Fools march in ... (and some good folk too)

1.  Guns are sold out in shops all over Virginia in a surge of buying.  Most are first time buyers. Maybe that is not so foolish.

2. Anti-Trumpers are planning a mass demonstration in Manhattan.  One can only hope ...

3.  Mayor de Blasio sounds more hysterical every day, but today he is happy with the supplies and USNS Comfort tied up at a Manhattan pier.  I wonder if he is still being chauffeured to his gym?

4.  Democrats think Andrew Cuomo is a much, much better crisis manager than Trump.  Seems to me they are both doing a good job.

5.  Trump presented a plausible case for people in NY City selling PPE out the back door of hospitals for good money.  And across the country as well.  Anyone who has had a mess sergeant or supply sergeant sell food or other goodiesto civilians that you, as CO, are pecuniarily responsible for will tell you that it is quite possible that people are doing that.

6.  The press at the daily COVID-19 WH pressers continue to act like the swine that most of them are. Their purpose for attendance is clearly to belittle and undermine Trump's leadership.  How contemptible!

7. The FDA has cleared hydrochloroquine and the accompanying antibiotic for experimental and emergency use.  This occurred over the objections and contemptuous disdain of medical "experts" who would rather see people die than have their precious "protocols" ignored.

8.  Homage to the Corps of Engineers.  They are working miracles in construction.

9.  New Orleans (the Big Easy) is going to take it in the shorts after the great contamination at Mardi Gras, but the party will roll on. "Laissez les bons temps rouler!"  Ainsi soit-il!  pl

 

Comments

[optimax]

Glad to hear hydrochloroquine and the accompanying antibiotic are clear for experimental and emergency use. I hope they use it early on the infected instead of waiting until they are too damaged to recover fully. They will need to increase production quickly. Good news.

[Fred]

#1, there was a line of 9 at one of the larger shops here (just outside Tampa) Saturday, appaerntly only so many inside at a time and word on the street is they had a shipment of ammo of one caliber or another. A contact still in Michigan is saying the same thing, mostly first time buyers. Looks like politicians emptying jails and saying they won't arrest or prosecute anyone for misdemeanors is working like a giant alarm clock to the woke up people.

[Deap]

Good summation. Pretty much how some of us endangered species on the Left Coast are viewing this too.

Though our Gov Hair Gel Newsom would rather get his face in front of Gov Cuomo, when the cameras start rolling. Meanwhile I continue to ponder The One Percent Doctrine- pros and cons, as it has applied to this particular election year "flu" season.

[Karl Austin]

I think the real scenario happens after COV-19 dissipates somewhat and people are allowed to mix and mingle again. If we are content to go back to free trade global capitalism with open borders and national interdependence for all then we deserve what we get. Even now I hear that South Korea and Vietnam are mentioned by corporate America as a good place to exploit cheap labor and move industry to.(Vietnam? The same Vietnam 50,000 Americans died in?) There is a nexus in which Cultural Marxism and Free Trade Globalism Capitalism intersect.

[Fred]

Karl,

A Hanoi based company owned by a Vietnamese billionaire recently bought out the assets of GM both in that country and in Australia. Jim Deluca, former a GM VP, is CEO of the company. I've got a four page long job offer from them sitting in my inbox. (I passed on an opportunity with them two years ago so I suspect their expats are exiting asap and that they have cash flow issues.). So yes, they're for rea; most of the industry growth is expansion of what is there as well as exits from China due to wage increases and government regulation, all pre-virus.

[walrus]

Gun and ammunition sales banned in Australia as of last night. Government was worried by an uptick in sales. They correctly identified the sales surge as self defence related and acted. There is no tradition of gun ownership for self defence in Australia, so while it may horrify Americans, the move is justified.

My personal experience of suburban non military trained shooters is that they are a danger to family and friends especially if trying to respond to a noise at night.

Do I own guns? Of course! I live in farming country.

[J]

In addition to the USS Theodore Roosevelt having COVID cases among carrier personnel, COVID is now onboard the USS Ronald Reagan off Japan.

