I was chatting to my wife (who is from the US, and very concerned about her elderly mother in California) last night about the hopelessly inadequate response of the US federal government to the coronavirus crisis, and how it puts a big nail in the coffin of the ‘deep state’ narrative pedalled by Trump and his sycophants. After all, what kind of deep state – with its labyrinthine network of intelligence agencies and vast powers of international surveillance – misses an open goal like this? What, exactly, is a deep state for, if not to catch a crisis like the one currently unfolding?
Of course, the UK and other European countries also seem to have overlooked the seriousness of this threat, even though it’s been months in the making. But Trump’s the one who’s been obsessed with this deep state nonsense. Seems that he’s finding – to his cost – that the deep state cannot function on its own. It needs a figurehead, a competent head chef in the kitchen to keep everything cooking. And shallow frying just won’t do.
I’ve no doubt the Breitbart loons will reconfigure the narrative. Perhaps the pandemic will seen as a deep state globalist/socialist plot. But the credibility of the position is undermined each time the story is rewritten.
I’m just looking for crumbs of comfort in this growing crisis, and yearning for a return to reason.
Someone shove his head in the chip pan, please?
I read somewhere that Trump is 95% used cooking oil by weight. The remaining 5% comes from a small ganglion of nervous tissue in his crotch.
The folks coming out with this crap read too many comics and watch too much television. Life is a series of cock-ups and it’s a miracle anything happens above basic level living. To believe conspiracy talk is to not know just how difficult getting even basic things done over a group actually is. DT was not really involved in his businesses or buildings (he paid people to do the work), so he can’t be expected to be any better. He was thinking about golf, money, and who he could have sex with that night.
I agree, although Trump persists with the dog whistle deep state crap. He mentioned it last week during a press conference. In appealing to his base, he’s undermining the US effort to control the virus. What must morale be like among federal employees at the moment? Trump is playing a very dangerous game, and I wish more of his supporters would wake up to the fact.
I hear what you are saying but the death ratio to cases is much lower in the
Steve? Steve? You still there mate? Jeezus, someone get round to Steve’s gaff, he’s been cut off!
I hear what you are saying but the death ratio to cases is much lower in the USA than it is here. I think we need to put our own house in order first before slagging others off.
Also compare ratio in Germany to ours or even South Korea. This virus is exposing the flaws of our NHS despite the excellent staff who work in it.
Yes, I’m with you on that @SteveT. There will be lots of awkward questions for European politicians to answer if and when this all blows over. I’ve said elsewhere that I think Johnson’s approach has been indecisive. I don’t think he’s got the kind of gravitas needed for this crisis, and it is appalling that frontline staff are having to go into work without adequate equipment.
How the US copes with the crisis will, of course, affect the rest of us. I was just trying to expose some logical flaws in Trump’s deep state narrative, and to contrast this image of the all-powerful state machine with the bumbling response so far.
Trump’s narratives are largely made up of flaws. His whole shtick at the moment is aimed at getting him re-elected in November. I mean, what kind of dickhead boasts about his TV ratings at a time like this? (No need to answer that.) Of course life being what it is, politicians who happen to be in the saddle when this thing is licked will inevitably get an electoral bounce out of it.
Yup, you can bet the Tory upper ranks will be reading up on their techniques for Musical Pandemic Chairs, and getting ready to stab each other in the eye when that elusive chair comes vacant, while working out how to offer favours to those calling the shots when it comes time to declare the all clear.
That and the fact that he (Johnson) went on holiday for 12 days in february, while the extent of the danger was becoming clear to nearly everyone.
Let’s find out how many tests have been done per capita, and what the numbers of deaths reported are actually based on, before rushing to take the USA as some sort of paragon of safety, shall we?
There seems to be dispute even over death figures. Say a patient has chronic COPD, contracts C19, and dies with pneumonia. Some countries will log all such deaths as C19, some will put down other causes.
I have been taken aback by a headline article in this morning’s Telegraph, which implies that the UK’s daily death toll is not the death toll of the last 24 hours (I assume it is in other European countries), but the death toll from a few weeks ago, because there is a significant time lag (up to three weeks) in recording the number of deaths. Also, up until now, the official death toll has been restricted to hospital deaths. Some of these things are about to change – all deaths from coronavirus – including those at home – are now being recorded – and the time lag for recording is being reduced.
No idea how this gets pinned on the NHS. It’s the Dept of Health. The NHS can’t administer tests they don’t have and where funding has been deplorably slow to be given. And that’s despite what the Cygnus exercise showed back in 2016. I’ve yet to see anyone track down Hunt and ask him to explain their decison to do so little given what exercise is reported to have shown.
South Korea is a great example of how testing helped contain the spread. The data below suggests the US has so far conducted more or less half the tests per million of the population compared to the UK, with the UK less than half of Germany.
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-testing
‘This land of denial and death’
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/30/opinion/republicans-science-coronavirus.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
The latest More Or Less makes interesting listening:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csz3sh
As does this:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000h5l1/episodes/player
I was talking to my brother on the phone an hour ago. He is a kidney patient having dialysis three times a week and has tested positive for the virus. He can no longer go to the local hospital, Watford General, for his dialysis as they are running out of staff and can now only treat virus-free patients. He had his first dialysis session yesterday at the unit that has been set up for infected patients, at St. Charles Hospital near Ladbroke Grove. He was supposed to be picked up by taxi and taken there, but nobody turned up so he drove there. No onsite parking so he parked in the street nearby. I don’t suppose the parking wardens are going out ticketing cars currently and the police have bigger fish to fry.
A mix of experienced staff and trainees have been drafted in from the Renal Unit at Hammersmith Hospital. Their protective equipment looks like it’s been improvised by the staff themselves apart from the perspex visors they all wear when with the patients. Standards of hygiene and contamination prevention are high anyway with dialysis units, but are even higher here given the added risk.
The building is old and draughty and isolation for arriving dialysis patients from the other patients is poor because of the building’s layout. It is a local community hospital and there are still mental health and minor injury services for non-infected patients being carried out there.
My brother is currently OK with only symptoms like those of a cold. Some other patients there are much more ill. He was not happy that there seem to be no facilities for patients to get a cup of tea during the 6 hours he was there.
His next dialysis is due tomorrow but the Watford renal unit, who have responsibility for his treatment, have not confirmed an appointment for him at St. Charles’s as yet. He says he will be heading there anyway, regardless.