I am not referring to Donald Trump, nor am I referring to any other American political figure.
Rather I am referring to the man who wants to pave over the Amazon basin, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who is the subject of conflicting reports as to whether he contracted the coronavirus.
This man is determined to plow under the whole of the Amazon, and the consequences of this would make the Black Death look like a tea party.
I am talking, of course, about Coronavirus.
In the past 24 hours, after Donald Trump gave the least reassuring political speech since Pennsylvania State Treasurer R. Budd Dwyer’s resignation speech 1n 1987,* things have gone to hell in a hand-basket.
The NCAA has canceled the collegiate basketball championships, AKA March Madness, because of COVID-19 19 concerns.
This is the most ppopular sporting event in the United States, normally pulling in about 50% more in ad revenue, and even more in eyeballs, than the Superbowl, and it’s canceled.
In addition, the Baseball Spring training has been suspended, the NBS has suspended its season,
Heard on every trading desk for last 10yrs: “Fck Dodd-Frank.”Heard on every trading desk for the last 10d: “Thank fck for Dodd-Frank”
— Joseph S. Mauro (@jsmauro13) March 10, 2020
And then, for the second time this week, but only the third time in more than 20 years, circuit breakers temporarily halted stock trading after the S&P 500 entered free fall.
I am certain right now that there are a lot of brokers who are VERY happy that Dodd-Frank strengthened these market protections.
Finally, in Maryland, all public schools will be closed for 2 weeks, Catholic Schools in Baltimore are shutting down, Episcopal Churches are suspending services, and both state and federal courts are suspending cases, with most public entertainment events cancelled as well.
This all went pear shaped rather quickly.
* Following his conviction on bribery charges, he blew his brains out at a press converence.
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The spread of the coronavirus is now a pandemic, officials at the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.
“We have rung the alarm bell loud and clear,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the W.H.O.’s director-general.
………
There are only about 1,100 confirmed cases in the United States, but experts fear that is only a fraction of the real prevalence, because testing for the coronavirus has been unavailable or haphazard in the United States.
The number of cases in the world doubles every six days, epidemiologists have estimated.
And the US response will be handled by people who want to down the government in a bathtub.
It appears that Donald Trump’s plan for dealing with economic disruption from the Covid-19 outbreak is a waiver of the payroll tax, but only through the election.
Why am I not surprised that he is viewing this entire crisis as a nothing more than an opportunity to score political points?
Donald Trump told Republican senators on Tuesday that he wants a payroll tax holiday through the November election so that taxes don’t go back up before voters decide whether to return him to office, according to three people familiar with the president’s remarks.
Trump spoke to the Republicans at their weekly conference lunch at the Capitol as his administration prepares a package of economic measures to combat the fallout from the coronavirus outbreak. But the administration does not have a particularly detailed plan, several Republicans said including John Thune of South Dakota.
Other Republicans are suggesting a bailout of the fracking industry, because that never profitable industry faces a more immediate reckoning* over collapsing oil prices.
*The investments have not passed from the Vampire Squid and its Evil Minions™ down the financial food chain to ordinary investors, and the Republicans must prevent that.
The issue here is not risk, that is possibility quantifiable possibility of something bad happening, but uncertainty, where your numbers go ¯_(ツ)_/¯ :
U.S. stocks careened lower Monday, with major indexes swinging perilously close to the first bear market in more than a decade as a price war for oil and fallout from the coronavirus frightened investors.
The selling was heavy across markets and geographies, with investors seeking shelter in government bonds, sending Treasury yields to new lows. U.S. stocks fell hard enough at the open to trigger a circuit breaker for the first time in 23 years that kept trading frozen for 15 minutes. The Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered its worst decline since 2008 and at one point came within 65 points of touching a bear market.
