Trump and COVID-19 — where's the big push to manufacture what health care workers need?

21 March 202

Useless government?

The COVID epidemic here has barely started in the United States.

Yet, if you have been paying attention, you will have seen that American hospitals and medical facilities are already short on masks, equipment and sometimes pharmaceuticals.

It is going to get exponentially worse very quickly.

Yet, I have not seen a seriously warfront-like push, with follow-through, that seriously supports the American manufacturing of medically necessary products — so that we can claw back our ability to take care of ourselves.

Instead, we have healthcare staff all over the country wondering how to protect themselves, while they are already overburdened with COVID-19 patients.

Just asking American industry to ramp up a bit, isn't going to get the job done.

Examples of protest

Here is the American Medical Association on the topic:

“For days, physicians and frontline healthcare workers have been sounding the alarm that there is nowhere near enough PPE in the fight against COVID-19–a shortage that endangers patients and jeopardizes the entire response to this virus,” said AMA President Patrice A. Harris, M.D., M.A.

“Physicians don’t have enough masks; they are wearing a single mask all day, cleaning them at home, and sewing their own protective gear. Confronting COVID-19 requires an all-hands-on-deck approach from federal, state, and local governments, and we urge our leaders to pull every lever at their disposal to ramp up test kit availability and to equip physicians and the healthcare workforce to fight the virus. Anything less is unacceptable at this critical juncture.”

Earlier this week, the AMA called on the Administration to establish a Manhattan Project to meet the protective needs of frontline physicians and other caregivers.

And a NBC News survey:

These are just some of the stories told to NBC News by more than 250 health care providers on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic, including many who work in major hospitals.

The accounts were solicited through an NBC News survey, pushed out on social media, about access to personal protective equipment (PPE), a broad term for the gear, such as masks, glasses, gowns and respirators, donned by health care workers to protect against the transmission of germs.

Nearly all who responded said there were shortages of PPE in the hospitals, outpatient clinics and offices where they worked.

Many reported being forced to ration or reuse supplies, including surgical and N95 masks, for fear of running out. Many also said they were facing shortages of basic sanitary supplies, including hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes.

Which, in turn, explains why Dr. Zubin Damania (in the San Francisco Bay Area) was so upset, when he made this video:

ZDoggMD [Dr Zubin Damania], COVID-19 Update: Stop Hurting Our Healers, YouTube (20 March 2020)

The moral? — While American health professionals struggle to stay alive and functioning . . .

. . . the metaphorically Toddling Lout in the White House — and his Republican band of Brownshirt Dumbshits — are criticizing China for its initially laggard response to the virus.

Evidently it does not occur to these functional imbeciles that the United States:

under their own oozy-fat-ass leadership

did exactly the same thing

for a whole three to four months

way longer than China did

and

with mountains less excuse

than China arguably had had

for having been initially blind-sided.

Is this the best that you always-posturing vacuosities can do?

These are, in truth, historic levels of brain-deadness and accountability-dodging that are beyond the rationally comprehensible.

As I said yesterday, it is time to replace these malevolent windbag fools — including their Fake Party of Opposition counterparts in Congress (meaning Democrats) — with people, who can actually do societally useful (as opposed to murderous) things.

PeteFree.com

Trump and COVID-19 — where's the big push to manufacture what health care workers need?