On the subject of testing the president a lot, I don't have problems with it. The president certainly should be tested more than athletes. Even if everyone at the White House is tested a lot, it is still lot less than all the professional and college athletes who are being tested. But how can you justify not providing federal funds to get more testing, as the administration is suggesting, if you believe it is important that YOU and others around you need the tests?
You must have missed my comment from the last blog where I talked about federal agents attacking and arresting protesters in Oregon. I talked about hiding data and using secret police were the exact same thins that the U.S. accuses of China all the time. So is Trump taking us into a dictatorship? The letter I found from Xi to Trump is not so fake after all.
Did you see the navy guy who was beat up by federal agent in Portland? They swung batons at him and broke his arm. He was just standing there and asking them who they were and why they were there. I thought he must be a young guy. It turned out he is at least in his 50s and was a navy veteran. He is one tough dude. After they beat him with the baton, he just stood there! I would be on the ground, crying in pain. He is very brave. But if he was black, they probably would have shot him!
I agree that it will get ugly if troops are sent into Chicago and other cities like Detroit. As I said above, the protesters will be more black in those cities and the agents may be more likely to shoot as opposed to using batons. It maybe worse than what happened in the south, Watts and Detroit in the 1960s.
What do you think of this reversal of message by Trump? Do you think he's gotten data that he trusts regarding the virus is not going anywhere? Maybe he finally realizes that if he doesn't get this under control that he will lose. I find it funny that he's had 2 press conferences in a row to get people to wear masks. Even then, he screwed up by wishing Ghislaine Maxwell well.
ReplyDeleteI think that all people should be able to get tested as much as they want at no cost since we don't have a vaccine yet.
There are more reports that these feds are headed to Detroit, Chicago, etc, so we will see how it goes, but yes, this looks like things that happen in dictatorships.
I am also interested in these mom marches. Will these feds still kidnap these women or beat them? I don't know how these feds can sleep at night knowing they are beating peaceful protesters and kidnapping them. They remind me of the ICE agents who rip family members apart and put them in detention centers. The Navy vet is one tough SOB. I saw the footage a couple of times and it actually looks like he is flipping them the bird after he was beaten. The clubs they used looked like they were foam even though they weren't.
-LBOAYM
I don't think data means anything to Trump. He is saying whatever he thinks his base wants to hear or helps his poll number. He is touting mask now because the other way did not work. He is still saying the U.S. has one of the lowest rates, if not the lowest. There is no data that show that, in fact the opposite is true.
ReplyDeleteI think he had something to do with Maxwell and Epastein. Maybe not Prince Andrew bad, but pretty bad. Same with Bill Clinton.
I have read about a test like a pregnancy test that can be used at home with saliva. The problem is that it can't be approved because its sensitivity rate is only about 50%. But the reason it is so low is that it does not pick up low virus load. But that may not matter in real life because if it is low, then it is unlikely to infect anyone. When the load is big enough, the test will pick it up. It only costs about 2 dollars. So test before going to school, if negative, you can go. If you were infected already but is negative, at such low load, you are not likely to infect others. Then if positive next day, then you quarantine. This beats getting tests which won't have result for more than 1 week.
I think this is a reasonable way to go. If it costs 2 dollars, you can test everyday and still be way cheaper than one regular test. No pain, no other equipment, do it yourself or by your parent. No turn around time. I do think the FDA may be under pressure from labs and test makers to hold up approval. It is easy to say the test is only 50% accurate!
So the Portland mayor got gassed! So I am not sure these federal agents are going to stop for anybody. It looks more and more like a military state if troops go into more cities.
Well, this is the first time he's sounded actually of sound mind and is making sense, so something happened last week. Whether it's his team or he was realized his interview with Chris Wallace was a disaster.
ReplyDeleteEven though $2 is a small amount, that's still $104 a week per child. You have people who can't even send their kids to school with a good lunch without assistance, so hopefully families are able to get these tests. Maybe they can be paid for by insurance.
-LBOAYM
LBOAYM, your math is a bit off. At $2 a day, that is $10 per week, per child, not $104 since you would only test the days that the child goes to school. If that is still too much for some, maybe the school can do it. It would take each class of 30 children about an hour to an hour a half to do it unless you have a lot of volunteers. So it may take too much time before school starts. The tests can be given to parents but results will have to be self reporting. So it is not a perfect solution but is one to considered since the current polymerase tests are obviously not the answer for schools given the costs and turn around time.
ReplyDeleteOops, I may have accidentally added the 4 on there or maybe I was using fuzzy math! Even though that's not a great deal of money, we still have people who send their kids to school hungry and have a hard time feeding them without assistance. Do you think that some parents wouldn't let the kids take the tests because they believe the virus is a hoax?
ReplyDelete-LBOAYM
I think people tend to think about their own situation rather than what is really important. Justin Verlander was quoted as saying delayed in testing results are not acceptable in MLB because what if he is scheduled to start that day and the result has not come back. That would be terrible if he can't pitch. Well, athletes results are coming back fast but what about the results for healthcare workers. I think people who are sick would care more about the Justin Verlanders of doctors are available to treat them than Justin Verlanders of baseball is able to pitch!
ReplyDeleteI don't know what the parents who think the virus is a hoax would do. They probably would not do the testing at home even if they have the money. So maybe there would a battle over if the school can do the tests with these kids. I wonder if the people who usually home school support reopening of schools. I would think that since they think teaching the kids at home is better, then keeping schools closed would be right for them. But they tend to be Republicans, so they may support the party line of opening schools as quickly as possible. So I am not sure what people come up with to defend their beliefs.