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CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk


Mrs Whiggins

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34 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

This is fine, because Abbott will just tweet some more that healthcare providers should be vaccinating more people.

There are times to follow the rules and times to use common sense. Still a pharmacy should not be the ones creating demand for the vaccine, the county health dept should take on that task. Of course many local govts hide when COVID comes up because they hear from the COVID-deniers.

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1 hour ago, Anastasis said:

I’ll take my chances with H-E-B. 

That’s bc you’ve spent your adult life voting for and advocating for dumbasses who want to burn the government down and abdicate providing basic public services to private enterprise who don’t necessarily have the infrastructure but will make some sweet sweet profit. So then when the federal government is failing at vaccine distribution now, you get to point and say SEE TOLD YOU THEY CANT DO IT. LET HEB DO IT. DURRRR

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H-E-B actually has most of the infrastructure in place, including immunization certified pharmacists. Why wouldn’t you leverage the private sector? No no no. What we need is more bureaucrats involved cause that is what it takes to deliver that vax into arms. 

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12 hours ago, ChuckNorrisActionJeans said:

"responsibility has been pushed" --- passive voice.

I want to fucking know where our state leadership is. What the fuck does Abbot even do? It appears he hasn't given any update on the vaccine or its distribution since almost 2 weeks ago. State elected officials are committing malfeasance and neglect, standing by (or not) idly, basically just being twitter trolls and trying to undo local health measures. How the fuck do people vote for this shit?  And-- want to know how I know we're really fucked? A large portion of the residents in this state are gunning for Abbott because he somehow did too much against freedumb (and even then he reversed himself).

Oh and he claims he's gonna get it spent but he still has $2-3 BILLION of Cares money that the state has to spend, and is lobbying for a deadline extension. You know how these funds could be spent? Directing and providing resources for the vaccine distribution, which you had months to consider. The fuck is going on with this shithead apart from proving the bullshit R mantra -- that government is incompetent-- by shirking the most basic, constitutional charge of the office -- to care for the health and welfare of the state's citizens?   Easiest, griftiest gig in the fucking world.  Feeling SALTY

Abbott’s putting all the states resources towards overturning the election. Priorities. Recognize. 

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On 12/30/2020 at 7:16 AM, Nice Guy Eddie said:

People that down play covid are claiming that the LA rep who died, had a heart attack but also has covid.  In their view, it’s the hospitals trying to get more money by claiming it was covid.

My brother here.

23 hours ago, BradInATX said:

I can laugh at the irony and make note of how his death is microcosmic of idiotworld 2020 America, but I can't get to celebrating his death. Leaving behind a wife and kids is tragic. His death alone, eh, "it is what it is". But his death has ruined at least three other lives, and that's a tragedy.

If he were a closet wife beater or child abuser, he wouldn't be missed.  In some ways, at least psychologically, he was most likely abusive, espousing racist, homophobic and misogynist viewpoints.    I'm thinking some people are better off with shitty parents/spouses out of their lives, whichever way.

 

22 hours ago, Surly Bevo said:

I'll grant your first statement as it pertains to rural and far flung areas.  I don't buy it when it comes to urban areas.  NYC vaccinated 5 million people against smallpox in 1947....in two weeks.  We don't have the supply yet to do that but once it is there absolutely no reason it could not be done en masse and quickly.  

In 1947 the population wasn't half full of lunatic anti-vaxxers.

22 hours ago, washparkhorn said:

Add in post offices. 

We once had circuit riding judges delivering justice.

Now we need "Circuit-Riding Inoculators" traveling from post office to post office delivering immunizations. 

We have legions of therapists and nurses going into rural texas on a daily basis through home health care.  But their companies won't do it without funding.  And I imagine the liability would be high too.

19 hours ago, ChuckNorrisActionJeans said:

NSIAP

Abbott Teams up with Covid Against Austin

https://www.texastribune.org/2020/12/30/texas-greg-abbott-austin-new-years/

 

Greg Abbott says Austin can't ban late on-site dining for New Year's weekend as COVID-19 surge continues

Mayor Steve Adler said the severity of the COVID-19 situation in Austin requires more drastic measures. El Paso County announced a similar order earlier this month.

BY JUAN PABLO GARNHAM DEC. 30, 2020UPDATED: 2:38 PM

COPY LINK
REPUBLISH

With COVID-19 cases surging, Austin's mayor announced a ban on restaurants and bars serving customers on site during late night and early morning hours throughout the New Year's weekend, but Gov. Greg Abbott quickly attacked the move and said the city isn't authorized to exceed his statewide restrictions.

