The number of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. is over 5 million. Only two weeks ago, it was 4 million. This is "over six times the worldwide average" (BBC World News).

Who cares what T***p says about it? Everything that comes out of his mouth is a lie, anyway.

Being a germophobic ICU nurse, that film had me nearly terrified the first time I saw it (I think it was in 1999). The one that piqued my germphobia was not Pandemic or Epidemic BUT Contagion. Those errors could totally happen realistically. They had done their homework with excellent medical references. Most medical movies I watch saying yeah...right...never gonna happen like that. Many scenes actually had me shaking and yelling at the TV...no...no...don't touch this or that item.

These days I shudder about many things people do and touch. It makes me want to put blue nitrile gloves on before interacting with people. Many people and nearly all children do horribly nasty, germy things without any forethought. I am ecstatic that our nations top doctors are forcing people to wear masks. Now it doesn't look so out of place when I wear gloves or refuse to touch anyone that appears to be unclean or ill in anyway.

My heroes are our Surgeon General and Dr. Fauci. Especially Dr. Fauci. Trump hates him so much, but can't fire him as he is so irreplaceable.

~
 

excellent post ~

People with gloves scare me. I'm not convinced they get it. Once you put on gloves they will shortly become as dirty as your hands. I have always hated seeing people with gloves. I am terrified imagining the things they have touched with those gloved hands. And gloved people often act as though those gloves somehow keep their hands sanitary. When just the opposite is the reality. Some stores here in my neighborhood won't let you come in to the store with gloves only masks. Weird but true. At least with this particular virus, it doesn't matter as far as gloves or people touching stuff, unless you touch your face with the virus they have on their gloves or with the virus they just deposited with their gloves or hands on some object that you touched and then touched your face. Just DON'T TOUCH YOUR FACE. Viruses can't jump into your mouth or up your nose or into your eyes. You need to give them a ride. Just don't touch your face. However, droplets, aerosols, airborne or not are problematic, but wear a mask and keep your distance. Wash your hands. Don't touch your face. This is what I say to myself while I am out and about. It's easy to get complacent.

I forgot to add, if you wear gloves remember don't touch your face with your gloved hands.

Masks make me touch my face more than I would like because they slip all around. That is a problem I haven't figured out yet. I keep saying don't touch your face to myself, but when the mask blocks my eyes I don't have a choice. I can't see. I don't know if it's just me but I have a hell of a time with masks slipping around. My wife complains about it too so probably not just me.

That wearing gloves thing? I cant wear latex or nitrile gloves. Allergic to latex, nitrile gloves harbor sweat on your hands which translated into contact dermatitis (for me). Took me two months to get that cleared up. Instead, for gloves, i use breathable gloves made by Winchester Protective Gear. Now my hands can breathe, plus i have enough gloves on hand so that i can wear a fresh pair daily, then wash them with laundry each weekend.

I also bought goggles, to wear over my prescription glasses, so no more foggy lenses to deal with. :)

But, gosh. Surface contamination and cross-contamination issues definitely gets the attention it deserves now, thanks to Covid19 and its huge concerning issues.

I clean my keys, steering wheel, and just about any surface that is a likely or unlikely point of contact.

Hand washing, keep your eyes protected, stop touching your face and gosh, clean clean clean.

After all the boasting about how well Australia was doing was all lies.
All the cases in March were Australians coming home from Over seas,something that was totally over looked by the media.
We are not in a second wave at all, now have unknown community transmission,thats all.

Aust has the most concentrated media in the first world

Covid is now devastating Victoria,but now is happening in my State NSW.

Our happy clapper PM,thinks Trump is a genious.....................need I say more........no I didn't think so.

We could have been NZ,but no dumbo is following Trump,coz he has been such a sucess.

Don't believe the lies about Australia

TBH,I got sucked in to,not understanding the difference,unkown community transmission has on the spread of the disease.

~
 

(((( vincent )))) sorry there is so much covid around you, anyone who listens to TRUMP and his insanity is an idiot. stay safe ~ mask whenever u leave your home , the distance this virus travels in the air is far more of a distance than originally thought ~ every day there are new understandings about this beast of a virus. 6 feet no longer a acceptable distance. I don't know what you can link into but from the CDC here in the US Dr. Fauci is the best informative scientist we have . there are many but he is the one I personally recommend. TC & stay safe ~

Fear of people with gloves on is reasonable. I would recoil from a person who walked up trying to touch me nor would I go around touching random patients, but the one being touched does not know that. The only acts a worker can perform in my room with already donned gloves would involve possibly contaminated items. What I would wear the gloves for include door handles, faucet handles, elevator buttons, trash, bodily fluids and the like. I would not touch my face with a gloved hand (30 years as a Critical Care RN).
Gloves would be changed frequently with brisk hand washing. It's difficult to maintain, but know I can last 16 hours in isolation, and rarely away from home base that long recalling the days of private duty of HIV before anyone knew what it was and what precautions to take. I consider everything in home base somewhere on the clean end of my clean/contaminated scale.
Indeed aerosol, droplet contamination is a problem. The sclera is exposed unless one also has a face shield on. Pretty soon we will have people walking around gowned for full isolation. I want my shoe covers and hat too.lol We had better get a vaccine or herd immunity soon.

