Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly apologized on Monday night after he attacked now-former Navy Captain Brett Crozier and called him “naive and stupid” for writing a memo to Navy leadership detailing concerns about protecting his crew on the USS Theodore Roosevelt from COVID-19.
However, Modly still took a shot at Crozier for writing the email in the first place.
Been a long day. So I don’t have time for a full write up. But the airlift program and the shipment seizures are finally getting some big media org attention. The Times put out this article tonight. They were able to name the entity on the West Coast which I alluded to as having a shipment seized but wasn’t at liberty to name: Kaiser Permanente hospital system. They also add more detail on the airlift. The companies can sell half on the open market, half they have to allocate according to need as ascertained by FEMA. The details on seizures raise more questions than they answer. Give it a read. More tomorrow.
Here are a couple more details on shipment seizures and inter-state bidding we’ve been discussing here in recent days. Both are interviews on this evening’s Newshour, flagged to me by TPM Reader KM.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL) appeared to confirm one point that remained ambiguous from the press conference last week in which Rear Admiral Polowczyk explained the ‘Airbridge’ flights from China. According to Pritzker, the US military planes airlift the PPE and other medical supplies to the US and then hand them over to the major medical supply distributors the White House taskforce is working with. That part was clear from the discussion April 2nd. What Pritzker confirmed is that the states then have to bid against each other to purchase the supplies from those distributors.
Continue reading “More Details on Airlifts and Supply Seizures”
After kicking off the White House coronavirus task force briefing by insisting that governors have been “very happy” regarding the administration’s response to shortages on key medical supplies, President Trump became increasingly frustrated when reporters pressed him about the HHS inspector general’s report that found “severe shortages of testing supplies and extended waits for test results limited hospitals’ ability to monitor the health of patients and staff.”
Trump first lashed out at ABC News’ Jon Karl after he asked about the HHS inspector general’s report, calling him a “third rate” reporter. The President then went on to slam Fox News’ Kristin Fisher for asking a “horrid” question about the testing failures brought up in the report.
Trump also railed against the author of the report, HHS principal deputy inspector general Christi Grimm, by falsely accusing her of being an Obama administration holdover. (Grimm has worked at HHS since 1999 and previously served during the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations.)
Scroll down for our full coverage of the briefing below:
Update: The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Monday evening struck down Gov. Tony Evers’ executive order postponing Tuesday’s election.
Original story:
Just hours before polls in Wisconsin were scheduled to open, Gov. Tony Evers (D) issued an executive order Monday afternoon suspending in-person voting in response to the coronavirus outbreak.
Continue reading “Wisconsin Gov. Throws Hail Mary To Delay In-Person Voting For Tuesday Elections”
There’s some very tentative information today that New York may be nearing the peak of its outbreak. I want to emphasize very tentative. If we go by the progression in the hardest hit countries in Europe, even if this is at or near the peak we are likely to see more days where numbers spike again. And I will finally say that there has been evidence of some numbers slowing over weekends. With all that, the number of fatalities in New York was lower yesterday and today than it was on Saturday when it hit 630. The number of new hospitalizations has also slowed while discharges have risen. There’s also some evidence of decline in new cases. But, as we’ve discussed, this can simply be an echo of testing constraints. We can finally note that before its revisions yesterday, the IHME COVID-19 model had predicted that New York would hit its peak on April 6th.
If this does turn out to be the plateau of the epidemic in New York I want to share some information about dates and how they compare with the remarkably consistent pattern from China and Italy.
LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was moved to the intensive care unit of a London hospital after his coronavirus symptoms worsened Monday, just a day after he was admitted for what were said to be routine tests
Johnson was admitted to St. Thomas’ Hospital late Sunday, 10 days after he was diagnosed with COVID-19.
Continue reading “British PM Boris Johnson Moved To ICU After COVID Symptoms Worsen”
With COVID-19, it’s one step forward, two steps back.
Continue reading “‘Nothing Works’: Hospitals Race To Train More Docs To Operate Ventilators”
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) shot down a New York City council member’s plan to have those who had died from COVID-19 be buried in a New York City public park due to potential overcrowding at the Office of Chief Medical Examiner (OCME).
Continue reading “Cuomo Flatly Rejects Idea Of Burying Bodies In NYC Park Amid COVID Crisis”
Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly’s channeled President Trump when he lashed out at the captain he fired for raising concerns over the spread of COVID-19 on his ship Continue reading “Acting Navy Secretary Goes Full Trump In Aircraft Carrier Screed Against Fired Captain”
