Dark Winter of Pandemic
“We’re in a dark winter of this pandemic,” said president Biden addressing the nation.
With a slew of executive orders, Biden Moves to Jump-Start Covid Fight.
President Biden signed 10 executive orders on his first full day in office to combat the coronavirus, seeking Thursday to jump-start the U.S. response to the pandemic while warning it will take “many months to get where we need to be.”
The new strategy is focused partly on ramping up vaccinations and curbing the spread of the virus through mask wearing, testing data and treatments, and includes the executive orders and directives signed Thursday. One order directs agencies to use their authority, including the Defense Production Act, to meet shortfalls in supplies such as masks, while another establishes a pandemic testing board to expand testing supply and access.
Another order requires masks in airports and in certain types of public transportation such as many trains, ships, intercity buses and airplanes.
The orders signed Thursday also call for studies, including large-scale randomized trials, to identify treatments. And Mr. Biden’s administration will create public dashboards with state-by-state and national information on testing, vaccinations and hospital admissions.
“This is a fundamentally different approach from the Trump administration,” Jeffrey Zients, the White House Covid-19 coordinator, said on Wednesday, adding that the administration’s strategy is “driven by science, data and public health.”
Biden Signs Orders for Covid Response
The New York Times reports Biden Signs Executive Orders for Covid Response
“History is going to measure whether we are up to the task,” Mr. Biden declared in an appearance in the State Dining Room of the White House, with Vice President Kamala Harris and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, his chief Covid-19 medical adviser, by his side.
The Biden plan is in some respects overly optimistic and in others not ambitious enough, some experts say. It is not clear how he would enforce the quarantine requirement. And his promise to inject 100 million vaccines in his first hundred days is aiming low, since those 100 days should see twice that number of doses available.
“The brutal truth is it’s going to take months before we can get the majority of Americans vaccinated,” Mr. Biden said.
“Help is On the Way”
“Help is on the way,” promised Biden.
Here is Biden’s 200-page National Strategy for the Covid-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness.
“To meet the aggressive vaccination target
of 100 million shots by the first 100 days, the federal government will work with states and the private sector to effectively execute an aggressive vaccination strategy, focusing on the immediate actions necessary to convert vaccines into vaccinations, including improving allocation, distribution, administration, tracking, and support to State, local, Tribal and territorial governments.”
It’s important to distinguish between Biden’s fiscal plan and his covid vaccine delivery response.
I propose the fiscal response should not be a $2 trillion shotgun approach.
I see little reason to hand out money to people not impacted by Covid and I believe it is not wise to pay more money to people on unemployment than they made being unemployed.
Curiously, Trump agreed with the $2 trillion shotgun approach and fumed with Congress over smaller amounts.
An Actual Plan
200 pages is a lot of detail.
Whether you agree with the document or not, Biden unveiled an actual plan, something that Trump never had.
Mish
The UK variant is reported to have a death rate of 13 or 14 out of 1000 cases, as opposed to the orginal variant that had a death rate of 10 per 1000.
Oh noooooooooooooo. [lol]
Whelp, I’ve just finished my 10 day quarantine for being positive along with the rest of my family and a bunch of relatives.
Know how many were actually sick (as in vomited or missed a day of school/work from home). Zero. Nada. Nobody.
For us it was all a big nothing burger other than loss of smell/taste for a few days.
None of us were planning to get the vaccine anyway and now we definitely won’t be getting it.
How about an effort to get a reliable, widely-used diagnostic test? PCR is a method for replication and isn’t a valid way to diagnose disease, no matter how many articles claim it is the gold standard. A positive PCR result does not indicate the pathogen causing illness, does not indicate whether the pathogen is live or inactive, and the result can be positive or negative depending on the cycle threshold.
To illustrate the incoherent approach to testing —
Back in November, MIT was telling young adults with no symptoms to isolate while using a cycle threshold of 40 (a ridiculously high level), while a study of symptomatic health care workers deemed to be infected considered them uninfected at or above a cycle threshold of 31.5.
