Pandemic for Idiots
Viral Musings: Yesterday’s Senate
Health Committee hearing was a bit surreal with Senators and experts beaming in
from places around the country. Chaired by the excruciatingly polite Lamar Alexander who appears to work
well with his Democratic partner, the more direct Senator Patty Murray, the
committee lived up to its reputation for being more bipartisan than most, there
were few of the histrionics we’ve grown accustomed to seeing elsewhere. Alexander started off by saying a few nice
things about the Trump administration’s push to get testing up to speed but
then, by pointing out how many more tests would have to be available to get his
beloved University of Tennessee open in the fall, he made it clear that he wasn’t
all that impressed with Trump’s testing “accomplishments.” Given the subject of the meeting it’s fair to
assume that Trump’s “mission accomplished” press conference was purposely
scheduled for Monday to get ahead of this hearing because nothing said at the
hearing supported Trump’s assertions. The witnesses, most notably virus guru Fauci,
made it clear that we are far from that mission accomplished moment that Trump
bragged about. Through his opening remarks and his answers to questions posed
by the various senators Fauci said that absent prudent behavior,
continued social distancing and masking, far more testing, and the adherence to
those CDC opening up guidelines, the ones that have been squelched and that
most states appear to be ignoring, the country is in for rough times, as in
more virus spikes and far higher morbidities and mortalities which probably
explains why the model most rely on now projects 147,000 mortalities by early
August. Though he talked about progress on
the vaccination front, Fauci didn’t promise any timing miracles, leaving the
impression that while he believes at least one of the various vaccination
options will work, even that’s not certain.
He also cautioned that anti-viral Remdesivir is no cure all, just one in
what will hopefully be an arsenal of drugs that might make COVID 19 more
survivable and anyway, though he didn’t go into details, the availability of
Remdesivir is currently limited with reports that the Trump team has been screwing
up its allocation, something that shouldn’t surprise anyone. Senator Rand Paul proved once again that he’s deserving of his
reputation, by telling Fauci that he’s not really all that great and doesn’t
really resemble Brad Pitt, okay he didn’t say that last part but you know he
was thinking it. Paul said that while pushing for the opening of businesses and
schools sooner rather than later because most of the people dying are old and
disposable and who cares if a few kids die prematurely, most of those rug rats will
probably do just fine. Fauci, who has
seen a few asshole politicians in his day didn’t take the bait. Instead he calmly defended his
recommendations and said “I have never made myself out to be the “end all,”
warning against “cavalier” thinking that children could be immune.” Notably
Mitt Romney, who really has nothing to lose came out swinging too, in addition
to slamming Trump’s oft repeated mantra that Obama or Bush for that matter were
“responsible” for failing to provide tests for a virus that didn’t exist until late
last year he pointed out that testing capabilities are way behind schedule,
criticizing Admiral Giroir, one of the experts testifying, for bragging that US
testing levels now exceed those of South Korea by saying that South Korea’s
testing needs were far lower than ours given how effectively they’d handled their
virus outbreak and given that so few South Korean’s have died from virus
related illness. CDC head Redfield and
his organization also came in for some criticism for their failure to get those
opening up guidelines out to the states.
On a more humorous front, Virginia’s Tim Kaine who was rocking a scarf
face cover in lieu of a run of the mill facemask looked cool in a bandito kind
of way, Senator Susan Collins seemed obsessed by dental care, possibly dentists
are funding her campaign, and Bernie Sanders, who zoomed in from Vermont was
surrounded by rock memorabilia. And then there’s Kelly Loeffler, the newbie
senator best known for trading on inside information about the coming pandemic,
she spent her few minutes kowtowing to Trump, a last ditch effort to improve
her standing going into what appears to be a tough primary fight against fellow
Republican Doug Collins.
Legalities: The Senate Health care hearing wasn’t the only game
in town yesterday. The Supremes held one
of their zoom calls, no toilet flushing this time but plenty of questions and
answers about whether or not Trump’s financials should be released. Though we won’t know what the Court decides for
a while, it appears that they may be headed to a split decision. The general consensus is that they are likely
to reject the House’s requests for all of Trump’s financial information as too
broad, possibly sending that request back to a lower court for refinement, but
that they will direct Mazars, Trump’s accounting firm, and Deutsche, his bank, to
share the financial information they’re holding, assuming they haven’t burned all
their records, with a New York grand jury. That’s not great since the public
doesn’t generally get to see grand jury information. In other legal news, Judge Emmet Sullivan doesn’t
seem all that happy with the Justice Department and Attorney General Barr. He’s put their decision to drop charges
against former national security advisor Michael Flynn on hold, and in an
highly unusual move, has invited outside legal groups to weigh in on the
Justice Department’s move. The Justice
Department is not pleased with the Judge but he doesn’t seem to care.
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