One of the big political stories on Tuesday was the Senate panel/hearing on the future of coronavirus and what happens next, beyond Donald Trump’s inane lies. Several senators were only appearing via video-link-up from home, as they were quarantined in place. Dr. Fauci was also videoconferencing into the hearing, because he had been exposed and he thought it best to quarantine. The NY Times referred to the vibe of the hearing as “surreal.” Basically, we learned a lot of stuff which we already knew or suspected: this sh-t is gonna suck for a while.
Two of the federal government’s top health officials painted a grim picture of the months ahead on Tuesday, warning a Senate panel that the United States has not contained the coronavirus pandemic a day after President Trump declared that “we have met the moment and we have prevailed.” The officials warned of dire consequences if the nation reopens its economy too soon, noting that the United States still lacks critical testing capacity and the ability to trace the contacts of those infected.
“If we do not respond in an adequate way when the fall comes, given that it is without a doubt that there will be infections that will be in the community, then we run the risk of having a resurgence,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, an infectious disease expert and the director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He added that “there is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control” if the economy opens too quickly, “leading to some suffering and death that could be avoided.”
Dr. Fauci told senators that a vaccine would not be ready in time for the new school year, that outbreaks in other parts of the world would surely reach the United States and that humility in the face of an unpredictable killer meant erring on the side of caution, even with children who have fared well but have recently shown new vulnerabilities.
Their downbeat assessments came as the death toll in the United States surpassed 81,000 — a figure that Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, noted was “45 times the rate of South Korea.” The hearing — titled, “Covid-19: Safely Getting Back to Work and Back to School” — offered little concrete advice on how that was going to happen. It was the first chance lawmakers have had to publicly question the officials in Congress since Mr. Trump declared a national emergency two months ago.
Dr. Fauci also told Sen. Mitt Romney that he (Fauci) believes that we will develop a vaccine, hopefully within the next year. Fauci also said something that surprised me, which is that he believed there was medical evidence to indicate that once someone had survived the virus once, it was unlikely they would get it again, at least in the immediate future. I’ve heard the opposite – doctors are very concerned with the virus’s mutations and worry that people could get re-infected in the fall or winter.
Meanwhile, everyone was talking about Dr. Fauci’s beef with Rand Paul. They started talking about schools reopening and Sen. Paul is pro-child death, predictably. Rand Paul also said: “Dr. Fauci, I don’t think you’re the end-all, I don’t think you’re the 1 person that gets to make a decision…” Dr. Fauci’s response: “I have never made myself out to be the end-all & only voice of this. I’m a scientist, a physician.”
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
Why is Rand Paul a US Senator?
And is there some reason he couldn’t comb his hair? Is there suddenly a shortage of combs and hairbrushes? Are people stockpiling and hoarding them?
They’re using them in place of TP.
But, yeah, why is anyone listening to Rand Paul in the first place? He’s hardly the be all and end all!
RP is a dick of the highest order…and all I wanted to do the entire time was smack the smug off that ugly face. Where the *^%$ is his neighbor when ya need him???
RP does not look healthy. When you can’t listen to and acknowledge facts, attack the messenger RP.
Scary too, since he’s apparently a trained Ophthamalogist. Shouldn’t medical specialists actually believe in the scientific method? Or maybe not do much, which is why he’s a senator.
He had Covid19.
Rand Paul is no longer certified because the medical board changed its requirements and he decided he didn’t want to have to meet them. There’s more. He’s a fraud. Also I just saw that Scal has this well covered.
Rand Paul: who doesn’t have a BA. (Duke allowed med student who didn’t have a degree in the early 80s) Rand Paul: who couldn’t pass his boards so made up his own licensing group so he could claim to be board certified. A group that is now bankrupt so he hasn’t been licensed in years.
Who went to the gym when he was suspected positive after his covid test. He’s a fraud and a huckster. And not a real doctor. Not even a real eye doctor 🙄
@Scai do you mean he didn’t pass his Ophthalmology boards to be a legit BC ophthalmologist or are you saying he couldn’t pass his national boards to get an actual license that wasn’t a training license?
Okay so he passed his original boards (ABO), but didn’t want to recertify. So made up his own board and certified there, with a take home open book test. The board was comprised of himself, his wife, and his father in law. Was never accredited,
So yea, he stopped being ‘board certified’ after 10 years.
Whaaaaa!!?!?! That’s horrifying that someone could make up their own licensing group.
I think he meant “immediate future” as in getting covid again like 2/3 weeks after recovering from it the first time. At least that’s how I understand immediate future?