President Donald Trump got history wrong on multiple counts Monday when he claimed that the “1917” Spanish flu pandemic likely led to the end of World War II ― which began more than two decades later.

“The closest thing is in 1917, they say, the great pandemic. It certainly was a terrible thing where they lost anywhere from 50 to 100 million people,” Trump said during his White House press briefing. “Probably ended the Second World War, all the soldiers were sick.”

Leading up to that comment, Trump had been praising his administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 160,000 people in the U.S., claiming without evidence that without his ban on foreign travelers, millions more would be dead.

Trump has incorrectly referred to the year of the 1918 pandemic dozens of times, even though his own grandfather Frederick Trump died of it in New York City in 1918.

I am not concerned with health care professionals wearing gloves, but the average person makes me nervous. I worry they will think gloves are a substitute for washing their hands and it concerns me how often people might try to reuse them or just wear the same pair all day. Masks are necessary for everyone for sure even though they pose possibilities for misuse and contamination and one should educate oneself on mask safety. But I don't think gloves, outside of healthcare and food service,are really necessary for the average person under usual circumstances. It just adds another element that can go wrong to an already complicated situation. If you can't wash your hands for some reason and have a few pairs it's certainly helpful. I just see so much potential for misuse and cross contamination for the average person with gloves. I think masks are risky enough, but necessary.

Ya, the sclera is a problem with aerosol contamination but I imagine it would take a direct hit from a cough or a sneeze to send enough of a viral load into your eyes and it probably would get through a mask as well unless it's an N-95. Hopefully there is only short-range aerosol transmission mostly in crowded, poorly ventilated spaces. Hopefully droplets don't hang in the air long enough either. But who knows.This virus might be more contagious than first believed.If you cannot maintain a safe distance and have to be indoors with people outside of your bubble I suppose a face shield over a mask is the best course of action. However, I find it hard to breath like that. But I would find it harder to breath on a ventilator I'm sure. I guess I'm hoping that just a mask will do the trick. But maybe just a shield is better than just a mask for the average person doing average daily activities. Masks often move around and require adjusting and therefore put you at risk of contamination. Shields don't do that. But I have masks so...

LOL. shoe covers, hat, gown yep. I'm kidding but who knows what the future holds, this virus is a tad on the wimpy side and yet pretty much brought the world to its knees, god help us if the next one is both deadly and airborne with a robust protein shell making it hard to kill.

Yayyy my mom's COVID test came back negative. :)

<snipped your conversation except above..

Droplets can/DO hang in air & on the floor for up to 8 hrs. A person in say aisle 1 sneezes OR coughs, and is maskless..those droplets (called "goblet cells") are dispersed 27 feet outward....Another person comes down that aisle, isn't wearing a mask, or if wearing one, incorrectly, or wrong kind, will inhale a small percentage of those same goblet cells, PLUS will have them on their clothing, and the soles of their shoes. Once home, touch the soles to removes their shoes, later touches their face, voila....

Also, wearing gloves has potential to cross contaminate everything they touch....fruits, vegetables, everything...face, steering wheel, keys, phones. etc. It is not really wise to wear those in public, as general population does not know how to do so correctly nor have access to many gloves to change each time an item is touched.

Face Shields are NOT a good protectant. Sides are open, much more access for contaminants to get onto your person. Really good quality facemasks are the ticket, IF worn correctly, cleaned often, & worn to cover one's mouth AND nose...:0

I have 2 N95 masks, about a dozen of really thick, COTTON cloth ones, and several others. I wear each once, then it gets washed & air dried! Most of mine has the wire on bridge of nose to properly seal it onto my face.

Speaking from my nursing background, & I am sure my friend, cathexis, will also validate what I say.....

Just some FYI....carry on

Thoughts...
 

On a different subject: kids contracting Covid19.

I think its a mistake for childen to go back to school or even return to childcare settings.

With data culled from as recently as two weeks ago, *any* population in group exposure is like a ticking time bomb.

