I had considered talking about sewage systems at the beginning of this mess, but, decided it was not as high on the list as other matters. We had to concentrate on the people we call heroes today.
Now that sewage treatment plants can diagnose the intensity of the virus in communities, which is a good idea, there are sewage treatment plant workers that must be protected. One of the ways to protect such workers is by using ultraviolet as a process in sewage treatment. This is not a pipe dream, no pun intended.
Ultraviolet light (click here) is another disinfection method for destroying disease-causing organisms in wastewater effluent in onsite wastewater treatment systems. The UV light destroys the genetic material of microorganisms which prevents them from reproducing....
Monday, May 04, 2020
This is a prime example of the pitfalls of Ideologues.
I have no doubt that Robert Kadlec was a great soldier that loves his country and is dedicated to his focus now that he has compromised his standing by hiding his relationship with the company he founded. Power is not handled well by a lot of people. That is the case here.
Trump and his administration are lined with ideologues. There basically is nothing else. That is what happened here. I think Mr. Kadlec has a lot to explain in regard to his past relationship with a company that has benefited from his current office. He also needs to explain why the national strategic reserve was moved out of the CDC?
Mr. Kadlec has a lot of explaining to do. He needs to explain his relationship with his past company and it's current contracts. He needs to explain the length of those contracts, the cost of the vaccines and the lack of bidding. He also needs to explain why the national strategic reserve was moved out of the CDC?
Additionally, which only proves the danger of ideologies both in elections as candidates and as leaders, the administration of Mr. Kadlec was partisan and caused plenty of problems for the USA.
Rather than a machine that President Obama wanted to put in place to manufacture enormous amounts of N-95 masks... (The article is specific about that.) ...he Trump White House called up a sterilizing machine from Ohio to clean existing N95 masks.
It is completely and absolutely unconscionable to have crippled the doctors, nurses, and caregivers by not having an enormous number of N95 in the strategic national reserve. Obama not only recognized that but, took it one step further. President Obama wanted to purchase a machine that produces those very important masks, but, Kadlec canceled the purchase and institutions of such measures to protect the country. THAT FACT boggles the mind. How can a man involved in the study of biological and chemical weapons in the USA military not prioritize N95 masks? None of this makes sense in the extreme.
Robert Kadlec was a USA soldier. He was a good soldier and a patriot. He studied some of the deepest concerns of the USA military, biological and chemical weapons. We are still seeing primitive weapons of this nature at work with the Assad regime. It isn't as though they simply disappeared because of international conventions. But, Kadlec became highly focused on smallpox and anthrax. What did he think would be the first priority to protect the American people should such warfare be released? Vaccines? Sure. Absolutely, but, who is going to administer them and why would it not be obvious to Kadlec that health care professionals were high on the list of people to protect in the USA? N95 masks are that protection.
President Obama's plans MUST be reinstated and I would suggest regional partners in the USA even consider purchasing such machines and put them into action should this horrible virus not abate with the economic priorities of opening state's prohibitions and removing "Stay At Home" orders. If every region of the country owned its own N95 production masks the people would be well served and protected.
Think how perfect such preparedness prioritized by President Obama would be especially now. Consider the N95 masks were being sold to China and exported in large numbers only to have the states bidding against each other and running up enormous debt were then importing the masks back to the USA again.
President Obama's preparedness for the N95 masks did not need the global supply chain. No other country would need to be begged to provide absolutely important supplies. Obama had this. He knew the best way forward and it was CANCELLED. It was canceled by a President that absolutely hated the first black president and his henchman without any oversight. And why, oh why, was there no oversight? Because there was also a degree of corruption considering the changes of authority over these efforts and the choice of a former business of Mr. Kadlec.
It is unfortunate Mr. Kadlec could not convince Trump of the brilliant idea of President Obama. The N95 masks production machine was canceled, not postponed, because it was ordered by President Obama, a black democrat.
These are the pitfalls of ideologues. This is the danger of a media source like FOX News that incubates and propagates such ideologies for the convenience of hostile politics to elect a populous president.
There needs to be, and you guessed it, an investigation into why such important measures by the Obama White House were canceled imperiling our doctors and nurses that have seen losses of their peers. This is not a minor, oh well, that Trump and his regular screw-ups. People have died that should still be here.
May 4, 2020
By Jon Swaine, Robert O'Harrow, Jr. and Aaron C. Davis
After Robert Kadlec (click here) was confirmed as President Trump’s top official for public health preparedness in 2017, he began pressing to increase government stocks of a smallpox vaccine. His office ultimately made a deal to buy up to $2.8 billion of the vaccine from a company that once paid Kadlec as a consultant, a connection he did not disclose on a Senate questionnaire when he was nominated.
