Posted on 03/31/2020 8:19:03 AM PDT by spacejunkie2001
The two doctors spread out their charts on the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.
The projections were grim: Even if the U.S. were to continue to do what it was doing, keeping the economy closed and most Americans in their homes, the coronavirus could leave 100,000 to 200,000 people dead and millions infected. And the totals would be far worse if the nation reopened.
Those stark predictions grew even more tangible and harrowing when paired with televised images of body bags lined up at a New York City hospital not far from where President Donald Trump grew up in Queens.
LATEST ON THE GLOBAL OUTBREAK: – The Latest: Girl, 12, in Belgium dies from coronavirus – What you need to know today about the virus outbreak The confluence of dire warnings and tragic images served to move the Republican president off his hopes for an Easter rebirth for the nation’s economy.
But while Trump sided with the White House doctors over its economists, at least for now, the decision shed light on a West Wing beset with divisions and a commander in chief torn between an instinct to embrace the image of a wartime president fighting an invisible enemy and the desire to protect the nation’s bottom line as he barrels into a bruising reelection fight.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
“We’re thinking that around Easter that’s going to be your spike. That’s going to be the highest point we think, and then it’s going to start coming down from there,” Trump said Monday on “Fox & Friends.” “The worst that can happen is you do it too early and all of a sudden it comes back. That makes it more difficult.”
The bleak forecasts were carried into the Oval Office by Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx, who displayed to Trump projections that, on the low end, could yield 100,000 American deaths from COVID-19. One model showed that deaths could have soared past 2 million had there been no mitigation measures.
COPING WITH THE PANDEMIC: – Extroverts (and introverts, too) face quarantine challenges – How will we vote? Outbreak revives debate on mail-in ballots – Feed the soul: In chaotic times, gardening becomes therapy “We showed him the data. He looked at the data. He got it right away. It was a pretty clear picture,” Fauci told CNN on Monday. “Dr. Debbie Birx and I went into the Oval Office and leaned over the desk and said, ‘Here are the data, take a look.’ He just shook his head and said, ‘I guess we got to do it.’”
But as is often the case with Trump, it also took the power of images to prompt him to act.
Over the weekend, the death count in New York City skyrocketed, the silence of the city’s empty streets shattered only by ambulance sirens. Makeshift medical tents were hastily erected in Central Park. And hospitals, including Elmhurst Medical Center in Queens, not far from Trump’s childhood home, were so overwhelmed that patients were lying in hallways and corpses stowed in refrigerated trucks.
ADVERTISEMENT
“This is essentially in my community, in Queens, Queens, New York,” Trump said. “I’ve seen things that I’ve never seen before.”
Aides likened Trump’s emotional response to his reaction to the 2017 pictures of dead Syrian children that prompted him to give the order for the first air strike of his presidency. Trump also invoked some friends — he did not identify them — who he said are battling the virus.
“I have some friends that are unbelievably sick,” he said Monday in a Rose Garden press conference. “We thought they were going in for a mild stay and in one case, he’s unconscious — in a coma.”
The weekend decision also revealed the sharp divides among those advising Trump, both inside and outside the West Wing.
For weeks, those in the White House who warned that the doctors’ strict recommendations would cripple the economy — and Trump’s reelection chances — had the president’s ear and pushed him toward the idea of restarting business in the states where infections were low.
Trump’s decision to extend national guidelines to clamp down on activity left them disappointed.
Stephen Moore, a former Trump adviser who had been pushing the administration publicly and privately to roll back restrictions in places with low infection rates, said the economic impact would grow worse every day that the shutdown continues, with more bankruptcies and more jobs lost. He had urged Trump to begin to reopen in places like Idaho, Iowa and Nebraska, far from the infection hot spots.
But Trump was swayed by arguments that the fiscal pain would be worse if the economy was reopened and then forced to be shut again.
Full Coverage: Virus Outbreak As in the early, chaotic days of his administration, Trump’s White House has become increasingly siloed in recent weeks, with different working groups functioning separately and sometimes in competition. Members of Trump’s coronavirus task force, led by Vice President Mike Pence and including Fauci and Birx, did not know that Trump would be floating the idea of a quarantine of the New York area over the weekend — and then quickly moved to walk him back, according to three administration officials not authorized to publicly discuss private conversations.