And, I hope sports is quashed for the time being too.

Yeah, I will miss my baseball, but I don't think we're going to make it to the end of the (very short) season. Players keep getting sick. They're supposed to stay in isolation in their hotels, but we're talking about guys who are mostly in their early 20s. I remember my early 20s - I don't think anybody could have convinced me to stay locked up in a hotel room if I was in a big city like Miami or New York for the first time. They are supposed to have security in the lobbies of the hotels, but you and I know that there are many ways in and out of hotels.

The MLB team owners made a major mistake when they decided to try to continue to have games at all the stadiums. This means the players (and coaches, and support staff and literally hundreds of other people) have to travel back and forth and try to maintain distance and wear PPE, etc. during changing hotels, on vehicles, and probably going to their individual homes if they're in their home city.

The NBA made a better decision when they decided to put all the players and necessary people in a "bubble". All games are played in a sports complex (in Florida, at WDW) and people stay in the same hotels throughout. No one goes in or out of the bubble without extenuating circumstances and the proper precautions. We'll see how that plays out.

~~

...:goodpost:...

Along the same lines but regarding footfall..
 

There is absolutely no way football can or should be played during this pandemic!

Trump Attacks Protesting Athletes, Pushes For Football Despite Coronavirus Concerns...
 

President Donald Trump on Tuesday continued his years long attack on athletes who kneel during the national anthem to protest racial inequality and police brutality. He urged NFL and college football leagues to play this year despite coronavirus concerns ― so long as players stand for the national anthem.

Asked whether he believes the NFL will move forward with its scheduled season opener next month, Trump told Fox Sports Radio that his administration is doing “everything possible” to help the league.

Trump also said it would be a “tragic mistake” for college football leagues to cancel their season because of the pandemic. Several conferences, including the Big Ten and Pac-12, have reportedly voted not to play this year. On Tuesday, the University of Massachusetts joined the University of Connecticut in canceling its football season.

“They’re very healthy people,” Trump said of college football players. “You know, people don’t realize, it’s a tiny percentage of people that get sick and they’re old. It just attacks old people, especially old people with bad hearts, diabetes or some kind of a physical problem, a weight problem.”

He continued: “These football players are very young, strong people physically. I mean they’re physically in extraordinary shape. So you’re not going to have a problem. ... You’re not going to see people dying.”

While it’s true that people 65 and older are much more likely to be hospitalized or die after contracting the virus than younger people, COVID-19 has proven to be serious and sometimes fatal in some young, healthy people. Several prominent college football players have contracted the virus. Louisiana State University linebacker Travez Moore tweeted last week that he had lost 27 pounds during his battle with COVID-19.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump...b6fc009a5d9538

27 feet outward hang in air up to 8 hrs. Wow. Elevators are pretty much a death trap then. And I live on the 9th floor of a high rise. Oh well. If you think about it, it's pretty amazing that even more people don't get this virus just walking through the grocery store. As it gets colder more people will be doing more social stuff indoors. Scary.

Winter is coming.

I am no infectious desease expert, but I am not "sold" on the 'bubble' experiment.

Here's why I tend to not trust that model of choice:

I already know of about 2 or three 'bubble' situations and those in that 'bubble' were still at risk of exposure and ended up having to quarantine. Not sure if those who quarantined actually caught Covid19, but to me? It is too big of a risk.

I know if I were in a 'bubble' type situation, it seems to me that there is a bigger risk of catching it because I dont think one can control the odds of becoming infected

But that is just thoughts I have concerning 'bubble' types of situations. There is a lot that is still unknown about how people are becoming exposed to people who are contagious yet don't know they are.

I worry each day I am at work that I will be accidentally exposed to Covid19. Worse, I have the same worry about where I live. I wear my mask and hybrid hazmat gear to and from my home. I bag up clothes and such each day, until the weekend when I go to the washertia to do my weekly laundry. It is costly because our studio units do not have room for laundry appliances, not even mini versions. But i have a strict method I adhere to, to keep my home free from outside contaminates. I feel it is prudent to go to great length to make sure I have taken every feasible precaution to make sure I safeguard my health.

I feel lucky that I can do that, and I realise the priviledge granted to me that makes it possible to even do that.

I am grateful tonight that I am safe, so far. But I realise that exposure to Covid19 is not 100% in my favor, or anybody's favor.

We, the general we, know this because of a vast accounting from others who we have learned about who did contract it and did not know how they were infected.

Which is scary. The danger is very real, and should not be discounted for reasons that the science and infectious disease community cannot even nail down yet.

