Dying in a leadership vaccum

OH. MY. GOD! In 40 years of career as a healthcare professional, I had never seen something like this. The New England Journal of Medicine, for the FIRST time in its 208 prestigious years (one of the top 5 medical journals in the world), took a political position against a sitting POTUS.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2029812?query=featured_home

This is a very powerful editorial and it was signed by EVERY editor! Certainly some of these people are conservatives. But as medical scientists, they can't stay silent in view of the utter failure of this administration in containing the highest threat to American public health in the last 120 years.

You need to read this attentively, folks. It's pretty impressive.

Scientific America also took a stance against the Trump administration, also a first in the journal's 175 years of existence.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientific-american-endorses-joe-biden1/

Trump loves the uneducated. Good, because we, the educated, do not love him.

 

From your first link .....

Let’s be clear about the cost of not taking even simple measures. An outbreak that has disproportionately affected communities of color has exacerbated the tensions associated with inequality.

With that, it's clear that the NEJM is playing outside it's sandbox. No wonder everybody signed on. We've all seen the consequences in today's environment for those that don't get in lockstep over "wokeness".

With that, I'll put the Journal's opinion where it belongs..... in the wastebasket.

 

Oh, yeah, those medical professionals and doctors are just Hard Left Democrats who have been just dying to disparage Trump and his Republicans!
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NOT! Lol!

 

I didnt say that. They do all likely want to keep their jobs, however.

 

Here, for anybody that wants to compare what our government did in the first 100 days of COVID .....

https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2020/05/the-first-100-days-of-the-u-s-governments-covid-19-response/

And for Biden's comments during roughly the same time frame ....

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/09/bidens-early-statements-about-the-coronavirus/

 

Yeah, man, shoot the messenger. Do ignore that the majority of doctors in positions of leadership are conservatives...

What the journal is saying is factual. Are you disputing the fact that the outbreak has disproportionately affected communities of color? That's a fact.

But see, you cling to this small point... ignoring all that the journal has said about how wiser countries dealt with the outbreak. Is this reasonable? Do you care to actually refute something that they said about the outbreak and its lack of control?

I mean, I know, when you can't defend your side, you need to attack some minor point to obfuscate and distract. You seem to be a former student of Trump University. He taught you well.

And you throw the editorial to the wastebasket? Do you have any idea of the vast experience, knowledge, and expertise that the Editorial Board of the NEJM accumulates? When such an exquisite body of the highest experts in the world issues an unanimous opinion, it would be wise to listen...

 

What jobs? Do you think that the Editors are paid by the journal? This betrays a lack of familiarity with how medical journals operate. Being an editor of the NEJM is honorable and the editors are typically paid by their own universities, and donate time to the journal. These are almost always tenured professors who can NOT be fired because of an opinion they agreed or disagreed with, published by a medical journal. Uh, nope. Come up with some other explanation for your far-fetched claim, because job keeping is not it.

 

Hm... this results in an interesting dilemma. Who should I believe?

On one hand, there's the Editors of the freaking New England Journal of Medicine, one of the five most prestigious medical journals in the world, whose Editor-in-Chief, Eric Rubin, MD, PhD, is the freaking Chairman of the Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at the Harvard University School of Public Health. Huh, someone who might know a thing or two about... a freaking infectious disease that is affecting American's public health... plus a long list of the most prestigious doctors in the nation, many of whom are also Chairmen of important departments in leading medical schools.

On the other hand, there's Woogs, Internet Warrior.

[CenterField thinks... weighs carefully the two hands, moves them up and down a little, compares... Dr. Rubin and the NEJM... or Woogs... Woogs... or Dr. Rubin and the NEJM...]

OK, I got it. After careful consideration, I reached a difficult decision. I'm sticking with Dr. Rubin and the NEJM. Sorry, Woogs.

 

Other than Trump being a hot mess at speaking to the public in a constructive fashion, my only 2 real complaints were them continuing to let travelers in for far too long and the "stimulus" which is a pox on both their houses was a giant screw up.

