Grand Junction Branch: Fill & Download for Free

You’ve got it completely backwards!The one who is being judged unfairly is Obama and the one given a pass is Trump.1. Which Epidemic was worst? Let’s use your logic and assign blame based on the number of people killed during recent flu epidemics. In other words, the president with the most influenza deaths gets the most blame. Here is the US death toll for influenza over the past 10 years from the CDCTable 1: Estimated Influenza Disease Burden, by Season -United States, 2010-11 through 2018-19 Influenza Seasons"2009-2010 12,469 <==== H1N1 Swine Flu epidemic2010-2011 37,0002011-2012 12,0002012-2013 43,0002013-2014 38,0002014-2015 51,0002015-2016 23,0002016-2017 38,0002017-2018 61,000 <==== Highest recent flu mortality.2018-2019 34,157CDC - Burden of Influenza 2010–2019CDC 2009 pandemicThere are several things to notice about these numbers.The 2009 flu season had the second LOWEST death toll of any year in the past 10 years.The 2017 flu season had the HIGHEST death toll of any year in the past 10 yearsIf Obama failed in 2009, then Trump failed 5-TIMES WORSE in 2017.The 2009 and 2017 flu seasons came at exactly the same points in their presidencies, so you cannot say they aren’t fair comparisons.Of the two years of the Trump administration that we have data for, both are worse than 2009–2010 flu season under Obama.2. The Current Epidemic is much worse than 2009. According to predictions by disease control experts, the current Corvid-19 pandemic will be much worst than any recent flu season.A. According to a prediction by the American Hospital Association, the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic will be:Infections: 96-millionHospitalizations: 4.8 millionICU Admissions: 1.9 millionDeaths: 480,000That would be 40-times the 2009 epidemic under Obama.US hospitals preparing for millions of hospitalizationsB. According to the CDC's predictions, the outcome could be even worse. According to their top modeler, Matthew Biggerstaff, the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic will be.Infections: 160 million to 214 millionHospitalizations: 2.4 million to 21 millionDeaths: 200,000 to 1.7 millionIn the worst case, the Coronavirus epidemic could 142 times worse than 2009.CDC’s Worst-Case Coronavirus Model: 214 Million Infected, 1.7 Million Dead3. Presidential Actions. Trump deserves more blame, because his actions have made things worse.A. Immediate Response. Obama responded very quickly to the H1N1 epidemic:Time-line on Obama's response to the H1N1 epidemic:April 15, 2009 - The first infection identified in California.April 25, 2009 - The WHO declares a Public Health Emergency.April 26, 2009 - Obama declares a Public Health Emergency.April 26, 2009 - The CDC began releasing anti-viral drugsApril 30, 2009 - Obama asks congress for $9 billion to fight the epidemicJune 11, 2009 - WHO declared H1N1 a pandemicJune 26, 2009 - Obama signs a bill for $7.7 billion to fight the epidemicJuly 24, 2009 - Obama renews the Public Health EmergencyOct. 1, 2009 - Obama renews the Public Health EmergencyOct. 24, 2009 - Obama declares a National Emergency.Fact-Check-Dot-Org H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic Time-lineObama’s rhetoric reflected the seriousness of the situation. On April 30, 2009, four days after the WHO declared a Public Health Emergency and 15 days after the first American case, Obama held a news conference and called the H1N1 virus a "serious situation," while calling on some schools to close:"First, we are continuing to closely monitor the emergency cases of the H1N1 flu virus throughout the United States. As I said this morning, this is obviously a very serious situation, and every American should know that their entire government is taking the utmost precautions and preparations. Our public health officials have recommended that schools with confirmed or suspected cases of this flu strongly consider temporarily closing."And finally, I've asked every American to take the same steps you would take to prevent any other flu: Keep your hands washed; cover your mouth when you cough; stay home from work if you're sick; and keep your children home from school if they're sick."The President's Remarks on H1N1B. Obama’s Response Worked. Again, the 12,469 deaths was the second lowest in the last 10 years. The average death toll from the seasonal between 1979 and 2001 was 41,400 deaths so Obama’s response pushed the number down to 30% of normal.2009 flu pandemic - WikipediaC. Trump Denials. Trump, on the other hand spent the last two month denying that there was any problem:Trump's Response in the days after the first US case:Day-1 = "we have it totally under control. It's one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It's going to be just fine."Day-3 = "It will all work out well."Day-7 = "We have it very well under control. We have very little problem in this country at this moment - five. And those people are all recuperating successfully."Day-10 = "We pretty much shut it down coming in from China."Day-19 = "Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away,"Day-28 = "I think the numbers are going to get progressively better as we go along."Day-32 = "[The situation is] very much under control. We had 12, at one point. And now they've gotten very much better. Many of them are fully recovered."Day-35 = "We're going down, not up. We're going very substantially down, not up."Day-36 = "It's going to disappear. One day - it's like a miracle - it will disappear."Day-40 = "We're talking about a much smaller range of deaths than from the flu."Day-43 = "It's very mild."Day-45 = "Anyone who wants a test can get a test."Day-46 = "I'm not concerned at all."Day-49 = "It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away."A Complete List of Trump’s Statements on the CoronavirusC. Dismantled Pandemic Infrastructure. But that’s not the worst part. In response to Ebola epidemic and the Swine Flu outbreak in 2009, the US government spent eight years building the infrastructure, systems, training programs, funding and personnel to handle a global pandemic.When Trump came into office, he systematically eliminated nearly all of the programs.In 2018, he fired government's entire Pandemic Response Team.In 2018, he eliminated all the White House Medical Emergency Management Infrastructure.In 2018, he fired and never replaced Ronald Klain who was in charge of coordinating the US government response to a national infectious disease emergency.In 2018, along with the Republican congress, he cut $15 billion from disease-fighting operational budgets of the CDC, NSC, DHS, and HHS.In 2018, he ordered the National Security Council's entire Global Health Security Unit shut down.In 2018, he ordered the Department of Home Land Security's Epidemic Team to be shut down.He eliminated training programs for local medical personnel.In 2019, he cut $2 billion in Global Disease fighting funds.Trump forced out Rear Admiral Tim Ziemer, a Bush era appointee who had been leading the global health security team at the White House's National Security Council.None of the systems, infrastructure, personnel or funding has been restored. We don't even have enough masks and latex gloves for medical personnel to handle an emergency.Trump Has Sabotaged America’s Coronavirus ResponseTrump says U.S. in 'very good shape' on coronavirus. Health officials aren't so confident.D. Completely Predictable. Even worse, the current situation was easily predictable. In fact, Trump’s own Health and Human Service personnel predicted exactly the kind of situation we are seeing today. In October of 2019 HHS analyzed what would happen if there was a pandemic with a virus that was just as contagious as the 1918 flu and slightly less deadly. They predicted the kind of supply shortages we are seeing today:The current medical countermeasure supply chain and production capacity cannot meet the demands imposed by nations during a global influenza pandemic.Further compounding this challenge, global manufacturing capacity will also be unable to meet domestic demand for medical countermeasures, including personal protective equipment and ancillary supplies (i. e. , syringes ), and it is anticipated that countries will keep their own stockpiled supplies for their own citizens. Domestic supplies of on -hand stock of antiviralmedications , needles , syringes , N95 respirators, ventilators , and other ancillary medical supplies are limited and difficult to restock , because they are often manufactured overseas.https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/6824-2019-10-key-findings-and-after/05bd797500ea55be0724/optimized/full.pdf#page=1===========================Update-1:===========================Some people have pointed out an opinion piece in the Washington Post by Tim Morrison that says that Trump did not get rid of the Pandemic Response Office.https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/16/no-white-house-didnt-dissolve-its-pandemic-response-office/Morrison is a Republican lawyer who has spent most of his career as a Republican congressional staffer. In 2018, Morrison was appointed as senior director for countering weapons of mass destruction "arms control and biodefense issues" on the US National Security Council. As an attorney, he wouldn't have any expertise on infectious diseases, pandemics or public health in general.Tim Morrison (presidential advisor) - WikipediaMorrion's defense of Trump seems to be that the positions weren't eliminated, they were just shifted to different departments as a part of a reorganization of the National Security Council. Here's is excerpt from his article:"One such move at the NSC was to create the counterproliferation and biodefense directorate, which was the result of consolidating three directorates into one, given the obvious overlap between arms control and nonproliferation, weapons of mass destruction terrorism, and global health and biodefense."There are several problems with Morrison's explanation:1. First, reorganization is the typical strategy for getting rid of a program. Civil service rules make it hard to fire all the people you want to, so you move people around in hopes they will get tired of it and quit. That's what they did with the BLM, when they moved all the jobs from DC to Grand Junction.The Problem with the BLM Moving to the West2. Morrison himself called his actions, "downgrading" the "characterize as a downgrading of global health security.""The personnel changes, which Morrison and others characterize as a downgrading of global health security, are part of Bolton's previously announced plans to streamline the NSC."https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/10/top-white-house-official-in-charge-of-pandemic-response-exits-abruptly/3. Morrison's reorganization got rid of many of the top advisers with expertise in pandemics. For example, Rear Adm. Timothy Zieme, who is charge of global health security was fired on May 10, 2018 and never replaced. Likewise, Tom Bossert, who was in charge of "comprehensive biodefense strategy against pandemics," was force out.