{"id":175902,"date":"2020-10-29T18:16:00","date_gmt":"2020-10-29T23:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2020\/10\/29\/trump-pushing-derp-immunity\/"},"modified":"2020-10-29T18:16:00","modified_gmt":"2020-10-29T23:16:00","slug":"trump-pushing-derp-immunity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2020\/10\/29\/trump-pushing-derp-immunity\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Pushing Derp Immunity"},"content":{"rendered":"

In case you are wondering, it appears that Donald Trumo is giving up whatever miniscule f%$#s that he used to have about dealing with Covid<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He is going full birther<\/strike> herd immunity. <\/p>\n

To quote Michael Cain in The Dark Knight<\/i>, “Some men just want to watch the world burn.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Despite publicly downplaying it, President Donald Trump and his team of White House advisers have embraced the controversial belief that herd immunity<\/a> will help control the COVID-19 outbreak, according to three senior health officials working with the White House coronavirus task force. More worrisome for those officials: they have begun taking steps to turn the concept into policy.<\/p>\n

Officials say that White House adviser Scott Atlas first started pushing herd immunity this past summer despite significant pushback from scientists, doctors and infectious disease experts that the concept was dangerous and would result in far more Americans getting sick and dying. Since then, various White House advisers have tried to play down the idea that the administration has implemented a strategy for COVID-19 based on herd immunity, which holds that if enough people contract a disease and become immune from it, then future spread among the broader population will be reduced.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

But those working on the government\u2019s COVID response say that the attempts by the White House and Atlas to steer clear from using the phrase \u201cherd immunity\u201d are merely a game of semantics. Privately, one of those sources said, the actual policy pursuits<\/a> have been crafted around a plainly herd immunity approach; mainly, that the government should prioritize protecting the vulnerable while allowing \u201ceveryone else to get infected,\u201d that source said.<\/p>\n

In a recent call with reporters, in which The Daily Beast participated, administration officials laid out a new emphasis in the president\u2019s coronavirus policy which underscored \u201cprotecting the vulnerable,\u201d key among them nursing home patients. One official said the coronavirus was \u201cdangerous for a certain subset of the population\u201d and that \u201cmost people do extraordinary well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Officials on the call pointed to a Great Barrington study<\/a>, which was assembled by a team of scientists who advocate<\/a> for trying to reach herd immunity through the uncontrolled spread of COVID-19.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

Health officials say that the practical acceptance of herd immunity by the president could lead to a dangerous and potentially deadly new phase in the pandemic, even if it is accompanied by a simultaneous effort to screen and protect seniors and those with comorbidities. Scientists warn that if the administration continues to focus just on protecting, for example, individuals in nursing homes, it will overlook those people who fall outside of the most vulnerable population but who could still contract the virus, survive it, and have long-lasting health complications.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

For Trump, Atlas\u2019 advocacy of this approach has represented an opportunity. The president has long pushed for less restrictive public health measures to combat COVID, under the belief that the country needed to prioritize economic interests. Herd immunity as a theory \u201cbasically gave him permission to reopen the country even if we hadn\u2019t flattened the curve,\u201d one official said.
<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If, as the polls indicate, Trump loses on Tuesday, I would expect even more bizarrely destructive actions from Trump and his Evil Minions\u2122<\/sup>, on their way out the door.<\/p>\n

I expect to see actions that make Herbert Hoover’s hissy fit following the 1932 election look like a tea party. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In case you are wondering, it appears that Donald Trumo is giving up whatever miniscule f%$#s that he used to have about dealing with Covid. He is going full birther herd immunity.  To quote Michael Cain in The Dark Knight, “Some men just want to watch the world burn.” Despite publicly downplaying it, President Donald …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[364,572,460,406,403],"class_list":["post-175902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-evil","tag-pandemic","tag-public-health","tag-stupid","tag-wanker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175902"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175902\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}