Looks like they are going to do these every day at this time. Pence is now doing his obligatory paen to the Dear Leader and also telling us it’s not really a problem.
Do you want the video posted every day?
Retired chemist. I've done a lot of chemistry that has to do with policy, particularly nuclear policy.
Cheryl Rofer has been a Balloon Juice writer since 2017.
About Robert Redfield, Director Of The CDC
We still don’t know why the CDC decided to develop its own test for SARS-CoV-2. If the dysfunction persists, it’s a danger to other decisions being made about the epidemic. But, like the number of Covid-19 cases in the United States, we just don’t know.
The director of the CDC, Robert Redfield, was involved in the decision, but we don’t know how. It could be anything from a definitive order to passing it off to someone else, which is a decision too.
Redfield’s background is in the military and a university, as a clinician and researcher. Before he came to CDC, he had no experience in directing a public health agency. His research is in the area of HIV/AIDS. While in the military, in the 1980s, he called for mandatory HIV testing of recruits and segregating HIV-positive personnel, a move opposed by medical authorities at that time.
Also in the 1980s,
Redfield worked closely with W. Shepherd Smith, Jr. and his Christian organization, Americans for a Sound AIDS/HIV Policy, or ASAP. The group maintained that AIDS was “God’s judgment” against homosexuals, spread in an America weakened by single-parent households and loss of family values.
With ASAP, Redfield backed a House bill that would have effectively quarantined people with HIV. The bill died in Congress. Redfield also backed a developmental AIDS vaccine, lobbying Congress to fund a $20 million clinical trial. The vaccine and Redfield’s lobbying failed. ASAP is now known as the Children’s AIDS Fund, and Redfield was on its board in 2018 when he was named CDC director.
In last Friday’s press conference at the CDC, Redfield offered his adulation to Trump. Not a good look for someone who is supposed to be a scientific advisor.
Before Redfield was made director, the CDC was in turmoil from a poor decision on its director and continuing budget cuts. Thomas Frieden, appointed by Barack Obama, resigned in 2017. Six months later, Donald Trump appointed Brenda Fitzgerald, state health commissioner in Georgia. Fitzgerald’s directorship dissolved in revelations of a grant to a company that she and her husband held stock in and other conflicts of interest.
Those disruptions may have made CDC more susceptible to poor decision-making.
Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner
About Robert Redfield, Director Of The CDCPost + Comments (258)
Disinformation Watch: It Begins
There’s been plenty of disinformation about all the candidates, and our intelligence organizations tell us that Russia is adding its share, but with potentially decisive primaries coming up on Tuesday, one big campaign has swung into action.
I’ve seen people who I thought should have known better sharing it. They are Bernie supporters, or angry that another candidate has dropped out. Joe Biden is the target, and the claim is that he’s losing his mental acuity.
A week or two ago, I saw questions being raised, and I decided to pay more attention to Biden, particularly in news clips where he was speaking extemporaneously. I thought he sounded like he’s always sounded – can be a bit goofy and off-topic, but coherent in making his points. Also an occasional stumble that can easily be attributed to his stutter.
Both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have begun attacking Biden for alleged “cognitive decline.” Which is kind of funny coming from a man who told us that he knows more than the scientists at CDC and pathetic from someone who may have to support Biden in November. Washington Monthly summarizes the information on the attacks.
I’ve seen a lot of it in the past week on Facebook and Twitter and have called out some people who should know better. I’m also not sharing anything on Biden’s health or mental state.
And it only gets worse from here.
The White House Coronavirus Task Force
Here are some early thoughts about what the Pence Task Force should do, coming out of my experience in project management.
Determine who is in charge. In Donald Trump’s typical desire to weaken subordinates and watch them fight, he has appointed three people as being in charge of the task force. No work will get done unless they agree who is to be the responsible decision-maker. Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of Pharmaceutical Profit Alex Azar, or Ambassador Deborah Birx, MD. Once a leader is determined, all members of the task force must turn back Trump’s meddling on this issue.
As a part of setting up a responsibility structure, leaders must be chosen for subgroups as noted in the following topics.
Communications. Shut Trump down unless he learns something and can control his fear and inclination to improvise. Even then, his best play would be to act as a listener in his roundtable discussions and allow the experts to speak. Get a name for the task force: “Coronavirus Task Force” would do. Refer to it that way. Expert briefings every day, with no restrictions on video and recording. The topic of the briefing should vary from day to day, emphasizing recent developments. Lists of actions individuals can take should be posted on the internet and made available to local newspapers and governments. Hotlines should be set up. Communications should be accurate and should tell people what to expect.