Dr. Fauci says new data shows Covid vaccines appear to be less effective against some new strains
so Fauci is saying that all these wonder vaccines will NOT protect you against the slew of mutations that are occurring. SO WHAT IS THE POINT OF THESE VACCINES?? Seriously what do these vaccines cover??
Those strategies were what USA was needed a long time ago, they have been losing so many people just for not apply the right measurements with the virus, i think with this new plan they are going to overcome and get better, although is something good i belive that some companies are going to suffer economically that why i think cryptocurrencies can help them link to mintme.com here you can find more information about!
The virus is merely culling the weak and the old – that is part of Nature’s plan, and for those who enjoy religion – a part of gods plan also. Lift the mandates, no more masks, and make vaccinations optional – your body, your choice. Then the virus will die out naturally, the living can go on living, and the dead will rest in the Paradise of their choosing. The Democrats can only offer fear!
From the NYT quote below, it seems that Covid-19 vaccination will not prevent you from getting sick, you will [supposedly] just get LESS sick than you would have.
I know this is not what most people getting vaccinated are expecting. From my readings and conversations, almost everyone believes that vaccination will be complete and total protection against Covid-19 moving forward. Going to be some disappointment if vaccinated people get sick anyway.
“Proof of immunization will not be sufficient, because the vaccines have only been shown to prevent serious illness, said Jason McDonald, a spokesman for the C.D.C. Vaccinated people may still become infected, in theory, and transmit the virus on a flight.”
….this C19 vaccine hype is probably the biggest, blns of $ scam EVER ! The media playing along again to serve the new oligarchic socialism !
Help is indeed on the way. PCR cycle thresholds are suddenly important …
.
.
Now, all that remains to be done is to remove the financial incentives to hospitals and we’ll witness cases and attributed deaths suddenly plummet off the proverbial cliff.
Happy to read this but I can’t see anything very specific to do. What am I missing?
You are missing nothing and you should do nothing. This directive pertains to the procedure to determine what can be called a Covid19 case.
Till now, the PCR test was the begin all and and all judge of who was infected and who was not. As an amplification technique however, the PCR test could be pushed to an exceptional degree of sensitivity in order to detect the most minute fragments of the virus. In so doing, “cases” were increasing at an alarming rate.
The WHO now clarifies that: “(1). The cycle threshold (Ct) needed to detect virus is inversely proportional to the patient’s viral load. […]
WHO reminds IVD users that disease prevalence alters the predictive value of test results; as disease prevalence decreases, the risk of false positive increases (2). This means that the probability that a person who has a positive result (SARS-CoV-2 detected) is truly infected with SARS-CoV-2 decreases as prevalence decreases, irrespective of the claimed specificity.”
So, from now on, in countries that will apply this new guideline, cases will no longer rise at such an alarming rate.
Working in Covid ICU day to day we are definitely seeing different presentation and progression of the disease. We knew we had a different strain before it was in the media. Overall mortality is still low but once a patient in ICU it’s above 70%.
I guess OBESITY and its underlying issues are a important factor in C19 mortality rate ?
Only thing Biden can do is yell at the kids for being on his lawn. Day 2 and he has already turned out to be the most hyper partisan, divisive usurper.
It’s going to be really comical after watching fake conservatives cheer Trump’s hyper partisan, run away spending, socialist leaning handling of COVID, gun control pushing, government growing ass for four years suddenly be offended at Joe Biden walking down a similar path.
Principled conservative is a rare beast.
Good grief. Trump did absolutely nothing for 4 years but bray about his poll numbers, but some people are upset Biden hasn’t solved the Covid problem on day 2.
Looks like you plan on spending the rest of your life licking Trump’s scrotum.
I barely come here once a month. Wow. It has turned into a Biden felatio fest filled with cowards afraid of an affliction no worse than flu for most people. Weaklings
You must be fun at parties
Delusional. What about the 400,000 Americans that found it was much worse than flu?
“What about the 0.1% of Americans that found it was much worse than flu?”
Who is delusional?
