In Case You Missed it (v29)

What was on my mind here in social-distancing land last week? Here's the week in review, in case you missed it.

My visit to the Sunday School classrooms brought us interviews  with Dr. Anthony Fauci on Face the Nation, and with New York City's Mayor Bill De Blasio, a Democrat,  and Maryland's Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, on Meet the Press.  

Chuck Todd asked them both, starting with De Blasio, what progress would look like.

Real, consistent social distancing being enforced, people living with it. And hospitals that can function. People seeing that their health care system is actually holding because we have the supplies and the personnel. And I think that's going to be a national reality, Chuck... If people see the system holding, that will be progress..

And here's Hogan's response.

...progress is going to be if we can somehow bend this curve down, wherein we can start to stop that spike that's going so we don't overload the health care system. You know, people are just going to -- look, it's very disconcerting. People's lives are disrupted. It's scary. And I understand people out there are concerned about when is it going to look better... What it takes is every one of our citizens is a part of this. And we can't stop it without them cooperating -- but it's going to be a while...

In the Sunday School Extra Credit entry, I shared part of a somewhat challenging conversation between Martha Raddatz and FEMA head Peter Gaynor on This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Raddatz had a hard time pinning him down on pretty much anything, including whether FEMA was shipping much-needed supplies from the strategic stockpile.

Again, there are still supplies in the stockpile. We are shipping all those supplies to all the demands, all the asks from all the governors every day. We are -- we're prepared to go to zero in the stockpile to meet demand. Again, this is a whole of government effort. And if could -- if I could just, you know, and this is shared responsibility. I know the president, Dr. Fauci talked about testing. You know, if you don't need a test, if you don't have symptoms, please don't get a test. Because the demand for PPE on unnecessary testing is -- is something that's working against us. So we're all in it together. Every American has a role to play. And we ask you, if you need to get a test and you have symptoms, go get it. If you just want to test to make yourself feel better, please don't do that.

To which I noted that  VP Mike Pence is just one person who had an unnecessary test, so I guess Gaynor was right - this IS "a whole of government effort."

In addition to his classroom appearance, Dr. Fauci also did a phone interview with Jon Cohen of Science magazine, which I capture in Quick Takes (v49) Fauci, Frankly. He spoke a little more freely in this one, Fauci did, out of view of the cameras, even showing a little exasperation at times. And, he gave us some insight on what it's like for the Task Force before those daily briefings we've come to love to hate.

Also interesting? The process of what happens before the daily press conferences.  Fauci said that the task force sits down for 90 minutes or so, then move to the anteroom near the Oval Office to talk about the messages that they want to emphasize. And then?

Then we go in to see the president, we present [our consensus] to him and somebody writes a speech. Then he gets up and ad libs on his speech. And then we're up there to try and answer questions.

Prompted by some memes floating around on social media, I published Quick Takes (v50): Chinese Things, addressing the issue of Trump and his minions referring to the China virus or the Chinese virus, which we know is done in a derogatory manner, no matter how hard he and they doth protest.  

One of the 'reasons' or 'excuses' given for Trump's choice of words is that in the past, we have used terms like Ebola and MERS and SARS and, of course the favorite of all, the Spanish Flu. Here's a bit of history on that.

The article also talked about the stigma of using an ethnic designation, using the 'Spanish Flu' as a parallel to Trump's 'Chinese virus.' 

This strain of flu, thought to have killed roughly 50 million people between 1918 and 1919, did not originate in Spain, and it killed more British, French, Germans, and Americans than Spaniards. However, those other countries censored coverage of the pandemic, while Spain did not, so it became known through Spanish media accounts. 

The Times of London, refusing to report the flu’s death toll among British troops, christened the illness “the Spanish flu,” and the name stuck. (Incidentally, many Spaniards dubbed it “the French flu.”) Today health authorities have recognized the misnomer and typically call it the 1918 flu pandemic. 

But hey - when we have two legitimate terms we can use, and we have experts telling us the right way to do this, we'll ignore them and go with the president. Sigh. 