But this is how I think about it and why I exercise as much caution as I can. While I can. Because if somebody here at home is infected or someone at work is infected, it jeopardises everyone's safety and wellness, including my own self, and if I were exposed and became infected, most likely I would die.

My health is fragile, so I have to be super careful in all I do. I am not swimming in money. If I were, I might could stay home for a couple years and ride it out. But I am not.

Anyhoooo. I take each day as it comes and live as responsibly as I can.

Stay safe and stay as well as you can.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Georgia.

~K. :vigil:

~
 

Thanksgiving is not going to feel the same without all the cheers :( The bands and parades ~ lordy ~ :( :( :(

Seahawks football is back: Here’s how the first practice of an unusual training camp looked...
 

RENTON — Many of the usual trappings were there for a typical first day of Seahawks training camp.DJ SupaSam spun tunes as players eagerly took to the glistening grass fields at the VMAC. Seahawks training camp was painted brightly on the berm.Pete Carroll performed his usual early practice custom of tossing a few passes, still able to fire strikes a month shy of his 69th birthday.

The practice that followed — the first official practice of the season for the Seahawks — looked like any other early training-camp workout, with early special-teams work, individual drills and offensive and defensive team periods.But a closer look at Carroll revealed this is no usual training camp.

Throughout the practice, Carroll wore a mask, as did every other coach and staff member, and even a few players, though many went without, one of the many protocols in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

And other than the music, the usual hum of training camp was gone. The tents that usually host hundreds of fans have been converted into outdoor weight rooms and training centers. Tents where radio hosts generally conduct pre-practice player interviews were empty.

Carroll most noticed the absence of the din of the usual 2,500 fans or so piled onto the berm and around the back of the fields. Missing were the kids who regularly line the fence hoping for an autograph from Russell Wilson or their favorite Seahawk.

https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/...ampaign=634647

It's Time to Tell a New Story About Covid*...a social perspective
 

Excellent article, thank you for the perspective. :goodpost:

To watch this clip click on the "watch on YouTube:



How can you practice safe distancing in this sport!?

More like a Medieval mace.

They slip because they don't have a snug fit. If you have the type that loops around your ears, fold the ear loop so it comes to a point and tie a small rubber band around the folded tips of each ear. That will pull the mask more tightly to your face and it won't travel. The rubber bands aren't irritating, either. Two of my masks are like this and I have to do that to keep them from traveling all over my face.

Also, if you wear glasses, tuck the top of the mask on your nose bridge and then put your glasses on top. It helps to keep the vision part of it a little better.

New Zealand is having a resurgence now after 3 months of containment so no one is safe anymore.

*snipped a bit*

I thought I would put in my .02 on fit. I just found this a couple of days ago and it really works:



I like using the disposables instead of washing, I know a new one is clean.. With the better fit I feel better about these indoors.

Oh thanks that works really great! I was worried because I'm down to one disposable and didn't want to mess it up but I'm not going out before I see family again and I do have a really uncomfortable suffocating washable one to use as back up so gave it a shot. To my surprise it works perfectly. I worried it would make the mask too tight, hurt my ears but now that it's not slipping around I can see the pain/discomfort before was more about it moving around and tugging at my ears than the mask being too tight.

What's really nice I've got a good seal now. Before I had of course the gaping open sides but because things were sliding and shifting around all the time the metal nose piece wasn't helping keep the mask in place at all creating gaps up there too. Now my mask stays in place and when I pinch the nose piece it feels comfortable and actually does its job. Also the mask is pleated and now that it's staying in place I'm able to pull it out a bit in the front away from my face without creating even larger gaps on the sides.

Not having it flat against my face and tugging at my ears makes it easier to breath in, exhale. I can even move my mouth around, speak freely, yawn without losing a good fit, having it slide all over. With the tiny bit of gap still on the sides I'm not suffocating am actually very comfortable. Before I couldn't see how I could wear one of these during a regular work day but I can see myself doing this comfortably for an 8-10 hour shift. Now working 12s or pulling a doubles I don't know about that but still huge improvement!

Dingbat Georgia governor Brian Kemp has finally dropped his lame lawsuit against Georgia cities that require masks in public places. However, he has issued a new order that "allows" mayors of some cities to require masks. His spokesperson said, "Of most importance, this order will contain very strong protections for business owners and private property."

Really, Brian? The most important thing is "business owners and private property"? What about the lives of the people who voted for you? What about the lives of the ones who didn't, including those who can't vote such as children?

Brian Kemp's priorities are so screwed up! I'm so sick of this governor. It's things like this that remind me how much I wish Stacey Abrams had won the election.

