Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Liu S-L, Saif LJ, Weiss SR, Su L. No credible evidence supporting claims of the laboratory engineering of SARS-CoV-2. Emerging Microbes & Infections 2020;9:505-7. https://doi.org/10.1080/22221751.2020.1733440

There are also rumours that the SARS-CoV-2 was artificially, or intentionally, made by humans in the lab, and this is highlighted in one manuscript submitted to BioRxiv (a manuscript sharing site prior to any peer review), claiming that SARS-CoV-2 has HIV sequence in it and was thus likely generated in the laboratory. In a rebuttal paper led by an HIV-1 virologist Dr. Feng Gao, they used careful bioinformatics analyses to demonstrate that the original claim of multiple HIV insertions into the SARS-CoV-2 is not HIV-1 specific but random [15]. Because of the many concerns raised by the international community, the authors who made the initial claim have already withdrawn this report.

Evolution is stepwise and accrues mutations gradually over time, whereas synthetic constructs would typically use a known backbone and introduce logical or targeted changes instead of the randomly occurring mutations that are present in naturally isolated viruses such as bat CoV RaTG13. In our view, there is currently no credible evidence to support the claim that SARS-CoV-2 originated from a laboratory-engineered CoV. It is more likely that SARS-CoV-2 is a recombinant CoV generated in nature between a bat CoV and another coronavirus in an intermediate animal host. More studies are needed to explore this possibility and resolve the natural origin of SARS-CoV-2. We should emphasize that, although SARS-CoV-2 shows no evidence of laboratory origin, viruses with such great public health threats must be handled properly in the laboratory and also properly regulated by the scientific community and governments.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Liu S-L, Saif LJ, Weiss SR, Su L. No credible evidence supporting claims of the laboratory engineering of SARS-CoV-2. Emerging Microbes & Infections 2020;9:505-7. https://doi.org/10.1080/22221751.2020.1733440

There are also rumours that the SARS-CoV-2 was artificially, or intentionally, made by humans in the lab, and this is highlighted in one manuscript submitted to BioRxiv (a manuscript sharing site prior to any peer review), claiming that SARS-CoV-2 has HIV sequence in it and was thus likely generated in the laboratory. In a rebuttal paper led by an HIV-1 virologist Dr. Feng Gao, they used careful bioinformatics analyses to demonstrate that the original claim of multiple HIV insertions into the SARS-CoV-2 is not HIV-1 specific but random [15]. Because of the many concerns raised by the international community, the authors who made the initial claim have already withdrawn this report.

Evolution is stepwise and accrues mutations gradually over time, whereas synthetic constructs would typically use a known backbone and introduce logical or targeted changes instead of the randomly occurring mutations that are present in naturally isolated viruses such as bat CoV RaTG13. In our view, there is currently no credible evidence to support the claim that SARS-CoV-2 originated from a laboratory-engineered CoV. It is more likely that SARS-CoV-2 is a recombinant CoV generated in nature between a bat CoV and another coronavirus in an intermediate animal host. More studies are needed to explore this possibility and resolve the natural origin of SARS-CoV-2. We should emphasize that, although SARS-CoV-2 shows no evidence of laboratory origin, viruses with such great public health threats must be handled properly in the laboratory and also properly regulated by the scientific community and governments.

[OA] Andersen KG, Rambaut A, Lipkin WI, Holmes EC, Garry RF. The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2. Nature Medicine 2020. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-020-0820-9

To the Editor — Since the first reports of novel pneumonia (COVID-19) in Wuhan, Hubei province, China there has been considerable discussion on the origin of the causative virus, SARS-CoV-23 (also referred to as HCoV-19). Infections with SARS-CoV-2 are now widespread, and as of 11 March 2020, 121,564 cases have been confirmed in more than 110 countries, with 4,373 deaths.

SARS-CoV-2 is the seventh coronavirus known to infect humans; SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 can cause severe disease, whereas HKU1, NL63, OC43 and 229E are associated with mild symptoms. Here we review what can be deduced about the origin of SARS-CoV-2 from comparative analysis of genomic data. We offer a perspective on the notable features of the SARS-CoV-2 genome and discuss scenarios by which they could have arisen.

Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 IS NOT A LABORATORY CONSTRUCT OR A PURPOSEFULLY MANIPULATED VIRUS.

…

 

[Michael Scally MD]

[OA] Andersen KG, Rambaut A, Lipkin WI, Holmes EC, Garry RF. The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2. Nature Medicine 2020. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-020-0820-9

To the Editor — Since the first reports of novel pneumonia (COVID-19) in Wuhan, Hubei province, China there has been considerable discussion on the origin of the causative virus, SARS-CoV-23 (also referred to as HCoV-19). Infections with SARS-CoV-2 are now widespread, and as of 11 March 2020, 121,564 cases have been confirmed in more than 110 countries, with 4,373 deaths.

SARS-CoV-2 is the seventh coronavirus known to infect humans; SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 can cause severe disease, whereas HKU1, NL63, OC43 and 229E are associated with mild symptoms. Here we review what can be deduced about the origin of SARS-CoV-2 from comparative analysis of genomic data. We offer a perspective on the notable features of the SARS-CoV-2 genome and discuss scenarios by which they could have arisen.

Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 IS NOT A LABORATORY CONSTRUCT OR A PURPOSEFULLY MANIPULATED VIRUS.

…

[OA] Liu S-L, Saif LJ, Weiss SR, Su L. No credible evidence supporting claims of the laboratory engineering of SARS-CoV-2. Emerging Microbes & Infections 2020;9:505-7. https://doi.org/10.1080/22221751.2020.1733440

There are also rumours that the SARS-CoV-2 was artificially, or intentionally, made by humans in the lab, and this is highlighted in one manuscript submitted to BioRxiv (a manuscript sharing site prior to any peer review), claiming that SARS-CoV-2 has HIV sequence in it and was thus likely generated in the laboratory. In a rebuttal paper led by an HIV-1 virologist Dr. Feng Gao, they used careful bioinformatics analyses to demonstrate that the original claim of multiple HIV insertions into the SARS-CoV-2 is not HIV-1 specific but random [15]. Because of the many concerns raised by the international community, the authors who made the initial claim have already withdrawn this report.

Evolution is stepwise and accrues mutations gradually over time, whereas synthetic constructs would typically use a known backbone and introduce logical or targeted changes instead of the randomly occurring mutations that are present in naturally isolated viruses such as bat CoV RaTG13.

In our view, there is currently no credible evidence to support the claim that SARS-CoV-2 originated from a laboratory-engineered CoV. It is more likely that SARS-CoV-2 is a recombinant CoV generated in nature between a bat CoV and another coronavirus in an intermediate animal host.

More studies are needed to explore this possibility and resolve the natural origin of SARS-CoV-2. We should emphasize that, although SARS-CoV-2 shows no evidence of laboratory origin, viruses with such great public health threats must be handled properly in the laboratory and also properly regulated by the scientific community and governments.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Like an asteroid, coronavirus is the textbook example of an exogenous shock. The threat came from beyond. Yet the pathogen offers a unique stress test of each country’s resilience. Some nation states are holding up well. In spite of its unmatched scientific resources, the US is not. More worrying, it is showing little sign of lifting its performance. Six weeks after its first coronavirus death, America’s learning curve remains flatter than its infection rate. It should be the other way round.

The biggest worry is that the US still lacks a road map. The federal government has only a weak grasp on how many Americans are infected with Covid-19, a clear measure of the mortality rate, and therefore the extent of immunity in the country. Without more tests, the US is travelling blind. Just 1 per cent of the country, 3.2m people, have been tested so far. In early March, Mike Pence, the vice-president, promised 4m tests within a week. The same day, President Donald Trump said anybody in the US who wanted a test could get one. That remains as untrue today as it was then.

The stubborn fact is that the US is not churning out enough kits. The average number of daily tests has been stuck at 140,000 for the past two weeks. That is far below the level that scientists say is required to gauge the pandemic’s reach. Some say the US should be testing 10 times that number to understand the spread of the disease. Others want half-a-million a day. Either way, testing has hit a very low plateau, which is a metric of negligence. Without a grasp of the facts, the US will not find its way out.

