardi Gras–first week in March. A friend who co-owns a shop there had been sick & hospitalized, & no one could diagnose her. Then, the second time I was there in January, she told me everyone who was working in the French Quarter had been sick–of what, still unknown.
It was so bad, she said, that businesses were helping each other out by sending their staff people to other businesses who were short handed. Now, had the city government & Gov. Bel Edwards (amazingly, Dem., but that’s because, I think, “Bobby” Jindal was beyond awful) known, Mardi Gras could have/would have been cancelled.
Of course, had we known, we wouldn’t have travelled.
As tests hadn’t been available, some of these people later tested positive, & NOLA started shutting down.
How many people there–& elsewhere (SO many tourists from all over the world)–unknowingly spread the virus, or became ill, or died, & caused others the same fates?
OF COURSE SCHOOLS SHOULD NOT OPEN!!!
To carolmalaysia, up there at on 8/8 at 4:02 & 6:25 PM: I’m sorry, of course I’ve seen your good comment’s on Fred’s blog. Could you, then, re-post your 4:02 PM comment & link on his post from yesterday (or one to come) w/the link to Fed policy could leave retirees broke after crisis? I’m sure lots of people (more local) who read Fred don’t read this blog. Thanks for the link: I’ll be sharing it w/my retired colleagues & members of our Retired Teachers Assn. local unit, as well as our Area Director.
retiredbutmissthekids: Thanks for the suggestion. I put that article on Fred Klonsky’s blog.
Fed policy could leave retirees broke after crisis?