~
 

this the results of a lack of leadership that TRUMP has imposed... if gov's etc. don't agree with Trump , he punishes them it leaves WEAK leaders like gov's and senators confused and compromising their ethics. I don't know if your gov. apply's to this confussion.

COVID-19 Has 'Taken A Political Tone Like Nothing I've Ever Seen,' Warns Anthony Fauci...
 

The politicization of COVID-19 is the most extreme of any health problem that Dr. Anthony Fauci has experienced in his career, the infectious disease expert revealed in his latest review of the coronavirus pandemic. The battle against the disease has “taken on a political tone like nothing I’ve ever seen,” Fauci said in an interview Thursday arranged by National Geographic magazine.
And it’s not helping, he noted. “We certainly are not where I hoped we would be,” Fauci said.

In a separate interview with The Washington Post Thursday, when asked about Tucker Carlson’s attacks on him on Fox News, Fauci responded that Carlson “triggers some of the crazies in society to start threatening me ... which actually happens.” The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases appeared to still be stunned by the vicious reaction — and at a loss to explain it. Fauci attributed it to an extreme, disturbing divisiveness in the nation.

“It seems inconceivable,” he told interviewer Deborah Roberts of ABC News. “Take a deep breath and think about it: When you’re trying to promote public health principles to save people’s lives ... that there’s such divisiveness in the country that [it’s] interpreted to be so far from your own way of thinking that you actually want to threaten the person.” He added: “It’s tough for me to figure that out except to say, ’Boy, I hope we get past this divisiveness in our country. ... [There’s] just no way that our society can really function well and go along that way. We’ve got to get past that.”

Fauci said it would be helpful if people would think about health and safety measures not as “blocking” a return to more normal times but as “gateways” to getting there — one thoughtful, careful step at a time.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fauci...b69fa9e2fba8c5

~
 

excellent post ~ one more HUGE problem the next president has to fix... that leather tuchus in the WH has destroyed the American Democracy of Unity.

LOL Donald Dolly Hands says get the "MY PILLOW" to help with the Coronavirus ~ let's see drink bleach and hug your MY PILLOW ? what a stunnada ~ ** laughing my way to bed **

Where on earth does Trump find these suck-ups?
 

~~
Trump's new coronavirus adviser uses made-up statistics and false claims to praise White House pandemic response!


Sidebar: I guess when Fauci and Birx wouldn't play ball with him anymore Trump went to a second rate and lesser known unqualified quarterback!

Speedsters
 

As Pandemic Raged, Roadways Became Speedways

By: The Associated Press
Posted at 3:18 AM, Sep 07, 2020 and last updated 3:18 AM, Sep 07, 2020

https://i.postimg.cc/Wz1qLv0g/url-ht...31d9a1-800.jpg
Stock Photo

Some drivers took advantage of roads and highways emptied by the coronavirus pandemic by pushing well past the speed limit, a trend that continues even as states try to get back to normal.

The Iowa State Patrol recorded a 101% increase from January through August over the four-year average in tickets for speeds exceeding 100 mph, along with a 75% increase in tickets for speeds of 25 mph or more over the posted speed limit.

California Highway Patrol officers issued more than 15,000 tickets from mid-March through Aug. 19 for speeds exceeding 100 mph, more than a 100% increase over the same time period a year ago. That includes a continuing spike from May on.

The most likely explanation is drivers taking advantage of more open roads because of the pandemic, said Officer Ian Hoey, a spokesman for the California agency.

The patrol planned a heavy presence over the Labor Day weekend, he said.

“Let’s just slow down a bit and enjoy the day!” the agency’s Santa Rosa division tweeted June 21, along with a photo of a laser speed device recording a car going 127 mph.

In Ohio, state troopers have issued 2,200 tickets since April for driving more than 100 mph, a 61% increase over the same time period a year ago. The highest ticketed speed was 147 mph in the Cincinnati area.

While traffic has decreased 15% from February through July, the number of people driving more than 80 mph on Ohio roads jumped by 30%, according to sensor data analyzed by the state Department of Transportation.

Columbus resident Karen Poltor experienced the trend firsthand last month when three cars raced past her on state Route 315, an expressway through the city.

“They were flying in the left lane and weaving around cars,” said Poltor, who estimated their speed at between 90 and 100 mph. “It was terrifying to watch.”

Ohio authorities are especially troubled that speeds not only picked up in the early days of the pandemic when roads were emptier, but they’ve also continued even as the state reopened and roads became more congested.

“We’ve seen people continue to go those speeds even though there now is more traffic, which makes it even more dangerous,” said Lt. Craig Cvetan, an Ohio patrol spokesman.