Makes 2 carriers now infected with COVID.

DoD has ordered no more 'public' disclosures of COVID infections among DoD assets for fear of exploitation by the enemies of the United States.

[J]

Colonel,

The IC is facing a collection challenge with the traditional hard targets and their actual COVID topography.

[Seán]

Ah, yes. My father, an army sergeant in WW II, told me all about the fun and games of the sergeants and warrant officers. They ran the black market. The sergeants' mess got the best food. The officers got second best, but nicely served on china with polished cutlery. The other ranks got what was left over. To keep the other ranks from mutiny, some egg shells were crushed, every few weeks, and mixed in with the powdered eggs for breakfast. Apparently, it convinced the poor squaddies that they were having real eggs once in a while. The Phil Silvers Show (Sgt. Bilko) was a whitewash. Kelly's Heroes a bit closer.

[Seán]

P.S. the effectiveness of chloroquine has been known for 15 years. https://virologyj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1743-422X-2-69

[turcopolier]

Sean
Sounds like the British or Canadian Army. the US does not have Sergeants' messes.

[JL]

I dont know how Trump can be assessed as doing a decent job in handling this mess.

Countries which have controlled Covid19 outbreaks without total lock downs (singapore, taiwan, hk, south korea) all acted very early as soon as the Wuhan lock down was confirmed.

TDS is real and live in the press conferences, but this does not pardon the Trump administration (and many western govs for that matter) for not using the 1-2 months lead time to prepare. Even if you are of the camp that govs are overreacting with lockdowns, there is no way customers will keep spending/going out when photos/reports of hospitals being overwhelmed are circulated.

Failure to act early will now be paid in huge economic damage. The sheer stupidity of it all is that there was ample warning.

[J]

COVID has spread to shipping container fleets. A Danish shipping container vessel crew are hospitalized for COVID.

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/covid-19-confirmed-on-gjertrud-maersk

[anon]

A real hard nail in the wood

Sit tight said the medicine man
Got some powders in the pan
Gonna mix them up and cook them right
Blow your mind outta sight
In the morning you'll be good
A real hard nail in the wood.

[Vig]

Posted by: Seán | 30 March 2020 at 11:56 PM

you link more arbitrarily, I guess, to a 2005 expert/studies/science abstract.

Since then vaccine against flu or flu related viruses seems to have become some type of annual standard, trying to catch at least to most virulent. ...

you noticed anything of Sars (Severe acute respiratory syndrome) in 2003? I only noticed we seem to have been offered annual vaccines for the annual flu season since then, in hindsight.

Neither did I, notice. Arbitrarily, and no I didn't even read the article below, I may do now. But yes, as with 9/11 loads and loads of unknowns, likewise the human biological system is a realm of many unknowns in itself, and yes this is a new virus:
https://qz.com/1820422/coronavirus-why-wont-who-use-the-name-sars-cov-2/

Registered in China? Chinese journalist? Alarm bells?

[ked]

As to medical supplies going out the back door, there’s an opportunity - even a duty - to establish evidence, rather than assert an opinion about a possibility. In a national emergency, I prefer to hear reports from the Executive Branch based upon verified facts.

[Philip Warren]

Chinese biological experiments to infect humans with coronavirus reported in 2015 by Italian State Media:

https://twitter.com/lienomail/status/1244270492598624257

[turcopolier]

ked

http://thesaker.is/why-france-is-hiding-a-cheap-and-tested-virus-cure/?fbclid=IwAR1QAD5vmCMj68Iu-usvtvLnHTQqiTY3gQBulgLWFxjz4VQulPubAA2GBdU

[walrus]

Regarding mess sergeants and “trading”. My understanding was that the U.S. Army was severe on this subject. Much more severe than Australia.

Australian Army was occasionally quite entrepreneurial in my experience. Surplus ammo was traded for steaks, traded for helicopter time, range time traded with Navy for platoon ocean experience and so on. Almost like “Catch 22 -“ - everybody won. I still fondly remember as an officer cadet going to pick up some of the units ammunition allocation with RQMS Tubby Gunson.

