The Donald Trump Score Card

A new bronze statue to US First Lady Melania Trump has been unveiled near her hometown in Slovenia.
It replaces a wooden sculpture erected last year, which was set alight shortly afterwards by unknown arsonists.
Some described the original as a "disgrace" or a "Smurfette", saying it did not look like Mrs Trump.
The new statue features a plaque dedicating the sculpture to "the eternal memory of a monument to Melania which stood at this location".
Mrs Trump was born in Novo Mesto in 1970 but grew up in the town of Sevnica, when Slovenia was part of the Communist nation of Yugoslavia.

Melania Trump: New metal statue unveiled in Slovenia

 

Variolation is based on direct physical contact. They used to take a bit of the smallpox scab from one person and spread it on an open cut of another person

To make the assumption that masks stop the primary source of transmission and then somehow just guess the wearing of masks will mean the same kind of controlled transmission is and should be downright criminal

 

Redfield said no such thing, he said the masks will help if he doesn't get an immune response, they chopped up a sentence for a headline


"Redfield went on to say that a vaccine could have an immunogenicity of 70 percent, meaning that it may not work in close to one-third of people to whom it is administered."


Redfield also says there is clear scientific evidence masks work, which without a qualifier is meaningless, we need to know how well they work

He also says masks are our best defense against the virus; which is also clearly not true as the social distancing from lockdowns was our best defense

 

Yet, when the lockdowns were in effect you were totally against them...


Obvious troll is obvious.

 

Barr asked prosecutors to explore charging Seattle mayor over protest zone: report

 

The burnt statue looks better

 

Trump has an extremely optimistic opinion about potential vaccines for a novel coronavirus.

Trump remark on September 16, 2020:

"The vaccine is going to have tremendous power. It's going to be extremely strong. It's going to be extremely successful. We're not going to have a problem."

Trump also said that the coronavirus would go away with the warm weather.

 

The reality:


We've never made a successful vaccine for a coronavirus before. This is why it's so difficult
ABC Health & Wellbeing
By Jo Khan for the Health Report
Posted Thursday 16 AprApril 2020 at 9:26pm
updated Thursday 16 AprApril 2020 at 11:17pm

If we find a vaccine for COVID-19, it will be the first time ever for coronaviruses

excerpt:

"Your skin, and the outer layer of cells in your upper respiratory tract act as a barrier to viruses, stopping them getting into the body.

And finding a way to neutralise the virus "outside" of the body is very difficult.

This is partly because only the outer layer of cells (the epthelial cells) get infected, which, compared to a severe infection of internal organs doesn't produce the same immune response, so is harder to target.

It's hard to produce a successful vaccine if the virus isn't activating a strong immune response.

And if a vaccine elicits an immune response that misses the target cells, the result could potentially be worse than if no vaccine was given.

"One of the problems with corona vaccines in the past has been that when the immune response does cross over to where the virus-infected cells are it actually increases the pathology rather than reducing it," Professor Frazer said.

"So that immunisation with SARS corona vaccine caused, in animals, inflammation in the lungs which wouldn't otherwise have been there if the vaccine hadn't been given."

 

Redfield has been conveying the reality that face coverings, good hygeine, and social distancing are needed while vaccines and therapeudics are being developed which may take many months or years.

In contrast, Trump is known to belittle and outright defy such precautionary efforts for his own personal political gain, essentially claiming that they won't be needed because a virus will soon be available (he says maybe even before the November election).

Similar to his erroeneous thinking that the coronavirus would go away with the warm weather, Trump has a highly optimistic view about novel vaccines, their efficacy and safety, and the ability of the U.S. military to dispense them to the public. He assumes that most of the public will be willing to vaccinate itself with a novel vaccine for a novel virus in spite of a portion of it being suspicious of flu shots and vaccines and a portion not even willing to wear face coverings.

Trump nurtured and capitalized on such suspicions during the 2016 campaign to improve his chances of being elected but now is promoting the opposite to improve his chance of reelection.

 

What happens if a coronavirus vaccine is never developed? It has happened before
By Rob Picheta, CNN
Updated 3:33 AM ET, Mon May 4, 2020

What happens if a coronavirus vaccine is never developed? - CNN

excerpt:

"What life without a vaccine looks like

If a vaccine can't be produced, life will not remain as it is now. It just might not go back to normal quickly.

"The lockdown is not sustainable economically, and possibly not politically," says Neal. "So we need other things to control it."

