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UM's Plan To Reopen

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jthomps123 said:
In my observation (outside of geriatrics), the amount of fear for the virus - and opposition to going back to work is directly proportional to the amount of unemployment one is receiving, and how slovenly obese, diabetic or otherwise unhealthy one is.

Sorry fatties, an extra few weeks of 'quarantine' isn't going to save you.
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Excellent. Let me add an anecdote. My neighbor works in the hotel industry. He was layed off at the beginning of all this. That man tells me if they ask him to go back to work he won't because they're trying to kill him. Mind you this guy has had get togethers with over 10 people 3 nights a week for the last 3 weeks.
 
Tad Footeball said:
I've seen dudes contort themselves into positions not seen since Candi Fisher's last gang bang to blame China for not being transparent.....and then giving Orange Jesus a pass for the YUGE level of negligence and gullibility for even be remotely in the position TO be deceived by China. That's their excuse. President "Only I Can Fix It" was too trusting.

It's all irrelevant though. This quote exists and will always exist and is the discussion ender:

“And again, when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that's a pretty good job we've done."
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I also love this one:

“The last administration left us nothing. We started off with bad, broken tests, and obsolete tests,” Trump asserted, prompting Acosta to jump in and ask: “You say ‘broken tests’ — it’s a new virus, so how could the tests be broken?”
 
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I just don’t get how people are so eager to point fingers, but Fauci gets a pass for his litany of January to March misstatements, falsehoods (even if unintentional), and horrific advice. He’s the guy that should have been screaming from the rafters, if you want to blame someone, yet reportedly he was even opposing the January travel bans.

Also, our response, testing and otherwise, is the province and execution of career unelected long-term government bureaucrats. Nobody was holding them back from doing their jobs. What happened?
 
Pentagon Cane said:
Bull****, does that include state and local?
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Oh, here we go. Fed is blameless, states are the problem. Suuuure.

Meanwhile, the federal government is the level that had the intel, and has the resources to plan and coordinate.

Yeah, as broke as the states are, we are supposed to have 50 different NSAs, 50 different CDCs, 50 different pandemic committees. Not to mention that states can't deficit spend and issue bonds to cover the expenses during times of crisis, but the federal government can.

Nobody is saying that the Federal government has to "DO" everything. Yes, states have a lot of resources to deploy to handle many of these issues. But the federal government has the power to organize a plan and coordinate a response. The federal government has the Defense Production Act, which the states do not have.

When a major hurricane hits multiple states, people don't stand around screaming "federalism". You don't let some states recover while other states fall apart, because some states have more tax revenue. FEMA and other government agencies step in to assist the states and to coordinate the resources to help all Americans recover.

If the federal government isn't going to use the NSA reports on pandemic, if the federal government isn't going to listen to the advisors, if the federal government isn't going to prepare a response or empower the CDC to do its job, then we should just cut all those programs, save the money, and force the states to do everything on their own in 50 smaller sets of agencies.

I'm sure that will work out well.
 
OriginalCanesCanesCanes said:
I just don’t get how people are so eager to point fingers, but Fauci gets a pass for his litany of January to March misstatements, falsehoods (even if unintentional), and horrific advice. He’s the guy that should have been screaming from the rafters, if you want to blame someone, yet reportedly he was even opposing the January travel bans.

Also, our response, testing and otherwise, is the province and execution of career unelected long-term government bureaucrats. Nobody was holding them back from doing their jobs. What happened?
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I don't think anybody is absolving Fauci of all acts and statements.

But there were OTHER advisors warning Trump of problems, and they were ignored.

I realize that it is difficult for any President to weigh the advice of the advisors, or to make choices between conflicting advice. But this is why we should probably think twice before voting for a real-estate developer/reality show host, even if we really really want him to cut our taxes. There were, literally, dozens of other Republicans who would have cut taxes too, and who were more interested in doing the difficult work of government.

And for the record, I'm not against everything that Trump has done or said in this regard. I am not opposed to travel bans. We just didn't do enough, or soon enough. Picking out China, and having gaping loopholes in the travel restrictions...effectively accomplished nothing to prevent the spread.

As far as testing, most of the tests are produced by private industry, not the government. Again, see my earlier comments about failing to invoke the Defense Production Act in January 2020 to coordinate and compel the production of testing kits at that time.

This mess is a combo platter. As with 9/11, our government failed to grasp that "it could happen to us" and did not act fast enough. But that scenario gets an "assist" from the fact that much of the top level of our executive branch is staffed by industry hacks who were appointed based on their ability to fund-raise, rather than a legitimate concern for the public good. And these people are led by an uninterested dilettante who watches TV all day and golfs all weekend.

