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The Latest: Health experts brief Biden on slowing virus

JacksinPA

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The Latest: Health experts brief Biden on slowing virus

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the 2020 presidential election (all times local):

12:40 p.m.

Joe Biden is receiving a virtual briefing from a former U.S. surgeon general and a collection of health experts on how best to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Biden’s campaign created a virtual studio that connected the former vice president via video with former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and six other experts at a theater in downtown Wilmington, Delaware on Wednesday. Biden will give a speech on the topic later in the day.

David Kessler, board chairman and director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, stressed for Biden the important of requirements increasing “universal masking” but also increased testing and contact tracing. He suggested doing so could save thousands of lives and ultimately be more effective between now and early next year as vaccines are being developed.

Others on the briefing endorsed a national requirement to wear masks, given the country’s “porous borders” and rules that vary from state to state. They also said that when some areas have moved to reopen shuttered bars and restaurants, virus outbreaks have often followed — suggesting that officials should encourage people to remain outside during relatively mid-fall weather and allow for returns to such establishments later.
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Trump would not be interested in this kind of briefing because he doesn't care about the virus.
 
The virus will only be controlled once we rid the world of capitalism and all the idiots that keep claiming "individual liberty" is real. Until people understand that they need a strong, powerful, merciless central government we'll never be free.
 
The virus will only be controlled once we rid the world of capitalism and all the idiots that keep claiming "individual liberty" is real. Until people understand that they need a strong, powerful, merciless central government we'll never be free.

Sounds like Orwell's 1984.
 
The virus will only be controlled once we rid the world of capitalism and all the idiots that keep claiming "individual liberty" is real. Until people understand that they need a strong, powerful, merciless central government we'll never be free.

Try not to trick yourself into thinking you know what you're talking about, Luther. Over 200,000 Americans are dead because of your president's narcissistic negligence, and it is a fool's errand to attempt to assign blame elsewhere.

We need a decent President in the White House, and it's not the one we have now.
 
I am not willing to put all the deaths in America due to CV19 on Trump. We have people die each year from the flu despite having a vaccine that sometimes is correct for the strain that is occurring.

imo, Trump and his Administration could have coordinated and assisted the States more effectively. When i went on the CDC website for pandemics the main guides have not been updated. One is from Bush 2005 and one is from 2014. The US was not prepared.
 
Try not to trick yourself into thinking you know what you're talking about, Luther. Over 200,000 Americans are dead because of your president's narcissistic negligence, and it is a fool's errand to attempt to assign blame elsewhere.

We need a decent President in the White House, and it's not the one we have now.

You think I'm the one fooling myself?

You blame Trump for COVID deaths because it's easy to do so and because it makes you feel good about your politics. In doing so, however, you ignore every other factor that might have a consequence.

You ignore states where diagnosed elderly patients were placed in nursing homes. You ignore a US obesity rate 10-20% higher than Europe or Asia. You ignore the absurdly disproportionate death rate we saw in the NYC metro area. You ignore that, as a nation, deaths/million in the US was roughly the same as as Italy, Great Britain, Sweden and Spain. You ignore that Trump was among the first of the western leaders to act against the virus. The thing you ignore most of all is that we STILL don't have a particularly clear perspective regarding the effectiveness of various "essential" precautions.
 
I am not willing to put all the deaths in America due to CV19 on Trump. We have people die each year from the flu despite having a vaccine that sometimes is correct for the strain that is occurring.

imo, Trump and his Administration could have coordinated and assisted the States more effectively. When i went on the CDC website for pandemics the main guides have not been updated. One is from Bush 2005 and one is from 2014. The US was not prepared.

Yeah, they also could have NOT shut down their national testing plan after deciding that it's politically convenient for the virus to hit the Blue states more and blame Dem governors.

Testing and PPE supplies along with international supply chains were for Feds to figure out, not every State.

Finally, you can't control the virus when 30%-40% of population in each State thinks it's no big deal and don't follow healthcare advice, thanks to Trump / right wing misinformation.
 
I am not willing to put all the deaths in America due to CV19 on Trump. We have people die each year from the flu despite having a vaccine that sometimes is correct for the strain that is occurring.

imo, Trump and his Administration could have coordinated and assisted the States more effectively. When i went on the CDC website for pandemics the main guides have not been updated. One is from Bush 2005 and one is from 2014. The US was not prepared.

There's like ten movies out about pandemics, how were they not prepared?
 
The Latest: Health experts brief Biden on slowing virus

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the 2020 presidential election (all times local):

12:40 p.m.

Joe Biden is receiving a virtual briefing from a former U.S. surgeon general and a collection of health experts on how best to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Biden’s campaign created a virtual studio that connected the former vice president via video with former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and six other experts at a theater in downtown Wilmington, Delaware on Wednesday. Biden will give a speech on the topic later in the day.

