Everything Trump touches turns to shit

AFP/Getty Images

From the LA Times:

Trump ended pandemic early-warning program to detect coronaviruses

Two months before the novel coronavirus probably began spreading in Wuhan, China, the Trump administration ended a $200-million pandemic early-warning program aimed at training scientists in China and other countries to detect and respond to such a threat.

The project, launched by the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2009, identified 1,200 different viruses that had the potential to erupt into pandemics, including more than 160 novel coronaviruses. 

The initiative, called PREDICT, also trained and supported staff in 60 foreign laboratories — including the Wuhan lab that identified SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

Field work ceased when the funding ran out in September, and organizations that worked on the PREDICT program laid off dozens of scientists and analysts, said Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, a key player in the program...

Cuba, vaccines, and the embargo

Cuba's Cancer Hope.

Trump administration announces new measures against Cuba.

Rep. Schiff: "They Should Stop Making Excuses".

The US in lockdown, except in the South

Kevin Drum:

Based on cellphone location data, the New York Times was able to draw a map of where and when people started complying with coronavirus stay-at-home orders. The answer is infuriating.

The map doesn’t look this way because people in the South are idiots. It’s almost certainly because they’re conservative and they watch a lot of Fox News.

They also listen to President Trump. And Rush Limbaugh. And what they heard was that the coronavirus was “just a bad cold.” That “within a couple of days it’s going to be down to close to zero.” That the hysteria was nothing but a “new hoax” from Democrats who want to bring down the president.

For weeks that’s what they heard. And they believed it. And so they resisted taking it seriously. 

That’s starting to shift now that Trump and the conservative noise machine have changed their tune, but it’s several weeks too late. What a shameful performance.

Even in Stay-at-Home Order, Florida’s GOP Gov. Says Churches Can Still Meet.

See also Racism and the history of the Republican Party and The Southern Strategy.