Vos/Fitzgerald scheme to Blame Gov. Evers for COVID-19 State Economic Crash!

Not Kidding: Republicans think the COVID-19 pandemic shouldn't end up hurting residents' ability to spend money. Priorities, right?

Contrast how COVID-19 affects people, according to a respiratory therapist:

Seeing patients with COVID-19, it’s a lot more frightening. This is knocking out what should be perfectly fit, healthy people. Patients will be on minimal support, on a little bit of oxygen, and then all of a sudden, they go into complete respiratory arrest, shut down and can’t breathe at all” …  I’ve never seen a microorganism or an infectious process cause such acute damage to the lungs so rapidly. That was what really shocked me. It first struck me how different it was when I saw my first coronavirus patient go bad. I was like, Holy shit, this is not the flu. Watching this relatively young guy, gasping for air, pink frothy secretions coming out of his tube and out of his mouth. We had to restrain him. They really hyperventilate, really struggle to breathe. When you’re in that mindstate of struggling to breathe and delirious with fever, you don’t know when someone is trying to help you, so you’ll try to rip the breathing tube out because you feel it is choking you, but you are drowning.

Contrast that with concerned Republicans mustering up phony outrage over Gov. Tony Evers efforts to hurt business: It's Gov. Evers fault now!!! That's their setup for November. Anyone tell them business have closed and people are dying? 

JS: Republican leaders are asking Gov. Tony Evers not to place any further restrictions on Wisconsin residents’ ability to spend money, warning of an economic collapse.

"The consequences felt by citizens and small businesses around the state has already been tremendous … the people we serve need the jobs they have today to help weather this storm. Continued economic activity will not only help us in our fight against this virus today, it will also ensure that we don't have to fight to recover from economic collapse tomorrow.”

 A little late for that? No?

Let's look at the numbers, if we took the Vos/Fitzgerald approach, keeping more people out there working instead...

Columbia University researchers estimate the percentage of Wisconsin residents, without severe restrictions in place similar to ones Evers has taken, infected in Milwaukee County could reach 65% by July and 74% in Dane County by June — infecting 610,000 and 360,000 people in each county, respectively — 

Under measures (pushed by Evers) that infection rate drops dramatically to 2% of Milwaukee County residents and Dane County residents by the end of July. 

Blame Trump, Blame Trump, Blame Trump: No, really blame Trump...

WaPo: U.S. intelligence agencies were issuing ominous, classified warnings in January and February about the global danger posed by the coronavirus while President Trump and lawmakers played down the threat and failed to take action that might have slowed the spread of the pathogen, according to U.S. officials familiar with spy agency reporting … and warned that Chinese officials appeared to be minimizing the severity of the outbreak.

Taken together, the reports and warnings showed the characteristics of a globe-encircling pandemic that could require governments to take swift actions to contain it. But despite that constant flow of reporting, Trump continued publicly and privately to play down the threat the virus posed to Americans. Lawmakers, too, did not grapple with the virus in earnest until this month.

A few Senators suddenly sold their stock, coincidentally of course, like Dumb Ron Johnson, all the while saying the US had it handled.

Blame Trump, Blame Trump, who was even more concerned about getting vaping products back in the stores:

Inside the White House, Trump’s advisers struggled to get him to take the virus seriously, according to multiple officials with knowledge of meetings among those advisers and with the president.

Azar couldn’t get through to Trump to speak with him about the virus until Jan. 18, according to two senior administration officials. When he reached Trump by phone, the president interjected to ask about vaping and when flavored vaping products would be back on the market, the senior administration officials said.

Who could make stuff like this up, point by point?

Not Trump's Fault, again. Surprised? Note: Can anyone tell me what the "clear threat to this great country" would clearly be? Oh, and being late doesn't count:

 A White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said, “It’s more than disgusting, despicable and disgraceful for cowardly unnamed sources to attempt to rewrite history — it’s a clear threat to this great country. President Trump has taken historic, aggressive measures to protect the health, wealth and safety of the American people — and did so, while the media and Democrats chose to only focus on the stupid politics of a sham illegitimate impeachment.” 

How about the Crimson Contagion Simulation:  Trump didn't care...

That scenario, code-named “Crimson Contagion” and imagining an influenza pandemic, was simulated by the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services in a series of exercises that ran from last January to August.

The simulation’s sobering results — contained in a draft report dated October 2019 that has not previously been reported — drove home just how underfunded, underprepared and uncoordinated the federal government would be for a life-or-death battle with a virus for which no treatment existed.

The draft report, marked “not to be disclosed,” laid out in stark detail repeated cases of “confusion” in the exercise. Federal agencies jockeyed over who was in charge. State officials and hospitals struggled to figure out what kind of equipment was stockpiled or available. Cities and states went their own ways on school closings.

Trump Response...

“Nobody knew there would be a pandemic or epidemic of this proportion. Nobody has ever seen anything like this before.”

The work done over the past five years, however, demonstrates that the government had considerable knowledge about the risks of a pandemic and accurately predicted the very types of problems Mr. Trump is now scrambling belatedly to address.

Roll the clips...