July was Ohio’s deadliest traffic month since 2007, with 154 fatalities.

A temporary reduction in traffic enforcement in the early days of the pandemic may have contributed to a sense of invulnerability by some drivers. Some Ohio police agencies — though not the patrol — eased up on pulling drivers over for minor traffic violations to avoid spreading the coronavirus.

In addition, Ohio troopers were spread thin for several weeks as they were called on to help distribute food and later provide security as protests over police brutality and racism erupted following the death in May of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

“When people see less troopers on the roadway or they see less law enforcement out working, there is that tendency for them to start committing traffic violations,” Cvetan said.

Vermont law enforcement officials believe an increase in the number of traffic fatalities recorded to date this year could be linked to fewer police on the road because of the pandemic. So far there have been 43 traffic fatality deaths, up from 21 at the same point last year.

Utah state police saw a 23% jump in tickets issued for going 20 mph or more over the speed limit from March through August compared with the same time period last year. In Pennsylvania, patrol tickets for drivers exceeding 100 mph climbed in March but then stayed high from June through August, jumping 25% during that three-month period.

The government warned drivers to slow down in a mid-July message aimed at pandemic speeding.

“Less traffic has coincided with a rise in speeding in some areas of the country, and that’s a problem because speeding increases the risk of crashes, and can increase crash severity as well,” said James Owens, deputy administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in a public service announcement.

___

Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Ryan Foley in Iowa City; Don Thompson in Sacramento, California; Wilson Ring in Montpelier, Vermont; and Lindsay Whitehurst in Salt Lake City.

https://www.10news.com/news/national...came-speedways

Long but interesting article:

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/a...vqNTofk3vrAuhA

Coronavirus: Big Pharma wages stealth war on drug price watchdog

Big Pharma is using stealth tactics to undermine credibility of non-profit that holds down US drug prices.

As evidence grew this spring that the drug remdesivir was helping COVID-19 patients, some Wall Street investors bet on analysts' estimates that its maker, Gilead Sciences Inc, could charge up to $10,000 for the treatment.

Then a small but increasingly influential drug-pricing research organisation, the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER), said the treatment only justified a price between $2,800 and $5,000. Shortly after, Gilead announced it would charge about $3,100 for a five-day treatment and $5,700 for 10 days - in line with the ICER recommendation.

The episode illustrates the growing power of the Boston-based nonprofit to hold down US drug prices. Over the past five years, ICER has pressured drugmakers to lower the cost of nearly 100 drugs. It aims to play a similar role with emerging COVID-19 treatments and vaccines. Health insurers increasingly use ICER's fair-value analyses to limit access to expensive drugs or to negotiate steeper discounts with drugmakers.

The industry has moved aggressively to combat the threat to its profits in two ways: With open criticism of ICER's formula and with a stealthier campaign to undermine its credibility through proxies, including veterans' groups and organisations that claim to advocate for patients but have ties to the pharmaceutical industry, Reuters news agency found in a review of industry connections and funding among groups targeting ICER.

...Steven Pearson, founder and president of ICER said the coronavirus pandemic has raised the importance of the organisation's work as the pricing of vaccines and treatments will impact millions of Americans amid a faltering economy.

"There is a heightened public awareness and sensitivity to the risk of high prices being unfair," he said.

article in entirety here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/c...143729527.html

Trump officials interfered with CDC reports on Covid-19

The politically appointed HHS spokesperson and his team demanded and received the right to review CDC’s scientific reports to health professionals.

The health department’s politically appointed communications aides have demanded the right to review and seek changes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s weekly scientific reports charting the progress of the coronavirus pandemic, in what officials characterized as an attempt to intimidate the reports’ authors and water down their communications to health professionals.

In some cases, emails from communications aides to CDC Director Robert Redfield and other senior officials openly complained that the agency’s reports would undermine President Donald Trump's optimistic messages about the outbreak, according to emails reviewed by POLITICO and three people familiar with the situation.

CDC officials have fought back against the most sweeping changes, but have increasingly agreed to allow the political officials to review the reports and, in a few cases, compromised on the wording, according to three people familiar with the exchanges. The communications aides’ efforts to change the language in the CDC’s reports have been constant across the summer and continued as recently as Friday afternoon.

The CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports are authored by career scientists and serve as the main vehicle for the agency to inform doctors, researchers and the general public about how Covid-19 is spreading and who is at risk. Such reports have historically been published with little fanfare and no political interference, said several longtime health department officials, and have been viewed as a cornerstone of the nation's public health work for decades.