Ultimately, why are we trying to blame one unelected advisor, rather than all of the elected and appointed officials who are supposed to listen to the advice and make good decisions?
 
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TheOriginalCane said:
I don't think anybody is absolving Fauci of all acts and statements.

But there were OTHER advisors warning Trump of problems, and they were ignored.

I realize that it is difficult for any President to weigh the advice of the advisors, or to make choices between conflicting advice. But this is why we should probably think twice before voting for a real-estate developer/reality show host, even if we really really want him to cut our taxes. There were, literally, dozens of other Republicans who would have cut taxes too, and who were more interested in doing the difficult work of government.

And for the record, I'm not against everything that Trump has done or said in this regard. I am not opposed to travel bans. We just didn't do enough, or soon enough. Picking out China, and having gaping loopholes in the travel restrictions...effectively accomplished nothing to prevent the spread.

As far as testing, most of the tests are produced by private industry, not the government. Again, see my earlier comments about failing to invoke the Defense Production Act in January 2020 to coordinate and compel the production of testing kits at that time.

This mess is a combo platter. As with 9/11, our government failed to grasp that "it could happen to us" and did not act fast enough. But that scenario gets an "assist" from the fact that much of the top level of our executive branch is staffed by industry hacks who were appointed based on their ability to fund-raise, rather than a legitimate concern for the public good. And these people are led by an uninterested dilettante who watches TV all day and golfs all weekend.

Ultimately, why are we trying to blame one unelected advisor, rather than all of the elected and appointed officials who are supposed to listen to the advice and make good decisions?
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That’s the only unelected advisor that has any expertise, the one everyone should be listening to. I don’t care if someone is a community organizer from Chicago, or a real estate developer from New York, the point is the people that I listen to, are the people that are supposed to be subject matter experts. And those are long-term unelected government bureaucrats in the CDC in the NIH. At the end of the day they’re the ones that failed.

Peter Navarro is not a subject matter expert, neither is anybody in the defense department. The experts are the guys with PhD’s in sciences, or MDs, after their names. All the ones that have been there for multi administrations failed. Just look at the testing fiasco between the CDC and Washington state. There’s enough been written on it.
 
TheOriginalCane said:
I don't think anybody is absolving Fauci of all acts and statements.

But there were OTHER advisors warning Trump of problems, and they were ignored.

I realize that it is difficult for any President to weigh the advice of the advisors, or to make choices between conflicting advice. But this is why we should probably think twice before voting for a real-estate developer/reality show host, even if we really really want him to cut our taxes. There were, literally, dozens of other Republicans who would have cut taxes too, and who were more interested in doing the difficult work of government.

And for the record, I'm not against everything that Trump has done or said in this regard. I am not opposed to travel bans. We just didn't do enough, or soon enough. Picking out China, and having gaping loopholes in the travel restrictions...effectively accomplished nothing to prevent the spread.

As far as testing, most of the tests are produced by private industry, not the government. Again, see my earlier comments about failing to invoke the Defense Production Act in January 2020 to coordinate and compel the production of testing kits at that time.

This mess is a combo platter. As with 9/11, our government failed to grasp that "it could happen to us" and did not act fast enough. But that scenario gets an "assist" from the fact that much of the top level of our executive branch is staffed by industry hacks who were appointed based on their ability to fund-raise, rather than a legitimate concern for the public good. And these people are led by an uninterested dilettante who watches TV all day and golfs all weekend.

Ultimately, why are we trying to blame one unelected advisor, rather than all of the elected and appointed officials who are supposed to listen to the advice and make good decisions?
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You just revealed yourself that this is indeed political. BTW, the Coronavirsus Task Force stood up on January 30, 2020. Of course, the left was criticizing the administration because Mike Pence, a former Governor of Indiana, was appointed to lead it. The Feds started working on a vaccine in mid-January. CDC was sending out guidance to states by mid-February. They were working with the affected states in February. They were sending guidance to airports by the third week in February. The Feds knew they had deficient test kits and an inadequate system by late January. Again, was the country prepared? No. But like any natural or man-made disaster you react and learn.

