Trump Moves To Make The Coronavirus Vanish-- By Directly Cutting Out The CDC And Taking Control Of All Reporting Data

Good news/bad news; first the good news. Florida's gigantically accelerating new one-day cases took a rest yesterday. After a horrific couple of days ending in 12,624 new cases reported Monday, yesterday there were "only" 9,194 new cases. That brings the total to 291,629, third worst in the country after New York (which has leveled off weeks ago) and California (which, like Florida, Texas, Arizona, Georgia and several other states are accelerating dangerously). There are now 13,578 cases per million Floridians. That about the same as the two worse Western European countries, Sweden (7,524 cases per million Swedes) and Spain (cases per million Spaniards 6,495) combined. And that's the good news. Today the number of new cases edged backup again-- to 10,181, bringing the state's total to over 300,000 and the number of cases per million Floridians to 14,052.

The bad news for the DeSantis-plagued state is that yesterday was their worst single day death toll. Monday's report was 35 deaths, 4th worst in the country. Tuesday's report was 132 new deaths. (Today there were 112 new deaths reported.) Today's COVID deaths reports in other states were even more horrific: Texas (154), California (126) Arizona (+97), Alabama (+47). Both the Texas and California governors have pulled back from re-opening and put several CDC suggestions into place-- like mandatory masks. Trump puppet Ron DeSantis refuses to shut down nonessential businesses or put in place a statewide mask mandate in place.




Yesterday was the first day death rates started reflecting the new post re-opening spike. It will likely get much, much worse, as the mortality rate follows the new spiking infection rates. The states with the worst infections reported on Tuesday and ---> Wednesday:

• Texas +11,060 ---> 12, 235 (10,278 cases per million Texans)
• California +9,561 ---> 9,687 (8,992 cases per million Californians)
• Florida +9,194 ---> 10,181 (14,052 cases per million Floridians)
• Arizona +4,273 ---> 3,257 (18,046 cases per million Arizonans)
• Georgia +3,394 ---> 3,871 (12,040 cases per million Georgians)
• Louisiana +2,224 ---> 2,082 (18,098 cases per million Louisianans)
• South Carolina +2,221 ---> 1,856 (12,089 cases per million South Carolinians)
• North Carolina +1,914 ---> 1,844 (8,723 cases per million North Carolinians)
• Alabama +1,710 ---> 1,812 (12,047 cases per million Alabamans)
• Tennessee +1,514 ---> 2,273 (10,113 cases per million Tennesseans)
• Ohio +1,168 ---> 1,312 (5,935 cases per million Buckeyes)
• Nevada +1,104 ---> 849 (9,892 cases per million Nevadans)
• Oklahoma +993 ---> 1,075 (5,765 cases per million Sooners)

Fake Magic by Nancy Ohanian

Meanwhile, the NY Times reported that the cause of the entire second spike, Señor T, "has ordered hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and, beginning on Wednesday, send all coronavirus patient information to a central database in Washington-- a move that has alarmed public health experts who fear the data will be distorted for political gain." Now why would that alarm anyone? Just because Trumpanzee is the most dishonest person to ever walk the planet?

The new instructions are contained in a little-noticed document posted this week on the Department of Health and Human Services’ website, Sheryl Gay Stolberg reports. From now on, H.H.S., and not the C.D.C., will collect daily reports about the patients that each hospital is treating, how many beds and ventilators are available, and other information vital to tracking the pandemic.

Officials said the change should help ease data gathering and assist the White House coronavirus task force in allocating scarce supplies like personal protective gear and the drug remdesivir.

Hospital officials want to streamline reporting, saying it will relieve them from responding to requests from multiple federal agencies, though some say the C.D.C.-- an agency that prizes its scientific independence-- should be in charge of gathering the information.

“The C.D.C. is the right agency to be at the forefront of collecting the data,” said Dr. Bala Hota, the chief analytics officer at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

Public health experts have long expressed concern that the administration is politicizing science and undermining the disease control centers; four former C.D.C. directors, spanning both Republican and Democratic administrations, said as much in an opinion piece published Tuesday in The Washington Post. The data collection shift reinforced those fears.

“Centralizing control of all data under the umbrella of an inherently political apparatus is dangerous and breeds distrust,” said Nicole Lurie, who served as assistant secretary for preparedness and response under former President Barack Obama. “It appears to cut off the ability of agencies like C.D.C. to do its basic job.”

The shift grew out of a tense conference call several weeks ago between hospital executives and Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator.

After Dr. Birx complained that hospitals were not adequately reporting their data, she convened a working group of government and hospital officials who devised the new plan, according to Janis Orlowski, chief health care officer of the Association of American Medical Colleges, who participated.

But news of the change came as a shock inside the C.D.C., which has long been responsible for gathering public health data, according to two officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it. A spokesman for the disease control centers referred questions to the Department of Health and Human Services, which has not responded to a request for comment.

The dispute exposes the vast gaps in the government’s ability to collect and manage health data-- an antiquated system at best, experts say.

Coincidentally, I'm sure, CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield said that without a vaccine "we're going to have to go through two or three years of wrestling with this virus... I do think the fall and the winter of 2020 and 2021 are going to be the probably one of the most difficult times that we experienced in American public health."

Fauci, participating in a Georgetown University Global Health Initiative webinar, called what we're experiencing a "pandemic of historic proportions... I think we can’t deny that fact. If you look at the magnitude of the 1918 pandemic where anywhere from 50 to 75 to 100 million people globally died, that was the mother of all pandemics and truly historic. I hope we don’t even approach that with this, but it does have the makings of, the possibility of… approaching that in seriousness." Of course with less testing and Trump making up whatever statistics he wants in order to help his reelection campaign, the pandemics as good as over... until after November 3rd.