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CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk


Mrs Whiggins

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1 minute ago, washparkhorn said:

Disgusting. Absolutely vile. The tools of the trade for an authoritarian regime.

If this Administration had a history of good faith actions, I would say having a cohesive communications strategy would be a positive thing. But, sadly, I am afraid that is not the case here.

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1 hour ago, TXSG8R said:

I think most of the west will have a reduced mortality rate because they dont smoke like a french soldier in WW2, and/or breathe the equivalent of F250 exhaust every day.  

Until the CDC gets more testing material into the field, we are really blind to what the actual spread is.  Which is why it was dumb for the president to get on TV proclaiming everything is fine.  

I think you have a very interesting point on smoking/air quality. China DOES have terrible air quality issues and I wonder if that contributes to how deadly the virus is, since it's the pneumonia that gets you ultimately

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If you test for something, you might find it.  I suspect that Trump would be perfectly happy if people died from the Corona virus as long as it doesn't effect him.  He just wants to say everything is OK and he did a great job and move on.  The truth doesn't matter, only perception.

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10 minutes ago, triplehorn said:

In contrast to the Gov of CA, behold the vapid emptiness of this fluffer. 

sippy cup out front...

 

Trump knows this is gonna be bad so he’s setting up Pence to fail and put all the blame on him. No way in hell he’d let Pence get all the glory(hole) if Trump thought there was a “win” here. 

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In other news, Mike Pence blamed a Puerto Rican woman named Rosie (probably related to AOC) for the virus outbreak, saying “Goodbye Rosie, the Queen of Corona.”  She is also suspected of having smuggled a Mexican boy named Julio into a U.S. public school.  

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12 minutes ago, Lobo said:

In other news, Mike Pence blamed a Puerto Rican woman named Rosie (probably related to AOC) for the virus outbreak, saying “Goodbye Rosie, the Queen of Corona.”  She is also suspected of having smuggled a Mexican boy named Julio into a U.S. public school.  

boo this man

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/02/27/us-workers-without-protective-gear-assisted-coronavirus-evacuees-hhs-whistleblower-says/

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Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services sent more than a dozen workers to receive the first Americans evacuated from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, without proper training for infection control or appropriate protective gear, according to a whistleblower complaint.

The workers did not show symptoms of infection and were not tested for the virus, according to lawyers for the whistleblower, who is a senior HHS official based in Washington who oversees workers at the Administration for Children and Families, a unit within HHS.

The whistleblower is seeking federal protection because she alleges she was unfairly and improperly reassigned after raising concerns about the safety of these workers to HHS officials, including those within the office of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. She was told Feb. 19 that if she does not accept the new position in 15 days, which is March 5, she would be terminated.

The whistleblower has decades of experience in the field, received two HHS department awards from Azar last year, and has received the highest performance evaluations, her lawyers said.

The complaint was filed Wednesday with the Office of the Special Counsel, an independent federal watchdog agency. The whistleblower’s lawyers provided a copy of a redacted 24-page complaint to The Washington Post. A spokesman for the Office of the Special Counsel said he could not comment on complaints filed with the office.

The complaint alleges that HHS staff were “improperly deployed” and were “not properly trained or equipped to operate in a public health emergency situation.” The complaint also alleges that the workers were potentially exposed to coronavirus because appropriate steps were not taken to protect them, and staff were not trained in wearing personal protective equipment, even though they had face-to-face contact with returning passengers. The workers were in contact with passengers in an airplane hangar where evacuees were received and on two other occasions: when they helped distribute keys for room assignments and hand out colored ribbons for identification purposes.

“We take all whistleblower complaints very seriously and are providing the complainant all appropriate protections under the Whistleblower Protection Act. We are evaluating the complaint and have nothing further to add at this time,” HHS spokeswoman Caitlin Oakley said.

The whistleblower, in her complaint, states that “appropriate steps were not taken to quarantine, monitor, or test [the workers] during their deployment and upon their return home.” The repatriated Americans were among those evacuated from Wuhan and quarantined on military bases in California and Texas because they were considered at high risk for contracting the flu-like illness.

About 14 personnel from the Administration for Children and Families, or ACF, were sent to March Air Force base in Riverside County, California, and another team of about 13 ACF personnel were sent to Travis Air Force in Fairfield, California, according to the complaint and the whistleblower’s lawyer, Ari Wilkenfeld. Several people within HHS voiced objection to sending the ACF personnel to receive passengers, according to a person familiar with the conversations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

A second person familiar with the situation said the workers were not tested for coronavirus because none of them met the criteria, which was restricted at that time to people who had recent travel to China or contact with a confirmed case. The workers also did not exhibit any symptoms, the person said. If they had, appropriate protocol would have been followed.

