Discovery, one that if true, could turn the whole pandemic around. This missouri woman, her name is patricia durgess, was licensed in missouri as an assistant physician. She had done med school at a school in the caribbean but she hadnt been accepted into a residency. She wasnt a full doctor. The rules say a person with midlevel professional accreditation like hers can only do so if they do it in collaboration with a fully accredited doctor. Theres nothing wrong with being a physician assistant, theres lots of room in our system for lots of different licensed professionals. But i think its safe to say that april 11, just about a month into the coronavirus pandemic, this is not the person you would expect to be announcing that in fact she had discovered a cure for covid19. But there she was, april 11, on facebook, quote, this amazing treatment stands to provide a potential cure for covid19 patients that is safe and natural. And wouldnt you know it, she would be happy to sell it you to. Just direct message her, shell cure you, its on facebook so im sure its vetted, right . There was no cure for covid19 back on april 11 when she wrote that. There still is not a cure for covid19 today. But here is this woman in missouri saying she had found the potential cure and she was happy to sell it you to and she described it to people, her marks, not just on facebook, but on local tv in missouri and on local radio shows and informational seminars she conducted, she allegedly described this magical possession as a, quote, stem cell shot. Well, according to prosecutors, it turns out that this magical cureall she wanted you to pay her to inject into you, it not only was not a cure for covid19, despite the fact that she was calling it a stem cell shot, it actually didnt contain stem cells at all. But prosecutors say she was marketing it as a stem cell Miracle Potion that would work on basically anything. Neck pain, step right up. Back pain, step right up. She said it would cure kidney disease, cpd, lyme disease, Erectile Dysfunction, a cure for Urinary Incontinence and of course potentially it was a cure for covid19, a safe and natural one, just pay her and shell shoot you up with it and well see. Prosecutors now say she got people to pay her nearly 200,000 for injections of her fake stem cell cureall which didnt contain stem cells and didnt cure anything. Patricia derges of missouri has now been federally charged for marketing her fake covid cure. She was charging people, according to prosecutors, up to 1,400 for one of her miracle shots. Shes now facing 20 federal Felony Charges including eight counts of wire fraud, which each carry up to 20 years in prison, thats a lot of time. Plus multiple counts of distributing opioids and other drugs without valid prescriptions, naturally. Plus multiple counts of lying to investigators. If convicted, she faces significant prison time, potentially decades. She has pleaded not guilty. But this revelation is all outlined in a federal indictment, unsealed this week. And it is, you know, a worrying thing for the great state of missouri for a whole host of obvious reasons, right . Imagine being the person who went to this woman for treating your hip pain or your Erectile Dysfunction or god forbid, your covid19. You fork over your savings and youre left with a lot less money, you still have your medical problem, you still need treatment, but then you have to presumably untangle this all with real doctors who now, among other things, have to account for the fact that youve had this random woman inject random fluid into you because she said it was stem cells and it would cure everything. This is just astonishing. The unveiling of this indictment, again, shes pled not guilty, but the charges are repulsive, right . Hawking fake cures for covid while tens of thousands of americans dead were turning into hundreds of thousands of americans dead. And, you know, if these charges bear out, this woman was lining her pockets from people desperate and gullible enough to believe her scheme, her fake cure. Just turns your stomach. But then theres the other reason this newly unsealed indictment is a problem for the good people of missouri. It is that the woman who has been charged in this alleged scheme has just started a new job as a republican State Representative. Back in april, when Patricia Derges was just trying to get her fake covid cure scheme off the ground, per prosecutors, she was also planning her run in missouri. In august of last year she won the republican primary in her district while she was taking money from people for her fake coronavirus cure. As the republican nominee she actually ran unopposed in november. She was sworn in last month. When she made her Court Appearance the Republican House speaker in missouri responded by stripping her of her committee assignments. He then asked her to resign her seat in the state legislature. Representative derges however said she believes she has the support of the other Republican Leaders in the house and so she is staying put. Shes refusing to resign. If she does end up going to prison for decades during her term in the missouri house, that will be something for the Republican Caucus there to really chew on. Can they record her votes from federal prison . Well see. But for now, she is a republican State Representative in missouri who, according to prosecutors, has been running a Fake Covid Cure Scheme On Facebook and shes been indicted for 20 federal Felony Charges and is facing decades in prison if shes kwiktsd. Convicted. Hope she does you proud, Missouri Republican party. She represents what you have to offer the people of no no in the legislature in that state. Thats missouri. Then two states over, in wisconsin, theyve got their own issues. Yesterday the Republican Controlled Legislature in wisconsin repealed that states statewide mask mandate. Not starting in a year, not starting in a month, not starting when some benchmark has been reached about transmission in wisconsin. No, its immediate repeal, no more masks in wisconsin. They also apparently did not notice that in ending the mask mandate they were also trying to cut off Food Assistance to a quarter Million People in wisconsin, like by a lot. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says in the republicans haste to kill the mask rule they also didnt notice that they were making a change so a low Income Elderly person in wisconsin who is currently getting, say, 204 a month in Food Assistance, that would now be reduced to, from 204 a month, to 16 a month. Republicans said they didnt actually mean to do that part of it, but oops, got to get the mask thing done. Got to break a few eggs. Wisconsins democratic Governor Tony Evers issued a new mask mandate as soon as the republicans got rid of the previous one but this is going to pingpong back and forth here because republicans insist their most important priority in politics right now is no masks. Tonight in iowa, republican governor kim reynolds unilaterally repealed not only all the mask rules in iowa. She has also lifted all social distancing requirements and capacity limits and all other rules related to covid for businesses in her state. If you saw the phrase covid kim trending on twitter tonight, covid kim would be covid Iowa Governor kim reynolds. All the covid related rules in the state of iowa are being lifted by the governor as of sunday morning. Right in time for super bowl parties. Iowa just this week confirmed that the new more transmissible variants of the virus are circulating in the state of iowa. Under governor kim reynolds leadership the state of iowa currently ranks 47th out of 50 in Vaccine Distribution. To celebrate that occasion, shes decided no more rules at all in iowa and that tip Top Republican priority, apparently, no masks. Today the cdcs flagship scientific reports, mmwr, published two new reports on the effectiveness of masks against the pandemic that has killed nearly a half million americans. One of the studies shows clear results that after Mask Mandates were instituted, Hospitalization Rates dropped noticeably in those jurisdictions. Republicans in wisconsin and iowa State Government have received this news by trying to kill their existing Mask Mandates. And so, you know, President Trump is gone. We no longer have a president who is making the white house a Coronavirus Hotspot and mocking people for Wearing Masks and telling the public that they dont work. But the impact of that kind of Republican Leadership continues. Certainly still visible among republicans in the states. And frankly, the cleanup continues from that mess. It was only this week, for example, that this guy pled guilty to multiple felonies for defrauding Government Agencies that he convinced to pay him for millions of n95 masks that he didnt actually have. He never had them. He never had the prospects of having them. But he convinced the Trump Administration to pay him 34. 5 million for masks he couldnt produce. Why did the Trump Administration decide that the federal government should try to buy n95 masks from a guy with absolutely no track record or history in the field whatsoever and no evident access to any of the materials he was supposedly selling . Why did they pick him . I dont know. But they did that, while doctors and nurses and respiratory therapists and all the rest were saving their n95s in paper bags and using them over and over and over again until the straps broke. What was the Trump Administration doing to try to remedy that catastrophe in American Health care in the face of a pandemic that would go on to kill a half million of us . Well, they found this guy. They just assumed this guy would find them somewhere. Sure, seems legit. Now, charitably, its possible the Trump Administration was moved by this gentleman saying that he was a decorated u. S. Marine. That of course is impressive. Maybe thats why they made him their chosen Mask Procurer for the federal government. He did in fact tell them he was a decorated u. S. Marine. But hes not one. He was not actually a decorated u. S. Marine. He actually was not a u. S. Marine at all, decorated or otherwise. So, you know, bad guy, right . Scammer. Liar. But if youre the federal government, i mean, if youre a 5yearold with an internet connection, these are the kind of things that can be checked. That maybe you should check before you decide that this guy, with absolutely no history in the field, is the u. S. Governments plan for getting us n95s. Today im sorry. Today at the white house, the every other day public covid briefings theyre doing now, included some to my mind very interesting news, very welcome news, from the guy who the new administration has actually put in charge of getting us n95 masks, and getting us the other things that we need in terms of critical supplies for