Sunday should be more than interesting at 60 Minutes, when courageous whistle-blower Rick Bright exposes what he knows about the Trump regime's mishandling on the U.S. pandemic response. There's a little CBS video teaser above that's worth watching. The pandemic numbers continue getting worse as the worst of the American governors... drumroll... meet the clownish Brian Kemp of Georgia:... open wide. Another 579 Georgians were infected by Brian Kemp Wednesday. That brings the state's cases per million to 3,337. So what does that mean in real life? Well, the third worst pandemic-- after the U.S. (with 1,426,241 confirmed cases) and Spain (with 271,095 confirmed cases) is Russia (with 242,271 confirmed cases). But they all have different populations so it's like comparing apples with hamburgers. That's whew use the number of cases per a million people in the population. Russia has just 1,660, bad but not nearly as bad as the Open-Up states like Georgia (3,337 per million), Indiana (3,784), Tennessee (2,397), Iowa (4,212), Mississippi (3,390), Nebraska (4,691) and South Dakota 4,219. In other words, Brian Kemp (R-GA), Eric Holcolmb (R-IN), Bill Lee (R-TN), Kim Reynolds (R-IA), Tate Reeves (R-MS), Pete Ricketts (R-NE) and Kristi Noem (R-SD) are all doing a worse job that fascist murderer Vladimir Putin (R-Russia).I hope these governors-- and their supporters-- decide to watch 60 Minutes Sunday, a must-watch for the whole nation but Bright testified before the House Energy and Commerce's health subcommittee today. Big PhRMA shill Anna Eshoo is the chair and there are no real Democratic firebrands on the subcommittee-- although people were hoping Debbie Dingell, Peter Welch, Joe Kennedy, John Sarbanes and Nanette Barragán might step up to the plate.CNN reported, that Bright was planning on telling the committee "that the Trump administration was unprepared for the coronavirus pandemic and warn that the the US will face 'unprecedented illness and fatalities' without additional preparations. 'Our window of opportunity is closing. If we fail to develop a national coordinated response, based in science, I fear the pandemic will get far worse and be prolonged, causing unprecedented illness and fatalities... 'Without clear planning and implementation of the steps that I and other experts have outlined, 2020 will be the darkest winter in modern history.'" Someone work up nervous this morning
Bright will reiterate that he believes he was removed from his post because he "resisted efforts to promote and enable broad access to an unproven drug, chloroquine, to the American people without transparent information on the potential health risks."Bright is seeking to be reinstated to his position as the head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and the Office of Special Counsel, which is reviewing Bright's complaint, has determined there is reason to believe his removal was retaliatory and is recommending he be reinstated during its investigation, according to Bright's attorneys.A Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson responded that it was "a personnel matter that is currently under review" but said it "strongly disagrees with the allegations and characterizations."Expanding on his whistleblower complaint, Bright is expected to testify that he sought to warn his superiors about potential shortages of critical medical supplies earlier this year, but that his "urgency was dismissed" and that he "faced hostility and marginalization from HHS officials" after conveying his concerns about shortages to a senior White House official, Peter Navarro."As I reflect on the past few months of this outbreak, it is painfully clear that we were not as prepared as we should have been. We missed early warning signals and we forgot important pages from our pandemic playbook," Bright will testify, according to his written testimony.In his written testimony, Bright also calls for several key steps to improve the federal government's response to the pandemic and head off a spike in cases in the fall, including increasing public education of preventative measures, ramping up production of essential medical supplies and developing a national testing strategy."The virus is out there, it's everywhere. We need to be able to find it, to isolate it and to stop it from infecting more people," Bright plans to say. "We need tests that are accurate, rapid, easy to use, low cost, and available to everyone who needs them."
After today's congressional testimony, Aaron Blake put together a list of 5 takeaways for Washington Post readers:
1- ‘Lives were lost’ because of ‘inaction,' unheeded warningsBright said that early inaction by the government-- particularly in the Department of Health and Human Services-- had, in fact, cost lives.“That inaction has put a lot of lives at risk in our front-line health-care workers” Bright said.Bright has said that he pushed for ramping up production of medical equipment such as masks, but that it went unheeded for months after he was informed that officials didn’t think there was a “critical shortage” of masks.“I pushed that forward to the highest levels I could in HHS and got no response,” Bright said. “From that moment, I knew that we were going to have a crisis for our health-care workers because we were not taking action. We were already behind the ball. That was our last window of opportunity to turn on that production to save the lives of those health-care workers, and we didn’t act."Bright added that even today, the country is dealing with the consequences of that early negligence and that health-care workers are still more at risk than they should be.“Lives were endangered, and I believe lives were lost,” Bright said. “And not only that: We were forced to procure these supplies from other countries without the right quality standards. So even our doctors and nurses in the hospitals today are wearing N95-marked masks from other countries that are not providing the sufficient protection that a U.S.-standard N95 mask would provide them. Some of those masks are only 30 percent effective. Therefore, nurses are rushing in the hospitals thinking they’re protected, and they’re not.”2- Administration pushed vastly expanded use of unproven drugsOne of Bright’s key claims is that he was moved to another post after raising objections to the administration pushing the use of the malaria drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus.The administration allowed for the emergency use of the drugs to treat the virus, though later studies-- which have yet to be peer-reviewed and were not randomized-- suggest that the use of the drugs don’t help and can, in fact, have negative consequences. The FDA has now warned about the dangers of using the drugs...3- Pessimism about 12- to 18-month timeline for vaccinePresident Trump has been effusively optimistic about not just treatments such as the chloroquines but about the timeline for a vaccine for the virus.Shortly before Bright’s testimony Thursday, Trump even said, “I think we’re going to have a vaccine by the end of the year.”That’s even more optimistic than the 12- to 18-month timeline that medical experts such as Anthony S. Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, have said is realistic for the vaccine. But Bright said that even a year to year-and-a-half timeline might also be overly optimistic.“I still think 12 to 18 months is an aggressive schedule, and I think it’s going to take longer than that to do so,” Bright said.4- We don’t have ‘a single point of leadership’ or ‘master plan’As Trump increasingly criticized Fauci, Bright said the government needs to have more regard for it scientists-- and a more consistent message from the top.He said that right now the response has been hampered by not having a “single point of leadership.”“We need to install and empower leadership, and we need to unleash the voices of the scientists in our public health system in the United States so they can be heard and their guidances need to be listened to,” Bright said. “And we need to be able to convey that information to the American public so they have the truth about the real risk and dire consequences of this virus.He added: "And we don’t have a single point of leadership right now for this response, and we don’t have a master plan for this response. So those two things are absolutely critical.”Fauci has said in recent days that states that move forward with reopening their economies before meeting the guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are risking new outbreaks-- which could set back the entire response.5- Azar, Republicans cast Bright as a malcontent skipping workAs Bright offered one of the most significant rebukes of the federal coronavirus response to date, Republicans on the committee and members of the Trump administration sought to undercut his testimony and character. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, in particular, had strong words for Bright.“Everything he is complaining about was achieved,” Azar said while standing next to Trump on the White House lawn. “Everything he talked about was done. He says he talked about the need for respirators; we procured respirators under the president’s direction.”