COVID-19 Map worldwide, with statistics

[sdean]

You get old largely by being lucky.
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I'll have to agree with you on that thought.

 

[sdean]

Two dead in my County, one just last week 90 years old. The other was 83 early on, did they really die from the covid????

Were they dieing before catching covid.

 

[1911nut]

Today, 81,000 new cases, almost 1000 new deaths.

We‘re not “rounding the corner”, more like going over a cliff.

Many hospitals in the west and midwest are approaching capacity. Nurses, doctors and other health care workers are taking the brunt of this pandemic due to the administration‘s lies, neglect and incompetence.

 

[Brians356]

Today, 81,000 new cases, almost 1000 new deaths.

We‘re not “rounding the corner”, more like going over a cliff.

Many hospitals in the west and midwest are approaching capacity. Nurses, doctors and other health care workers are taking the brunt of this pandemic due to the administration‘s lies, neglect and incompetence.

What could a President do to prevent the spread of a Coronavirus? It must be obvious to you anyway.
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[1911nut]

It is. Shoulda told us what he told Bob Woodward in real time. Shoulda not downplayed the seriousness so many times so early on when he had information to the contrary.

Im saddened to think how many doctors, nurses and hospital workers died of Covid because people didn’t think it was important to take the precautions.

 

[Alex Wheeler]

Bottom line, a year ago they stood no chance. They needed this virus. Its all they want to talk about because its all they have. If they do win, watch how fast it goes away. Mark my words.

 

[Brians356]

It is. Shoulda told us what he told Bob Woodward in real time. Shoulda not downplayed the seriousness so many times so early on when he had information to the contrary.

Im saddened to think how many doctors, nurses and hospital workers died of Covid because people didn’t think it was important to take the precautions.

Gosh, it's that simple, huh? He fooled everyone and took no actions to protect us. I feel your sadness.
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[Flouncer]

It is. Shoulda told us what he told Bob Woodward in real time. Shoulda not downplayed the seriousness so many times so early on when he had information to the contrary.

Im saddened to think how many doctors, nurses and hospital workers died of Covid because people didn’t think it was important to take the precautions.

Cough. No. Any doctor listening to a politician for disease info and following that BS is not smart enough to practice medicine. My opinion. No DR and Nurses died because they followed the Mango Mussolini. That's non sense. Call you on that. Smile emoji !!

 

[Adam in WI]

It is. Shoulda told us what he told Bob Woodward in real time. Shoulda not downplayed the seriousness so many times so early on when he had information to the contrary.

Im saddened to think how many doctors, nurses and hospital workers died of Covid because people didn’t think it was important to take the precautions.

You're an ignoramus if you think this is as all the fault of the President, and that he's not done everything in his power to help this situation. Here is an interview that Fauci did with Mark Levin back on March 22. Incidentally, this is also the interview where Fauci was "taken out of context".



LEVIN: Dr. Anthony Fauci, how are you, sir?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Very well. Thank you.

LEVIN: Little busy, I see.

FAUCI: Yes, pretty much so.

LEVIN: Can you give us a little bit of your background? You've been doing this a very long time. I'm not that old. But I remember seeing you all the time whenever there's some horrific disease, there you are on TV.

FAUCI: Well, I've been Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for almost 36 years, but I've been at the N.I.H. from the time I first came after my medical training in New York City, Internal Medicine, I did an Infectious Diseases fellowship at the N.I.H. in 1968 to 1971.

And then I went back for a year in New York City to do medical -- extensive medical training -- and then I came back, and I've been here ever since. So it's about 50 years.

LEVIN: So you've seen some pretty nasty viruses, some pretty nasty illnesses. Have you ever seen anything like this?

FAUCI: You know, all the outbreaks that I've been involved with that go all the way back from HIV-AIDS, which when you look at the impact of that, over time, it started sort of like not very well noticed back in the early 1980s, and it was a lot under the radar screen because people were infected and didn't know it. They weren't obviously ill.

And then you get to today, where you have, you know, historically one of the most impactful outbreaks in the history of civilization.

That's different than the here. We've had Ebola. We've had the anthrax attacks. We've had Chikungunya, we've had the threat of the chicken pre- pandemic flu, the bird flu, the H5N1. We've had Ebola. We've had Zika.

This is different, because this really is very much the unknown of what is going to happen and what you see unfold isn't particularly encouraging.

If you look at what's happened in China. If you look at what's happened in South Korea, and now currently in Europe, you know, you're having a very serious situation that potentially involves everyone in the world and everyone in the United States.