Genetic weaklings. Too bad…
Fellatio, dumbfuck.
Is there really a difference between Trump and Biden other than Biden is taking this more seriously. In the end, you are a tax slave to the trillions and trillions we will go deeper in debt thanks to an approving presidential pen. The question is since Trump proved Obama to be more fiscally conservative then himself, noting Trump approved of $8 trillion in debt in four years over Obama’s $9 trillion in eight years, is whether or not Biden will take over Trump’s new title of king of debt.
Either they way they are going to demand you bend over and rob you of the fruit of your labor as you think one of these clowns is worth celebrating while the other is your enemy.
Go make out with the Russians over on ZeroHedge then, Matty Beau.
Bye Felicia.
Having a plan is a professional way to handle a major problem. Trump did worse than a toddler. Trump’s team were mostly sycophants and ass-kissers.
“We need big daddy government to come change our diapers!”
-Augustthegreat
It is comprehensible that leaders in FREEDOM adhering nations , did not know how to handle a entirely new pandemic in its initial phase, Biden would NOT have done better ! ps look at Europe…
Observing the past four years with great concern, it is obvious the failed businessman was allowed a second chance in life to recreate this image of this successful businessman with a reality TV show that masked the bleeding of his real life financial buffoonery. He took what he learned in his reality TV and other television experience including being a member of the WWE Hall of Fame and turned it into a presidency of rhetoric and not a presidency of leadership.
When you admit this clown couldn’t even lead his party to repeal Obamacare after eight 10 plus years of promises from the GOP and whose only major legislative victory was a given tax cut (which is getting ready to expire by the way and is hidden with gradual tax increases upon the expiration) is it any wonder his fans needed to convince us by passing around on social media a list of accomplishments they couldn’t even defend once you point out Trump promised just the opposite of many of these “accomplishments” on the list. One item in these bulleted talking points was sending over 100 cruise missiles to Syria to take care of business. Of course, Trump for years had been talking about there was nothing in Syria of US interest.
There was and there is indeed NOTHING in Syria that should be any of the US’ business ! Like I said NOTHING ! Neither was there anything in Libya, Iraq, Ukraine etc, justifying Obama’s and his warmonging predecessor lying Bush, outright war crimes in those places ….
Some of Biden’s plan is low hanging fruit. Requiring masks in Federal buildings, airports and Federal transportation hubs. Not rocket science…. Which brings up the question why the Trump team fought the obvious. Trump let ideology take priority over pragmatism and science.
Ya know? I think I finally figured out why Trump was so intent on keeping everything open… as you say questioning the obvious. It was because he knew what the virus was doing to his revenue, and probably balance sheets, of his properties.
two reasons why Trump kept things open. First not doing anything is easier than doing something and he worried the economy would cost him the election
Nihilists gonna annihilate.
Let’s not forget how testosterone so highly values a macho man looking strong.
The goal is low but far higher than where we are or where Trump’s trajectory was putting us. My feeling is Biden’s team looked at where we are and what was achievable. They needed a goal that is both achievable and one that required a fair bit of work and planning. It is refreshing to see an actual plan with details. Trump always talked in vagueries, avoided publishing metrics and then failed to take responsibility. I”m sure people will quibble as to whether its the best plan but just like in business after debate a plan must be chosen and then everyone needs to buy in and execute. Sounds like this is a decent plan and far superior to what we had before.
Yes, someone who has heard of SMART goals.
The goal is way too low. 50m fully vaccinated in 3 months is not nearly enough to put this virus away. Need at least double.
Comments like this make me want to just shake my head. Why set an arbitrary doubling. Why not 50 million by the late next week? What you mean that’s not possible? Then why do you think 100 million in 3 months is possible?
Let’s do a trillion. Where Biden sets the bar is only one small part of the puzzle. Even at 100 MM in 100 days, Pfizer and Moderna are running around 60% of the production they need to hit that goal. So he could double it, but a wise observer could then fairly claim he is just doubling the number to make himself look good, while the underlying system cannot support that.
