This is actually pretty interesting. Redfield is both qualified (scientifically) and a toady/political hack (in character). His actions to date have shown both sides of that coin. Fawning praise for Trump at the CDC visit, but participating in the scientific consensus in February that was supposed to steer Trump towards mitigation. He has been trying to “calibrate” the whole time, which is how flunkies balance reality with their need to please.
My best guess (?) is he’s seeing which way the wind is blowing. The NYT story – replete with email chains – is difficult to spin, and Redfield is directly named. He’s still a flunky and will continue to be so, but I think he sees supporting Fauci’s reality-based line as the best way out of this now. Trump can’t fire all the scientists, much as he’d like to; the backlash would be unreal.
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And he has the frown and head tilt to prove it!
Hair and beard optional!
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@dannydorko is a fake news peddler. Don’t believe him. Odds are he may be a dork named Dan.
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We’re supposedly near peak new cases. But I don’t trust the testing numbers, since many places only test you when you’re admitted to a hospital, and the general criteria for being tested varies from place to place, and time to time.
Looking at new deaths is probably more reliable, even though it describes the state of the world ~22 days ago. We’re perhaps near peak new deaths (though yesterday was the worst day ever, with 2300 more deaths in the NYT summary), but that number means that we were probably adding at least 230,000 new cases per day 22 days ago, assuming 1% of cases end up in a fatality.
We do need more testing and testing teams, but the number of new cases has to drop enough to actually follow up new cases. We’re probably nowhere near that point yet.
