The blame game

[HillzHoozier]

Can someone repost the link you're referring to? I've seen write ups but no video. Thanks.

https://techstartups.com/2020/03/28...hydroxychloroquine-sulfate-zinc-z-pak-update/
The interview is at the bottom of the article. Giuliani interrupts with asking him to repeat things, and there's an eyeroll at the end where the doctor is nice to Trump, but there are good details in there.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

Fauci has and has said on tv that he'd use it for himself and family but never mentions names of individual doctors who aren't present.

Fauci is not lending his power to get the drug tested with federal funds. I know it is CNN below, but the feds are not sponsoring research for this combo at this time. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cn...ronavirus-hydroxychloroquine-trial/index.html

 

[DCDAVID]

The media has already settled on its coverage narratives.

The night that President Trump issued his [China travel restriction] order, Vox tweeted, ‘Is this going to be a deadly pandemic? No.’ That tweet was then deleted with a correction earlier this week. Lenny Bernstein at the Washington Post wrote on January 31, ‘Get a grippe [sic], America. The flu is a much bigger threat than Coronavirus, for now.’ The next day, the Washington Post published an op-ed titled, ‘Past epidemics prove fighting coronavirus with travel bans is a mistake.’ In what appeared to be a full court press against the president’s order, the paper published another piece on January 31, ‘How our brains make coronavirus seem scarier than it is.’ On February 3, they hit us with another op-ed headlined, ‘Why we should be wary of an aggressive government response to coronavirus’, arguing it would lead to more stigmatization of marginalized populations.
​

Perhaps if Trump's critics listened to FNC instead of reading the NYT and WaPo they would be better informed. (Only half joking here,). Read the whole thing.

You cult members never cease to amaze me. The leader of the free world called this a hoax at one of his rallies and said this in late February:
Feb. 26: “Because of all we’ve done, the risk to the American people remains very low. … When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero. That’s a pretty good job we’ve done."

You cherry pick some media comments rather than what this idiot has actually said? Just a couple of days ago he talked about reducing social distancing, while Fauci stared down at his feet looking like he wanted to puke, and now today he moves from Easter to the end of the month. In addition it is inconceivable how, in a health crisis, the “leader” makes jabs about Democratic governors, tells Pence he would not call back governors that do not show “appreciation”, touts supposed economic improvements in Michigan, lies about availability of ventilators and testing and shows zero empathy to victims. His only concern is how this makes him look.
He is a tragedy inflicted upon this country,

 

[Bulk VanderHuge]

You cult members never cease to amaze me. The leader of the free world called this a hoax at one of his rallies and said this in late February:
Feb. 26: “Because of all we’ve done, the risk to the American people remains very low. … When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero. That’s a pretty good job we’ve done."

You cherry pick some media comments rather than what this idiot has actually said? Just a couple of days ago he talked about reducing social distancing, while Fauci stared down at his feet looking like he wanted to puke, and now today he moves from Easter to the end of the month. In addition it is inconceivable how, in a health crisis, the “leader” makes jabs about Democratic governors, tells Pence he would not call back governors that do not show “appreciation”, touts supposed economic improvements in Michigan, lies about availability of ventilators and testing and shows zero empathy to victims. His only concern is how this makes him look.
He is a tragedy inflicted upon this country,

#micdrop

 

[twenty02]

https://techstartups.com/2020/03/28...hydroxychloroquine-sulfate-zinc-z-pak-update/
The interview is at the bottom of the article. Giuliani interrupts with asking him to repeat things, and there's an eyeroll at the end where the doctor is nice to Trump, but there are good details in there.

That seems like crackpot hour.... no offense.

 

[Hoopsdoc1978]

You cult members never cease to amaze me. The leader of the free world called this a hoax at one of his rallies and said this in late February:
Feb. 26: “Because of all we’ve done, the risk to the American people remains very low. … When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero. That’s a pretty good job we’ve done."

You cherry pick some media comments rather than what this idiot has actually said? Just a couple of days ago he talked about reducing social distancing, while Fauci stared down at his feet looking like he wanted to puke, and now today he moves from Easter to the end of the month. In addition it is inconceivable how, in a health crisis, the “leader” makes jabs about Democratic governors, tells Pence he would not call back governors that do not show “appreciation”, touts supposed economic improvements in Michigan, lies about availability of ventilators and testing and shows zero empathy to victims. His only concern is how this makes him look.
He is a tragedy inflicted upon this country,

Trump didn’t call the coronavirus a hoax.

