The Trump administration’s order ends deployments on June 24, just one day before thousands would qu

The Trump administration’s order ends deployments on June 24, just one day before thousands would qualify for education and retirement benefits

"we wuv our twoops"

‘Hard stop’: States could lose National Guard virus workers
The Trump administration’s order ends deployments on June 24, just one day before thousands would qualify for education and retirement benefits.


Members of the Connecticut National Guard train with hospital staff in Stamford, Conn. | John Moore/Getty Images

By ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN

05/19/2020 04:30 AM EDT

More than 40,000 National Guard members currently helping states test residents for the coronavirus and trace the spread of infections will face a “hard stop” on their deployments on June 24 — just one day shy of many members becoming eligible for key federal benefits, according to a senior FEMA official.

The official outlined the Trump administration’s plans on an interagency call on May 12, an audio version of which was obtained by POLITICO. The official also acknowledged during the call that the June 24 deadline means that thousands of members who first deployed in late March will find themselves with only 89 days of duty credit, one short of the 90-day threshold for qualifying for early retirement and education benefits under the Post-9/11 GI bill.
The looming loss of crucial frontline workers, along with questions about whether the administration is shortchanging first responders, would require a delicate messaging strategy, the official — representing FEMA’s New England region — told dozens of colleagues on the interagency call.

“We would greatly benefit from unified messaging regarding the conclusion of their services prior to hitting the 90-day mark and the retirement benefit implications associated with it,” the official said.

Top National Guard and other federal officials on the call did not dispute the June 24 cutoff or raise the possibility of an extension. In a statement, FEMA acknowledged that President Donald Trump’s current order for the federal government to fund the troops expires on June 24. But a National Guard spokesperson said a decision to extend the deployments could still be made in the coming weeks.

“We’re not there yet on the determination,” the spokesperson, Wayne Hall, said. “Nobody can say where we’ll need to be more than a month down the road.”

Governors and lawmakers in both parties have been pleading with the White House to extend the federal order for several more months or until the end of the year, warning in a letter to Trump that terminating federal deployments early in the summer just as states are reopening “could contribute to a possible second wave of infection.”

More than 40,000 Guard members are currently serving under federal orders known as Title 32, which grants them federal pay and benefits but puts them under local command, in 44 states, three territories and the District of Columbia — the largest domestic deployment since Hurricane Katrina.



Tens of thousands of them have been working full-time since early March on a wide range of sensitive and dangerous tasks, such as decontaminating nursing homes and setting up field hospitals, along with performing tests for the virus. They’ve provided a crucial backup for understaffed and underfunded state public health agencies trying to contain the pandemic.

The cost of the deployment is as much as $9 million per month for every 1,000 troops, according to the National Council of State Legislatures — an expense that states would have to shoulder should Title 32 expire. In addition, state deployments do not count toward federal education and retirement benefits.


Members of the Florida National Guard stand in medical masks. | AP Photo/Lynne Sladky

The 45,000-member National Guard Association and some state officials told POLITICO that they suspect the Trump administration timed its orders to limit the deployment to 89 days — one short of the number that would qualify the earliest participants for certaineducation and retirement benefits.


Guard members must serve for 20 years to qualify for a pension at age 60. But for every 90 days serving during a federal emergency, Guard members can move up that retirement by three months. Ninety days of service also qualifies members for 40 percent off the tuition at a public college or university.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/...I9apW9Bsj8zVhVqczwu4UpwLEALlSRCyN70_la1NrNkdk

 

I can't find anything to dispute this next post, but I certainly believe that it makes sense. I suppose the dates, the people, the other outbreaks would be easy to look up if this were true. You decide.

PLZZZZ READ!!! I thought I would post a little history for everyone on both sides of the political divide. I think it’s important that we understand the truth, especially come November when it’s time to #VOTE

"In December 2013, an 18-month-old boy in Guinea was bitten by a bat and died a brutal death a day later. After that, there were five more fatal cases. When Ebola spread out of the Guinea borders into neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone in July 2014, President Obama activated the Emergency Operations Center at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. The CDC immediately deployed CDC personnel to West Africa to coordinate a response that included vector tracing, testing, education, logistics, and communication.

Altogether, the CDC, under President Obama, trained 24,655 medical workers in West Africa, educating them on how to prevent and control the disease before a single case left Africa or reached the U.S.

