https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/14/surgeon-general-elective-surgeries-coronavirus-129405

The nation's top doctor on Saturday urged a widespread halt of hospital elective procedures amid mounting concern that the health system doesn't have enough beds to manage a potential surge of coronavirus cases.

"Hospital & healthcare systems, PLEASE CONSIDER STOPPING ELECTIVE PROCEDURES until we can #FlattenTheCurve!" U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams tweeted this morning.

He warned that every elective surgery could spread coronavirus within the facility, use up protective medical gear as public officials worry about shortages and burden a hospital workforce who "may be needed" to respond to COVID-19.

Adams was responding to new recommendations from the American College of Surgeons issued Friday. The group said hospitals, health systems and surgeons should "thoughtfully review" all their scheduled operations and consider canceling or postponing them "until we have passed the predicted inflection point" in the disease spread and "can be confident that our health care infrastructure can support a potentially rapid and overwhelming uptick in critical patient care needs."

Some hospitals like Massachusetts' Tufts Medical Center have already started rescheduling knee and hip replacements and other procedures.

Director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci tells CNN's Brianna Keilar that he would like to see people avoid crowds and says those trying to return to the US from overseas should not all return immediately.

It's only an 18-second video clip but it is being hailed on social media as the best advice you can have for avoiding spreading the coronavirus.

Graham Medley, Professor of Infectious Disease Modelling, told BBC Newsnight people shouldn't act like someone who is avoiding contracting the virus but rather as someone who already has the virus and is trying not to pass it onto others.

https://twitter.com/BeardedGenius/status/1238475687830355970

The advice, hailed as "probably the best single piece of advice I've heard about the #coronavirus" by a Twitter user, has been shared thousands of times in just a few hours.

"Most people have a fear of acquiring the virus. I think a good way of doing it is to imagine that you do have the virus, and change your behaviour so that you're not transmitting it," he said.

Throngs of travelers arriving back in the US are jam-packed in airports after Trump's coronavirus travel ban

https://www.insider.com/crowds-travelers-pack-us-airports-trump-coronavirus-travel-ban-2020-3


Throngs of passengers crowded major US airports Saturday evening after the onset of President Donald Trump's travel restrictions on people arriving from Europe amid a coronavirus pandemic.

Travelers and media outlets shared photos and videos of packed terminals at O'Hare airport in Chicago, Washington-Dulles in Virginia, and Dallas/Fort Worth airport in Texas.

Public health experts were astonished at the scenes, noting that the dense crowds presented the perfect opportunity for coronavirus transmission.

Local officials appeared furious, with Illinois' governor tweeted that "the federal government needs to get its s@#t together. NOW."

Massive lines of travelers crowded into US airports Saturday evening, not long after President Donald Trump issued coronavirus-related travel restrictions on passengers arriving from Europe.

News outlets and passengers shared photos and videos of packed airport terminals at O'Hare airport in Chicago, Washington-Dulles in Virginia, and Dallas/Fort Worth airport in Texas as travelers awaited customs screening.

Public health experts bemoaned the scenes, noting that the dense crowds presented a perfect opportunity for coronavirus transmission.

https://twitter.com/katyslittlefarm/status/1238949728680902658



https://twitter.com/FilmmakerJulie/status/1239021681164910593

Biden and Trump partisans trade charges of senility in an era of aging candidates.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/07/2020-dementia-campaign-123106

The two people most likely to control the U.S nuclear arsenal, and with it the capacity to blow up civilization, through January 2025 are both well into their 70s and facing pervasive public speculation that they are becoming senile.

That is some funny stuff, no?

Just listen to Tucker Carlson on Wednesday night, the day after Joe Biden’s big Super Tuesday victory and the victory speech in which he was momentarily confused over which side of the podium his wife and sister were standing. “As a smart friend said last night, Joe Biden has spent his entire life trying to succeed in presidential politics,” the Fox News host chortled, “and now he has: Too bad he’s not there to enjoy it. Pretty funny.”

2020 is suddenly becoming the Dementia Campaign.

President Donald Trump’s own public blunders—saying that his father was born in Germany when it was really his grandfather or referring to Apple CEO Tim Cook as “Tim Apple”—have prompted commentary throughout his term questioning whether his cognitive faculties are deteriorating.

Now that the 77-year-old Biden is the Democratic frontrunner over the 78-year-old Bernie Sanders to take on the 73-year-old Trump, questions about age-related infirmity are taking on a new volume and centrality.