 

[IUINSB]

Has any reputable medical group/organization verified Dr. Zelenko's statements?
Has any such group even bothered to look into his claims?

If Dr. Zelenko is indeed 699 out of 699, I would be one relieved old fart.

 

[sglowrider]

Trump didn’t call the coronavirus a hoax.

So true. The Dems even got someone rolled out to look just like him at some rally saying its the new hoax.
(see 0.30 onwards)

You know that isn't POTUS Trump. He wasn't sniffling while talking -- a sure telltale sign.

The Dems are EVIL.

 

[meridian]

Is that a photo of Lucy?

 

[meridian]

That's just so dumb. Lol.

You are being charitable! What Lucy said was way beyond normalcy!

 

[DCDAVID]

So true. The Dems even got someone rolled out to look just like him at some rally saying its the new hoax.
(see 0.30 onwards)

View embedded media

You know that isn't POTUS Trump. He wasn't sniffling while talking -- a sure telltale sign.

The Dems are EVIL.

Listening to him at that SC rally, and the cult members cheering, really makes me concerned for the future of the country if he wins re-election.

 

[DCDAVID]

Trump didn’t call the coronavirus a hoax.

That’s a strong comeback....LOL

 

[sglowrider]

Listening to him at that SC rally, and the cult members cheering, really makes me concerned for the future of the country if he wins re-election.

If people can still vote for him after all this, the country truly deserves him.

 

[cosmickid]

Trump didn’t call the coronavirus a hoax.

You're playing the semantics game, and Trump is doing his usual attempt to revise history. Are you going to tell us next that Trump wasn't lying thru his teeth when he claimed he knew it was a pandemic "from the start"? Ranting about the US having only "15 cases" is the very definition of calling the virus a hoax... With Trump if his lips are moving, he's lying...

I wonder where all the Trump supporters got their talking point about coronavirus being a media driven hoax, if not from orange skin himself? It never fails, every single story posted about someone dying, the Trumplings flood the comments sections with posts blaming the media, and sounding "the media is not telling you the truth" refrain. The big issue with them seems to be the "underlying health issues" angle, so they are basically calling the idea that the virus can seriously harm "healthy people" a "hoax"... The same refrain they've heard ad nauseum from Trump supporters and the clowns on Fox...

You know, people like Falwell, for example...

"Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University and a close ally of President Donald Trump, is keeping campus open as the school's 5,000 students return from spring breakWhile classes are moving to online instruction, Falwell Jr. is still encouraging students to return to campus and is ordering faculty "without a valid health exemption" to report to work.Falwell Jr. has publicly downplayed the threat of coronavirus in recent weeks, despite criticism from concerned parents. A staunch conservative and Trump supporter, he has also downplayed the severity of the crisis and argued that the media coverage of the virus is a plot to undermine Trump's presidency."

https://www.businessinsider.com/jer...rty-campus-open-minimizing-coronavirus-2020-3

So just tonight we learn that out of the 1900 students who listened to Jerry and returned back to campus, a dozen are showing coronavirus symptoms. Over 800 have aborted operation "hoax" and returned home, and those left are basically rolling the dice. All because Falwell wanted to show up the media and the experts,and also because he didn't want to refund any of those tuition payments...

https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/libe...onavirus-symptoms-spring-break-233555754.html

 

[Daydreamer]

That seems like crackpot hour.... no offense.

Yeah, there are so many red flag with that story. So. Many....

 

[twenty02]

You're playing the semantics game, and Trump is doing his usual attempt to revise history. Are you going to tell us next that Trump wasn't lying thru his teeth when he claimed he knew it was a pandemic "from the start"? Ranting about the US having only "15 cases" is the very definition of calling the virus a hoax... With Trump if his lips are moving, he's lying...

I wonder where all the Trump supporters got their talking point about coronavirus being a media driven hoax, if not from orange skin himself? It never fails, every single story posted about someone dying, the Trumplings flood the comments sections with posts blaming the media, and sounding "the media is not telling you the truth" refrain. The big issue with them seems to be the "underlying health issues" angle, so they are basically calling the idea that the virus can seriously harm "healthy people" a "hoax"... The same refrain they've heard ad nauseum from Trump supporters and the clowns on Fox...

You know, people like Falwell, for example...

"Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University and a close ally of President Donald Trump, is keeping campus open as the school's 5,000 students return from spring breakWhile classes are moving to online instruction, Falwell Jr. is still encouraging students to return to campus and is ordering faculty "without a valid health exemption" to report to work.Falwell Jr. has publicly downplayed the threat of coronavirus in recent weeks, despite criticism from concerned parents. A staunch conservative and Trump supporter, he has also downplayed the severity of the crisis and argued that the media coverage of the virus is a plot to undermine Trump's presidency."

https://www.businessinsider.com/jer...rty-campus-open-minimizing-coronavirus-2020-3

So just tonight we learn that out of the 1900 students who listened to Jerry and returned back to campus, a dozen are showing coronavirus symptoms. Over 800 have aborted operation "hoax" and returned home, and those left are basically rolling the dice. All because Falwell wanted to show up the media and the experts,and also because he didn't want to refund any of those tuition payments...

https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/libe...onavirus-symptoms-spring-break-233555754.html

 

[sglowrider]

You're playing the semantics game, and Trump is doing his usual attempt to revise history. Are you going to tell us next that Trump wasn't lying thru his teeth when he claimed he knew it was a pandemic "from the start"? Ranting about the US having only "15 cases" is the very definition of calling the virus a hoax... With Trump if his lips are moving, he's lying...

I wonder where all the Trump supporters got their talking point about coronavirus being a media driven hoax, if not from orange skin himself? It never fails, every single story posted about someone dying, the Trumplings flood the comments sections with posts blaming the media, and sounding "the media is not telling you the truth" refrain. The big issue with them seems to be the "underlying health issues" angle, so they are basically calling the idea that the virus can seriously harm "healthy people" a "hoax"... The same refrain they've heard ad nauseum from Trump supporters and the clowns on Fox...

You know, people like Falwell, for example...

"Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University and a close ally of President Donald Trump, is keeping campus open as the school's 5,000 students return from spring breakWhile classes are moving to online instruction, Falwell Jr. is still encouraging students to return to campus and is ordering faculty "without a valid health exemption" to report to work.Falwell Jr. has publicly downplayed the threat of coronavirus in recent weeks, despite criticism from concerned parents. A staunch conservative and Trump supporter, he has also downplayed the severity of the crisis and argued that the media coverage of the virus is a plot to undermine Trump's presidency."

https://www.businessinsider.com/jer...rty-campus-open-minimizing-coronavirus-2020-3

So just tonight we learn that out of the 1900 students who listened to Jerry and returned back to campus, a dozen are showing coronavirus symptoms. Over 800 have aborted operation "hoax" and returned home, and those left are basically rolling the dice. All because Falwell wanted to show up the media and the experts,and also because he didn't want to refund any of those tuition payments...

https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/libe...onavirus-symptoms-spring-break-233555754.html

Cosmic -- you need to be more forgiving a person.

Trump is only human and a fantastic Christain at that. Gave up his salary to work for FREE.

There was only one other fella in the 5000 years of Humankind I know did that -- that Jesus the Jew fella. Not the Mexican variety, the Trump Wall has already put that out of business.

Are you going to castrate the poor fella after only making one or maybe two mistakes so far in his presidency? Give the man a break. Working so, so hard for the country.

He's not a billionaire by being dumb as a box of rocks, I can assure you. And he is so modest about all his abilities and geniuses. That's why people love him.

He is really, really smart as a tack. You may not have known about his uncle, John of the MIT. He invented gravity and yet Trump in all his humility never mentioned this.

Remember Obama and his Satanic-inspired tanned suit? Only a Muslim satan-following guy would have chosen it. I knew then in all my wisdom, he was just PURE EVIL of a Kenyan variety.

Shame on you Cosmic!

 

[JamieDimonsBalls]

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/wuhan-deaths-03272020182846.html

Estimates Show Wuhan Death Toll Far Higher Than Official Figure

 

[JamieDimonsBalls]

https://www.kron4.com/news/national...-for-two-drugs-usually-used-to-treat-malaria/

What happened?

The authorization came in a letter dated Saturday, but the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) acknowledged the FDA’s action in a Sunday news release. The FDA limited the scope of its authorization to drugs supplied from the Strategic National Stockpile. The HHS announced that two pharmaceutical companies — Bayer and a division of Novartis — had donated the drugs to the stockpile.

Do the drugs work?

In its statement, HHS said:

“Anecdotal reports suggest that these drugs may offer some benefit in the treatment of hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
“The safety profile of these drugs has only been studied for FDA approved indications, not COVID-19.”