Detection, treatment, and vaccine. Set up a National Academy of Sciences panel to investigate what went wrong with CDC’s development and distribution of detection kits. More urgently, decide on one kit and a recommended protocol for deciding who is to be tested. (This may have been done already, but they claimed it was done almost a week ago, and now it is being claimed again.) Make testing free to those being tested. Get the lab work on treatment and a vaccine out of the public eye. Report no claims until they are verified. Form a panel of experts to evaluate claims and recommend ways forward.
Community planning. State and local resources must be included in planning. The Public Health Service has a large role to play, although its funding has been greatly reduced under the Trump administration. Funding should be restored. Recommended standards must be developed for closing down events that involve large numbers of people or schools and for limiting movement of people within states or localities.
Maintaining essential services. Develop plans for maintaining garbage collection and availability of water and sewage services if large numbers of employees are absent because of illness. Hospitals need similar plans. Payment for medical services may need to be changed from emphasis on individuals. Grocery stores must continue to provide fresh food; plans must be made for people to access them.
Supply chains. There are three scales on which supply chains must be considered: international, within countries, and locally. Internationally, China supplies many pharmaceuticals and much medical equipment. Their shutdowns are affecting availability. International shipping is a vulnerable point, as airlines shut down flights. Essential chains (food, drugs, supplies to keep water, natural gas, sewage processing running) within the US must be identified and reinforced. Within communities, it may be necessary to set up food deliveries and monitoring of the most vulnerable in their homes.
Congress must be involved as well. Each subgroup must have a legislative liaison to the appropriate Congressional committees.
That’s a start. People who know more than I do about the specifics can fill in what I haven’t included. Would be good to hear from Pence and the task force that they are addressing these issues.
Iran Is Far From A Nuclear Weapon
I’ve been writing this now since 2012 or earlier, but reporters and editors don’t care to learn about the uranium supply line and the processes that form it into a nuclear weapon. Or they like sensationalized clicks better. So here it is again.
The IAEA defines what it calls a “significant quantity” of enriched uranium as 25 kg of U-235 in enriched uranium. That’s approximately enough for a nuclear weapon, although it varies with the weapon design. The IAEA needs an arbitrary number like that for reporting on its inspections. It’s a quick rule of thumb. (If you click that link, you’ll see others writing about it in 2012.)
Because the United States has withdrawn from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, Iran nuclear agreement), Iran has been ramping up its production of low-enriched uranium. That’s a few percent of U-235. You need 90% or more to make a nuclear weapon.
Yesterday, the IAEA’s latest report on Iran was released, with numbers, and oh boy now the reporters and editors can show us they can divide!
The low-enriched uranium that Iran has produced contains more than 25 kg of U-235. It would have to be further enriched to produce bomb-grade uranium. Then it would have to be formed into the proper shapes and explosives and electronics added to make it into a bomb. One bomb. One bomb would have a slight deterrent effect, but it’s not good for much else. In fact, announcing it for that deterrent effect would simultaneously paint a target on Iran.
I’ve seen two headlines this morning that ignore all that in favor of whipping up war fever. It doesn’t help that there are think tanks pushing this line, and that the Trumpies have been working with them hand in glove.
So here they are:
Business Insider: Iran has stockpiled enough uranium to produce a nuclear weapon in the latest sign Trump’s strategy has ‘failed miserably’. The last part is right, anyway.
New York Times: Iran Crosses a Key Threshold: It Again Has Sufficient Fuel for a Bomb. At least their subhead is better: So far, the evidence suggests that Iran’s recent actions are calculated to pressure the Trump administration and Europe rather than rushing for a bomb.
There’s no doubt Iran could build a bomb if they wanted to. The fact that they signed on to the JCPOA and that they haven’t built one is good evidence that they don’t want to. Let’s not convince them otherwise.
Federal Appeals Court Blocks Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ Policy
A federal court on Friday upended a central pillar of the Trump administration’s immigration agenda, ruling that asylum seekers must be allowed into the United States while their cases weave through American immigration courts.
In their opinion on Friday, the judges said the policy is “invalid in its entirety”
Additionally,
In a separate ruling on Friday, the same panel of appeals court judges rejected another of the Trump administration’s attempts to restrict asylum. In that case, the judges reviewed a policy that blocks anyone who had entered the United States illegally — as opposed to presenting themselves at a legal port of entry — from applying for asylum.
Not clear what happens next.
Government lawyers may quickly move to reverse the decision, before border agents are once again overwhelmed by thousands of people who must now be processed and allowed into the United States. They could request an immediate stay, or an “en banc” review by all of the judges on the Ninth Circuit — once a reliably progressive venue that has seen a number of recent conservative appointees under President Trump. Another option would be to request that the case be taken up by the Supreme Court, where President Trump has secured a conservative majority.
