Fauci Looking Forward

Q: What went wrong:

...It's almost like the fog of war. After the war is over, you then look back and say, ‘Wow, this plan, as great as it was, didn't quite work once they started throwing hand grenades at us.’ It really is similar to that. Obviously, testing [for the new coronavirus] is one clear issue that needs to be relooked at. Why were we not able to mobilize on a broader scale? But I don't think we can do that right now. I think it's premature. We really need to look forward.

20 Jan 2020 -Korea CDC

The Republic of Korea has confirmed the first imported case of 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) from Wuhan, Hubei Province, China on 20 January 2020.

The case is a Chinese woman in her 30’s residing in Wuhan, China. She developed fever and headache on 18 January 2020. She visited a local hospital in Wuhan and was diagnosed with cold. From our initial investigation, she denied visiting the traditional markets including Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, nor contacting 2019-nCoV confirmed cases or any live animals in Wuhan.

The case was detected by a thermal scanner during entry screening conducted by at the Incheon International Airport with fever. The in-depth epidemiological investigation and contact tracing are underway. The case was transferred to a national designated isolation hospital for test and treatment.

Samples have been tested positive with pan-coronavirus conventional RT PCR and gene sequencing
 
Korean government has scaled up alert level from Blue (Level 1) to Yellow (Level 2 out of 4-level national crisis management system). The Korean health authority has strengthened surveillance for pneumonia cases in health facilities nationwide since 3 January 2020. Quarantine and screening measures have been enhanced for travelers from Wuhan at the point of entries since 3 January 2020. Public risk communication has been enhanced.

Public should keep practice preventing infection including hand washing, cough etiquette, and wearing mask if you have respiratory symptoms. Let health provider know your travel history. If you develop any respiratory symptoms within 14 days after returning to Korea, call the KCDC Call Center at 1339.

That's a more specific public health announcement to Koreans two months ago than anything Americans have yet to receive.

At the systems level wrt COVID-19, the Korean health authority sprang into action on 3 Jan 2020 . Thermal screening of travelers from Wuhan. How many infections were prevented by identifying this first patient? Later travelers from other countries that were not screened infected several other people.

Currently, US public health authorities don't consider airport screening a viable COVID-19 containment tool. Some countries use temperature checks for coronavirus. Others don’t bother. Here’s why The why is: doesn't detect all infected travelers, thermometers and airport screeners are too unreliable, blah, blah, blah. This is at the end of the article:

The World Health Organization’s guidelines suggest that thermometers can be part of a broader strategy, including interviews and data collection about recent travel and contacts.

For countries with the resources and equipment, temperature checks can also be a starting point for educating the general public about what is going on, how to stay safe and what to do if they get sick.

Part of what screening does is signal that, yes, the authorities are doing something — and that matters, experts said.

“If the community thinks you're doing nothing, they are not going to buy into your other public health policies like the social distancing measures that everyone should be employing on a mass scale right now,” said Bogoch, the infectious disease specialist.
“The optics are really important.”

Back to Fauci:

Q: We've seen creative ideas about how to respond in other countries that we aren’t adopting. China uses thermometers at supermarkets before letting people in. Should we be considering that?
A: Yes, of course. ...

“Yes, of course” we're considering many many things, but I'm not the boss who keeps going his own way on this.

With the outbreak of COVID-19 in Kirkland, WA, a friend, Mary who works at Costco, mentioned to me that she was concerned for her Seattle resident parents. I suggested that her parents monitor and record their temperatures as a measure for early detection of possible COVID-19 infection and if they get a fever to wear a mask, if they can get one, when seeking medical attention. Mary began to offer reasons why my suggestion wasn't helpful and then stopped as she recalled being perplexed by a recent customer that had purchased eighty thermometers. Then she got it.

Edit - bookmark: No, China Didn't Cover Up the Covid-19 Outbreak: an Analysis

Edit #2 - bookmark: Trumpolino Covid-19 evolving narrative

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CB's picture

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@CB because I'm old-fashioned and used the old way of inserting links. Now corrected.

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Alligator Ed's picture

@Marie Dr. Fauci's interview, edited as it was "for clarity" substantiates some main points. The Chinese blocked information about the Wu Flu from late December 2019 to mid-January 2020. There is only a PC reason for not naming the pandemic after the virus's emanation: Wuhan, China. It is thus the Wu Flu. Now if people want to call it the Bat Flu, okay--but that is a point of contention. Did the virus travel from bat to man? nI dunno. But the virus indisputably traveled from Wuhan to the rest of the world.

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@Alligator Ed

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Alligator Ed's picture

@Marie What are your facts disputing that China delayed the revelation of the Wu Flu pandemic? As far as I can tell, this is exactly the case. You know something to the contrary--let's see it.

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@Alligator Ed but the timelineof reporting from China is documented:

On December 31 last year, China alerted WHO to several cases of unusual pneumonia in Wuhan, a port city of 11 million people in the central Hubei province. The virus was unknown.