The president is getting conflicting advice from outside the White House as well.
While some Republican governors, like Henry McMaster of South Carolina, have urged the president to reopen the economy, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida considered banning travelers from hot spots like New York from entering his state, which experts believe is poised to see a surge in coronavirus cases.
After speaking with DeSantis, Trump mused to reporters Saturday about a quarantine of New York, as well as parts of New Jersey and Connecticut, blindsiding their governors and raising questions about federal authority.
Even if the measure was unenforceable, Trump thought it could be a signal to supporters elsewhere that he was walling off a virus hot zone comprised of three Democratic states. But Fauci and other advisers persuaded him that it would accomplish little except ignite worry.
Like forecasts for a monster hurricane, the pandemic projection models can disagree with one another. But the coronavirus models all agree that this outbreak and its consequences are extremely serious.
Birx singled out one by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle, suggesting it’s close to how government experts see things. That model predicts more than 84,000 total U.S. deaths through early August, with the highest number of daily deaths — an estimated 2,200 — occurring April 15.
That would be three days after Easter.
For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, or death. The vast majority of people recover.
The virus has caused a global pandemic that has sickened about 800,000 people and killed tens of thousands, according to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Pure fear mongering. Stop the insanity! End the oppression!!!!
Listening to Fauci, it's like....I am the only one capable of deciding and the President has no choice.
I think Fauci will soon retire.
News media, just shut the h3ll up!
Trump knew the date would be extended the day he set it. He’s showing people he wants the country open for business ASAP, that’s all.
As I listened to President Trump discuss Easter, I understood, fully and clearly that he was talking about his HOPE that we would be over the hump by Easter, NOT that it was etched in stone.
It’s really disgusting that there are those among us who seek to further their own agenda in these trying times.
How dire projections, grim images dashed Trump’s Easter plan...
And that was just from some people here! :)
Really?? you shut down and destroy a country for what looks like months now because 100,000 may die?
What would have been done in the ‘30s.
American are too spoiled, too afraid and too willing to give up their freedom.
And that’s gonna lead to a LOT WORSE than this virus.
Beware the scientific democrat Trojan horse. They will prolong this epidemic right up to the Nov. 3rd election.
The inhumane dirty ba$tards. They will make many thousands die to gain their end.
USE the Zelenko Proticol:
The Zelenko Protocol
Dr Zelenko has perfected a therapy in the United States which has three components proven to work, every time, if administered before the lungs fill with mucus.
What is being used is a combination of drugs , not just Hydroxy-chloroquin, which shows that the Democrats and Big Pharm do not want what is working should be understood by the People.They rail against a single part of the therapy without revealing the rest of it because IT WORKS.But it has to be administered before the lungs fill with mucus.
But what President Trump’s agent, Rudy Giuliani has done is created a populist end run around the CDC ( Fauci) and the FDA. This to save lives.( See video link below)
If you are a Trump supporter you know what to do. Contact your physician and ask whether this therapy can be available if you need it. If not shop around. And if you find a Jewish doctor, you’re in like Flynn.The therapy cost of the drugs is $20.00, so it won’t break you.
Its really up to you.
President Trump has arranged for millions of dosages to come into our country from Israel’s Teva Corporation....Free. Availability will be no problem.
Secondly there is a pretty sure possibility that hydroxy-chloroquine acts as an prophylaxis, taking 1 x 200 mg HCQ per day along with a 200 gram Zinc supplement.Almost all of the front line doctors in NYC are doing this, so why not everybody. We soon will have enough HCQ to do that.
****************************
THIS CAN SAVE YOUR LIFE
EXCELLENT NEWS: Hydroxychloroquine Treatment Effective on 699 Patients
Must see video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TJdjhd_XG8&t=586s
Dr. Vladimir (Zev) Zelenko
Board Certified Family Practitioner
501 Rt 208, Monroe, NY 10950
845-238-0000
March 23, 2020
To all medical professionals around the world:
My name is Dr. Zev Zelenko and I practice medicine in Monroe, NY. For the last 16 years, I have cared for approximately 75% of the adult population of Kiryas Joel, which is a very close knit community of approximately 35,000 people in which the infection spread rapidly and unchecked prior to the imposition of social distancing.