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/10/top-white-house-official-in-charge-of-pandemic-response-exits-abruptly/4. The reorganization was meant to shift the staff away from public health and refocus them on bio-terrorism. Bio-terrorism is a military issue that is very different from a global pandemic. Obviously, shifting the focus away from public-health, means we would be less prepared for a public-health emergency.5. The previous head of Global Health Security for the "National Security Council" says the Trump administration "dissolved""I was mystified when the White House dissolved the office, leaving the country less prepared for pandemics like covid-19."She also said that the reorganization made us less prepared for Covid-19:"In a health security crisis, speed is essential. When this new coronavirus emerged, there was no clear White House-led structure to oversee our response, and we lost valuable time."https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/nsc-pandemic-office-trump-closed/2020/03/13/a70de09c-6491-11ea-acca-80c22bbee96f_story.html6 Trump himself, admitted that he was deliberately cutting epidemic preparedness programs at the CDC, NSC and other executive branch agencies:"Some of the people we cut, they haven't been used for many, many years. And if - if we ever need them, we can get them very quickly. And rather than spending the money - and I'm a business person - I don't like having thousands of people around when you don't need them. When we need them, we can get them back very quickly."Trump Defended Cuts to Public-Health Agencies, on VideoTrump's own statement underscores the flaws in the administration's policy.Only having experts around when you need them, shows that he doesn't understand the problem. The whole point is that global pandemics are rare and, because they are rare, the normal health care system has no experience with them and doesn't know how to handle them. You have to put teams together years in advance, so they have worked out all the kinks when the time comes. If you wait until there is an epidemic breathing down your neck, you have to solve problems on the fly and won't be able to keep up, which is exactly what we are seeing now.===========================Update-2:===========================Here are some more links giving details on how the Trump administration downsized, shutdown and reorganized the governments pandemic teams. (Thanks Joe Willmore.)'Gross misjudgment': Experts say Trump's decision to disband pandemic team hindered coronavirus responseHere are the disease-fighting jobs Trump did (and didn’t) eliminate

Seems like a lot of people ask this type of question. Here is my standard reply because I don’t think people are fully aware of the process.The answer is pretty much the same for going across town or across country. Although there are always exceptions to every rule, the basic life of a letter within the Postal Service is 3 days (or more specifically 54 hours). This is broken down into 3 phases called Collection, Sorting and Processing, and Delivery.The collection phase starts every day with mail being placed in mailboxes or any of the mail entry points. The mail is collected and brought to local branches by all the carriers and mail handlers. It is combined and transferred to the nearest Sectional Center Facility (aka Mail Processing Center) for your surrounding area, that takes about 12 hours for all of it to be gathered.At the MPC the sorting and processing occurs. The processing includes the cancelling of the stamps and postage and the separation of packages and flats. All the mail that is going to be redistributed to the surrounding local facilities is called incoming. All the mail that is going to another Sectional Center is considered outgoing. Depending on the distance, the letter will either be loaded on a truck, or be sorted and bagged to fly out of the local airport. The distance between SCF’s is usually irrelevant as it all happens overnight on either commercial airlines or a truck contracted to haul mail. Pretty much, every flight that travels between the urban areas has several bags of mail in their cargo hold. Of course, going from Michigan to Colorado, may involve switches and layovers, but this process usually takes another 12 hours.The last phase gets the letter to the destination SCF where the next day of sorting and processing has already begun for that day. The mail from the airport is combined with the incoming mail for that SCF and is sorted to all the local branches surrounding that Center. By late afternoon to evening is has already been transported to the surrounding branches and is sorted overnight by local clerks to the individual carriers who pick it up in the morning. Depending where you are on their route (ie beginning or end) this could take a total of 12-18 hours.The full process is described here: How A Letter Travels

Mount Road aka Anna Salai, formerly known as St. Thomas Mount Road or simply Mount Road, is an arterial road in Chennai, India.It starts at the Cooum Creek, south of Fort St George and ends at the Kathipara Junction in Guindy. Beyond the Kathipara Junction, the road branches into two, with one traversing westwards to Poonamallee to form the Mount-Poonamallee Road while the other continues southwards to Chennai Airport, Tambaram and beyond to form Grand Southern Trunk Road (GST Road or NH45).Road length : 13 KM (8 Miles)Mount Roadis almost 400 years old and has its origins in a cart track which was used by the European employees of the British East India Company to travel from the factory at Fort St George to the holy town of St Thomas Mount where the apostle St Thomas was crucified. The road, in its present form, took shape during the time of Charles Macartney who served as Governor of Madras. With the construction of Marmalong Bridge in 1724, the road started gaining prominence. In the following years, the road became part of the city's central business district which originally covered only George Town. Today, most of Chennai's business and corporate offices are located on Mount Road aka Anna Salai.