January 3, 2021

The AZ Repug Party sure is barking up the wrong tree........

As my friend @FrankLuntz
reminded you, Romney, McCain, and Flake actually won Arizona. Sooooo

https://twitter.com/RepKinzinger/status/1345567980885848065?s=20





https://twitter.com/JohnBrennan/status/1345545118196109313?s=20

January 2, 2021

Coughing, sneezing, vomiting: Visibly ill people aren't being kept off planes

Fauci said Jan. was going to be a terrible month for covid deaths.




https://twitter.com/latimes/status/1345120767504220160?s=20

United Airlines workers disinfect a cabin of a plane in July at Los Angeles International Airport.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)



Coughing, sneezing, vomiting: Visibly ill people aren’t being kept off planes



By Hugo MartínStaff Writer
Jan. 1, 2021 5 AM

Before boarding a flight from Orlando to Los Angeles, Isaias Hernandez filled out a health checklist provided by United Airlines, asserting that he had not been diagnosed with COVID-19 and had not shown any of the disease’s symptoms in the previous two weeks.

But during the flight, the 69-year-old Angeleno collapsed. Three passengers gave him CPR for nearly an hour in the aisle of the plane, and the flight was diverted to Louisiana, where Hernandez was pronounced dead. The coroner’s report listed the cause as “acute respiratory failure, COVID-19.”

The Dec. 14 incident illustrates the deficiencies in the systems that are meant to prevent people from bringing the coronavirus aboard commercial flights and potentially spreading it to the people packed in around them. And it happened as holiday air travel ramped up. In the days surrounding Christmas, more than a million passengers boarded planes almost daily, reaching 1.3 million last Sunday — the most since March.



U.S. airlines boast layers of protocols intended to protect passengers from the virus, including the increased cleaning of plane cabins and a requirement that passengers wear face coverings except when eating or drinking. Nearly all of them also require passengers to fill out a health declaration before boarding. But the only repercussion for lying on the declaration or refusing to wear a mask on the plane is getting banned from the airline, if caught. ...............................

January 1, 2021

Trump's Focus as the Pandemic Raged: What Would It Mean for Him?

https://twitter.com/bulldoghill/status/1344989928241827842?s=20


Trump’s Focus as the Pandemic Raged: What Would It Mean for Him?

President Trump missed his chance to show that he could rise to the moment in the final chapter of his presidency and meet the defining challenge of his tenure.


https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/31/us/politics/trump-coronavirus.html?referringSource=articleShare

President Trump not only ended up soundly defeated by Joseph R. Biden Jr., but missed his chance to show that he could meet the defining challenge of his tenure.

By Michael D. Shear, Maggie Haberman, Noah Weiland, Sharon LaFraniere and Mark Mazzetti

Published Dec. 31, 2020Updated Jan. 1, 2021, 2:20 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON — It was a warm summer Wednesday, Election Day was looming and President Trump was even angrier than usual at the relentless focus on the coronavirus pandemic.

“You’re killing me! This whole thing is! We’ve got all the damn cases,” Mr. Trump yelled at Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and senior adviser, during a gathering of top aides in the Oval Office on Aug. 19. “I want to do what Mexico does. They don’t give you a test till you get to the emergency room and you’re vomiting.”

Mexico’s record in fighting the virus was hardly one for the United States to emulate. But the president had long seen testing not as a vital way to track and contain the pandemic but as a mechanism for making him look bad by driving up the number of known cases.

And on that day he was especially furious after being informed by Dr. Francis S. Collins, the head of the National Institutes of Health, that it would be days before the government could give emergency approval to the use of convalescent plasma as a treatment, something Mr. Trump was eager to promote as a personal victory going into the Republican National Convention the following week.



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January 1, 2021

How America's Covid response left 3,000 health workers dead Dire PPE shortages. Limited Covid tests

This is a devastating investigation--lost in the Holiday celebrations.



Did they have to die? How America's Covid response left 3,000 health workers dead

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/23/us-healthcare-workers-died-covid-coronavirus

Dire PPE shortages. Limited Covid tests. Political negligence. A Guardian/KHN investigation reveals what went wrong

Lost on the frontline interactive: the healthcare workers who have died in the pandemic

Christina Jewett and Robert Lewis

Wed 23 Dec 2020 09.07 EST
Last modified on Thu 24 Dec 2020 00.56 EST



Workers at Garfield medical center in suburban Los Angeles were on edge as the pandemic ramped up in March and April. Staffers in a 30-patient unit were rationing a single tub of sanitizing wipes all day. A May memo from the chief executive said N95 masks could be cleaned up to 20 times before replacement.

Patients showed up Covid-negative but some still developed symptoms a few days later. Contact tracing took the form of texts and whispers about exposures.

By summer, frustration gave way to fear. At least 60 staff members at the 210-bed community hospital caught Covid-19, according to records obtained by KHN and interviews with eight staff members and others familiar with hospital operations.

The first to die was Dawei Liang, 60, a quiet radiology technician who never said “no” when a colleague needed help. A cardiology technician became infected and changed his final wishes – agreeing to intubation – hoping for more years to dote on his grandchildren.

Few felt safe.

Ten months into the pandemic, it has become far clearer why tens of thousands of healthcare workers have been infected by the virus and why so many have died: dire PPE shortages. Limited Covid tests. Sparse tracking of viral spread. Layers of flawed policies handed down by healthcare executives and politicians, and lax enforcement by government regulators.

All of those breakdowns, across cities and states, have contributed to the deaths of more than 2,900 healthcare workers, a nine-month investigation by over 70 reporters at KHN and the Guardian has found. This number is far higher than that reported by the US government, which does not have a comprehensive national count........ .......................