While there’s limited evidence on the efficacy of chloroquine, or hydroxychloroquine, the FDA said the drugs’ benefits outweighed their risk. In its letter, the FDA encouraged randomized clinical trials that could assess the effectiveness of the drugs. It also noted that the known and potential benefits outweigh the risks.

 

[Hoopsdoc1978]

So true. The Dems even got someone rolled out to look just like him at some rally saying its the new hoax.
(see 0.30 onwards)

View embedded media

You know that isn't POTUS Trump. He wasn't sniffling while talking -- a sure telltale sign.

The Dems are EVIL.

I don’t know. That noted conservative website Snopes says he didn’t. :shrug:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-coronavirus-rally-remark/

 

[iuwclurker]

I don’t know. That noted conservative website Snopes says he didn’t. :shrug:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-coronavirus-rally-remark/

Problem is, any “good” lawyer knows a jury can be persuaded by saying things without actually saying things. For example, saying that she was licking the delicious, cold, sweet stuff that summer. And the jury will think that she was eating ice cream. Even though the lawyer never said that. So yeah Trump might not have uttered the words the coronavirus is a hoax, and yet all his jury of peers will think he did. Jury of peers meaning Trumpniks not meeting Dana Milbanks. Sophistry and demagoguery make good bedmates.

 

[anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa]

This guy has a novel approach with 100% success so far. I cant understand what motivates people to dismiss it out of hand.

Probably because he’s not documenting anything. Not controlling the experiments. Not being scientific whatsoever.

Or would you rather use #NewGOP lexicon and call this the new War on Hydroxychloroquine - the sequel to the War on Christmas?

 

[anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa]

Correct . . . we won't know what "success" means, until we define it.

This really isn’t hard for smart people to figure out and look skeptically upon miracle cures. I guess we’re woefully short of smart people.

 

[Lucy01]

You cult members never cease to amaze me. The leader of the free world called this a hoax at one of his rallies and said this in late February:
Feb. 26: “Because of all we’ve done, the risk to the American people remains very low. … When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero. That’s a pretty good job we’ve done."

You cherry pick some media comments rather than what this idiot has actually said? Just a couple of days ago he talked about reducing social distancing, while Fauci stared down at his feet looking like he wanted to puke, and now today he moves from Easter to the end of the month. In addition it is inconceivable how, in a health crisis, the “leader” makes jabs about Democratic governors, tells Pence he would not call back governors that do not show “appreciation”, touts supposed economic improvements in Michigan, lies about availability of ventilators and testing and shows zero empathy to victims. His only concern is how this makes him look.
He is a tragedy inflicted upon this country,

If you’re so smart, I know you are with that liberal arts degree and all, what are you doing to help the situation?

 

[Marvin the Martian]

This really isn’t hard for smart people to figure out and look skeptically upon miracle cures. I guess we’re woefully short of smart people.

Maybe we are overly cynical. I'll admit the perfect score bothers me. I wonder how many drugs work 700 times out of 700? That is in the "if it sounds too good to be true" range for me. But I hope he's right.

 

[hunkgolden]

Are there still people that think Trump called the virus a hoax? Wow.

From the left leaning Snopes no less:
What's True
During a Feb. 28, 2020, campaign rally in South Carolina, President Donald Trump likened the Democrats' criticism of his administration's response to the new coronavirus outbreak to their efforts to impeach him, saying "this is their new hoax."

What's False
Despite creating some confusion with his remarks, Trump did not call the coronavirus itself a hoax.

 

[TDHoosier]

Send me a check.

To get so many in an uproar using very few words is amazing, I must say I'm impressed.

 

[anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa]

Maybe we are overly cynical. I'll admit the perfect score bothers me. I wonder how many drugs work 700 times out of 700? That is in the "if it sounds too good to be true" range for me. But I hope he's right.

Of course we all hope he’s right. But my dander gets up at:

1. The lack of documentation and scientific approach to it
2. The way these whiny NewGOPers present this (even though none of them know what they’re talking about) has to be with snark and disdain a la The War on Christmas. Snowflakes at their best (or worst).

 

[bigmac76]

It will be interesting to observe the mainstream media on what global political leaders they are critical of and which ones they give a free pass. Will they focus more on the failings of conservative governments while being more sympathetic toward countries with left leaning leaders - only focusing on the tragedy of the deaths without being critical of the government?

Time will tell.

For me, November 4th 2020 in the USA....that day will tell...

 

[anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa]

Are there still people that think Trump called the virus a hoax? Wow.