As of today my team has tested approximately 200 people from this community for Covid-19, and 65% of the results have been positive. If extrapolated to the entire community, that means more than 20,000 people are infected at the present time. Of this group, I estimate that there are 1500 patients who are in the high-risk category (i.e. >60, immunocompromised, comorbidities, etc).
Given the urgency of the situation, I developed the following treatment protocol in the pre-hospital setting and have seen only positive results:
1. Any patient with shortness of breath regardless of age is treated.
2. Any patient in the high-risk category even with just mild symptoms is treated.
3. Young, healthy and low risk patients even with symptoms are not treated (unless their circumstances change and they fall into category 1 or 2).
My out-patient treatment regimen is as follows:
1. Hydroxychloroquine 200mg twice a day for 5 days
2. Azithromycin 500mg once a day for 5 days
3. Zinc sulfate 220mg once a day for 5 days
The rationale for my treatment plan is as follows. I combined the data available from China and South Korea with the recent study published from France (sites available on request). We know that hydroxychloroquine helps Zinc enter the cell. We know that Zinc slows viral replication within the cell. Regarding the use of azithromycin, I postulate it prevents secondary bacterial infections. These three drugs are well known and usually well tolerated, hence the risk to the patient is low.
Since last Thursday, my team has treated approximately 350 patients in Kiryas Joel and another 150 patients in other areas of New York with the above regimen.
Of this group and the information provided to me by affiliated medical teams, we have had ZERO deaths, ZERO hospitalizations, and ZERO intubations. In addition, I have not heard of any negative side effects other than approximately 10% of patients with temporary nausea and diarrhea.
In sum, my urgent recommendation is to initiate treatment in the outpatient setting as soon as possible in accordance with the above. Based on my direct experience, it prevents acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), prevents the need for hospitalization and saves lives.
With much respect,
Dr. Zev Zelenko
The media wants people to stay home so they can watch their foolish reports on T.V. Ratings will increase.
He never said the date was set in stone.
What’s your acceptable number of deaths?
How many sick people is too much in your estimation?
Serious questions.
I read the entire article. If you cut through the anti Trump slant the article essentially shows a business chief executive managing through a crisis where there are many unknowns, many points of view as to handle the crisis, and new information is available daily. The author tried to bury the facts that should be comforting:
1) Trump has an array of advisors and is listing to a “diverse” group of analysts and points of view.
2) Trump is looking at the data himself.
3) Trump is talking to people outside his staff and outside the beltway who are not involved in government but are living the crisis first hand.
4) Trump is willing to modify his approach as new data is received. He is not static.
5) Trump is hands on the daily battle while at the same time looking forward to getting the US economy back on course. A good CEO is always monitoring the work of his team running the operations while also looking forward to anticipate future opportunities and risks. What the reporter views as waffling and indecision is actually the behavior of a good CEO demonstrating effective leadership in a time of turmoil.
agreed. I posted it because this whole debaucle is controlled by 2 swamp creatures that LOVE LOVE LOVE libtards.
Or they won’t.
If 100,000 or 10,000 die from COVID the stupid ham handed handling of this is not going to make one bit of difference.
I looked up Lemire and knew it was a wasn’t worth the read. I assume the other two are idiots too.
when did you ever give a shit about the dead prior to this farce? when did you ever show concern for those dead from H1N1, swine flu, SARS, MERS, Ebola, Zika....? This is a political sucker punch and you’re part of the problem
I watched about one minute of ABC News last night. Talk about invoking fear and panic. The way they’re reporting on NYC they’re trying to portray it as the 21st Century version of the Black Death of Medieval Europe! Irresponsible and purposeful to scare people into influencing their vote in November! The media is the conspiracy theory in the Wuhan Flu narrative!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.