The Coronavirus thread

Quote: Pacomartin

In 2019 47,173 Americans died by suicide (129 per day).


Perhaps if 50 million people have their income affected, we may end up with more additional suicide deaths than coronavirus deaths.

Quote: WABC-TV

950 cases, 7 deaths in New York

Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the latest coronavirus numbers in New York state, which currently stand at 950 cases with seven fatalities.

Cuomo said 158, roughly 17% of cases, are hospitalized. There have been 221 new cases since Sunday, including 134 new cases in New York City to bring the total there to 463.

New York has the most cases of coronavirus in the country.

Quote: Evenbob

In 2019 49 people a day died
of the regular flu. Remember
the run on the stores and the
shut down of the economy?
I'm embarrassed by our
stupidity in the reaction to this.

Quote: rxwine

Do you remember Italy and China having to set up mobile hospitals for the flu in 2019 because they had so many sick patients?

Quote: rxwine

Do you remember Italy and China

Quote: Pacomartin

In 2019 47,173 Americans died by suicide (129 per day).


Perhaps if 50 million people have their income affected, we may end up with more additional suicide deaths than coronavirus deaths.

Quote:

It has been alleged by multiple officials of the Obama administration, including in The Post, that the president and his then-national security adviser, John Bolton, “dissolved the office” at the White House in charge of pandemic preparedness. Because I led the very directorate assigned that mission, the counterproliferation and biodefense office, for a year and then handed it off to another official who still holds the post, I know the charge is specious.

As The Post reported in 2015, from the Clinton administration to the Obama administration’s second term, the NSC’s staff “had quadrupled in size, to nearly 400 people.” That is why Trump began streamlining the NSC staff in 2017.

One such move at the NSC was to create the counterproliferation and biodefense directorate, which was the result of consolidating three directorates into one, given the obvious overlap between arms control and nonproliferation, weapons of mass destruction terrorism, and global health and biodefense. It is this reorganization that critics have misconstrued or intentionally misrepresented. If anything, the combined directorate was stronger because related expertise could be commingled.

The reduction of force in the NSC has continued since I departed the White House. But it has left the biodefense staff unaffected — perhaps a recognition of the importance of that mission to the president, who, after all, in 2018 issued a presidential memorandum to finally create real accountability in the federal government’s expansive biodefense system.

The NSC is really the only place in government where there is a staff that ensures the commander in chief gets all the options he needs to make a decision, and then makes sure that decision is actually implemented. I worry that further reductions at the NSC could impair its capabilities, but the current staffing level is fully up to the job.

You might ask: Why does all this matter? Won’t it just be a historical footnote?

It matters because when people play politics in the middle of a crisis, we are all less safe.