The deepest puzzle is the gap between wishes and action. Mr Trump was not alone in waking up very late to the coronavirus threat. Others, including Britain’s Boris Johnson, were equally laggard. Each country now has higher death rates than they would have had they acted sooner. Epidemiologists say that if the US shutdown had taken place two weeks early, 90 per cent of the deaths would have been prevented. Over 30,000 Americans have now died, according to the official tally. Had no social distancing occurred at all, the US would have lost many times that by now. There is no excuse for running the same experiment again.

Yet that is what Mr Trump is pushing to do. On Thursday he will publish guidelines for the reopening of the US economy from May 1 — less than two weeks away. The worst hit states on each coast will probably stick to their timetables. US politics abhors a federal vacuum. States are clubbing together to fill it. But they will be subjected to increasingly urgent pressure to follow Mr Trump’s dictates, which are driven by politics, rather than science. It was one thing to wake up late to the virus. It would be quite another to drift back into sleep too soon.

There is no point in fantasising which US presidents would have done better. The answer is almost any. You go to war with the president you have. But it is easy to project Mr Trump’s direction. There will be no federal plan to marshal the US’s resources for testing, therapeutics or the search for a vaccine. The US will have to rely on its patchwork of labs, companies and philanthropists. They are unrivalled but highly fragmented. As the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, put it: states should not have to compete with each other during a war for tanks and guns.

Nor will Mr Trump educate Americans about the reality ahead. In his view, the US is already past the peak. Failure to reopen the economy would cost more lives than keeping it closed, he says. In fact, a new wave that triggered a second lockdown would be a far bigger hit to US wealth than a cautious return to work over a period of months. One paper estimates the difference at $5.2tn over 30 years. Economists and scientists mostly agree on this. Mr Trump is deaf to the consensus.

Which means the US is likely to flunk the test that matters most — national purpose. No matter how sinuous their civic institutions, nations without leadership lose wars. The US was galvanised into unity after the Great Depression, Pearl Harbor and the launch of Sputnik. Covid-19, by contrast, is spurring a hunt for scapegoats. The virus is only worsening America’s divide.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[NorthMich]

I saw the news reporting on the dumb asses in Lansing, MI. You just want these assholes to contract the illness and learn. They’re all fat and diabetic and perfect for the hard thinning

 

[Joe Morgan]

I saw the news reporting on the dumb asses in Lansing, MI. You just want these assholes to contract the illness and learn. They’re all fat and diabetic and perfect for the hard thinning

what did they do?

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

NAME SHAME
Name Shame

The likelihood of Donald Trump not having anything to do with his name being on the stimulus checks is about as likely as him not being responsible for naming Trump Tower, the Trump jet, the Trump helicopter, the Trump yacht, Trump hotels, Trump resorts, and Donald Trump Jr. If it’s stupid, it has his name on it.

The man is a narcissistic baby who’s too much of a coward to be honest over his blatant self-promotion in the time of a crisis. That is, blatant self-promotion on government resources.

Yesterday, during his daily LookAtMe-LookAtMe-LookAtMe party, he was asked about his name being placed in the memo line of the stimulus checks. How’d the orange shitweasel play it off? Like a coward.

Trump said, “I don’t know too much about it. But I understand my name is there. I don’t know where they’re going, how they’re going. I do understand it’s not delaying anything, and I’m satisfied with that. I don’t imagine it’s a big deal. I’m sure people will be very happy to get a big, fat, beautiful check and my name is on it.”

With Trump, everything is big, beautiful, strong, powerful, best ever…and a lie. And the reason he doesn’t know “where they’re going” or “how they’re going” is because he doesn’t care about that part. He only cares about what it can do for him.

What kind of egocentric, narcissistic, self-centered, asshole puts his name on relief checks during a crisis where people are dying? According to Trump, not him. But it was him. In fact, according to sources, he held meetings and strategy sessions over it.

This is the guy that surrounds himself with sycophants every time he signs a document, then holds it up to show off his giant signature made with a Sharpie. He’s like a baby proud he used the potty all by himself for the first time.