Quite frankly the only people in Government I blame are Cuomo for sending COVID-19 positive individuals back to senior homes without any protocols in place. His administration already knew what was happening on the ground in Italy and Washington state. Beds were not the issue. In the end, New York used about a third of the beds at Javits and less than 20 percent on the Comfort. What Wolfe and that POS Levine did in Pennsylvania was even worse Two-thirds of all deaths in PA are in senior assisted living. Levine pulled her mother from a facility but sent others to die. I don't agree with many Govenors decisions to stay closed but that's their call not mine. They know their situation on the ground and will have to live with their decisions.

BTW, I owned the Air Force National Emergency Preparedness teams while I was in the Pentagon who worked directly with FEMA so I am very up on how it works. Plus, I was part of the team that helped set up DHS. Government is like a battleship. It takes a lot to move it but once you move it in the right direction you have the full power and weight behind it.
 
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OriginalCanesCanesCanes said:
That’s the only unelected advisor that has any expertise, the one everyone should be listening to. I don’t care if someone is a community organizer from Chicago, or a real estate developer from New York, the point is the people that I listen to, are the people that are supposed to be subject matter experts. And those are long-term unelected government bureaucrats in the CDC in the NIH. At the end of the day they’re the ones that failed.

Peter Navarro is not a subject matter expert, neither is anybody in the defense department. The experts are the guys with PhD’s in sciences, or MDs, after their names. All the ones that have been there for multi administrations failed. Just look at the testing fiasco between the CDC and Washington state. There’s enough been written on it.
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I've never cited anyone in the "defense department". The NSA. The intelligence community. Which, until recently, had a group devoted to the impact of pandemics on national security. This isn't just about one person with a medical degree. Pandemics impact us in more ways that just medical.

And even if you want remain focused on Fauci, and harp on him "failing" this time, he has advised multiple presidents previously and has not "failed" before. Again, maybe consider HOW his closed-door advice has been handled. And maybe consider what he has been asked to say in public statements. Whenever he is interviewed, and an interviewer asks him specific questions, he is much more forthcoming that he has been when Trump is standing right behind him.

Look, we've seen this template before, how Trump "builds up" and then "disappears" his "****e shields". Five minutes before The Apprentice first aired, you had never heard of George and Carolyn. Then, when you turned on the show, oh, these were two of the greatest businesspeople you had never heard of (at least according to Trump). And then, when they weren't needed anymore, Trump cut ties with them, they've never been heard/seen since, and they don't even work for Trump anymore. Carolyn was fired because her new-found celebrity was beginning to match Trump's.

Think about it this way. Fauci has served every US President since Reagan. That means both Republican administrations and Democrat administrations have trusted his counsel enough to keep utilizing him. But before this, almost nobody knew who he was. No other President put Fauci in front of the public every single day. But that's what Trump does, he puts people in front of him as "****e shields", and then he can scapegoat them when things go wrong. It's his modus operandi.

Every President has subject matter experts. But a complex problem will involve multiple SMEs from different specialties. For Covid-19, you need to hear from doctors, you need to hear from economists, you need to hear from diplomats, you need to hear from those who work in intelligence, and you need to hear from those who specialize in commerce/industry.

There shouldn't be "one person", not just one "subject matter expert", who everyone should be listening to. It's nice to have someone with Fauci's experience, but you need multiple voices, multiple perspectives, and open/honest discussion that is unconcerned about whether the President might then fire them for speaking frankly.

And the NIH/CDC are just the subject matter experts who form the beginning of the debate. Once they have provided the medical information, it is up to elected and appointed GOVERNMENT officials to EXECUTE (they are the executive branch). The NIH or the CDC can't do anything on their own. If the NIH/CDC says that we need tens of millions of Coronvirus testing kits, they cannot manufacture those kits on their own. The NIH/CDC is then reliant upon the federal government working on that suggested solution.

In the US, those testing kits are manufactured by private industry. Which means that it was incumbent upon HHS and others to then place the orders for testing kits, in order to get the ball rolling. NIH/CDC can't do that on their own, so stop blaming "unelected government bureaucrats" in those agencies for something that should have been done by elected/appointed officials within the Executive branch.

The four people that are MOST responsible for the delays in the Coronavirus response are Redfield (CDC), Hahn (FDA), Azar (HHS), and Trump. The NIH is not really the problem here, and I'm not completely absolving the CDC (particularly with the first defective testing kits from January-February).

But stop blaming nameless/faceless "bureaucrats". There are real people, with names and faces, who had far greater power and a much larger role in ******** things up. It wasn't some drone deep inside the CDC who failed to order millions of testing kits. And it wasn't Fauci either.
 
Number1CanesFan said:
The whole world shut down and we have 1/3 of all cases and 5% of the world's population. We've handled the virus very poorly.