Working with the U.N. and the World Health Organization President Obama ordered the re-routing of travelers heading to the U.S. through certain specific airports equipped to handle mass testing.

Back home in America, more than 6,500 people were trained through mock outbreaks and practice scenarios. That was done before a single case hit America.

Three months after President Obama activated this unprecedented response, on September 30, 2014, we detected our first case in the U.S.A. A man had traveled from West Africa to Dallas and somehow slipped through the testing protocol. He was immediately detected and isolated. He died a week later. Two nurses who tended to him contracted Ebola but later recovered. All the protocols had worked. It was contained.
The Ebola epidemic could have easily become a pandemic, but thanks to the actions of our government under President Obama, it never did. Those THREE EBOLA CONFIRMED CASES in Dallas and a FOURTH in NY were the ONLY cases of Ebola in the U.S.A. (An additional 7 Ebola cases were from evacuations from other countries) because Obama did what needed to be done THREE MONTHS PRIOR TO THE FIRST CASE.

Ebola is even more deadly than COVID-19. Had Obama not acted swiftly, millions of Americans would have died horrible, painful, deaths like something out of a horror movie (if you’ve never seen how Ebola kills, it’s horrific).

It is ironic because since President Obama acted decisively we forget about his actions since the disease never reached our shores.

Now the story of COVID-19 and Trump’s response that we know about thus far:

Before anyone even knew about the disease (even in China) Trump disbanded the pandemic response team that Obama had put in place. He cut funding to the CDC, and he cut our contribution to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Trump fired Rear Admiral Timothy Ziemer, the person on the National Security Council in charge of stopping the spread of infectious diseases before they reach our country - a position created by the Obama administration.

When the outbreak started in China, Trump assumed it was China’s problem and sent no research, supplies or help of any kind. We were in a trade war, why should he help them?
In January he received a briefing from our intelligence organizations that the outbreak was much worse than China was admitting and that it would definitely hit our country if something wasn’t done to prevent it. He ignored the report, not trusting our own intelligence.

When the disease spread to Europe, the World Health Organization offered a plethora of tests to the United States. Trump turned them down, saying private companies here would make the tests “better” if we needed them. However, he never ordered U.S. companies to make tests and they had no profit motive to do so on their own.

According to scientists at Yale and several public university medical schools, when they asked for permission to start working on our own testing protocol and potential treatments or vaccines, they were denied by Trump’s FDA.

When Trump knew about the first case in the United States he did nothing. It was just one case and the patient was isolated. When doctors and scientists started screaming in the media that this was a mistake, Trump claimed it was a “liberal hoax” conjured up to try to make him “look bad after impeachment failed.”

The next time Trump spoke of COVID-19, we had SIXTY-FOUR CONFIRMED CASES but Trump went before microphones and told the American public that we only had FIFTEEN cases “and pretty soon that number will be close to zero.” All while the disease was spreading, he took no action to get more tests.
What Trump did was to stop flights from China from coming here. This was too late and accomplished nothing according to scientists and doctors. By then the disease was worldwide and was already spreading exponentially in the U.S. by Americans, not Chinese people as Trump would like you to believe.

>>>> update >>>>As of the moment I am posting this, the morning of MAY 18, 2020, we have 1.52 million COVID-19 CONFIRMED CASES and 89,932 COVID-19 DEATHS in the U.S.A. The actual number is undoubtedly more than triple that amount.

As if you needed one more reason to #vote, here it is.

I did not write this but feel free to Copy and Repost to educate the public."

Fact checked, cross referenced = the truth.

 

This is the only part I disagree with. Ebola isn't capable of mass spread like Covid-19 is for 2 reasons:

1. Ebola is only spread through bodily fluids, it's not airborne at all.

2. Ebola kills the infected at a higher rate, giving it less opportunities to spread before death.

Covid-19 is remarkable in that it's just the right amount of deadly with a massive incubation time to spread itself effectively. And I don't know, I wish we had a response much closer to Obama's. It could have saved a lot of lives and spared us some of the economic impacts. But I don't think it's fair to say it could have been contained in the same way as ebola.

 

What we know about transmission of the Ebola virus among humans
Ebola situation assessment
6 October 2014

The Ebola virus is transmitted among humans through close and direct physical contact with infected bodily fluids, the most infectious being blood, faeces and vomit.