When we had Ebola, I mean, there was a lot of publicity and a lot of concern about Ebola. But the nature of how Ebola spreads, is that it would never really have ever been a massive outbreak in the United States.

Because with Ebola, you have to be in very close contact with someone who is very ill, obviously ill, and you have to be in touch with what's called body fluids.

So even though it's a scary disease, there was really no chance there would be a major outbreak, maybe a couple of patients that we saw.

This disease is different because it's a respiratory illness. It's an illness that spread rapidly from person to person, and it has a substantial degree of morbidity and mortality.

For example, if you use as a benchmark, you compare it with seasonal flu, which we have every year and we get used to it as much illness and death that it causes, you're kind of used to it, you know, it comes every single year. The mortality of that is 0.1 percent.

The mortality of this infection in China and in Korea was about two to three percent.

Now, I think the ultimate mortality when we find out that many people are infected, but don't get noticed because their infection is asymptomatic, it will probably be less than two to three percent.

But whatever it is, it's going to be much higher than the kinds of things that we've experienced. So for that reason, it is clearly, clearly different.

LEVIN: Well, let me ask you a question, putting the statistics aside. I get the flu last year, then I get this virus this year. For me as an individual putting aside how it spreads and all the rest of it, what's the difference?

FAUCI: Well, the difference is the potential for killing you and the potential for putting you in a situation where you would require very intensive medical care.

Now, influenza is similar in some respects to coronavirus, in that the people who have complications when they get infected are generally the elderly, and particularly those who have underlying conditions, congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, or people who are on chemotherapy for underlying conditions, like cancer or autoimmune diseases. They have very heavily weighted towards the serious consequences.

The difference between influenza and this besides the fact that the morbidity of this and mortality is much greater than influenza, is that for reasons that we don't understand, this particular virus doesn't really do very much bad things to kids, children.

Children seem to do very, very well. Now, every once in a while, you're going to get a one-off where a young person or a child gets seriously ill and maybe even dies.

But for the most part, children do very well. But I think if you just want to be sort of plain and simple about it, it's a much more serious disease than classical influenza.

LEVIN: Except for healthy people tend to do okay in the end, correct?

FAUCI: Yes, if you look at again, every day and every week that goes by, we learn more and more. Initially, our store of knowledge came predominantly from China. Then when South Korea and Japan and other Asian countries got infected, we looked at what happened there.

Now we have a lot of data from Europe because Italy and France and the European countries, and now we're starting to accumulate thousands of patients in our own country. So as the weeks go by, we learn more and more.

But if you look at the display of the ages of people who get into trouble, without a doubt, if you're a young, healthy person, you might get infected, you might feel ill, but the overwhelming possibility is that you're going to spontaneously recover without any specific kind of medical intervention.

LEVIN: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEVIN: This virus looks for opportunities.

FAUCI: Right.

LEVIN: And if you have a weakness, whether a result of age, or poor immunity, or whatever it is, that's where it becomes more dangerous. But for the general population that is generally healthy, it is not necessarily a morbidity issue, correct?

FAUCI: It's not a morbidity issue, but the reason why we insist that everybody take precautions about getting infected because even though for a younger person, that person may not have a high chance of morbidity and mortality, that person can easily get infected as well as anybody else.

And as part of the goal and the mission of addressing this outbreak is to A, prevent infections in anybody and everybody, but also to protect the vulnerable, the people who if they get infected, they have a much poorer outcome.

And unfortunately, young people who may feel that they're invulnerable. I know when I was young, I kind of felt that I was invulnerable. Well, first of all, you're not invulnerable, but certainly you're much less likely to get into trouble, but you could then pass the virus inadvertently to an elderly person, maybe your grandfather and grandmother, to a sick relative who may have chemotherapy.

And even though you're saying, well, you know, I'm not going to get sick, I'm going to do fine. I feel as a physician and as a public health person, that you have a societal responsibility to protect yourself from getting infected for two reasons.

One, you don't want to get sick, even though it's a mild to moderate illness. And two, you really want to protect the vulnerable people in society.

LEVIN: I think that's right. I'm just trying to point out that these statistics that people are getting panicky, and that it might be increased over the flu and so forth. It's really certain populations in particular, the behavior you know, that's right, people need to behave in a way that they don't make relatives, friends and others strangers sick.

Let me ask you this. I keep hearing we don't have enough beds. We don't have enough ventilators. We don't have enough respirators. And I did a little research, you can straighten me out if I'm wrong.