My Wondering on Wednesday post was mostly full of good news stories coming out of quarantines and social distancing and ingenuity, which was fun. But there was also this passing reference to the president's need for adulation, which is not a good thing, especially during a pandemic. 

I can't help wondering what the president is really going to do if a governor "doesn't treat him well" but at the same time, comes knocking for federal help. Do you think Trump will get away with not helping? Do you think we're that partisan, or have we come together with love for each other as True Patriots and Warriors against this, horrible, SAD, invisible ENEMY? He's the guy, remember, who during that same Fox Town Hall meeting, shared a debunked conspiracy theory about my Sonofa Gov, Andrew Cuomo, and some mysterious 15,000 or 16,000 ventilators he should have bought several years ago.  I wonder, does Trump really even knows what 'nice' is?

I ended the week with a note from The Update Desk on the earlier Chinese Things post. It seems the G-7 foreign ministers had a conference call, and one of the things they wanted to do was issue a joint statement on the pandemic. The US was tasked with drafting the statement, and the whole thing fell apart because Secretary of State Mike Pompeo couldn't bring himself to use the term 'coronavirus' or 'COVID-19' - he insisted that it be referred to as the 'Wuhan virus." The six other Gs? Yeah, they were not having it.

Pompeo said in a presser later that "everyone" on the call knows that the virus came from Wuhan, as if what's the big deal?

And I'd suggest that every one of the nations that was at the meeting was "deeply aware" of other deflection going on, coming from a place other than China, would you agree?  In fact, according to the article,

Other foreign ministers were not nearly as emphatic in their own comments about the meeting, with at least one leaving open the suggestion that China is not the only country trying to use the outbreak to advance political points.

And, it seems, the French foreign minister was not shy in his own statement, in which he

underscored the need to combat any attempt to exploit the crisis for political purposes and expressed the view that the unity of all in order to effectively combat the pandemic must now take precedence over any other considerations.

Wouldn't that be interesting, if we could just fight the darn thing without the pejorative labeling?

That's it - the full and veritable pastiche for last week.  I'll be back later today with Sunday School, for sure, and who knows what else.  If you're so inclined, subscribe by dropping your email in the Instant Gratification box on the right sidebar. 

Sunday School Extra Credit 3/22/20

Time for some Extra Credit for all you Sunday Schoolers and Monday morning quarterbacks. 

Let's pick up with the gang at This Week with George Stephanopoulos, with Martha Raddatz sitting in for George. Among her guests? FEMA Director Peter Gaynor, and she wasted no time getting to the issues. 

FEMA's mission, she said, is to "prepare for, prevent, respond to and recover from disaster." And how does that jive with "healthcare workers desperate for critical supplies?" Gaynor tried to tap dance, saying 

It's a -- it's a great question, Martha. And, you know, my role today is -- is about today; it's about tomorrow; and it's about where we are in two weeks. My job is to bring together whole of government, whole of nation, to include our business partners to make sure that we can navigate our way out of this. And that's what we're doing every day. So when it comes to things like supplies, we are shipping supplies -- we shipped yesterday; we shipped today; we're going to ship tomorrow. We're going to try to meet every need in the nation. But a word of caution. The supplies that governors are looking for are the same supplies that every other country in the world is looking for. So this is a global problem. It's a national problem. And, again, we're working hard every day here to meet those demands.

Raddatz acknowledged his hard work, but wondered, as everyone else has been, when they would be in the hands of people that need them, and she used a clip of Gaynor himself saying "they're out there now." So, she asked, how many of them and when will they be distributed.

They have been distributed. They've been distributed over the past couple weeks. They're shipping today. They'll ship tomorrow. We find more and more masks to ship because we have -- developing great partnerships with the commercial sector out there, through donations, ramping up production. So, again, they have been shipping. We are trying to focus those shipments on the most critical hot spots in the country, places like New York City, Washington state, California. That is our priorities.

And, Raddatz wondered, will they get where they're needed in time, before the system is overwhelmed? When Gaynor repeated that "they" are being shipped, she tried to pin him down.