For the day, the Dow sank 2,013.76 points, or 7.8%, to 23851.02. It was the first time the Dow lost more than 2,000 points in a session. The S&P 500 fell 225.81 points, or 7.6%, to 2746.56, also its worst day since 2008. And the Nasdaq Composite slid 624.94 points, or 7.3%, to 7950.68.
All 11 sectors in the S&P 500 were down, led by energy, which slid 20%. Financials were down 11%. Industrials and materials both fell 9.2%.
By day’s end, the Dow, S&P and Nasdaq were all down roughly 19% from record highs set earlier this year. A drop of 20% from those highs would halt a bull-market run that began after the financial crisis. Stocks bottomed out 11 years ago, on March 9, 2009.
As an aside, this is the time when I DON’T look at how my IRA or 401(k) is doing,
Seriously, just don’t.
Scores of retired NHS doctors and nurses have told the Guardian that they are against returning to work to help tackle coronavirus, with many saying it would threaten their physical and mental health. The government confirmed contingency plans on Tuesday to call back to work NHS “leavers and retirees” to help relieve pressure on an NHS workforce that is expected to be overwhelmed by the virus.
But a majority of 120 former NHS employees who responded to a Guardian callout were resistant, and in some cases hostile, to the idea. Many respondents said unprompted they did not want to a return to a working environment where they suffered stress, bullying, burnout and even breakdowns.
Seventy-one said they would not be happy to return to work, with many expressing their reluctance in vehement terms. “After the way I was treated I would rather shove a rusty six-inch nail up my backside than return to my old job,” said a 67-year-old former staff nurse from Manchester.
This is what happens when you are in an organization that has systematically been defunded, demonized, and privatized for decades.
Once you go back, you do not want to get back in.
NHS has been Americanized, and now it has a disgruntled staff, and former staff, who unlikely to go that extra mile in an emergency.
Only five days ago, the boss of British Airways’ owner IAG warned that the coronavirus would push weaker airlines “over the edge”. Little surprise, then, that Flybe should be an early victim: a perennial struggler to turn a profit, flying routes that few others deemed commercially viable around the UK. But, even at such a geographical remove from the current outbreak, it is unlikely to be the last.
For now, the effects of Covid-19 on airlines echo the pattern among the human population: standstill in China, tolerated by the stronger carriers abroad, but potentially fatal to those less robust. And Flybe’s pre-existing conditions included an unusually onerous tax burden of air passenger duty affecting domestic flights, dampened demand alongside Brexit, and increased fuel and leasing costs from a falling pound. Its investors – a consortium led by Virgin Atlantic swooped in last year – had sensed a final opportunity after its share price had tanked; but by January they were begging the government, in vain, for assistance to stay alive.
This will probably not be the last.
But that will be a heavy lift indeed with a health care system geared above all to price-gouge sick people out of as much money as possible.
—Ryan Cooper at The Week explaining just why America is not equipped to handle COVID-19
Between millions with no sick leave, a healthcare system which is primary about looting, no meaningful childcare, and a public health system which has been shut down and privatized over the past 40 years.
Seriously, Bulgaria is probably better equipped to handle something like this than the United States is.
Given that the COVID-19 has now hit Rhode Island, it’s only a matter of time until the virus pops up in an Amazon warehouse.
Think about that for a second: Thousands of workers working in close proximity, without the time for proper hygiene measures, and immune systems already compromised by stress.
Given that he is a former pharmaceutical executive, this is not a surprise:
Members of Congress and advocacy groups are voicing outrage after Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar—a former pharmaceutical executive—repeatedly refused during House testimony Wednesday to guarantee that any coronavirus vaccine or treatment developed with taxpayer money will be affordable for all in the U.S., not just the rich.
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During testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Wednesday, Azar was pressed multiple times to vow that vaccines and treatments for the coronavirus will be priced fairly and made affordable for all U.S. households.
“We would want to ensure that we’d work to make it affordable,” Azar told Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), “but we can’t control that price because we need the private sector to invest.”
You don’t need the private sector to invest.