David Kessler, board chairman and director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, stressed for Biden the important of requirements increasing “universal masking” but also increased testing and contact tracing. He suggested doing so could save thousands of lives and ultimately be more effective between now and early next year as vaccines are being developed.

Others on the briefing endorsed a national requirement to wear masks, given the country’s “porous borders” and rules that vary from state to state. They also said that when some areas have moved to reopen shuttered bars and restaurants, virus outbreaks have often followed — suggesting that officials should encourage people to remain outside during relatively mid-fall weather and allow for returns to such establishments later.
===============================================================
Trump would not be interested in this kind of briefing because he doesn't care about the virus.

Ummmmmmm, Biden himself just recently said that a national mask mandate is unconstitutional. California has now had one for over 2 1/2 months and their numbers are pretty much the same as when the mask mandate started. People don't listen to Newsome's mask mandate, so why should they listen to Biden's pleas? Biden has said he would have to leave it up to the governors to do their own thing - exactly what Trump has already been doing. Testing and contact tracing is terrific on paper. It doesn't work in reality.
 
You think I'm the one fooling myself?

You blame Trump for COVID deaths because it's easy to do so and because it makes you feel good about your politics. In doing so, however, you ignore every other factor that might have a consequence.

You ignore states where diagnosed elderly patients were placed in nursing homes. You ignore a US obesity rate 10-20% higher than Europe or Asia. You ignore the absurdly disproportionate death rate we saw in the NYC metro area. You ignore that, as a nation, deaths/million in the US was roughly the same as as Italy, Great Britain, Sweden and Spain. You ignore that Trump was among the first of the western leaders to act against the virus. The thing you ignore most of all is that we STILL don't have a particularly clear perspective regarding the effectiveness of various "essential" precautions.

Oh, there's all kinds of factors.

But one of those factors, the one most relevant to a political board, is that the president "downplayed" the virus instead of demonstrating any leadership at all.
 
Oh, there's all kinds of factors.

But one of those factors, the one most relevant to a political board, is that the president "downplayed" the virus instead of demonstrating any leadership at all.

The president made it a point to remind us not to buy in to the "we're all gonna die!" crap that was going around. The media generally ignored the virus or framed it as a China only thing until Trump started mandating testing at certain airports. From there it went to stories about xenophobia until there was an outbreak in Milan. From that point on the media started blaming Trump for everything and running with stories about pandemic models that showed 20,000,000 deaths in the US alone. It was utter insanity and heavily influenced by political bias. Trump chose not to buy into the hysteria and opted to express a rather moderate counterbalance to the hype that was being put out. That was a good thing and it was a proper thing.
 
Trump would not be interested in this kind of briefing because he doesn't care about the virus.

Yep.

It is rather odd that the #1 issue for voters is of no concern to Trump.

He can't imagine people putting health above money. (economy)
 
Yep.

It is rather odd that the #1 issue for voters is of no concern to Trump.

He can't imagine people putting health above money. (economy)

looking back, every action/inaction tRump has taken has been the worst possible choice for the American people
arm-twisting governors to re-open too soon, no mask mandate, insufficient testing, inadequate contact tracing, misrepresentation of the facts
putin could not have pulled that off any "better"
think about it
 
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The president made it a point to remind us not to buy in to the "we're all gonna die!" crap that was going around.

The options were not limited to "panic" or "lie".
 
The options were not limited to "panic" or "lie".

He didn't lie. He expressed an opinion. The fact that you disagree with someone's opinion does not make it a lie. That shtick, like so may others from the "resistance" is getting quite old.
 
He didn't lie. He expressed an opinion. The fact that you disagree with someone's opinion does not make it a lie. That shtick, like so may others from the "resistance" is getting quite old.

He "downplayed it", which is a lie by omission.
 
He "downplayed it", which is a lie by omission.

I'm just going to lay this out for you based on numbers from Pima County, where I live. We have had roughly 23,000 cases of the bug and just over 600 deaths. That works out to around a 2.6% rate of death for anyone that catches the disease...except for a few factors that are completely excluded from that "analysis".

Of those 23,000 cases more than 18,000 were with people under the age of 60 and in that bracket there were 93 deaths which means a rate of death more like 0.5% for the majority of people. I don't have details on comorbidities in the deceased but that last analysis doesn't include that factor either. It's quite likely that a reasonably healthy person under the age of 60 has an incredibly small chance of dying from the virus even if they catch it! Conversely, we know that the elderly and infirm are at substantial risk from the virus so the REASONABLE thing to do would be to stop panicking, stop promoting panic, and make sure that the elderly and infirm are reasonably protected. It's kind of like if you get a melanoma on your forehead; we can handle it by excising the affected area or we can chop off your head. The first way might lead to a new outbreak and you might die from that but if we chop off your head you'll never need to worry about a melanoma again!
 
