Thread by @DempseyTwo

Good morning, troops! Today there is a hearing with CDC Director Dr. Redfield on the coronavirus. You know the drill. Look for is seeking the truth, look for who is protecting the president.
#Covid19Hearing

Roy Blunt R-MO The Chairman of the Subcommittee on Labor HHS, & Education, just gaveled into a hearing with the CDC’s Robert Redfield to discuss Coronavirus response. He blames the Obama Administration for its poor response to Ebola and H1N1. This is immediate gaslighting.

Blunt states West Africa had its worst outbreak of Ebola in 2014 and it is Obama’s fault.

The fact of the matter is 1. West Africa is not a state. 2. Obama put measures in place to protect us from the outbreak as well as 3. help West Africa deal with it. Know how I know...?

Because we’re not all dead from Ebola right now Senator! Each disease is different. They are not all the same. H1N1 is not the same as Parkinson’s. I really want the chairman of Health and Human Services to know that. This hearing is going to be tough to get through.

Blaming Obama for the failure of trump is just silly. Like last night during #TrumpTownHall blaming Biden for not mandating a nationwide mask policy. These men are the president but the president blames them for the failures of...the president! Gonna be a weird one today folks.

Blunt is an interesting character in all of this. He is at the side of McConnell. It looks like he doesn’t even believe the words coming out of his mouth at this point. He says we’re better prepared for the next pandemic. We haven’t even dealt with this one.

Murray D-WA talks about the people we have lost to covid. Says the survivors deserve facts and leaders who take this seriously. No leadership from trump. Brings up the Woodward tapes. ‘Playing it down’. ‘No Responsibility’, ‘slow testing down’. Hydroxychloriquine etc.

Calls out the republicans for not taking this seriously. She says she hopes they will work toward a relief package for people. She is asking for bipartisan agreements. Something the republicans have said the Democrats are not interested in. Well, a Democrat just said it soo...

Giroir- Testing is essential. Wear a mask, avoid indoor crowds (that means stop holding indoor death rallies) wash your hands. Exercise personal responsibility, wear a mask, avoid crowds.
Test. Testing, test test test. And then test. Wear a mask and don’t go to death rallies.

Dr. Kadlec - We repatriated Americans from China, deployed teams to CA, OR, Beirut and assisted in Covid Response.
We need everyone to exercise personal responsibility, wear a mask, wash hands, social distance.
We’ll work on a vaccine, but you have to do your part, wear a mask.

Dr Redfield- Wear a mask. Wash hands, be smart about crowds. Stay home if your sick.

See a theme emerging? 3 witnesses, scientists all, are saying wear a mask.

Reconcile for me how republicans say they are listening to the scientists yet have not mandated masks?
#COVID19

Blunt R-MO I think tests are important. Shark Tank has approved 16 tests. In October could we reach 100m tests?

Giroir- Yes, but we won’t be using them all. They will be available but in October. We performed 99m tests so far this year.

So testing doesn’t cause #COVID19

Murray D-WA CDC is manipulating publications to align with trumps messaging. Did you agree with the presidents decision to downplay the virus?

Redfield: I’m not going to comment on that.

Translation: I did not agree with the president but if I say that he’ll cut my funding.

Redfield says the science has not been compromised.

This could be true. The problem here is the science is being politicized and the data manipulated for political gain. It is not being used to make decisions to save lives, but at least they are still doing the science.

Alexander R-TN says we need to work in a bipartisan way. You know together. We need to work toward preparing for the next pandemic. (Another R to say this).
He blames jet planes.
He says funding was in R Bill. He put his fingers together to show how small the funding was.

Alexander finally asks a question about what to do to prepare for the next pandemic.

Dr. Kadlec: we need to maintain our stock piles. Normal stuff we would be using anyway. Like PPE.

A total waste of the 5 minutes Alexander’s constituents from TN are allotted.

Durbin D- IL True or False, within weeks we will have a vaccine.

Kadlec: possible...it could be 4 months. We can make vaccine but FDA needs to tell us is if it is safe.

D: so 3 weeks for a vaccine?

K: no, maybe 3 weeks to make it.

Ramp up manufacturing, hope it’s safe?🤔

Durbin to Giroir: Will ending testing, end the spread of #COVID19 ?

G: No.

D: Can you explain the president explanation last night (during #TrumpTownHall )?

G: I,I,I, didn’t hear, uh

D:Well we’ve heard this over and over. C’mon.

G: 👉🏻The cases are there no matter what. 👈🏻

An interesting subplot to this has just been revealed. Giroir says he has never been asked,told, hinted,suggested that we should decrease testing. Interesting because those are the same 4 words used in the response given by Bill Barr when Kamala Harris questioned him. Foreshadow

Durbin scoring today! He just asked the panel of witnesses who run health and human services if any of them are aware of a replacement plan for Obamacare. You know from the repeal and replace fame. Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

All 3 finally answer, not aware, not my lane.

Kennedy R-LA You guys are doctors right? You’d never violate your Hippocratic oath right? Did you have polio? Thank you science.

Kennedy says we didn’t know about the coronavirus, we couldn’t go to webmd and look it up.

Yet republicans blame Obama for his response? Go figure

Reed D-RI you guys all were emphatic in mask wearing today, yet the president disparaged their use last night.
What gives?
Giroir says I am in uniform and won’t say anything against the president. But wear a mask.
Kadlec: wear a mask but he has a right to do as he pleases.