 

Wow. Good timeline! And it puts to rest Trump's repeated lie that he did anything about it early other than stopping travel from China.

 

<COMMENTS EDITED>
I have not been a Trump apologist about this. In fact, I've been critical of him since early on. Check my posts and you'll see.

The comment about COVID and people of color is putting a racial slant on something that is not racial. COVID does not care what color one is. It is only looking for a vulnerable host. That communities of color have a higher incidence of diabetes and heart issues couldn't have anything to do with it, now could it? The inference in such a comment is clear and is just a demonstration of woke signaling. Why else mention racial strife as it did here?

....An outbreak that has disproportionately affected communities of color has exacerbated the tensions associated with inequality.

As I said, the journal went out of its sandbox with that one. They also mentioned kids missing school and the economy, but not a word about those most severely impacted ....... those in long-term care centers.

It also unfairly compared our government's response to other nations when it knows full well that similar measures could not have been implemented here.

I don't have a medical degree, but one is not needed to recognize bullshit and this "editorial" was just that ...... bullshit.

 

As I said, you talk too much.

 

I never did like the way the travel ban was initiated. At first, people were quarantined, but that went by the wayside when Trump did the European travel ban.

Funny how that doesn't get mentioned, even by his critics. Likely because, at the time, they said he was going too far.

 

It's quantity AND quality.

 

Publication revenue: 103,145,834
Revenue less expenses: 3,896,197
Salaries:

1. Editor in Chief: 702,324
2. Vice president, publishing: 472,499
3. Vice president/General counsel: 417,405
4. Executive editor: 393,059
5. Former executive vice president: 383,007
6. Executive vice president: 380,480
7. Executive director, global sales: 368,254
8. Executive deputy editor: 328,461
9. Deputy editor: 321,468
10. Vice president, Finance: 321,053

Salary sum: 4,088,010

http://bjoern.brembs.net/2019/03/ne...edicine-and-you-thought-nature-was-expensive/

^^4 editors..... all being ...... paid!! ^^

 

And why do you supposed that these communities have a higher incidence of diabetes and heart issues? Easy answer: obesity. Poorer communities have unhealthy diets given that hypercaloric foods with empty calories are less expensive than foods with higher protein content. So, yes, there is inequality in our society. You didn't know? The editorial merely acknowledged this fact. The person imprinting the "woke" label on it is you.

"Similar measures could not have been implemented here" - I do agree that our cultural characteristics are not very favorable to the population reacting appropriately to a concerted effort by the government. We are rebellious and we don't like governmental interference, unlike for example the Japanese who were merely asked to wear masks and 97% of them complied. I love our freedom-loving style, but unfortunately it does backfire on us, when it's the problem of a pandemic. Still, a lot more could have been done and the administration could at least have tried. If they had tried and failed due to how we are as a culture and as a nation, then it wouldn't have been their fault.

If like you say you've been critical of Trump on this, good for you, but then, your position is similar to theirs (the Editors) as you're both criticizing Trump. But then, you launch into an attack. If you can explain this contradiction, be my guest.

 

Those are executives. Those are the administrators who are employed by the organization, not the editorial board. Look at the list of editors, and see if anybody is getting paid. Do you know how many editors they have? About 53.

 

Oh, I've mentioned it many times. There were no travel "bans", there were travel restrictions, with a page-long list of exceptions and no attached mandatory quarantine. In several of my posts I compared Trump's travel "ban" to a Swiss cheese full of holes. And also, strain tracing confirmed that the bulk of the New York / New Jersey outbreak was imported from Europe, not China.

Anybody can go to the White House or the State Department websites and consult the page-long list of exceptions.

Do you know what a real travel ban is? Uruguay's. They said, No more flights. None. Closed borders. Nobody comes in by air, land, or sea, except Uruguayan citizens being rescued from being strained somewhere but ALL such arrivals will have to submit to a mandatory 21-day quarantine. No exceptions for diplomates, investors, medical professionals, exchange students, airplane crews, etc. (the latter, unnecessary since they banned ALL flights). None. Just a tightly shut border.