The research will be government funded, and you have tools, such as a threat to invoke Biden-Dole march in rights on most of their patent portfolio, to coerce basic human decency out of these firms.
The New Yorker has this illustration for their cover story on Trump’s incoherent response to CoViD-19.
It’s beautiful, man.
Given the level of disruption now, I rather hope this to be a Katrina moment for the Trump administration.
However, given the general deterioration of the news media since 2005, I rather expect that the ongoing cluster-f%$# of the Corona Virus crisis will be abandoned in for in depth coverage some outrageous tweet.
We are living in interesting times, and not in a good way.
It’s from The Lancet, and it shows that Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for all plan more than pays for itself:
Although health care expenditure per capita is higher in the USA than in any other country, more than 37 million Americans do not have health insurance, and 41 million more have inadequate access to care. Efforts are ongoing to repeal the Affordable Care Act which would exacerbate health-care inequities. By contrast, a universal system, such as that proposed in the Medicare for All Act, has the potential to transform the availability and efficiency of American health-care services. Taking into account both the costs of coverage expansion and the savings that would be achieved through the Medicare for All Act, we calculate that a single-payer, universal health-care system is likely to lead to a 13% savings in national health-care expenditure, equivalent to more than US$450 billion annually (based on the value of the US$ in 2017). The entire system could be funded with less financial outlay than is incurred by employers and households paying for health-care premiums combined with existing government allocations. This shift to single-payer health care would provide the greatest relief to lower-income households. Furthermore, we estimate that ensuring health-care access for all Americans would save more than 68 000 lives and 1·73 million life-years every year compared with the status quo.
When they ask Sanders, “How will you pay for this?”, his response, “How can you pay for not doing this?”
It turns out that you can reduce an emergency room bill by thousands of dollars by demanding an itemized bill:
Having a medical emergency is hard enough as it is, and anyone would be scared in that position. However, most Americans have a lot more to worry about during a visit to the ER than many other people from developed countries. According to the nonprofit Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI), the cost of ER visits are on the rise. The organization has examined a decade’s worth of insurance claims for hospital emergency room bills, and determined that from 2008 to 2017 the prices have substantially increased. HCCI discovered that the average ER visit now costs $1,389 and has reached a 176% increase over the decade.
Recently, a woman shared an important tip that helped her reduce her ER billBroooooo I went to the ER a while ago and got a huge bill over 1,000. I saw a tiktok stating that if you ask for an itemized bill they reduce it and so I called and asked for 1 and just got it and bitch I don’t owe shit now 😭— ehvuh (@the_heva) December 28, 2019
While those who have insurance are not always made to pay full price, the uninsured people suffer the most. This prompts people to look for a way to reduce their bills. After TikTok user shaunnaburns3 told people to ask hospitals for itemized bills once they are faced with a hefty charge for a trip to the ER, people decided to put that to the test. Luckily, for some people, this tip actually worked and helped save them hundreds of dollars.
I’m not sure if this actually works, but it certainly is worth a try.
In fact it results in worse outcomes.
This should surprise no one. It is the way of mergers and acquisitions:
Hospitals continue to turn to M&A to navigate tricky industry headwinds, including lowering reimbursement and flatlining admissions as patients increasingly turn to alternate, cheaper sites of care. Provider trade associations maintain consolidation lowers costs and improves operations, which trickles down to better care for patients.
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Thursday’s study analyzed CMS data on hospital quality and Medicare claims from 2007 through 2016 and data on hospital M&A from 2009 to 2013 to look at hospital performance before and after acquisition, compared with a control group that didn’t see a change in ownership.
American Hospital Association General Counsel Melinda Hatton took aim at the study’s methods to refute its findings, especially its reliance on a common measure of patient experience called HCAHPS.
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The results contradict a widely decried AHA-funded study last year conducted by Charles River Associates that found consolidation improves quality and lowers revenue per admission in the first year prior to integration. The research came quickly under fire by academics and patient advocates over potential cherrypicked results.
