There Really Is a Horse in a Hospital

10/4/2020

I did not make the connection when President Trump went to the hospital.
But Laura Vecsey was right on it, sending out the best Youtube I have ever seen.
In fact, I wrote about it in May. But that was before Trump actually went to the hospital the other day -- touching off the same panic and misinformation and danger that John Mulaney's horse does in the confines of a hospital.
Just as he does in the White House, Trump was screwing up everything -- his doctors giving out bad medical explanations, his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, trying to be, how did the TV commentator put it, "a little less inaccurate."
There's a horse in the hospital. This one escaped Sunday afternoon to wave from a freaking motorcade of some sort -- at a huge cost and inconvenience to thousands of government workers. Then back in the hospital.
Since his self-destructive behavior in the debate debacle last Tuesday, I have been thinking Trump was doing it on purpose -- hastening his defeat through his erratic behavior. (From minus-8 to minus-14 in one poll, since his debacle.)
It also crossed my mind that he has been lurching around with no mask so he could pick up the Covid and get himself out of this nightmare -- plus, as revenge to society, passing it on to other people at that infamous reception who were talking to each other from inches away, with no masks on. (I'm talking about you, Kellyanne Conway and Bill Barr.)
There's a horse in a hospital. As of Sunday evening, the President was back, hooves flailing, nostrils flaring, a disruptive mammal out of control.
Take a bow, John Mulaney.
You had it, dude.
***
My first piece on Mulaney's masterpiece:
https://www.georgevecsey.com/home/the-trump-years-theres-a-horse-in-a-hospital

Ego Trip -- And a Costly One

Lee Lowenfish link

10/4/2020 07:35:20 pm

When I came back from outdoor dining in my dear Manhattan, I saw the motorcade with the wan POUTUS waving from inside. I flashed back to 1994 and the OJ Bronco chase. Let's hope it has the same end in disgrace and ignominy.

George

10/4/2020 08:08:10 pm

Lee: POUTUS is exactly right.
GV

Altenir Silva

10/5/2020 10:43:31 am

Dear George,
Good point. You and John Mulaney hit the balls.
Best/Altenir

Alan Rubin link

10/5/2020 11:33:55 am

Hi Lee. Good to see you posting on George's site.

Trump's debate performance struck me as a spoiled brat who was not getting what he wanted. He is behind in the election and knows he will most likely lose unless voter suppression steals it for him.

His base cheers everything he does, but they are not enough to reelect him. However, independents still sitting on the fence may decide that it is time to make a stand for the good of the country.

There have been some recent polls showing Trump losing support among younger Christians in the bible-belt states. Their morality was missed in 2016.

bruce

10/5/2020 04:31:49 pm

george,

watched the mulaney piece when you posted it before.

going to watch it again. probably seem even more spot on this time.

what is the U in poutus in lee lowenfish's post?

good point about OJ, but it ended in his acquittal tho he went into the slammer for another misdeed.

and i think it's about time that american cable news stopped referring to trump as leader of the free world.

bruce

ED MARTIN

10/9/2020 02:14:46 pm

Wonderful, today. I thought about a copy editor change to “There is an Ass in the Hospital,” but realized no one would think of the animal.

Comments are closed.

QUOTES

Measuring Covid Deaths, by David Leonhardt. July 17, 2023. NYT online.
The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal….

After three horrific years, in which Covid has killed more than one million Americans and transformed parts of daily life, the virus has turned into an ordinary illness.

The progress stems mostly from three factors:
First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot.
Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.)
Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year.
“Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.”

That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most —immuno-compromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immuno-compromised that vaccines don’t work.”

That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data.

One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immuno-compromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines.

Most immuno-compromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks.

Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths.

The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions.

Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately
Republican and white.

Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.)
***

From the great Maureen Dowd:

As I write this, I’m in a deserted newsroom in The Times’s D.C. office. After working at home for two years during Covid, I was elated to get back, so I could wander around and pick up the latest scoop.
But in the last year, there has been only a smattering of people whenever I’m here, with row upon row of empty desks. Sometimes a larger group gets lured in for a meeting with a platter of bagels."

--- Dowd writes about the lost world of journalists clustered in newsrooms at all hours, smoking, drinking, gossipping, making phone calls, typing, editing.
***
"Putting out the paper," we called it.
Much more than nostalgia.
---https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/journalism-newsroom.html

There Really Is a Horse in a Hospital

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