It’s a long-standing practice that checks from the Internal Revenue Service feature a signature by a civil servant. The president can’t sign the checks. So, what Trump and Treasury Secretary Baby Fishmouth Steve Mnuchin concocted was to put “Donald J. Trump” in the memo line.

This is just like his fucking charity that was a scam. Donald Trump didn’t put his own money into the Trump Foundation. But celebrities and other billionaires did. So, when Donald Trump would actually contribute money to a charity from the foundation, instead of his usual practice of spending it on himself to buy gifts and pay off fines for his golf clubs and bribe Republicans not to sue him, he would take credit for the charitable contribution. He’d boast about how much he gave to a charity and what a wonderful asshole he was. The truth is, he was taking credit for contributing to a cause with other peoples’ money. This is the same thing.

In this case, Donald Trump is taking credit for giving you money that belongs to you.

This isn’t Donald Trump’s money. In fact, it’s not even something he should get the credit for. The $2 trillion “Economic Impact Payment” that’s going out to millions of Americans had to pass both houses of Congress. If anyone should have their name on the checks, it should be Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell.

But what would be best if there weren’t any politicians name on a government check. Donald Trump is already using government resources to campaign for his reelection. Why? Because he’s a conman.

Earlier this week, he aired a propaganda video at his daily press conference that was boasting about all he did in combating the pandemic while leaving out the entire month of February. Now, he’s using payments from the IRS to taxpayers to campaign for himself.

Here’s the other thing about this scam: It may delay when the physical checks go out. Why? Because it wasn’t announced until Monday to just five senior IRS officials. In addition to having the task of quickly disbursing billions of dollars to taxpayers in a crisis, the IRS must change the computer code to add Trump’s name before the Bureau of the Fiscal Service can print the checks. What a fucking asshole.

With Trump, it’s me, me, me. And his sycophants support it. We’ve had three years of people pretending Donald Trump isn’t an idiot or a narcissist. And every time his cult defends behavior like this or pretends it’s normal, they come off looking more ridiculous and pathetic. The real irony here is that the people who complain about socialism and welfare will now have a socialistic welfare check with Donald Trump’s fucking name on it.

Senator Chuck Grassley said it was “nothing out of the ordinary,” except, it’s never been done before. He also said the expense was “negligible.” That means, doing this cost us even more money. I doubt Grassley would have been so kind if Obama had put his name on checks to voters. I’m pretty sure the entire Republican Party would have stormed the White House pitchforks, torches, and rope for lynching. They already had the rope.

If this selfish scam by Donald Trump even has the slightest chance of delaying these checks, he should have declined doing it. But that’s ignoring he never should have brought it up in the first place. Even speculating or asking was a dick move.

Pelosi said, “Delaying direct payments to vulnerable families just to print his name on the check is another shameful example of President Trump’s catastrophic failure to treat this crisis with the urgency it demands.” She’s right. Trump is putting more focus on himself than helping Americans through this pandemic. Once again, it’s all about Trump, Trump, Trump.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said it was the “height of insecurity” and, “In the midst of this crisis, President Trump is doing what he always tends to do: make it all about Trump.”

Representative Aryanna Pressley, who is one of the women Donald Trump referred to with his “Send them back” comment, said it was “a cruel political stunt from a petulant man who’s failing our families.” Ah yes. I haven’t used “petulant” in a while to describe Trump. Thank you, Ms. Pressley.

Keep in mind, his name on the checks is not the signature a check requires. His name will be on the memo line. The memo line isn’t important. It’s rare that people, when they actually do write a check, write anything in the memo line. So if you’re one of the Americans receiving an actual physical check instead of direct deposit, you can have a little fun. You can make an addition to the memo line next to Trump’s signature. Go crazy. Be creative. Be clever. The IRS will have the ability to see the deposited checks eventually, and maybe seeing what you added to the memo will brighten some civil servant’s day.

I’m one of those who will receive a physical check. I haven’t received a refund in a very long time so the IRS doesn’t have my direct deposit information that I’m aware of. I’m also a little hesitant about giving Donald Trump my social security and bank routing and account numbers. So, when I get my check (I think I’m getting one), “Donald J. Trump” will be in the memo line.

Guess what’s going to be in the memo line when I make my deposit.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]