The Ebola virus has also been detected in breast milk, urine and semen. In a convalescent male, the virus can persist in semen for at least 70 days; one study suggests persistence for more than 90 days.

Saliva and tears may also carry some risk. However, the studies implicating these additional bodily fluids were extremely limited in sample size and the science is inconclusive. In studies of saliva, the virus was found most frequently in patients at a severe stage of illness. The whole live virus has never been isolated from sweat.

The Ebola virus can also be transmitted indirectly, by contact with previously contaminated surfaces and objects. The risk of transmission from these surfaces is low and can be reduced even further by appropriate cleaning and disinfection procedures.

Not an airborne virus
Ebola virus disease is not an airborne infection. Airborne spread among humans implies inhalation of an infectious dose of virus from a suspended cloud of small dried droplets.

This mode of transmission has not been observed during extensive studies of the Ebola virus over several decades.

Common sense and observation tell us that spread of the virus via coughing or sneezing is rare, if it happens at all. Epidemiological data emerging from the outbreak are not consistent with the pattern of spread seen with airborne viruses, like those that cause measles and chickenpox, or the airborne bacterium that causes tuberculosis.

Theoretically, wet and bigger droplets from a heavily infected individual, who has respiratory symptoms caused by other conditions or who vomits violently, could transmit the virus – over a short distance – to another nearby person.

This could happen when virus-laden heavy droplets are directly propelled, by coughing or sneezing (which does not mean airborne transmission) onto the mucus membranes or skin with cuts or abrasions of another person.

WHO is not aware of any studies that actually document this mode of transmission. On the contrary, good quality studies from previous Ebola outbreaks show that all cases were infected by direct close contact with symptomatic patients.

No evidence that viral diseases change their mode of transmission
Moreover, scientists are unaware of any virus that has dramatically changed its mode of transmission. For example, the H5N1 avian influenza virus, which has caused sporadic human cases since 1997, is now endemic in chickens and ducks in large parts of Asia.

That virus has probably circulated through many billions of birds for at least two decades. Its mode of transmission remains basically unchanged.

Speculation that Ebola virus disease might mutate into a form that could easily spread among humans through the air is just that: speculation, unsubstantiated by any evidence.

This kind of speculation is unfounded but understandable as health officials race to catch up with this fast-moving and rapidly evolving outbreak.

To stop this outbreak, more needs to be done to implement – on a much larger scale – well-known protective and preventive measures. Abundant evidence has documented their effectiveness.

 

COVID-19 CORONAVIRUS / TRANSMISSION
SARS-CoV-2 Transmission
Last updated: April 16, 5:00 GMT
"COVID-19 is a new disease and we are still learning about how it spreads" according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) [source]

In general, respiratory virus infection can occur through: [source]

• contact (direct or indirect)
• droplet spray in short range transmission
• aerosol in long-range transmission (airborne transmission)

Close Contact (6 feet, 1.8 meters) and Respiratory Droplets
"The virus is thought to spread mainly from person-to-person.

• Between people who are in close contact with one another (within about 6 feet)
• Through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs, sneezes or talks" [source]

This idea, that large droplets of virus-laden mucus are the primary mode of transmission, guides the US CDC's advice to maintain at least a 6-foot distance: "Maintaining good social distance (about 6 feet) is very important in preventing the spread of COVID-19" [source]

Is 6 feet enough?
Some experts contacted by LiveScience think that 6 feet (1.8 meters) is not enough [source]

Air Currents
"Larger respiratory droplets (>5 μm) remain in the air for only a short time and travel only short distances, generally <1 m" (less than 3.3 feet) [source] [source] [source]

"Virus-laden small (<5 μm) aerosolized droplets can remain in the air and travel long distances, >1 m" (more than 3.3 feet) [source] [source]

A study of transmission occurring in a restaurant between people at a distance above 1 meter, observed that "strong airflow from the air conditioner could have propagated droplets" [source]

Humidity (best if between 50% and 80%)
"It is assumed that temperature and humidity modulate the viability of viruses by affecting the properties of viral surface proteins and lipid membrane" [source] Relative humidity (RH, or Saturation Ratio: the state of vapor equilibrium in room air) affects all infectious droplets with respiratory viruses, independent of their source (respiratory tract or aerosolized from any fluid) and location (in air or settled on surfaces). Relative humidity therefore affects all transmission ways but has the most pronounced effect on airborne transmission. [source]