From the left leaning Snopes no less:
What's True
During a Feb. 28, 2020, campaign rally in South Carolina, President Donald Trump likened the Democrats' criticism of his administration's response to the new coronavirus outbreak to their efforts to impeach him, saying "this is their new hoax."

What's False
Despite creating some confusion with his remarks, Trump did not call the coronavirus itself a hoax.

This is accurate. The Left needs to stick to facts and play on the same field they demand. Saying trump called this a hoax is a false narrative. Did he underplay its threat? Yes. Did he call it a hoax? No.

 

[hunkgolden]

The President/Federal Government simply cannot proclaim a one size fits all solution for every city/town/state in the country. That's not how our system works - never has and never will. People need to realize that every city and every state has different needs, problems, and preferences - Governors and Mayors are really running this show...as they should be.

 

[sglowrider]

China created a fail-safe system to track contagions. It failed.

The alarm system was ready. Scarred by the SARS epidemic that erupted in 2002, China had created an infectious disease reporting system that officials said was world-class: fast, thorough and, just as important, immune from meddling.

Hospitals could input patients’ details into a computer and instantly notify government health authorities in Beijing, where officers are trained to spot and smother contagious outbreaks before they spread.
It didn’t work

After doctors in Wuhan began treating clusters of patients stricken with a mysterious pneumonia in December, the reporting was supposed to have been automatic. Instead, hospitals deferred to local health officials who, over a political aversion to sharing bad news, withheld information about cases from the national reporting system — keeping Beijing in the dark and delaying the response.

The central health authorities first learned about the outbreak not from the reporting system but after unknown whistle-blowers leaked two internal documents online.

Even after Beijing got involved, local officials set narrow criteria for confirming cases, leaving out information that could have provided clues that the virus was spreading among humans.

Hospitals were ordered to count only patients with a known connection to the source of the outbreak, the seafood market. Doctors also had to have their cases confirmed by bureaucrats before they were reported to higher-ups.

As the United States, Europe and the rest of the world struggle to contain the coronavirus pandemic, China has cast itself as a model, bringing down a raging outbreak to the point where the country has begun to lift the kinds of onerous restrictions on life that are now imposed around the world.

This triumphant narrative obscures the early failures in reporting cases, squandered time that could have been used to slow infections in China before they exploded into a pandemic.

“According to the rules, this of course should have been reported,” Yang Gonghuan, a retired health care official involved in establishing the direct reporting system, said in an interview. “Of course they should have seized on it, found it, gone to understand it.”

Aggressive action just a week earlier in mid-January could have cut the number of infections by two thirds, according to a recent study whose authors include an expert from Wuhan’s municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Another study found that if China had moved to control the outbreak three weeks earlier, it might have prevented 95 percent of the country’s cases.

“I regret that back then I didn’t keep screaming out at the top of my voice,” Ai Fen, one of the doctors at Wuhan Central Hospital who spotted cases in December, said in an interview with a Chinese magazine. “I’ve often thought to myself what would have happened if I could wind back time.”

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has sought to move quickly past the early failings and shift attention to the country’s drive to end the outbreak. The Chinese government has been widely castigated for its initial mistakes, which have become a top talking point of President Trump.

The central leadership has focused blame on local bureaucrats, including for censuring doctors who warned others about the infections. It promptly dismissed two health officials and, later, the party secretaries for Hubei Province and its capital, Wuhan.

Now, interviews with doctors, health experts and officials, leaked government documents, and investigations by the Chinese media reveal the depth of the government’s failings: how a system built to protect medical expertise and infection reports from political tampering succumbed to tampering.

Others tried to fill the void of information when the early warning system failed. The medical community found other, informal ways to alert others, disclosing government directives and hospital reports on the internet. During a rare burst of relative transparency early in the epidemic, Chinese journalists did much to expose the problems, but censors closed that window.

The government has vowed to fix flaws exposed in the disease surveillance system, but similar promises were made after SARS. Fresh efforts to repair the system now could also falter under a political hierarchy that leaves experts — doctors, even public health officials — unwilling to take on local leaders. In China, politics often ends up overriding the very safeguards created to prevent interference in the flow of information.

The failures in the first weeks “greatly reduced the vigilance and self-protection of the public and even medical workers, making it harder to contain the epidemic,” said a study of the epidemic by 12 medical experts from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. “Only precautions in ordinary times can prevent great disasters from arising.”

