Let's face it, the pandemic is here and will continue on its natural course. We can do little to stop or slow it - China, with its extreme measures, has not succeeded and we have no newer techniques. But most of us will recover; many may not get sick at all. What is really needed now is a measured response to the difficulties it will cause in the short term. It will be easy to make this worse than it has to be. Please, let's not do that!

"We can do little to stop or slow it - China, has not succeeded and we have no newer techniques. But most of us will recover"

YES! Some will lose family members, many might be horribly sick but probably recover. It's just hard to breathe. Many will skip work. Many will not get tested because they have crappy insurance, but hey, y'all are good and will at least hide in your caves till you're symptom free, amiright?

Less than 12 hours ago, the President called the whole thing a HOAX.

It's silly. That's why Donald Trump appointed Pence to run the whole thing. So silly that Pence's first action was to fly to Florida (for a fundraiser.)

Stop worrying, folks. We're cutting budgets for the CDC, Medicare etc.. Web Link

Quit whining. 45 knows all.

The most pressing need we have is for the Federal government to take the lead what is clearly a national health emergency. And to be open and honest about the spread of the virus and the effectiveness of the actions taken.

Unfortunately, we have a president who fired the epidemic teams from the Center for Disease Control two years ago, and is now lying about the virus. Incredibly, trump is blaming democrats! trump's chief of staff called corona virus "a hoax" yesterday. We are on our own on this one, folks.

"The most pressing need we have is for the Federal government to take the lead"

Mike Pence is in charge! He'll get started right after he returns from Florida and his fundraisers!

Winning!

Yeah, let's make this a political thing, like eveything else here in California. Snarky political comments are sure to protect you when you are struggling to breathe from viral pneumonia. All Trump's fault! There my fever just went down.

It seems that being more precautious is the most useful way to contain the virus. China actually has reduced the spread and the numbers of the infected people by utilizing this means. Perhaps wearing even a very basic face mask that you can purchase at a store in places like supermarkets and shops (and then take it off afterward or when you get home once again) is also a good idea.

The MVWSD "plan" linked above is a several-year-ago effort, in coordination with the County Health Department, to correct county-wide errors and confusions associated with the last large novel virus scare. IT IS VERY VERY GOOD in my opinion. It matches anything I worked with in the private sector (semiconductor fabrication),

Watch the Rudolph YouTube, it probably explains this well. The coordinator for Public Safety drills and training is Kathi Lilga in the District Office (works directly for Superintendent Rudolph). If you are a current or former MVWSD parent, who has ever work a "fire drill" or "earthquake drill" you will have seen the level of professionalism in how these are organized - vastly increased over the last decade. That is largely due to Lilga's training and coordination with outside-the-district professional disaster management groups. The 'trainer' for the site principles is Lilga, the uniform coordination (and post-event review) is under Lilga. Her efforts, I have always heard from principals year-in and year-out are always excellent and well appreciated.

Why new Virus? This is often caused by Over crowding, expansion into once unclaimed area exposure to non common animal spices that carry the virus. (like rabies it still exist but is treated i the US never eliminated) Unsanitary living conditions, rapid development causing influx of workers traveling, poor medical care poor medical treatment allow it to spread.

So it starts ... with the first coronavirus (COVID-19) death reported in Washington. The first of how many?

Sorry, but Superintendent Ayinde and the Mountain View Whisman School Board have already shown so many instances of administrative bungling, public communications disaster and program mismanagement that literally anything put out is view with skepticism and doubt.

In other words, when Superintendent Ayinde attempts to tell anyone to relax, that there's no need to panic, or that they have everything under control, it's pretty much a guarantee that the time to panic has arrived.

[Portion removed due to disrespectful comment or offensive language]

@Steve Nelson

Thanks for the laughs. Can you ever stop patting yourself on the back? A district office secretary that has been there for years is in charge? I fail to see her qualifications for this impending public health crisis that could threaten 5 thousand children.

It's so nice to see that people can still come here to anonymously hurl baseless insults with no supporting links whatsoever. Even better that people can use what is a serious situation to try to score political points.

In my opinion, they are just showing how shallow they really are. Is the Coronavirus a serious threat? Possibly. The truth is that we still don't know enough about it yet. Certainly, the media seems to want to stir up as much panic as possible and use it to bludgeon the people that they oppose politically, but so far, there is little real information that we have.

