https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/01/canada-trudeau-coronavirus-response-407143
Trudeau's plan to revive Canada — prime minister is building a Covid-19 recovery plan he hopes will "change the future"
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, trying to leave months of political controversy behind, is pushing an ambitious and costly new plan to revive both Canada and his political future.
Trudeau spent summer on the defensive, getting hammered by a contracting controversy that saw him testify before Parliament as the opposition called for his ouster. He’s now looking to secure his legacy and his party’s political future with a yet-to-be-released pandemic recovery plan that would transform Canada’s social safety net and make the country’s economy cleaner and greener.
And he’s daring the opposition to take down his minority government.
Talk of a fall election is flying in Canada, with some suggesting it would suit Trudeau well to campaign on this new mandate while the rival Conservative party is still introducing a brand new leader to Canadians. The Liberals insist they’re not looking to send Canadians to the polls. But as one senior government official said in an interview, “If we’re forced to fight an election over this agenda, it should be an agenda we’re proud of fighting for.”
The challenge for Trudeau now is to convince the public he has the ability to manage an economic recovery that will involve massive new spending, especially in the wake of a scandal concerning a nearly C$1 billion grant program. He and his newly minted finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, must gauge whether Canadians will continue to accept huge deficits, as the country’s federal debt is set to top C$1 trillion for the first time. And he must find a balance between reforms to social programs that are now top-of-mind for many Canadians and a green agenda he promised not to abandon at the start of the pandemic.
“We will be putting forward an ambitious and responsible vision of how to build Canada back better,” Trudeau said Monday, “whether it’s inequities within our systems, whether it’s the challenge of going greener, whether it’s the challenge of fairness or of efficiency and growth.”
Covid-19 has exposed gaps in Canada’s social services, including an antiquated employment insurance system that was ill-equipped to support the millions of Canadians who lost work at the start of the crisis. The virus has also disproportionately affected women, who are more likely to leave their jobs in the absence of good options for safe child care. And the pandemic ravaged many of Canada’s long-term care homes, forcing Ottawa to send in the army to care for seniors living in appalling conditions.
These are among the issues Trudeau wants to tackle in his long-term recovery plan. In August, he abruptly shut down Canada’s Parliament for five weeks, promising to reset the government’s agenda in a speech from the throne on Sept. 23. Those remarks will trigger a confidence vote his minority government must win to survive. After several months dominated by scandal, it’s a chance to turn the page.
But the “bold new solutions” Trudeau is envisioning won’t come cheap.
The senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the federal deficit — pegged at a record C$343 billion this year — will likely rise again before it comes down. The current crisis “demands an activist government,” the official said, claiming big spending can be justified for the time being due to historically low interest rates.
However, Trudeau’s response to the pandemic, largely well-received by Canadians during the early months, came under fire this summer thanks to a C$900 million student grant program that was outsourced to an organization with ties to Trudeau’s family and to his then-finance minister, Bill Morneau. Morneau resigned last month amid rumors of a falling-out between him and Trudeau over the pandemic response, and was replaced by Freeland, who had previously stickhandled the Canada-U.S. relationship through the USMCA negotiations.
The scandal, involving the Toronto-based WE Charity, was the latest of several ethical controversies involving the prime minister.
“I think those that were already prone to thinking that Justin Trudeau had ethical challenges, this will cement that observation,” said Kate Harrison, a consultant and former Conservative staffer.
The controversy has also left room for the opposition to cast doubt on whether the Liberals are best positioned to manage the economic recovery.
“[Trudeau] has used the crisis as an excuse to help his friends, yet again,” said Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole during a news conference last week, shortly after he was elected leader on Aug. 24. “It’s time to stop catering to insiders and special interests. It’s time to put working Canadians first.” The Conservatives have also accused Trudeau of proroguing Parliament to shut down committee investigations of the scandal.
Still, it’s not clear the WE controversy will seriously damage the Liberals’ electoral prospects. In fact, recent polling suggests Trudeau would fare well in a fall election, and that the Conservatives have not seen a bump in support since O’Toole’s victory.
For the time being, the Liberals also benefit from the fact that O’Toole is relatively unknown and will need time to sell Canadians on his vision for the pandemic recovery. A former military officer who served as veterans affairs minister in the Conservative government of Stephen Harper, O’Toole won the leadership after campaigning to the right of his chief rival, former cabinet minister Peter MacKay. He now has to unite his own party and find a way to broaden its appeal.
O’Toole has acknowledged he’s not well-known in Canada, but is trying to use that to set himself apart from Trudeau. “I have no famous name,” he likes to say. “I just fight for Canadians.”
On the Covid-19 response, the Conservatives will walk a fine line between advocating fiscal responsibility and recognizing that many Canadians want to see changes to the social safety net and aren’t overly concerned about big deficits.