Redfield: wear a mask. It is our best defense. Mask is more guaranteed to protect me more than a vaccine.

Weird how Kadlec goes even further to provide cover for the president being an intransigent ass. The other two at least aren’t elbow deep in ball wash right now.

Moore Capito R-WV I am in quarantine. I tested negative but I’m in quarantine. Am I doing the right thing being quarantined? Should I get tested again? I had contact.

She’s asking for medical advice. I don’t blame her. It’s hard when a hoax becomes your reality.

Shaheen D-NH old people impacted the most. 80% of NH deaths are in care facilities. Only $17m has been spent we approved billions, so way more than that. Where is the money?

Giroir 🤷🏼‍♂️

Shaheen: we can’t use the money because it’s only for new hires not retention. Why?

G:🤷🏼‍♂️

Hyde-Smith R-MS How are you addressing rural challenges in getting vaccines to rural America?

Redfield: we reach out, try to stop myths.

*stop myths*

Kadlec: Telemedicine.

Wait. Can one be vaccinated through the phone now?
*stop myths*

Merkley D-OR should we test asymptomatic individuals?

Redfield: CDC guidelines were misinterpreted (by the president) so I had to clarify. Yes, we should test asymptomatic front liners so we can give better guidance.

When asked about vaccine date, says it was not political.

Merkley isn’t buying it.

Lankford R-OK he begins by saying this hearing has been all about the election. He has not been in the room so he does not know if that statement is true or not. It is not. As you know.

What do I if I don’t want a vaccine created through use of aborted children?

Wow! 🤦‍♂️

Schatz D-HI people I’m talking to can’t get the tests.

Giroir: it’s available.

S: but they can’t get the tests.

G: Maybe they are not at the right sites.

S: Dude, it is not true test are available to first responders.

G: there’s a company you could have hired to do that.

Wow, I really can’t get past Lankford. He says he doesn’t want anyone to have any excuse to not get the vaccine. So why announce there are aborted children in the vaccine? How does he think that would go over with his constituents? He just gave them an excuse. Disingenuous.

Baldwin D-WI we’re six months into this pandemic and we still can’t get the money for the things we need. We appropriated a ton of money What gives?

Kadlec: We gave 638m for supplies, masks, injection technology.

*injection technology* Needles for vaccines we don’t yet have.

Graham R-SC February 29th Fauci says risk is low but could change.

We now know trump knew prior to this that it was highly contagious and wanted to play it down. Why is Lindsey trying to blame Dr. Fauci and protect the president? 🤔

Jesus tapping dancing Christ in heaven, Lankford said there are aborted children in the vaccines. Lindsey Graham is blaming Dr. Fauci.
Oklahoma and South Carolina are not covering themselves in glory today. Lankford knows it is now less likely for his people to be vaccinated.

And Lindsey Graham goes full on golf buddy in this #COVID19 hearing. Protecting the actions of the president, gaslighting us by saying ‘let’s don’t rewrite history’. Putting the aww shucks language aside, South Carolina can do something about this. Vote for @harrisonjaime

Murphy D-CT when you say asymptomatic people should see a doctor and not get tested. Explain

Redfield: they may not need a test. They should see a test.

Murphy: so they can get tested right?

R: we recommend get tested. We are not recommending less testing. We need more.

Moran R-KS we had ventilator contracts but they were all just cancelled. You say you don’t want ventilators. But we have to pay for their startup costs anyways. Do we need a different type of ventilator?

Kadlec: we need Higher acuity ones.

Hoaxes don’t require ventilators.

Moran says he has had no conversation that included senior care with anyone at HHS.

How is this even possible? We know from no less than two senators in this very meeting how hard covid19 hits the seniors. Why has there been no inclusion in discussions? This isn’t going well.

Blunt wants to know if $6b is the right number to distribute the vaccine.
🤷🏼‍♂️
We don’t even have manufacturing plants up. We haven’t made the vaccines, we have the needles though. The cart is so far ahead of the horse, the horse doesn’t even know there’s a cart.

Dr. Redfield is begging, the time is now. We need money. Some of the vaccines may require temperature of minus 80 degrees! 👀

Do we have trucks that can keep vaccines that cold during transport? How about facilities for storage? Are there safety protocols?

No way by Nov 3.

Alexander R-TN comes back to do some clean up. Says states weren’t ready to accept H1N1 vaccines. He is blaming Obama for poor covid response by saying the states (who trump says is on their own) weren’t ready.
He came back to score political points, not ask helpful questions.

Alexander tries to make the point that no one has gotten covid from going to the dentist.

First, everyone wears a mask at the dentists office.
Secondly, everyone in the dentist offices wears masks.
Finally, masks are required in dentist offices.

Alexander clumsily tried to tie a ‘random covid testing regime’ in schools like selection for explosives screening at the airport. We feel like we won’t blow up when that happens, why not ‘randomly’ test in the workplace, for confidence?

Paging diversity & inclusion activists!

With that, Alexander gavels us out.

Well, the big take aways from today seem to be:
1. Wear a mask.
2. Wear a mask.
3. There is some concern over where the money is...
4. Wear a mask.
5. Where is the money again?
6. Wear a mask.
7. Lankford will haunt my dreams.
8. See 1.

END