'Put your lips together and blow.' Trump's red carpet welcome for virus to come here. (Page 1/1)
rinselberg JAN 29, 08:50 AM

quote
As the first American evacuees from Wuhan, China, touched down at a California military base a year ago, fleeing the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, they were met by U.S. health officials with no virus prevention plan or infection-control training — and who had not even been told to wear masks, according to a federal investigation.

Later, those officials were told to remove protective gear when meeting with the evacuees to avoid “bad optics,” and days after those initial encounters, departed California aboard commercial airline flights to other destinations.

Those are among the findings of two federal reports obtained by The Washington Post, supporting a whistleblower’s account of the chaos as U.S. officials scrambled to greet nearly 200 evacuees from Wuhan at March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, Calif., in the early morning of Jan. 29, 2020. The handling and quarantining of those evacuees — the nation’s first up-close confrontation with a virus that has now sickened more than 25 million Americans — and the resulting whistleblower complaint prompted internal reviews by the Health and Human Services Department and an investigation overseen by the Office of Special Counsel.

The “most troubling finding” is that the government’s handling of the Wuhan evacuees “increased the risk of infection transmission not only to deployed [government] personnel, but also to the American public as a whole,” Special Counsel Henry Kerner wrote in a letter to President Biden on Thursday.


The first paragraphs of a new report from the Washington Post.


"U.S. handling of American evacuees from Wuhan increased coronavirus risks, watchdog finds"

quote
The special counsel also criticized the HHS general counsel’s office for its ‘attempts to shame the whistleblower.’


Dan Diamond (shouldn't that be Diamond Dan?) for the Washington Post; January 28, 2021.
https://www.washingtonpost....mericans-evacuation/

Read-o-Meter: 6 minutes.

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 01-29-2021).]

maryjane JAN 29, 11:51 AM

quote
The “most troubling finding” is that the government’s handling of the Wuhan evacuees “increased the risk of infection transmission not only to deployed [government] personnel, but also to the American public as a whole,” Special Counsel Henry Kerner wrote in a letter to President Biden on Thursday.



That elevated risk factor to the people involved in this particular event is but a small part of the overall politicization of the pandemic by the administration.
That same dynamic carried thru right up until election day and it cost Donald Trump the election.

He, and many of his supporters railed and wailed on and on (even here at PFF) that "If people would just stop talking about it (covid19) " as if it would somehow just all go away. Youtube was also full of airbags proclaiming the same 'JUST SHUT UP ABOUT CORONA VIRUS!", again, as if silence and lack of transparency would save lives and make the whole thing go away.
Today, a full year to date later, it still has not, nor will it any time soon. That will work in places like Kim's Hermit Kingdom or to some degree in commie China, but not in an informed and open society like North America and Europe.

The election was not "stolen'.
It was given away, almost from the start of 2020.

“It’s one person coming in from China. We have it under control. It’s going to be just fine,”
How'd that all work out?
FriendGregory JAN 29, 12:09 PM
The WHO said it was not transmitting person to person as if it was water or food related.
rinselberg JAN 29, 12:41 PM

quote
Originally posted by FriendGregory:
The WHO said it was not transmitting person to person as if it was water or food related.


I hope you won't react to this by changing into "UnfriendGregory" but if that is being offered as a rationale for how the first evacuations from Wuhan were processed at March AFB in California, on January 29, 2020, by specifically disallowing the medical and administrative personnel that were dispatched to March AFB from using PPE like face masks, that's "lame."

I see from this timeline that can still be found online that WHO had already reported out of China in ways that should have prompted a more careful handling of these first evacuations from China that arrived in the U.S.
https://www.who.int/news/it...-timeline---covid-19

Here's the timeline entry from January 10, 2020, which is more than 2 weeks before these first evacuations were processed in California.

quote
WHO issued a comprehensive package of technical guidance online with advice to all countries on how to detect, test and manage potential cases, based on what was known about the virus at the time. This guidance was shared with WHO's regional emergency directors to share with WHO representatives in countries.

Based on experience with SARS and MERS and known modes of transmission of respiratory viruses, infection and prevention control guidance were published to protect health workers recommending droplet and contact precautions when caring for patients, and airborne precautions for aerosol generating procedures conducted by health workers.


If that wasn't an early warning for the Trump administration to start taking this seriously, like PPE (face masks; etc.) seriously ...

'Nuff said?

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 01-29-2021).]

maryjane JAN 29, 03:51 PM
Notice, they aren't wearing gloves, but are wearing masks.



WHO interim guidance Jan 10,2020:
https://apps.who.int/iris/b...V-IPC-2020.1-eng.pdf

Let's make it easy.


It's dated 10 Jan 2020.
The noted parts (if you can't read them) say:

quote
Principles of infection prevention and control
strategies associated with health care with
suspected nCoV
IPC strategies to prevent or limit infection transmission in
health-care settings include the following:
1. Early recognition and source control
2. Application of Standard Precautions for all patients
3. Implementation of empiric additional precautions
(droplet and contact and whenever applicable
airborne precautions) for suspected cases
4. Administrative controls
5. Environmental and engineering controls





quote
2. Application of Standard Precautions for all
patients
Standard Precautions include hand and respiratory hygiene;
use of PPE depending on risk; prevention of needle-stick or
sharps injury; safe waste management; environmental
cleaning and sterilization of patient-care equipment and linen.
Ensure the following respiratory hygiene measures:
• Offer medical mask for suspected nCoV infection for
those who can tolerate it
• Cover nose and mouth during coughing or sneezing with
tissue or flexed elbow for others
• Perform hand hygiene after contact with respiratory
secretions.
Personal protective equipment. Rational, correct, and
consistent use of available PPE and appropriate hand
hygiene16 also help to reduce the spread of the pathogens. PPE
effectiveness depends on adequate and regular supplies,
adequate staff training, proper hand hygiene and in particular,
appropriate human behaviour1
.
Ensure that cleaning and disinfection procedures are followed
consistently and correctly. Cleaning environmental surfaces
with water and detergent and applying commonly used
hospital disinfectants (such as sodium hypochlorite) is an
effective and sufficient procedure. Manage laundry, food
service utensils and medical waste in accordance with safe
routine procedures1
.
3. Implementation of empiric additional
precautions for suspected nCoV infections
3.1 In addition to Standard Precautions, all
individuals, including family members, visitors and
HCWs should apply Contact and Droplet
precautions:
• Place patients in adequately ventilated single
rooms. For naturally ventilated general ward
rooms this is considered to be 60L/second per
patient21;
• When single rooms are not available, cohort
nCoV patients together;
• Place patient beds at least 1m apart;
• Where possible, cohort HCWs to exclusively
care for cases to reduce infection control
breaches;
• Use a medical mask (for specifications please
see1,22);
• Use eye protection (i.e. goggles or a face shield);

[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 01-29-2021).]

olejoedad JAN 29, 04:02 PM
Look closely Don, she is wearing clear gloves as well as the mask.

Private individuals were discouraged from wearing masks due to the shortage of PPE in the early days.

It was reported that the emergency stockpile left by the BHO/JRB administration was woefully inadequate for the scale of the problem.