Preparing for the Worst
Last year, health officials exuded confidence that China would never again suffer a crisis like SARS.
In July, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention held what it called the nation’s biggest infectious outbreak training exercise since the SARS epidemic in 2002 and 2003, showcasing the strides that the government had made since the virus killed hundreds and traumatized the nation.

More than 8,200 officials took part in the online drill, focused on a traveler arriving from abroad with a fever who sets off temperature monitors, triggering a hunt for other passengers. The officials raced to test how quickly and effectively they could track, identify and contain the virus, including by notifying Beijing.
“Who knows what the next one will be?” said Feng Zijian, a senior disease control official who helped design the exercise, according to the center.

“The enemy is constantly evolving,” Dr. Feng said, “and our capacity to respond must also constantly improve.”

At the heart of China’s defenses was the Contagious Disease National Direct Reporting System. Started in 2004, it was designed to prevent a repeat of the SARS epidemic, when slow, patchy reporting, compounded by local leaders’ reluctance to share bad news, delayed the government’s fight.

Using this system, health officers in Beijing could pore over screens showing reports from hospitals or local disease control centers, ready to spot warning signs within a few hours of a doctor diagnosing a troublesome infection, such as cholera or tuberculosis, as well as hard-to-diagnose cases of viral pneumonia.

“Viruses like SARS could emerge anytime, but there’ll never be another SARS incident,” Gao Fu, director of China’s disease control center, said in a speech last year. “That’s thanks to how well our national contagious disease surveillance system works.”

The boasts were not empty.
The system had helped when China and other countries suffered outbreaks of avian influenza. In 2013, authorities filed cases of a potentially deadly H7N9 avian influenza virus, with orders to submit them within two hours of confirmation.

Last November, the country’s Center for Disease Control alerted the public to an outbreak of pneumonic plague in the sparsely populated Inner Mongolia, after only two cases emerged.

Since the outbreak in Wuhan, some doctors have said they were unsure how to report early cases, which did not fit into the standard list of infections. But little-understood infections could still be logged as “pneumonia of unknown etiology” — or unknown cause — when the patients did not respond to the usual treatment.
Year after year, Chinese health authorities warned hospitals to look out for such outliers.

“For many infectious diseases when you don’t know the cause, it can often present itself as pneumonia of unknown etiology,” said Dr. Yang, the retired official. “This was a way of capturing an outbreak while it was embryonic.”

The health authorities held regular meetings to train disease control officials in spotting and investigating unexplained and hard-to-treat pneumonia cases; the last was in Shanghai in October.

They inspected hospitals and local disease control centers to try to ensure that they were reporting all listed diseases, and the National Health Commission demanded 100 percent compliance. Although implementation was patchy, doctors reported a handful of unusual pneumonia infections, galvanizing investigators to track down the cause.

In early December, Hubei’s local Center for Disease Control called together officials from across the province to instill the system’s importance.
Huang Xibao, a deputy director of the center, told them to make sure that in 2020 Hubei was “number one nationwide in the overall quality of its contagious disease information.”


‘Far Worse’
Dr. Ai, the head of the intensive care unit at Wuhan Central Hospital, was among the first doctors to note a disturbing pattern among patients staggering into the city’s hospitals with dry coughs, high fevers and crippling lethargy. Computerized tomography or “CT” scans often revealed extensive damage to their lungs.

“It was a baffling high fever,” Dr. Ai said of a patient who turned up on Dec. 16, according to an interview in a Chinese magazine called People. “The medicines used throughout didn’t work, and his temperature didn’t move.”
By the end of the month, local disease control centers in Wuhan were receiving worried calls from doctors, telling of the strange, tenacious pneumonia cases that often seemed to emanate from the Huanan seafood market. Seven in one hospital, three in another, three in yet another.

“These patients may be infectious. Caring for them in a general hospital is a safety risk,” warned Huang Chaolin, a senior doctor at Jinyintan Hospital, the city’s main facility for infectious diseases. He saw seven patients from another hospital on Dec. 27, according to a report in the Health News, the official newspaper of the medical system.

In theory, doctors could have reported such cases directly, but Chinese hospitals also answer to Communist Party bureaucracies. Over time, hospitals often came to defer to local health authorities about reporting troublesome infections, apparently to avoid surprising and embarrassing local leaders.

That deference may not have mattered much most of the time. Now it gave officials in Wuhan an opening to control and distort information about the virus.