That means that, as countries start to creep out of their paralyses, experts would push governments to implement an awkward new way of living and interacting to buy the world time in the months, years or decades until Covid-19 can be eliminated by a vaccine.

"It is absolutely essential to work on being Covid-ready," Nabarro says. He calls for a new "social contract" in which citizens in every country, while starting to go about their normal lives, take personal responsibility to self-isolate if they show symptoms or come into contact with a potential Covid-19 case.

It means the culture of shrugging off a cough or light cold symptoms and trudging into work should be over. Experts also predict a permanent change in attitudes towards remote working, with working from home, at least on some days, becoming a standard way of life for white collar employees. Companies would be expected to shift their rotas so that offices are never full unnecessarily.

"It (must) become a way of behaving that we all ascribe to personal responsibility ... treating those who are isolated as heroes rather than pariahs," says Nabarro. "A collective pact for survival and well-being in the face of the threat of the virus.

"It's going to be difficult to do in poorer nations," he adds, so finding ways to support developing countries will become "particularly politically tricky, but also very important." He cites tightly packed refugee and migrant settlements as areas of especially high concern.

In the short term, Nabarro says a vast program of testing and contact tracing would need to be implemented to allow life to function alongside Covid-19 -- one which dwarfs any such program ever established to fight an outbreak, and which remains some time away in major countries like the US and the UK.

"Absolutely critical is going to be having a public health system in place that includes contact tracing, diagnosis in the workplace, monitoring for syndromic surveillance, early communication on whether we have to re-implement social distancing," adds Hotez. "It's doable, but it's complicated and we really haven't done it before.""

 

Trump doesn't understand the basics of contact tracing and the currently needed quarantining and social distancing along with testing. He simply boasts about an absolute number of tests, like his TV ratings, and later dismisses it when he thinks the results hurt his image because they show increased cases that precipitate a delayed increase in deaths.

When the increase in deaths hadn't yet happened, he used that window of time to mistakenly claim that the increased cases were simply due to increased testing and wouldn't precipitate an increase in deaths. He was wrong again.

 

Why we might not get a coronavirus vaccine
Politicians have become more cautious about immunisation prospects. They are right to be
Ian Sample, Science editor
Fri 22 May 2020 06.23 EDT

Why we might not get a coronavirus vaccine

excerpt:

"More than 30 years after scientists isolated HIV, the virus that causes Aids, we have no vaccine. The dengue fever virus was identified in 1943, but the first vaccine was approved only last year, and even then amid concerns it made the infection worse in some people. The fastest vaccine ever developed was for mumps. It took four years.

Scientists have worked on coronavirus vaccines before, so are not starting from scratch. Two coronaviruses have caused lethal outbreaks before, namely Sars and Mers, and vaccine research went ahead for both. But none have been licensed, partly because Sars fizzled out and Mers is regional to the Middle East. The lessons learned will help scientists create a vaccine for Sars-CoV-2, but there is still an awful lot to learn about the virus.

A chief concern is that coronaviruses do not tend to trigger long-lasting immunity. About a quarter of common colds are caused by human coronaviruses, but the immune response fades so rapidly that people can become reinfected the next year.

Researchers at Oxford University recently analysed blood from recovered Covid-19 patients and found that levels of IgG antibodies – those responsible for longer-lasting immunity – rose steeply in the first month of infection but then began to fall again.

Last week, scientists at Rockefeller University in New York found that most people who recovered from Covid-19 without going into hospital did not make many killer antibodies against the virus.

“That’s what is particularly challenging,” says Stanley Perlman, a veteran coronavirus researcher at the University of Iowa. “If the natural infection doesn’t give you that much immunity except when it’s a severe infection, what will a vaccine do? It could be better, but we don’t know.” If a vaccine only protects for a year, the virus will be with us for some time.

The genetic stability of the virus matters too. Some viruses, such as influenza, mutate so rapidly that vaccine developers have to release new formulations each year. The rapid evolution of HIV is a major reason we have no vaccine for the disease.

So far, the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus seems fairly stable, but it is acquiring mutations, as all viruses do. Some genetic changes have been spotted in the virus’s protein “spikes” which are the basis of most vaccines. If the spike protein mutates too much, the antibodies produced by a vaccine will effectively be out of date and might not bind the virus effectively enough to prevent infection."