But since Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign official with no medical or scientific background, was installed in April as the Health and Human Services department's new spokesperson, there have been substantial efforts to align the reports with Trump's statements, including the president's claims that fears about the outbreak are overstated, or stop the reports altogether.

Caputo and his team have attempted to add caveats to the CDC's findings, including an effort to retroactively change agency reports that they said wrongly inflated the risks of Covid-19 and should have made clear that Americans sickened by the virus may have been infected because of their own behavior, according to the individuals familiar with the situation and emails reviewed by POLITICO.

Caputo's team also has tried to halt the release of some CDC reports, including delaying a report that addressed how doctors were prescribing hydroxychloroquine, the malaria drug favored by Trump as a coronavirus treatment despite scant evidence. The report, which was held for about a month after Caputo’s team raised questions about its authors’ political leanings, was finally published last week. It said that "the potential benefits of these drugs do not outweigh their risks."

In one clash, an aide to Caputo berated CDC scientists for attempting to use the reports to "hurt the President" in an Aug. 8 email sent to CDC Director Robert Redfield and other officials that was widely circulated inside the department and obtained by POLITICO.

"CDC to me appears to be writing hit pieces on the administration," appointee Paul Alexander wrote, calling on Redfield to modify two already published reports that Alexander claimed wrongly inflated the risks of coronavirus to children and undermined Trump's push to reopen schools. "CDC tried to report as if once kids get together, there will be spread and this will impact school re-opening . . . Very misleading by CDC and shame on them. Their aim is clear."

Alexander also called on Redfield to halt all future MMWR reports until the agency modified its years-old publication process so he could personally review the entire report prior to publication, rather than a brief synopsis. Alexander, an assistant professor of health research at McMaster University near Toronto whom Caputo recruited this spring to be his scientific adviser, added that CDC needed to allow him to make line edits — and demanded an "immediate stop" to the reports in the meantime.

"The reports must be read by someone outside of CDC like myself, and we cannot allow the reporting to go on as it has been, for it is outrageous. Its lunacy," Alexander told Redfield and other officials. "Nothing to go out unless I read and agree with the findings how they CDC, wrote it and I tweak it to ensure it is fair and balanced and 'complete.'"

CDC officials have fought the efforts to retroactively change reports but have increasingly allowed Caputo and his team to review them before publication, according to the three individuals with knowledge of the situation. Caputo also helped install CDC’s interim chief of staff last month, two individuals added, ensuring that Caputo himself would have more visibility into an agency that has often been at odds with HHS political officials during the pandemic.

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Asked by POLITICO about why he and his team were demanding changes to CDC reports, Caputo praised Alexander as "an Oxford-educated epidemiologist" who specializes "in analyzing the work of other scientists," although he did not make him available for an interview.

"Dr. Alexander advises me on pandemic policy and he has been encouraged to share his opinions with other scientists. Like all scientists, his advice is heard and taken or rejected by his peers," Caputo said in a statement.

Caputo also said that HHS was appropriately reviewing the CDC's reports. “Our intention is to make sure that evidence, science-based data drives policy through this pandemic—not ulterior deep state motives in the bowels of CDC," he said.

Caputo's team has spent months clashing with scientific experts across the administration. Alexander this week tried to muzzle infectious-disease expert Anthony Fauci from speaking about the risks of the coronavirus to children, and The Washington Post reported in July that Alexander had criticized the CDC's methods and findings.

But public health experts told POLITICO that they were particularly alarmed that the CDC's reports could face political interference, praising the MMWRs as essential to fighting the pandemic.

"It's the go-to place for the public health community to get information that's scientifically vetted," said Jennifer Kates, who leads the Kaiser Family Foundation's global health work. In an interview with POLITICO, Kates rattled off nearly a dozen examples of MMWR reports that she and other researchers have relied on to determine how Covid-19 has spread and who's at highest risk, including reports on how the virus has been transmitted in nursing homes, at churches and among children.

"They're so important, and CDC has done so many," Kates said.

The efforts to modify the CDC reports began in earnest after a May report authored by senior CDC official Anne Schuchat, which reviewed the spread of Covid-19 in the United States and caused significant strife within the health department. HHS officials, including Secretary Alex Azar, believed that Schuchat was implying that the Trump administration moved too slowly to respond to the outbreak, said two individuals familiar with the situation.

The HHS criticism was mystifying to CDC officials, who believed that Schuchat was merely recounting the state of affairs and not rendering judgment on the response, the individuals familiar with the situation said. Schuchat has made few public appearances since authoring the report.

CDC did not respond to a request for comment about Schuchat’s report and the response within the department.