According to the city’s order, dine-in food and beverage service will be restricted both indoors and outdoors from 10:30 p.m. to 6 a.m. starting Thursday and ending at 6 a.m. Sunday. Those businesses can continue to offer drive-thru, curbside pick-up, take out, or delivery services.

“We are now facing our most dangerous surge,” Austin Mayor Steve Adler said during a Wednesday press conference. “We could be facing something more severe and more extreme than what we have seen in the past. I want to make real clear that this is not about government and this is not about politics.”

Abbott tweeted on Tuesday that Adler doesn't have authority to issue such a local order. “My executive order stops cities like Austin from arbitrarily shutting down businesses,” he said. “The city has a responsibility to enforce existing orders, not make new ones.”

But the governor has remained silent about similar orders in El Paso County that covered the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's holidays. The governor's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Texas Tribune.

On Wednesday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sent a letter to both Adler and Travis County Judge Andy Brown that said Austin's order was "unlawful and unenforceable" and threatened legal action if they don't "immediately rescind or, at a minimum, modify your orders" so they comply with the state's regulations.

Austin’s order, which carries a maximum fine of $1,000 for violators but no jail time, does not violate the state’s regulation because it’s “just an operational constraint,” Adler said, adding that “the reason that we are doing this is because it focuses on the activity where people are together without wearing masks.”

During his press conference, Adler encouraged Austinites to support restaurants through delivery and take out and “tip and overtip, because these people and these businesses are taking a severe and significant financial hit for the greater good, and we as a community can help mitigate that.”

Austin and Travis County officials warned that the area has seen a troubling rise in COVID-19 cases and they are worried about hospital capacity. In the last month, the county's positivity rate — the percentage of tests that come back positive for COVID-19 — and ICU bed usage have almost doubled. New daily cases have more than quadrupled in the same period, according to the county's COVID-19 dashboards.

“Today in Texas, COVID-19 represents one in five of every person hospitalized,” said Mark Escott, interim health authority and public health medical director for the City of Austin and Travis County. “The policies that we’ve had have not worked to curb the spread of the disease … Now it’s the time to reconsider those decisions so that we can protect Texas.”

On Twitter, the Texas Restaurant Association called on Austin businesses to follow Abbott’s guidance and said that “a curfew is not allowed.”

“Restaurants are deeply invested within their communities, and so they continue to do all they can to prevent the spread of COVID-19, often at tremendous cost,” the organization's tweet said. “Closing indoor dining will not prevent holiday celebrations; it will simply move them from highly regulated businesses into completely unregulated spaces at a critical time in our COVID-19 response.”

Last month, El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego announced a similar curfewfor Thanksgiving as COVID-19 cases increased in the border county. And earlier this month, Samaniego issued a similar measure for Christmas and New Year's celebrations.

The county has banned all social activities — including restaurant dine-in services — from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. between Dec. 30 and Jan. 4 but allows take out and drive thru service. After he issued the Thanksgiving order, Samaniego said that he did so after what he said was a “favorable” discussion with Abbott’s office and a representative from the Texas Attorney General’s office.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned Americans to avoid crowds and poorly ventilated indoor spaces and recommended that people stay at home for New Year's Eve or celebrate virtually.

 

 

Abbott knows he will never get Austin to vote for him.  So he punches on them to keep his rural red force enthused and voting.  He's doing nothing but promoting the cultural divide between rural and urban, just to retain power.

18 hours ago, 27-25 said:

Yep.  A reasonable leader of a nation might get some governors on the phone, discuss the apparent lack of progress in getting the vaccine administered and ask whether there was anything the Federal Government could do to help grease the skids.  You know, instead playing more rounds of golf.

I thought the Army and Guard was all over this, Donnie?  

18 hours ago, Gatorubet said:


I wish I could rep this like Texas scores bowl touchdowns.

or like OU?   (sorry, that was low hanging fruit.)

 

11 hours ago, ChuckNorrisActionJeans said:

"responsibility has been pushed" --- passive voice.

I want to fucking know where our state leadership is. What the fuck does Abbot even do? It appears he hasn't given any update on the vaccine or its distribution since almost 2 weeks ago. State elected officials are committing malfeasance and neglect, standing by (or not) idly, basically just being twitter trolls and trying to undo local health measures. How the fuck do people vote for this shit?  And-- want to know how I know we're really fucked? A large portion of the residents in this state are gunning for Abbott because he somehow did too much against freedumb (and even then he reversed himself).