A spate of previous studies found hospital tie-ups raise the price tag of care on payers and patients. Congressional advisory group MedPAC found both vertical and horizontal provider consolidation are correlated with higher healthcare costs, the brunt of which is often borne by consumers in the form of higher premiums and out-of-pocket costs.
There is nothing that the finance industry, which makes bank on fees from M&A activity, cannot ruin.
The Sackler family, are having major butt-hurt because Tufts University is pulling their names from their buildings.
Let’s see, you created a dangerous product, aggressively and dishonestly marketed it across the nation, when caught you looted your company in advance of your bankruptcy, and your non-bankrupt foreign company is STILL trying to hook people on your poison.
Why wouldn’t an institution best known for its medical program want to have anything with you?
The Sackler family is pushing back after Tufts University removed the family name from its buildings and programs due to the family’s link to the ongoing opioid epidemic, according to a report in The New York Times.
In a letter to Tufts’ president, a lawyer for the family wrote that the removal was “contrary to basic notions of fairness” and “a breach of the many binding commitments made by the University dating back to 1980 in order to secure the family’s support, including millions of dollars in donations for facilities and critical medical research.”
Tufts made the decision to remove the family name after getting the results of an independent review of the university’s relationship with the Sacklers and OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma, which the Sacklers own. Both the family and the company have been accused of helping to spark the crisis by aggressively marketing the powerful painkiller and misleading doctors, patients, and regulators about its addictiveness.
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The review found that Purdue did intend to use the relationship to advance its interests. And, according to the report, in some cases, it was successful in influencing the academic institution. “Moreover, we conclude that there was an appearance of too close a relationship between Purdue, the Sacklers, and Tufts,” the report said.
The letter from the Sackler family lawyer hinted at the possibility of legal action.
………
Although, not all of the Sackler family is involved with OxyContin. Of the original three Sackler brothers involved in Purdue, one of them—Arthur—died before the painkiller was introduced, and his brothers bought out his stake in the company. Arthur’s widow, Jillian Sackler, released a statement saying in part, “It deeply saddens me to witness Arthur being blamed for actions taken by his brothers and other OxySacklers.”
OxySacklers. Heh.
We are quite literally selling ourselves, and it is horrifying:
America is one of the only developed countries in the world that pays people to donate blood, much of it sold abroad (70% of the world’s plasma is of US origin), and as commercial blood donations have soared, blood now accounts for 2% of the country’s exports — more than corn or soya.
There’s more growth ahead for blood products, expected to “grow radiantly” according to an analyst who was cheering 13% growth between 2016-17.
One study found that the typical blood-seller derives a third of their income from selling blood. Princeton’s Kathryn Edin called the commercial blood industry “the lifeblood of the $2 a day poor.”
Mintpress’s interviews with blood-sellers reveal “a mix of disabled, working poor, homeless, single parents, and college students,” who describe a system of arbitrary and predatory payments, which fluxuate wildly from day to day.
The horror.
A deep dive reveals that Amazon’s on-site clinics actively harm their employees as a matter of policy in order to depress their reportable injury numbers:
Earlier this year, a falling object struck a worker’s head at an Amazon fulfillment center in Robbinsville, New Jersey. The worker visited Amcare, the company’s on-site medical unit, and told the emergency medical technicians on staff there that they had a headache and blurred vision — classic symptoms of a concussion. According to company protocol, Amazon’s medical staff should have sent the worker to a hospital or doctor’s office for further evaluation, or at least called a physician for advice. They did neither.
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In various instances, OSHA investigators found that Amcare medical staff decided to treat the employees in-house, rather than referring them to doctors or hospitals — decisions that potentially violated New Jersey state law and federal regulations, such as OSHA’s “general duty” clause requiring employers to maintain workplaces free of hazards that put workers in danger.
