I got up at four in the morning for no good reason and checked into Facebook and saw her reply to an earlier PM. She said something like, oh, what a good thing Trump did to shut the border with China. This REALLY could have gone wrong, she says. We'll fix everything by coming together. And there will be places that will be safe to open. So my reply at five in the morning, because it took that long to write:
You all stay safe, as well. And Karen, that ban was only for Chinese Nationals. Americans were allowed to travel to the States from China during that period. At least 300,000 came through in a month during that time. You can't contain a virus that way. It does not discriminate.
So, yes, we have to be aware that politics is playing a role in how we battle this virus. It's the Republicans who think exceptions can be made, as if there are safe pockets in this country. We will take the blow from that flawed thinking.
For example, a relative of mine lives in Atlanta so what Republican Governor Kemp does, affects me personally. Kemp is shutting down Atlanta, but opening up the beaches. And this is after it was publicly known that asymptomatic carriers can pass on the virus.
Our Republican Governor, De Santis, is not far behind him with this logic, because it is Trump's policy. They are supporting Trump. So, it's political.
And God help us, our surgeon general is a Mike Pence's hand picked puppet. Jerome Adams broke my heart when just last week he said that they only now realized that the virus was spread by asymptomatic positive carriers of the virus. C'mon Karen. We all knew that crucial bit of information back in January. Why is our surgeon general saying it now, if not to give Trump cover for all the delayed mistakes made over the facemasks?
And mistakes were indeed made. We all know the reason why they did not recommend facemasks in the beginning. It was because there were none available for us to purchase. And we know why that is. Under the eyes of Pompeo and the State Department, Chinese Nationals were allowed to come into this country and wipe out our supply. My own Lowes' guy told me that a Chinese man came and purchased 30,000 boxes from the home office. They were everywhere on this globe doing the same thing in every other country. There is a very specific article on the subject from a Sydney paper, because Australia was trying to obtain them for their people to protect them from the smoke from the wild fires, and they were short in supply. If you want links to the articles, let me know.
Here in the U.S., there's an official press release from Pompeo promoting the fact that the State Department aided "private individuals" to donate and ship 18 Tons of PPS with the State Depts. approval. This happened first week in February. Our shelves were cleaned out by late January. None to be found in Lowes or Home Depot, and it wasn't because Americans were hoarding them, because the hoarding didn't begin until late February, early March. By then, there was little to be found.
There is no way to ignore the fact that politics is the reason we're having problems tamping down on this virus. Republicans keep looking to make exceptions for themselves, and those exceptions will affect the blue states. For example, it was a Tennessee doctor who contacted his buddy Republican Phil Roe, Congressman from Tennessee to repatriate the Diamond Princess passengers back to the U.S. Phil Roe pulled strings in the State Department to bring them in, against the CDC's advice. The sick passengers disembarked in Oakland, CA, where HHS workers greeted them without PPS. No facemasks. That's how California got their first wave of community spread virus.
We're going to be seeing waves like this each time exceptions are made. So, don't say we need to drop politics and come together, because that's not the message coming from the top. We are not coming together at all under this administration. Quite the opposite. Trump's decision to relinquish his federal role to procure and distribute PPS, dumping the responsibility in the lap of the States, is the opposite of coming together and a huge political mistake for him. He's playing politics with our tax dollars. He's not just relinquishing his proper role, he's competing with the States for supplies and confiscating PPS in order to distribute ventilators and facemasks to friendly states and cronies. Wow, Karen. That is just beyond criminal.
There are no safe pockets. People will always think they can take chances without affecting others. That's not how this virus works. This week, the red rural areas are beginning to get hit, and they have the least ability to treat people. Whoever writes this story of the socio-political mistakes made, will have plenty of data to work with.
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