Oh and he claims he's gonna get it spent but he still has $2-3 BILLION of Cares money that the state has to spend, and is lobbying for a deadline extension. You know how these funds could be spent? Directing and providing resources for the vaccine distribution, which you had months to consider. The fuck is going on with this shithead apart from proving the bullshit R mantra -- that government is incompetent-- by shirking the most basic, constitutional charge of the office -- to care for the health and welfare of the state's citizens?   Easiest, griftiest gig in the fucking world.  Feeling SALTY

None of Abbot's big money donors can figure out how to split up the grift.  Big medical players like Baylor Scott and White are waiting for the system to fail, so the government will be forced to pay asses like them to administer the program.  Pretty simple, really.

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4 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Other countries don't immediately react with, "muh rights" when asked to help out their country. 

But freedom fries. 

 

11 hours ago, Bama Chick said:

I fear many many more places will be facing this same horrible situation within the next 10-14 days.
 

 


We are going to see people who have heart attacks and strokes and accidents die when they might normally survive.

 

And this won’t go down as a covid related death. So much winning.

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What is the protocol for getting on one of the phase 1 lists?  Do I need a note from my doctor or my (dead) mom or what?

The list of serious underlying conditions is open-ended.  Kinda hard for the layman to parse it out.

Also, regarding the 30 doses going bad in the Panhandle:  what would be the consequences, if any, should that pharmacy just go get 30 non-listed patients and vaccinate them?  I guess the 2-dose requirement complicates matters, but would they be open to legal action?

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1 minute ago, jimmyjazz said:

What is the protocol for getting on one of the phase 1 lists?  Do I need a note from my doctor or my (dead) mom or what?

The list of serious underlying conditions is open-ended.  Kinda hard for the layman to parse it out.

Also, regarding the 30 doses going bad in the Panhandle:  what would be the consequences, if any, should that pharmacy just go get 30 non-listed patients and vaccinate them?  I guess the 2-dose requirement complicates matters, but would they be open to legal action?

You could be an elected official or worth billions. You’d shoot to the top of the list. 

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3 hours ago, Js1 said:

That’s bc you’ve spent your adult life voting for and advocating for dumbasses who want to burn the government down and abdicate providing basic public services to private enterprise who don’t necessarily have the infrastructure but will make some sweet sweet profit. So then when the federal government is failing at vaccine distribution now, you get to point and say SEE TOLD YOU THEY CANT DO IT. LET HEB DO IT. DURRRR

Some people would both sides the Civil War.  I don't know why y'all don't ignore him but for some reason y'all seem to entertain his just asking questions and excusing batshit cray reactions.  People are dying amidst a pandemic while their leaders both deny and get vaccinated, the economy is on fire, and we're trying to overturn a Democratic election.  Both sides. 

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4 hours ago, Anastasis said:

H-E-B actually has most of the infrastructure in place, including immunization certified pharmacists. Why wouldn’t you leverage the private sector? No no no. What we need is more bureaucrats involved cause that is what it takes to deliver that vax into arms. 

I agree with leveraging the private sector. That's why the defense production act exists. In case of emergency, all resources need to be utilized. I think some of the pushback comes from one party spending decades gutting the very services they now deem incompetent. In contrast, the US military is a government run program continually funded  and supported, and has been the gold standard for the entire world for who knows how long. 

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3 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

I agree with leveraging the private sector. That's why the defense production act exists.

We're talking about putting shots in arms.  I have no problem with invoking the DPA if needed, but you don't have to do that to mobilize the resources necessary here.  Suggesting that the roll out in Texas would be better managed and more efficient if HHSC turned the job over to HEB is apparently a BOTH SIDES! thing though.   

 

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31 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

We're talking about putting shots in arms.  I have no problem with invoking the DPA if needed, but you don't have to do that to mobilize the resources necessary here.  Suggesting that the roll out in Texas would be better managed and more efficient if HHSC turned the job over to HEB is apparently a BOTH SIDES! thing though.   

 

Couldn’t Trump have enacted the Defense Act in order to produce more vaccines by taking the “recipe’ away from Moderna or Pfizer and giving it to every pharmaceutical company with the orders to produce enough of this stuff so we can vaccinate all of America by the end of February?  I am legitimately asking this question as I really don’t know the answer but I would think that would get the US economy up and running much quicker which is good for everybody.  

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We're talking about putting shots in arms.  I have no problem with invoking the DPA if needed, but you don't have to do that to mobilize the resources necessary here.  Suggesting that the roll out in Texas would be better managed and more efficient if HHSC turned the job over to HEB is apparently a BOTH SIDES! thing though.   
 

Maybe it was in your delivery rather than the content.

I think making use of private sector logistics makes perfect sense. I also would have no problem incentivizing those companies to do so.