Federal Appeals Court Blocks Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ PolicyPost + Comments (33)
COVID-19 By The Numbers
Let’s look at some numbers just to get a sense of COVID-19’s possible effects. This is not a prediction or an attempt to find precise numbers. Just something to wrap your mind around.
United States population: 329,000,000 (US census)
Number of deaths in 2017: 2,814,000 (CDC)
Deaths from influenza and pneumonia: 55,672 (CDC)
Cases of influenza: 9,300,000 to 45,000,000 (CDC)
That’s a wide uncertainty, no doubt because not everyone who has influenza goes to the doctor, much less is tested.
The numbers of cases of influenza are kept down by vaccinations and immunity in people who have had a similar strain of influenza in the past. COVID-19 has no such mitigating factors, which is why limiting people’s movement becomes important.
Don’t bother to try to make the numbers of deaths from influenza and pneumonia fit neatly with the cases of influenza. My purpose in this post is to provide a general sense of how COVID-19 might affect the United States and give some numbers for you to make sense of.
Right now, the death rate for influenza is generally agreed to be about 0.1%. For COVID-19, it’s about 2%.
If there are as many cases of COVID-19 as there are of influenza, that gives 186,000 to 900,000 deaths. That’s compared to 56,000 for influenza. Heart disease kills about 650,000 people a year, cancer 600,000 (CDC). And, without a vaccine or immunity from earlier infections, those numbers could be larger.
No-Politics Open Thread
I’ve been keeping a naturalist diary. I go out with the cats almost every day, and now I know their likely actions well enough that, along with the leashes attached to their harnesses, I can fairly easily catch them if they decide to do something foolish or get to somewhere I can’t.
My yard is not extraordinarily large, but it sits on top of a little hill and has at least three microclimate zones. I’ve got some flowerbeds, but a lot of native plants growing where they care to. I also distributed half a pound of wildflower seed and additional native grass seed last fall. The geology is interesting – Santa Fe formation is the composite of a changing lake that was here when the Jemez volcano stopped up the Rio Grande.
So there’s lots to see, and being out with the cats gives me time to look. I come in and sit down at my computer and write up what I’ve seen in the yard.
I knew that a bobcat has come to the yard – I saw it one delightful day – but I didn’t realize how frequently. The snow has been good for tracks, and today there were some in the soil. Keeping the diary helped me to realize how often it comes. I think it comes to the yard about twice or three times a week, mostly at night. Here are a couple of the better tracks. The one in the red soil is on a slope, and the soft soil gave way to the cat’s weight.
I don’t know about you, but I am really tired of hashing out the Nevada primary. Are you writing, painting, doing crafts, fixing up your house? No-politics open thread!
Continued Debate Thread
Elizabeth Warren is on fire, Joe Biden is getting into the fray, Amy Klobuchar is holding her own. Bernie is Bernie and Mayor Pete is Mayor Pete. Mike Bloomberg is watching $400 million go up in smoke.
Update: live feed here.
The Disappearing Of Elizabeth Warren
New NBC poll shows Sanders in the lead, with a four-way tie for second place.
But let’s see how they tweet it.
Someone missing, no? And do they shorten the men’s names to Bloo or Butt? I think not.
Jeez, NBC. Do better.
Long Read: Rebecca Traister On Susan Collins
The Immoderate Susan Collins: After a long career voting across the aisle, why did the Maine senator gamble her legacy on Trump?
Spoiler: The article doesn’t really answer that question. It’s one of those dealing with why people who might have been principled in another time, and who like to present themselves as principled, have bent the knee to our would-be king.
It’s a good article, though, with lots of material for thinking about that question. Some excerpts:
In the span of Trump’s administration, Collins has gone from being broadly beloved, understood as one of the more humane and thoughtful Republicans in her party, to being widely reviled, regarded by Democrats as a loyal foot soldier to her ever-more-extreme right-wing cohort and party leader and by some members of that cohort as an unreliable waffler.
It’s a recent thing, definitely since Trump was elected.
Multiple organizations that had previously endorsed or supported Collins have turned on her for the first time: NARAL. The League of Conservation Voters. Planned Parenthood, which gave the officially pro-choice Republican an award as recently as 2017, in January endorsed her leading Democratic opponent, Sara Gideon. In the final quarter of 2019, Gideon, the Speaker of the Maine House who has not even won the primary yet (she is running in a big field which includes Democratic Socialist Betsy Sweet, Bre Kidman, Tiffany Bond, and Ross LaJeunesse) raised $3.5 million — $1.2 million more than Collins. The race is expected to ultimately draw close to $50 million, the most expensive in the history of Maine.
