3) But here is the thing—Trump actually can’t directly fire Dr Fauci, who is head of NIAID, which is a division of NIH. Only NIH Director Francis Collins is likely the only one who can fire Fauci—but they are decades old best friends. And Collins says he would not!
4) Thus, Trump again is either clueless, or he intends to set up some Nixon style Saturday Night Massacre and fire NIH director if he refuses and fire several deputies until one fires Fauci upon Trump’s demand. And that would be utterly insane. But we are at the whim of a madman.
5) That said, Trump WH just put in an executive order that creates a a new way to fire professional technical federal employees. It’s Trump’s way to trying to kill off civil servants who resist him. True to form. npr.org/2020/10/31/929…
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📍BREAKING—Federal District Court judge orders an immediate sweep of 12 postal districts searching for undelivered ballots after USPS said that **300,000 ballots had not been scanned for delivery**. Most worrisome postal areas: Philly, Central PA, Detroit. nyti.ms/2TTNcgQ?referr…
2) “Data the Postal Service filed on Election Day showed continued low on-time processing scores for ballots delivered Monday in several battleground postal districts:
📌69% in Central Pennsylvania
📌79% in Philadelphia
📌78% in Detroit
📌61% in Atlanta
📌74% in South Florida
3) “All states require that mail ballots be postmarked by Election Day in order to count, but some allow a grace period for the ballots to arrive in the hands of elections officials. PA, for instance, has a three-day window to receive ballots as long as they are postmarked...
⚠️Just in—El Paso County is having to set up another 4th mobile morgue at the medical examiner’s office due to overwhelming surge of #COVID19 deaths.
➡️ When was their earlier 3rd mobile morgue unit? ***just yesterday***.
2) El Paso #COVID19 deaths piling up so fast, faster than the county can investigate them—there is now a huge **backlog of 85 bodies tonight alone**.
3) Crazier—El Paso Mayor directing police not to enforce the El Paso Judge’s business shutdown order. But because Judge controls sheriffs and constables, they are enforcing the shutdown order. Dueling law enforcement underway in El Paso. Such an utter nightmare! #COVID19
⚠️BOTS DRIVING HERD TOPIC ON TWITTER—Scott Atlas promoting Trump’s herd immunity for #COVID19 on Russia Today TV maybe not an accident. Our team as FAS found striking evidence **HALF** of all pro-herd accounts are likely bots part of disinfo campaign. 🧵fas.org/blogs/fas/2020…
2) Approximately half of the profiles pushing the case for herd immunity are artificial accounts. These bot or bot-like accounts are generally characterized as engaging in abnormally high levels of retweets and low content diversity.
3) The high level of bot-like behavior attributed to support for the Great Barrington Declaration on social media indicates the conversation is manipulated and inorganic in comparison to the scientific consensus-based conversation opposing herd immunity theories.
BREAKING—Tracing WH #COVID19: WH blocked tracing but 2 journalists donated samples to 🧬epidemiologists. “These mutations [in] these viruses are quite rare in US,” Bedford said. “I am highly convinced that these come from the same outbreak or cluster.” 🧵 nytimes.com/2020/11/01/sci…
2) “The viral genomes of the two journalists shared the same distinct pattern of mutations, the research found. Along with their exposure history, the findings suggest that they were infected as part of the broader White House outbreak, said Trevor Bedford @trvrb.
3) “The genomes believed to be connected to White House outbreak do not identify a recent geographic source, in part because they are unusual (5 mutations). The ancestors of those viruses spread to US from Europe and were circulating widely across the country in April and May”
2) Findings from a prospective household study with intensive daily observation for ≥7 consecutive days indicate that transmission of SARS-CoV-2 among household members was frequent from either children or adults.
3) What are the implications for public health practice?
➡️ Household transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is common and occurs early after illness onset. Persons should self-isolate immediately at the onset of COVID-like symptoms, at the time of testing...