Right now though we are just dumping the responsibility onto local governments etc. with no fiscal support for them to handle the increased needs.
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3 hours ago, Anastasis said:

H-E-B would never do that. 

HEB is out.  The hospital and the associated medical group has it, but they have decided that if you are an established enough patient, you can get fucked.  I guess I missed the 1a, 1b, 1c, boarding program where there were additional criteria that could be added upon a whim.  

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3 minutes ago, Beantown Express 2.0 said:

Couldn’t Trump have enacted the Defense Act in order to produce more vaccines by taking the “recipe’ away from Moderna or Pfizer and giving it to every pharmaceutical company with the orders to produce enough of this stuff so we can vaccinate all of America by the end of February?  I am legitimately asking this question as I really don’t know the answer but I would think that would get the US economy up and running much quicker which is good for everybody.  

As I understand it, the real IP is in the nanoparticles that package the mRNA for delivery...

The mRNA just codes a slightly modified spike protein...(proline stabilized, developed by a UT-Austin lab) 

https://www.statnews.com/2020/12/01/how-nanotechnology-helps-mrna-covid19-vaccines-work

https://cen.acs.org/pharmaceuticals/vaccines/tiny-tweak-behind-COVID-19/98/i38

https://www.mclellanlab.org/

 

I am not sure that there is much untapped production capacity, but if it can be demonstrated that there is, somebody better explain why it is not being used to pump out vax. 

 

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I keep asking though is the amount really the problem at this point?  I know that it keeps getting said that "less has been delivered than expected" BUT until you really start hearing en masse folks saying "we ain't got none to give and there are tons of people waiting" it seems like we could have 70 million doses sitting around right now and be in the same place. 

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1 minute ago, Nivek said:

HEB is out.  The hospital and the associated medical group has it, but they have decided that if you are an established enough patient, you can get fucked.  I guess I missed the 1a, 1b, 1c, boarding program where there were additional criteria that could be added upon a whim.  

I agree with your earlier point.  At least wrt the moderna vax, this is was developed with public funding.  Individual institutions should not be creating additional barriers to vaccination. HEB wouldn't act like assholes. 

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20 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

As I understand it, the real IP is in the nanoparticles that package the mRNA for delivery...

The mRNA just codes a slightly modified spike protein...(proline stabilized, developed by a UT-Austin lab) 

https://www.statnews.com/2020/12/01/how-nanotechnology-helps-mrna-covid19-vaccines-work

https://cen.acs.org/pharmaceuticals/vaccines/tiny-tweak-behind-COVID-19/98/i38

https://www.mclellanlab.org/

 

I am not sure that there is much untapped production capacity, but if it can be demonstrated that there is, somebody better explain why it is not being used to pump out vax. 

 

I have no idea what any of this means but can't the Government take the "recipe" for this vaccine and give it to Johnson and Johnson, Merck, Roche, etc... and say produce the shit out of this and we will work with the military to get it distributed to every HEB, Walgreens, CVS in the country.  Hell they could go door to door and vaccinate whole neighborhoods if needed.  

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By the way, the hearing in Paxton's suit against the City of Austin is ongoing right now.

A couple observations:

1) The hearing is before Judge Amy Meachum, who ran for CJ of the Supreme Court this year.  She's obviously a Dem.

2) For some bizarre reason that I cannot imagine, the State wanted to proceed on an application for temporary injunction, rather than a temporary restraining order.  That's bizarre because a TI hearing takes a lot longer because it requires live witnesses.  The State wants a ruling by 5:00, so it's really strange that they would go that route.

It's also strange because it requires a record if you want to appeal.  The court reporter isn't going to have the record done for a while.  So that makes it impossible to take an appeal.  That means that Judge Meachum's ruling is going to be effectively final.

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My general experience with Judge Meachum is that she doesn't like making the hard decision.  So it struck me as really weird that she wanted to be chief justice of SCOTX.

But fun thing here--her decision is going to be effectively unappealable. 

Separate observation: the assistant AG sounds as though he's computer generated.  

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40 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

My general experience with Judge Meachum is that she doesn't like making the hard decision.  So it struck me as really weird that she wanted to be chief justice of SCOTX.

But fun thing here--her decision is going to be effectively unappealable. 

Separate observation: the assistant AG sounds as though he's computer generated.  

Judge Meachum took the issue under advisement.  She said she would try to rule by 5:00.

 

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2 hours ago, Wanker Bob said:

Shit we just needed a President Macho Camacho. Instead we got a cross between Ignatius J Reilly and Adolph Hitler

you very clearly need to brush up on your botony and geometry asshole. don't you ever trash Ignatiuseses name like that again!

 

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