"Measurements of indoor humidities in 40 residential apartments in New York (19) and in 6 high-quality commercial buildings in the Midwest (20) showed indoor vapor pressure of below 10 mb or indoor RH of below 24% in the winter" [source]

Experiments conducted in a study indicated "a striking correlation of the stability of winter viruses at low RH (20–50%), while the stability of summer or all-year viruses enhanced at higher RH (80%)" [source]

Airborne Transmission
The WHO states that "Respiratory infections can be transmitted through droplets of different sizes: when the droplet particles are >5-10 μm in diameter they are referred to as respiratory droplets, and when they are <5μm in diameter, they are referred to as droplet nuclei. According to current evidence, COVID-19 virus is primarily transmitted between people through respiratory droplets and contact routes" [source]

The WHO defines airborne transmission as "the spread of an infectious agent caused by the dissemination of droplet nuclei that remain infectious when suspended in air over long distances and time" [source]

Air Distance: up to 4 meters (13 feet) might be possible (in hospitals)
"The maximum transmission distance of SARS-CoV-2 aerosol might be 4 m" (13.1 feet), according to a study published on April 10 on Emerging Infectious Diseases, a journal of the US CDC which also found that "SARS-CoV-2 was widely distributed in the air and on object surfaces in both the ICU and general ward (GW), implying a potentially high infection risk for medical staff and other close contacts" [source]

This is true in a hospital setting and doesn't necessarily apply to other settings. The WHO says that "in the context of COVID-19, airborne transmission may be possible in specific circumstances and settings in which procedures or support treatments that generate aerosols are performed; i.e., endotracheal intubation, bronchoscopy, open suctioning, administration of nebulized treatment, manual ventilation before intubation, turning the patient to the prone position, disconnecting the patient from the ventilator, non-invasive positive-pressure ventilation, tracheostomy, and cardiopulmonary resuscitation" [source]

And concludes that "further studies are needed to determine whether it is possible to detect COVID-19 virus in air samples from patient rooms where no procedures or support treatments that generate aerosols are ongoing" [source]

Air Duration: up to 3 hours (but not in normal conditions, according to WHO)
Virus can remain viable "in aerosols up to 3 hours" found a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine on March 17 [source]

The WHO notes that these findings need to be interpreted carefully: "in this experimental study, aerosols were generated using a three-jet Collison nebulizer and fed into a Goldberg drum under controlled laboratory conditions. This is a high-powered machine that does not reflect normal human cough conditions. Further, the finding of COVID-19 virus in aerosol particles up to 3 hours does not reflect a clinical setting in which aerosol-generating procedures are performed - that is, this was an experimentally induced aerosol-generating procedure" [source]

 

Obama was not dealing with a government that allowed people to travel the world to spread the virus after that government knew it had a problem. The disease was also centered in a third world country from which a small number of its citizens traveled. These factors limited the spread of the disease and made it easier to contain.

 

Do you really believe that a president that has been front stage in effecting trillions of dollars in stimulus funds would truly intentionally defraud these people by one day of receiving an early retirement? Let's get real here.... Look at the faces in those photos. There isn't one of them a third of the way to retirement age. They will still get their GI bill which will help them with home loans and higher education perks.... But early retirement?? These folks are in their twenties. They could give a hoot about early retirement... This is the biggest crock of hooey I ever seen. I swear to my Lord.... You guys can cook up shit from a pot filled with gold. The innuendo in this post is what is truly wrong in our country. This crap makes me truly wretch.

 

I don't believe he personally did it, but I believe someone in the administration did.

Understand that they can retire at 60. Every 90 days they work in a national emergency qualifies them for 3 months earlier retirement and more importantly, tuition benefits. Do they not deserve to plan for their future or get an education in exchange for serving their country just because they're young?

To be honest, the ending exactly 1 day early feels like a move by someone trying to save money. I get it, the country is in shambles economically. But too bad on this one, they earned it with their service. Cut costs somewhere else.

 

I am more of a mind that the mission ended. I was regular Army for a substantial part of my young adult life. A completed mission is just that. The underhanded plotting alluded here against young soldiers never played into that. And I would bet my bottom dollar now that this issue has been realized, there will be a correction made in short order. My bet is that we won't hear a whisper about that though.

 

I sure hope there's a correction made. The "mission" is far from over.