1/ Emotional, moving, informative and frightening story of what it's like working in an ICU unit in a New York Hospital....
Bottom line here seems to be if you need a ventilator, it's too late - you're gone....
Today wasn’t a great day. We did the best we could. It just went on and on. A lot of people just dying in front of us. Due to the nature of the crisis, there are so many sick patients overwhelming the staff. It’s very difficult to get everyone into the ICU in a timely manner. We’ve tried to deploy other physicians and medical personnel to help manage the critical-care patients on the floor, but nonetheless it’s very overwhelming.
Maybe two or three patients died upstairs in our second ICU, but a lot of the deaths are of the patients that don’t make it to the ICU who are sitting on the regular floors and unfortunately can’t come here because there are no beds.
2/ Really, really interesting post about the unfolding reality shows we get daily from our virus briefings....
I think I'm going to join "Draft Cuomo"....
As, a former journalist and media critic, I’ll bust a gut if I don’t write about the fascinating and bloodless but significant cultural television phenomenon emerging from the coronavirus tragedy.
This post is not about whether President Trump is a good President or a bad one, it’s about the way two reality shows so different from one another are both airing every day and revealing so much about our politics, culture and maybe our future.
It’s not just a question of two different press conferences, it’s really about two different ways of looking at the world.
These two regular daily television conferences about the coronavirus – one starring the President, the other Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York – could help determine who is President in the Fall, and how we as a nation respond to this staggering crisis and the next ones to come.
3/ A BBC anchor debunks a major myth - Coronavirus is the great leveler, yes the result is the same if you are rich or poor, but whether you
catch it also depends on your job.
It galls me the TV media are still covering Trump's jokefest daily live.....when the British get this...three minutes...
4/ A fascinating article from the Times about how a narcissist deals with a crisis....and boy are we going through that right now...
Since the early days of the Trump administration, an impassioned group of mental health professionals have warned the public about the president’s cramped and disordered mind, a darkened attic of fluttering bats. Their assessments have been controversial. The American Psychiatric Association’s code of ethics expressly forbids its members from diagnosing a public figure from afar.
Enough is enough. As I’ve argued before, an in-person analysis of Donald J. Trump would not reveal any hidden depths — his internal sonar could barely fathom the bottom of a sink — and these are exceptional, urgent times.
5/ Seth Meyers finds some good news....."The Kinds Of Stories We Need Right Now"....five nice minutes...
6/ The Dunning-Kruger effect is when ignorant people don't realize they are ignorant, and our "leadership" team running the country suffers bigly from this syndrome.
An excellent and disturbing article....
It was the White House coronavirus clash of the heavyweights: Dr. Anthony Fauci, perhaps the most respected public health official currently working in the US government, against Peter Navarro, an eccentric Trump economic adviser who shares the president’s anti-China obsession (and once quoted a fake version of himself named Ron Vara — an anagram for Navarro — in a book he wrote). https://www.vox.com/
7/ The future?
8/ The author Michael Lewis discusses how we are all at risk because of the inability of Trump to think longer term than one day...
The Trump administration’s failures in dealing with a global pandemic threat raise a frightening, but important, question: How else is this administration putting the United States at risk right now? And what is this administration neglecting in 2020 that will put Americans at risk five, 10, 20 years from now?
In 2017, Michael Lewis, author of books like The Big Short, Moneyball, and The Blind Side, began asking these very same questions — and arrived at some startling conclusions. “The United States government,” he writes, “manages the biggest portfolio of [catastrophic] risks ever managed by a single institution in the history of the world.” And that means the US president is, above all, the risk-manager-in-chief.
9/ The Guardian on the dimwitted and corrupt Jared Kushner managing our virus response....
The twist of fate that has cast Jared Kushner as a would-be savior in the greatest public health crisis to confront the United States in a century is a dramatic one.
The moment of national peril has been compared to September 11. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said coronavirus was her country’s greatest challenge since the second world war.
As the leader of the federal government effort to distribute emergency equipment to the states, Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, has mostly shied from the public stage, but he now is working in history’s spotlight.https://www.
10/ Jonathan Chait on Trump's obsession with hydroxychloroquine....but see the next story....
Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images/2020 The Washington Post
Trofim Lysenko was a Soviet biologist who gained the favor of Joseph Stalin by promoting pseudoscientific theories that purported to apply Marxist-Leninist theory to biology. Lysenko’s insight was to dismiss the burgeoning field of genetics as a capitalist lie, and to posit a socialist alternative theory of biology that refused to accept that plants were bound by any such thing as “genes.” Orange trees would flourish in Siberia, he promised Stalin.
11/ Why is Trump pushing hydroxychloroquine? Follow the money....
Donald Trump only cares about Donald Trump. He doesn't care about you or the country. He only cares about exploiting this crisis to bail out his business and to get himself re-elected, thereby shielding himself from a series of indictments that surely await him if he loses. The sooner we embrace this easily-observable fact about Trump, the better equipped we'll be to evaluate his decisions during these overlapping health and financial calamities.
The "Trump is all about Trump" maxim goes a long way to explaining his obsessive beer-funneling of a malaria drug called hydroxychloroquine down the gullets of COVID-19 victims.
12/ Umair with his usual provocative essay - "America is a failed state"....his arguments seem a little more real in this one......
About a decade ago, I suggested that America was becoming a failed state. The pundits, instantly, went bananas. I think I was attacked in the New York Times and Vox and whatnot for that — or maybe it was for something else. No matter. My point was simple: all the major indicators of social progress in America were beginning to implode, from abstract ones, like trust to happiness, to hard-as-nails ones, like savings to income. America was becoming a society which was beginning to be unable to provide even the basics of life for its citizens anymore. What was going to happen to it?
Over the following decade, my thesis was proven grimly true.
13/ Excellent column from Frank Bruni on Trump's lack of empathy....
Do you remember President George W. Bush’s remarks at Ground Zero in Manhattan after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks? I can still hear him speaking of national grief and national pride. This was before all the awful judgment calls and fatal mistakes, and it doesn’t excuse them. But it mattered, because it reassured us that our country’s leader was navigating some of the same emotional currents that we were.
14/ The cruise industry, which I love and grew up in is well and truly in the shit....
First, there was the Diamond Princess, stranded off the coast of Japan as the coronavirus infected hundreds of passengers. Then the Westerdam, circling in the sea for days with nowhere to dock. Then the Grand Princess, the Costa Luminosa and the Zaandam.
Cruise ships have been a focal point of the coronavirus pandemic from the beginning, widely blamed for a series of major outbreaks that spread the disease across the world.
Now, the companies that own those ships face a potential financial catastrophe
15/ Some British TV for you....
Across cooking shows and talent competitions, murder mysteries and political satire, British television has earned a reputation for quality. With streaming sites competing for viewers, and many of us at home with more time on our hands, it’s never been easier to find and watch the best of it
16/ If you get the Covid-19 bug.....read this....advice from a nurse.
Since they are calling on Respiratory therapists to help fight the Corona virus, and I am a retired one, too old to work in a hospital setting so I'm going to share some common sense wisdom with those that have the virus and trying to stay home. If my advice is followed as given you will improve your chances of not ending up in the hospital on a ventilator. This applies to the otherwise generally healthy population, so use discretion.
1. Only high temperatures kill a virus, so let your fever run high. Tylenol, Advil. Motrin, Ibuprofen etc. will bring your fever down allowing the virus to live longer. They are saying that ibuprophen, advil etc will actually exacerbate the virus. Use common sense and don't let fever go over 103 or 104 if you got the guts. If it gets higher than that take your tylenol, not ibuprophen or advil to keep it regulated. It helps to keep house warm and cover up with blankets so body does not have to work so hard to generate the heat. It usually takes about 3 days of this to break the fever.
2. The body is going to dehydrate with the elevated temperature so you must rehydrate yourself regulaly, whether you like it or not. Gatorade with real sugar, or pedialyte with real sugar for kids, works well. Why the sugar? Sugar will give your body back the energy it is using up to create the fever. The electrolytes and fluid you are losing will also be replenished by the Gatorade. If you don't do this and end up in the hospital they will start an IV and give you D5W (sugar water) and Normal Saline to replenish electrolytes. Gatorade is much cheaper, pain free, and comes in an assortment of flavors
3. You must keep your lungs moist. Best done by taking long steamy showers on a regular basis, if your wheezing or congested use a real minty toothpaste and brush your teeth while taking the steamy shower and deep breath through your mouth. This will provide some bronchial dialation and help loosen the phlegm. Force your self to cough into a wet wash cloth pressed firmly over your mouth and nose, which will cause greater pressure in your lungs forcing them to expand more and break loose more of the congestion.