Some poeple are just stuck on stupid.
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Agreed. Forcing nursing homes to take in actively infected patients was a horrible decision.
 
Number1CanesFan said:
We've tested more in TOTAL because our Covid-19 pandemic cases continue to rise.
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Do you ever stop just making stuff up? Source, Johns Hopkins. US daily new cases.
1589564089769.png


Besides, we should expect the number of daily cases to remain relatively flat or even rise for a while as we increase the number of tests per day. Number of cases is almost meaningless at this point. The important statistics now are daily hospitalizations and daily deaths.
 
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Pentagon Cane said:
You just revealed yourself that this is indeed political. BTW, the Coronavirsus Task Force stood up on January 30, 2020. Of course, the left was criticizing the administration because Mike Pence, a former Governor of Indiana, was appointed to lead it. The Feds started working on a vaccine in mid-January. CDC was sending out guidance to states by mid-February. They were working with the affected states in February. They were sending guidance to airports by the third week in February. The Feds knew they had deficient test kits and an inadequate system by late January. Again, was the country prepared? No. But like any natural or man-made disaster you react and learn.

Quite frankly the only people in Government I blame are Cuomo for sending COVID-19 positive individuals back to senior homes without any protocols in place. New York used about a third of the beds at Javits and less than 20 percent on the Comfort. What Wolfe and that POS Levine did in Pennsylvania was even worse Two-thirds of all deaths in PA are in senior assisted living. Levine pulled her mother from a facility but sent others to die. I don't agree for many Govenors decisions to stay closed but that's their call not mine.

BTW, I owned the Air Force National Emergency Preparedness teams while I was in the Pentagon who worked directly with FEMA so I am very up on how it works. Plus, I was part of the team that helped set up DHS. Government is like a battleship. It takes a lot to move it but once you move it in the right direction you have the full power and weight behind it.
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Please stop lying. You are the one making this political.

There is criticism of Pence leading the task force based on his failures (when he was Indiana governor) to effectively handle the HIV epidemic in Indiana. I understand why people on the right want to blame any analysis/criticism of Pence on "politics", but it's actually based on past (poor) performance in similar circumstances.

"The feds started working on a vaccine in mid-January". Uh, nope. In fact, there has been work on a coronavirus vaccine for far longer. A dean at the Baylor Med School (Dr. Peter Hotez) tried to get funding for coronavirus vaccine clinical trials 2 years ago (2018), but was rejected by Congress. But, hey, I won't make this "political" and point out which party controlled Congressional funding at that time. Fortunately, Tito's Vodka just donated $1M to fund the clinical trials.

And please stop BS-ing about what a "rapid response" we have had. Sure, Covid-19 may be "novel", but we have been fighting diseases and pandemics for decades. Cut the crap about "you react and learn". Every time a new flu or virus crops up, we don't have to start from scratch.

Why are you lionizing the efforts of the CDC? The only reason that anyone knew anything and/or did anything within the CDC was because of the information circulated by WHO in January. And the only reason we had defective testing kits is because the CDC decided to develop their own testing kit rather than using the blueprint provided by WHO.

Unlike you, I can see past partisanship. OF COURSE, the "only person" you are blaming is Cuomo. Unlike you, I can praise the great job done by both Republican governors (DeWine) and Democrat governors (Cuomo). And, believe me, I haven't really like Cuomo up until now, so don't try to pretend that I'm saying something nice about him because of his party affiliation, because prior to 2020, I thought Cuomo was a real ****head.

Look, I can respect your past work in the Air Force, but you have to be honest about the differences in response when you have a command-and-control structure (such as in the military) versus any other situation involving civilians.

This isn't that complicated. There was plenty of intel on what was happening, and what could happen, in January (as you tacitly seem to agree). The differential is how that information was USED (or not used), and what the Executive Branch should have done to plan and coordinate a response.

Stop blaming Cuomo for what happened at a senior home, that has no bearing on the other 49 states. Cuomo is no favorite of mine, he's made some mistakes and he's done a pretty good (overall) job in spite of those mistakes. Stop acting like the federal government bears no blame.
 
g8rh8rMD said:
Do you ever stop just making stuff up? Source, Johns Hopkins. US daily new cases.
View attachment 117004

Besides, we should expect the number of daily cases to remain relatively flat or even rise for a while as we increase the number of tests per day. Number of cases is almost meaningless at this point. The important statistics now are daily hospitalizations and daily deaths.
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Deaths in Fl.
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