Local disease control offices in the city had counted 25 such cases by Dec. 30, said an official internal report that was leaked online last month by unknown whistle-blowers. The brief document was one of the first attempts by Wuhan to understand the extent of cases, and listed patients had fallen ill starting Dec. 12.
“The local health administration clearly made a choice not to use the reporting system,” said Dali Yang, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago who studies policymaking in China. “It is clear they were trying to resolve the problem within the province.”

Leaders in Wuhan seem to have assumed that the outbreak would peter out like bursts of avian flu infection — short-lived and localized — Shao Yiming, a virologist at the Center for Disease Control, said in an interview with Caixin, a Chinese magazine.

“This fixed mind-set caused errors in judgment, so we lost the opportunity to early on adopt encircling tactics and tell the public how to self-protect,” Dr. Shao said.

Word of the outbreak started to reach disease control officials in Beijing after rumors and the leaked documents began to spread online. The national center for disease control has pointedly avoided saying in announcements that it had been notified by Wuhan, instead noting that it had “learned of” the outbreak. Local officials have hedged over when and how they told Beijing.

The leaked documents were two internal Wuhan government directives, which emerged online on Dec. 30, possibly released by worried medical workers. The directives, marked “urgent,” ordered hospitals to send the city health commission information about cases of the mysterious pneumonia, improve treatment of patients and avoid infection in hospitals. At the same time, doctors alerted colleagues to the outbreak in private group chats on social media, which prompted official reprimands.

Gao Fu, the director of the Center for Disease Control, spotted the information circulating online and raised alarms, according to an account by Hua Sheng, a prominent Chinese economist who has defended the center. Dr. Gao declined to answer questions. The center ordered teams of experts to rush to Wuhan, and the first group arrived by the next morning.

“News that pneumonia of unknown cause had emerged in Wuhan shook the nerves of every emergency response worker in the Chinese Center for Disease Control,” said a report issued by the center.
Officials from the National Health Commission have said that they ordered Wuhan to issue its first official announcement on the outbreak on Dec. 31. That day the government also informed the World Health Organization’s office in Beijing.

Some of the first cases were finally entered into the system on Jan. 3, though by then it was too late to serve as the early warning system it was intended to be.


Narrow Criteria
When the central government became involved, local officials outwardly welcomed the expert investigators sent by Beijing. Officials described the infections as nothing too serious.

“They said that the illness was quite light, not much different from seasonal influenza, and there’d been no illnesses among hundreds of people with close contact,” Zeng Guang, a Chinese epidemiologist who visited Wuhan on Jan. 9, said of his talks there, according to the China Youth Daily. “They sounded very relaxed.”
Behind the scenes, officials in Wuhan mounted an effort to limit the number of infections counted as part of the outbreak, creating barriers against doctors filing cases.

A leaked report from Wuhan Central Hospital describes how in the first half of January local officials told doctors that cases had to be confirmed by bureaucratic overseers, above all, city and province health authorities.

An official from a district disease control center in Wuhan told the hospital doctor handling infection reports on Jan. 3 that “this was a special contagious disease and we should report only after superiors had notified us,” the leaked report said.

Starting on Jan. 3, Wuhan’s Health Commission set narrow criteria for confirming that a case was officially part of the outbreak, according to a copy of the diagnostic guide that was leaked to the Chinese media, possibly by a medical professional. The rules said patients could be counted if they had been to the market or had close contact with another patient who had. That excluded a growing number of likely cases with no clear link to the market.

For most of the first half of January, local officials maintained that there had been no new confirmed infections, even as doctors in Wuhan and visiting experts suspected that a dangerous contagion was spreading from person to person.

“I lived through SARS, and to me the early period of this epidemic felt shockingly like SARS,” Li Liming, a Peking University professor of public health who was among the experts sent to Wuhan, told a Chinese newspaper. “In both, there was no rapid system response at the start.”

Zhong Nanshan, a disease expert who helped identify SARS, was also skeptical of the official optimism in Wuhan after visiting the city and hearing from his former students there.

He and other experts finished their assessment of Wuhan on Jan. 19, convinced the virus had gained a menacing foothold, and conveyed their alarm to senior officials in meetings in Beijing.

“All the members of the expert team reported that the situation was grim,” Yuen Kwok-yung, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Hong Kong who was among the expert group, told Caixin magazine. “Preventive measures had to fall in place immediately.”

After weeks of reporting no new infections, the Wuhan government disclosed four new cases on Jan. 18, followed by 17 the next day and 136 the next.