 

Trump accused by past model: “Pushed his tongue down my throat”
September 17, 2020

Trump accused by past model: “Pushed his tongue down my throat” | News1 English

 

The scraps of information that have come out of the White House about its healthcare plan that's supposedly been in the works for the past three and a half years has attributes that sound the same as the Affordable Care Act that Trump has sabotaged, such as not being declined for preexisting conditions.

Trump is going to replace the ACA with the ACA after sabotaging it, similar to Trump trying to convince the Chinese to voluntarily start buying farm products again from the U.S. to undo some of the damage inflicted by his trade wars.



McEnany tells CNN reporter to come work at the White House for details on health care plan

excerpt:

""I’m not going to give you a readout of what our health care plan looks like and who’s working on it," she said. "If you want to know, come work here at the White House."

Trump has at various points throughout his presidency teased the release of a health care plan. He often speaks vaguely of a comprehensive plan, but no such policy has come to fruition."

 

The concept of social contract is very far removed from the Trump mentality which resides in another universe.

Trump has defied such risk management efforts and has later blamed his failures on the Chinese (whom he had earlier praised repeatedly), referring to the late Herman Cain, who knowingly engaged in risky behavior, as a victim of the 'China virus' and saying that the only responsible party is China.

 

Trump and Barr and the rest of his supporters have no intention of respecting the vote or voter's wishes in 46 days. Barr just attacked career prosecutors and said only political appointees can be held accountable during elections. Just yesterday both CNN and MSNBC reported that Trump is hinting at a call to arms in case he lost. He has suggested that he would not concede or relinquish power. This disruption of American government is V. Putin's ultimate dream.

 

Pence's former lead coronavirus task force aide slams Trump and endorses Biden in new video
By Jake Tapper and Jeremy Herb, CNN
Updated 4:39 PM ET, Thu September 17, 2020

Pence's former lead coronavirus task force aide slams Trump and endorses Biden in new video - CNNPolitics

excerpt:

"Washington (CNN)A former top aide to Vice President Mike Pence assailed President Donald Trump's response to the pandemic in a new video Thursday, adding to the growing list of former Trump administration officials who have criticized the President and, in several cases, endorsed his Democratic opponent Joe Biden.

Olivia Troye, who was a homeland security adviser to Pence and his lead staffer on the White House's Coronavirus Task Force, charged in the two-minute video that Trump failed to protect the American public because he only cared about himself and getting reelected. Troye's criticism is particularly striking because of her role working on the coronavirus task force, which Pence leads.

"Towards the middle of February, we knew it wasn't a matter of if Covid would become a big pandemic here, it was a matter of when," said Troye, who left the White House in late July. "But the President didn't want to hear that, because his biggest concern was that we were in an election year, and how was this going to affect what he considered to be his record of success?"

At one coronavirus task force meeting, Troye claimed that Trump suggested "maybe this Covid thing is a good thing."

"I don't like shaking hands with people. I don't have to shake hands with these disgusting people," Troye claimed Trump said at the meeting."

 

Trump called 'demented' after blaming 'blue states' for coronavirus death toll
Trump suggested taking 'blue states out' in assessing the country's success.
By Elizabeth Thomas and Allison Pecorin
September 17, 2020, 1:43 PM

Trump called 'demented' after blaming 'blue states' for coronavirus death toll

excerpt:

"President Donald Trump is facing backlash after blaming blue states for the coronavirus death toll during a press briefing at the White House on Wednesday.

"So we’re down in this territory," Trump said, pointing to a graph that the White House first unveiled in the spring which showed two estimated ranges of possible death tolls depending on efforts to slow the spread of the virus. "And that’s despite the fact that the blue states had had tremendous death rates. If you take the blue states out, we’re at a level that I don’t think anybody in the world would be at. We’re really at a very low level. But some of the states, they were blue states and blue state-managed.""

 

Trump was using data from April 2020 to try to blame coronavirus deaths on blue states.

The latest data show that about 47% of the deaths have been in red states.



Trump blames blue states for the coronavirus death toll — but most recent deaths have been in red states
By Philip Bump
September 16, 2020 at 6:53 p.m. EDT

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...-but-most-recent-deaths-have-been-red-states/

excerpt:

"It’s important to remember that despite Trump’s rhetoric, the pandemic isn’t particularly close to being over. The University of Washington’s Institute on Health Metrics estimates that there will be nearly 413,000 deaths by the end of the year.

Of that total, almost precisely half are projected to have occurred in red states."