We have what's called these CON Laws in 36 states in the District of Columbia. These are Certificate of Need Laws, where the governors, the states decide how many ICU beds there are going to be. How many hospitals are going to be? Whether a hospital can build another wing -- all goes through these state regulatory processes.

When you have a bed, a bed is not useful unless you have a ventilator or a respirator, and of course, you need doctors and nurses. Then I look at this doctor issue, again, just as a pedestrian.

You have Medicare-funded residency slots that are set by Congress. So Congress is setting many of these residency slots. The states are determining how many beds there are.

And so at these press conferences, you and the President and others are asked, what are you going to do about the beds? What are you going to do about respirators and so forth?

Isn't this virus showing some of the gaps in our system? And isn't the response to it when we look back actually going to help fix some of that perhaps?

FAUCI: Yes. Well, you know, you've asked a good, but complicated question. So first of all, everything that you just asked me about is, as we speak, almost being directly addressed by the President and the Vice President in their discussions at the meetings in our Taskforce, and at the innumerable press conferences that we have.

First of all, what can the Federal government do? As you can see, the President has over the last few days has called upon the Department of Defense to supply millions and millions and millions of mask respirators. Many, many, many more ventilators that we have.

They're bringing in beds with regard to the naval ships that now will be deployed. They're providing financial assistance for people who are going to be in difficulty because of the virus.

But the other thing that was stressed and stressed very clearly, the second point you made, and that is -- this is something that needs to be implemented and is the responsibility of the states and the local.

So sometimes they don't even realize that they have the resources and it's up to them to make the decisions about implementation. But the Federal government does, it went out there, they clearly are not enough. They are willing and able to help.

But the actual on the ground implementation of it is at the local and state level. That's the reason why the President has met and I've been on telephone calls with him with the governors more than once to try and get them to appreciate that is it within their reach and within their power to make these kinds of decisions to see if resources can be properly distributed.

That's not saying that we'll always have enough for everyone, and that's the reason why he is calling on the people in the industry to rev up, to make some of these things, to fill -- to backfill the Strategic National Stockpile.

You know, because we have 12,700, ventilators in the Strategic National Stockpile, we have tens of millions of respirator masks. Once you send them out to those who need it, you have to backfill, and those are the kind of things they're doing.

Bottom line, everything you just said now is being very intensively addressed, both by the President and the Vice President and the administration and the Taskforce, as well as at the local level.

LEVIN: The only reason I mentioned it, is because I watch these press conferences with the governors, and I watched the Governor of New York say we need more beds and I said, well, why don't you go get them? Because under the these CON Laws, the Certificate of Need Laws and the first state to have it was New York in the 1960s. They limit the number of beds for whatever reason, they limit the expansion of facilities and not just that, MRIs, CTs, other devices.

I am only mentioning this so the American people understand, you sitting here can't snap your finger and then all of a sudden there's more beds and the President of the United States can snap his finger.

FAUCI: Right.

LEVIN: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEVIN: Welcome back. Dr. Fauci, let me ask you a question. You've been doing this a long time. Have you ever seen this big of a coordinated response by an administration to such a threat? A health threat?

FAUCI: Well, we've never had a threat like this and the coordinated response has been, there are a number of adjectives to describe it. Impressive, I think is one of them.

I mean, we're talking about all-hands on-deck is that I, as one of many people on a team, I'm not the only person, since the beginning that we even recognized what this was. I have been devoting almost full time on this -- almost full time.

I'm down at the White House virtually every day with the Taskforce. I'm connected by phone throughout the day and into the night and when I say night, I'm talking twelve, one, two in the morning. I'm not the only one. There's a whole group of us that are doing that. It's every single day.

So I can't imagine that that under any circumstances that anybody could be doing more. I mean, obviously, we're fighting a formidable enemy -- this virus. This virus is a serious issue here.

Take a look at what it's done to China, to Europe, to South Korea. It is serious and our response is aimed, and I know you've heard that many, many times, and this is true. I mean, I deal with viruses my entire career.

When you have an outbreak virus, if you leave it to its own devices, it will peak up and then come back down. What we learned from China, that letting it peak up is really bad, because it can do some serious damage. So we are focused now, like a laser on doing whatever we can, and there are two or three things that deserve to be mentioned -- to make this peak actually be a mound, which means you're going to have suffering, you're going to have illness, you're going to have death. But it's not going to be the maximum that the virus can do.

A couple of ways to do that. The first was, as we say, all the time, the very timely decision on the part of the President to shut off travel from China, because we saw that there was this possibility of people coming in and seeding in the country. We did it early.