I hope we’ll get a vaccine next year. But I bet the same people (all over the world) saying how lockdown is bad for them, the economy, their children, will also be the same refusing to get vaccinated. *Facepalm*
I read an NYTimes interview with a journalist who has been covering health issues forever and has been predicting a COVID-like pandemic since the ’90s, and she said there won’t be a vaccine for over a year and this whole situation could drag out for three years before we see improvement. That … sent chills down my spine.
Laurie Garrett. She is extremely knowledgeable and well-spoken. Her interviews are worth listening to; she gives an educated viewpoint. They are not always reassuring I’ll admit.
Literally everybody in the medical community has been predicting this for some time. There was an article from *2013* that actually laid out an exact story of what would happen economically. America is just in a unique position to collapse because we’re so geographically large, politically divisive, and quite frankly, the only industrialized nation without any progressive socialist programs. Capitalism collapses in the face of disaster, simple as that. It’s not a sustainable model when people can’t constantly consume.
Rand Paul has the most punchable face. I wouldn’t be able to control myself if I ever saw him in person. It would be a reflex. Faccia da schiaffi as my grandfather would say.
I am sure Dr. Fauci is probably thinking: why did I get mixed up on this with these clowns in this circus. Poor guy is just giving us the facts as he knows them. Like a scientist or statistician and the politicians interpret the way they want.
I whole heartedly believe him. Here in VA depending where you go, you would think there was so pandemic going on. Imagine opening everything up and letting the idiots run amuck.
Fauci is entirely right, of course. So he’ll be either vilified or ignored by the fascisti.
Remember when Rand Paul got tested for coronavirus and then went to the gym? Yeah. How dare he speak about anyone’s safety.
I can’t believe that it is 2020 and so many people right now are not trusting science and the doctor’s warnings — especially in America. It seems these people haven’t registered or don’t care about the many people that have died (all preventable too) in the US and the risk of another outbreak will makes things even worse for all — 100 x more.
It is insanity and I fear for my family and friends in the US everyday.
Members of my family in medical, 4, all agree 18-24 months before we have a viable vaccine. We have issues in our community with golfers whining they haven’t been able to play. We have beautiful hiking and walking trails which are open.
I live in a MAGA county & the protest thing was NO MASKS & to give ppl like me dirty looks because I’ve worn a mask in public since March. Now thankfully masks are practically mandatory in places like walmart & grocery stores. Still there’s this dumb politicized protest/attitude against self-preservation… SO I’m keeping me and my $$ home for the foreseeable future, really until theres’s a vaccine. My kids are older athletes on a small elite team, I have a strong but small friend group. We won’t put out cash out for the masses, not until things improve.
MTNMadness,
I get so angered by this “to give ppl like me dirty looks because I’ve worn a mask in public since March”. In my town the community board is full of people calling us mask-wearers “sheep”. It makes me want to start carrying a bat so that I can show them just how docile and sheep-like I really am. (I am not usually prone to violence, I swear, but these people with their anti-mask rhetoric are really testing me)
We have a small lake in my town with a cute little beach. It was recently announced that it won’t be open for swimming this summer-season (I am in MA) Now, this is sort of covid19 related. See, they need lifeguards, and they are not getting any applicants this year. The jobs are generally taken by teens, the fact that many parents are not keen to have their kids work as lifeguards in the middle of this pandemic AND the fact that no one can get certified right now means no applicants. Well, most people on my town board did not read the article. They thought the town was just making a judgement call re Covid19 and they went crazy. All this talk of “well will they refund my taxes”? and “what will they take away next?” In the meantime, it was not really even the town’s choice, if they open that beach without lifeguards, the town is open to lawsuits, period. But the “what will they take away from us next?” just kills me. As if covid-19 was concocted by the govt to close the local beaches. SIGH…..
Honestly, the science behind the coronavirus is just not there yet.
Everyday there are announcements about new conditions linked to it or other updates.
50 days in and people are trying to get back to a normal that doesnt exist anymore.
I just plan to spend the summer tucked away at my cottage, boating and grilling. Until there is a vaccine I’ll stick to going to the grocery store once a week and that’s it. I don’t trust the magats to wear masks or distance so I’ll just avoid everyone.
Same here!
Dr. Fauci is being fiercely attacked by the right wing nut sacks through their mouthpiece tucker carlson. Don’t you all know he’s conspiring with Bill Gates to reduce the population of the world to 500 million? They’re gonna do it with their poison vaccine. It got so bad that Liz Cheney, LIZ CHENEY!!, defended him. It’s total insanity.
https://twitter.com/liz_cheney/status/1260372903452905480?s=21
Gotdamn, Rand Paul looks rough. I’m not being superficial. He looks unwell.
And, of course, he’s mask free. Doesn’t care how many people he might infect.
But I thought all lives mattered???? 🙄🙄
As someone who is in the healthcare industry I find the treatment of Dr Fauci just absolutely appalling.
