WASHINGTON (AP) — With limited supplies of coronavirus tests available, the Pentagon is focusing first on testing those performing duties deemed most vital to national security. Atop the list are the men and women who operate the nation’s nuclear forces, some counterterrorism forces, and the crew of a soon-to-deploy aircraft carrier.
Why do Leader McConnell and Secretary Esper Hate the Troops ™?
So that would be all the Department of Defense contractor CEO’s and their lobbyists?
“One of the top priorities right now across the nation is nursing homes,” he said. “I would not want to take tests away from that top national priority for my younger and healthier force.
That’s a deflection from the inadequacy of the situation your perilous leader put us in. We were supposed to have all these “beautiful” tests in March and should have had them in February.
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone, and another one gone
Another one bites the dust
Hey, I’m gonna get you, too
Another one bites the dust
Well, Donnie has to blame someone. He’s not responsible for any of this, as he’s said.
We have to keep our troops fighting fit and free of COVID-19. There are going to to be two wars before election day to enable Skanky Turdface’s election. Bomb Iran, Bomb Iran and Bomb Venezuela, Bomb Venezuela. Our mercenaries-weapons-industrial complex is hurting and we need to test our weapons of mass destruction on real people to make sure they work. And, Boeing stock is down and needs to go up. We also need to be developing biological weapons based on the coronavirus because the Chinese, Russians and the Saudis will be doing it.
Last in line: the remainder of the force.
The grunts. Same as it is in the rest of American society.
People in the White House probably get tested every day or whenever they want. The rest of us…bupkis.
Where is the National Guard in this priority list? Overlap of Fed and States confuses me…
Letting Epstein off the hook and making life easy for a sex trafficker serving time should have been their first clue the guy wasn’t cut out for this job, but nooooo…That seems to have been a necessary qualification in this maladministration.
Presenting the Scapegoat! Its Alex…
Of course it is a chinese virus that is democratic hoax that was spread by the World Health Organization with Bill Gates’ help and will be gone in a miracle before Easter.
Alex Azar should have had more hydroxchloroquine and azithromycin, disinfectant and heat, christian thoughts and prayers tested in the christian conservative concentration camps for brown children well in advance so that the President, half-wife Iwanker and half-husband Cuck Kushner would not appear to be the dumb whores and criminals they are.
“They knew what they were signing up for…”
right?
He could have just invaded Iran and probably ended up with a better body count.
"Most Vital Personnel’’ = Fuck the rest of you
Nearly 53,000 American dead, 26 millions American jobs lost, Trillions of taxpayer money squandered in corrupt and dirty bailouts, biggest stock market crash in American history.
More Americans have died due to COVID-19 under President Skanky Turdface’s ignorant leadership than the American combat casualties in all of the Vietnam War.
One COVID-19 case on a deployed nuclear missile submarine works out to one hell of a “take the punch” test tube. No worries. We can sleep well knowing the war profiteering industry will come up with a fully effective quarterly report.
It would be interesting to know what the formal testing policy is for being in the same room as trump or even to get into the White House. I’ll bet it’s pretty Draconian (Trumpian that is).
We start the day at 960,000 corona virus cases and 54,254 deaths. We will almost certainly top 1 million cases by Monday, a politically significant threshold. At our current pace, we will reach 60,000 fatalities by Tuesday or Wednesday.
One moderately good thing that happened this past week is testing did increase. There were 1.46 million tests conducted last week, about 40% more than the prior week. However, given how late we are in responding in a coordinated fashion to the virus, we really need to be at 3 million tests per week, at minimum. Ideally, we should be at 5 million tests per week in order to re-open the economy safely.
One thing we are seeing with even just a modest bump in testing is a lower hit rate (14% now as opposed to around 19% last week) as the smarter states are starting to ramp up to a ‘mass testing level’. By pairing testing with social distancing, states like CA, NY, MD, MA are starting to find and contain the virus. However, case loads are very high, and because there is no cure, a lot of people will still continue to die through the month of May. With more testing there will be more cases found, but like CA, you’ll see the hit rate drop. CA had a hit rate of over 11% and now it’s down to 8.42% after a massive week of testing.
Washington and Hawaii are doing a great job and will be in a position to open up in May in phases.
NY’s hit rate remains stubbornly high, but their case load increased by 19% this past week and 58% over the past 2 weeks, which is a slower pace than most of the Trump 2016 states.
With 1 million cases in the system by tomorrow, we project to 88,000 - 110,000 deaths. As we find more positives among asymptomatic and lightly symptomatic folks, we can get the hit rate and fatality counts lower.
However, I think we are experiencing a MAGA surge over the past few weeks so several states where there is hostility to social distancing (mainly among suburban and rural folks) you will see more clusters emerge.
It is taking longer to get to those areas but it will and they may serve as a source of new infections to areas that have been cleared of the virus. Our county in Western North Carolina was one of the earlier ones to shut down and we are doing very well, especially considering it is a tourist mecca. I am retired and volunteer at the local Habitat Restore, which I greatly enjoy. A lot of our clients are from the surrounding rural areas and a lot of them will probably not be careful about getting and spreading CV19 so I am going to be reluctant to go back to work when they reopen. Those of us at risk may have to wait for a vaccine before returning to something like a normal life.
Despite… Trump’s assertion that testing capacity is not an issue in the United States, Pentagon officials don’t expect to have enough tests for all service members.
You wouldn’t trust Trump to take care of your daughter. Why would you expect him to take care of your son?
Donald Trump lies all the time about everything to everyone.