We don't know how contagious it is, or the mortality rate. So far the virus seems to be most deadly to those who are already suffering from other serious medical conditions. We know that the Flu kills up to 60 or 70 thousand people a year here in the US, yet most people don't consider it a serious threat. I am not making a judgement as to whether that is right or wrong, I am just stating a fact in order to put things in perspective.

If we see over time that the Coronavirus kills hundreds of thousands or more here in the US, and that there is no hope of an effective treatment, then it is probably time to panic. However, right now the CDC and our doctors and nurses are doing everything they can to identify and combat this new virus.

Unfortunately, many see this virus as a way to gain political advantage. It is not true that the President fired the epidemic teams from the CDC. While Snopes says that this is true, they don't tie the actions directly to the President. Here is what Snopes says: It's so nice to see that people can still come here to anonymously hurl baseless insults with no supporting links whatsoever. Even better that people can use what is a serious situation to try to score political points.

In my opinion, they are just showing how shallow they really are. Is the Coronavirus a serious threat? Possibly. The truth is that we still don't know enough about it yet. Certainly, the media seems to want to stir up as much panic as possible and use it to bludgeon the people that they oppose politically, but so far, there is little real information that we have.

We don't know how contagious it is, or the mortality rate. So far the virus seems to be most deadly to those who are already suffering from other serious medical conditions. We know that the Flu kills up to 60 or 70 thousand people a year here in the US, yet most people don't consider it a serious threat. I am not making a judgement as to whether that is right or wrong, I am just stating a fact in order to put things in perspective.

If we see over time that the Coronavirus kills hundreds of thousands or more here in the US, and that there is no hope of an effective treatment, then it is probably time to panic. However, right now the CDC and our doctors and nurses are doing everything they can to identify and combat this new virus.

Unfortunately, many see this virus as a way to gain political advantage. It is not true that the President fired the epidemic teams from the CDC. While Snopes says that this is true, they don't tie the actions directly to the President. Here is what Snopes says:

__________________________________________
The “pandemic response team” firing claim referred to news accounts from Spring 2018 reporting that White House officials tasked with directing a national response to a pandemic had been ousted.

Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer abruptly departed from his post leading the global health security team on the National Security Council in May 2018 amid a reorganization of the council by then-National Security Advisor John Bolton, and Ziemer’s team was disbanded. Tom Bossert, whom the Washington Post reported “had called for a comprehensive biodefense strategy against pandemics and biological attacks,” had been fired one month prior.

It’s thus true that the Trump administration axed the executive branch team responsible for coordinating a response to a pandemic and did not replace it, eliminating Ziemer’s position and reassigning others, although Bolton was the executive at the top of the National Security Council chain of command at the time.
_______________________________

So as you can see, it was actually the hero, John Bolton, who took the actions and not President Trump. I also could not find anything indicating that the President directed or even suggested that Bolton take these actions. However, according to another article that you can read here ( Web Link ), Bossert was fired by the hero, John Bolton, during his effort to consolidate his power; not ( as Snopes appears to suggest) because Bossert had called for a comprehensive defense strategy against pandemics and biological attacks.

It's also interesting that people are saying that the President said the Coronavirus is a hoax, when he acted very quickly to prevent and contain and possible spread from its point of origin, China. Especially in light of the fact that when he did so, he seemed to be the only person taking it seriously and was called a 'racist' for trying to protect the American public. The president's comparison was in regard to the way it was being politicized to try to blame him and his Administration for a problem that they had absolutely no part in creating.

Some may recall that there were some in Congress that were so alarmed by the virus, that while it was spreading throughout China and Europe, they were tying up BOTH houses of Congress with several weeks of an impeachment trial! Even last week, no one was proposing any legislation to allocate funds or proposing any actions to combat the virus. I still haven't heard anyone come up with any better ideas on what actions to take, only criticisms.

It's easy to sit back at throw rocks at someone else when you have absolutely no responsibility to take action.


Jim Neal
Modesto, Ca
(Formerly Old Mountain View)

Jim: "It's so nice to see that people can still come here to anonymously hurl baseless insults with no supporting links whatsoever."

Yes! Thanks, Jimmy, for your link (whoops - *you* didn't use links either!) about Trump firing his stupid, useless, swampy bureaucratic Pandemic Team!

Who needs a Pandemic Team for a hoax!



Snopes: did Trump fire his Pandemic Team - Yes! True! Web Link And Trump had 2 years to hire them back - but no way, swamprats!