People are having a very hard time wrapping their head around all this. Which I try to understand, because it is overwhelming, but…nothing has changed. There’s no science to support reopening or that there is any sort of “normal” to return to, at least not for several years. I have a friend — she’s smart, liberal, and understands we can’t reopen — and yet she really believes things will be better by sometime this summer (she’s a teacher and is fully expecting to be back in the classroom next fall). I don’t know what to say to her without sounding like a huge downer. I’m glad she’s hopeful and all, but we’re still actively learning about this virus, and there hasn’t been a single shred of evidence that makes me believe anything can or should go back to normal in 2020.
Cases are going down because people are staying home in large numbers, but the virus isn’t gone, and won’t be gone until we have a vaccine. Maybe, MAYBE we’ll find better treatments for those who have the virus before the vaccine, and that would make the idea of getting it a little less terrifying. But until we have, at the very least, tests for everyone and contact tracing, there is no “normal.”
It’s not surprising that Americans are protesting to lockdowns more than any other country. It’s also mostly White Americans (the Trump loving moronic ones). They aren’t used to being told they can’t do something lol. They finally feel oppressed…how does it feel now motherf*ckers ??!!
I’m sorry for your teacher friend. I’m sorry for all the teachers and students.
CSU said all of its campuses will be online in the fall with no student athletics resuming until its safe to have students back in the classroom.
I don’t miss shopping, I can live without going out to eat. I can go forever without ever having another pedicure but I am mourning the loss of watching my kids play pee wee sports.
I live in Vermont, which is slowly opening up. BUT, we are slowly opening up because the governor is following the science. The state had a decrease in cases for a set amount of time, the state hied a ton of people to do contact tracing and is setting up pop-up testing sites for everyone to get tested. The state is obviously small and rural, which helps the situation. Retail stores are going to be allowed to reopen starting next week, with restrictions. I still feel like the state is moving a little bit too fast and some of the small business owners have expressed the same and aren’t sure if they will open their doors. All of this is to say, Vermont is one of just four states that meets even the minimum requirements to reopen safely and we still might be moving to quick.
What the heck is going to happen to all those other states where COVID-19 hasn’t even peaked yet? It is going to be an absolute disaster.
Cases are also going down because, here in Florida for example, they’re still hardly testing anybody and allegedly they’ve stopped writing Covid19 as a cause of death. Of course numbers will go down if you just stop counting!
Sheltering in place was always just one step of a larger process that has largely been abandoned. Re-opening anywhere without (1) enacting large-scale testing of EVERYBODY (not just people with symptoms or people that are high-risk) and (2) contact tracing every single case or suspected case ensures that cases will spike as soon as the re-opening occurs.
I’m sure people in bluer areas are taking this much more seriously, what with an actual belief in science and reality, but in Florida it’s an absolute sh*tshow where people are actively avoiding the one-way stickers in grocery stores (even police officers in uniform), touching their masks obsessively, taking off their masks to talk to store employees, and generally seem incapable of staying 6 feet away from other people. That doesn’t even include the idiots in my neighborhood having pool parties or allowing their children to play outside with all the other children. Opening up restaurants at 25% capacity means nothing if everyone at the restaurant is still using the same bathroom/menus/etc. Seeing the lackluster way that some employees have been “wiping down” shopping carts or, while wearing gloves and a mask at a cash register, remove the mask wearing their gloves, then take a sip of water from a water bottle that they’ve grabbed with the gloves, then using those same gloves to put their mask back on and scan everyone’s groceries… yea I have no faith whatsoever in the general public’s ability to adhere to even the most basic CDC guidelines, and it will absolutely cause case spikes and avoidable deaths. Now is the time to be more vigilant than ever.
The problem exists on several levels, including an unbelievable lack of proper biology instruction in primary school years, but really a lot of it is just….the privilege of having lived in an era of modern medicine. People don’t remember polio. They don’t remember when scarlet fever and typhoid would wipe out entire families or when smallpox would permanently disfigure people. They’ve never seen what a virulent flu strain can do to the population when there’s no vaccinations or ventilators in existence. It’s the mortal terror of realizing just how fragile our lives really are in the face of nature. You just deny, deny, deny.
Mark my words – flu season is going to be *bad.* Combination COVID/influenza infections are going to rip through population rapidly, and they are going to be fatal. My job has more or less kept us restricted through fall already. My mother’s, as well. We aren’t going anywhere we don’t have to anytime soon.
Dr Fauci absolutely killed it in his classy response to rude curly haired dude.
He really did !
I completely understand why Rand Paul’s neighbor took a round out of him. Team Neighbor.
Also, until there’s a vaccine we’re not going anywhere. We’re having a backyard summer.