And as it turned out, there were relatively few cases in the big picture of things that came in from China. Unfortunately, for our colleagues, and many of whom are my friends and people I've trained actually in Medicine, in European countries, they didn't do that. And they got hit really hard and are being hit really hard. The first thing.

Second thing, when the infection burden shifted from China to Europe, we did the same thing with Europe. We shut off travel from Europe, which again was another safeguard to prevent influx from without in.

The other way you do it is by containment and mitigation. And now everybody knows what the word mitigation means because it's the things that we're doing. No crowds, work from home. Don't go to places that you can be susceptible. Ten people in a room, not 50 and a hundred people. Stay away from theatres.

Take the elderly people who are susceptible and have them do self- isolation. Stay out of bars, stay out of restaurants.

If you're in an area where there's a lot of coronavirus activity, close the bars, close the restaurants. That's heavy duty mitigation.

So I think with all of those things going on at the same time, I believe we will -- we're already doing it, but you just can't notice it yet because you have the dynamics of the virus going up. We're trying to put it down. You're not really sure quantitatively what you're doing, but you can be actually certain that we're having an impact on it.

LEVIN: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEVIN: You are impressed, every day, 20 hours a day of what's taking place. How about the private sector? Are you impressed with their reaction?

FAUCI: Well, I'm impressed with the fact that when the President called the private sector into the Cabinet Room and into the Roosevelt Room and said we need to step up that that allowed us to have a lot more bandwidth if you want to call it that.

I mean, particularly with the idea of what we were stalling early on a bit with the testing, they said, okay, we need high throughput testing, we need the companies that make it to get it out there and can implement that.

And to their credit, the company stepped to the plate. So that's the reason why we are seeing and we'll be seeing quite soon, a major escalation in the ability to be doing testing.

LEVIN: There is this statement put up, some in the press, some in the opposition party of the President, that the President doesn't follow the science. Is the President following the science?

FAUCI: Every single time that I -- and when I say every day, it's like almost every day. It's not like once a month. We are in the in the Taskforce meeting. There are several of us, myself included. I'm not the only one that's a scientist or a public health person. There are other people who have other responsibilities, so we get a good sampling of expertise that you need and it's led by the Vice President, Secretary Azar is there as the Secretary of H.H.S.

And we talk about every aspect and we make all of our decisions and recommendations that are based on the science. I have never in that room had a situation where I said, scientifically, this is the right thing to do it and they said, don't do it. Or scientifically, this is the wrong thing to do and they did it anyway.

Then we get up and we present it to the President. And he asks a lot of questions. That's his nature. He is constantly asking the question, and I never, in the multiple times that I've done that, where I said, for scientific reasons, we really should do this that he hasn't said let's do it.

Or when he's decided -- not decided -- when he suggests, why don't we do this? And I say, no, that's really not a good idea from a scientific standpoint. He has never overruled me.

LEVIN: All right. Well, keep up the great work. Let everybody that you work with know that the American people are very thankful you're out there and we will continue to watch and God bless you.

FAUCI: Thank you very much. Good to be with you.

LEVIN: Thank you.

 

[ronsatspokane]

It is. Shoulda told us what he told Bob Woodward in real time. Shoulda not downplayed the seriousness so many times so early on when he had information to the contrary.

Im saddened to think how many doctors, nurses and hospital workers died of Covid because people didn’t think it was important to take the precautions.

Everyone did take precautions. The front line workers wear PPE's all the time. They know what the word infectious means be it the flu or ebola. That some ran short is not the falt of the president. From zero supplies following H1N1 that were never replentished, he got them what they needed pronto. Everyone else took precautions by buying up all the toilet paper within sight. Obviously they were shitting their pants. Were you one of them or is this pant shitting a recent development?

 

[Brians356]

FAUCI: Well, we've never had a threat like this and the coordinated response has been, there are a number of adjectives to describe it. Impressive, I think is one of them.
... I can't imagine that that under any circumstances that anybody could be doing more.

 

[Brians356]

Alert! Alert! A rabid case of TDS has broken out here. Everyone deploy your "Ignore" button before it's too late.
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[Forum Boss]

Thread locked for now.

Too many people engaged in hostile badgering and pointless political insults.

If you have something insightful and valid to say, that can assist the well-being of our Forum members, consider posting when and if I reopen the thread again.

As for folks who just want to insult others or cause trouble ... well I have just added 4 members to the ban “watch list”.