4. Eat healthy and regularly. Gotta keep your strength up.
5. Once the fever breaks, start moving around to get the body back in shape and blood circulating.
6. Deep breath on a regular basis, even when it hurts. If you don't it becomes easy to develope pneumonia. Pursed lip breathing really helps. That's breathing in deep and slow then exhaling through tight lips as if your blowing out a candle, blow until you have completely emptied your lungs and you will be able to breath in an even deeper breath. This helps keep lungs expanded as well as increase your oxygen level.
7. Remember that every medication you take is merely relieving the symptoms, not making you well.
8. If you're still dying go to ER.
I've been doing these things for myself and my family for over 40 years and kept them out of the hospital, all are healthy and still living today.
Thank you all for sharing. We gotta help one another. Copy and paste this. It can help someone.
Todays religious joke
In a small town, here in the mountains, a band of squirrels had become quite a problem especially around local places of worship.
The Presbyterian church called a meeting to decide what to do about their squirrel infestation. After much prayer and consideration, they concluded that the squirrels were predestined to be there, and they shouldn't interfere with God's divine will.
At the Baptist church the squirrels had taken an interest in the baptistery. The deacons met and decided to put a water-slide on the baptistery and let the squirrels drown themselves. The squirrels liked the slide and unfortunately, knew instinctively how to swim, so twice as many squirrels showed up the following week.
The Lutheran church decided that they were not in a position to harm any of God's creatures. So, they humanely trapped their squirrels and set them free near the Baptist church. Two weeks later the squirrels were back when the Baptists took down the water-slide.
The Episcopalians tried a much more unique path by setting out pans of whiskey around their church in an effort to kill the squirrels with alcohol poisoning. They sadly learned how much damage a band of drunk squirrels can do.
But the Catholic church came up with a more very creative strategy! They baptized all the squirrels and made them members of the church. Now they only see them at Christmas and Easter.
And not much was heard from the Jewish synagogue. They took the first squirrel and circumcised him. They haven't seen a squirrel since.
Todays Lone Ranger joke
The Lone Ranger and Tonto went camping in the desert.
After they got their tent all set up, both men fell sound asleep.
Some hours later, Tonto wakes the Lone Ranger and says,
'Kemo Sabe, look towards sky, what you see?'
'The Lone Ranger replies, 'I see millions of stars.'
'What that tell you?' asked Tonto.
The Lone Ranger ponders for a minute then says, 'Astronomically speaking, it tells me there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, it tells me that Saturn is in Leo. Time wise, it appears to be approximately a quarter past three in the morning. Theologically, the Lord is all-powerful and we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, it seems we will have a beautiful day tomorrow.
What's it tell you, Tonto?'
'You dumber than buffalo. It means someone stole the tent'
After they got their tent all set up, both men fell sound asleep.
Some hours later, Tonto wakes the Lone Ranger and says,
'Kemo Sabe, look towards sky, what you see?'
'The Lone Ranger replies, 'I see millions of stars.'
'What that tell you?' asked Tonto.
The Lone Ranger ponders for a minute then says, 'Astronomically speaking, it tells me there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, it tells me that Saturn is in Leo. Time wise, it appears to be approximately a quarter past three in the morning. Theologically, the Lord is all-powerful and we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, it seems we will have a beautiful day tomorrow.
What's it tell you, Tonto?'
'You dumber than buffalo. It means someone stole the tent'
Todays quarantine jokes....
Half of us are going to come out of this quarantine as amazing cooks. The other half will come out with a drinking problem.
I used to spin that toilet paper like I was on Wheel of Fortune. Now I turn it like I'm cracking a safe.
I need to practice social-distancing from the refrigerator.
Still haven't decided where to go for Easter ----- The Living Room or The Bedroom.