This wasn’t the first time OSHA had investigated Amcare, nor was it the first time the agency alerted Amazon to problems at the clinics. “The current OSHA inspection again revealed instances indicating that the EMTs and Athletic Trainers (ATs) at AMCARE are working outside their scope of practice, without proper supervision,” regulators wrote in a warning letter to Amazon, reported here for the first time. “New Jersey state laws do not allow EMTs and ATs to practice medicine independently; a physician must supervise their work.”
An investigation by The Intercept and Type Investigations — drawing on previously unreported documents, an interview with a former OSHA medical expert, and interviews with 15 current and former Amcare employees — found multiple instances in which clinic staffers violated Amazon’s own rules as well as government regulations. The investigation found that Amcare employees nationwide were pressured to sweep injuries and medical issues under the rug at the expense of employee health.
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The strenuous nature of the work at Amazon’s warehouses can take its toll on the human body: As Reveal and The Atlantic reported last week, the rates of serious injury at 23 fulfillment centers from which data could be obtained were more than double the industry average in 2018. The company’s Amcare clinics are intended to address the many minor aches and pains workers experience on the job. The company claims that this care falls under the category of “first aid,” which, according to an OSHA letter to Amazon, is defined as “emergency care provided for injury or sudden illness before emergency medical treatment is available.” These clinics operate in most, if not all, of the company’s warehouses, and they are staffed by EMTs and supervised by safety managers. According to a former OSHA medical officer and multiple former Amazon employees interviewed for this story, safety managers are not required to have extensive medical training. (Amazon declined to answer specific questions about its safety managers’ training as well as other details reported in this story.)
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Since 2015, Amazon workers have filed at least 10 complaints about problems at Amcare — all of which OSHA deemed “valid” — according to previously unreported documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. These 10 complaints represent a small fraction of the hundreds of general health and safety complaints filed by Amazon workers in the last seven years. The complaints alleged that employees were being sent back to work with no medical care after requesting treatment, that injured employees were being told they must wait two weeks to see if their conditions worsened before being seen by doctors, and that Amcare staffers were not adequately trained. One complaint, made by phone in December 2017 from Tracy, California, alleged that Amcare simply refused to treat an injury. Though the complaints were determined to be valid, the agency did not follow up with an inspection in every case; OSHA is a small agency that employs about one inspector for every 59,000 U.S. workers.
Still, in response to these complaints and others, OSHA has investigated Amcare clinics at least three times: beginning from summer 2015 at an Amazon fulfillment center in Robbinsville, New Jersey; from fall 2017 to spring 2018 at a fulfillment center in Florence, New Jersey; and again at the Robbinsville warehouse in an investigation that concluded in September 2019. Each time, the federal agency found that EMTs were providing care beyond first aid. Twice, OSHA recommended that they be supervised by on-site physicians. Twice, in Florence and during the first Robbinsville investigation, the agency also found evidence that Amazon was underreporting injuries on federally mandated logs. The results of the Florence investigation and the 2019 Robbinsville investigation are being reported here for the first time.
Accounts from Amcare employees across the country reveal that problems identified by OSHA are likely not confined to the warehouses it inspected. In interviews with The Intercept and Type Investigations, 15 current and former on-site medical representatives — Amazon’s term for the EMTs who staff Amcare — from fulfillment centers in 11 states bolster OSHA’s findings. Ten of the medical technicians said their bosses pressured them to send injured employees back to the warehouse floor when they likely needed additional medical attention. Eight felt like there was a conflict of interest between their manager’s priorities and their duties as medical professionals. Four said they were pressured to underreport or misclassify injuries. Some Amcare staff members described a positive experience with Amazon; even so, they expressed concerns about tensions between the company’s bottom line and injured employees’ best interests.
Were it not for salutary neglect of safety and health regulations, Amazon would not be able to function.
Their business is literally built on the broken bodies of their “associates.”