The deployments took place Jan. 28 to 31, around the time when the first planeload of evacuees arrived at March, and Feb. 2 to Feb. 7, during the time when additional flights were arriving at Travis. The planes each carried about 200 Americans who were repatriated from Wuhan.

After their deployments, the workers returned to their normal duties, some taking commercial airline flights to return to their offices around the country, the lawyers said.

“Our client was concerned that ACF staff — who were potentially exposed to the coronavirus — were allowed to leave quarantined areas and return to their communities, where they may have spread the coronavirus to others,” said Lauren Naylor, one of the whistleblower’s lawyers.

The whistleblower is also seeking assistance from the office of Rep. Jimmy Gomez, (D-Ca.), a member of the House Ways and Means committee and vice chair of the House Oversight Committee, according to a Gomez spokesman.

During a hearing Thursday, Gomez asked Azar whether any employees from ACF could have been sent to help with the repatriation of Americans from Wuhan, China without any training in emergency response. Azar replied that some ACF employees were involved.

Asked what sort of health and safety training the personnel received, and whether any of them were exposed to high-risk evacuees from China, Azar said: “They never should have been without P.P.E,” referring to personal protective equipment.

Asked whether any protocols may have been broken, given the urgency on the ground, Azar replied that urgency was never a reason for breaking safety protocols.

“I don’t believe that has taken place,” Azar said said, adding that health and safety protocols “should always be followed.” He said that he did not personally know the names of the team, but that other department officials did. Pressed by Gomez what the department would do if untrained employees were exposed to the virus, Azar said: “I’d want to know the full facts, and we’d take appropriate remedial efforts.”

The whistleblower said she received an email Jan. 25 about a potential deployment within ACF to support repatriation of the evacuated Americans, according to her lawyer. She initially supported the efforts because they had the “appearance that this was within ACF’s scope,” Naylor said. But later, she discovered the teams were dispatched without her knowledge by other senior officials at HHS. It was part of the agency’s “all-hands-on-deck” mission, Naylor said, but it broke agency protocol about what kinds of employees should respond to health emergencies. The whistleblower said she later found out about the deployment when she heard directly from some employees and other senior officials at HHS.

Some workers expressed concern about the lack of protective gear to the ACF team leader on the ground. That person joined ACF in September and had “no training or experience in any federal emergency management, public health emergency response, or safety or operational protocols to run the mission,” the complaint states.

ACF personnel typically deal with supporting people recovering from natural disasters, such as floods and fires, and helping victims apply for temporary assistance, all of which are under the category of human services, the whistleblower’s lawyers said. HHS officials broke established protocols for emergency support by sending ACF workers to a health emergency, for which they have no training, Naylor said. ACF, which has about 1,300 employees, has come under attack in recent years because of its role in sheltering and taking custody of migrant children who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border who were separated from them by the Department of Homeland Security.

The workers’ concerns about potential exposure to coronavirus were not addressed, the whistleblower’s lawyers said.

“She was involuntarily assigned to a position in a subject matter where she has no expertise,” said Wilkenfeld, her lawyer, in an interview Thursday. The agency said the reason for the reassignment was “necessary to meet the needs of the department,” according to a memo she received. “If I did not accept involuntary reassignment, I would be terminated from federal service through adverse personnel action,” according to her complaint.

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3 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Couldn't this kind of compromise the whistleblower's identity?

Well I think the fact that the whistleblower is already identified as a woman who was recently reassigned probably already does that.

How in the fuck did someone decide that the workers who had been sent to China to bring Americans back, who had contact with those Americans who were possibly infected, didn't meet the criteria of "has recently been to China"? This is some Joseph Heller level absurdity.

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3 hours ago, HenryJames said:

 

doesn't this go against the Hippocratic Oath?  i know Trump doesn't give a shit, but i would hope that doctors will ignore the White House edict and stay true to their ethical obligations.

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I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.

I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will protect the environment which sustains us, in the knowledge that the continuing health of ourselves and our societies is dependent on a healthy planet.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

 

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You know the tried and true Trump playbook of manufacturing a crisis? This playbook has brought so much pain and suffering on so many innocent people worldwide: Ukrainians, Kurds, asylum seekers, Muslim travelers, Puerto Ricans and Haitians, and American citizens. You can't make a deal with a virus, it may have tendencies: strike the young or the old, the healthy or the immuno-compromised, but it's going to do whatever it does. Now there is a crisis that wasn't in the playbook and Team Trump has too few players on the field, no defensive coordinator, and the o-line coach is ogling the water boy. See you all after the game, it's going to be brutal.

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