PSA: every few days try your jeans on just to make sure they fit. Pajamas will have you believe all is well in the kingdom.
Homeschooling is going well, 2 students suspended for fighting and 1 teacher fired for drinking on the job.
I don't think anyone expected that when we changed the clocks we'd go from Standard Time to the Twilight Zone
This morning I saw a neighbor talking to her cat. It was obvious she thought her cat understood her. I came into my house,told my dogs..... we laughed a lot.
So, after this quarantine.....will the producers of My 600 Pound Life just find me or do I find them?
Quarantine Day 5: Went to this restaurant called THE KITCHEN. You have to gather all the ingredients and make your own meal. I have no clue how this place is still in business.
My body has absorbed so much soap and disinfectant lately that when I pee it cleans the toilet.
Day 5 of Homeschooling: One of these little monsters called in a bomb threat.
I'm so excited --- it's time to take out the garbage. What should I wear?
I hope the weather is good tomorrow for my trip to Puerto Backyarda. I'm getting tired of Los Livingroom.
Classified Ad: Single man with toilet paper seeks woman with hand sanitizer for good clean fun.
Day 6 of Homeschooling: My child just said "I hope I don't have the same teacher next year".... I'm a little offended.
Better 6 feet apart than 6 feet under.
I used to spin that toilet paper like I was on Wheel of Fortune. Now I turn it like I'm cracking a safe.
I need to practice social-distancing from the refrigerator.
Still haven't decided where to go for Easter ----- The Living Room or The Bedroom.
PSA: every few days try your jeans on just to make sure they fit. Pajamas will have you believe all is well in the kingdom.
Homeschooling is going well, 2 students suspended for fighting and 1 teacher fired for drinking on the job.
I don't think anyone expected that when we changed the clocks we'd go from Standard Time to the Twilight Zone
This morning I saw a neighbor talking to her cat. It was obvious she thought her cat understood her. I came into my house,told my dogs..... we laughed a lot.
So, after this quarantine.....will the producers of My 600 Pound Life just find me or do I find them?
Quarantine Day 5: Went to this restaurant called THE KITCHEN. You have to gather all the ingredients and make your own meal. I have no clue how this place is still in business.
My body has absorbed so much soap and disinfectant lately that when I pee it cleans the toilet.
Day 5 of Homeschooling: One of these little monsters called in a bomb threat.
I'm so excited --- it's time to take out the garbage. What should I wear?
I hope the weather is good tomorrow for my trip to Puerto Backyarda. I'm getting tired of Los Livingroom.
Classified Ad: Single man with toilet paper seeks woman with hand sanitizer for good clean fun.
Day 6 of Homeschooling: My child just said "I hope I don't have the same teacher next year".... I'm a little offended.
Better 6 feet apart than 6 feet under.
Todays Marriage jokes
My wife and I were watching Who Wants To Be A Millionaire while we were in bed.
I turned to her and said, 'Do you want to have Sex?'
'No,' she answered.
I then said, 'Is that your final answer?'
I turned to her and said, 'Do you want to have Sex?'
'No,' she answered.
I then said, 'Is that your final answer?'
... She didn't even look at me this time, simply saying, 'Yes..'
So I said, "Then I'd like to phone a friend."
So I said, "Then I'd like to phone a friend."
And that's when the fight started...
______________________________
I took my wife to a restaurant.
The waiter, for some reason, took my order first.
"I'll have the rump steak, rare, please."
He said, "Aren't you worried about the mad cow?"
"Nah, she can order for herself."
He said, "Aren't you worried about the mad cow?"
"Nah, she can order for herself."
And that's when the fight started.....
_____________________________
My wife and I were sitting at a table at her high school
reunion, and she kept staring at a drunken man swigging his
drink as he sat alone at a nearby table.
reunion, and she kept staring at a drunken man swigging his
drink as he sat alone at a nearby table.
I asked her, "Do you know him?"
"Yes", she sighed,
"He's my old boyfriend. I understand he took to drinking
right after we split up those many years ago, and I hear he
hasn't been sober since."
"Yes", she sighed,
"He's my old boyfriend. I understand he took to drinking
right after we split up those many years ago, and I hear he
hasn't been sober since."