I'm just going to lay this out for you based on numbers from Pima County, where I live. We have had roughly 23,000 cases of the bug and just over 600 deaths. That works out to around a 2.6% rate of death for anyone that catches the disease...except for a few factors that are completely excluded from that "analysis".

Of those 23,000 cases more than 18,000 were with people under the age of 60 and in that bracket there were 93 deaths which means a rate of death more like 0.5% for the majority of people. I don't have details on comorbidities in the deceased but that last analysis doesn't include that factor either. It's quite likely that a reasonably healthy person under the age of 60 has an incredibly small chance of dying from the virus even if they catch it! Conversely, we know that the elderly and infirm are at substantial risk from the virus so the REASONABLE thing to do would be to stop panicking, stop promoting panic, and make sure that the elderly and infirm are reasonably protected. It's kind of like if you get a melanoma on your forehead; we can handle it by excising the affected area or we can chop off your head. The first way might lead to a new outbreak and you might die from that but if we chop off your head you'll never need to worry about a melanoma again!

I also live in Pima County, and I think that's too many deaths. And the only way you can keep the elderly and infirm protected without everyone taking precautions is to put them in a hyperbaric tent.
 
You think I'm the one fooling myself?

You blame Trump for COVID deaths because it's easy to do so and because it makes you feel good about your politics. In doing so, however, you ignore every other factor that might have a consequence.

You ignore states where diagnosed elderly patients were placed in nursing homes. You ignore a US obesity rate 10-20% higher than Europe or Asia. You ignore the absurdly disproportionate death rate we saw in the NYC metro area. You ignore that, as a nation, deaths/million in the US was roughly the same as as Italy, Great Britain, Sweden and Spain. You ignore that Trump was among the first of the western leaders to act against the virus. The thing you ignore most of all is that we STILL don't have a particularly clear perspective regarding the effectiveness of various "essential" precautions.

There was no "disproportionate death rate" in NY only vastly under identified case rates due to lack of testing. Millions were infected in NYC that there were no tests to identify.

Coronavirus Has Infected A 5th Of New York City, Testing Suggests : Coronavirus Live Updates : NPR
 
I also live in Pima County, and I think that's too many deaths. And the only way you can keep the elderly and infirm protected without everyone taking precautions is to put them in a hyperbaric tent.

Ideally we'd have no deaths at all. That's not realistic but it would certainly be nice.

The latest Long Term Care report came out on the 15th and shows that 40% of all deaths in Pima County have been in long term care facilities. Based on the other available data it appears likely that the majority of other deaths were in home care situations for elderly NOT in an institutional setting.

The death rate for those over the age of 80 has been 34%. The death rate for those between 60 and 80 has been right around 8%. Again, those percentages don't bring comorbidities into the equation.

We can clearly see that age is a significant factor in morbidity and that advanced age is even more significant. We can also REASONABLY infer that those of advanced age are more likely to have the type of comorbidities that result in death from the virus. Knowing that we can rather easily protect most of those in that category that are either willing to be protected or have certain incapacities that prevent them from being able to make such an informed decision. Locking down nursing homes should be a no brainer and, while that was definitely done across the county, some facilities were more effective in their precautions than others. It wouldn't have been unreasonable to set up some sort of temporary shelter for those who had elderly relatives but could not afford institutional care. Beyond that, though, it becomes a function of personal responsibility.

If you have an elderly relative living with you then it's up to YOU to keep them safe. If you go out and may have been infected by someone else then take some precautions yourself before having physical contact or even close contact with your vulnerable loved one. It's far more your responsibility to take precautions than it is that of everyone else. If you're concerned about passing the virus on then it's up to YOU to avoid bars, restaurants, protests, political rallies, etc. It's not reasonable to expect everyone else to avoid such things for your benefit.
 
Again, those percentages don't bring comorbidities into the equation.

Who cares about comorbidities? If you shoot someone with terminal cancer, it's still murder. Even the elderly and the infirm count.

If you have an elderly relative living with you then it's up to YOU to keep them safe.

So this whole "living in a society" thing is overrated?
 
Please, Lord, put an adult who cares about American's lives back in our White House.
 
Who cares about comorbidities? If you shoot someone with terminal cancer, it's still murder. Even the elderly and the infirm count.



So this whole "living in a society" thing is overrated?

We bring comorbidities into the equation as part of evaluating the overall threat to one's life. A 50 year old that is morbidly obese, has high blood pressure and smokes like a chimney is going to be at much higher risk of a negative outcome from infection than a 50 year old that is reasonably healthy.

Living in society isn't the least bit overrated but it does not entitle one to any specific benefit from that society.
 
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