I just returned to the states and I’m having a lot of mixed feelings. First, I’m really uncomfortable with how some people aren’t social distancing or wearing face mask. I literally yelled at someone at the Dallas airport for standing too close to me. I also laugh at the people protesting and getting upset about things not being open. Those people have no idea how good they got it. And this is why I’m conflicted, the country I just left had very strict guidelines regarding businesses opening and what people could do. There was a nationwide curfew and I was in a two block radius that was completely shut down. We were literally barricaded in and surrounded with barbed wire. Nothing was open. People weren’t leaving their flats. Despite all that, the numbers of infected started to rise and since the lockdown began, the daily number of infected is 10 times that of the start (it’s been about 2 months). So hearing people continue to say that we need remain shut down also baffles me cause there is proof from other countries that shows that might not be the solution either.
I’m conflicted to. I have been following all the rules, wearing face mask, gloves 6 ft distancing when I run to grocery store once a week, lots of hand washing and it appears we will still be on lockdown in certain part of New York. When I’m out I see 2/3 of the people out without a mask, or gloves, some distancing. I want things to open up so I can relocate. Right now I have been paying two mortgages, one where I am now and the other one in the house we were supposed to move to in in another State since March right before everything was closed down. NY numbers are down but what the use when people traveling and bringing their germs to us. Anyway, we are going to take a chance and get moving next week hope we have no problem going through several states to get to our destination. Forgive my depression.
BNA FN- we moved 4 states away during this crisis. We had no issues, but we also moved further south so I guess it all depends. Good luck, its rough trying to sell a house right now.. I know..
Thank you EMc we have been so worried , what if we are on the road with truck load of furniture and had to turn back. I’ll let you know how it turns out. We are going to NC. The next thing will be if the people are buying at this time, fingers are crossed we will get a buyer fast.
The really ugly reality is that we are, in some ways, fortunate that Trump’s administration is so utterly inept. This could have very easily been an opportunity to throw down some deeply restrictive, martial law nonsense that would NOT have disappeared after the pandemic was over, ala things like the DHS and Patriot Act following 9/11. They already used this to push through more tax breaks for the wealthy, so imagine what they could’ve done with even an iota of competency in that office. There’s an ugly strain of truth in what some of these protesters are saying – not that they have any moral ground or logical arguments, but in that they’ve accidentally stumbled upon the reality that these are the kind of circumstances that lead to power coups occurring. They’re just of the delusion that they’re on the side fighting tyranny rather than the ones supporting the tyrants.
While shutdowns aren’t the solution, are a large PART of the solution. And you should take your experience as an anedcote, since many other areas have imposed them successfully.
Yeah, my county (and state in general) is still getting new cases day after day (some think we may be the next hot spot), and our governor just reopened restaurants. I’m a bartender, I’m back to work tomorrow. Pray for me.
And I feel like a terrible, lazy person for not wanting to go back to work right now.
Dr. Fauci, has dedicated his career for decades to helping others, now he is still having to deal with Trump and his idiots.
Every damn day he speaks facts, knowledge, helpful info. And yet, now he is getting death threats to himself and his family. God Bless and Protect Dr. Fauci!
As for these fools who insist C19 is a hoax, refuse to wear a mask in public, etc.
By God, get away from me. Do not even speak to me.
I am working to tolerate them I will because I am a non violent person but, in my head I am thinking….well, you get what you get when you make bad decisions.
Awful people. Protect yourself and others by wearing a mask in public. It is easy, really.
I intend to streamline everything, food/pharmacy/gas/bank all 1 trip about every 7-10 days. I have no idea why are acting as if Stay.At.Home. is the end of everything….If you have basic needs met, why is it so difficult to be home with your own spouse/kids. Takes some extra planning, you can go outside w/social distancing, skype/video friends/family, etc, etc.
I am appalled by the great numbers of what my family would call “white trash”, and we are working class white people, but the amount of people who are acting completely subhuman, shocks me. Gathering in huge numbers to protest, screaming into the face of a masked Police Officer about your rights, etc.
I am ashamed of these people. All of them. Trump.Must.Go.
I am in Minnesota and my county has been “hot spotted” for the state in the last few days. We have 2 chicken processing plants that have had an outbreak, over 200+ in less than a week from one of these companies.
I do pray for the people who are being forced to go back to work against all these facts.
I do not think putting service jobs i.e. waiters/bartenders in harms way is that should be allowed.
Right now there is a bar owner who owns 6 bars across this county, he is publicly insisting he will reopen all 6 bars Monday. We are still under Stay.At.Home orders from the Gov.
Now, to my mind…a Fella who owns 6 bars is not going broke anytime soon.
He is risking his employees health tho, for that Almighty $$.