Where's the petri dish thread?

[Shirley]

Good point. There's absolutely nothing we could learn from the Chinese about the COVID-19 Pandemic.

[Geezer]

Jack Ma was donating a million masks and 500,000 test kits. I didn't hear that mentioned at the presser.

[Shirley]

Trump lied about the pandemic again?

No way!

[DCHawk1]

Did I mention last night how embarrassing our nation's response has been? It's shameful.

Any idea why we don't have masks here? And why they do have them in China?

Or why we don't ventilators to donate to Italy, but China does?

I mean...I know you're embarrassed and all that, but I'm curious about the target of that embarrassment.

I defer to the expert, Seema Verma, the Administrator of CMS, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. I'ts the agency that oversees Medicare, Medicaid, and the insurance markets. One of her first acts was to send a letter to the nation's governors, urging them to impose insurance premiums for Medicaid, and charge Medicaid recipients for emergency room visits. In other words, a "good" republican:

lulz.

Somehow -- as is your wont -- you've tried to change the subject again.

WHY don't we have enough ventilators? Or masks? But ventilators in particular.

Or, frankly, any medical device?

[Shirley]

Any idea why we don't have masks here? And why they do have them in China?

Or why we don't ventilators to donate to Italy, but China does?

I mean...I know you're embarrassed and all that, but I'm curious about the target of that embarrassment.

I defer to the expert, Seema Verma, the Administrator of CMS, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. I'ts the agency that oversees Medicare, Medicaid, and the insurance markets. One of her first acts was to send a letter to the nation's governors, urging them to impose insurance premiums for Medicaid, and charge Medicaid recipients for emergency room visits. In other words, a "good" republican:

lulz.

Somehow -- as is your wont -- you've tried to change the subject again.

WHY don't we have enough ventilators? Or masks? But ventilators in particular.

Or, frankly, any medical device?

Is this a pop quiz? Nobody told me that was going to be on the test!

[Shirley]

[DCHawk1]

Is this a pop quiz? Nobody told me that was going to be on the test!

I just assumed, in your shame, that you might know something about the cause of your shame.

My mistake.

[Deleted User 289]

How much does it pay to be a press conference background bobblehead?

I've heard 5X more than it pays to be a "token" at a Trump "rally".

[DCHawk1]

[DCHawk1]

Trump lied about the pandemic again?

No way!

Oh noes!

[jhawks99]

My kid lives in the dorms at uk. She's been sick, but the symptoms are not the corona thingie. She went to her doc this afternoon for a 5pm appointment. They finally got around to seeing her after 7. Doc said that in order to test for the corona thingie, you had to have 3 of the symptoms and that she's seen 3 people today with all of the symptoms. Insurance denied all three tests. Patients could not afford the $3,000 for the test. Gotta keep those numbers low.

[Geezer]

What's the ROI on an ICU bed that's never used?

[Shirley]

Is this a pop quiz? Nobody told me that was going to be on the test!

I just assumed, in your shame, that you might know something about the cause of your shame.

My mistake.

It's the entire lack of readiness, the apparent lack of any coherent policies or system to deal with a health crises like the pandemic. That certainly includes ventilators. But, like, (I think Geezer said), who expects for profit companies to sit on expensive but idle inventory like thousands of ventilators? And when so many items related to the social safety net, i.e., Medicare and Medicaid, are forced through a "cost benefit analysis" filter, is it any surprise that we don't have nearly enough ventilators, masks, sanitizer, etc., etc., etc., among so many other things?

It would have been impossible to have a cache of tests for this coronavirus sitting around. But the utter and complete and ongoing failure for someone, anyone in the WH, administration, CDC, NIH, etc. to take this problem by the balls at least a month ago and get it rolling is beyond gobsmacking. And as a result, the United States, home of "the best health care system in the world", (Not!), has not even reached first base yet in collecting the data that will give us any hope of flattening the curve and avoiding overwhelming our hospitals, ICUs, health care workers, first responders, the people who work in the nursing homes, etc., etc.

It's stunning to see.

[Geezer]

Obama dropped the ball on this.

[ousdahl]

So the workday ended with having to refuse a reservation someone tried to make to quarantine their daughter in one of our rooms.

[jhawks99]

Y'all

[Deleted User 62]

We had an RV /Boat sales event this weekend.
Rented out the entire AT&T stadium from Monday until this Sunday.
5 hours into the show, it gets cancelled by Tarrant county. About 200k down the tubes.

[TDub]

So the workday ended with having to refuse a reservation someone tried to make to quarantine their daughter in one of our rooms.

I really dont want you to get eaten by that wolf.


But its hard to know which stories are non fiction and which are you sellin woof tickets

[Deleted User 89]

Is this a pop quiz? Nobody told me that was going to be on the test!

I just assumed, in your shame, that you might know something about the cause of your shame.

My mistake.

It's the entire lack of readiness, the apparent lack of any coherent policies or system to deal with a health crises like the pandemic. That certainly includes ventilators. But, like, (I think Geezer said), who expects for profit companies to sit on expensive but idle inventory like thousands of ventilators? And when so many items related to the social safety net, i.e., Medicare and Medicaid, are forced through a "cost benefit analysis" filter, is it any surprise that we don't have nearly enough ventilators, masks, sanitizer, etc., etc., etc., among so many other things?

It would have been impossible to have a cache of tests for this coronavirus sitting around. But the utter and complete and ongoing failure for someone, anyone in the WH, administration, CDC, NIH, etc. to take this problem by the balls at least a month ago and get it rolling is beyond gobsmacking. And as a result, the United States, home of "the best health care system in the world", (Not!), has not even reached first base yet in collecting the data that will give us any hope of flattening the curve and avoiding overwhelming our hospitals, ICUs, health care workers, first responders, the people who work in the nursing homes, etc., etc.

It's stunning to see.

never mind a month ago...it should have been all hands on deck as soon as asymptomatic transmission was verified

but what do i know...

[DCHawk1]

Is this a pop quiz? Nobody told me that was going to be on the test!

I just assumed, in your shame, that you might know something about the cause of your shame.

My mistake.

It's the entire lack of readiness, the apparent lack of any coherent policies or system to deal with a health crises like the pandemic. That certainly includes ventilators. But, like, (I think Geezer said), who expects for profit companies to sit on expensive but idle inventory like thousands of ventilators? And when so many items related to the social safety net, i.e., Medicare and Medicaid, are forced through a "cost benefit analysis" filter, is it any surprise that we don't have nearly enough ventilators, masks, sanitizer, etc., etc., etc., among so many other things?

It would have been impossible to have a cache of tests for this coronavirus sitting around. But the utter and complete and ongoing failure for someone, anyone in the WH, administration, CDC, NIH, etc. to take this problem by the balls at least a month ago and get it rolling is beyond gobsmacking. And as a result, the United States, home of "the best health care system in the world", (Not!), has not even reached first base yet in collecting the data that will give us any hope of flattening the curve and avoiding overwhelming our hospitals, ICUs, health care workers, first responders, the people who work in the nursing homes, etc., etc.

It's stunning to see.

I get all of that. And, in fact, most of that is merely to repeat what has already been said -- and acceded to in this thread.

But you charged specifically that your shame sprang in part from the fact that Jack Ma can get his hands on masks to donate, among other things that we, in the United States can't get our hands on.

And all I asked for was an explanation for why that might be.