Well, I mean, there's hundreds of thousands of -- millions of things that we're shipping from the stockpile. I mean, I can't give you the details about what every single state or what every single city's doing. But -- but I'm telling you that we are shipping from our national stockpile. We're shipping from vendors. We're shipping from donations. It is happening. The demand is great. The demand from the governors is great. The demand around the world is great. And I -- I have the best experts here. I have a two-star general from the Joint Staff here, logistics, that is helping me solve these problems, plus many other from government. We are in this 100 percent.

She continued to push him on the supplies, particularly on the strategic stockpile and why all of those haven't been distributed, if they haven't. 

Again, there are still supplies in the stockpile. We are shipping all those supplies to all the demands, all the asks from all the governors every day. We are -- we're prepared to go to zero in the stockpile to meet demand. Again, this is a whole of government effort. And if could -- if I could just, you know, and this is shared responsibility. I know the president, Dr. Fauci talked about testing. You know, if you don't need a test, if you don't have symptoms, please don't get a test. Because the demand for PPE on unnecessary testing is -- is something that's working against us. So we're all in it together. Every American has a role to play. And we ask you, if you need to get a test and you have symptoms, go get it. If you just want to test to make yourself feel better, please don't do that.

We'll take a moment to note that VP Mike Pence is just one person who had an unnecessary test. 

While the White House doctor has indicated that he has no reason to believe I was exposed and no need to get tested, given the unique position that I have as vice president, and as the leader of the White House coronavirus task force, both I and my wife will be tested for the coronavirus.

The conversation on masks continued in the same vein. and then Raddatz asked why FEMA had just been brought on to the task force, and wondered if his agency's involvement should have "ramped up sooner" and why it didn't.  

Well, you know, I'm not going to look back at, you know, what should have been done, what wasn't done. And we can do that at a later time. Again, my focus as the lead for coordinating federal operations is on -- is on today. We can look back at another date. My -- my eyes are focused today, tomorrow, the next day, in order to beat this coronavirus.

She then asked about the "ominous classified warnings beginning in January" from the intelligence community about the "global dangers" of the virus, while the administration (and the president personally) were downplaying things. Quoting an article in the Washington Post which said "Donald Trump may not have been expecting this, but a lot of other people in the government were. They just couldn't get him to do anything about it. The system was blinking red." she asked if Gaynor knew about the warnings, "and if not, why not?" 

You know, when it comes to public health emergencies, you know, HHS has been the lead for that. They kind of own that mission. I -- I was not part of any of those discussions, whether they're purported or factual.

Raddatz was incredulous.

I want to go back to your mission again. It's to lead America and to prepare for it. You had no indication? The worldwide threat assessment of 2019 said “we assess that the United States will remain vulnerable to the next flu pandemic or large-scale outbreak of a contagious disease that could lead to massive rates of death and disability, severely affect the world economy, and strain international resources…” So is it really fair to say you had no warning about this, really?

And Gaynor? He was, well, he was exactly what we would expect him to be after listening to the rest of the interview.  

Again, you know, the public health medical mission, statutory lies with HHS. My mission, FEMA, prior to this, natural disasters and those catastrophic events that happen. Now it's a different world. Now HHS and FEMA are locked arm in arm, plus many other agencies from around government to include our private partners. And today I'm trying to focus on today and tomorrow and where we want to be in a couple weeks. That is my mission.

And what'll things be like in a couple of weeks, will we see a big change, Raddatz asked.

Well, again, I think every American has a role to play. I think the 15 days -- do what you can do to help yourself, help your family, help your neighborhood, help your business. You know, do those things that are simple. Stay indoors if you're sick. Don't go to work. You know, wash your hands. Don't touch surfaces. All those things make a difference. This is every American playing their role to make sure that we can beat the coronavirus. That -- that's as simple as I can make it.

I can't be the only one with "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job" ricocheting around inside my head, can I? 

Keep your distance - wash your hands - don't touch things.  See you around the virtual campus.