Four days later, Wuhan was shut down to contain the spread.
At the time, the coronavirus had killed 26 people and sickened more than 800. By Sunday, there were more than 670,000 cases worldwide; more than 31,000 people have died.

Reporting and research were contributed by Amber Wang, Claire Fu, Qiqing Li and Paul Mozur.

 

[bigmac76]

Its being used by treating physicians all over the country with very favorable results. Some of them look in the tv camera and tell you so.

I may not have seen every response here but those I have seen appear to come from posters who wish failure on the President's effort. Relish failure. Ghastly responses.

Effort you say? I say PISS POOR EFFORT by the IMPOTUS....

 

[Daydreamer]

Of course we all hope he’s right. But my dander gets up at:

1. The lack of documentation and scientific approach to it
2. The way these whiny NewGOPers present this (even though none of them know what they’re talking about) has to be with snark and disdain a la The War on Christmas. Snowflakes at their best (or worst).

It's not just the lack of documentation that is a red flag. This guy says he's treated 699 patients out of, at the time of publication, 53,000 cases in New York state. 699/53K = 1.3%. He's claiming he's treated 1 out of every 76 COVID-19 patients in the entire state singlehandedly. And he's done this during the two week explosion. 699 patients in two weeks is 50 patients a day, seven says a week. Even in a 16 hour work day, that's one every 20 minutes plus his regular patient load.
I could go on with the red flags but I think that's enough to show that his story is not plausible.

 

[hunkgolden]

Effort you say? I say PISS POOR EFFORT by the IMPOTUS....

How has the POTUS's effort been poor? Didn't vote for him and really can't stand him but I'm failing to see how his and his team's effort has been poor. Please expound.

 

[Lucy01]

Effort you say? I say PISS POOR EFFORT by the IMPOTUS....

What would you do? Trump done a hell of a job to keep an armed Society from going off the deep end!

 

[anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa]

It's not just the lack of documentation that is a red flag. This guy says he's treated 699 patients out of, at the time of publication, 53,000 cases in New York state. 699/53K = 1.3%. He's claiming he's treated 1 out of every 76 COVID-19 patients in the entire state singlehandedly. And he's done this during the two week explosion. 699 patients in two weeks is 50 patients a day, seven says a week. Even in a 16 hour work day, that's one every 20 minutes plus his regular patient load.
I could go on with the red flags but I think that's enough to show that his story is not plausible.

Correct. Again, smart people cast skepticism and demand more proof when something seems too good to be true. Snowflakes turn this into the War on Hydroxychloroquine.

 

[Sope Creek]

It's not just the lack of documentation that is a red flag. This guy says he's treated 699 patients out of, at the time of publication, 53,000 cases in New York state. 699/53K = 1.3%. He's claiming he's treated 1 out of every 76 COVID-19 patients in the entire state singlehandedly. And he's done this during the two week explosion. 699 patients in two weeks is 50 patients a day, seven says a week. Even in a 16 hour work day, that's one every 20 minutes plus his regular patient load.
I could go on with the red flags but I think that's enough to show that his story is not plausible.

Were the 699 patients all tested with a confirmed "infected" result? If not, how do we know that any of them had coronavirus?

If so, how the heck did he get 699 tests? There are large numbers of folks in hotspots who can't get tested . . . how would he get 699 tests while major metropolitan areas hit hard with infections are not able to get those tests?

And if he did testing, how did he get 699 tests tested in that amount of time? There were 5-7 day turnarounds on coronavirus tests at the time.

As Marvin said, I sure do hope that this treatment regimen is the silver bullet this guy says it is . . . but in the meantime, folks who have prescriptions for arthritis and lupus can't get their prescriptions filled . . . there are victims whether or not this is a legitimate treatment.

 

[bigmac76]

What would you do? Trump done a hell of a job to keep an armed Society from going off the deep end!

You're response sounds a lot like GWB during Katrina..."your doing a hell of a job Brownie".....Brownie's FEMA experience included mostly training horses.
And yes, sadly we are an armed society...hell, I am a 40+ year registered R and I cant wait until November 2020 to try my voting version of making america great again.

 

[bigmac76]

How has the POTUS's effort been poor? Didn't vote for him and really can't stand him but I'm failing to see how his and his team's effort has been poor. Please expound.

If you can take the sprinkling of lies in his daily pressers, then he is doing a great job....Pence and Pompeo appearances consist only of comments like "this president is doing an outstanding job"