More links:

Trump: "This is their new hoax" (search any google list or Breitbart)

"Mike Pompeo refuses to deny conspiracy theory that coronavirus is ‘hoax created to damage Trump’
US secretary of state sidesteps question after president accuses opponents..." Web Link

Pence knows it's a hoax, that's why: "What’s on Mike Pence’s schedule as coronavirus point man? A fundraiser in Florida. - The $25,000-per-plate GOP event featuring the vice president is in Longboat Key." Web Link

There ya go Jimbo, my friend, that's how you link to all the great action of 45, truly a man of action!

You really shouldn’t have a headline that indicates the patient is from Mountain View. The El Camino Hospital treats patients from alll around the region. They have several illnesses and exposures everyday that the staff deals with. They are well trained and by posting this headline is just bad journalism. You can see by the reaction that a headline like this gets your readers to comment and is what I would expect out of a college news paper.

To answer a question above: why do these viruses seem to often originate in China? Influenza and other viruses "jump" from animals to humans. Most often, birds and pigs. It is more common in China for people to live in close proximity to both animals. So the viruses jump more frequently in China. The worst flu ever: the "Spanish" flu of 1918, may have in fact started right here in the American Midwest. It's estimated to have killed around 600,000 Americans and 50 to 100 million worldwide.

But I don't understand why anyone is worried. Trump says the virus is a hoax. That's why we haven't bothered to prepare over the last two months, and why the US Surgeon General's website only warns about the dangers of marijuana use and cigarettes.

There's nothing to see here. Move along...

The only thing we know for sure is that the President never lies to the American people. Plus, our Vice President is working on getting us all into Heaven. Live or die, they have us covered.

The very first comment, from 'Hysteria won't help' contained the line, "What is really needed now is a measured response to the difficulties it will cause in the short term."
What we need to do is get ourselves organized to support the First Responders and medical people. CERT teams and our local Army Civil Affairs unit could take the lead. The Responders and medical people will be overwhelmed. It would help them if they knew that other people will be supporting them - helping with their families, offering what talents we have among our populace - to take care of what would normally be be done by the regular staff.
What can we do to help out at this time. Ideas and suggestions are needed at this time. It is time for all Americans to put aside their political differences and pull together.

I actually did include a link in my comments along with a direct quote in which I named the source of the quote. I also said that people still come here to hurl baseless insults with no supporting links. I don't hurl baseless insults. For those who actually did read my comments, they will see that I did talk specifically about who fired the pandemic team, and why the Snopes evaluation was flawed.

There is ample proof from the headlines and the way the media is covering the Coronavirus that they are trying to put the blame on the President, when none of his critics has specified any actions that they would have taken that are any different. Indeed many of the comments here prove my point that there are people far more interested in scoring political points or feeding into the panic, than trying to solve the problem.

The link to the article in The Independent of the UK, basically just repeats that the President said that his opponents were trying to use this crisis to damage him the same way that they did with the Russian Collusion story (which absolutely WAS a hoax).

As far as the fundraisers, I don't see any of the Democrat candidates stopping their fundraising activities either. There'e no reason that they should. Life should not come to a complete halt just because there is a new unknown problem that we're facing. The worst thing that we can do is to stop living our lives and/or live them in fear. We've faced SARS, we've faced Ebola, and now we're facing the Coronavirus. I'm betting that after 3 months or so we'll better understand it and life will pretty much go back to normal just like it did after those two.


Jim Neal
Modesto, Ca
(Formerly Old Mountain View)

As a precaution this (Monday) morning, President Trump has ordered the deportation of all Cornoa beer - back to Mexico. The beer may then be re-imported but only upon payment of a tariff directly to the Trump Foundation.

@jim - so in your roundabout, verbose way, you're trying to hide the fact that Trump fired the pandemic team by saying....


"Trump appointees fired the pandemic team, and during two years of golf trips, Trump hasn't rehired them."


Thanks for clearing that up.

Due to repeated violations of our Terms of Use, comments from this poster are automatically removed. Why?

Jim Neal - your posts are way too long. No one is reading all of that.

I'm here to say Covid-19 is being hyped. Seriously. The death rate is going to turn out to be much lower than what is being reported right now (1%).

If it was 1% there would piles of dead people in China and Iran right now. More than even those shuttered governments could hide.

But don't let logic get in the way of fear and uncertainty. Part of this is the 24 hour news cycle. They just talk like the world is ending, over and over. Show maps with huge red circles over every major city. Helping no one while they're at it.

Then it bleeds over into Farcebook which is barely based on reality anymore.

Relax. I'm going to Hawaii in two weeks. I'll probably have the place to myself.