Harrison said the challenge for the party is not to oppose all new spending and “come across as angry Scrooges,” but to provide “targeted support to the most vulnerable as opposed to providing nationalized plans.”
“[O’Toole] knows it’s not enough to just criticize what the Liberals are doing,” she said. “What is the alternative vision you’re going to put in the window?”
The Conservative leader has made clear he’s not looking for an election this fall, but has suggested the Liberals may try to send Canadians to the polls. “If Mr. Trudeau thinks he can play some games with a new leader and force an election, we will be ready,” O’Toole said last week.
To date, only one party — the sovereigntist Bloc Québécois — has spoken openly about trying to force an election. Harrison said the prospect of winning a majority government before O’Toole has had a chance to build his brand might appeal to the Liberals, but the possibility of a second wave of Covid-19 would likely turn voters off the idea of heading to the polls anytime soon. The U.S. election in November is another deterrent, she said. “I think it’s still pretty low likelihood.”
Trudeau says the Liberals don't want an election but are looking instead for parliamentarians to approve their new mandate. “When we return … we will be putting the vision of this government for a better, greener, stronger Canada to a vote in the House of Commons,” he said Monday. “That is democracy in action.”
To win that vote, they will need the support of only one opposition party, and currently, the left-of-center New Democratic Party (NDP) seems most likely to give it.
“We’re not looking for an election,” NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said in an interview. “We’re looking to keep on fighting for people.”
Singh is calling for the federal government to spend more on schools, child care and fighting climate change — issues that dovetail with Trudeau’s own talking points. The NDP has largely supported the Liberals through the pandemic, though Singh said his party has forced the government to expand financial aid to more people, including students, seniors and people with disabilities.
Singh, like Trudeau, believes this is a moment for big change. “There’s decisions we can make now to help us recover that will actually help transform the next couple decades,” he said.
Still, winning parliamentary approval is only one part of the challenge ahead. The Liberals seem ready to bet that Canadians will welcome more spending if it will fill some of the holes laid bare by the pandemic. But the response of some business groups to the idea of big outlays on social and environmental initiatives is decidedly more cautious, particularly given the national debt is projected to top C$1.2 trillion by March.
“The economic recovery is going to be business-led,” said Trevin Stratton, chief economist with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. “Now that we’re starting to reopen, we need to have a plan to transition away from some of the emergency subsidies and focus on growth.”
Stratton said the government needs to “look closely at what is the return on investment” of any stimulus spending, and said Ottawa should cut regulatory gridlock to help the economy bounce back.
Trudeau must also decide how much weight to put on a climate-focused recovery, when issues like employment insurance and child care have suddenly gained new urgency.
Despite having made noises about a green recovery for months, the Liberals have yet to announce anything concrete. A number of advocacy groups have been calling for big spending on building retrofits, zero-emission vehicles and long-term investments in areas like hydrogen production. But it may be tricky to demonstrate how these initiatives benefit those hardest hit by the pandemic, including women and people with low incomes or precarious work.
Sarah Petrevan, policy director with Clean Energy Canada, claimed a clean recovery package will address equity issues as well — home retrofits lead to cost savings, she pointed out. “Certainly, this government has made it clear that any economic recovery package is going to be clean,” she said.
Last December, after the Liberals were reelected with a minority government, Canada’s governor general delivered a speech from the throne that focused in part on the Liberals’ ambitious new target to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Days later, the first Covid-19 cases would be reported in Wuhan, China.
“The throne speech we gave eight months ago had no mention of Covid-19, had no mention of rebuilding an economy devastated … by a terrible global pandemic,” Trudeau said Monday, by way of explanation for the parliamentary reset.
The prime minister clearly still wants to be responsible for historic change, though the goalposts have shifted. “This is our moment to change the future for the better,” he said last month. “We can’t afford to miss it because this window of opportunity won’t be open for long.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/03/contact-tracing-conspiracy-theories-trump-messaging-408611?cid=covid_m
>https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/03/contact-tracing-conspiracy-theories-trump-messaging-408611
Contact tracing foiled by conspiracy theories, lack of federal messaging
A total of 14 states and New York City supplied POLITICO contact tracing results showing widespread public reluctance to participate in disease tracking.
Large numbers of Covid-19 patients are refusing to tell public health workers whom they've had contact with, thwarting state efforts to slow disease spread at a fragile turnaround in the pandemic.
Contact tracing data provided to POLITICO shows more than three-quarters of people interviewed in hard-hit states like California and Louisiana refused to cooperate with efforts to identify relatives or acquaintances who may have been exposed to the disease.