It was probably inevitable that the success of the anti-vaccination movement would eventually lead to an outbreak with substantial casualties. It has now happened in Samoa, where 48 people so far have died from measles, including 22 infants. Public health officials do not believe the outbreak has peaked, and expect those numbers to rise, possibl considerably. Why is the outbreak (which has hit much of Oceania in recent months) particularly bad and particularly deadly in Samoa?
Yep, drops in vaccination rates?
And who was front and center of this? Bobby, Jr.
As you might expect, the decline in vaccination rates wasn’t due solely to domestic causes; it was assisted by a well-resourced global movement, with some familiar faces.
Anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a nephew of President John F. Kennedy, visited the country in June, appearing next to officials at Samoan independence celebrations. His visit was “for a program that is not government-related,” an official in the prime minister’s department told Samoan news media at the time.
Kennedy has asserted that vaccines cause autism, a claim disproved by extensive research. Members of the Kennedy family have publicly criticized him for helping “spread dangerous misinformation.”
An Instagram photo shows Kennedy embracing the Australian Samoan anti-vaccine activist Taylor Winterstein in Samoa on June 4. “I am deeply honored to have been in the presence of a man I believe is, can and will change the course of history,” Winterstein wrote in the caption, adding hashtags #makinginformedchoices #investigatebeforeyouvaccinate.
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As appalling and reckless as their advocacy is in their home countries, it’s considerably moreso in lower income countries like Samoa, where measles fatality rates are likely to be considerably higher, as we’re seeing here.
But don’t worry, antivaxxers are sending vitamins, so everything is cool.
What the f%$# is wrong with these folk?
*FWIW, Charlie, my son on the autism spectrum, spotted by Sharon when he was about 3 days old, well before any vaccines, agrees with description of Kennedy as a murderer.
One of the concerns about Brexit is the future of both the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) as well as their price controls on drugs.
Jeremy Corbyn is now explicitly promising that neither the NHS nor drug price controls will even be brought up in trade negotiations with the US.
In fact, he his proposing legislation to explicitly prohibit any such negotiations:
UK opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn said the Labour Party will exclude Britain’s National Health Service and medicines from trade deals with the United States, as he accused Prime Minister Boris Johnson of covering up “secret talks” on the NHS.
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“Our public services are not bargaining chips to be traded in secret deals. I pledge a Labour government will exclude the NHS, medicines and public services from any trade deals – and make that binding in law”, he added.
It’s good policy and good politics.
It turns out that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is responsible for most of the anti-vax ads on Facebook.
I always knew that he was a nut-job about this, but I underestimated the depth of his influence:
Just two organizations were responsible for the majority of anti-vaccine advertisements on Facebook before the social media giant restricted such content in March of this year, according to a November 13 study in the journal Vaccine.
Of 145 anti-vaccine Facebook advertisements that ran between May 31, 2017 and February 22, 2019, the World Mercury Project and a group called Stop Mandatory Vaccination together ran 54% of them.The World Mercury Project, which ran the most ads of any single source, is an organization closely aligned with the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense. Both are spearheaded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer turned prolific peddler of dangerous anti-vaccine misinformation. He and his organizations promote conspiracy theories about vaccine safety, including the roundly debunked claim that safe, life-saving immunizations are linked to autism. More recently, Kennedy has become a prominent opponent of laws aimed at increasing vaccination rates among school children.
Stop Mandatory Vaccination is a for-profit venture run by a man named Larry Cook. He, too, trumpets vaccine misinformation and fear-mongers. On Facebook and other platforms, Cook runs advertisements and campaigns making dubious links between the vaccines and tragic baby deaths. One such ad was banned by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority last year. The regulator determined the ad to be “misleading,” “unsubstantiated,” and “likely to cause undue distress.” In other instances, he has claimed that the pro-vaccine medical community is covering up the “slaughter” of children.
These folks need to be shunned by all people of good conscience, and a fraud investigation or three might be good too.