[Look at that vacant expression. Mikey’s learned to squint to create the impression he’s a gifted statesman when in fact Pence’s just listening to the echoes coming from between his ears.]
Said Mikey Pence at the White House campaign event press briefing on April 13, 2020:
"And our hospitals were not overwhelmed, and are not overwhelmed at this hour. I have to tell you, standing here today, I couldn’t be more proud to stand alongside this President and to be a part of this team that has served the American people during this challenging hour." [Spoken like a true lickspittle.]
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Over in the real world, hospitals are overwhelmed:
The New York Times
April 11, 2020
Nicholas Kristof
Life and Death in the ‘Hot Zone’
“If people saw this, they would stay home.” What the war against the coronavirus looks like inside two Bronx hospitals.
This is not a time to die.
Terror, pain and loneliness mingle in the air with the coronavirus in the “hot zone” of the emergency department at Jack D. Weiler Hospital in the Bronx. The room is jammed with patients whose frightened eyes peer above their oxygen masks as they struggle to breathe, feel that they are drowning, wonder if they will ever again see loved ones.
No family members are allowed here, yet the space is more than twice as crowded as normal. About 80 coronavirus patients, ranging in age from 31 to 97, are squeezed into the room, bed-to-bed, some near death. A group of newly arrived patients sit in chairs in a corner to await stretchers, and they look around in alarm. Doctors and nurses hurry about so sheathed in protective garb — some of it makeshift, such as welding helmets over ski goggles — that even co-workers cannot recognize them.
The truth is that the doctors too are frightened and exhausted, overwhelmed by death and their own helplessness. Dr. Nicole Del Valle, 29, told me that what shattered her was treating a 30-year-old woman with Covid-19 whose 23-year-old sister had just died of it; Dr. Del Valle called her own younger sister and ordered her not to leave her home.
All day in the hospital, Dr. Del Valle maintains her reassuring manner as she intubates patients, holds their hands, fights for their lives — and then, she acknowledged, she goes home and cries.
To spend time in New York City hospitals today is to see how wrenching the practice of medicine becomes in a time of plague.
www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-hos…
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Also:
HHS watchdog finds severe hospital shortages in combating covid-19
The Washington Post
By Amy Goldstein
April 6, 2020 at 11:13 a.m. PDT
A federal watchdog is corroborating warnings by governors and front-line health-care workers that hospitals’ ability to combat the coronavirus pandemic is being impeded by shortages of tests, protective gear, staff and space, as well as inconsistent government advice.
Some hospitals are so desperate for protective masks that they are scrounging them from auto-body shops and nail salons, according to a report by the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services. At least one hospital is making its own hand sanitizer by mixing gel used for ultrasounds with alcohol from a nearby distillery, the report said.
The report is the first public federal critique of the capacity of the nation’s hospitals to cope with the flood of infected patients in coronavirus hot spots — an inundation likely to arrive elsewhere soon. In substantiating complaints about inadequate equipment, it essentially counters assertions by President Trump that hospitals and state officials advocating for them are being greedy.
“Hospitals across the country reported facing similar challenges, regardless of which stage of the process they were in — treating patients with [the virus], testing patients who were potentially infected, or preparing to treat covid-19 patients in the near future,” the report says.
The report’s findings are based on a survey of 343 hospitals spanning 46 states. It was conducted during five days at the end of March.
Released Friday, the report says the findings are “not a review of HHS response to the covid-19 pandemic” but are intended “as an aid to HHS as it continues to lead efforts to address the public health emergency.”
Its central findings include “severe shortages” of testing kits and delays in test results, and “widespread shortages” of personal protective equipment needed to help keep staff safe. Hospitals also reported that they cannot always maintain enough staff on duty and that the pandemic is “taking an emotional toll” on doctors and other medical workers.
The findings buttress dire descriptions of hospital conditions from physicians, nurses and health-care workers who have spoken out from wards overwhelmed with coronavirus patients, many fighting for their lives.
Many governors have been pleading for supplies at news conferences, as well as in direct communications with federal officials all the way up to the president. New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D), whose state has tallied more than 4,700 deaths and is home to the nation’s largest virus epicenter in New York City, frequently chronicles the shortage of ventilators for patients with the most severe breathing difficulties.
Governors plead for medical equipment from federal stockpile plagued by shortages and confusion.
Trump has repeatedly warned states not to complain about insufficient respirators and other medical supplies from a federal stockpile, managed by the Federal Emergency Management Administration. Just over a week ago, Trump said at a White House news briefing that he had instructed Vice President Pence not to speak with governors critical of the administration’s response to the pandemic. “I want them to be appreciative,” the president said.
But the inspector general’s report documents that the concerns of governors, hospital executives and health-care workers are not simply naysaying from disgruntled political adversaries, as the president has suggested.