Tracing programs, paired with expansive testing, have been credited with controlling the spread of Covid-19 in countries like South Korea and New Zealand. But state officials and public health experts say U.S. efforts have been undercut by the Trump administration's failure to advocate tracing. Conspiracy theories linking interviews to government plots to set up surveillance cameras and gun confiscations haven't helped. That lingering distrust could hinder immunization programs once a Covid-19 vaccine is found.
“We’ve had people worry that we’re the FBI or other government agencies,” said Kirstin Short, bureau chief of epidemiology at the Houston Health Department. "It’s a challenge we’ve been fighting for a number of years since the change in the federal administration.”
POLITICO requested tracing data from all of the states showing the percentage of confirmed cases tracers reached and interviews that ended with information on contacts. A total of 14 states and New York City supplied results showing widespread public reluctance to participate in disease tracking as officials were tracking new hot spots and trying to prevent uncontrolled spread. Only a few, including Massachusetts and Vermont, have persuaded the majority of their Covid-positive residents to reveal who they may have infected.
Tracing efforts got off to a slow start this spring, as states like Georgia, Texas and Colorado that moved fastest to reopen struggled to find enough health workers to follow new outbreaks. Meanwhile, the Trump administration did little to explain the process while the president downplayed the virus threat and contradicted government scientists.
“The more you begin to politicize the public health part of this response, the more likely it is that you will come up against some really strong public opinion about what it is you are trying to do,” said Lori Freeman, chief executive officer of the National Association of County and City Health Officials.
Louisiana, which had the highest per capita rate of confirmed coronavirus cases, managed to get information on contacts from only about 17 percent of the people it contacted since May 15. The state's approximately 700 contact tracers were frequently swamped with new cases over the summer and faced delays getting test results before they could interview patients.
Local health departments in California that report to a state database were able to obtain contacts from an average of 23.4 percent of people they interviewed from July 5to and 25. Some respondents wouldn't share information out of fear they'd miss work, while immigrants worried the personal information could be shared with federal authorities.
In contrast, Massachusetts had 80.6 percent response rate from April 10, when its tracing program began, to Aug. 19. The state this spring struck a tracing collaboration with the nonprofit Partners in Health, which has experience responding to epidemics and disease outbreaks in Africa and the Caribbean.
A spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledged that many state health departments face challenges, adding his agency is currently advising several state and local health departments and has developed public service announcements and social media messaging to encourage cooperation. The agency did not respond to questions about when and where the spots are airing.
Health officials and experts are pressing for more high-profile campaigns — from radio and TV ads to billboards, digital alerts or even personal appeals from President Donald Trump or Vice President Mike Pence. But other than a handful of supportive social media posts from CDC Director Robert Redfield and some suggested best practices, the Trump administration has been largely silent.
White House spokesperson Judd Deere said contact tracing is a core responsibility in Trump's guidelines for reopening and "has great value when it’s of and within communities and can be part of counseling and testing to ensure people are informed on how best to protect themselves and their loved ones, slowing community spread."
Still, public health observers are concerned about the federal role in the stagnating tracing efforts. “It just reflects the continued absence of federal leadership on this issue,” said Jeffrey Klausner, a former San Francisco public health official who successfully promoted contact tracing for sexually-transmitted diseases. “Everything's been delegated to states, and states just don't have the resources. They don't have the budget for social marketing or awareness campaigns.”
The lack of messaging is intersecting with other factors that discourage cooperation with tracers. A proliferation of spam calls has made people increasingly unwilling to pick up a call from an unknown number — a barrier some states have circumvented through text messages or a “health department” caller ID.
Even when tracers do reach people who’ve tested positive, they often meet with suspicion. Health officials and experts blame the federal government’s lack of involvement — and Trump's willingness to minimize the risk and allow some of his political allies to disparage and contradict government scientists’ recommendations.
Frequent White House guest and Fox News host Laura Ingraham has criticized contact tracing, calling it an “excuse” to delay reopening businesses and comparing a phone call from a tracer to being “groped” by a TSA worker at the airport.
Trump lawyer and confidant Rudy Giuliani has also mocked contact tracing, while several state and local GOP officials and candidates have boasted about refusing to provide information after testing positive and called the practice “communist.”
Pradheep Shanker, a conservative physician and policy analyst, said he encountered resistance to contact tracing from right-leaning officials when he had tried to advocate robust programs in Michigan and Ohio. “Their instinct is to oppose it,” he wrote in an email to POLITICO.
The problem extends to far-right websites and forums. Some have warned that contact tracing is a ruse to take away Americans’ guns, or that the government is going to place cameras outside homes to ensure people are remaining in quarantine.
There’s also been a wave of disinformation about legislation by Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) that would allocate $100 billion for a national contact tracing program, with false claims proliferating that the bill would enable government agents to test and force citizens into quarantine.