fighting covid. And it turns out hes not, like, cut from the same cloth as the people the last administration put to this job. Hes not like a Bunch Of Guys Jared knew from college. Hes not a fake u. S. Marine who hes just pled guilty to multiple Felony Charges. When the Biden Administration needed somebody to fix the medical supply lines that have crippled our response and made it the worst in the industrial world, they instead picked this guy. My name is tim manning. Im the National Supply chain coordinator for the covid response. Im an emergency manager, having done Emergency Response for the past 25 years and have worked at the local and state level and served as a Deputy Administrator at fema for eight years. Ive also been a firefighter, an emt, and know firsthand the importance of having the equipment and supplies you need when you need it on the front lines of a crisis. Today were announcing were expanding the Priority Ratings for pfizer to include filling pumps and tangential flow filtration skid units, Critical Components Pfizer needs to manufacture the Covid Vaccine. Its actions like these that will allow phaser to ramp up production and hit their targets of delivering hundreds of millions of doses over the coming months. We told you that when we heard of a bottleneck on needed equipment, supplies, Technology Related to vaccine supply, that we would step in and help and we are doing just that. Second, were using the dpa to increase our supply of athome covid tests. Were already working to increase the availability of n95 masks to front line workers but another critical area of concern we hear over and over is surgical gloves. Right now we just dont have enough gloves. Were nearly 100 reliant on overseas manufacturers to export to us, our country, surgical gloves that protect Health Care Workers. Thats unacceptable and were using all of our authorities to fix it. Over the past two weeks, weve pushed forward an effort to expand domestic manufacturing of surgical gloves, and im pleased to announce that we will build plants to make the raw materials, the nitrobutol rubber, in the United States and will help Build Factories to make those gloves in the u. S. As well. Bit end of the year well produce more than a billion nitro gloves a month right here in america. Well now make enough to satisfy half of all the u. S. Health Care Community demands right here on u. S. Shores. Theyre building plants to make the raw materials. Theyre building factories to make those gloves here in the u. S. There will be a billion of them being made in the u. S. By the end of the year. Remember when china set up those brandnew hospitals that they built from the ground up in like five minutes . At the outset of their crisis. Were at least finally trying. Thats tim manning, National Supply chain coordinator for the biden response team, somebody with decades of experience in this field. Announcing new agreements to provide unpronounceable technical equipment thats apparently the bottleneck in pfizers Production Lines for its vaccine. They need specific equipment thats proven thats crimped the supply in terms of how much they can produce, how fast. The u. S. Government says theyll give them that equipment. They have plans to give tens of millions of home covid tests out by this summer and theyll make a billion surgical gloves per month by the end of the year. We get basically all of them from abroad right now. By the end of this year well have half of what we need here at homemade on u. S. Manufacturing lines that currently dont exist but will by the end of the year. That seems good. That seems good. Thats apparently all in process. Mr. Manning also said today a bunch of what they want to do requires congress to approve the covid relief bill. That of course is under way. It was a dramatic night. We spoke with chris murphy last night on the show, late in the hour. And i told him i was thankful to him for being with us so late. I neednt have thanked him for being with me up until 10 00 p. M. Because they were all there until 5 30 in the morning, with a tiebreaking vote cast at 5 30 a. M. By Vice President harris, to get the bill passed by democratic votes. A whole bunch of republican senators actually succeeded to getting their own amendments added to the bill in the Budget Process that makes it positive. Theoretically that means those republican senators might vote for it in the end, i suppose. In real life nobody actually thinks that. Technically speaking, though, it is now a bipartisan process with all those republicanauthored provisions in it even though republicans will denounce it as a party line democratsonly thing. The cdc director is still getting lots of heat for her assertion this week that schools can safely reopen even before teachers are all vaccinated. She said today at the white house that the cdcs official guidelines on School Opening will come next week. That will be fascinating to see in terms of what they set as benchmarks that need to be met at schools before you can say that a safe reopening is possible. Cdc recommendations next week are going to be a landmark moment in that big policy fight. As we head into Super Bowl Weekend this weekend, the nfl today said that all its teams are going to make their stadiums available to become Mass Vaccination Sites if the government wants them to do that, thats potentially a big deal. Today the white house announced that more than