Several of those infected worked at the city's Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, which was shut down on January 1.

On January 5, Chinese officials ruled out the possibility that this was a recurrence of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus - an illness that originated in China and killed more than 770 people worldwide in 2002-2003.

On January 7, officials announced they had identified a new virus, according to the WHO. The novel virus was named 2019-nCoV and was identified as belonging to the coronavirus family, which includes SARS and the common cold.

It could have surfaced anywhere in the world before Wuhan and wasn't recognized as anything other than a severe flu.

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Roy Blakeley's picture

@Marie on Jan. 10. Although there appear to have been elements of denial or self delusion by local officials initially, the subsequent response by the Chinese government and scientists was excellent.

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@Roy Blakeley
I didn't want to spend more time on refuting the China was terrible bogus allegation.

What I'm seeing is dreadful handling of this issue at all levels of US and atate governments, and US public health agencies. Troubling are reports from CDC and FDA employees now saying that they didn't get on top of this because Trump and his administration were dismissing it as just a flu. These are health science professionals who apparently haven't learned what they are employed to do regardless of an incompetence boss. Haven't learned the passive/aggressive skill to deal with a bozo boss and taking action outside the formal lines of communication to the informal networks of the most skilled. (Yes, I could have been fired on a few occasions for doing that and willing accepted that risk, but high quality results always spoke for itself.)

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@Alligator Ed
your compulsion to attach cutesy names to everything, if those cutesy names carry misinformation. It is wrong for you to call this any kind of flu when you know damned good and well that it is not an influenza virus.

And of course, if you weren't calling it a flu, you'd have no motivation to throw in the "Wu", because it wouldn't rhyme or be cutesy anymore, and after all you're only doing it to tickle your odd little fancy. My advice is get yourself a vibrating butt plug instead.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Pluto's Republic's picture

@Alligator Ed

But this is wrong, too, ed.

But the virus indisputably traveled from Wuhan to the rest of the world.

The Italian virus and Iranian virus have different genetic sequencing than the Chinese virus.

You can read my comment on this here:

https://caucus99percent.com/comment/480488#comment-480488

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Bisbonian's picture

"she recalled being perplexed by a recent customer that had purchased eighty thermometers."

Some people are such assholes.

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

@Bisbonian
them to family and associates to self-test and monitor. I could be wrong but this occurred before the TP panic and when careful readers with a modest degree of health awareness could figure out that thermal tests could be helpful and it was then and to this day not featured in government reports/updates and haven't heard that its making rounds in the social media venue.

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snoopydawg's picture

@Bisbonian

Guess people found out that this virus doesn't cause the runs. Great now maybe I won't have to count the number of rolls I have left. Or hold it till I'm bursting. Stores here have been out for weeks. No soup and other canned stuff either. Now about that early granny shopping thing. I talked to a few people who went and they said the lines were very long both to get in and to checkout. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of isolating?

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg
my Costco employee friend. Only because a few days earlier she'd been complaining about all the hoarders cleaning out the store and soon enough would return all the extra crap they'd purchased and I suggested that Costco might want to consider a no return policy when customers hoard,

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boriscleto's picture

I expect he's been fired.

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" In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and is generally considered to have been a bad move. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy "

@boriscleto
(to death of having to pretend that the boss isn't a complete boob).

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boriscleto's picture

@Marie It said Trump was becoming frustrated by Fauci's blunt approach. Trump won't keep someone around unless they're blowing smoke up his ass, so I expect Fauci is gone.

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" In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and is generally considered to have been a bad move. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy "

@boriscleto
Fauci was asked why he hadn't been fired and he said that he didn't know.

Fauci isn't young -- he's 79. So, it's not as if he needs the job and if fired, could become an big thorn in Trump's behind.

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snoopydawg's picture

Pelosi and Schumer need to f'cking retire. Now!

I've been reading that democrats have been loading this bailout with lots of pork, but seriously she wants the JFK center to have more money right effing now?

The thread shows other things she wants money for. And she says McConnell is building a slush fund? Actually both sides are trying to get whatever they can from this. Republicans want to allow companies to stop paying payroll taxes and Collins is asking that any small business that uses Medicaid to not get any help.

I've been watching the Last Ship which has to do with a virus that knocked off 5 billion people after a guy changed its DNA and became Typhoid Mary. Is there one that we can send to congress? Or does anyone know any good Japanese pilots? This is just insane while people are wondering how they will survive and support their families.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg pigging out when the trough is set before them, can they?

Clean bill to deal with one of the most pressing issues: Repeal the Trump tax cuts and fund FUTA for all COVID-19 furloughed workers - disburse through state unemployment offices. Use the SBA to assist with the balance of the cash flow problems for furloughed small businesses.

Congress can then deal with the large companies whining for a bail-out on a case by case and separate funding bill for each. That way voters will be able to see which companies get money and which politicians approved each individual bail-out.

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