Under the agreement struck last year with Emergent BioSolutions, Kadlec’s office at the Department of Health and Human Services is paying more than double the price per dose it had previously paid for the drug. Because Emergent is the only licensed maker of the vaccine, Kadlec’s office arrived at the price through negotiations with the company rather than through bidding....
Trump and his administration are lined with ideologues. There basically is nothing else. That is what happened here. I think Mr. Kadlec has a lot to explain in regard to his past relationship with a company that has benefited from his current office. He also needs to explain why the national strategic reserve was moved out of the CDC?
Mr. Kadlec has a lot of explaining to do. He needs to explain his relationship with his past company and it's current contracts. He needs to explain the length of those contracts, the cost of the vaccines and the lack of bidding. He also needs to explain why the national strategic reserve was moved out of the CDC?
Additionally, which only proves the danger of ideologies both in elections as candidates and as leaders, the administration of Mr. Kadlec was partisan and caused plenty of problems for the USA.
Rather than a machine that President Obama wanted to put in place to manufacture enormous amounts of N-95 masks... (The article is specific about that.) ...he Trump White House called up a sterilizing machine from Ohio to clean existing N95 masks.
It is completely and absolutely unconscionable to have crippled the doctors, nurses, and caregivers by not having an enormous number of N95 in the strategic national reserve. Obama not only recognized that but, took it one step further. President Obama wanted to purchase a machine that produces those very important masks, but, Kadlec canceled the purchase and institutions of such measures to protect the country. THAT FACT boggles the mind. How can a man involved in the study of biological and chemical weapons in the USA military not prioritize N95 masks? None of this makes sense in the extreme.
Robert Kadlec was a USA soldier. He was a good soldier and a patriot. He studied some of the deepest concerns of the USA military, biological and chemical weapons. We are still seeing primitive weapons of this nature at work with the Assad regime. It isn't as though they simply disappeared because of international conventions. But, Kadlec became highly focused on smallpox and anthrax. What did he think would be the first priority to protect the American people should such warfare be released? Vaccines? Sure. Absolutely, but, who is going to administer them and why would it not be obvious to Kadlec that health care professionals were high on the list of people to protect in the USA? N95 masks are that protection.
President Obama's plans MUST be reinstated and I would suggest regional partners in the USA even consider purchasing such machines and put them into action should this horrible virus not abate with the economic priorities of opening state's prohibitions and removing "Stay At Home" orders. If every region of the country owned its own N95 production masks the people would be well served and protected.
Think how perfect such preparedness prioritized by President Obama would be especially now. Consider the N95 masks were being sold to China and exported in large numbers only to have the states bidding against each other and running up enormous debt were then importing the masks back to the USA again.
President Obama's preparedness for the N95 masks did not need the global supply chain. No other country would need to be begged to provide absolutely important supplies. Obama had this. He knew the best way forward and it was CANCELLED. It was canceled by a President that absolutely hated the first black president and his henchman without any oversight. And why, oh why, was there no oversight? Because there was also a degree of corruption considering the changes of authority over these efforts and the choice of a former business of Mr. Kadlec.
It is unfortunate Mr. Kadlec could not convince Trump of the brilliant idea of President Obama. The N95 masks production machine was canceled, not postponed, because it was ordered by President Obama, a black democrat.
These are the pitfalls of ideologues. This is the danger of a media source like FOX News that incubates and propagates such ideologies for the convenience of hostile politics to elect a populous president.
There needs to be, and you guessed it, an investigation into why such important measures by the Obama White House were canceled imperiling our doctors and nurses that have seen losses of their peers. This is not a minor, oh well, that Trump and his regular screw-ups. People have died that should still be here.
May 4, 2020
By Jon Swaine, Robert O'Harrow, Jr. and Aaron C. Davis
After Robert Kadlec (click here) was confirmed as President Trump’s top official for public health preparedness in 2017, he began pressing to increase government stocks of a smallpox vaccine. His office ultimately made a deal to buy up to $2.8 billion of the vaccine from a company that once paid Kadlec as a consultant, a connection he did not disclose on a Senate questionnaire when he was nominated.
Under the agreement struck last year with Emergent BioSolutions, Kadlec’s office at the Department of Health and Human Services is paying more than double the price per dose it had previously paid for the drug. Because Emergent is the only licensed maker of the vaccine, Kadlec’s office arrived at the price through negotiations with the company rather than through bidding....
A cross bearer has died.