Let’s work on upping our production capacity first THEN raise our target. Target’s don’t matter if you don’t have the horsepower to reach the target, let alone hit the bullseye. Biden has invoked the DPA to help scale up production. To me, that’s a better move than lifting a target before we have a chance to hit it.
It’s better to overspend on a fiscal stimulus right now than to underspend. What I think is….this won’t even be the last round.
I haven’t seen our grosses for the last quarter of 2020 yet…that’s how I intend to plan for the future…..it’s our new normal……probably the best we can do with all the extra social distancing we have to do….the extra time it takes mostly…..to do our normal amount of work each day. I hope it’s substantially better than Q3, which was still down 46% y.oy. from 2019. We actually worked full time throughout Q3…and I was surprised we didn’t do better than that. We seemed very busy to me. We just weren’t as efficient as we used to be in normal times.
I applied for the new PPP. It should be $100K….it will keep us going. Glad to get it.
I worry about tenants deciding to take advantage of the rent forbearance. Fortunately it hasn’t been an issue…..yet. I’m struggling to get all our property taxes paid on time. It will happen but my reserves are down….I had to spend big on repairs on a couple of my houses this year…and I still have a vacancy. But we aren’t in any kind of real bind o our RE…..so far.
I’m glad to see Biden’s COVID plan get kick-started so soon. Not sure it will get the job down that much faster….but the more people we can vaccinate the better. Just returning to an evidence based approach to treating disease……from Trump’s ill-considered ignorance and voodoo belief system. What an absolute miserable failure of an administration.
I was scared of Trump from the day he got elected….Scared because he was such a bad choice…..scared because so many people bought into his brand of snake-oil politics…scared he would try to subvert the electoral process..
And I was right to be scared. I won’t be happy until he is convicted in the Senate…or he goes to jail for one or more of his many crimes. If he gets any political capital back together…..it’s Katy bar the door.
A sad, old scared man. What a way to live life. I truly pity you.
Come over here and say that.
…. with the Money bee in his bonnet ….
So you don’t like money? Not a capitalist? Then why do you give fuck about the price of the Euro? Why visit a blog about global economics at all?
Piss off.
short fuse hey ?…. I am not talking about my fckn assets, all of the time am I ?
The USA in the world is in the strange position of being Italy in the EU but entirely in charge of the ECB. Certainly in this case more stimulus wouldn’t increase the competitiveness of Italy (and has not).
There are 150 million workers in the US then they are carrying 5K per person goods deficit.
But. When you think about the value of the dollar, its not just Venezuela, there is demand for dollars all over the place. I wouldn’t be surprised if external real non-financial dollar users globally was easily 300 million. Zimbabwe, general use in Africa, cash holdings in Mexico. Thats ignoring petro-dollar use. These are embedded systems of exchange are robust to change.
So maybe Biden/Yellen are correct. Maybe they can inflate to 5% internal to the US but have that soaked back down to 2.5% by global dollar use (and demand). You might think this is just rehashing the petro-dollar demand argument and vulnerable to China/Russia decoupling, the point i am making is that the US reflation is internal, but there is real and extensive non-financial dollar use externally that has to wait for the dollar outflows.
i.e. it might work and not be an inflationary disaster for the states.
A plan to hang onto. Good.
It can always be modified as it is executed as there are bound to be bumps in the road. There was little excuse for not having a plan under Trump.
Executing on this is a test of national defence for future warfare. How fast civilian protection can be develop and rolled out to key areas needed to keep a country operating.
Many useful lessons can be learned.
The Israelis, as one example “get it” and have been particularly quick.
As long as help doesn’t include nationwide lockdowns i’m ok with it. We’ve destroyed enough. Better part of 1 million a week filing claims since last march. I don’t know when we’re going to hit the wall but it can’t be far off.
The South African strain is worrisome. link to twitter.com
I’m not taking continuous shots which some have said will be required.
Any info on the Brazilian strain? It has supposedly been hitting younger people.
Terrible news. This thing is never going away.