Recent Comments

1. about 12 hours ago on ViewsAfrica

   “immoral” One hopes they’re not immortal!!!

2. about 15 hours ago on Views of the World

   The damage Trump has done extends to the whole world. The US should have been leading in global coordination of the nations to contend with the pandemic. Instead he has fragmented the response in a dog-eat-dog manner that will harm everybody, since he has NO concept of cooperation, no ability to share, no recognition of mutual benefits in any situation other than “you must lose for me to win”.

3. about 15 hours ago on ViewsAfrica

   We managed to get aid and help significantly to African nations in the Ebola crisis…but of course, then we had an intelligent adult in the WH.

4. about 15 hours ago on Michael Ramirez

   Had to? They didn’t even TRY to.

5. about 15 hours ago on Steve Kelley

   So, Kelley, just who screwed up? And who has contributed to the problem by having the states individually bidding for the supplies and equipment?

6. about 15 hours ago on Steve Kelley

   The New York Times has a story today that you might have missed. Back in 2008, after realizing that the country would be woefully short of ventilators in the case of a big flu epidemic, the federal government announced a contract to design and build a new generation of cheap, portable ventilators. The contract was awarded in 2009 to Newport Medical Instruments, a small ventilator maker in California, and at first the project went swimmingly: Then everything changed. The medical device industry was undergoing rapid consolidation, with one company after another merging with or acquiring other makers….In May 2012, Covidien, a large medical device manufacturer, agreed to buy Newport for just over $100 million….Newport executives and government officials working on the ventilator contract said they immediately noticed a change when Covidien took over. Developing inexpensive portable ventilators no longer seemed like a top priority. ….Government officials and executives at rival ventilator companies said they suspected that Covidien had acquired Newport to prevent it from building a cheaper product that would undermine Covidien’s profits from its existing ventilator business. ….In 2014, with no ventilators having been delivered to the government, Covidien executives told officials at the biomedical research agency that they wanted to get out of the contract, according to three former federal officials. The executives complained that it was not sufficiently profitable for the company.

   The contract was eventually re-awarded to Philips, and last year the FDA signed off on the new Philips ventilator, the Trilogy Evo. Delivery of 10,000 units was set for . . .Mid-2020. Just a little late. Too bad.

   https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/03/nyt-next-gen-ventilator-project-failed-because-it-killed-profits/

7. about 16 hours ago on Steve Kelley

   Our analysis therefore suggests that healthcare demand can only be kept within manageable levels through the rapid adoption of public health measures (including testing and isolation of cases and wider social distancing measures) to suppress transmission, similar to those being adopted in many countries at the current time. If a suppression strategy is implemented early (at 0.2 deaths per 100,000 population per week) and sustained, then 38.7 million lives could be saved whilst if it is initiated when death numbers are higher (1.6 deaths per 100,000 population per week) then 30.7 million lives could be saved. Delays in implementing strategies to suppress transmission will lead to worse outcomes and fewer lives saved.

   We do not consider the wider social and economic costs of suppression, which will be high and may be disproportionately so in lower income settings. Moreover, suppression strategies will need to be maintained in some manner until vaccines or effective treatments become available to avoid the risk of later epidemics. Our analysis highlights the challenging decisions faced by all governments in the coming weeks and months, but demonstrates the extent to which rapid, decisive and collective action now could save millions of lives.

   https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-infectious-disease-analysis/news—wuhan-coronavirus/

8. about 16 hours ago on Steve Kelley

   Report 12: The Global Impact of COVID-19 and Strategies for Mitigation and SuppressionSummary:

   Summary Report 12The world faces a severe and acute public health emergency due to the ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic. How individual countries respond in the coming weeks will be critical in influencing the trajectory of national epidemics. Here we combine data on age-specific contact patterns and COVID-19 severity to project the health impact of the pandemic in 202 countries. We compare predicted mortality impacts in the absence of interventions or spontaneous social distancing with what might be achieved with policies aimed at mitigating or suppressing transmission. Our estimates of mortality and healthcare demand are based on data from China and high-income countries; differences in underlying health conditions and healthcare system capacity will likely result in different patterns in low income settings.

   We estimate that in the absence of interventions, COVID-19 would have resulted in 7.0 billion infections and 40 million deaths globally this year. Mitigation strategies focussing on shielding the elderly (60% reduction in social contacts) and slowing but not interrupting transmission (40% reduction in social contacts for wider population) could reduce this burden by half, saving 20 million lives, but we predict that even in this scenario, health systems in all countries will be quickly overwhelmed. This effect is likely to be most severe in lower income settings where capacity is lowest: our mitigated scenarios lead to peak demand for critical care beds in a typical low-income setting outstripping supply by a factor of 25, in contrast to a typical high-income setting where this factor is 7. As a result, we anticipate that the true burden in low income settings pursuing mitigation strategies could be substantially higher than reflected in these estimates. (cont’d)

9. about 16 hours ago on Steve Kelley

   Two months before the novel coronavirus is thought to have begun its deadly advance in Wuhan, China, the Trump administration ended a $200-million pandemic early-warning program aimed at training scientists in China and other countries to detect and respond to such a threat.

   The project, launched by the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2009, identified 1,200 different viruses that had the potential to erupt into pandemics, including more than 160 novel coronaviruses. The initiative, called PREDICT, also trained and supported staff in 60 foreign laboratories — including the Wuhan lab that identified SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

   Field work ceased when the funding ran out in September, and organizations that worked on the PREDICT program laid off dozens of scientists and analysts, said Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, a key player in the program.

   https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-administration-ended-pandemic-early-233508840.html

10. about 16 hours ago on Steve Kelley

    In September 2018, the Trump administration received detailed plans for a new machine designed to churn out millions of protective respirator masks at high speed during a pandemic.

    The plans, submitted to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) by medical manufacturer O&M Halyard, were the culmination of a venture unveiled almost three years earlier by the Obama administration.

    But HHS did not proceed with making the machine.

    The project was one of two N95 mask ventures — totaling $9.8 million — that the federal government embarked on over the past five years to better prepare for pandemics.

    The other involves the development of reusable masks to replace the single-use variety currently so scarce that medical professionals are using theirs over and over. Expert panels have advised the government for at least 14 years that reusable masks were vital.

    That effort, like the quick mask machine, has not led to a single new mask for the government’s response.

    “The Halyard contract was part of an explicit strategy to ensure we could surge mask production in the next crisis,” said Nicole Lurie, who was the HHS assistant secretary for preparedness and response under Barack Obama. “Now we’re dealing with the consequences of not having that capability.”

    Halyard said Thursday in a statement that its work on the government contract was completed in September 2018. A spokeswoman declined to give additional details.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/federal-government-spent-millions-to-ramp-up-mask-readiness-but-that-isnt-helping-now/2020/04/03/d62dda5c-74fa-11ea-a9bd-9f8b593300d0_story.html