Sunday School 3/8/20

One Dem - That Guy From Vermont - made the rounds this morning, as did a few DC types to talk about the coronavirus. 

Let's start with HUD Secretary Dr. Ben Carson, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, who visited This Week with George Stephanopoulos. 

George started out by noting that "one expert told the American Hospital Association that close to 100 million Americans could eventually be infected" and asked if Americans should "be braced for these kinds of numbers?"

Carson talked about people being informed "about how we should manage our own lives" and taking precautions, mentioning "people who have underlying medical conditions and the elderly" and anyone who's in both of those categories, but said most people who get the coronavirus will either flu-like symptoms or be asymptomatic.

So, there's a little bit of exaggeration in terms of what happens if you contract the virus.

George said that taking precautions is important, but he really wanted to know whether Carson thought it was an exaggeration, that up to 100M of us could be affected. 

I think it's possible for large numbers of people. There's no question that more people will be detected as we do more testing. But you can look at worst-case scenarios. You can look at best-case scenarios. The thing that needs to be understood is that we are working very hard, looking at all the evidence on a day-by-day basis, making recommendations based on that. And we need to be working together, federal, state and local health officials, and the medical professionals, who are very good in this country, by the way...

It seems clear to me that Carson has no intention of answering the question, and that he doesn't want us contemplating the worst-case scenario, and that's fine, I guess - as long as the government is prepared for the worst case scenario. 

George honed in on the testing issue, and after showing a clip my Sonofa Gov, Andrew Cuomo, talking about the CDC, and the complicated testing process ,he wondered how Carson would respond to Cuomo and what assurances Carson can give "that tests are on their way?"  Carson said over a million test kits were shipped last week, with another 640K moving this week just from the feds.  Others are also creating tests - VA hospitals and academic centers, for example. 

So there are a lot of tests but the key thing is everybody doesn’t need a test. And that should be something that should be determined by the medical professionals who are administering the tests.

Switching gears, George wondered about the plan for the Grand Princess cruise ship (with 3500 people on board and at least 21 who've tested positive).

The cruise ship personnel and -- as you know, the vice president met with the CEOs of the major cruise ship companies yesterday, and they are coming up with a plan within 72 hours of that meeting --

But, George said, "the ship’s docking tomorrow."

The plan will be in place by that time. But I don’t -- I don’t want to preview the plan right now.

But, George asked, "shouldn't you be able to do that?" 

I think -- I think it needs to all come from a solitary source. We shouldn’t have 16 people saying what the plan is - particularly when it hasn’t been fully formulated.

George let this one go, saying "OK. Well you’re the president’s representative this morning..." and then moved on to the recent AIPAC and CPAC conferences, which were attended by Trump, Pence, and others in the administration. He asked Carson if he was concerned that the virus could have spread to our officials. After again talking about precautions, hand wringing washing and stuff, Carson said

Bear in mind that if you go out of the studio today and you shake hands with somebody who has coronavirus that doesn’t mean that you’re going to contract coronavirus. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to get sick. But it does mean that you decrease your chances significantly if you follow those logical guidelines that have been placed out before everyone.

Thank you,Captain Obviously I Have Only One Thing to Say Today.

Next, George asked whether "Is it time for more extensive community wide measures to contain this virus?"  The answer was precautions blah blah blah. George tried, again, to get an answer.

What I’m asking you as a representative of the president, as a member of the Coronavirus Task Force, what should the community be doing? Is it time for more extensive measures? We’ve heard the president say, for example, that he’s going to continue with political rallies in the face of this. Is this sending the right message or is it time for broader community measures to contain this?

 BC: Again going to a rally, if you’re a healthy individual and you’re taking the precautions that have been placed out there, there's no reason that you shouldn't go. However, if you belong to one of those categories of high risk, obviously, you need to think twice about that.

I'm done now, even though George kept trying, after first saying,

I’m confused by the message you're sending right now, Dr. Ben Carson, I have to say. 

Moving on, we've got Washington Governor Jay "The Snake" Inslee, who chatted with Margaret Brennan in the Face the Nation classroom on CBS.  She started by asking him why he hasn't been able to contain the coronavirus in his state.

Well, look, this is a challenging thing that the whole world is now recognizing, and what we're doing here is the things I think our state should be doing. We're mourning our losses... We are acting based on science and a commitment for all of us to be soldiers in this battle. And we're - we are doing that.

But, he said,

we should not minimize the task before us.... Every single social contact between humans anywhere in the world today is a potential exposure. So we now are making scientific decisions about making sure we get as much testing as possible, making sure we restock our medical supply chain and making sure that we make good decisions about minimizing those social contacts...

Brennan asked if he had all the support he needed from the federal government. He mentioned early issues with testing, but things are better now, it seems, and he gave the feds credit for restocking equipment and supplies. He had a list of things the feds need to work on, related to testing,, to helping "really vitalize and mobilize our manufacturing capacity to do protective equipment" and to mobilize the supply chain.

Brennan next asked if he had contemplated more dramatic actions - large-scale quarantines, for example, or whether he had contemplated, say, shutting down Seattle. Not really, it seems, but

...we've asked a whole host of communities to consider whether you really need to have your events right now, and they are being canceled. Comic Con has been postponed. We have a number of school closures. We are contemplating some next steps, particularly to protect our vulnerable  populations... And we are looking to determine whether mandatory measures are required...

He said they "may have to go to the next step" to get ahead of the virus. In response to Brennan's question if that meant quarantine. He said not necessarily, but maybe reducing the number of social activities that are happening, and he noted

...this will be or could be hard for the public--because they may not have seen the full wave yet. We need to anticipate that wave, get ahead of it. We are thinking about stronger measures right now.

Brennan wondered about reports in the Seattle papers about the local health system being "pretty taxed...in fact, understaffed, underfunded" and wondered if he shouldered some of the blame. He said not just locally but nationally, our public health system "coul always have used additional help" and mentioned being obligated to generate about $8B for schools, which they've done, and that the public health system has been stable during his tenure. 

In answering that question, he mentioned having a good meeting with Mike Pence, too. That was the opening Brennan had been waiting for I think. She played part of Trump's comments at the CDC on Friday.

So I told my - not to be complimentary of the governor because that governor is a snake. Okay. Inslee. Let me just tell you, we have a lot of problems with the governor.

And she asked, "are politics complicating any of this?"

Well... I really don't care too much what Donald Trump thinks of me. And we just kind of ignore that. It's background noise because we really need to work together, Republicans and Democrats. This is a national crisis. We are doing that effectively, as I've indicated...I think the vice president has been helpful in this regard. So look, we're focusing on people's health, not on political gamesmanship right now. And that's what we need to do. And I feel good about those efforts.

That Guy From Vermont will have to wait until tomorrow's Extra Credit.

See you around campus.