Asked about the report at Monday’s White House coronavirus briefing, Trump said repeatedly, “It’s wrong.” He demanded to know the name of the report’s author and when that person was appointed. The main author, Christi Grimm, has worked in the HHS inspector general’s office since 1999 and became the principal deputy inspector general in January, according to her biography.
Her tenure means she joined the office while Bill Clinton was president. Trump accused reporters at the briefing of having withheld the fact she worked in the adminstration of President Barack Obama. “We are doing a better job [at testing] than anybody else in the world,” Trump said.
/ / /
To reduce the number of patients coming to emergency departments, some hospitals have created triage systems by phone or by relying on community clinics, the survey found.
Still, the findings point to the complexities facing the U.S. health-care system as it struggles to cope with the pandemic while the case count rises rapidly.
For instance, the report notes that even when covid-19 patients get well enough to leave a hospital, freeing up a sorely needed bed, hospitals sometimes cannot send them promptly to rehabilitation facilities to continue their recovery. Rehab facilities are insisting on proof that people have tested negative before they will accept them.
Hospitals reported an array of adaptations to cope with shortages of protective gear. They included buying masks from retailers including paint stores, auto-body supply shops and beauty salons. Some hospitals said they were using masks intended for other kinds of workers, from veterinarians to nail salon technicians.
The survey found that some hospitals were using sandwich bags as thermometer covers. Some hospitals reported that they needed more poles for intravenous therapy, bed linens, toilet paper and food.
“Isolated and smaller hospitals faced special challenges” keeping supplies on hand and restocking, the report says.
To conserve scarce supplies of protective equipment, some hospitals were reusing masks, face shields and gowns that are supposed to be discarded after a single use, restricting the use of such materials to patients and staff in intensive care units, or telling staff to interact with infected patients less often.
To lower hospital workers’ stress, some hospitals were helping employees find child care, grocery and laundry services — and putting them up in hotels so they don’t expose vulnerable relatives.
www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/hhs-watchd…
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But wait, there’s more:
The Ring of Fire
Mike Pence Is Full Of Coronavirus Lies, Too
By Farron Cousins –
April 2, 2020
Donald Trump isn’t the only top member of this administration willing to lie to the American public; Vice President Mike Pence is getting in on the action, too. On Wednesday, Pence said that Trump has NEVER belittled the virus or the pandemic, and that he has always taken this thing seriously from day one. There is plenty of video evidence that says otherwise, and all Pence has to do is be honest about one thing and he can’t even do it. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.
Now we know that Donald Trump has been lying to us since day one about the coronavirus and the pandemic, right? He’s lied to us about the severity of it. He’s lied to us about what other people are saying, saying they’re the liars, not him.
But apparently vice president Mike Pence wanted in on this action a little bit. So this week he spoke with CNNs Wolf Blitzer where he told Wolf Blitzer "I don’t believe the president has ever belittled the threat of the coronavirus."
It was after Wolf asked, you know, about the months of Donald Trump belittling the coronavirus. Should, should we take him seriously on this?
I mean, you know, he told us for so long that this wasn’t a big deal and Mike Pence is like, ah, he never said any of that Wolf.
Except he did and thanks to the Intelligencer at the New York magazine, we actually have a handy little list of some of the times, not even all of the times, just some of the times that Donald Trump belittled the virus.
On January 30th he said, we have it very well under control. We have very little problem in this country at this moment, five and those people are all recuperating successfully.
On February 19th he said, I think the numbers are going to get progressively better as we go along.
On February 23rd he said we had 12 at one point and now they’ve gotten much better. Many of them are fully recovered.
Then on March 4th, he said, now and this is just my hunch and but based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people that do this because a lot of people will have this and it’s very mild.
They’ll get better very rapidly.
They don’t even see a doctor.
They don’t even call a doctor. You here, you never hear about those people.
He also on Twitter compared it to a very mild flu and this was after we knew at this point that no, this is not a very mild flu.
On March 24th, 24th, he said, we’ve never closed down the country for the flu. So say to yourself, what is this all about?
He also went on Sean Hannity’s program as we had discussed on here and downplayed the whole thing.
He went on Fox news and claimed that this was some kind of democratic hoax.
You know, said that the WHO, the world health organization was lying about the mortality rate and the number of deaths we’ve seen from this. He said they were lying.
So no, I’m sorry, Mr vice president. But you’re lying to the American public and as a good Christian boy, I would have to imagine that that’s probably eating you up inside, isn’t it? Or are you not actually a real Christian? Because I seem to remember those commandments, right? Thou shalt not bear false witness. And to translate that from by bible’s is don’t f’n lie. But you just can’t stop yourself can you, Mike? You want the power. You want to be a part of this administration and you’re willing to prove to us all that you’re just another phony right-wing Christian in order to maintain your position of power here. There is nothing Christian at all about you, Mike Pence. You are in every way just as evil, deceitful and stupid as Donald Trump himself.
trofire.com/2020/04/02/mike-pence-is-full-of-coronavirus-…
Posted by A.Davey on 2020-04-14 19:00:28
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