The close scrutiny continued across the summer with numerous flashpoints, the individuals added, with Caputo and other HHS officials particularly bristling about a CDC report that found the coronavirus spread among young attendees at an overnight camp in Georgia. Caputo, Alexander and others claimed that the timing of the August report was a deliberate effort to undermine the president's push on children returning to schools in the fall.

Most recently, Alexander on Friday asked CDC to change its definition of “pediatric population” for a report on coronavirus-related deaths among young Americans slated for next week, according to an email that Caputo shared with POLITICO.

“[D]esignating persons aged 18-20 as ‘pediatric’ by the CDC is misleading,” Alexander wrote, arguing that the report needed to better distinguish between Americans of different ages. “These are legal adults, albeit young.”

Caputo defended his team’s interventions as necessary to the coronavirus response. “Buried in this good [CDC] work are sometimes stories which seem to purposefully mislead and undermine the President’s Covid response with what some scientists label as poor scholarship — and others call politics disguised in science,” Caputo told POLITICO.

The battles over delaying or modifying the reports have weighed on CDC officials and been a distraction in the middle of the pandemic response, said three individuals familiar with the situation. "Dr. Redfield has pushed back on this," said one individual. "These are scientifically driven articles. He's worked to shake some of them loose."

Kates, the Kaiser Family Foundation's global health expert, defended the CDC's process as rigorous and said that there was no reason for politically appointed officials to review the work of scientists. “MMWRs are famously known for being very clear about their limitations as well as being clear for what they've found," she said.

Kates also said that the CDC reports have played an essential role in combating epidemics for decades, pointing to an MMWR posted in 1981 — the first published report on what became the HIV epidemic.

“Physicians recognized there was some kind of pattern and disseminated it around the country and the world,” Kates said. “We can now see how important it was to have that publication, in that moment.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...CBg3wHcPglQmGc

Idaho Pastor Who Criticized Mask Mandate Is Hospitalized With COVID-19..
 

Candlelight Christian Fellowship’s Paul Van Noy, who is a self-proclaimed “no-masker,” has spent two weeks in the ICU after testing positive for coronavirus.
Candlelight Christian Fellowship in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, confirmed in a Monday statement on its website that senior pastor Paul Van Noy remained in a local hospital’s intensive care unit after testing positive for the coronavirus more than two weeks ago. Van Noy’s wife, Brenda, and five other church staff members also tested positive, but were able to recover at home, according to the statement.

“They tell me it will be a few more days in ICU and then I will move back to a regular room for a couple of days and then to recover at home,” Van Noy is quoted as saying. “At present I feel OK but still need quite a bit of oxygen support — especially if and when I try to get up out of the bed.”

“I am watching in prayer that there are no new cases and we can all be back together — worshiping together as called — very soon,” he added. “Please pray for health and strength for all.”

I wonder what the odds of this Einstein wearing a mask now are!?

Fauci spars with Rand Paul over Covid-19 response
 

The government’s top infectious disease doctor on Wednesday accused Sen. Rand Paul of repeatedly misconstruing information about the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic, including making misleading claims about herd immunity and the effects of mitigation measures.

Testifying before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Anthony Fauci rejected Paul’s assertion that the United States' mitigation and lockdown efforts were misguided. Paul cited the experiences of countries like Sweden that did not take aggressive measures to control the virus, arguing that “our death rate is essentially worse than Sweden's.”

“If you look at the data, the countries that did very little have a lower death rate than the U.S.,” Paul, a doctor, said. "It's important that we the people not simply acquiesce to authoritarian mandates on our behavior without first making the nanny state prove their hypothesis."

Fauci disputed the comparison between the U.S. and Sweden and added that Sweden has a higher death rate than other comparable Scandinavian countries.

“I don't think it’s appropriate to compare Sweden with us,” Fauci said — adding that he doesn’t regret the mitigation efforts he and others on the White House coronavirus task force recommended that states implement.

Most states put in place some kind of lockdown measure during the early months of the pandemic. Some states that experienced a surge in infections this summer reverted back to mitigation measures like bar closures and restrictions on large gatherings.

Fauci also disputed Paul's claim that a dramatic decline in the proportion of positive Covid-19 tests in New York was a sign that the state, or parts of it, had developed herd immunity.

"You are not listening to what the director of the CDC said. In New York, it's 22 percent," Fauci said of the state's infection rate. "If you believe 22 percent in New York is herd immunity, you are alone in that."

The background: Paul, who was infected with the coronavirus earlier this year, has made controversial claims about the virus — such as claiming that he is now immune, without having any scientific evidence to support that. He has also suggested people should have the freedom to decide whether they want to get the coronavirus vaccine or not.