Take a good look at Uruguay's rate of cases and deaths per million of the population, and then compare to ours.

Sure, it's a small country. But I'm just saying, that's what a travel BAN is. What we had were some toothless restrictions.

And no state governor can be blamed for that. That is square on the federal administration, given that the borders are controlled by the Feds.

 

Yes, I know about these communities, specifically black folks. I live in a town that is about 50% black. I see what they put in their grocery carts. And they fry "everything", which is also a Southern thing, but black folks (speaking "in general") take it to a whole 'nother level.

We also have a sizeable Hispanic community. Not too many fat Hispanic guys, but the women tend to be chunky.

Those are more examples of culture rather than some vaguely racial trope.

 

Oh, and by the way, what's with the ad hom? Am I the one doing it???

 

Those are communities of color. It is a fact that they are communities of color. Also a fact that they were disproportionally affected. Also a fact that there is inequality. I don't see why you're faulting this factual statement. Unless you can contest the facts (and you can't) your opinion that this is "woke" is irrelevant.

 

Apparently state and local leaders revolted on having camps set up in their state.

 

As I remember, there were quarantines on the cruise ship passengers and people coming in from Wuhan, but the floodgates were basically flung open in mid-March when all those Americans came home en masse from Europe.

After that, it was a matter of mitigation. Containment was no longer possible, if it ever was here.

Remember, also, that even with the inadequate measures instituted, many criticized Trump's doing so for a variety of reasons.

By the way, at that time the head of the WHO said of the China travel ban:

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Tuesday that widespread travel bans and restrictions weren’t needed to stop the outbreak and could "have the effect of increasing fear and stigma, with little public health benefit."

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.po...020/02/04/coronavirus-quaratine-travel-110750

 

Agreed. At the time I wasn't a member here so I can't prove it, but I said to my wife "damn, this virus has all the virology characteristics of a dangerous one. We need to shut the borders tightly, nobody comes in, if they do we quarantine, and test test test and do contact tracing. Meanwhile we need to dramatically boost the domestic production of PPE and tests, using the Defense Production Act if need be."

It sounds like Monday Morning Quarterbacking when I say it now and I can't prove it, but if you choose to believe me, that's what I thought from the beginning, since January. I thought that statements like "travel bans are xenophobic" in the context of a pandemic were extremely boneheaded.

Also, when we had to go on lockdown, I said "we need the most robust payroll protection program ever. Companies need to be given loans to sustain payroll on the condition that nobody will be laid off. If they don't lay off anybody the loans become grants and don't need to be repaid. If they lay off a single person and can't prove just cause unrelated to the pandemic then the loans remain loans and need to be paid back."

Instead, Trump and Congress implemented a very anemic payroll protection program, and gave out bailouts to huge corporations, and sent checks to individual Americans with a letter signed by Trump. Great, it's fabulous that some people got $1,200 (I didn't because I make way way way more than the threshold) but many didn't need it... and the ones who did and lost their jobs had a very temporary reprieve. This money would have been more useful for payroll protection.

Anyway, I could go on and on. There were many serious mistakes.

Oh, and yes, the WHO was despicable not only in that statement you highlighted, but in many others. Still, two wrongs don't make a right.

This said, the administration also did some things right. The Warp Speed initiative was good, and other things too.

 

Certain tropes must be de rigueur these days. I just noticed that Scientific American (link in OP)has this to say in its endorsement of Biden.

"These lapses accelerated the spread of disease through the country—particularly in highly vulnerable communities that include people of color, where deaths climbed disproportionately to those in the rest of the population."

The Wall Street Journal has its own opinion of the NEJM opinion piece. It's titled

The New England Journal of Politics, Part II

A snippet:
The NEJM’s latest editorial laments that “current leaders” have “undercut trust in science.” The irony is that much of the public distrust of expertise derives from years of scientists behaving like politicians.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ws...gland-journal-of-politics-part-ii-11602283219