With some adherents to the QAnon conspiracy already combing the internet for supposed links between Democrats and satanic practices, the bill’s number, H.R. 6666 (116), hasn’t helped matters.
Rush told POLITICO that social media platforms need to do more fact checking and take down such posts, adding the Trump administration should also be speaking out more to its conservative base.
“But I think the best way to deal with a lie is with the truth,” he said. “We have to be aggressive in letting people know what contact tracing really is and how important it is for the American people.”
Beyond disinformation, the coronavirus has spread so widely in some areas that tracing may be futile, because residents can't be sure which infected people who didn't show symptoms gave it to others.
“Once you have community transmission like this, you’re not going to be able to identify contacts, and you have to move to more of a mitigation strategy,” said Karen Landers, Alabama’s assistant state health officer.
Fallout from the economic crash and fears of an eroding safety also factor in participation, making some reluctant to divulge names of acquaintances knowing the person cannot afford to miss work in order to quarantine.
The low response rates are also colliding with recent CDC guidelines recommending against testing asymptomatic individuals who may have been exposed. Public health experts worry the change will further confuse people about testing and the virus’ incubation period.
In Houston, one of the hardest-hit areas in the country, Short said her team recently confronted a person who received a negative test result four days after her documented exposure and wanted to go back to work, against the advice of the health department.
“Luckily she did agree to stay home,” Short said. “Then, it got to about Day 12 and she decided to go get tested again before going back to work. Lo and behold, she tested positive. She said her first thought was: ‘What if I had gone back to work? I would have put so many people at risk.’”
But that education can’t happen if people don’t answer the phone or are not willing to talk to tracers.
Freeman, whose organization represents nearly 3,000 health departments around the country, said widespread “virus fatigue” is suppressing participation as the pandemic drags on.
“They don't want to have anything to do with the virus anymore and they say, ‘I'm tired of sheltering in place. I've lost my income. I don't want to help you anymore. I’ve helped you enough,’” she said.
>With some adherents to the QAnon conspiracy already combing the internet for supposed links between Democrats and satanic practices, the bill’s number, H.R. 6666 (116), hasn’t helped matters.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/6666
H.R.6666 - COVID-19 Testing, Reaching, And Contacting Everyone (TRACE) Act
This bill authorizes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to award grants for testing, contact tracing, monitoring, and other activities to address COVID-19 (i.e., coronavirus disease 2019). Entities such as federally qualified health centers, nonprofit organizations, and certain hospitals and schools are eligible to receive such grants. In awarding the grants, the CDC shall prioritize applicants that (1) operate in hot spots and medically underserved communities, and (2) agree to hire individuals from the communities where grant activities occur.
nothing gets past me
https://apnews.com/619efb65b9eeec5650f011b960a152e9
UN says new polio outbreak in Sudan caused by oral vaccine
In a statement this week, WHO said two children in Sudan — one from South Darfur state and the other from Gedarif state, close to the border with Ethiopia and Eritrea — were paralyzed in March and April. Both had been recently vaccinated against polio. WHO said initial outbreak investigations show the cases are linked to an ongoing vaccine-derived outbreak in Chad that was first detected last year and is now spreading in Chad and Cameroon.
https://www.who.int/csr/don/01-september-2020-polio-sudan/en/
>https://www.who.int/csr/don/01-september-2020-polio-sudan/en/
https://voat.co/v/QRV/4006765
>https://twitter.com/arthurschwartz/status/1301877856818135040
Mattis knows he might end up in prison if Trump’s DoD continues investigating the payments he received to push the $10 billion Amazon cloud contract / Bezos handout.
Dunford is on the board of Lockheed — War, Inc.
That’s why we got that nonsense story in The Atlantic.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/predicate-fear/616009/
Why Trump Supporters Can’t Admit Who He Really Is
http://polioeradication.org/polio-today/polio-prevention/the-virus/vaccine-derived-polio-viruses/
Vaccine-derived polioviruses
To eradicate polio, we need to stop all strains of the virus, including vaccine-derived polioviruses. This short video explains how these rare virus strains emerge and how to stop them.
Well I know one thing
I am not perfect
I have my past to prove it
Should I go around
pointing fingers
a hypocrite I’d be
Now how can you hate a man
who clearly loves his country
I heard he’s doing it for free
at least that’s what I see
that’s what I see
and in these turbulent times
how can you just stand by
and watch him
take all the blame
I’ve had enough of
standing on the sidelines
Gonna get my skin in the game
how can you hate a man
who clearly loves his country
He’s not perfect but then again
neither are you or me
that’s what I see
I see
how can you hate a man
that’s draining the swamp and
exposing all the greed
at least that’s what I
I see
that’s what I see
>not white guy speaking is standing around all these armed and amped-up cops, but is NOT in fear for his life