Seeing Our Immediate Future

This is NOT in place yet.

Detroit News:

Henry Ford Health System has prepared a policy for how its hospitals will determine which patients get to use ventilators should need surpass availability.

A letter circulated online Thursday said patients “will be assessed for eligibility” for ventilator support based on the extent of their symptoms, underlying health conditions and advanced directives.

That letter was in preparation for a "worst case scenario," but has not been enacted as policy, the Detroit-based five-hospital system said in a statement.

The hospital system has not reached capacity at any of its locations, nor has it reached the limit on ventilators at any of its hospitals, said Brenda Craig, vice president of the health system’s integrated communications.

“The letter is part of a larger internal document that unfortunately was shared publicly,” Craig said. “It would only be something used in a worst case scenario, and we are not in one right now at any of our hospitals.”

With a pandemic, we must be prepared for worst case. With collective wisdom from our industry, we crafted a policy to provide guidance for making difficult patient care decisions. We hope never to have to apply them. We will always utilize every resource to care for our patients.

— Henry Ford News (@HenryFordNews) March 27, 2020

But remember - hospitals are traditionally very good at things like Risk Assessment and Risk Management and Contingency Planning.

And they don't waste resources on planning for things without having assigned it some fair probability of eventuation.

We're not ready for this shit, and it's probably going to get pretty fucking bad pretty fucking soon.

The View From In There

Rod Dreher, The American Conservative:

Tonight on Sean Hannity’s show, President Trump said (just past the 25:40 point) that people are exaggerating the number of ventilators needed in this crisis. “I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators,” said the president.

From The New York Times on Thursday:

What is really needed, a number of public health experts and former government officials say, is for Washington to take control of the nation’s existing ventilator supply. Because peak coronavirus infections will hit cities and regions at different times in the coming months, a centralized federal effort could send unused machines to hospitals that need them most.

“This is a national crisis,” said Frank Kendall, who served as under secretary of defense for acquisition and logistics in the Obama administration. “In a time of scarcity, you can’t leave it up to companies and governors to manage it themselves.”

Mr. Kendall said that only the federal government had the authority to take over the allocation of ventilators, both from manufacturers who are in the business of selling devices to the highest bidder, and state leaders unlikely to voluntarily let go of machines they fear they might need in the future.

“As the states become more desperate, someone has to referee the situation,” he said. “The marketplace isn’t set up to do that.”

The United States currently has between 160,000 and 200,000 ventilators, but could need up to a million machines over the course of the outbreak, according to the Society of Critical Care Medicine. In New York, the epicenter of the outbreak in the U.S., hospitals are already on the verge of running out, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said this week.

What Dreher and others have been trying to make clear is that 45* is not arguing against the cost of the efforts - or telling us how hard it is to do it - he says straight out that he doesn't believe it when he's told what's going on and what it's going to take to handle the problem.

He doesn't want it to be true, so he just denies it - apparently thinking (as he's always done) that all he has to do is wish it away and somebody will make it all better for him.

FOR HIM

COVID-19 Update

Partial recap - FactCheck.org:

Jan. 22: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. We have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.” — Trump in a CNBC interview.

Jan. 30: “We think we have it very well under control. We have very little problem in this country at this moment — five — and those people are all recuperating successfully. But we’re working very closely with China and other countries, and we think it’s going to have a very good ending for us … that I can assure you.” — Trump in a speech in Michigan.

Feb. 10: “Now, the virus that we’re talking about having to do — you know, a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat — as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in April. We’re in great shape though. We have 12 cases — 11 cases, and many of them are in good shape now.” — Trump at the White House. (See our item “Will the New Coronavirus ‘Go Away’ in April?“)

Feb. 14: “There’s a theory that, in April, when it gets warm — historically, that has been able to kill the virus. So we don’t know yet; we’re not sure yet. But that’s around the corner.” — Trump in speaking to National Border Patrol Council members.

Feb. 23: “We have it very much under control in this country.” — Trump in speaking to reporters.

Feb. 24: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!” — Trump in a tweet.

Feb. 26: “So we’re at the low level. As they get better, we take them off the list, so that we’re going to be pretty soon at only five people. And we could be at just one or two people over the next short period of time. So we’ve had very good luck.” — Trump at a White House briefing.

Feb. 26: “And again, when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.” — Trump at a press conference.