"My God!" I said, "Who would think a person could go on
celebrating that long?"
celebrating that long?"
And then the fight started...
______________________________
When our lawn mower broke and wouldn't run, my wife kept hinting to me that I should get it fixed.
But, somehow I always had something else to take care of first, the shed, the boat,
making beer.. Always something more important to me.
But, somehow I always had something else to take care of first, the shed, the boat,
making beer.. Always something more important to me.
Finally she thought of a clever way to make her point.
When I arrived home one day, I found her seated in the tall grass, busily snipping away with a tiny pair of sewing
scissors. I watched silently for a short time and then went into
the house. I was gone only a minute, and when I came out again
I handed her a toothbrush.
When I arrived home one day, I found her seated in the tall grass, busily snipping away with a tiny pair of sewing
scissors. I watched silently for a short time and then went into
the house. I was gone only a minute, and when I came out again
I handed her a toothbrush.
I said, "When you finish cutting the
grass, you might as well sweep the driveway."
grass, you might as well sweep the driveway."
The doctors say I will walk again, but I will always have a limp.
_____________________________
My wife sat down next to me as I was flipping channels.
She asked, "What's on TV?"
I said, "Dust."
She asked, "What's on TV?"
I said, "Dust."
And then the fight started...
______________________________
Saturday morning I got up early, quietly dressed, made my lunch, and slipped quietly into the garage. I hooked up the
boat up to the van and proceeded to back out into a torrential
downpour. The wind was blowing 50 mph, so I pulled back into the garage, turned on the radio, and discovered that the weather
would be bad all day.
boat up to the van and proceeded to back out into a torrential
downpour. The wind was blowing 50 mph, so I pulled back into the garage, turned on the radio, and discovered that the weather
would be bad all day.
I went back into the house, quietly undressed, and slipped back into bed. I cuddled up to my wife's back;
now with a different anticipation,
and whispered, "The weather out there is terrible."
now with a different anticipation,
and whispered, "The weather out there is terrible."
My loving wife of 5 years replied, "And, can you believe my stupid husband is out fishing in that?"
And that's how the fight started...
______________________________
My wife was hinting about what she wanted for our upcoming anniversary.
She said, "I want something shiny that goes from 0 to 150 in about 3 seconds."
She said, "I want something shiny that goes from 0 to 150 in about 3 seconds."
I bought her a bathroom scale.
And then the fight started......
______________________________
After retiring, I went to the Social Security office to apply
for Social Security. The woman behind the counter asked me
for Social Security. The woman behind the counter asked me
for my driver's License to verify my age. I looked in my pockets
and realized I had left my wallet at home. I told the woman that
I was very sorry, but I would have to go home and come back later.
The woman said, 'Unbutton your shirt'.
So I opened my shirt revealing my curly silver hair.
So I opened my shirt revealing my curly silver hair.
She said, 'That silver hair on your chest is proof enough for me' and she processed my Social Security application.
When I got home, I excitedly told my wife about my experience at the Social Security office.
She said, 'You should have dropped
your pants. You might have gotten disability too.'
your pants. You might have gotten disability too.'
And then the fight started...
______________________________
My wife was standing nude, looking in the bedroom mirror.
She was not happy with what she saw and said to me,
"I feel horrible; I look old, fat and ugly. I really need you
to pay me a compliment.'
"I feel horrible; I look old, fat and ugly. I really need you
to pay me a compliment.'
I replied, "Your eyesight's damn near perfect."
And then the fight started........
______________________________
I rear-ended a car this morning...the start of a REALLY bad day!
The driver got out of the other car, and he was a DWARF!!
He looked up at me and said 'I am NOT Happy!'
So I said, 'Well, which one ARE you then?'
He looked up at me and said 'I am NOT Happy!'
So I said, 'Well, which one ARE you then?'
That's how the fight started.
______________________________
One year, I decided to buy my mother-in-law a cemetery plot
as a Christmas gift...
as a Christmas gift...
The next year, I didn't buy her a gift.
When she asked me why, I replied,
"Well, you still haven't used the gift I bought you last year!"
When she asked me why, I replied,
"Well, you still haven't used the gift I bought you last year!"
And that's how the fight started.
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