An interchange from the President’s visit yesterday to the CDC in which he said he was resisting allowing that cruise ship off San Francisco to disembark passengers since it would inflate the numbers of infections in the US and that those “weren’t our fault.” The people on board the ship are overwhelmingly American citizens.
Trump on decision whether to let Americans off cruise ship: "I would rather, because I like the numbers being where they are, I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault." pic.twitter.com/jYnXjlaAqt
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) March 7, 2020
I am always very cautious about drawing conclusions based even on a significant number of reader reports. But having reviewed numerous accounts and combined those with many more from other published accounts, the following is clear: a substantial number of people are seeking medical care for respiratory illnesses (usually not severe) and being presumptively diagnosed with COVID-19 but sent home to take care of themselves and not being recorded in any registry or being contact-traced in any way.
This is a very important story. It deserves more coverage on cable news – though obviously we’ve got a pretty news-packed environment at the moment. This wasn’t some numbskull claiming Dems are the real nazis. It was a self-avowed Nazi unfurling a swastika at the campaign rally of a Jewish presidential candidate.
We’ve already been doing this informally in recent days. But we’ve decided to place all COVID-19 material we publish outside the Prime paywall. Our assumption is that we will continue this as long as the country remains in the current national public health crisis footing.
I would be remiss if I did not make clear to our regular readers that doing this takes away from us our primary tool for retaining members and driving new sign-ups. So if you’ve been thinking about becoming a member or are a lapsed member or have been considering upgrading to Ad Free now would be a great time.
Thomas Frieden, CDC Director from 2009 to 2017: “The CDC got this right with H1N1 and Zika, and produced huge quantities of test kits that went around the country. I don’t know what went wrong this time.”
Without the economy, Trump’s got nothing.
JoinLarry Kudlow, top Trump economic advisor and member of the COVID-19 task force was on CNBC this morning telling investors to buy on the dip and that COVID-19 is “contained”, “relatively contained”. (Needless to say, all evidence suggests that is not true.)
Kudlow: Buy on the dip, on COVID-19 "this is contained", "relatively contained." pic.twitter.com/iF4Nheem4i
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) March 6, 2020
TPM Reader PH gives us a wild, bracing, sobering view from China. This is a must-read …
I’ve been following the COVID-19 cataclysm, as I believe it is, very closely. One reason is that I had the fortunate timing of moving to Beijing from San Francisco in January 2020. I’m far from any kind of expert on China or epidemiology, but as a longtime TPM reader and Prime AF member, I thought I’d share some experiences and thoughts.
Here’s a very interesting report from TPM Reader TR in Singapore. Singapore has been in this for weeks. They have what seems to be a semi-contained outbreak – 117 cases as of today but no dramatic growth in the last week or so. TR describes a period of pretty intense public panic followed by a new equilibrium of acceptance of on-going risk but people returning to something like normal, along with all of the social distancing procedures we’re hearing about.
Two things I’ve picked up in conversations with readers over the last couple days, both of which point to real world impacts of the White House’s either lackadaisical or disinformational messaging on the Coronavirus. One is elderly relatives resisting basic social distancing precautions because they’re hearing on Fox News that a lot of Coronavirus is just hype for politically interested reasons. Another is cases where medical professionals in red states are assuming or inferring that the Coronavirus isn’t as serious as the outbreaks of H1N1 or Ebola in recent years because the preparation they’re seeing locally isn’t as extensive or urgent. These are anecdotal examples. We can’t read too much into them. But they do point to real world impacts of the President’s nonchalance or claims that concerns about Coronavirus are being hyped for political purposes.