[English Outsider]

JL - all western countries were slow to react. All are now going all out to combat the virus. The various efforts will be different because the various countries have such different administrative and health systems.

It hit Italy hard, or hit Italy hard first, maybe because Italy has a large Chinese population and had extensive trade and communication links with China. We wait to see whether the Italian experience is replicated elsewhere.

The economic damage is great but was foreordained as soon as the disease started to spread. Consumers won't be feeling like spending much in these circumstances and many can't in any case. Whatever governments do won't get us spending as much soon.

You mention TDS. That's been a fact of life for the last four years. I'm finding it rather more irritating than usual. The Progressives and the cronies have good cause to hate Trump and since they virtually own the media that's the normal background noise to our political discourse. But it's now going beyond all reason.

[Christian J Chuba]

Biden's campaign is being pulverized into fine talcum powder.

He is mostly being ignored but when he does speak, less than impressive. He also has the misfortune of being compared to both Trump and Cuomo. The establishment Dem's did a fine job. Trump will have to step on a landmine to lose the next election. Trump does have some psychotic loons on his staff but so far he has avoided the precipice.

[Fred]

Walrus,

My experience from decades of life in the US, with 100,000,000+ gun owning citizens,: There's no bloodbath. Criminals do what criminals do with weapons available and are not concerned with papwerwork or gun free zone signs. Many state and local governments' positions here seems to be the more helpless you are, the safer you will be, the police are only minutes away! Oh, and many are releaseing criminals from jail due to the CovRed virus and have suspended police arrests for crimes like theft and prosecutors have said they don't plan any prosecutions and judges have shut down speedy trials, essential trials altogether. Not to worry, the mayor of our republic's capital will have the Metropolitan police arrest you if you exercise your constitutional right to free movement or public assembly leave home without permission and in Tampa the Hillsborough County Sheriff has already arrested one religous leader for holding service in excess of government approved capacity limits. I congratulate you on being able to defend yourself while other fellow citizens can't, I'm sure in the US I can rely on Antifa and the like to patrol "their" turf and keep people in line. See, I feel safer already.

[BillWade]

Ked, Hope this helps:

http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=61338

[Deap]

Ked, you asekd were is the proof? This was not done maliciously, but for humnistarian intent. Because most did assume this was a local China issue, not a global issue at the time.

So yes, US supplies were "going out the back door" in the early stages when this was seen as a Wuhan problem - according to this report about the Direct Relief organization based in Southern California and reported in "The Independent":

....."Direct Relief has been involved in the worldwide effort to contain and mitigate the virus since it hit China late last year, Morain noted. It distributed 800,000 masks in China, but since the United States has emerged as the epicenter of COVID-19 infection, the international disaster relief nonprofit has shifted its focus to the United States.

“We’re getting calls from every single state, from major hospitals and small clinics, from doctors, from doctor’s spouses, from nurses, and from mothers of nurses,” he said. “This is unlike anything we’ve dealt with before.” Morain said Direct Relief had 500,000 masks in inventory at one point, but now it’s dwindled to 10,000......"

[Laura Wilson]

I think the President's continued confusion about the numbers of masks, etc. needed relates to a lack of understanding that all of these supplies are disposable and are thrown out after every patient examination....in best practices, too avoid cross contamination from room-to-room. Our local hospital noted that under normal circumstances they go thru 25-50 masks a day (less contagion and masks not used for every interaction.) As of 3 days ago, they were going thru 800 masks a day and our city only has 88 cases and 6 people in ICU. (More proactive protocols and highly infectious environment.)

It is kind of hard to wrap your mind around that quick of an uptick...but not impossible. I wonder if Trump has ever actually been in a regular hospital emergency room under any circumstances. One of his greatest weaknesses seems to be a lack of experience in the "real" world---the place most of us without billions of dollars live. The uber wealthy live in a much more controlled environment and the White House is way beyond that! Not necessarily his fault at all--just a fact.