Feb. 26: “I think every aspect of our society should be prepared. I don’t think it’s going to come to that, especially with the fact that we’re going down, not up. We’re going very substantially down, not up.” — Trump at a press conference, when asked if “U.S. schools should be preparing for a coronavirus spreading.”

Feb. 27: “It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.” — Trump at a White House meeting with African American leaders.

Feb. 29: “And I’ve gotten to know these professionals. They’re incredible. And everything is under control. I mean, they’re very, very cool. They’ve done it, and they’ve done it well. Everything is really under control.” — Trump in a speech at the CPAC conference outside Washington, D.C.

March 4: “[W]e have a very small number of people in this country [infected]. We have a big country. The biggest impact we had was when we took the 40-plus people [from a cruise ship]. … We brought them back. We immediately quarantined them. But you add that to the numbers. But if you don’t add that to the numbers, we’re talking about very small numbers in the United States.” — Trump at a White House meeting with airline CEOs.

March 4: “Well, I think the 3.4% is really a false number.” — Trump in an interview on Fox News, referring to the percentage of diagnosed COVID-19 patients worldwide who had died, as reported by the World Health Organization. (See our item “Trump and the Coronavirus Death Rate.”)

March 7: “No, I’m not concerned at all. No, we’ve done a great job with it.” — Trump, when asked by reporters if he was concerned about the arrival of the coronavirus in the Washington, D.C., area.

March 9: “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!” — Trump in a tweet.

March 10: “And we’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.” — Trump after meeting with Republican senators.

This morning:

1.11 = World Growth Factor

1.24 = USA Growth Factor

And it probably gets quite a bit worse for a while.

The good news is that as the days lengthen, we can count the positive germicidal effects of UV-C exposure.

The Plan

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost

A Fucked Up Milestone

We topped over the 1000 mark for dead Americans.

The increase in cases reported is at 1.25 times the previous day, which is in line with the exponential spread - doubling every 4 or 5 or 6 days.

If we're not at about 120,000 cases in the US on April 1st, we'll know the thing is starting to flatten out a little, but that it's likely to be a "false indicator" - due to the lessening in certain areas rather than any kind of overall improvement.

Fingers crossed, hoping to see an actual decrease in the number of dumb fuckin' Republicans like that clown in Mississippi telling people to ignore their local authorities, and that's it's OK to congregate.

Or Jerry Falwell Jr.

Today's Tweet

Dammit - why didn't somebody remind me to check my crypt?

Washington National Cathedral just found 5,000 respirator masks in their crypt (!) and are delivering them today to two DC hospitals https://t.co/gzG1T585BI

— Michelle Boorstein (@mboorstein) March 25, 2020

A Joke

On the morning of January 21, 2021, an older gent strode up to the White House gate and said he'd like to meet with President Trump.

The Marine guard said, "Sorry sir, I can't admit you without clearance, and Mr Trump is no longer the president."

The next day, the old guy showed up again and asked to see President Trump.

And again, the Marine guard said, "Sorry sir, I can't admit you without clearance, and Mr Trump is no longer the president."

This went on for another 5 days, and finally, the guard said, "Sir - you've been here every morning for a week, and every morning I've told you that you can't come in without clearance and that Mr Trump is no longer the president. May I ask - what's up with that, sir?"

And the old man replied, with a slight glistening in his eye, "I just really enjoy hearing you tell me that fat slob isn't the president anymore - thank you, son."

The guard snapped to, saluted, and said, "Roger that, sir - see you tomorrow."

hat tip = driftglass

Check The Timelines

I think we need to see the COVID-19 timeline compared with the impeachment timeline.

Here are a few highlights, as I've been able to piece some of this shit together:

The first case of what would become known as COVID-19 was recorded in November 2019.

In the December-January timeframe, American intelligence agencies (and other entities, in this and other countries) reported to federal officials about the concerns coming from the pros at CDC and WHO.

Articles of impeachment were presented in the Senate mid-January, and the votes to acquit were take on February 5.

They knew.

• At the very least, there were loud and urgent warnings of what was coming
• After 3 years, they knew damned well that 45* was poorly equipped to handle much of anything beyond an ad lib photo op

They knew what was coming and they left that orange blob in place.

A wiser man than I admonishes us never to assume nefarious intent when looking at even the most glaring instances of ineptitude.

But how do I adhere to that when it seems like it just gets more obvious that something's up?

Corona Madness

Quarantine: Day 11, and the natives are getting creative.

Today's Pix

click 'em

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