Greg Zanis, with wife Susan, is visited by well-wishers at his home in Aurora on May 1, 2020. Zanis has been making crosses for those who have been killed by gun violence for years and is now battling terminal cancer.
Greg Zanis, (click here) an Aurora man who gained national attention for placing crosses at the sites of mass shootings in the United States, has died after a battle with cancer, city of Aurora officials confirmed Monday.
A drive-by event to salute the ailing “Cross Man” was held outside his house on Friday, where hundreds of people drove by to show their support. Zanis has mostly been bed-ridden recently and was on hospice care at his home....
Russian health care workers need to hear from their international colleagues.
In recent years Russia has been a bit of an isolationist country. There is a good chance the doctors, nurses, and care providers in Russia are struggling on their own to cope with this pandemic. I would not be surprised if they are not talking about this as a pandemic. Taken out of the context of the pandemic there can be a lot of self-blaming for patients' illnesses and deaths.
All care providers globally need to put this into the perspective of a pandemic with HEROES taking the front lines and treating patients that have fallen VICTIM to the virus.
May 4, 2020
By Mary Ilyushin
Three frontline health care workers (click here) have mysteriously fallen out of hospital windows in Russia over the past two weeks, heightening public attention to the working conditions for doctors and medical professionals amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Two of those health care workers are dead, and one remains hospitalized.
All three incidents, which are being investigated by Russian law enforcement authorities, have prompted intense discussion in the Russian press and on social media.
Alexander Shulepov, an ambulance doctor in Voronezh, a city about 320 miles south of Moscow, is in serious condition after falling from a hospital window on Saturday. Local state television, citing regional health officials, said he fell out of second-floor window of the Novousmanskaya hospital, where he worked and was receiving treatment after testing positive for
coronavirus.
Shulepov was hospitalized for coronavirus on April 22, the same day he and his colleague Alexander Kosyakin posted a video online saying that Shulepov had been forced to continue working after testing positive for coronavirus....
All care providers globally need to put this into the perspective of a pandemic with HEROES taking the front lines and treating patients that have fallen VICTIM to the virus.
May 4, 2020
By Mary Ilyushin
Three frontline health care workers (click here) have mysteriously fallen out of hospital windows in Russia over the past two weeks, heightening public attention to the working conditions for doctors and medical professionals amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Two of those health care workers are dead, and one remains hospitalized.
All three incidents, which are being investigated by Russian law enforcement authorities, have prompted intense discussion in the Russian press and on social media.
Alexander Shulepov, an ambulance doctor in Voronezh, a city about 320 miles south of Moscow, is in serious condition after falling from a hospital window on Saturday. Local state television, citing regional health officials, said he fell out of second-floor window of the Novousmanskaya hospital, where he worked and was receiving treatment after testing positive for
coronavirus.
Shulepov was hospitalized for coronavirus on April 22, the same day he and his colleague Alexander Kosyakin posted a video online saying that Shulepov had been forced to continue working after testing positive for coronavirus....
APPEAL!
If Americans are jobless because of the COVID-19 and are refused unemployment benefits, appeal the decision to courts. The federal law was to reach all Americans unemployed by the pandemic. If the states are failing to care for their citizens appeal the decisions by state unemployment agencies until it gets to a court and the hearing results in a decision based on the new laws.
The states are going to be receiving the monies directly from the federal government. Don't let them turn the unemployment benefits into a federal block grant so they can pay their bills.
To illustrate a far different approach by the State of New York; the unemployed applicants didn't have to wait for the federal monies to arrive, they received them immediately. New York knew it would be receiving federal dollars and took the initiative to be sure it's citizens had the monies they needed.
May 4, 2020
By David Lyons
Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday (click here) he will order an inspector general to investigate how Florida paid nearly $80 million to build an unemployment claims system only to see it overwhelmed by thousands of jobless workers thrown out of work amid the coranavirus pandemic.
Speaking at a news conference in Tallahassee, DeSantis retraced nearly two months of troubles that faced the unemployed as many unsuccessfully applied for benefits or did not get paid if they were approved....
The federal law was written to REPLACE lost incomes by everyone effected, even those that were tip workers.
...When you add $600 (click here) to the national average unemployment payment — $371.88 a week at the end of 2019 — the replacement rate goes from 38 percent to almost exactly 100 percent. In other words, that amount is what it would take for Congress to replace what the average American worker receiving unemployment would have earned....
The states are going to be receiving the monies directly from the federal government. Don't let them turn the unemployment benefits into a federal block grant so they can pay their bills.
To illustrate a far different approach by the State of New York; the unemployed applicants didn't have to wait for the federal monies to arrive, they received them immediately. New York knew it would be receiving federal dollars and took the initiative to be sure it's citizens had the monies they needed.