Former senator Harry Reid recalled how during Obama’s first term, when he was majority leader, “one of the first things we had to do was get a stimulus bill passed.” Reid said he immediately went to Collins, who agreed to help. The stimulus bill that passed, Reid told me, “wasn’t as good as Obama wanted it to be” (in part because Collins worked to reduce its scope before she signed up), “but the reason I give you that example is to show you how she’s changed.”
Anyhow, read the whole thing.
Long Read: Rebecca Traister On Susan CollinsPost + Comments (97)
What I Am Watching About The New Coronavirus
There’s a lot being written about COVID-19, the new coronavirus, maybe too much in my opinion. There’s a lot that can be said about China’s political reaction to the virus, although even there we are at the beginning of things, and there’s a lot we don’t know.
I read a short and well-written article last night in Science magazine. It got me thinking about what I’m looking for in news about the virus. The mathematics of disease transmission are similar to the mathematics of chemical kinetics, which was part of my life as a chemist. That’s where my questions originate.
There is no evidence that the virus was generated as part of a biological warfare program. Its DNA has been sequenced, and there would be clues there if that were the case. It most likely originated in bats, as has been true for other coronaviruses, and was transmitted through another animal in a live-animal market. Tom Cotton lies; but we knew that.
We know very little of the parameters that are necessary to predict how widely the virus will spread or how dangerous it will be. Epidemiologists are collecting data, but the parameters depend on statistics that we need more of or time-consuming laboratory work that may be hard to carry out while treating sick people is the first priority.
- How many cases are there? Some cases have been carefully diagnosed with appropriate laboratory tests. The reported number shot up during the past week when China loosened the criteria for reporting. Some people may be infected without symptoms or may have minimal sniffles and may not be counted. This website from Johns Hopkins gives confirmed cases, deaths, and recoveries.
- How contagious is the virus? This is represented by R0, the measure of how many people one person with the virus infects. We don’t know whether the virus is contagious before people show symptoms. We don’t know how long the incubation period is. R0 is derived from observations, so it is likely to change as more information comes in. I have seen a wide range of estimates for R0.
- What happens to the virus as the seasons change? Some common cold viruses, including coronaviruses, become less infective as the weather warms in spring. But not all coronaviruses, and we just don’t know about this one.
Every day, there is more information available, but I doubt there will be a reliable R0 for some time. Each case can provide a bit of data – I particularly hope that good records are being kept on that cruise ship in Japan.
James Palmer is a good Twitter follow on the subject for the big picture. He’s lived in China.
What I Am Watching About The New CoronavirusPost + Comments (42)
Caution! Cat Crossing! Respite Open Thread
Best Twitter content I’ve seen in a while.
ETA: What are you all doing this weekend?
Caution! Cat Crossing! Respite Open ThreadPost + Comments (65)
Pushback!
Donald Trump tweeted that he thought that the sentence proposed by the prosecution for Roger Stone (7-9 years, taken from the guidelines) was too harsh. And within a few hours, Attorney General William Barr was ON IT!
This rang alarm bells for all those who feel that the process of justice does not emanate from the President through the Attorney General, including a great many lawyers who have worked in the Department of Justice. The four prosecutors in Stone’s case resigned.
Today, ABC’s Pierre Thomas interviewed Barr, who told Trump to back off.
Or maybe the message was “I can’t do this if you keep saying the quiet part out loud.”
Here’s the bit that ABC has released so far.
Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi called Trump’s intervention an abuse of power.
Also,
BREAKING Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell of Washington also issued a rare statement responding to President Trump’s attacks on Stone’s sentencing judge, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, and defending the integrity of the courts. https://t.co/LhicnjBjNx pic.twitter.com/MSiNthX3lS
— Spencer Hsu (@hsu_spencer) February 13, 2020
Things are probably pretty tense inside the Justice Department, part of why Barr is saying those things.
Will be interesting to see how the Tweeter-In-Chief responds.
Open thread!
Open Thread – New Hampshire Polls Closing And More Antics At Justice Department
The New Hampshire polls have just closed. Here’s a thread to keep track of the media’s hysterics and perhaps real results.
Also, too: The uproar in and around the Department of Justice continues. Trump just pulled the nomination of former U.S. attorney for D.C. Jessie Liu to serve as the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial crimes. Hard to say if this is connected to today’s resignations of the prosecutors in Roger Stone’s case, or if it’s just Trump rampaging because he can.
Open thread!
Open Thread – New Hampshire Polls Closing And More Antics At Justice DepartmentPost + Comments (438)