Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

Once again, panicking dolt Donald "Moron Vector" Trump is pushing the unproven and potentially deadly hydroxychloroquine as a "magic bullet" to treat coronavirus victims, going so far as to muzzle Dr. Anthony Fauci at his most recent briefing shitshow when Fauci was asked about the drug:

President Trump spent a portion of Sunday’s press briefing yet again promoting an unproven treatment for the novel coronavirus, repeatedly asking, “What do we have to lose?”

So toward the end, a CNN reporter turned to Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, for his opinion on the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine with a sharper question: “What is the medical evidence?”

Standing at the microphone, Fauci opened his mouth — but before he could speak, the answer came out of Trump’s instead.

“Do you know how many times he’s answered that question?” Trump cut in. “Maybe 15.” Fauci keeps getting asked about it because Trump keeps promoting the treatment.

A tight smile stretched across Fauci’s face. His eyes, framed by a pair of wire-rimmed glasses, flicked quickly to Trump. He glanced back at the reporter, who was saying to the president, “The question is for the doctor. … He’s your medical expert, correct?”

Fauci’s smile, for just a moment, was all teeth now. Trump raised his finger sternly, telling the journalist, “You don’t have to ask the question,” and so Fauci didn’t answer it, and the news conference shuffled right along.  (our emphasis)

Loving the new "tone" of this guy. 

Fortunately, Moron Vector is getting his scientific advice from fellow grifter Rudy Giuliani, who has connections with every crackpot and charlatan with something to sell:

In one-on-one phone calls with Trump, Giuliani said, he has been touting the use of an anti-malarial drug combination that has shown some early promise in treating covid-19, the disease the novel coronavirus causes, but whose effectiveness has not yet been proved. He said he now spends his days on the phone with doctors, coronavirus patients and hospital executives promoting the treatment, which Trump has also publicly lauded.

“I discussed it with the president after he talked about it,” Giuliani said in an interview. “I told him what I had on the drugs.”  [snip]

In his newly fashioned role, Giuliani — who was widely praised for steering New York City with a steady hand through the 2001 terrorist attacks — has solicited medical tips from a controversial Long Island family doctor with a following in the conservative media, as well as a former pharmacist who once pleaded guilty to conspiring to extort the actor Steven Seagal.

Sounds totes legit.  "... what I had on the drugs."  It's likely the same quality of information you "had" on Hunter Biden.

An expert weighs in:

“You should be listening to credible scientists, ideally physicians and researchers who approach this issue with a respect for the scientific method. Rudy Giuliani is the opposite of that kind of person,” said David Juur­link, an internist and head of the division of clinical pharmacology at the University of Toronto. Juurlink said that some of Giuliani’s “statements are dangerous and are not to be believed.”

If you don't think Rudy is wetting his beak in all of this, we have a perpetual motion machine patent we'd like to sell you.

(Fauci has also been doing battle with Moron Vector's economic advisor Peter Navarro, a fringe crackpot in his own field who apparently wants to start widespread use of the drug and has been in Moron Vector's ear.  Very normal.)

Meanwhile, as confirmed coronavirus cases (336,851) and deaths (9,620) continue to climb, it's almost certain that these numbers are lower than the reality:

The fast-spreading novel coronavirus is almost certainly killing Americans who are not included in the nation’s growing death toll, according to public health experts and government officials involved in the tally.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention counts only deaths in which the presence of the coronavirus is confirmed in a laboratory test. “We know that it is an underestimation,” agency spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund said.

A widespread lack of access to testing in the early weeks of the U.S. outbreak means people with respiratory illnesses died without being counted, epidemiologists say. Even now, some people who die at home or in overburdened nursing homes are not being tested, according to funeral directors, medical examiners and nursing home representatives.

Since today's reading has been coronavirus- focused, we would encourage you to check out Infidel  753's link round- up for a wide range of topics of interest that our blogging brother has found scouring the Internet.  While you're in his neighborhood, check out his latest collection of "improving words."  We love them, and bet you will, too.