COVID19 Update - Day 29

US Tests: 2,189,766
US Cases: 423,164
US Deaths: 14,495
Worldwide Cases: 1,511,104
Worldwide Deaths: 88,338

I want to start off this update by once again referring my handful of readers to While at Home, a site set up as a clearinghouse for information about where to get tested for coronavirus, along with ways to help out in your area.

Today the L.A. Times gives more information about the federal government confiscating medical supplies:

Hospital and clinic officials in seven states described the seizures in interviews over the past week. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is not publicly reporting the acquisitions, despite the outlay of millions of dollars of taxpayer money, nor has the administration detailed how it decides which supplies to seize and where to reroute them.

Officials who’ve had materials seized also say they’ve received no guidance from the government about how or if they will get access to the supplies they ordered. That has stoked concerns about how public funds are being spent and whether the Trump administration is fairly distributing scarce medical supplies.

. . . 

Experts say judicious use of this authority could help bring order to the medical supply market by routing critical material — ventilators, masks and other protective gear — from suppliers to the federal government and then to areas of greatest need, such as New York.

Yet there is little indication that federal officials are controlling the market, as hospitals, doctors and others report paying exorbitant prices or resorting to unorthodox maneuvers to get what they need.

Hospital and health officials describe an opaque process in which federal officials sweep in without warning to expropriate supplies.

While the New York Times was inclined to chalk this up to mere incompetence, the L.A. Times draws no such conclusions.  The thing that really makes me uncomfortable are the fact that it is an "opaque process" which no one seems to understand, and which no one from the administration is willing to explain.

Whenever Trump is involved in a situation with a lack of transparency, it usually signifies corruption.

No personal updates today.