May 4, 2020
By David Lyons
Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday (click here) he will order an inspector general to investigate how Florida paid nearly $80 million to build an unemployment claims system only to see it overwhelmed by thousands of jobless workers thrown out of work amid the coranavirus pandemic.
Speaking at a news conference in Tallahassee, DeSantis retraced nearly two months of troubles that faced the unemployed as many unsuccessfully applied for benefits or did not get paid if they were approved....
The federal law was written to REPLACE lost incomes by everyone effected, even those that were tip workers.
...When you add $600 (click here) to the national average unemployment payment — $371.88 a week at the end of 2019 — the replacement rate goes from 38 percent to almost exactly 100 percent. In other words, that amount is what it would take for Congress to replace what the average American worker receiving unemployment would have earned....
When it comes to testing nursing homes should come first.
It only makes sense to test those most vulnerable first. This article in ProPublica points to the idea that if nursing home residents were tested those that test positive can be moved to the hospital for treatment until they are no longer positive for the virus.
May 1, 2020
By Max Blau
On Tuesday afternoon in a small town (click here) in southwest Georgia, Army National Guard 2nd Lt. George Peagler stepped into a white hazmat suit, pulled up his bright green gloves and adjusted his N95 mask.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s decision to gradually reopen the state for business was beginning to show results. More cars were on the road than the week before. Locals lined up at the drive-thru at the only McDonald’s in Dawson, a predominantly black town in one of the poorest corners of the state.
Peagler headed into Dawson Health and Rehabilitation Center, a small nursing home where 14 of the 60 or so residents had died from COVID-19 over the past month. He and his fellow soldiers conducted their mission with efficiency, quickly testing the home’s surviving residents for the coronavirus. A military medic stuck a swab into each resident’s nose, then dropped it into a vial held by another guard member, who then handed it down an assembly line of soldiers until it was placed in an ice-filled cooler.
“If you were to see us, you would think we’ve been doing this longer than we have,” said Peagler, a native of suburban Atlanta, who, like many members of the Guard, had no formal medical experience before the pandemic. “That’s because we’ve had to pick up on it so quickly.”...
...States such as Maryland and Massachusetts have taken steps to mitigate that risk by mandating tests for all workers at long-term care facilities. Georgia does not have such a requirement. It is up to each facility to request tests for its workers....
There is no such thing as being overly cautious, especially with the long term facilities, their residents and staff.
...After visiting the Dawson home on March 27, Capt. Matthew Rushing called his superior officer, Brig. Gen. Randall Simmons, with some troubling news, according to interviews and emails obtained by Georgia Health News and ProPublica.
Nineteen patients had been tested for COVID-19 in the 74-bed facility. The first patient test had just returned positive. Rushing feared it wouldn’t be the last....
May 1, 2020
By Max Blau
On Tuesday afternoon in a small town (click here) in southwest Georgia, Army National Guard 2nd Lt. George Peagler stepped into a white hazmat suit, pulled up his bright green gloves and adjusted his N95 mask.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s decision to gradually reopen the state for business was beginning to show results. More cars were on the road than the week before. Locals lined up at the drive-thru at the only McDonald’s in Dawson, a predominantly black town in one of the poorest corners of the state.
Peagler headed into Dawson Health and Rehabilitation Center, a small nursing home where 14 of the 60 or so residents had died from COVID-19 over the past month. He and his fellow soldiers conducted their mission with efficiency, quickly testing the home’s surviving residents for the coronavirus. A military medic stuck a swab into each resident’s nose, then dropped it into a vial held by another guard member, who then handed it down an assembly line of soldiers until it was placed in an ice-filled cooler.
“If you were to see us, you would think we’ve been doing this longer than we have,” said Peagler, a native of suburban Atlanta, who, like many members of the Guard, had no formal medical experience before the pandemic. “That’s because we’ve had to pick up on it so quickly.”...
...States such as Maryland and Massachusetts have taken steps to mitigate that risk by mandating tests for all workers at long-term care facilities. Georgia does not have such a requirement. It is up to each facility to request tests for its workers....
There is no such thing as being overly cautious, especially with the long term facilities, their residents and staff.
...After visiting the Dawson home on March 27, Capt. Matthew Rushing called his superior officer, Brig. Gen. Randall Simmons, with some troubling news, according to interviews and emails obtained by Georgia Health News and ProPublica.
Nineteen patients had been tested for COVID-19 in the 74-bed facility. The first patient test had just returned positive. Rushing feared it wouldn’t be the last....
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